new name

CHRIST CHURCH
July 27, 8 & 10am
Genesis 32:24-32

There are four stories about Jacob in the book of Genesis. Three are well-known and well- remembered for many. I'd guess from Sunday School days. We remember how Jacob took the inheritance from his brother Esau by deception. We recall his love for Rachel, of his seven years' service with Laban and how he in turn was deceived by Laban abd had to work another seven years. Well-known too is the story of the ladder stretching from earth to heaven.

Perhaps slightly less well-known is the fourth, which we had as our first reading this morning. Jacob encamps by the Jabbok river and there he wrestles with a man all night long, and the man dislocates his hip, and in the end says to him: Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome.

The man refuses to give his name but gives Jacob a blessing, and Jacob names the place 'Peniel', saying It is because I saw God face-to-face, and yet my life was spared. It is a turning point for Jacob. He is given a new name, a new life and a new inheritance.

A new name
Jacob's new name was 'Israel'.and it was given because he had “struggled with God and with men and [had] overcome”. 'Jacob' means 'deceiver'; now he had struggled with God and men and shown himself in earnest; now he has a new name, 'prevailer with God'- 'Israel'.
Jesus wrestled and suffered and prevailed. He suffered death on the Cross: now he has a Name which is above every name. One day it will be the Name at which every knee will bow!
When a person puts his faith in Jesus Christ, God sees the sinful man he was as dead with Christ (cf Rom 6:3) He is adopted as God's child, with a new name. The significance of 'Christian Name' is largely lost today when it's our legal forename. Let's remember that Simon became Peter and Saul became Paul. If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, the old has gone and the new is come (2 Cor 5:17)
So, with the new name-

A new life
If we read on three chapters in Genesis to 35, we read of Jacob saying to his household: Get rid of all the foreign gods you have with you, and purify yourselves and change your clothes.
A new life has started for Jacob; the new life that went with his new name: the new name was just a signifier. For the Jews, a person's name is not just a tag, but that which contains the whole person. Jacob, as Israel, was starting off on a new footing.
Jesus died on the Cross, but his Father did not let his Holy One see decay. When a person puts his trust in Christ, one life ends and a new one begins, “raised with Christ” (Rom 6:3). It saddens me to see how much significance we lose in infant baptism. The symbolism of baptism by immersion is rich when it occurs at a person's public declaration of allegiance to Christ. The immersion in water signifies the end of one life; the coming up out of the water symbolising the new life in Christ. And just as Jacob's household had to get rid their foreign gods and to purify themselves and change their clothes, even so we must clothe ourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ (Rom 13). Then,

A new inheritance.
Jacob, as Israel, became father of a race. God made his covenant promise. The promise was not just to Jacob but to all who would come after him, whose inheritance would be that given to Jacob. Let's stop and think of God's faithfulness. Three and a half thousand years on the name of Israel is on all lips. God has not forgotten that name, nor the people who took that name. Israel was the basis of dealings with men in the Old Covenant, and his dealings with these people is not yet finished. Kingdoms have risen and fallen, great empires have disappeared. The Israelites- the Jews, are still here today.
The people of Israel may be disobedient to God today; they may be suffering affliction. But God will not suffer them to be thrown down. His inheritance is sure.
Jesus fulfilled the Old Covenant. It contained blessings for those who obeyed; curses for those who disobeyed. Jesus was the only one who fully obeyed and could enter fully into the blessings. And in his blood, God made a new Covenant. And by faith we enter into it. It's a blessing that we remember and bring to mind at every Holy Communion. And we recall then, or should, that we need to put away from us all that belongs to the old life.; all that belongs to self-life. Paul says
A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread or drinks of the cup

You have struggled with God and with men and have overcome.
I have really been weaving three threads across three; weaving in Jacob, the Lord Jesus and ourselves, with the new name, the new life and the new inheritance.
Jacob was a man in earnest. He wrestled with God all night. Jesus lived to do his Father's will. God will in some way engage us in struggles. He does so because he looks for a people who are in earnest. He doesn't want people who will throw in the towel at the first obstacle. Jacob didn't know it was God he was wrestling with; neither may we.
People who mean business, who are in earnest with God. Maybe that what the church needs. For until we can be certain that we truly mean business, truly in earnest, we cannot enter into the fulness of that blessing: new name, new life, new inheritance.
Does our Christian life seem either an uphill struggle or even a dead formality? Or can we know that
you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome.

Remember Jesus' call to discipleship is total- absolutely.