Welcome to the Excel Stillmore podcast. I am your host, Chris Emerson. I'm here to encourage you in your walk with God. Thank you for joining in.

Today's podcast is sponsored by a wonderful company, Creation to Revelation. This group of Christians believe it is extremely important that we teach the Word of God to our kids.

They have original graphic illustrations from the beginning of the Bible to the end,

featuring the beautiful and consistent presence of Jesus throughout.

You can explore all of that at creation to revelation.com.

I'm so thankful you're here, so let's get started.

Hey, let me begin by welcoming you to today's study, which I think is probably a fair description.

It's not all that often that episodes are based

on Bible stories where we will actually read that story, but that is the plan today. A couple of

years ago, I made a pretty intentional decision to separate the Sunday sermon topics from the Monday

podcast content. But occasionally, I will share something with you in an episode

and it lead to more Bible study and turn into a sermon.

And then on occasions like today,

I build out something that is purely for preaching,

and then a week or two passes, and it is still on my mind.

It's leaving a permanent imprint on the way that I think,

and I just feel like I have to share it with you. Today I'm talking about the story from Genesis

32 where Jacob had a literal all-night wrestling match with God. You might say it was a messenger of God, an angel of God, but even Jacob said at the end,

I have seen God face to face and lived. I don't even know how many times I've read that story,

but I do know that I've been preaching for one half of my life, and about once a year I try to

go back and find out what was God doing there,

and why is it important for me. And for something like 20 years straight, I struck out. Until just

...