This sermon was preached at Cornerstone Baptist Church in Cherry Log, Georgia on Sunday, July 22, 2012 by Rev. Paul Mims.

Genesis 32:22-32

One of the games that I played as a child was “church.” It went like this: when we would come home from church on Sundays, I would re-enact what I had seen that Sunday morning. I was about seven or eight years old. When other children were around, they would be the congregation and I would be the pastor. Most often, it was a game that I played by myself.
In order to imitate our pastor, I would get an old pair of my grandfather’s spectacles so that I would look like Pastor Shepherd and let them drop down on my nose and look over them as he did. To begin the service I would hold a hymnbook and sing some of the hymns that I heard that morning. It must have been an amusing sight. My mother told me that one hymn sounded like this, “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a rat like me!”

Then, would come the sermon. I wish that we had video cameras in those days so I could look back and see this little church service in progress. You can imagine a seven or eight year old putting together a few sentences of what the thought he heard that morning. It was probably some of my better sermons. When no children were around, I would preach to the chickens. I did not have any converts, but several entered the ministry when Pastor Shepherd would come home with us for Sunday dinner.

I enjoyed playing “church.” It was a game. That is all it was. That is all it could be for a child of seven or eight. I knew the game well. Then when I became a pastor, it was not a game anymore. It was for real. But the problem for me was that I saw people as adults playing the game that I had played as a child. What I mean by that statement that I saw people going through the motions of “church” and it made very little difference in their lives. And through the years, I have seen individuals caught in the “church” syndrome and could not seem to break out of it.

We are going to look at a character in the Old Testament whose name was Jacob. He played the game with God until he could play it no more. That which happened in Jacob’s life must happen in ours if we are to quit playing church.

You remember that Jacob was the son of Isaac and Rebecca, the younger twin brother of Esau. His story occupies half of the book of Genesis. He bargained for the birthright of Esau and fooled his father into giving him the blessing designed for the firstborn. This caused him to have to leave home because Esau threatened to kill him. The division between the brothers became permanent. His name means “he cheats.”

Jacob had gone to live with his mother’s side of the family so he would be safe. He fell in love with Rachel and wanted her for his wife. Her father, Laban, required him to work for him for seven years before he would allow the marriage to Rachel. But when the seven years were up, Laban gave him Leah instead of Rachel. He was told that he would have to work another seven years to marry Rachel. There was a lot of family infighting. After working for another six years for Laban, Jacob had had enough. He was now 60 years of age. He decided that it was now time for him to go home and face the music with Esau.

Jacob had been playing games with God for a long time, but he never ever essentially changed. In our terms he had been “playing church” for all of his adult life. At age 40, God reached out to him at Beth-el. There he had the dream of the ladder that reached up to heaven with the angels ascending and descending upon it. When he awoke he said, “Surely the Lord is in this place and I was not aware of it.” God made a covenant with him that his descendants would be given the land upon which he was lying. This was a renewal of the covenant that God had made with Abraham. God was going to bless Jacob’s twelve sons in that they would be the fathers of the twelve tribes of Israel. God would take them into Egypt and some 430 years later he would bring them out of bondage to give them the land of promise. But Jacob was still playing games and bargaining with God. He said after the dream at Beth-el, “If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I am taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear so that I return safely to my father’s house, the Lord will be my God. This stone that I have set up…will be God’s house, and of all that you give me I will give a tenth.” (Genesis 28:20-22).

Jacob was “playing church” until he was 60 years old. God was with him, but not within him. His obedience to God was conditional. Faith had not gripped him. Religious observances were formed without substance. It was becoming a tired old game and Jacob had reached a life situation where he had to break through to reality with God.

He was going home. Esau was coming to meet him. The threat of Esau’s vengeance hung over him and he prayed for deliverance from death. This is when he stopped playing games with God.

To quit playing church we must realize several things.

I. GOD WILL INITIATE AN ENCOUNTER WITH YOU. “Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak…Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” (Genesis 32:24,26)

It was a private service. Jacob had sent his family on ahead. But he had to encounter God. God had sent an angel to wrestle with him. He had gone through the motions before, but there were no blessings for him. Nothing was ever really settled. Now he had to have answers. It was his moment with God. The struggle was long and hard.

There he was wrestling with God’s messenger and God was observing. Soren Kierdegaard prompted the church to worship like that. God observes what we do in this service. He is the audience. The preacher is God’s messenger to present to you the things you must wrestle with and apply to your lives.

That is a far different concept of worship than seeing the musicians and preacher as actors and the congregation as audience. God is the audience. You and I are the actors. We struggle with how life should be interpreted and it is only as we see God through faith that anything we do here makes any difference.

You may go out of here today and say, “The service was great!” Or you may say, “The service was dull.” Those type of comments are an evaluation of the music and the sermon from your standpoint. But you know it doesn’t really matter what you and I think of the service. What matters ultimately is what God thinks about our worship. Look at it from his standpoint. Will he say, “The congregation at Cornerstone truly worshipped me today? I loved the way they sang the hymns of worship to me. I looked into their hearts and found them to be sincere. They were not trying to impress anybody, they were loving me. Some deep changes took place here today that will bring honor to me through their lives next week. The pastor delivered the message that I gave him for the people. They wrestled with it and applied it to their lives. They allowed me the freedom to work in their hearts today. They are truly my people!”

Or, God may say, “The people at Cornerstone are fooling themselves thinking that I will accept worship from people who are playing church. I observe sin that has not been confessed. I observe factions in the fellowship. I see a lack of love and a critical spirit among some. I observe some who want nothing to do with my work. I observe some who do not give me their best in service. I see some who want me to bless them but they will not entrust their lives to me. I see some who are living in open sin. I see some who, like Jacob, have never responded to me the way that I want them to. I do not accept their worship.”

You see, God is the audience. He is evaluating what we are doing here today.
This is the kind of thing that Jacob wrestled with. He knew that God was there and he was going to stay there until matters were settled between him and God. Do you have something that you need to settle with God?

II. AN ENCOUNTER WITH GOD REACHES DEEP INTO OUR LIVES. “The man asked him, “What is your name?” (Genesis 32:27)

That was a piercing question by the angel messenger from God. It was asked for the purpose of getting Jacob to face up to himself. In effect he said, “I am a cheat. I did bribe my brother out of his birthright. I did lie to my father, Isaac, and told him that I was Esau so that he would bless me. I have failed so many times. I have just played at my relationship with God. I have never really given myself to him and trusted him with my whole heart. Forgive me and cleanse me. Now, with all my heart I believe God.”

“Then the man said, ‘Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome.” (Genesis 32:28).

Jacob’s new name would be “Israel” which means, “The one on whose behalf God strives.” That is all we want.

We come to church today wanting God to act on our behalf. But he is waiting until we are ready to clear away all of the games that we are playing. God wants to encounter us and he wants us to be real with him. When we ask him for cleansing his grace will cover all of our sin through the atoning death of Christ on the cross.

“Jacob said, ‘Please tell me your name.’ But he replied, ‘Why do you ask my name?’ Then he blessed him there. So Jacob called the place, Peniel, saying, it is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.” (Genesis 32:29-30).

God began to work in his life. Esau was willing to forgive all. Now Jacob was usable in God’s great plan. His life would have meaning and purpose. He would be a new man. No longer would he walk around with a plastic smile assuring everyone that he was fine when he knew that his life was a mess.

What about you? Are you tired of playing church? Do you want to get real with God? Only time and eternity will tell of the blessings that can be yours when you do.

“There was a blind man on a bridge in London. He was reading his Braille Bible. And he was reading in Acts 4:12 and his fingers were running over this and he…he had lost his place. And being oblivious to anyone around him because of his blindness, he kept running his fingers over the same phrase, “None other name, none other name, none other name.” There was a group of people who gathered around as he stumbled a little bit, they had already been there collecting on the bridge for the interest’s sake of just watching the river go by. And as they watched him there they began to mock him and laugh at him as he fumbled with his Bible and kept repeating, “None other name.” There was a man standing on the edge of the crowd, not mocking but listening. That man walked away that night, went home, fell on his knees and invited Christ into his life. And he testified in a meeting that the thing that brought him to Jesus Christ was a blind man on a bridge stumbling over the word, “None other name…none other name…none other name.” (John MacArthur).

To encounter God there is none other name under heaven where we must be saved! That name is Jesus the Christ. To know him is to encounter God. To have him formed in us is to quit playing church and to become spiritually alive to abundant and eternal life.

Praise be to his name!