When God Changes Your Name

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Because Your Family Matters

"Then they journeyed from Bethel. And when there was but a little distance to go to Ephrath (Bethlehem), Rachael labored in childbirth, and had hard (difficult) labor. Now it came to pass when she was in hard labor, tht the midwife said to her, "Do not fear; you will have this son also."

And so it was, as her soul was departing (she died), that she called his name Benoni; but his father called him Benjamin.

Genesis 35:16-18

Names have great significance in the Bible. They represent your identity and often are used by God to reflect character and destiny. The Old Testament Book of Ruth is a classic example of the use of names to convey deep truth. Boaz, the kinsman redemer marries Ruth, the gentile believer, and together they produce and child named Obed, which means worship. Abram's name was changed to Abraham. Jacob's name was changed to Israel. Saul's name was changed to Paul, and Simon was called Peter. All these men and several women had their names changed when God did a special work in their lives that changed who the were and who they would become.

Today we focus on one of these men, Jacob. The second born of twins, he came out of the womb struggling to overcome his brother and usurp the blessing that came with being the first born. Jacob means "trickster, deceiver, or literally 'heel grabber'. His brother, Esau, was a man's man, an outdoorsman, a hunter, and a warrior. It seems that he was probably his father's son while Jacob was his mother's boy. (In the South we'd say he was a mama's boy.) Esau would kill the game and Jacob would cook it. Together he and his mother devised and perfectly executed a plan of deception that stole the birthright of Esau, the blessings intended for the first born. When the reality of what had been done came to light, Jacob wisely mounted his camel and fled from Esau. His destination was the house of Laban, his uncle. There he met and immediately fell in love with Rachael, Laban's second born daughter who is described by Scripture as being "beautiful of form." Her dad required Jacob to work for seven years growing and tending his flocks in exchange for Rachael's hand. But alas, what goes around comes around. (Galatians 6:7-9 in case you were wondering) And the trickster woke up the morning after the wedding lieing next to the older daughter Leah. It must have been a whale of a reception! Nevertheless, Jacob had been deceived into marrying the daughter with "weak eyes." I don't know what that means exactly, but it couldn't be good. Laban's excuse was that the first born daughter had to be married before the second daughter. This was a game changing detail that he conveniently forgot to pass along to Jacob until after the wedding. It cost Jacob seven more years of servanthood, but he finally was able to marry Rachael as well. There were many more events to take place, however they are not really a part of the message today so I'll leave it to you to read the entire story.

The bottom line is that Leah was extremely fertile giving Jacob many children, while Rachael was barren. As an answer to prayer, she finally conceives and bares Jacob a son. Yet that wasn't enough, Leah had many sons. So Rachael wanted more. Thus began a campaign to petition heaven for another baby. God granted her request, but she had no idea what it was going to cost her to receive it. So many times we ask God for provision, for power, and for privileged use in the Kingdom, never realizing that before there is a ministry, there must be a message. God grants our request and immediately enrolls us in the school of "divers temptations", otherwise known as the school of life where patience and endurance set about their tasks of making us whole, mature, and complete as we are transformed into the image of Jesus Christ. We cry "God, use me!" But when school starts, too often we cry, "God, why me?" Could it be that we would be more careful about what we asked for if we knew up front the price we'd have to pay to get it? As the narrative of Jacob's life continues, his deceiver ways wear out his welcome with Laban and Jacob is forced to obey God and return home to reconcile with Esau. So he returns to Bethel where he'd met with God before, and sure enough on a night when he was all alone, God shows up in the apparent form of a man. I think Jacob sincerely thought the man was Esau and the two begin to wrestle. The struggle miserably goes all on all night. Somehow during the battle as morning approaches, Jacob realizes that this is no man, and that it's some miraculous representation of God. It's here that the deceiver comes to grips with who he is and God then changes his name. In this historical account of one man's encounter with God we will find purpose for our adversities and sufferings and see how God intends to change our names as well. This leads us to our first point as we watch God turn a con man into a great man and patriarch of the Old Testament.

I. Our Most Difficult Battles Are Really With God.

Once again Jacob finds himself all alone. Adversity does that. No one really knows what we are feeling and what we are going through. They try to understand, console, and even encourage us, especially those who have gone through similar experiences, but words are hollow and most efforts seem powerless to help and sometime can even be offensive. It's not really their fault in most cases, we can't understand their pain either. Pain isolates.

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