Slaves to our Appetites

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I want to encourage you to open up your lives and turn to the twelfth chapter of the book of Hebrews.
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We have been in the book of Hebrews now for quite some time, going verse by verse ever since verse one.
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We have been just going as much as we thought was appropriate for each week.
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Sometimes that meant two or three verses.
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Sometimes that meant only a half of one verse.
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It depends on what really the Lord led us in that morning of study.
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And this is how we seek to understand the scripture so that we do not become in the process where I've seen a lot of folks that simply focus on certain passages of scripture.
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We want to focus on the whole counsel of God.
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And to ensure that we do that, we just go verse by verse through books of the Bible.
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And here we are again in chapter 12 of Hebrews.
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And this morning we're going to be looking specifically at Hebrews chapter 12 verses 15 through 17.
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Now over the last few weeks, not including last week, which was Mother's Day, because we did look last week at the fifth commandment.
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Over the weeks preceding that, however, we had been looking at verses beginning at verse 12 and talking about how beginning at verse 12, the writer of Hebrews is beginning to tell us about some of those things that are very practical in our Christian walk.
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He talks in verse 12 about lifting up our drooping hands, strengthening our weak knees, talking about how easy it is as runners of the Christian race, of warriors in the Christian fight, however you want to make the analogy.
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Over time we begin to weaken.
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Over time we begin to, just like a boxer who's been in a ring for quite some time, his hands begin to droop.
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He begins to let his guard down.
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And his point is to admonish us to lift up our guard, to keep our hands up, to strengthen our weak knees and to lift up our drooping hands.
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And he goes on to talk about making straight paths for our feet and making sure that that which is lame is not put out of place.
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And in that regard, he begins to talk about how we are to encourage one another, that if there are those among us in the church who we see someone else weakening, we're standing here with our guard up, we're standing here fighting the battle of faith, we're sitting here standing for the truth of God.
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And when we see another among us, another within the church whose guard is beginning to fall, whose knees are weakening, who is becoming lame, who's not able to protect themselves from the onslaught of the world, Satan, and the flesh, that we are to come beside them and to encourage them and to be for them the one who helps hold up their arms.
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As those men did with Moses, whose arms began to fall during battle, they came and lifted up his arms.
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We too are to encourage one another by lifting each other up.
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We are to be encouragements to one another.
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We are to have a sense of being our brother's keepers.
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We are to have that sense of being desirous that not only do we reach the goal, but that those around us, those in the church, reach the goal as well.
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This is why verse 14 goes on to say, Strive for peace with everyone and for holiness, without which no one will see the Lord.
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See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God.
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What's that talking about? It's talking about those around us.
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Not only are we concerned about the fact that we are in the grace of God, but we're also concerned about the people around us, that they know the Lord, that they are in His grace, that they are not either refusing to profess Christ or that they are not falsely professing Christ.
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And we spent a whole week, a few weeks ago, we spent a whole Sunday dealing with the idea of false confession and false conversion, which is a very real problem in the church, particularly in America today, because it is so easy for people to accept some form of cultural Christianity, where they believe that because they were brought up in a Christian home or because they live in a nation that is a quote-unquote Christianized nation, that they are somehow by default Christians, that that's the default setting on their life, and unless they decide to become a Muslim or unless they decide to become something else, that they are by default Christians, and that has become a very real and serious issue in our land.
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And we are to be encouraging people towards genuine, true repentance, that they might not miss the grace of God, that they may not be ones who are outside of it.
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We encourage all people to know and receive the grace of God.
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Now, that leads us up to verse 15.
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Verse 15 is moving into verse 16, and really verses 15 and 16 all constitute a single sentence.
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So the reason why I said this morning that we're starting in verse 15 is because I felt like it would be inappropriate to start in verse 16 because it's sort of in the middle of a sentence.
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So this morning we're actually going to read verse 15, but I want to let you know that we're actually focusing this morning on 16 and 17.
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But we're going to begin with 15 so that we understand how the sentence works together and makes sense.
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So let's stand together.
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We're going to read verses 15 through 17, giving honor to the Word of God by standing, and then we will pray and we will study this section together.
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Beginning at verse 15, 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, that no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal.
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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.
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Father God, we thank you for this opportunity to again be in your Word.
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We thank you for the questions that a passage like this stirs up in our hearts, and we pray, O Lord, that this morning that we will find answers to those questions and be able to apply those answers to our lives.
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I pray, Lord, that you would keep me from error for the sake of your people and for the sake of my own conscience.
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I pray, Lord, that you would open the hearts of your people to hear your Word, and Lord, if there is one among us who is not a believer, who does not know Christ, that this Word would be one that would bring conviction, and Lord God, that ultimately your Spirit would use for conversion.
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We pray all this, Father, in Jesus' name and for His sake.
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Amen.
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When we look at verses 15 through 17 in Hebrews chapter 12, we are seeing an admonition about things to watch out for in those people who call themselves our fellow believers, our brothers and sisters in Christ.
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Verse 15, See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God.
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So there, right away, is the admonition to keep an eye out for those who profess Christ with their mouths but are not truly in grace.
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They truly have not received Christ.
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Keep an eye out for these people because we don't want them to be that way.
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We don't want them...
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Now, this doesn't mean that we walk around with our judgmental barometers always set on stun.
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We don't walk around just ready, or judgmental phasers, rather, set on stun.
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We're not always looking...
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I said barometer.
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I don't know why I said that.
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We're always looking to throw our judgment on someone.
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No, that's not the case.
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But we do care enough about one another that we want to admonish one another when we see someone who is obviously not in grace or their behavior indicates that they're not in grace.
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And we all know folks like this.
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We all know folks in our families who call themselves Christians and people who say they're Christians but they have no real desire for Christ.
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And we concern ourselves for them.
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And we pray for them because we don't want them to fail to obtain the grace of God.
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That was the first admonition that we seek, that no one fail to obtain the grace of God.
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The second admonition is see to it that no root of bitterness springs up and by it causes trouble and many become defiled.
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What did we talk about with that? We said that that was the person who not only is a false professor of Christ, but they're a person who leads division in the church.
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They're a person who comes, that's actually a statement from Deuteronomy, about a person who comes into the nation of Israel and creates division by bringing in false teaching, false doctrine, and brings about separation in the people.
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And we're to look out for that and we're to keep a keen eye on that.
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And that's what church discipline is for.
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It's to see to it that if there is one who is in the body who's seeking to bring division, that we must be able to stand guard against such a person.
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So we've seen see to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God.
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See to it that no one, no root of bitterness springs up.
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And then the third one, see to it that no one is sexually immoral or unholy.
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Now he's going to go on to talk about Esau.
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But just for a moment, if you look at the way that the sentence is working together, if you look at the way the admonition is working together, you see this sort of three-tier idea.
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First, we watch out for folks who are unsaved, and we keep our eye out for them so that we can admonish them towards grace.
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And then we watch out for those whose lives create division and bitterness in the church so that we stand as a wall against such a divisive force.
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And then finally, we watch out for those whose lives are marked by unholiness.
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And the first statement is the statement of sexual immorality.
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Now, some of your Bibles do not use the word sexual there.
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Some of them just say immorality.
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The ESV uses the word sexual immorality, I think very appropriately so, because the actual word here from the Greek language is the word pornos.
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And the word pornos is where we get our modern word, the modern adaptation of what is called pornography.
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And most of us know what that is.
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I do not have to go into an explanation of what pornography is.
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But the word here does indicate a level of sexual immorality, an immorality which comes from the flesh.
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And the idea is that we are to keep an eye on that we do not become enslaved to our appetites, and that those among us do not become enslaved to our appetites, whether they be sexual, whether they be any other type, that we do not become slaves to them.
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In fact, this is why he goes on to talk about Esau.
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He says that no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau.
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Now, one of the questions I had when I first read this verse is I said to myself, now wait a minute, I know Esau was unholy, and I know Esau was a man who was given over to his appetite.
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I mean, he sold his birthright for a single bowl of stew.
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This is a man who cannot control his own functions.
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He cannot control his desires.
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He has an insatiable lust, a passion for what he wants and craves, and is willing to give up the farm for that immediate gratification.
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In fact, really, that is what Esau represents.
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Esau represents the type of person whose life is unbridled, whose life is only for the consuming of fleshly desires, whether it be food or whether it be some form of lust, whether it be power.
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You know there are people who lust for power.
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Whether it be anger.
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There are people who are only happy when they are satisfying that anger, that lust for being mad.
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There are people who are only satisfied when they are spending money.
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There are people who are only satisfied when they are stealing something.
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There are people who are only satisfied when they are hurting other people.
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There are these people who are driven by the flesh.
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And this is what the writer is warning us about.
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He's warning us about this appetite that is so powerful.
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This is why the title of the sermon this morning is Slaves to Our Appetites.
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Because this is the concern of the writer of Hebrews, that we not become slaves to our appetite.
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For just a moment, let's go back and look at Esau and look at what he did.
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We know the story well, but I want to just point something out, go back to chapter 25 of Genesis and look at verse 29.
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Now, we know the story.
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Most of us do.
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I'm sure the story of how Jacob and Esau were born, Jacob and Esau were born twins.
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However, even twins, I was explaining this in my Sunday school class to the children this morning, even twins have an order of birth.
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They don't both come at the same time.
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One comes, whether it be seconds or minutes or sometimes hours before the other, twins do not both arrive at the same moment.
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And thus, there is still an order of birth.
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There's still a first born and a second born, even among twins.
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And with Jacob and Esau, Esau was the first born son.
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He was the first one to come on the scene.
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And because he was the first one to come on the scene, he was then given by the custom of the day, by the very nature of the custom of society.
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He was given what was called the birthright blessing.
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And that simply meant that he was going to inherit the majority of all that the father had, that he would become in the place of the father when the father perished, that he would become, in essence, the new patriarch of the family.
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We know there was Abraham, who was the patriarch.
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And from Abraham, there was Isaac, who was the patriarch of the family.
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And by nature, it should have been Esau, who was the patriarch of the family.
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But yet God told Rebekah, the mother of Jacob and Esau, he says, there are two nations in your womb because she felt them jostling in her womb.
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She felt them wrestling in her womb.
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And she cried out to God, why is this happening? And he said, and we had a little laugh about that with Jennifer being pregnant.
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Imagine two babies in your womb and they're wrestling for power, even in the womb.
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And these two babies are wrestling in the womb and God and Rebekah cries out, why God is this happening? Because I'm sure it was very painful and it was very much travail.
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And she says, why is this happening? And he says, there are two nations in your womb and two peoples shall come from you and one will be stronger than the other and the older will serve the younger.
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Later on, we already read this morning for our opening passage of Scripture.
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Later on, the Bible tells us that that was God's choice before he ever even created those two.
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He had already chosen that Jacob would be the patriarch of the family.
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He had already chosen that Jacob would be the one who would carry on the family birthright, who would receive the birthright blessing, even though he was not the older of the two.
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Because Esau would come first.
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Esau would be the older of the two.
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And by all legal right, Esau would be the inheritor of that birthright.
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But God said, no, the older will serve the younger.
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He said before they were even born that he had already made a choice about the situation.
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But how would that choice come to fruition? How would that choice come to reality? It came to reality in this situation.
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In verse twenty nine, it says once when Jacob was cooking stew, Esau came in from the field and he was exhausted.
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And Esau said to Jacob, let me eat some of that red stew, for I am exhausted.
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Therefore, his name was called Edom.
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Edom simply means red.
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It was red stew.
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And the Scripture also indicates that it was red haired.
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In fact, Esau itself means red.
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So it sort of became the the idea of red was a was the distinct distinction among Esau and his people.
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So Esau comes in from the field.
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He's tired and he comes in from the field and he's hungry.
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And here is Jacob.
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He's got this bowl of stew.
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And Esau says, I want some of that.
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Give me some of that.
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I'm hungry.
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I'm famished.
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And Jacob said, OK, verse thirty one, Jacob said, sell me your birthright now.
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Effectively, he said, give me give me the most precious, most valuable thing that you have for this little bowl of stew.
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Now, most of us who are thinking intellectually would say that's an absolute ripoff.
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It would be like taking a brand new sports car to one of these little buy here, pay here lots and trading it straight up.
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For a bicycle.
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I mean, that wouldn't even be a car.
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The worth value is so it's so far and removed from what the reality is.
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And one of the things that we learn in this situation is that Jacob isn't really a good guy either.
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Jacob is not at this point regenerate because Jacob himself is willing to effectively steal his brother's birthright for nothing.
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You know, if it's Esau's fault, but Jacob is the one who's giving him this opportunity.
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And Jacob said, sell me your birthright now.
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Any thinking person who was not a slave to his appetite.
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And see, that's where it all comes back to any thinking person who was not a slave to his appetite would quickly say that is ridiculous.
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Such and such a bargain is not a bargain.
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I'll go back into the field.
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I'll pick berries.
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I'll go slay an animal.
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I'll kill it.
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I'll cook it myself.
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As Courtney said this morning, go to the refrigerator, man.
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Going to go make something yourself.
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But the reality is he didn't.
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He in fact, he justifies his behavior.
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He justifies what he's going to do because he saw said, I am about to die.
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Of what use is a birthright to me.
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Now, do you think that that phrase is a literal phrase or what we would call hyperbole? I believe that that is hyperbole.
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I don't think that Esau was here literally dying from hunger.
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I think that he was, as most of us have at times in our lives.
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We come in having worked a long day, maybe haven't eaten anything since the day before.
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And you say, man, I'm dying of hunger.
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I'm famished.
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Somebody feed me now.
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I'm starving.
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The reality was he was willing to sell the most valuable thing he had in the world, his birthright, his blessing.
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And he was willing to give up the most valuable thing that he had in the world simply to satisfy a momentary lust.
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Yes, I use the word lust because that's really what the appetite becomes with food, with sex, with anger, with all of these things.
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It's part of our fleshly appetite.
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And we are willing at times to give up everything of value for a momentary satisfaction of the flesh.
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And this is what Esau is doing.
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He's willing to give up the farm.
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For a single bowl of stew.
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He's willing to give up everything because at that moment, his flesh wanted that stew more than he wanted his blessing.
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You know, this is the thing that causes adultery often.
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Because there is a person in a situation and they cannot see all that they have in their family and invested in their life and their children and their wife and their estate.
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All they can see is that desire, it puts a blinder in front of their eyes.
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And it closes their eyes to everything except for what the flesh wants.
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Esau is the example of that.
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Esau is the example of one willing to be a slave to his appetite.
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And thus the story continues.
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Jacob says, swear to me now.
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So he swore to him and sold his birthright to Jacob.
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Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew and he ate and drank and rose and went his way.
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Thus Esau, a key word here in the text, thus Esau despised his birthright.
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You see, that's the key is that Esau didn't just count his birthright as less value than a bowl of stew.
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He literally at that moment demonstrated hatred for that blessing because he treated it with such contempt as to sell it for a bowl of stew.
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Now, back into Hebrews, because in Hebrews, it's using that single story to tell us about what we have to be careful of as Christians.
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That no one among us is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal.
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This is what we have to be careful of.
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This is what we have to encourage others away from.
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And that is seeing these fleshly desires and wanting to satisfy them so much that we're willing to jettison the blessings of God for the temporary satisfactions of the flesh.
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Now, real quickly, I do want to make note.
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The sexually immoral part, because it says here that Esau was sexually immoral, it says sexually immoral and unholy like Esau.
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And that does describe Esau in that sentence, the way that the sentence is structured, the sexually immoral, the immoral there and unholy.
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Both are modifying Esau as an individual saying that about him.
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The text of the Old Testament never says Esau was sexually deviant.
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In fact, the only thing the Old Testament even comes to close in that is saying that Esau married two women, which is polygamy.
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But it wouldn't it wouldn't have called that deviant because it would have it would have that would have been the same as as many of the other Old Testament patriarchs.
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The deviant, though, was that he married two women who were not who were from other clans or from outside the family.
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They were Hittites.
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There were actually one.
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There was Judith, the daughter of Beeri, the Hittite, and Basemath, the daughter of Elam, the Hittite.
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So there were two Hittite women he brought into the camp of Israel.
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And the text says, and it made life bitter for Isaac and Rebekah.
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Literally, by bringing in these women from an outside clan, by bringing in these women from a pagan religion and a pagan lifestyle, he literally made the life of his parents just utterly bitter.
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Because instead of choosing a godly woman, he chose two ungodly women to be his wives.
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But is that the sexual immorality that the writer of Hebrews is making note of here? We do not know for certain.
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But I will say this, there is much in extra biblical Jewish literature that talks about the life of Esau and describes to us a person who had an unbridled sexual lust.
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So even though this is not found in Scripture, there is historical information from the Jewish Targum, the Palestinian Targum and things like that, which tell us that he was a man who not only was given to a physical appetite, but he was also given to a sexual appetite as well.
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And it is likely that the writer of Hebrews, when writing this, is well aware of the stories of Esau, is well aware of his appetites.
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In fact, one of the stories, extra biblical stories, is that on the day when Esau was coming in, coming in to Jacob to take that bowl of stew, that he had already committed five transgressions, one of which was adultery with a betrothed.
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Now, again, that's not biblical literature, that's extra biblical history.
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But it's interesting to consider how Esau was viewed by the Jewish people.
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He is viewed as the very testament of unbridled passion, the very testament of someone who is a slave to his lusts.
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And that's why the writer of Hebrews, remember the writer of Hebrews, is writing to Hebrew people.
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Who can he find in Old Testament history that would be the best example of what we are to look out for in the church? Esau, a man whose sexual desires were known throughout the history of his people, the man whose unholiness was demonstrated by his willingness to so be consumed with his flesh that he was willing to sell even the family birthright for a single bowl of stew.
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Now, the verse goes on to say this in verse 17, and this is where questions begin to arise.
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And this is where a lot of people begin to really become concerned about this passage, because what has it told us? It says we are to seek that no one becomes sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who was willing to sell his birthright for a single meal.
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And then in verse 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.
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OK, wow, that causes within us a question immediately, because what this text effectively says in most people's hearing is that here is a man who really wanted to repent of his sins.
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And yet he couldn't.
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Beloved, that's a misrepresentation of the passage.
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In fact, it misunderstands the entirety of the passage.
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But that's what causes confusion for people because they think that that's what's being said.
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Beloved, it is not what it says here is that afterwards, after what? After he had sold his birthright, after he had sold his birthright.
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He desired to inherit a blessing.
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What story is that from? And again, I'm having to remind you guys of some stuff we won't have time to read through all these things, but you remember, how was it that his father Isaac was going to give him the blessing? He said he said, I want to bless you.
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I want to give you your blessing.
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Isaac was going to usurp the fact that he had sold the birthright.
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Isaac may not even have known about that.
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But he was going to usurp the promise that God had given to Rebecca because Rebecca was told that the older will serve the younger.
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But Isaac was instead he was ready to give that blessing.
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He was ready to give Esau what he felt like he deserved at the firstborn.
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And by the way, Isaac's favorite.
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The text is very clear.
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Isaac had Esau as his favorite because Isaac liked to eat wild game and Esau went and got it and bring it back to him.
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And that's how this all came about.
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Isaac says to his son Esau, he says, I want to bless you.
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Go out into the field, find an animal, slay it, come back, barbecue it, bring it in and we will have a meal.
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And at that meal, I will bless you.
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So Esau goes out, goes to go find that that animal.
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The mother, Rebecca, hears what's going on and she decides to usurp the plan of the husband.
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She knows he cannot see very well.
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His eyes are far gone.
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So she goes and she gets her son Jacob and she says, now you must go in, pretend to be your brother.
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Let your father bless you and give you the birthright.
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So they went and they slay an animal and they cook it and they get ready.
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And then and then Jacob says, oh, wait, no, wait, you can't do this.
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He's going to know it's not me.
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My brother is Harry.
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He's a man of the field.
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He's a big, burly man.
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And here I am.
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I've been sitting, you know, we've been crocheting and knitting all these years.
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You know, I just don't.
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He's going to know we're not the same person.
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That's that's an addition.
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It doesn't say that, but it says he was a person of the tent.
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He stayed inside a lot.
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He was he knew his father wasn't going to be fooled.
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So she takes the animal's hair.
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She sticks it to his arm so that when his father feels his arm, he'll feel what he thinks is his brother's.
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He saw his arm and he will be fooled.
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And thus it happens that he was fooled.
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He goes in.
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And even though at first he is, he says this can't be.
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So he realizes he says, no, it must be he's got a hairy arm.
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And for a second, he's fooled.
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And he gives the blessing to Jacob and Jacob retreats.
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And in comes Esau from the field ready to receive his father's blessing, ready to take what is not rightfully his because he'd already sold it.
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And he comes into the room and he's ready to go and he walks up to his father and bless me, father.
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And he said, who is this? Well, what do you mean, who is this? It's Esau.
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I'm back.
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I've already given you the blessing.
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No, you wait.
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I've already given that blessing away.
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I've already done this.
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It's already done.
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What was the response? Father, don't you have any blessing left that you can give me? And the answer was no.
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You see, the word repentance in Hebrews chapter 12 and everywhere in the Bible, by the way, is the Greek word metanoia.
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And it means to change your mind.
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And you see, when Esau was young and wanted that stew, the birthright didn't matter to him and he was willing to sell it for that bowl of stew.
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But later, when it did matter to him, he wanted to change his mind.
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He wanted to change the system.
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He had already made this promise to sell it.
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And now he wanted it back.
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He's like the person who has buyer's remorse.
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He goes and spends all this money on something new when he hasn't said, I didn't really want this.
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But there's a no return policy.
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And thus he weeps.
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He knows that what he did in a moment of unbridled lust can now never be undone, though he would choose to change everything if he could at that moment.
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It's unchangeable.
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And thus the text says when he desired to inherit a blessing, he didn't desire to inherit the blessing when he had the bowl of stew in front of him because the bowl of stew blocked the view of the blessing.
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But now that the bowl of stew has already been ingested and gone, now that that part's over, he wants that blessing now, but he can't have it.
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He's already given it away.
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He's already beloved.
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The picture here.
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It's very simple, we cannot become slaves to our appetites because in doing so.
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We exchange the blessings of God for fleshly desires which come and go in a moment.
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Thus, when it says he wanted to change his mind and he couldn't, that was the reality for Esau.
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He was in a situation where he so desired to change his situation, but at that point it was far too gone.
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So I want to ask this question, is there a point at which anyone now, any one of us can be beyond repentance? Well, let's answer that question like this.
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Is there any point in which a person can be beyond repentance? Well, the answer is yes.
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Number one, the Bible says that if a person goes down the road of wickedness and continues to spurn God's commands, that God will give them over to a debased mind.
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And if a person has been given over to a debased mind and they have continually spurned God's commands, there is a point at which they will not repent.
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I didn't say they could not, I said they will not.
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But the real thing I think we need to be more concerned about is the fact that there is a very real place where no one can repent again, and that place is called hell.
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The reality is as long as someone's alive, we can pray for their repentance.
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As long as someone is in this world, we can pray that God change their heart.
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And we can pray that they give up those lusty pursuits and instead pursue Christ.
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We pray for that, and we all have people that we pray for in that regard.
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We don't know where they are, but we know they're not in Christ, and we pray for them.
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But there is a place where there is no repentance.
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There is a place where repentance is no more.
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And that is in the fire of God's wrath.
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Those people like Esau, look back at their life and realize that they sold the blessings of God to fulfill the desires of the flesh.
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But we, when looking around at each other and introspectively at ourselves, we need to ask ourselves the question, are we selling the blessings of God? Father, thank you for this opportunity to use that life as an opportunity to be warned about being slaves to our appetites.
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We pray, O Lord, that now you would use this time of reflection and introspection to help us to examine our hearts, to see if there are areas which need to be brought into conformity to your will.
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We thank you, Lord, for the opportunity to hear this message today and to be reminded of the deadly nature of sin and how seductive it can be and how powerful our flesh is.
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But we pray, O Lord, that we will not allow our flesh to master us, but that we would master it.
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As Jesus told us, if there's any part of us that is causing us to sin, cut it off, be willing to jettison those areas of our lives that are bringing sin into our hearts and into our homes.
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Help us, O Lord, now to be moved by your spirit, to move to a higher level of sanctification and a closer walk with you.
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In all this, we pray, Lord, in Jesus' name and for his sake, Amen.
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Stand with us now as we sing, and if you have a need for prayer, please come.