pilgrim people

A Pilgrim's Desperate Prayer

I want to draw your attention to Jacob’s prayer in Genesis chapter 32. This is Jacob’s first recorded prayer in the Book of Genesis. It reveals quite a lot to us, enough for us to meditate upon this morning. Think with me about Jacob’s prayer. It is a pilgrim’s prayer; actually, a pilgrim’s desperate prayer, which is probably a fitting title for this sermon. He prays this prayer in a desperate situation. He is in danger. He’s stuck, as we say, between a rock and a hard place. Laban is behind him, so he cannot retreat and go back. And Esau – the brother he ripped off 20 years earlier – is in front of him, coming to meet him with 400 men. It is in that setting that he calls upon the Lord.

We often find ourselves in desperate situations, in all sorts of different crises – some big, some small, none of them pleasant. We find ourselves calling upon the Lord in those situations. Hopefully, it doesn’t take a crisis to humble us and bring us to our knees. Hopefully, calling upon the Lord is a regular part of our daily lives, since prayer is, as the Heidelberg Catechism says, the chief part of our gratitude as Christians.

But the question is: what does this prayer of Jacob’s teach us about our own prayer? Like Jacob, we too our pilgrims and heirs of the covenant. Is there anything for us to learn from this little prayer of desperation in Genesis 32? And more importantly, what does the Gospel have to say to those who find themselves in desperation, in a crisis of some sort? Let’s think about that this morning as we meditate upon this portion of holy Scripture.

Notice with me this Pilgrim’s Desperate Prayer: 1) Jacob’s Invocation; 2) Jacob’s Confession; 3) Jacob’s Petition; 4) Jacob’s Expectation.

I. Jacob’s Invocation

Now, keep in mind the setting of this prayer. We get the sense of Jacob’s face turning white as he hears the news from his messengers that his brother Esau is coming to meet him with 400 men. Verse 7 says that “Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed.”

Even the fact that God had previously sent angels to him could comfort him at that point. Even though Jacob knew that God had promised to protect him and be with him, even though Jacob had just been given one more assurance of that promise by the angels he saw, even though he said, “This is God’s camp!” Jacob was gripped with terror. One of his worst fears was coming true. For twenty years he thought about his twin brother Esau and how he had to flee home because his wrath. He probably had many nightmares over those twenty years about Esau catching him. And now, it was a reality: Esau was en route with 400 men to meet Jacob.

So what does Jacob do? He quickly splits up his camp into two, hoping to increase his family’s chance of survival. He then calls upon the Lord.

But notice that Jacob doesn’t ramble. His prayer has structure and shape, even in this moment of crisis. There is an order and deliberation in this prayer that suggests that it came from a man who prayed often, and meditated upon the promises of God.

He begins by invoking God. Notice verse 9: “O God of my father Abe and God of my father Isaac.” Why would he begin his prayer in that particular way? Was he just trying to be flowery and extravagant in his address to God? Not at all! He is being very deliberate in the way he addresses God. He uses the same type of language that God himself used when he revealed himself at Bethel in that great vision of the staircase from heaven to earth. The Lord told Jacob, “I am the LORD, the God of Abe your father and the God of Isaac.” Jacob now addresses God in the way God revealed himself, which is always a wise thing to do in prayer.

This was, of course, covenantal language. Jacob calls upon the Lord by virtue of God’s covenant and promise. He says, “O God of my father Abe and God of my father Isaac, O LORD who said to me, ‘Return to your country and to your kindred, that I may do you good,’” You see, he states his grounds for calling upon the Lord. He doesn’t just assume that he is worthy of being heard by God. Instead, he appeals to the covenant that God has made with him. Apart from that covenant, God is a stranger and an enemy.

Of course, that is quite different than the way most people in the world think of God. God is not a stranger or an enemy, but a friend. He’s “the big guy upstairs,” a divine being who is not completely different than us. He is more like a cosmic version of ourselves, a better model of us who is always benevolent, always kind, and never threatening or judging. He’s nearby when you need him, kind of like a genie on demand.

This type of thinking is very common in our culture today. Much of it comes from the post-Enlightenment thinker Friedrich Schleiermacher, who taught that Christianity was not to be founded upon divine revelation and the doctrines in it, but upon one’s feelings and personal experience. He said, “Turn from everything usually reckoned religion, and fix your regard on the inward emotions and dispositions.” This is where God reveals himself: never from outside ourselves but from within. As another philosopher put it, God reveals himself “by stimulation and enrichment of the human psychic currents.”

According to this view, if you want to get in touch with God, you must first get in touch with yourself. God is everywhere and in everything, you just have to realize it and you can tap into his power. This notion is rampantly popular today. It is everywhere from New Age mysticism to the multi-billion-dollar self-help book industry that thrives in our culture.

But the Bible reveals something completely different about God. God is not found by us turning inward and focusing upon our feelings. He is not a nearby, non-threatening friend who shows up in those happy moments of life. We do not get to know him better if we just get in touch with ourselves. He is not a cosmic genie in the sky, ready to give you your best life right now and empower your life to its fullest potential.

The Bible says that those views of God are purely our own idolatrous imaginations. They are projections of a god who will not threaten us, a god who is close at hand and doesn’t judge. And if he does judge, he is too far away to cause us any real harm. They are nothing more than projections of ourselves; what we want God to be. As someone once said, “In the beginning God created man in his own image and for his good pleasure, and ever since the Fall, sinful man has been returning God the favor.”

But Jacob knows better. He knows that he cannot just come to God and address him in any ol’ way he pleases. He knew God was holy and completely OTHER. He knew that God is the Creator and we are mere creatures; that God is infinite, and we are merely finite. He knew that the only grounds he had for calling upon the name of the Lord was the covenant and promise that the Lord himself made.

So often, the natural man thinks that God is going to be pleased with him for taking a few minutes out of his day and praying. He thinks he is earning points with God by shooting up prayers. He thinks God should be happy to get a little of his attention, sort of like a dog is happy to see and hear his master.

But Jacob knows better. He knows that he is not the master in this relationship. He is the servant and the vassal, and the Lord is the Lord and the suzerain. And so, he uses this covenantal language that immediately directs his attention outside of himself and places it in proper relationship to the Lord.

II. Jacob’s Confession

He says in verse 10: “I am not worthy of the least of all the deeds of steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant, for with only my staff I crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two camps.”

Jacob recognizes and confesses his own unworthiness before the Lord. A transformation had taken place in him. The more he came to know of the grace of God, the more he came to know of his own sinfulness. That is always the way it works in sanctification; as one Puritan once put it, “The pathway to holiness is paved with a good sense of our own wretchedness.” And knowing how great we are as sinners, causes us to delight even more in the grace and mercy of God. After twenty years of living in the knowledge of God’s promise to him, Jacob had come to understand his own unworthiness more and more. And it produced gratitude in him.

Notice that he wasn’t merely thanking God for material blessings. Yes, the Lord had prospered him materially. When he crossed Jordan on his way to Haran, he was empty handed; he only had a walking stick. Now, he was two camps. But notice that he connects this to the Lord’s covenantal relationship with him. He says, “I am not worthy of the least of all the deeds of steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown.”

“Steadfast love” is the Hebrew word hesed, which relates to the kindness that a covenant lord would show his vassal who could not help himself. Jacob recognizes his proper place.

And that is why he calls himself the Lord’s servant. The Lord is the Lord of the covenant. Jacob is merely the servant. Jacob learned these things over the past twenty years of his life. And he would continue learning them for all the years he had left.

And that is the case with all of us, isn’t it? Discipleship is a lifelong school from which we never graduate in this life. It is a constant dying of the old man, and coming to life of the new; a constant servanthood and submission to the Lord; a continual growth in our understanding of our unworthiness before him, which causes us to magnify his grace to us, and offer ourselves to him as grateful servants.

And like Jacob, we are to make confession to the Lord. Jesus taught us to pray, “forgive us our debts.” We are to confess our sins to the Lord; and we are to confess our unworthiness to him, and recognize his kindness and his faithfulness to us. And the Lord also taught us to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread,” and “Deliver us from evil,” bringing our petitions to him as our covenant Lord and Father.

III. Jacob’s Petition

After invoking the Lord and adoring him in praise, and confessing his unworthiness to the Lord, he brings his desperate petition: verse 11: “Please deliver me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I fear him, that he may come and attack me, the mothers with the children.”

It sounds very similar to the many Psalms of David, in which he pleaded for the Lord’s mercy and deliverance from his enemies. Psalm 59: “Deliver me from my enemies, O my God; Defend me from those who rise up against me. Deliver me from the workers of iniquity, and save me from bloodthirsty men. For look, they lie in wait for my life; the mighty gather against me.”

Jacob cried out to his covenant Lord for protection and salvation. That is what a vassal-servant would do when he found himself in trouble; he would call upon his suzerain-lord and ask for deliverance. And because the Lord himself had entered into covenant with Jacob, Jacob had the right to call upon the Lord for help.

And so do we. It doesn’t mean that the Lord will deliver in the way we want him to; the Lord’s ways are not our ways. Being the infinite and omniscient God that he is, he often answers our prayers in a very unexpected way. That is exactly what would happen with Jacob. As we will see next week, the Lord’s salvation and protection in this situation came in a most unexpected way – there was far more to this situation than met Jacob’s eye. This was not about saving Jacob’s neck; instead, it was about putting Jacob’s faith on trial by wrestling with him and bringing him to a point in which he clung to the Lord and cried out for his blessing.

But we will have to wait till next week for that. For now, notice that Jacob cries out to the Lord and asks for salvation. And this wasn’t merely to keep himself from getting hurt; he knows that if Esau wipes out him and his family, the covenant line dies. And so, what does Jacob do? He asks for the Lord’s help, and he appeals to his promises.

IV. Jacob’s Expectation

Look at verse 12: “But you said, ‘I will surely do you good, and make your offspring as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.’” He appeals to the promise of the Lord and bases his future on that. He is a promise-believer, as every pilgrim should be! He knew exactly what God had promised. He embraced that promise by faith alone. He echoed it back to the Lord in prayer.

Every pilgrim should pray like this. Like Jacob, we too our pilgrims on the way to Canaan. Like Jacob, we too are heirs of the covenant who have been given promises by the Lord of the covenant. And those promises belong to us. They are, as one old Anglican writer once put it, our “title-deeds of hope.” God has graciously given us these title-deeds of hope. When we find ourselves in conflict, in crisis, in desperation, we must not look inward. That is what unbelief does. Instead, we must look to the only place that gives us any hope: outside of ourselves to the gracious promises of God.

What he has promised us is even far greater in its revelation than what our father Jacob received. We are pilgrims and covenant heirs who live on this side of the cross and resurrection. We do not merely call upon God as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but as the God and Father of the one to whom those patriarchs pointed: to the Lord Jesus Christ. It is only because of him – his Person and Work – that we have the assurance that all of God’s promises are 'yes' and 'amen.' And when we find ourselves in crisis, we have the assurance that nothing can separate us from the love of God because his love comes to us in and through the Person and Work of Jesus.

You see, Jacob really points us to Jesus. Like Jacob, Jesus found himself in great danger. Like Jacob, he faced the worst of all his fears: going to the cross. He went not to face the wrath of Esau, but the wrath of God, the unmitigated wrath of God poured out upon our sin. Like Jacob, he submitted himself to the Father as a Servant. Like Jacob, he cried out to God for deliverance. He prayed, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. ”

And yet, UNLIKE Jacob, Jesus was NOT an unworthy servant. He was worthy in every way. He was not a redeemed sinner being sanctified and transformed by the grace of God, for he had no sins to speak of, only a perfect life of obedience. He was the only man ever to be righteous and worthy before the Father on his own merit.

And unlike Jacob, there was no deliverance when he cried out to God. There was no answer, no reply. Unlike Jacob, Jesus was abandoned by the Father. He cried out, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me.”

But he was forsaken and abandoned for OUR sakes, so that we would NEVER be abandoned, and so that we could live as pilgrims with the promise that God will never leave us nor forsake us, nor will he allow anything or anyone to snatch us out of his hand. Yes, we may feel like Jacob at times – stuck between a rock and a hard place, in desperation and fear. Yet, like Jacob, we have the right to call upon the Lord and rest on his promises.

And like Jacob, we have the promise of a new land, a new earth, resurrected and renewed, where there is no suffering, sorrow, or death. We have been promised an inheritance, given the down-payment of it now by the sealing of the Holy Spirit.

Loved ones, those promises belong to us! They are our title-deeds of hope. May they pepper our prayer as we cry out to the Lord! May we be redirected to these promises that define us as pilgrims and servants of the Lord. May we offer to God praise for all that he has done, and say with the psalmist that “when the cares of my heart are many, your consolations cheer my soul.” For we HAVE a Savior! We have a deliverer! We have a Mediator! And nothing can change that in this life.

God is no longer a stranger or an enemy for those who are in Christ Jesus. If you are not in Christ Jesus, then be warned: God is a stranger and an enemy to you. You cannot come to God or even call upon him on your own terms. If you are not clothed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ, then you are still clothed in your own righteousness. And that type of righteousness is unacceptable to God. It is nothing more than filthy rags, the Bible says.

Don’t fool yourself into thinking that God hears your prayers or is somehow pleased with you because you shoot a prayer up to him each day. If you are still clothed in your own righteousness, then you are only praying to a fiction, to god of your imagination. Repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ now! Call upon the Lord while he is near, coming to you now in this message of Jesus Christ. He promises that those who call upon the Lord will be saved. But you must do so through his Son, whom he has provided.