“Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord. 15 See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled; 16 that there be no immoral or godless person like Esau, who sold his own birthright for a single meal. 17 For you know that even afterwards, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought for it with tears.” NASB
“When the boys grew up, Esau became a skillful hunter, a man of the field; but Jacob was a peaceful man, living in tents. Now Isaac loved Esau, because he had a taste for game; but Rebekah loved Jacob. And when Jacob had cooked stew, Esau came in from the field and he was famished; and Esau said to Jacob, ‘Please let me have a swallow of that red stuff there, for I am famished.’ Therefore his name was called Edom. But Jacob said, ‘First sell me your birthright.’ And Esau said, ‘Behold, I am about to die; so of what use then is the birthright to me?’ And Jacob said, ‘First swear to me’; so he swore to him, and sold his birthright to Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew; and he ate and drank and rose and went on his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright.” Gen 25:27-34
Someone has said about the book of Genesis, that it is “full of the seeds of things”. It is a book of beginnings; some good and some bad. And as we read through it what we find is the planting of the seedlings of history, of the church, of the moral and spiritual truths that men either foolishly ignore, to their destruction, or wisely follow, to their salvation.
It is an illustrative book; by that I mean the accounts of the men and woman as recorded for us there are living illustrations of the doctrinal and spiritual truths revealed to us in the New Testament, by which we are exhorted to order our lives.
For example, in second Corinthians 5, in the context of exhorting the believer, while looking forward to being at home with the Lord, to be mindful that it is also important to try to be pleasing to Him while here in the flesh, Paul interjects the statement, “…for we walk by faith, not by sight…”
Going back to Genesis then we find, not those words, but the acting out of an historical event that sets forth the value and virtue of walking by faith rather than by sight.
Let’s join Jacob and Esau in the kitchen tent now, and make some observations about this fateful day.
THE COOK VS THE HUNTER
Now we’re not going to spend too much time focusing on Jacob today. We know Jacob was a schemer. His name meant ‘one who supplants’. And I have a suspicion that it wasn’t just coincidence that he was preparing this lentil stew at about the time his brother would come back hungry from the hunt.
It was in his nature to scheme. And schemers are selfish people, who spend a great deal of their time scheming; thinking of themselves, planning the next move that will extract something they want from someone… benefit them in some way.
Jacob was cooking up something more than lentil soup that day, and the result of his scheming would set the course of his future.
Now before we shift our focus to Esau, I want to point out that although Jacob recognized the importance of the birthright, his methods were in no way commendable; he too was guilty of faithlessness in his pursuit of first place.
True, it was in God’s plan that he would be first. He had announced that to Rebekah back in verse 23. But if Jacob had paid attention to the history of his own grandfather, Abraham, he might have understood that going out ahead of God and trying to acquire His blessings by our own strength and methods can only lead to disaster.
God promised Abraham a son who would be his heir and through whom the nations would be blessed, and Abraham thought he would help God out a little by going in to Hagar. The ultimate result was the Arab nations, who continue to despise God’s chosen people to this very day.
Jacob had the promise of God that he, the younger, would be served by Esau, the elder. But unwilling to wait, and unwisely ignoring the example of his forefathers, he chose to walk by sight rather than by faith, and spent the coming years living in fear and in exile.
How often, Christians, do we miss the blessings that God wants to pour out on us, and even invite evil and unnecessary suffering into our lives, simply because we are unwilling to wait? Unwilling to pray and place ourselves and our circumstances in His hands, and just wait..?
Faith, by definition, demands patience. And lack of patience with God is lack of faith, is disobedience; is unbelief.
“’For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways’, declares the Lord.” (Isa 55:8)
And we all prove that statement true on a daily basis. Because His thoughts and ways are high and holy, and our thoughts and ways are base and evil. The separation is infinite.
“And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.” (Heb 11:6)
Not scheme, not plot, not work, not strive in futility, but seek Him.
So in walks the hunter. The only real difference between him and Jacob is that he is not as clever as his homemaker brother. He smells the stew, his stomach growls, and so he growls back.
The present is all that matters. His mind has already forgotten the hunt, and there is no place in his head for how he’ll spend his evening; much less his distant future.
He doesn’t even know what he’s asking for! “Please give me a swallow of that red stuff…”
Reminds me of my German Shepherd.
It didn’t matter if he’d just finished eating his dog food. I could walk out back with half a hot dog in my hand, or a chunk of pork or a bit of cheese or a chicken neck, toss it in the air, and it was in his mouth and down his gullet in a heartbeat. I’m not sure he even tasted it. Didn’t matter to him; he existed to consume.
Then comes Jacob’s request; one that should have sounded absurd to Esau. Trade my birthright for one meal? In half an hour I’ll be hungry again. What is a bowl of soup compared to my inheritance? What is anything, for that matter, that passes away, compared to the promise from God’s own mouth?
The natural heart of man cannot comprehend the things of God. It places no value whatsoever on God or His promises, or His warnings. It can only think of and desire what is before it right now.
“Behold, I am about to die; so of what use then is the birthright to me?”
Do you think he was really about to die? Of course not! He was hungry.
One of my dad’s favorite jokes, and one that he still thought funny long after everyone around him was sick of hearing it, was to respond to someone who complained of being hungry with, “Hello Hungry, I’m Robert”
Finally one day as my dad’s congregation gathered for a pot luck, one of the men mentioned being hungry, and when my dad popped out the obligatory “Hi Hungry, I’m Robert”, the man, without pause or blink, answered back, “I’d rather be hungry; I can do something about that”.
Esau could do something about his hunger. He was a hunter for crying out loud! Where was the day’s catch? When Jacob said, “First sell me your birthright”, why didn’t Esau laugh in his face, grab a chunk of bread off the cutting board, and say ‘now dish me up some soup or I’ll squeeze your little pencil neck for being ridiculous’?
“Hey, friend, promise me that when you retire you’ll give me your pension each month, and I’ll give you this fast food burger in my hand.” Do you hear how absurd that is?
But Esau wasn’t alone. Not by far! Because his heart was no different than every man woman and child without Christ. He was in good company.
Esau despised his birthright. Israel despised the promised land (Ps 106:24). They despised Christ (Zech 11:13). Those invited to the wedding despised the invitation (Matt 22:5.)
And in each case the loss was great. No, the natural mind cannot begin to assess the value of the things of God. A bowl of soup is greater than a right of citizenship in glory, simply by virtue of its ready availability and its olfactory appeal.
“He ate and drank and rose and went on his way”. Simple as that. And this is the attitude and method in which Esau despised his birthright.
He ate and drank and rose and went on his way. Does that bring any other passages of scripture to your mind?
Exodus 32:6 “So the next day they rose early and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play.”
They worshiped a golden calf, while Moses was on the Mountain receiving blessing for them from God. And it was only the Christ-like intercession by Moses that stayed God’s hand from destroying them.
John 6:27 “Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man shall give to you, for on Him the Father, even God, has set His seal.”
Jesus is talking to the people He had fed miraculously on the previous day, with only a few loaves and fishes. They had followed Him to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, not for Himself, but for more food. They were hungry again and they saw Him as their new gravy train.
The Bible has much to say about the flesh vs. the spirit, the temporal vs. the eternal, the necessity of putting the birthright of the believer before the passing pleasures of this world.
Because the very thing that should be manifest in the believer’s life, setting him distinctly apart from the unbeliever, is an absolute flip flop in priorities. The believer, who while in this world is no longer of this world, should no longer be satisfied with nor strongly emphasizing in his life and pursuits, the things that pass away.
“Food is for the stomach, and the stomach is for food; but God will do away with both of them” said Paul in I Corinthians 6:13. “Yet the body is not for immorality, but for the Lord; and the Lord is for the body.”
The fallen man has nothing else. So he eats and drinks to maintain his physical strength, so he can then rise up to go after what pleases his animal lusts.
The Christian should be precisely the opposite of this; so much that it is obvious to all around him. People, we should be so distinct and different from the world, that they either admire us, or want to kill us. It is to our shame that we are so widely accepted in Sodom.
Now by that I am not saying that we should walk around like Pharisees, being careful not to touch, taste or feel, and looking down our noses at those who don’t think, eat, dress, sing, talk and walk like we do.
I’m talking about a life’s focus and desire that is Godly and seeking to serve God, that demonstrates a reversal of the effects of the Fall and sets our priorities back in order.
“Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled;”
This is calling for thinking that is driven by the Spirit, not the stomach. The worldly person cannot obey this and has no desire to. The peace they seek is a self-serving peace at best – the grace of God they cannot know – and only a very short-sighted individual can miss that our society and all societies are saturated with a bitterness that is always just under the surface ready to blow at the slightest provocation; and by it the many are defiled.
REMORSE VS REPENTANCE
I want you to go with me for a moment to Gen 27:30-38, and let’s witness Esau’s response as the reality of what he has done strikes home.
“Now it came about, as soon as Isaac had finished blessing Jacob, and Jacob had hardly gone out from the presence of Isaac his father, that Esau his brother came in from his hunting. Then he also made savory food, and brought it to his father;” (oh, what do you know…he could cook after all!) “…and he said to his father, ‘Let my father arise, and eat of his son’s game, that you may bless me.’ And Isaac his father said to him, ‘Who are you?’ And he said, ‘I am your son, your first-born, Esau.’ Then Isaac trembled violently, and said, ‘Who was he then that hunted game and brought it to me, so that I ate of all of it before you came, and blessed him? Yes, and he shall be blessed.’ When Esau heard the words of his father, he cried out with an exceedingly great and bitter cry, and said to his father, ‘Bless me, even me also, O my father!’ And he said, ‘Your brother came deceitfully, and has taken away your blessing.’ Then he said, ‘Is he not rightly named Jacob, for he has supplanted me these two times? He took away my birthright, and behold, now he has taken away my blessing.’ And he said, ‘Have you not reserved a blessing for me?’ But Isaac answered and said to Esau, ‘Behold, I have made him your master, and all his relatives I have given to him as servants; and with grain and new wine I have sustained him. Now as for you then, what can I do, my son?’ And Esau said to his father, ‘Do you have only one blessing my father? Bless me, even also, O my father.’ So Esau lifted his voice and wept.”
And the Holy Spirit reveals to us in Hebrews 12:17, “For you know that even afterwards, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought for it with tears.”
Here is a warning, not only for the unbeliever but for professing Christians also, be very careful not to despise the blessings and promises of God. Because the day will come when you will see the consequences begin to manifest themselves, and if your heart and conscience have been hardened by sustained practice of sin, you may find yourself in bitter remorse, yet not be able to find repentance, and what a horrible place that must be.
Did you hear the evidence of his lack of repentance in the account we read?
‘He took away my birthright, and behold, now he has taken away my blessing.’
Did he indeed, Esau? Or did you glibly toss it aside for a bowl of soup that has long since passed through your body and is gone?
And we didn’t read through to verse 41 of chapter 27, but it says, “So Esau bore a grudge against Jacob because of the blessing with which his father had blessed him;” and it says he made plans to kill Jacob as soon as Isaac was out of the picture.
These are not the thoughts of a repentant. We should take this as a very serious and solemn warning, Christian; to cling to the dictates of scripture, to put off the old man daily and put on the new. To let ourselves be transformed by the renewing of our mind, and walk, not as those without Christ, but as those made new in the image of God.
Our text says that we are to pursue sanctification. It’s not something we’re to stand by and let happen to us – let God do to us – like an obedient dog being bathed by his master. Not that He isn’t doing His own sanctifying work in us; but He says also to pursue it. Without it no man will see God! Isn’t that incentive enough? Sure, we believe in salvation by God’s grace and doing alone and at that time he sanctifies us; sets us apart for Himself. But then He calls us to pursue sanctification. Pursue spiritual purity. This glorifies God and brings peace between man and God and man and man.
Jesus said it most simply and clearly when He said that if any man would be His follower, he must die daily to self, crucify himself to the world and so follow.
The Bible talks a lot about death and dying, and what we must come to understand is that it is our only vanguard against the power of the old nature. If we refuse to die to it, and cling to the things of it, it will win every time.
We are called to look to eternity, and that can only be seen by the spiritual eye.
TEMPORAL VS ETERNAL
“But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up. Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, on account of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with intense heat! But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.” II Pet 3:10-13
This is the way the mind of God judges things. That which is passing deserves no notice; that which is eternal is what should occupy our minds constantly.
Think about it Christian. If we were so absorbed in the things of Christ and eternity that they were on our mind constantly, that they colored and controlled our walk through every day, every waking moment, how different our lives would be!
Am I being ridiculous? No, I’m not. Was Jesus ridiculous?
“For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost” Lk 19:10
“And there are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they were written in detail, I suppose that even the world itself would not contain the books which were written.” John 21:25
“You know of Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power, and how He went about doing good, and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.” Acts 10:38
Well, that was Jesus. No regular person could live that way. Oh yeah?
Is the life of Paul any different? No. His Christ and the work of the Kingdom consumed him.
In 1929 Lloyd C. Douglas wrote a book titled, “Magnificent Obsession”. It’s a story about a neurosurgeon named Bobby Merrick, who is given the secret journal of his mentor that contains the magic formula for success. The journal is written in code, which is finally solved by the young neurosurgeon.
He learns of a "particular investment of himself as a high altruism."
Dr. Merrick, goes the story, finds that personal fulfillment is best achieved by providing secret service for others. He experiences the joy of doing wonderful things for people in need.
The plot is reminiscent of the movie, “Pay It Forward”.
It’s a lovely idea, creating a utopia by starting a virtual epidemic of good deeds, passed from one to the other until an entire society is caught up in the fever of doing good.
However if those who would pursue that cause understood the nature of sin, they would know that such an endeavor will never spread far, nor last long.
But when I think of Paul I think of that term ’Magnificent Obsession’, because following his conversion on the road to Damascus, this became the definition of his life.
And I have to say something to you today that convicts my heart as I hope it will convict yours.
The only thing holding any one of us back from living a life consumed by Christ is our own choice.
The only thing that blocks today’s Christian from being driven by the same ‘magnificent obsession’ that has driven the great saints of the ages, is the choice we make daily to go just so far and stop there. The Psalmist said the Lord directs our steps, but we keep deciding how many steps we’ll take.
Listen to Paul’s exhortation to the Philippians, and remember that every word of scripture is written to you and me:
“Brethren, join in following my example, and observe those who walk according to the pattern you have in us. For many walk, of whom I often told you, and now tell you even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose god is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things. For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.” Phil 3:17-21
When I was going through Bible College there was a young man in our church who marched to a different drum. He had great musical talent and a wonderful singing voice, and if you couldn’t find him it was because he was off somewhere in prayer. He had no people skills. He didn’t talk much and seemed to have difficulty engaging in conversation. But he was a prayer warrior.
Someone watching him through a window, walking across the church parking lot one day, shook their head and said, “Poor Kevin. He’s so heavenly minded he’s no earthly good”.
I didn’t respond, I had to go away and contemplate that. But today I would tell that person that quite to the contrary, the more heavenly minded we are, the more earthly good we will be.
Because the more focused we are on eternity and the things yet unseen, the more obsessed we will become with bringing our present world to Christ. I know, because that’s the example set for us by Paul and others.
Esau saw only the present, and lost the eternal.
Do people do that today? Sure. They always have. They sell salvation for soup. I mean, they reject the eternal for the temporal. They scoff at what is not seen and idolize what they can experience with their senses; deny what is promised and lustily pursue the creature comforts within their grasp.
Jacob eventually looked to the unseen future, and from his loins came the Christ.
“”Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.” II Cor 4:16-18
May the Lord give each one of us clearness of vision through our spiritual eyes, to look at the things that are eternal, and imbue each one of us with a magnificent obsession to be consumed by our Christ for His glory.
Our society needs to be turned upside down once more. This is no longer a debatable issue. Even 2 or 3 decades ago the majority would have said, ‘no, there is still hope’ but I don’t think many are saying that any more.
They all know we are in desperate need of help, they just don’t know that it is Christ they need so they look for it in the wrong people, the wrong methods, temporary fixes according to the false wisdom of fallen men.
Is it Christian influence they need? No. They need Christ Himself, giving new life, changing hearts, healing souls. But so do you and I, fellow Christ-follower.
Keep pursuing peace with men by introducing them to the One who has brought you peace with God. Pursue sanctification for it is the God-wrought condition of all who will gather at His Throne.
Turn your desires from the passing pleasures of sin and the trappings of the world and cling fast to Christ and the salvation He brings.
Know God’s grace and to His glory walk in it with rejoicing until He calls you home.
