How Can We Avoid The Tragic Mistake Of Esau?

I know a lot of interesting people who I enjoy being with.

But I'm not saying this to flatter.

Good morning.

I'm telling you the truth.

Colin is one of those people that he and I could not be more different.

But, and some people, a lot of y'all, I'm very different from you, but that bugs the snot out of me.

Our differences.

The differences that between Colin and me, God uses to help me understand facets of who God is more and more.

And I'm so grateful for you, Colin, and for your ministry in this church and your ministry to me personally and to our community.

And I I hope that God is, I pray that God is going to bless this ministry and that some of the people in our church that might not want to do things, kingdom things that I am passionate about.

And they're going, man, I wish there was something that I could do that I'm passionate about, skilled, related to, in the world of art.

And this could very well be a door through which God wants you to walk so that you can impact others in real and lasting ways, especially children in some inner city neighborhoods.

And so Lord blessings on your endeavors, Colin, no kidding.

And speaking of art, you know what I wish?

I wish that our worship team enjoyed playing together.

Yes, I do too.

Wouldn't it be nice if they actually enjoyed themselves while they played?

Yes, yes.

Y'all are great and fun to watch and fun to sing with.

Thanks.

But I just want to declare to you today, as one of your brothers in Christ, God answers prayer.

God answers prayer.

And if you are struggling to believe that, or you might have given up thinking that it does not work, I'm just telling you.

Or if you're in a place where you're having to wait.

Yes, or yes, you're in a place where you thank you.

God answers prayer.

And I'm going to explain that to you in more in some very practical ways the first Sunday of December.

But I just wanted you to know today that God answers prayer.

We're going to talk today about a little theme that I have discovered running through the Bible that I had never seen before.

And as you have learned, if you come to this church regularly, I think that you go, you know, I want to know God, I want to know the Bible.

Where do I begin?

What do I, how do I, how do I do that biblically?

And I think one of the most important skills that you and I can ever discover and practice is the skill of not just reading the Bible or studying the Bible, but reading the Bible and discovering in the Bible things that are so important to God that you find them repeatedly popping up from Genesis to Revelation.

In fact, I would be so bold as to say that if I don't see things repeatedly popping up from Genesis to Revelation, I don't give that much time.

The things that God wants me to focus on, and I'm going to declare the things that God wants you to focus on, are the things that are so important to him that he strategically places them in the Bible regularly and abundantly throughout the scriptures.

And we're going to look at one of those today.

Not very many of you know my rearing or upbringing or background as a child and as a teenager, but I one of my weaknesses growing up, and I still struggle with it, is the weakness of being rash.

Rash and thoughtless.

And what I mean by thoughtless, I grew up and have spent my life struggling with before I say or do something, putting thought into it.

Is that a wise thing to do?

Before, now I'll go back and evaluate it after the fact, but it's already done, it's already said.

I'm talking about before I say things, before I do things, to develop the skill of waiting a minute, stopping and thinking and evaluating.

My wife would declare that for me or about me.

By example, and literally I could give you a list of a how how long do you have?

By example, when I was a youth pastor 40 years ago, um my kid, I had about 125 teenagers in my youth group, and they loved on Friday and Saturday night to come and roll my yard.

I cannot believe you're going to tell this story.

Just one example of a million.

They loved about, you know, we we get in, I love to get in bed at 8 o'clock, and so 10 o'clock, 11 o'clock, midnight, they would come sneaking over.

Shh, shh, don't wake them up, you know, and you could hear them out there.

And they would roll by our yard, and they just thought that was so funny.

And then on Sunday I would scold them, and then, you know, it was just a deal we did, and we had they loved it, I loved it.

And I would set booby traps for them with a sprinkler or with a siren or lights so that when they would get right in the act, something would happen.

Well, one night, I cannot believe it.

Beside my wife, and I hear them out there.

Why?

Why?

That's the very thing I didn't ask.

Um, I'd run in my closet, get my shotgun, and I run out in the front yard.

Well, there's there's a hundred of them all over the yard, rolling the trees and all the trucks everywhere.

Trucks everywhere.

Yeah, everybody in South Haven had a truck, you know.

So um uh we had this huge, speaking of oak trees, somebody said oak trees, there was this huge oak tree in our front yard.

So I run out there's pitch black dark, and I take my shotgun and I go, and I just hold it like this, and I go, wham, and shoot up into this oak tree just to scare them.

Well, who got scared wasn't them.

Because the next thing I hear is limbs start breaking.

And uh and I hear a thud under this tree.

Jack Brooks was up in the tree.

Jack Brooks was Jack Brooks.

Um a boy in my youth group had climbed up in that tree to to rap it or do something, and I shot him right out of that tree.

And it's funny now.

But buddy, that night I thought, oh my gosh, I'm gonna go to jail for the rest of my life.

Because I can't.

And so finally, I said, I recognize the voice and I said, Jack, are you okay?

And he goes, Well, I'm alive.

Well, thankfully, I didn't hit him.

I just scared him and scared him out of that tree.

Those of you that have any sense are going, didn't you, you know, wouldn't you have thought through that?

Wouldn't you have thought ahead?

Wouldn't you have evaluated is that a wise thing to do?

Of course not.

No.

And that has, and I like I said, I could give you I'm inside going, what are you doing?

What are you doing?

Like I said, I shot Jack Brooks right out of the middle tree.

You know, so anyway, I saw a situation, and I took the opportunity to do something that I thought would be funny.

Something rash, something impulsive, something selfish, something foolish.

Selfish being that it, if I'd spent the rest of my life in jail, that'd have been the most selfish thing I could have done to her.

I just, it was, it was, and I regret it.

It's funny now, 40 years later, but if I had hurt him, uh uh, you know how much I would have regretted that.

We live in a world full of people that do similar things.

Rash, thoughtless, impulsive things, and they are things that wind up being very costly.

People say and do things that wind up costing them elections, that start wars, that end marriages, destroy families, get yourself fired from a good job.

People do things that wind up causing them to lose the wealth that they once had accumulated and worked hard for, and that their family counted on, and then it's gone.

Things that cause people to lose their freedom.

Sometimes even lose their lives.

Rash, thoughtless, impulsive acts and words.

Um it can be funny.

Uh how many country songs were written about rash and impulsive words and songs?

I wound up marrying a woman that I didn't even know her name, right?

Uh uh, yeah.

Um if you ever watch Cops or PD Live or any of these shows or ridiculousness, that's why those shows exist.

They are shows about people doing things that they didn't think about first.

Um the Bible starts off that way, doesn't it?

Very first story in the Bible.

You have two people that are given the universe on a silver platter.

Um they saw something, and without thinking, they took it.

And when they saw it and they took it, they lost their dream world because they saw and they took without thinking first.

And the Bible has this theme running continually from beginning to end, as I said.

This idea of seeing and taking, and it results in incredible loss, incredible cost, incredible pain, incredible regret.

As I said, this idea of seeing and taking, it runs through the Bible and it always is associated.

That little phrase, he or she or they saw and they took, or they see and they take.

I I was amazed as I began to do a study on this.

I mean, you could arguably say it's the story of the Bible.

And it always is associated, where you see this little phrase, seeing and taking, or saw and took, it's always associated with rash, thoughtless, impulsive actions and words, and it always ends terribly.

Cain and Abel.

Cain saw literally in the Hebrew language, this is what it says.

Cain saw that God had blessed his brother's offering, so he took his brother's life.

Next chapter.

The sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they took them.

Lot, he saw that this land was the best land, and he took it.

Sarah, Abraham's wife, she saw that she could not have children, so she took Hagar and gave her to her husband Abraham.

Esau, he saw the stew that his brother had made, and he was famished, and so he took it.

Rebekah, um, Esau's mom, Isaac's wife, um, Abraham's daughter-in-law, uh, Rebekah saw that Esau was gonna get Isaac's blessing, and so she took Jacob and created a deception.

Um, Rachel and Leah, I think they're mentioned in about four chapters, and it's just chock full of examples of where each of these wives saw that the other wife was getting a better deal, and they took different things to try to get an edge.

They saw and they took.

Jacob's sons saw that Joseph was the favorite of their dad, so they took him and threw him in a pit and then sold him into Egypt, into slavery.

Aaron saw when Moses was up on the mountain.

Aaron saw that the people were out of control.

So he took some gold and he made a golden calf for the people to worship.

And I could go on and on and on with Achan.

He saw some gold and silver in a pretty robe and he took it.

Samson, his whole life.

He did nothing but see and take, see and take, whether it was a donkey's jar, uh jaw or some honey or a Philistine woman, but he he continually saw and took David.

He saw that Bathsheba was beautiful and he took her.

And I could go, I could literally, the list is endless of this idea that people saw things and they let their eyes drive their decisions to take rather than stopping and thinking and evaluating before they acted.

I didn't think about it until just hearing you give that litany of examples, how our cultures and civilizations have been birthed from that very thing.

I mean, it's deep in us, right?

Not only from our heritage, our biblical heritage, but just from our history.

That, you know, a culture or a group or civilization or pre-civilization would come and say, Well, we'll just take that, you know.

So it's Yes, it's it's in us.

The the and I'm there's some bad juju going on with Russia and with Ukraine.

And so don't hear me getting into a big political whatever side you fall on that, I probably agree with you.

Okay, so don't get all nervous.

But Russia saw that land in Ukraine and they took it.

Without any the the individual lives and families, the children, the the cost of seeing and taking, with no consideration of cost and impact and long-term results.

Paul says in First Corinthians chapter 10, these things, these things being the actions of the people that fill the Old Testament, these things occurred as examples to you to keep you from setting your heart on evil things and ruining your lives.

1 Corinthians 10 · chapter mention

We're supposed to read about these people's lives and put ourselves in their situations and go, wow, I need to avoid that, or wow, I am like that.

Help me stop being like that.

And it all goes back to this idea in the Bible of being a rash person.

And I am a rash person.

This is a battle for me, it's a problem for me, it's a besetting sin for me.

A person that sees and takes without thought, without counsel, without consideration of his life, his ways, and his future.

Proverbs 12, Proverbs 18, Proverbs 20, and Proverbs 21 all declare the one who is rash will experience folly, shame, poverty, and peril.

Proverbs 29 says there's more hope for a fool than for the one that is hasty or rash in their words and deeds.

Proverbs 20 says it's a dangerous trap to make vows without inquiry or the consideration of how this will impact your life.

Hebrews 12, Paul says, Don't be like Esau, I mentioned him earlier, don't be like Esau, who rashly sold his inheritance for a bowl of soup, but later wanted this blessing, and he sought it with tears, but he could not undo what he had done.

And as I said, Samson, he spent his life.

No one was given more potential, more blessing, more opportunity than Samson.

But he spent his life rashly seeing and taking, and he ended his life in ruin and in waste.

Um I mention your daddy quite a bit just because of the impact that he had on my life.

Uh Sherry's daddy came from when I say poor beginnings, there's nobody in this room that started out any more poor than than Sherry's dad.

And uh he left uh central Mississippi without any money with his with Sherry's mama.

They moved to Memphis and he started working and uh ultimately built a very successful life, not just company, very successful company, but it wasn't just that.

Lots of knotheads build successful companies.

He built a successful life in every pick a pick a category.

He was successful in it.

And uh he and I were very close, and he would say things to me that he would not say to other people.

Some things he would kill me if I remained.

Some people don't repeat him.

I'm not repeating him.

But one of the things that he would he said to me one time that I'll never forget, he said, Larry, sorry.

Yeah, uh he said, when I was poor, I struggled with temptation, like everybody else.

But once I became really successful, and I could basically buy or do anything I wanted to do.

He said the levels of temptation became indescribable.

He said it was.

I was never tempted to fly to Las Vegas and have a wild weekend with prostitutes when I'm broke.

I was never tempted to do this or that.

He said, when you're broke, you have temptation.

But it's different when you can actually do anything you want to do.

And he said, I've battled in ways that I never battled before with staying on the right path and doing the right thing and going in the right direction.

And I asked him, I said, well, geezer, that's what everybody called him.

He said, Geezer, what did you do?

How do you stay on the right path?

How do you fight that?

And he gave me several things that he decided to do and to implement in his life to fight that temptation.

But one of the things that he, just for the sake of time, I'm just going to share one of them with you.

And that is he decided to embrace the wisdom of God and let the wisdom of God drive his life.

And one aspect of God's wisdom in particular.

And it's the aspect of being shrewd, of shrewdness.

Now, if you're not careful, you can too quickly associate shrewdness with a negative quality.

But that's not fair or true.

The quality of shrewdness is actually a good quality.

The devil was, when he became, when he took the form of a serpent, the Bible says he was shrewd, yes, in his dealings with Adam and Eve.

But at the end of the day, all shrewdness means is it's a quality that chooses to look ahead, to consider the long-term and big picture impact of what you are choosing to do.

A shrewd person considers the consequences of what they're about to say or do before they say it or before they do it.

Did you well we were just talking about this, and I I think, of course, I teach teenagers.

Um around teenagers all the time, but it's certainly not just true of them.

I think a good example of not being shrewd would be, you know, when somebody posts something online that they shouldn't, when there's a response to something happening online, and and and maybe I'm offended or maybe I wasn't invited or whatever the thing is that is online, and then I just you know post it out there and there it goes.

Without thinking, I I respond from my from my feeling rather than my wisdom.

Um and I know just so many instances where I teach all girls where a girl then becomes excluded from the group because she has posted a thing that she regrets and you can't take it back.

Um and so um I don't know, that's just what you know, a shrewd person, and you can be shrewd and young, and you can be not shrewd and old.

Yeah, age really has nothing to do with it.

That's that's a good bone.

Is that that quality of seeing something, being hurt, being angry, being offended, whatever it is, and then having enough wisdom, enough patience, pause, to stop a minute, don't respond.

It's a great definition, consider the consequence.

And your dad.

And your dad was just so good at that, I would I would be amazed, I would watch him.

And I watched him for 50 years.

I watched him, he sometimes painfully so.

He was not gonna move fast.

You couldn't make him rush.

You were he was not gonna rush, he was not gonna be rash, he was gonna choose his words, and he was gonna get counsel, and he was going to consider the long-term impact on his reputation, on his family, on his long-term goals, on the things that he wanted to impact his family with, that he values that he wanted his children to embrace, is what I'm doing now.

How is that going to impact that?

Uh, and he was just so great at that.

It's it's the quality, if you read, uh, if you study the lady in Proverbs 31, one of the qualities of that Proverbs 31 lady, she was shrewd.

She saw that winter was coming in the future, and she made coats and winter clothes for her servants and family before it came.

She looked ahead.

She considered what I do with my time today is going to impact whether my family is cozy or shivering.

Proverbs chapter 4 says, give careful thought to the paths of your feet.

Proverbs 4 · chapter mention

Be steadfast in all your ways.

Don't turn to the right or the left.

Keep your foot from evil.

Don't turn, don't get a spot out there in the future.

And her daddy did this.

He knew where he wanted to end.

In his relationship with his mom, with his wife, his relationship with his children, his relationship with his in-law children, his relationship with finances, his relationship with spiritual friendships.

He knew where he wanted to end, and he walked in that direction rather than turning to the right or the.

But this will be fun.

This will be cool.

This will be exciting.

This will be this will, whatever it is.

He did not turn to the right or the left.

He kept his eyes on where he wanted to go and where he wanted to end up in the future.

Haggai chapter 1 says, The Lord says, give careful thought to your ways, for you plant much, but you reap little.

Haggai 1 · chapter mention

You invest much, but you gain little.

The problem is you do not give careful thought to your ways.

Proverbs 27 says, the prudent man sees danger and takes refuge, but the simple keep going and pay for it.

And even the Lord Jesus warned us about this.

In Luke 14, Jesus says, if you want to build a tower, or if you want to go to war, shouldn't you first consider the cost before you begin to build or before you begin to fight?

To see if you have enough money or enough soldiers to finish the building or win the war.

For if you begin to build or fight and you can't finish or win, then everyone will see it and will ridicule you and make you a person of shame.

How often we see this in front of us every day?

People, they're successful, they're beautiful, they're smart, they're popular, they're powerful, they're given the world on a platter.

But because they will not look ahead at where they want to wind up.

And they do, in that instant, they turn to the right or they turn to the left because they're not thinking ahead, they're not counting the cost, and they wind up losing everything.

And then people do ridicule, and people do put shame on them.

My father-in-law discovered something and would say it to me often that I I've tried to remember.

Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.

Give or take.

Those last three years, the Bible says that repeatedly people begged him, stay with us a few extra days, Jesus.

Go to Jerusalem.

If you're going to be the Messiah and win the popularity of the people, you need to go to Jerusalem now for this festival, this feast.

But consistently, Jesus would not allow circumstances or others to drive his choices.

Because the Bible says that he set his eyes on what his father had told him to do, and he would not turn to the right or to the left.

He would not let friends, family, problems or pain or need or the escape of problems, pain, or need.

He would not let anything turn him to the right or the left.

He knew where he wanted to end up.

And he stayed focused on that goal and he went down that path.

And I just want to appeal to us today to think about that.

I want to be a shrewd person.

I want to be a shrewd person just selfishly for my own sake.

I want to be a shrewd person for her and for my daughter, my son-in-law, and for my grandson.

I want to be a shrewd person for you.

I want to be a person that does not rashly, impulsively, selfishly, foolishly, fleshly just go through life responding to opportunities, temptations, problems.

Just, I'm going to do what I want because I can.

Yes.

Yes, Samson.

Yes, Achan.

Yes, Adam and Eve.

Yes, Aaron.

Yes, David.

Yes, I didn't mention Moses, I don't think.

He saw that that soldier was beating that Hebrew and he took that soldier's life.

Yes.

But because we can do it doesn't mean we should do it.

God might have higher, greater, more noble plans for us, goals for us, objectives for us.

But to experience that and participate in that, we gotta find the path God wants us to walk and understand what that means and looks like.

And then stay on that path no matter what.

No matter what.

I hope that makes sense.

Make sense to you?

It does.

It does.

You've done that with your writing.

My wife has wanted to write a book since the, I guess since, well, maybe not in the sixth grade.

I don't know about the sixth grade.

But uh since since I've known her as an adult, my wife has always wanted to write a book.

And you cannot imagine how many things she has turned down or said no to or postponed or ignored because she felt like that was something that God wanted her to do.

She had a goal, and she stayed on that path, and times when people didn't understand that or annoyed by that or it irritated them, including me.

Come do something fun with me.

I'm not going to.

I can't.

I can't do what I'm supposed to do if I do that.

I don't like being told no, especially by her.

I had to get over it.

I had to be a big boy.

Okay.

To that point, a young colleague of mine who is still in his twenties, late 20s, asks me, asked me about the book.

And what he said was, why'd you wait so long?

Well, I I understand the question.

I'm probably participating why you waited so long.

You you're old.

Why'd you wait so long?

You know, um, practicing this concept, um, you might have to wait a minute, but I think everybody who does practice it would concur that it is worth the wait.

It is an appealing thing to watch a person who says, I'm just gonna have to wait, you're just gonna have to wait.

I'm not sure.

Just what do you think about that?

I don't know.

There's a great deal of strength in that.

Yes.

Oh my goodness, because we live in a world where there there nobody does that.

We go, we live in a world where what we see every day is people choose what's fun.

We choose what's fun.

Is this fun?

And I want to do it.

Well, what about I don't care.

I'm gonna do what's fun right now.

A shrewd person says, no, I'm gonna lay aside times of fun because I've got something bigger, more noble, more important, more wonderful that I'm focused on.

Um, we're gonna celebrate the Lord's Supper.

And um Kim, you and Catherine come up here and help me, please.

Thank you.

Umtrast to what we've talked about, the Lord Jesus, or actually his father, the Bible would declare that God Almighty saw the hopelessness of our situation.

And rather than ignoring it, he took his son and sent him to be the sacrifice for our sins.

God the Father saw and he took, but not in a way that ended in bad stuff, in a way that ended in great stuff.

And uh we eat bread and we drink wine as a way of just declaring I'm a part of that.

I'm the beneficiary of that.

I believe that God Almighty, who created the universe, he saw me, not just y'all, he saw me.

And he sent his son to die for me.

And I eat that which represents his body, and I drink that which represents his blood, because that's the means through which God gave me forgiveness and adoption and healing and salvation and life and a hope for the future.

Maybe that's something that's new to you.

I would invite you to really think about that, this gift that God has offered to all of us.

No matter who you are, he's offered it to you and want you to embrace it.

And um if you want to talk about that more one day, sometime, you contact me.

Let me know.

I'd love to do that.

I'd love to chat with you about it.

But uh, if you believe that God saw you and took his son and gave him in your stead for your salvation, then I invite you to come and to eat and to drink and rejoice and give thanks for that immeasurable, indescribable gift of eternal life.

You come.