1. Introduction
2. In Hebrews 11 the author gave us a list of heroes of faith from the OT. But the Bible doesn’t just give us good examples. And so in this morning’s passage, just a few verses after Hebrews 11’s list, our author sights Esau as a bad example, saying don’t ever be like Esau.
3. Read Hebrews 12:14–17
4. Explanation of Hebrews 12:14–17
5. 14 “Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.”
6. “Strive for peace with everyone” We have seen that the letter to the Hebrews was written to a community of Jews who had converted to Christ, but were now facing intense pressure and persecution from their former friends. So, why does the author say, “Strive for peace?” What does this have to do with falling away?
7. When some are wavering, it can cause conflicts in the body. Some might have antagonism toward those whose faith is wavering — and vice versa.
8. It can also create antagonism toward persecutors.
9. “Strive for…the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.”
10. We will not see the Lord if we are not holy.
11. Believers are given an enormous promise: that we will see Jesus. This is what we sang this morning: “Till with the vision glorious, our longing eyes are blest!” This promise is everything. We can survive each day with all its struggles and disappointments because we know that in the end, we will see Jesus!
12. BUT, we will not see the Lord if we are not holy. It is important that we know this.
13. Does this mean salvation is by being holy? No, salvation is by faith. But true faith, which is a gift of God, produces godliness. As it says in Gal.5:6, “faith expressing itself through love.”
14. You see, there are many who claim to belong to Christ, but they bear no fruit, proving they do not truly love Christ or have true faith. You will not see the Lord if you are not holy.
15. And yet, this holiness is also something we’re told to strive for. You see, if Christ has invaded your heart and given you faith, He will also give you a desire to be holy. But it is a battle, isn’t it? We have patterns of sins, and there’s a part of us which still loves sin. Holiness doesn’t just happen effortlessly. We have to fight for it, we have to strive after it.
16. 15-17 “See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no “root of bitterness” springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled; 16 that no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal. 17 For you know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears.”
17. 15a “See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God”
18. This is where it begins. This is the source. Grasping the grace of God yields salvation and holiness. Failing to obtain it yields nothing but futility and death.
19. Many come face to face with the grace of God but still fail to obtain it. “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink.” They experience many of its fruits in the context of the community of faith (Heb.6:4-6), but they never welcome the grace of God into their own souls. Many times they think of themselves as believers, but the fact is they have “failed to obtain the grace of God” in their own hearts.
20. 15b “See to it…that no ‘root of bitterness’ springs up” (The author seems to have Deut.29:18 in mind here.)
21. In warning about allowing a root of bitterness to spring up, the author isn’t just speaking of some hypothetical possibility. He’s talking about something confronting these Hebrew believers right now. They were growing bitter toward God.
22. You see, if you don’t have the grace of God firmly rooted in your heart, you are vulnerable to a root of bitterness springing up in your heart when things get hard and it begins to seem like God isn’t doing a good job arranging your life and taking care of you. Instead of approaching God with joy, gratitude and trust, you begin to resent Him. (Cf. Heb.3:12)
23. 15c “and causes trouble and by it many become defiled”
24. A bitter heart toward God causes trouble. It’s like a disease. It weakens you, it distracts you, it takes away your joy.
25. It’s also contagious: “by it many become defiled” Your bitterness affects others.
26. We wish that we could keep our sin to ourselves, but every sin you commit affects other people, even if you don’t think it does. When you sin, you cause others to sin.
27. But the sin of bitterness toward God is especially contagious. You see, most people have plenty of reasons to be unhappy. And when one person grows bitter toward God he gives permission to others to blame God for the hard things in their lives instead of accepting the hardship as loving discipline.
28. Last week our passage (Hebrews 12:4-11) exhorted us not to despise the discipline of the Lord but to be trained by it. Well, in speaking about “a root of bitterness” this passage is talking about the person who does despise God’s discipline, and blames it on God.
29. Think about two brothers who get disciplined by their parents. Afterward, one is bitter, cursing his parents to the other. Isn’t it obvious how this can easily affect the other?
30. 16a “See to it…that no one is sexually immoral”
31. Where a root of bitterness is tolerated, often some form of sexual immorality is not far behind. We don’t need much of an excuse to talk ourselves into inappropriate sexual gratification.
32. If we’re going to give up waiting on heavenly treasures and just live for now, sexual pleasures are one of the first places we tend to go. (The author comes back to this again in Heb.13:4.)
33. 16b-17 “See to it that no one is…unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal. 17 For you know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent, though he sought it [the blessing] with tears.”
34. You remember the story of Esau:

(1) God made His great promise to Abraham – This promise meant eternal life, it meant salvation for the world, it meant the coming of the messiah, it meant everything.

(2) The promise was then passed down to Isaac (but not Ishmael).

(3) Then Isaac has two sons: Esau the oldest, and Jacob.

(4) The promise rightfully belonged to Esau since he was the oldest. But something strange happens by which the younger son Jacob ends up inheriting the promise. One day when Jacob was cooking stew, Esau came in from the field, exhausted. And Esau said to Jacob, “Let me eat some of that red stew, for I am exhausted!” Jacob said, “Sell me your birthright now.” Esau said, “I am about to die; of what use is a birthright to me?” Jacob said, “Swear to me now.” 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 his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright. (Genesis 25:29–34)

(5) Later got tricked by Jacob out of his father’s blessing as well.

(6) Esau was bitter and tried to get his father to change his mind and bless him instead.

(7) But there was no opportunity to repent and undo what he had done. Though he sought his father’s blessing with tears, it was too late. Genesis 27:34–35 Esau…cried out with an exceedingly great and bitter cry and said to his father, “Bless me, even me also, O my father!” But he said, “Your brother…has taken away your blessing.”

(8) Having inherited God’s promise, Jacob’s name was changed to Israel and his descendants were the children of Israel.

1. Esau’s choice: How dumb! He sold his birthright for a single meal!

(1) But the promise didn’t seem to be doing much good. They were still in tents. They were still without a land of their own. They were still a small family. Life hadn’t changed much since his grandfather Abraham had received the promise.

1. Esau is the perfect illustration of what these Hebrew Christians were tempted to do. Like Esau, when they became Christians they were given a promise from God, a promise of a people and of a promised land.

(1) And like Esau, their were in a distressful situation, a situation crying out for relief. All they had was God’s promises. And all these promises didn’t seem to he doing them any good. And they were being tempted to throw away the promise in exchange for temporary relief of their distress.

(2) Deferred gratification — Do you love your future self or do you just love today’s self?

III. Application of the sin of Esau

1. There are many ways which this principle applies to our lives.
2. A man who gives up his marriage for a night of pleasure.
3. A woman who loses her chance at marriage because she’s unwilling to have a few sessions of premarital counseling with her fiancé.
4. A just-converted teenager who gives up going to church because she knows it annoys her mother.
5. But there is one primary application: trading eternal treasures for earthly pleasures, even good things like marriage, like family, like career, like hobbies, like politics, like health.
6. Matthew 10:37 “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.”
7. Do you realize what a foolish thing it is to sell your birthright for a single meal?
8. And yet so many do this. People give up eternal treasure for money, for sex, for acceptance.
9. Raise your hand if you grew up in a Christian home. How did your parents do?
10. How did they do setting a godly example?
11. How did they do encouraging you?
12. How did they do showing you love?
13. How did they do disciplining you properly?
14. Well, no matter how you answered the other questions, and all parents are far from perfect, if you grew up in a Christian home, if you grew up in the church, then you were given the treasure of treasures, you were given the truth of Christ, whether it was directly from your parents, or from the church they brought you to.
15. But just because you’ve been given the privilege of knowing about Jesus doesn’t mean you’ll do anything with it. You have the ability to discard it like it’s trash.
16. If you’re living for this life, what good is a promise for eternal glory?
17. In my life I have witnessed this many times: people abandoning their Christian faith for popularity, for a girlfriend/boyfriend, for sex. JUST LIKE ESAU!
18. Be like Abel, be like Enoch, be like Noah, be like Abraham, be like Moses, be like the rest of those listed in Hebrews 11. But don’t be like Esau.
19. But in one sense, we do this everyday. The Bible keeps pointing us to the most important thing, and we keep focusing on the peripheral things.
20. When we wake each morning, we can either go with the flow of our hearts, or we can “see to it that we do not fail to obtain the grace of God.”