ST NICOLAS, NEWBURY

HOME GROUP QUESTIONS

WEEK BEGINNING 30 APRIL 2006

PEOPLE IN PRAYER - JACOB

For home groups that would like them, here are some questions based on the talk at Sunday's 6:30 pm service. There's no need to answer them all - just tackle the ones you have time for. You don't need to stick to the areas mentioned here - feel free to discuss any other issues that arise for you. (Incidentally, please note that we're now using Today's New International Version in Evening Worship and that some of the Bible quotations may be slightly different from other versions.)

Tonight's questions are; "Who is really in control of your life?" and "What it would take for you to surrender complete control of your life to God?"

You might like to discuss in your groups, if you're brave enough, to what extent God has been involved in the major decisions you have made - work, family, relationships.

(discuss)

In our Bible passage for tonight we're going to meet a man who loved to be in control, making his own decisions, doing his own thing, in charge of his own destiny. He gave God the odd nod, but he was very much in control, until that is, he encountered God and God had other plans for him!

(read Genesis 32:22-23)

Before you go any further, what does anyone know about Jacob?

- Son of Isaac and grandson of Abraham. (Gen 25:19ff)
- Jacob was a twin and was born grasping his brother Esau's heel. (Gen 25:26)
- Thus the name "Jacob" which literally means "he grasps the heel", also a Hebrew idiom for "he deceives", sadly a name he was to steadily grow into!
- Serious sibling rivalry! From the womb! (Gen 25:22ff), ending with Esau's cry in (Gen 27:36), after which Jacob flees.
- He wheels and deals through chapters 28-31, on the way gathering vast flocks, two wives and a dozen sons!
- God does get the odd look in - Jacob's ladder (Gen 28:10ff) but not much!

So to chapter 32 and he's about to meet his brother Esau for the first time in years, and he's scared! He makes all kinds of plans, it's like a military operation, people here, people there, gifts to placate his brother, rehearsed responses to Esau's possible questions, and then perhaps to cover his back he prays as well!

At last to Chapter 32 and verse 22!

v22-24a Who/what is with Jacob? - he's alone (no people or possessions).
Jabbok means emptying, what might this add?
v24b Who joins him? - a man.
Who is the man? See v28 and v30 - God (in some form)
v24b What happens? - they wrestle.
For control of what? - Jacob's life?
v24b How long does it go on? - until dawn.
v25 Who is winning/in control? - It may at first reading appear to be Jacob "the man could not overpower him", but what does the second half of the verse suggest - that God was really in control all along!
Why might God want to stretch out the fight? - to let Jacob work out who he is?... so that v26….
v26b What does Jacob's request suggest about his recognition of who he is wrestling with? - he has worked out it's God? Why else ask for a blessing?
v27 Why does God then ask him his name? Does he not know? Or perhaps it's a kind of confessional? What does Jacob mean? This would help make sense of v28.
v28 No longer Jacob "deceiver" but "Israel" which means "God struggles or strives or fights for him" (if your foot-note suggests it's "he struggles with God", then you can see where they got that from, but actually it makes more sense of the Hebrew, and I think of the setting, for it to be the other way around)
How is this the great turning point in Jacob's life?
Who had been in control up until now?
What did God have to do to get Jacob there?
Who will be in control from now on?
v31 What might the sun rising on Israel be a sign of?

How might the following two quotations help us as we seek to apply this passage to our own lives?

Charles Henry Mackintosh, a Bible scholar of the mid 1800s wrote: "To be left alone with God is the only true way of arriving at a just knowledge of ourselves and our ways... No matter what we may think about ourselves, nor yet what man may think about us, the great question is, What does God think about us? And the answer to this question can only be learned when we are "left alone". Away from the world, away from self, away from all the thoughts, reasonings, imaginings, and emotions of mere nature, and "alone with God", - thus, and thus alone, can we get a correct judgement about ourselves."

John White, whose book we are basing our series on, wrote this about Jacob's plea for a blessing in verse 26b: "They are words God has waited over forty years to hear. He would have preferred that Jacob recognise his helplessness and cast himself on the mercy of his God long before. He did not wish to reduce him to such an extremity, but Jacob left him little choice."

Back to our questions from the start; "Who is really in control of your life?" and "What it would take for you to surrender complete control of your life to God?"

What holds us back from handing over control to God? - fear?
Is it easier to hand over control of some things than others?
Are there areas where you know you are holding back? (You might like to offer people a chance to pray in private, or to ask for prayer from each other)
What would God have to do to you for you to let him bless you? - That after all is what he wanted to do for Jacob/Israel!
Does he need to fight with you and cripple you first?

Edward Hobbs
2 May 2006