This sermon shows God bringing Jacob to the end of his own strength so that he learns the blessing of God cannot be secured through striving, scheming, or self-sufficiency, but only received as a gift. Jacob enters the night grappling but leaves wounded and clinging, with a new name that marks a real transformation even though the old Jacob has not entirely disappeared. His limp becomes a lasting reminder that God sometimes graciously takes away what we depend upon in order to teach us to depend upon him. Ultimately, Jacob’s story points to Jesus, who perfectly submits to the Father, bears the curse so that we might receive the blessing, and gives us confidence not in the strength of our grip on him but in the strength of his grip on us.