Sermon: Recognize Your Enemy

Sermon preached on March 16, 2025 by Pastor Julius Buelow at Mt Olive Lutheran in Lincoln, NE.Theme: Recognize Your EnemyText: Genesis 32:22-3222He got up that night and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven sons, and crossed over the ford of the Jabbok. 23He took them and sent them across the stream, and he also sent his possessions across. 24Jacob was left alone, and he wrestled with a man there until daybreak. 25When the man saw that he could not defeat him, he touched the socket of his thigh, and the socket of Jacob’s thigh was dislocated as he wrestled. 26The man said, “Let me go. It’s daybreak.” Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” 27Then he said to him, “What is your name?” He said, “Jacob.” 28Then he said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have fought with God and with men, and you have won.” 29Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” He said, “Why do you ask what my name is?” Then he blessed him there. 30Jacob named the place Peniel, because he said, “I have seen God face-to-face, and my life has been spared.” 31The sun rose as he crossed over at Peniel, and he was limping because of his thigh. 32For that reason, to this day the people of Israel do not eat the tendon of the hip that is on the socket of the thigh, because God touched the socket of Jacob’s thigh on the tendon of the hip. Holy Bible: Evangelical Heritage Version (Milwaukee, WI: Northwestern Publishing House, 2019), Ge 32:22–32.