Getting Comfortable Being Uncomfortable
Genesis 32:22-32 | December 28, 2025
Mike Massaro, Connect Pastor, Richmond-Rosenberg Campus – SCBC
On the Edge of a New Year
1. The Disturbing Encounter: God meets us in our fear (vv. 22–24)
Verse 22: “The same night he arose and took his two wives, his two female servants, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok.”
Verse 23: “He took them and sent them across the stream, and everything else that he had.”
Verse 24: “And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day.”
2. The Disabling Injury: God weakens us to bless us (vv. 25–26)
Verse 25: “When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob…”
Verse 26: “Then he said, ‘Let me go, for the day has broken.’ But Jacob said, ‘I will not let you go unless you bless me.’”
3. The Defining Identity: God renames us for his purposes (vv. 27–29)
Verse 27: “And he said to him, ‘What is your name?’ And he said, ‘Jacob.’”
Verse 28: “Then he said, ‘Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.’”
Verse 29: “Then Jacob asked him, ‘Please tell me your name.’ But he said, ‘Why is it that you ask my name?’ And there he blessed him.”
4. The Distinctive Limp: God marks us, so we remember (vv. 30–32)
Verse 30: “So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, ‘For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.’”
Verse 31: “The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip.”
Verse 32 adds that Israel would not eat the sinew of the thigh “because he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip.”
Putting It Together: Getting Comfortable Being Uncomfortable
•Relational discomfort
•Spiritual discomfort
•Missional discomfort