The Church of Eleven22 - S01 E20 - Esau

Episode Date: April 27, 2020

Hey, church family, it is time for Devo. If you've got your Bible, we're going to be in Genesis Chapter 25. And before we dive in, I want to say thanks so much for logging on and tuning into this. I just, I know a lot of pastors are doing this with their churches, but early on, I just felt the Lord impressing upon me that this is what we needed to do during this time. And the engagement has been really high. So thanks so much for diving in. And I know you feel the same way. that I do. God's word always does what God set out to accomplish in it. And so it is never a waste of time for us to just dive into His words. We're going to be in Genesis chapter 25. We're going to pick it up in verse 29. Last week I mentioned Jacob and Esau, and I know lots of you are very

familiar with scripture and the accounts recorded there, but maybe some of you are. So I had some questions about Jacob and Esau. And so we're going to go back to tell you a little bit of who they are. So Jacob and Esau are brothers, and in the womb, they would kind of tumble and tussle and fight, and Esau was born first. And Esau in Hebrew simply means hairy. So in the Old Covenant, in the Old Testament, they just named people, it was even if they're like, prophetic of who they would be, or sometimes the names were just simply descriptive, more so like a nickname for us today, you know? And so when Esau was born, his hairy kid, and so that's what they name him. They name him Harry. And then grabbing onto his heel was his younger brother, Jacob. Jacob means like

trickster or deceitful one, or literally means heel grabber. And so the idea here is that even from the time of their birth that Jacob has been trying to negotiate his way in front of Esau. So the Bible goes on, this is in Genesis chapter 25. It goes on just to explain how they grew up. And Esau was kind of a dad's boy. He liked to hunt and fish and he was tough and he's outdoorsy. And Jacob was a bit of a mama's boy. He'd hang around the tents with his mom and that's kind of what he did. Well, we pick it up here in Genesis chapter 25, beginning of verse 29. It says this, once when Jacob was cooking stew, the reason he was cooking stew is because, again, he was hanging out on the tents doing his thing inside. Esau came in from the field, and he was exhausted.

You might want to underline the word exhausted. You see, God created us in such a way that we're supposed to get up early, work hard, and go to bed tired. There's another wrong with tired. We were meant to be tired. In fact, when we get tired, it is a daily reminder that we are not self-sufficient. I think maybe the reason God made us in such a way where we have to lay down and rest and literally go to sleep is this constant reminder that we need the help of an ever-present God, that we cannot do this thing on our own. So tired, no problem with tired. You should get tired. living a life of exhaustion is not a healthy way to live. And it seems to me that oftentimes when we live a life of utter exhaustion,

it puts us in places where if we live at that level long enough, we can morally bankrupt our life pretty easily. In fact, man, you hear about these Christian leaders and pastors and ministers, just morally train wrecking their life. And I think a whole lot of it has to do not so much with morality, but with exhaustion, that they did not live in the kind of rhythms that God created for them to live. And so when you live in this level of exhaustion, then you begin to not see the way God,

you begin to not see the world the way God intended for us to see the world. And this is what is going to happen here with Esau. Issaul comes in from the field and he's exhausted. And Esau says to Jacob, let me eat some of that red stew, for I am exhausted. And then Jacob says, well, sell me your birthright now. Now, you read that and you think, well, that's a little extreme, isn't it? Jacob? Esau comes in exhausted or tired or whatever, hungry, and he's like, hey, can I have some of that stew?

And the younger brother tells the older brother, I'll give you the stew, but you've got to give me the most valuable thing that you have, which is your birthright. you see if it seems extreme it's because you never grew up with a little brother let me tell you the rules of the big brother little brother okay i'm the big brother in my house and i have a younger brother uh he's actually a deacon at our church now um and so when we grew up together here's the thing about little brothers and he doesn't even like to be called little brother but little brothers always need their big brother but the big brothers rarely need their little brother that is just how it is i was and a half years older. I'm four and a half years older. And so there were very few times, if ever, where I went to my brother and said, hey, I need this from you. And if I ever did,

I could walk into his room and say, hey, man, let me borrow a pencil. And he'd be like, all right, let me borrow your truck. And I was like, no way. Because when the little brother sees an opportunity to get one over on the big brother, he knows he's not going to often have that opportunity. and so he has to ask for the world to begin the negotiation. So that's what's going on here. Esau comes in, let me get some of that stew, I'm exhausted. Jacob says, sell me your birthright. And Esau said, this is very important,

I am about to die of what use is a birthright to me. Now, see, I think this is that exhaustion speaking. You see, during, In biblical times, you know what your birthright was? Your birthright meant, it meant all kind of stuff. It meant that when your father was ready to pass away, that he would give you this family blessing and he would pass family authority from himself,

the dad, the patriarch, to you. It meant that you made the decisions for your family. If there was a disagreement in your family and they could not figure it out between brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and all of that, then they would come to you, and the one with the birthright had the final say. It also meant when it came to inheritance that the younger brother would only get one third of the inheritance, and the one with the birthright would get two-thirds of the inheritance.

And if there was a bunch of siblings, then the older, the one with the birthright, they would get over a half, up to two-thirds, and everybody else would divide up what was left. And Esau says, listen, this is what exactly. exhaustion will do to you. Esau says, I am about to die. To which, if I was there, I'd say, Esau, you're not about to die? You literally just walked in from like hunting stag

or whatever you were hunting in the field. I saw you walk in, I saw you sit down, you're having a conversation with your brother. You see, sometimes what exhaustion can do is it can exaggerate your feelings in you. You see, he looks at this stew, and he says, I am willing to trade this lifelong blessing from my dad for this momentary and instantaneous gratification. And Jacob is totally willing to make the trade. And so he says, swear to me now.

And so he swore to him and sold his birthright to Jacob. Now, when you look at that, you think, think who in the world would sell their birthright for some lentil stew? It's not even, it's not even like elk chili. I mean, it's just lentil stew. Who would take something so valuable and put it at risk for something so temporary? Well, I think there's a couple of things that are going on here. But modern day marketers and psychologists, they use a couple of words to talk about what's happening with Esau. And one of them is called focalism. Focalism. Focalism is that thing that when you decide in your mind that you want something, it's like everything else in this world

grows dim and you get highly focused on that thing. Like, if you've ever bought a new car, whether it's new, new or new to you car, you ever noticed that you never noticed those kinds of cars really before until you decided you wanted to get that kind of car and then at every other stoplight the car that you want is at every street in the intersection and that is all you can see. That's vocalism. And then what it begins to do is focalism begins to lead to another thing that marketers use all the time called impact bias. An impact bias is when we over exaggerate the impact of some product that we think that it's going to have in our lives. That's what impact biases. Listen, this is how marketers sell us everything that they try to sell us. I mean,

you watch every commercial, and I mean, a new razor promises you your best life now. And if you begin to get focused on that, you can begin to actually believe the promises that it's making. And this is what happens to Esau. He gets focused. And then he begins because of his exhaustion, and he's focused on this temporary satisfaction, and he begins to believe that this little bit of stew will be able to fully and finally satisfy him. Now, I'm telling you, if I could go back in time, I was just talking to Dane, one of our camera guys,

and he said he just watched back to the future. So if I could get into the DeLorean, fix the flux capacitor, and shoot back to this time, Genesis chapter 25, and I could walk into the tent and I could say, Esau, Esau, Esau, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, what are you doing? What are you doing? You can't mean to tell me that you are about to sell your birthright for just some stew. It's just stew. What are you doing, man? And if I could begin to paint the picture for Esau and say, Issaul, man, do you have any idea what you're doing here? Do you know what a big deal you have the potential to be? You have the potential to be. be in God's plan for the salvation of humanity? Just stick with me for a second, okay? Your brother's going to have 12 kids, and the 12th kid is going to get sold into Egypt, but that your nephew is going to end up being the senior VP of Egypt, and he's going to save

all of the Jewish people, and then God is going to create a people from that people, and then Moses, this guy named Moses is going to show up one day, and he's going to say, let my people go, and they're going to cross over the Red Sea, and God's going to establish a covenant with them and give them the Ten Commandments, and that's going to be. that people coming from your brother is going to be one of the greatest people, God's chosen people, and out of that people is going to come one day a Messiah. And he's going to live and die on the cross and be resurrected from the grave. And one of his followers is going to write this best-selling book one day.

And his follower is named Matthew, and he calls his book Matthew. And in his book, he's going to say, I want to tell you about this Messiah, that comes from the God of Abraham and Isaac, and he could say Esau, if you don't sell this birthright. But if you sell this birthright, it won't talk about you anymore.

It'll say Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. Esau, what are you doing? Do you have any idea what hangs in the balance on the decision that you're about to make? But I couldn't jump in the DeLorean and adjust the flux capacitor and go back in time. And so he swore to him and he sold his birthright to Jacob.

And then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew and he ate and he drank and he rose and went away. And then the next verse is so sad. Thus Esau despised his birthright. You see, he traded in the promise of his father for some temporary satisfaction. and he regretted it for the rest of his life. Now, again, who among us would trade something so valuable for some stew? Well, unless you're a little slow on the uptake, you realize what I realize. Every single one of us would.

The question is simply this. What's your stew? What is that thing that the enemy lays in front of you and you get hyper-focused on it and you believe that somehow that temporary satisfaction is more important than God's promises in your life. Listen, we do it all the time. You know what the stew is that the enemy lays before us? It's either the stew of the pride of life, lust of the eyes, or lust of the flesh. And so if you want to be the kind of man, or if you want to be the kind of woman,

if you want to be the kind of stew that is able to say no to the stew, then one of the things that will help you is for you to know what your stew is. Listen, I know in these times of quarantine, talking to the sheriff of Duval County, he said there's three things that are skyrocketing in our county right now. Alcohol abuse, pornography, domestic violence, skyrocketing right now. You see, because in this crazy time that we're in, we have a lot of time, and I'm telling you, telling you the enemy is putting stew in front of us like crazy. So one of the things we need to do is to identify what that stew is.

Another thing is we need to make sure that we are rested. And I don't mean just like taking naps and stuff. I mean that we are sabbathing and that we are living in the kind of rhythms that God established for us so that we are constantly connected and replenished with him. Doing things like this, watching this Devo, and leaning in. God promises if you lean into him, he will leave. lean into you. Because I bet if Esau isn't exhausted, he doesn't go for Jacob's trick.

And ultimately, the way to say no to the stew is this. Whether the stew is drinking too much or whether the stew is taking pills that aren't yours or whether the stew is pornography or whatever the stew is, there's really one way to say no to that stew. And that is, if you have a stew that is better than what you're going to be. what you were being offered. You see, I think if I rolled into the tent that day and said, Esau, I tell you what, I'll give you this filet,

cooked medium rare, bacon wrapped with some cheesy potatoes, and it won't cost you anything. Would you rather have that? He would look at my offer and look at his brother's offer, and he would take the filet every time. The only way to dislodge an idol that is in your heart that you see as lovely is it must be replaced with a more lovely. idol. His name is Jesus. The only way that we will be able to say no to the stoves, to say yes to the

eternal promises of God and look at the temptation that the enemy lays before us is to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus. Because when we do, the stew just doesn't smell that good. Let me pray for you. God, it's a tale as old as time when your children sacrifice, eternal promises from you for the sake of something so temporary. God, would you give us eyes to see? God, would you give us eyes to see this world the way you see it? And then, Lord, it would encourage us to live the way you've told us to live. Lord, above all else, I pray that we would not fix our eyes on the temporary things of this world,

but we would keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, the author and the, the perfector of our faith, knowing that he is greater than anything this world has to offer. We pray it in Jesus' name.