The Church of Eleven22 - Wk 3: Self-Control

Episode Date: August 4, 2019

The only thing that can fully and finally satisfy the insatiable appetites of the human soul is the everlasting God that created it. His name is JESUS.

Amen and amen. How we do it, church? Everybody good. You look good. If you got your Bibles, I hope you do, grab them. Although we're finishing up this series in 2nd Timothy, Chapter 1, verse 7, I want you to go to Genesis chapter 25. That is where we are going to be for the majority of our time.

If you've been around the last three weeks, you know, we're doing a three-week series about this one verse, this kind of a throwback from the way we began the year on this series called 2 Timothy out of the book of 2 Timothy, where the Apostle Paul lays his hands on. young Timothy, and he's trying to prepare him for the call of God in his life. And I think the words that Paul gives to Timothy are not only applicable to this young man as he is about to pastor this church in Ephesus, but it's also applicable to every single

one of us. And he says this to young Timothy, for God has not given you a spirit of fear. We talk about this. We talk about fear around here a lot, and the reason we do is because the most commanded thing in all of the scriptures is this, don't be afraid. Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid. At least 366 times in the King James version of the Bible,

there is a command to not be afraid. You know why? Because I don't know about you, but every single day of my life, including leap year, I need to hear those words. Do not be afraid. Because fear is when we take our trust and we put it in our circumstances

instead of putting our trust in the sovereign king of the universe. And Paul knows that Timothy is going to find himself in places where fear, fear is going to try to overtake him and fear is going to try to paralyze him. And this is big, man. And that fear is not a feeling, fear is not a personality type, that fear is a spirit. That has not been given by God.

But what God has given us is a spirit of power. And that is not power to lord over people so that they may serve us. but when God gives us power, it's that we may humble ourselves and serve one another, just as Christ served us. And he has given us this spirit of love and perfect love cast out fear. And he has given us a spirit of self-control. No, I got to admit, when I was putting together the sermon series, I'm usually about a year out on these things. Okay, like right now I'm working on next year. So I'm not going to tell you what it is because then you wouldn't come.

All right. So I knew what I was going to preach. I knew we were going to do this three-week series. And I thought, sweet, this is going to be easy. Self-control. I could just hop over to Galatians chapter 5, the fruit of the spirit, love, joy, peace, and, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and self-control. I set you up pretty easy there, but unless you're going to be quiet today, no problem.

That's all right. I'm doing this for a living. I can work through it. And I thought, sweet. So what we'll talk about here is we'll talk about this self-control that is a fruit of the spirit. It's not manufactured on our own. And the way that you cultivate fruit is that Jesus tells us. us that if we will abide in him, he abides in us.

And the closer we get to him, the more like him we are, and the fruit of the spirit begins to pop out in us. Because it is produced from the inside out, not manufactured. And I thought, sweet, I had the sermon all figured out. And so then I got home from vacation, and I looked, and it's not the same word. It's the same word in English, but it's not the same word in Greek. And then I thought, y'all don't know Greek. I'll just go with it anyway.

But that's not good. I can't do that. Okay, so in Greek, the word self-control that's fruit of the spirit, it means to have mastery over. And what that means is, because Jesus has mastery over sin, if Jesus is in you, then he through you has mastery over the sin in your life. But this is not what Paul is saying here. He uses the different word. Different translations translate this word differently. The NIV calls it self-discipline. for God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and self-discipline.

The King James, the new King James, calls it a sound mind. Some translations translate it sound judgment. Literally in Greek it means this, a wise head. That's what it means. That God has not given you a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and a wise head. Here's what this means. I think what Paul is saying to Timothy and what God, through his word, is saying to us, is take heart.

You will find yourself in positions where you have to make the right decision, that you have to make a wise decision, that you have to make a God-honoring decision, that you have to walk in a manner worthy of the gospel of Jesus Christ. But take heart. It's not just your willpower. The Holy Spirit has given you power and love

and the ability to choose to do what is right no matter what. And so that when I think about this, my mind goes to this account that we're going to look at in Genesis chapter 25. So we'll pick it up in verse 19, Genesis chapter 25. If you were here, I don't know, a long time ago, six years ago or something, we studied the book of Genesis. And so we're going back. Okay, Genesis chapter 25 beginning in verse 19, it says this. These are the generations of Isaac, Abraham's son. Let me just catch you up real quick.

God puts his favor on Abraham, not because Abraham's awesome, but because God is, and he makes a promise to Abraham, makes a covenant with Abraham. And Abraham trust God, and God credits his trust or counts his faith as righteousness. And God says, Abraham, I'm going to use you, and from your offspring, I'm going to bless the entire world. And this was the covenant that one day would lead to Jesus coming from Israel, and Israel comes from the tribes that come from the offspring of Abraham. So that's where we are in the scripture. These are the generations of Isaac, Abraham's son. Abraham fathered Isaac, and Isaac was 40 years old when he took Rebecca,

the daughter of Bethul, the Aramian of Paramaram, the sister of Laban of the Aramian to be his wife. And Isaac prayed to the Lord for his wife because she was barren. And the Lord granted his prayer. and Rebecca, his wife, conceived, and the children struggled together within her. And she says, if it is thus, why is this happening to me? And she went to inquire of the Lord, and the Lord said to her, two nations are in your womb. Ladies, some of you that have been pregnant, you felt like this, right?

Like, are there two nations in there? What is happening? God bless you, all right? And two people, she's going to have twins, is what's happened, okay? and two peoples from within you shall be divided. One shall be the stronger than the other. The older shall serve the younger. Verse 24.

And when her days to give birth were completed, behold, there were twins in her womb. And the first came out red, all his body like a hairy cloak. So they called his name Esau. Because that's just what Esau means. You see, in the Old Testament, names were either descriptive or prophetic. All right?

So here comes Esau, boom. He's red, and he's covering hair. And so it was either Chebacca or Esau, but they didn't know Chabaca yet. We've been watching Star Wars a lot lately at the house. All right, so they called him Esau. And after his brother came out with his hand holding Esau's heel, so his name was called Jacob. Isaac was 60-year-old, 60-year-old when she was born. Now, listen, here's what's happening.

So there's this war going on within mama's belly. And when they come out, Esau's coming first. He's the oldest. And so Jacob, the reason he gets called Jacob is, that name in Hebrew literally means the deceitful one. So if your name's Jacob, my bad, okay? Or heel grabber. That's what it means. He'll grabber.

And so when he comes out, he's grabbing. He thought it was like Daytona. He could get him in turn four, but you can't do that in the bird canal. And so from the time. before they were born. He was always trying to make his way to first. Now listen, so that's what they name them. I've told you this before.

My name means afflicted. How about that? Joby means afflicted. Thanks, Dad. Apparently we didn't have a baby book in my house, but whatever. Verse 27. And when the boys grew up, Esau, remember the hairy one. Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of the field,

while Jacob was a quiet man dwelling in the tents. And Isaac loved Esau because he ate of his game, but Rebecca loved Jacob. So Jacob is a mama's boy, and Esau is awesome, pretty much. This is it. Esau likes to go hunt. Jacob likes to stay in the tents with the ladies cooking stuff, all right? Esau wore cowboy boots.

Jacob wore skinny jeans. Tom's. Just how it is. Esau hunted his own game. Jacob had a cat. That's just, that's what it is, okay? Every time I say that, one of our people sends me this email of adorable cats.

And it's just these cats do it. And I'm like, this is my point exactly, all right? So here it is again, right? So Esau's a man's man and Jacob was a gator fan or something. That's what I'm talking about. So there, you give me my time. time, all right? So, and you're not supposed to have favorites, but they kind of, you know, they have favorites. And so once when Jacob was cooking stew, that's what he did, Esau came in from the field,

and he was exhausted. Now, let me remind you what we're talking about here. We're talking about self-control. We're talking about what do you do when you find yourself in a position where you have two options and the Bible says that God has not given us a spirit of fear, but God, has given us the spirit of power and a spirit of love, and God has given us this spirit to have the ability to make the right decisions and to be a person of self-discipline, to be a person of sound mind. And sometimes I think when we read the Bible, we read by stuff too fast, because what happens here is that Esau comes in and it says that he was exhausted.

Listen, danger. Self-control and exhaustion don't often coexist. They just don't. That God created us in such a way that you and I are supposed to live in right rhythm and relationship with God. In the Old Testament, it's called the Sabbath. And when Jesus comes along, he says,

I didn't come to do away with the law, but to fulfill it. And most of us live such out of balance, out of rhythm lives, that many of us are exhausted, and I'm not just talking about physically. but it starts there. If you are physically exhausted,

you will probably not live a life of self-control. How are you eating and sleeping? Do you take time off? Do you take a Sabbath? I mean, is that a thing for you? But also we can be exhausted emotionally. Like, when we are relationally drained, when we've gone through major life events,

have you ever noticed that it's in those moments that we make some of the worst decisions? I remember, we were, the pastors going to retreat every day. year. We were at this hunting cabin thing because I'm in charge of it, so that's all we do is go hunting. And so I remember Pastor Stone. This was last year as his dad had just passed away. And we were just talking about how are we doing? And he was just talking about what that experience for him was like and how it stirred up some stuff in here. And Pastor Ben Williams said one of the

most profound things I've ever heard. He goes, you have been through an emotionally draining experience. you should make zero major decisions in the next year of your life. You see, because when we are exhausted, we're not often living lives of self-control. Sometimes mentally we can be exhausted. And here's what I mean by that. When you fill up your mind with junk, it will exhaust you mentally. I mean, if it's, if the diet of your mind is all Netflix and know God's word, it's just not going to like if all you eat is twinkies and once a week you can take in a little protein guess what you're going to die

and all you do is fill your head with the junk of this world and then once a week listen to me talk about the Bible for an hour mentally you will live an exhausted life spiritually we can be exhausted you know oftentimes the moral failures of Christians have more to do with exhaustion than they do morality. And Esau comes in from the field and he's exhausted. So the cards are stacked against him already. Some of you, you don't even need to get to the rest of the sermon. You just got to stop right there. Are you exhausted? Jesus says, come to me all who are weary and heavy laden. In other words, whether you're mentally, spiritually, physically, relationally exhausted.

If you're exhausted, Jesus has come to me and I will give you rest. In God's economy, when you pursue Jesus, you find rest. Look, I just got back from vacation. Okay, I need some Jesus in my life.

If you ever go to on vacation pursuing rest, you come home more tired and broke than when you left, all right? And so, Esau comes in, exhausted. Verse 30, and Esau said to Jacob, let me eat some of the red stew for I am exhausted. You see, here's the thing.

What's happening in Esau in this moment is not a bad thing. It's not a bad thing at all. You see, every single one of us are just a big ball of desires. That's just what we are. It's the way God created us, that every single one of us are a big ball of desires. We have all kind of desires in our life, all kind of desires in our life, okay? I have all kind of desires in my life.

I have a desire for food. I have a desire for sex. All right, so I have at least two desires in my... I'm just kidding. It's much more complicated than that. But the crazy thing about desires is that God gave them to us, but the enemy has twisted them.

You see, every single desire that we have in our life is to remind us over and over and over that we have been created by an eternal God with an eternal soul. And we have this insatiable desire. desire to be satisfied, but only the God of the universe can satisfy. The fact that we have these desires for food or desires for relationship or we have this desire to sleep, all of these needs in our life are a daily, if not a moment by moment reminder that we cannot satisfy ourselves,

that we are always in need of something greater than ourselves to accomplish or meet our desires. So desires are given by God. They're twisted by the enemy. Desires are not necessarily an evil thing. In fact, Psalm 374 says, delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. Somehow, man,

when I was a kid, I thought if you trusted God, all he would do is take away all, everything you ever desired. Because basically, the way I heard the word preached when I was growing up was God is good. You were bad. Try harder. See you next week. Every sermon I heard is just about all the stuff

we aren't supposed to do. I wondered, why is the Bible so It should just be a three by five card with the word no on it. Hey, can I? No, you can't. There it is, all right? But the reality is that these desires that God has given us, he has also given us legitimate means by which these desires are fulfilled as a reminder that every good and perfect gift is from him.

So like we have a desire for food. That is not a bad thing at all. is that God put that in us, this desire for food, and then the enemy comes along and twist it. And you see, did you know that if you are a Jesus follower, then you can enjoy your food more than everybody else? I got bad news for you. If you're not a Christian, my tacos taste better than yours.

They do, they do. And think about this, God invented the taco. How amazing is he? I mean, seriously, I got a little crew of people and we do Taco Tuesday, all right, and we get together. You ever take somebody to, like, a taco place or a Mexican place, and they don't go much, and they ask the dumbest questions at the table, be like, what's in a chimichanga? It's tortilla, meat, cheese, vegetables.

Oh, what about nachos? Tortilla meat, cheese, vegetables. What about a taco? It's a different shape, but it's just a tortilla meat, cheese. What about a fajita? It's tortilla, meat, cheese, vegetables, but you get to cook it. All right. It's the same thing.

But yet God has designed it in such a way that when you take the taco and it hits your lips, you think, how good is our king? How good is our king that he would put these things together in such a handheld little delightful situation that you can enjoy it with first? You could walk out of our service in the next hour or so and get a taco from a truck for a dollar and give glory to God. I see, if you don't know Jesus, your worship terminates on the taco. How sad are you?

But for those of us that are believers, when we eat the taco, we say, bless the Lord, oh, my soul, and all that is within me, bless His Holy Name. And then the enemy comes along and he twist it. He twist it. And you get eating disorders, or you get folks that avoid, eating anything because they are they are pursuing some way they want to look they mean you can never enjoy any kind of food and yet god has given us this food to enjoy it's a good desire given by god to stir in us worship the desire for sex it's not bad it's not if you're still on the fence

whether our god is good or not he invented sex it was his idea for procreation and recreation and glory to God. I mean, he could have made children however he wanted to, right? You could have just ordered them on Amazon, but no, he decided this is how they're coming. Within the covenant of marriage, God gives us this gift, and then the enemy comes along and twist it. He twisted, twist it with pornography, that God has given us this desire, and he wraps the physicality and the intimacy together. So God says the two become one, or the enemy twisted in our culture, and he says, no, no, we're going to separate intimacy from the physical. And you see what's happening to our culture.

You see, the desire is not bad, or a desire for wine. Did you know that wine is a gift from God? I use this example to make our Baptist squirm and to make our Catholics comfortable. And so Psalm 104.4.14. 18 and 15, you cause the grass to grow for the livestock and plants for man to cultivate that he may bring forth food from the earth and wine to gladden the heart of man, oil to make his face shine and bread to strengthen man's heart. And then the enemy comes and takes God's gift and twist it into alcoholism and honestly, or to twist it into legalism. Yeah, there are some of you that should never,

ever, ever touch it. That just doesn't mean because you can't. Now, it's your job to tell everybody else they can't. You see how the enemy takes a good thing that God has given us like a desire. And then he comes in and twist it. You see, here's the thing about every desire in your life. The desires in our life, they have a very short vocabulary list. Just two words. Every desire says this. More and now. More and now. So Esau comes in. He says, let me eat of the red stew, for I am exhausted. Being hungry, no problem. That's a legitimate desire. Being tired and desiring to rest or be replenished, legitimate desire. And then here's what Jacob does, verse 31. And Jacob says, well, sell me your birthright now. Sell me your birthright now. Now let me tell you what a birthright is. A birthright is a really, really big deal. In biblical times, the firstborn son got at least two-thirds of the inheritance of the family. And then the rest of the kids had to squabble over the one-third.

So you got the most cash and prizes. Plus, you were anointed and favored by the father, and you became the judge of your own family. So the birthright is a really, in fact, it would have been the most prized possession that you would possess in your entire life as a first-born son. It's a really big deal. And so what Jacob does is he says, now's my chance. You see, he's a little brother, and his older brother comes in,

and for one of the first times in his life, maybe the first time in his life, the older brother needs something from the younger brother. Anybody have an older sibling here? If you raise your hand, if you have an older sibling, raise your mind, okay? All right, these are the deceitful ones, okay? These are the, they're always a little bitter. It's not your fault. I was the firstborn.

I can't help you, okay? And so here's what would happen. So I have a younger brother named Russ, three and a half years younger than me, and here's what happens. I would go into his room, we'd be like, hey, bro, can I borrow a pencil? And he'd say, can I borrow your truck? For a pencil? No. You don't even have a driver's license.

Then you don't have a pencil. See, that's how that would work. There's not like negotiation. They just start with what's the most I could potentially go for. And so he says, sell me your birthright now. All right. So here's what's happening. So Jacob has this little bit, we'll find out in a second, lentil red stew.

Doesn't even sound that good, does it? I mean, it's not deer chili. It's lentil red stew. And Esau has this birthright from Isaac, who his granddad is Father Abraham. I mean, you want to talk about cash and prizes. and who in the world in their right mind would sacrifice so much for something so temporary? I tell you, every single one of us. Every single one of us.

Esau says, I'm about to die. To which you would say to Esau, no, you're not. You're not about to die? you were just hunting like elk or red stag or whatever you hunt in the promised land all right i don't know what it is but i would totally do it and you just walked in here on your own two feet i don't know exactly how long it takes for you to die of starvation but i'm like 100% sure it's not four minutes you see what happens oftentimes is when we're exhausted and when we're presented with something temporary that we think we need um there's all kind of stuff that

happens psychologically to us. I love it when, I love it when science catches up with what happened in the Bible. Psychologists tell us there's a lot going on here, okay? One of the things, one of the things that happens in the human brain, it's called impact bias. Impact bias occurs when we overestimate the length of impact of an emotional event. Impact bias is when you thought that if you just, if you've ever had that conversation, if I could just live in a two-bedroom apart, apartment. And then a little while later you're like, well, that didn't quite do it for me. That's just called impact bias. It's what fuels buyers' remorse is that you think some kind of event is going to do more for you than it can actually do. This is what marketing is based on.

Every late-night commercial starts with, have you been shaving with a regular razor? And it shows some guy like rubbing a rake down his face about to bleed out. You know what I mean? and you're like, I have. All right. Impact by sweating, impact by, I says. This is why Taco Bell is still in existence, okay? It's just true. Like right now, I don't know if Taco Bell sounds good to you,

but at 2 o'clock in the morning, driving home, and you see that open light, you'd be like, oh, glory to God. You pull around in the drive-through, and what do you think when you see those pictures? Your photographer is amazing. Get you a couple of Dorito locos, because that's authentic. Within the hour, you think, I understand impact bias now.

It ain't good. So that's what happened. You're being going to overestimate this temporary thing. There's another thing that happens that psychologist tells us, it's called focalism. Focalism. When we began to get fixated on something that we want, then we can ignore the periphery of the information around us and get hyper-focused on what we want to be focused on. You've done this.

The day you decided to get a new car or a new-to-you car. All right? You decide to get a car on Wednesday. Tuesday, the car you've been in was fine. It was totally fine, all right? I know the AC only worked on one side, and it kind of wobble when you got over 55, but you were cool with it. No problem, right?

The French fries in the back. I don't know why they don't degrade like everything else does. No problem. It didn't bother you at all. But the day you decided, I'm getting a new car. You looked at your car with such. stain. Didn't even like getting it smells like humans.

Even though the humans that it smells like or you're humans, but whatever. And you ever notice is that you didn't even know that company came out with that new model until you decided to buy that model and now every stoplight you pull up, you're like, there's one in there. Is this a sign from you, God?

No, it's called focalism. All right? Anybody that's ever been in love, okay? Focalism. Boys, you remember the first time it happened? You remember? I can remember I remember that I will never forget the first day I saw Gretchen nicely. She used to be nicely.

That was their name. G. Nicely. I always thought her rap name would be G. Nice. Wouldn't that be awesome? But she can't rap. So whatever.

They were in our hopes and dreams. So I remember, I'm in the gym, working out, and I look up, and I see her come bebopping in, and I just, it was amazing. The weights quit rattling. The radio turned off. Somehow her hair began to just fly in the, imaginary breeze that was happening. And I heard dream weaver. And I thought, all right. And like a tractor beam, I just walked up. I had no, I didn't, I didn't even think about what I was going to say

before I got there. I just walked up to her and I got in her personal space. Gretchen's personal spaces about the size of the room here. All right. She's not, she doesn't like people a lot. Whatever, okay? And when I got there and she just said, can I help you? So I said, can I get a spot? That's what I said, but listen, I was just focused. I saw nothing else. Psychologists tell us this also happens in the brain. Confirmation bias. We began to interpret all of the information to support the decision that we've already made.

This is what He saw is doing. He's exhausted. He sees something that he wants. He says, give me something to eat. His brother says, it's going to cost you everything. Everything. Everything that's important to you. It's going to cost you your inheritance.

It's going to cost you your family reputation. It's going to cost you dad's blessing and anointing in your life. It's going to cost you everything. And he says, of what is a birthright to me? You know what's happening here? Esau essentially is having an identity crisis because of the felt needs surrounding him and the lies that he is buying into. He is having this identity crisis.

He is forgetting who he is. He is the firstborn son, and he is forgetting whose he is. He is the son of Isaac, the rightful heir to all that is his. And if, I mean, just if, I know this couldn't happen. But when he asked this question of what use is a birthright to me, I just imagine, in my little Bible nerd study self, If I could hop in the flux capacitor in the DeLorean and go back however many years that was and step into the tent and be like, hey, Esau, hold on, Harry, let me tell you some. Of what is a birthright to you?

Bro, it's going to mean a lot to you. I mean, I know this red stew, it may be delicious, but if you could just hold out for just a little while, man, if you could just go to your own house and just, you know, a little beef jerky or whatever you got at the house. I know it might not taste as good in this moment, but you, you will receive the birthright. You can get all the red stew you want for the rest of your days. And not only that, when your dad passes away, you'll be the, you'll be like super in charge. And, and I know this hasn't happened yet, but you just got to trust me here. That God has a purpose and a plan and a potential for your life that he promised your granddad.

that through your lineage, through your lineage is going to come a blessing for the entire world. And I know it hadn't happened yet, but you'll learn this in Sunday school. A couple generations from now, your people are going to end up in Egypt. And from Egypt, God is going to grow an entire nation. And then one day, one day he's going to pick this sermon named Moses to set your people free out of the nation. of Egypt. And when God Almighty, when the king of the universe shows up to Moses, it says, Moses, go to Pharaoh and say, let my people go. Moses is going to say, who are you? And God is going to introduce himself. When he names himself to Moses, he is going to say, I am the God of your fathers,

Abraham and Isaac. And the next name he chooses right now is hanging in the balance on the decision you make right now. What's it going to be? Of what is your birthright to you? It's worth a lot. And then what's crazy is from that nation, that nation has become a superpower, and from that superpower is going to come the Messiah. It's going to come the serpent crusher.

He's going to, like God, the king of the universe, is going to be dressed in human flesh, and he's going to become a man named Jesus. And he's going to call disciples unto himself. He's going to die as the sacrificial lamb. going to be resurrected on the third day. And after all of that happens, one of his disciples named Matthew, he's going to write this account of the life and the death and the resurrection of the Son of God, Jesus Christ.

And here's how he's going to start his book. It says the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham, and Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac was the father of. And the name that comes next is hanging in the balance of this, decision. And it's not just to get your name in a book that's going to be the best-selling book in the history of humankind, but Esau, you could be used by God to be a conduit of God's work in this world in ways that you can't even understand. Esau, you have no idea what hangs in the balance. But there's no Delorean. I can't go back and talk to him. And so nobody could

give some context to Esau. And so Jacob, verse 33, Jacob said, swear to me now and so he swore to him and he sold his birthright to Jacob. And again, we look at this and we say, who would do that? Who would sell your future for something temporary? And you know the answer. Every single one of us. Now this is the truth right now. Some of you are in that moment and the decision has not been made in your marriage and your family and your future and your moral authority and all of those things hang in the balance. And listen to me, there is still time. There is still time. There is still time and if you are in Christ you have been given a spirit of self-control or self-discipline and God has given you the ability to choose what is eternal instead of choosing the temporary.

But if we're honest, and I know this is a church, no place for this, we love some stew, don't we? We love some stew. The crazy thing is, is the enemy, he doesn't just make red lentil stew. He makes whatever kind you like the most. You ever notice that? And have you ever noticed how everybody else's stew looks terrible, but your stew looks kind of awesome? And so the question is just simply this. So what's your stew?

What is the temporary thing that the enemy tempts you with? And if you choose to walk down that road, it could cost you everything. Now, let me be very clear. By the gospel of Jesus Christ, we are not talking about your eternity. That your eternity is sealed the day that you surround. render your life to the Lordship of Jesus Christ because salvation is a gift not earned by you, but purchased by Christ at the cross. And so it's already been paid for, and there's a no-return policy.

But there's a whole lot hanging in the balance for the rest of our lives. I mean, some of us are trading intimacy with your spouse for pictures on your phone. And again, in this moment in church, maybe it doesn't seem so tempting, but when you walk in, man, you get all that you feel exhausted, and you begin to tell yourself all these reasons why you deserve this, and you have your phone in your pocket, and your real-life wife is in the bedroom next door. And in that moment, you have a choice to make. Or for some, it's an affair. It's an affair. You see, you know, he doesn't pay much attention to you, and he gives all of his energy to work, but your boss at work, he pays attention to you, and he values you. And again, maybe

you haven't made that decision yet, but you know, you're standing in the mirror and you're getting ready for work, and you ain't thinking of your husband, you're thinking of that other guy. I'm just telling you, it's Stu. And some of you're like, well, I'm not married. Well, listen, darling, some of you, he's literally named Stu. Quit texting him. He's an idiot. He's going to ruin your life. Or for some, man, it's... Look, you started taking those pills and it was legit. Your back was hurt. It helped you get through.

But now you know you were well beyond the prescription and it, what you thought you had control of it. But now you know, you know it's getting control of you. Or some of you are walking into freedom purchased for you by Christ. And so you can drink with the best of them, but you know, you know, you know. It's too much. It's too often. it's too far. And you're looking for peace in a pipe or you're looking for peace in a bottle

and at the end of everyone it's empty and you feel that way too. And a whole lot hangs in the balance. Now here's the crazy thing about Stu. In this situation, Stu isn't sin. See, and the churches I was around in Dillon, South Carolina, anytime we talked about sin, there was only a couple of categories. It was sex, drugs, and rock and roll, and there are subsidiaries. That was it.

If we just avoided that, we were fine. The book of Hebrews, chapter 12, says this. Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles and let us run the race marked out for us. You see, sometimes the enemy is so crafty that he puts that stew in front of us, and it's not one of the big bad s words. Like, I'll give you one.

What can be stew in my life is the applause. of man. The applause of man. We are, we are living in a world that it will become increasingly more difficult to stay faithful to preach this book. And every single week I have a decision to make. Am I now trying to please man or God? Whether it grows the church or not, whether I mean, you guys are so awesome. You send me such nice emails. And every time I say something like this, I got about a thousand emails.

I'm like, you got to send them. I'm not saying don't send them. Encourage. But we live in a world where if you tell the truth of the scripture, it could be counted as hate speech and that kind of thing. And I have a decision to make every single week. Am I going to preach what's popular or be obedient to the Word of God? I'll tell you, I tell you where God opened my eyes this.

Have you been to your 20-year high school reunion? that's a dozy isn't it I remember walking in that thing that's why they have to put they give you name tags with your name oh you younger folks

listen they give you a name tag and they have to put your picture on it because you cannot recognize the people that you went in high school with

you'd be like hey what's it oh goodness and here's what I think too you walk in and you're like why did everybody get so fat and bald

what happened to these people and you look at these fat old people and listen And here's what I thought. I felt like my life, all that mattered in those days is what these people were not just fat and old, what they thought. Look around.

These are all the same people. Ten years from now, I mean, I'm just going to tell you, man. And so it could be the applause of man. Honestly, Stufer, you could be security, safety. Instead of stepping out to be obedient, what God has called you to do, you leverage everything that God has given you to just try to keep yourself in a bubble and stay as safe as you can. It could be money.

It could be money. And again, you don't even get good stuff with it. You just keep piling it up and piling it up and piling it up. And you log on to a website and you were looking for a number to give you a certain feeling of peace inside. And it just won't. It's stew. It is stew and you're being tricked. For some folks, it's stuff.

For some folks, it's, honest, it's entertainment. But the reality is that every single one of us on a daily basis has an enemy that wants to still kill and destroy us, wants to seduce us, wants to trick us, and just puts a pot of stew in front of us. The key question is simply this. What is your stew? I say this all the time.

I never hear anybody any minute, but here's the crazy thing about temptation. It's tempting. It's tempting. And it doesn't mean that you're some kind of super Christian if you act like nothing tempts you. That one of the key steps is to just be honest about it. It's to be able to say, look, I know I shouldn't. I know I shouldn't.

I've been a Christian for a long time. And I know Jesus is enough. And I know the gospel saves me. And I know my identity's in Christ. But if I'm being honest, I still like someone else to do. Paul said it in Romans 7. he said, what's wrong with me? What is wrong with me?

I can tell you what's wrong with you. You're a human being. In the Prophets Priest and King series, remember? Remember, we heard that David was anointed king, but there was a time before he was appointed king, and everything in between was a battle. I'm sorry I didn't realize that during the series. I just realized that during this sermon, okay?

So give me a right? And then I thought, what if this is a picture of what Christ has done for us? When you meet Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you are appointed a co-air with him, or you are anointed as a co-air with him, but you're not appointed as a co-er with him until that day when we're glorified. And everything in between is a battle. A battle against flesh and a battle against that enemy that wants to steal, kill, and destroy what's your stute. And let me tell you, you got to have somebody in your life that you can talk openly and honestly with about what that stute is.

I think there's something significant in the scriptures about the fact that it says it is red lentil stew. It doesn't just say some random soup. It is very specific. And oftentimes the thing that gets us over and over and over is we have this feeling like I've been a Christian for a long time. If I raised my hand in my disciple group and was honest about what the stew is in my life,

they might kick me out. Let me tell you what would actually happen if somebody would be honest. somebody else within the group would be like, oh, thank God. You too? I can remember, man, one of the first disciple groups I was ever in. We say, hey, how can we pray for everybody? What you're struggling with?

And everybody was so fake. I mean, if it goes around, you know, I just struggle with perfectionism. I try too hard and I love too much. Oh, bless you. Next, unspoken. How about you? My man in the group goes, lust. I was like, your wife's like, just lust.

Then we all went, can we go again? We need to go again. We didn't. We got to go again. Verse 34, then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew, and he ate, and he drank, and he rose, and he went his way. And how long did it last? See, here's the thing about the temporary desires of our heart is that when we try to meet the insatiable longing of our soul with the temporary things of this world, they just won't satisfy.

They just won't satisfy. Look, man, I was on vacation this week. You know what you're doing on vacation? You sit at the table and eat talking about where you're going to eat next. Don't you do that? And then when you get done, you're like, I'm not going to eat for the rest of the day. Oh, my gosh. At dinner, what you doing?

Put on yoga pants. I'm in, man. I'm in. Stretching these puppies out. It's just true, man. The crazy thing is, the more you feel. the more the appetite grows. Here's how long it satisfied Esau, and thus

Esau despised his birthright. Everything changes in his life. For the rest of the book of Genesis, and for the rest of human history, everything changes in regards to Esau's life. Do you know what hangs on the balance for you? Do you know what's on the line for you if you go for the stew, whether it's lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh,

or the pride of life? Here's what's crazy. You have no idea. You have no idea. You see, here's the thing about the gospel. The gospel does not free us to sin. The gospel frees us from sin. And that if we are not warring against sin in our life,

I'm telling you it will war against you. If we are not killing the sin in our life by the power of the blood of Jesus, it will kill you. And it is very important to identify what the stew is. I just want you to know, I don't want to go for the stew. And so I've invited a bunch of people in my life to say this is what it is. Because listen, I think God has given me some glimpse of what hangs in the balance for me. I'm not even thinking about y'all first.

I'm thinking about my wife. The Bible says, he who finds a wife finds what is good. I found a good one. I go for the stew one time, and it's different, man. It's fractured. I'm thinking of them old babies God gave me JP and Reagan

I can't imagine having to sit in front of them and say my appetite was too big I took my eyes off of what Jesus had for me and our family for the stew I think about this church

the fact that I get to do this with you is a gift from God and how many pastors have gone for the stew. So I tell you, man, I've got rules about the rules about the rules. I tell you this, when it comes to monies and honeies, I have elders in my life, they get my tax return, they look at my calendar,

I've got these, man, like you've heard me say this. I don't do meetings along with females, I don't travel alone, I don't go anywhere. If me and some girl on staff have a meeting across town with somebody else, they get in their car, I get in my car, we go. And listen, people get in trouble for this. these days. Well, that's not very fair. I could give two craps about fair. You understand? Seems kind of expensive, isn't it? You know what else is? Divorce. Okay? Yeah, I've had, I mean, whatever, man, I don't care. Call me crazy. I'll tell me. I'll be crazy. I don't want normal.

Normal in our world. It's broke, divorce, depressed, lonely. You can have that. I want God's birthright for me. And if I am in Christ, then I am a co-air with him. And so, I've been praying and praying and praying that you would not go for the stew. And it's going to be in front of us tomorrow, tonight. But let me tell you what I'm not saying. This is not a try harder message. This is not God is good. You're bad.

Try harder. How dare you go for it? No. The reality is this is then when we can confess and be honest and say with our stew stained faces, what a wretched man am I. there are still things in my life that I'm drawn to, and we need each other as the body of Christ to help us stay focused on Jesus. You see, here's the point, man, here's the point.

The only thing that can fully and finally satisfy the insatiable appetites of the human soul is the everlasting God that created it, and His name is Jesus. That's it. That's our only hope. You see, I read to you before Hebrews, therefore since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and sin, which clings so closely. and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. In other words, how do we not go for the stew?

Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfector of our faith. You know, I mentioned to you, focalism. That can work in the positive also. That we can get our focus on Jesus, the founder and the perfector of our faith, and not look at him and say, aren't you proud of me because I didn't do those bad things, but look at him and say, I am in need of you, I am desperate for you because without you, I think I'm going to go down the wrong road.

And how do you do it? James says this. The book of James says, you've got to get it out in the open. You got to talk about it out loud with people. James says in James chapter 5, is anyone among you sick? Is anyone among you exhausted? Is anyone among us notice that right now in your life, because you're physically or spiritually or emotionally,

exhausted, that the stews are starting to smell a whole lot sweeter. And things that you said, I would never do that or I would never do that again. Lately, it seems like the offer is looking more and more enticing. James says, anybody like that? Let him call for the elders of the church and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. and the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up.

And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sin. I think you have to name it specifically. Confess your sin to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed. A couple few times a year we do this here at our church. We do this for one reason, because I know we got sick people. and that's physically, mentally, emotionally, specifically I'm talking right now

about those that are exhausted that you're like Esau. Mentally, emotionally, relationally, spiritually, physically, exhausted, and the enemy is laying some things before you and he wants you to go for the temporary at the expense of God's purpose and plan for you. And just because the book says it,

if there's anybody in that category, then we're going to do what the Bible says. In just a second, we've got a bunch of anointers, okay? And if you're Baptist and you're new, just relax. It's in the Bible. I checked, okay? And if you're charismatic, we ain't going to go crazy. In just a second, we'll have everybody stand up.

We're going to sing a song that I think we've only sung one time here called Fear is a Liar. And if you, if you, because of this exhaustion, because maybe like Esau, you find yourself in this place where you're having an identity crisis. if you have taken your eyes off of Jesus and you're stumbling around in sin and you're entangled with the things of this world and right now you feel like I need help

that's who the invitation is for and we're going to invite you to come and we're going to invite you to confess your sins to confess your temptation. Just say it out loud my stew is lust pride, pornography, an affair, a drug addiction.

My stew is, my own comfort, fear, whatever that thing is. And we're going to pray. We're going to lay hands on you. And we're going to be praying the same thing the apostle Paul was praying over young Timothy. Look here, son and daughter of the Most High King. God has not given you a spirit of fear,

but of power and of love and of self-control. Would you please stand at all of our locations with my anointers come forward. And as I begin to pray at all of our locations, as I begin to pray, you don't even have to wait, as I begin to pray, if you need to come and confess and to be prayed for that I want you to come right now. I want you to come. Our good and gracious Heavenly Father, God, we love you more than anything because you first loved us. And God, I thank you that at the cross, the performing and the pretending are over. that Jesus, you died on the cross for us to demonstrate your love and to forgive us from our sin

because you knew that we would be tempted and you knew that in our flesh we would struggle and fail and fall. And the cross bids us to not pretend and that the performance is over because of your perfect performance on the cross. God, I pray for every man, I pray for every woman, I pray for every student that the stew seems so tempting. God, would you give us a spirit of sound mind, of self-discipline, of self-control, of self-control that we could choose you and not the temporary things of this world? We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen. If you need prayer, won't you come?