======================================================================== OUR LITTLE BOWLS OF STEW by Sandeep Poonen ======================================================================== Summary: This sermon delves into the story of Esau despising his birthright in exchange for immediate satisfaction, drawing parallels to how individuals today may sacrifice their eternal heritage for temporary pleasures. The speaker emphasizes the need for true repentance over mere forgiveness, highlighting the danger of continuously despising one's spiritual birthright. The message urges listeners to prioritize the pursuit of sanctification and to be vigilant in repentance, ensuring that every aspect of their lives reflects the knowledge of the glory of God. Duration: 28:49 Topics: "Spiritual Heritage", "True Repentance" Scripture References: Genesis 25:29, Hebrews 12:14, Hebrews 12:17, Habakkuk 2:14, Matthew 12:6 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ DESCRIPTION ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This sermon delves into the story of Esau despising his birthright in exchange for immediate satisfaction, drawing parallels to how individuals today may sacrifice their eternal heritage for temporary pleasures. The speaker emphasizes the need for true repentance over mere forgiveness, highlighting the danger of continuously despising one's spiritual birthright. The message urges listeners to prioritize the pursuit of sanctification and to be vigilant in repentance, ensuring that every aspect of their lives reflects the knowledge of the glory of God. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CONTENT ------------------------------------------------------------------------ I wanted to speak today from the story of Jacob and Esau. Genesis chapter 25 Genesis chapter 25 verse 29. This is when Esau despises birthright. Jacob cooked the stew. Esau came up 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. Esau said, behold, I am about to die, so what use then is the birthright to me? Jacob said, but 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 in his way. Therefore Esau despised his birthright. I wanted to speak about Esau who despised his birthright and how it applies to us. Who is Esau a picture of? Esau is a picture of somebody who is sacrificing what God has in store for him, what is rightfully his, for his immediate satisfaction. It's very simple. The immediate satisfaction is the stew. I'm famished, my feelings are not being met and so I'm going to sacrifice my eternal heritage, my eternal birthright for stew. Just think about that. Think about the birthright of Abraham and Isaac that was supposed to be passed down. Think about how valuable that was. Think about who came through that line and how lightly did Esau treat it. Esau treated it like it was not as valuable as stew, as a bowl of stew. I mean how trivial is that? But it's very simple for us to understand Esau's heart because we look at ourselves and if we see the exchanges we make, the little ways in which we say yes to sin, the little things, ways in which we allow patterns of sin to come into our hearts, for trivial little things we'll see that we're not very much different from Esau. If we look at the situations of what we give in to sin for, what we get discouraged about, what we don't believe God's Word for, compared to the weight of what God has promised for us in Christ, it's not very different. And I have to recognize that whenever I choose my immediate satisfaction in any way compared to the promises of God, I'm no different from Esau. And I must recognize that God is saying, asking me, am I despising my birthright? You see that in verse 32, behold I'm about to die. What is the use of the birthright to me? My spiritual life is for tomorrow. Saying what I want to say right now to my wife, that's for today. What I have to do will be for tomorrow because I can always ask for forgiveness. I can always repent. Today I just need to get my mind across to my wife. Today I need to indulge in some sinful pleasure. Tomorrow is the time for the birthright. And we're constantly making these exchanges. We're constantly making these exchanges of current pleasures instead of the birthright. And I have to ask myself, Lord, is this a situation where it is? Also look, I mean, he may have been famished because he was supposed to get food. He went to hunt. He was in the field out there. He was supposed to get some venison or something. So he's come back all day after not catching anything. If he had caught something, he'd have been able to eat it. He didn't catch anything. So here's a man who's also been disappointed in some situation. That's another time where I find that I choose sin over my birthright. When things don't go my way. When I have a difficult day in the office. When my children are not acting the way they're supposed to. When my spouse says something that is difficult for me to hear. Then failed expectations. I wanted my spouse to act a particular way. I wanted people to treat me a particular way. They didn't give me the proper respect I deserve. So what comes up? I trade my birthright in for bowls of porridge. Bowls of stew. Little words that I must say. But I despise my birthright. Did Esau have... Do you think Esau was completely weighing in the balance what he was choosing for the stew? Clearly not. But he... We don't do it. We don't either. On Sunday morning, it's a little bit easier for us to weigh in the balance and saying, yeah, I'm not gonna speak that way. I'm not gonna look at those things. I'm not gonna think those thoughts. On Sunday morning, it's easier. We're doing the right balance. But in the moment of trial, it's different. We don't make those choices. So in the moment of temptation is where we're being asked, are we making the right choice? Are we being like Esau? And are we despising our birthright? And let me show you this verse in Hebrews chapter 12. Esau is referenced in Hebrews chapter 12. Pursue peace, verse 14. I'm sorry. Hebrews chapter 12, verse 14. Pursue peace with all men and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord. Pursue peace with all men and the sanctification. Sanctification means setting apart. The setting apart, apart from which nobody will see the Lord. God wants us to be set apart increasingly. Dear brothers and sisters, God is wanting to set you apart. You can't take your spouse with you. Nobody can take any. God is trying to have an individual setting apart with you. That's sanctification. See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God. We know of everybody falling short of the glory of God. Do you know it's possible for some of us to fall short of the grace of God? Why? Because we can have a root of bitterness, verse 15. That's one way in which we can fall short of the grace of God. But there's another way. Because we can be immoral or godless. Because we despise the birthright and we sell our birthright for a single meal. Look at this verse in verse 17. For you know that even afterwards when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected. Because he could find he found no place for repentance even though he sought for it with tears. The key desire, the key thing when we find that we despise the birthright, the key question that we have to ask ourselves is we do we truly have a heart of repentance? And I find in my own heart and I find that it's very common for us to confuse forgiveness with repentance. So easy to confuse forgiveness with repentance. We can think that we're sorry for our sins but we're just asking for forgiveness. But we're not truly repenting. And like Esau, like Esau, we can even be crying saying, Lord I don't want to be in this kind of sin. I don't want to be talking this way. I don't want to be acting this way. But we don't find place for repentance. And we still continue to despise our birthright. So week after week, month after month, it goes on and we still find that we are despising our birthright. God doesn't want us to despise the birthright of what we have in Christ. Why are we continuing to be defeated in sin? In some sins that get us. It's because we don't haven't found place for repentance. We have fallen short of the grace of God. We've not been able to receive grace from God. So we continue to despise our birthright. Not all the time. Once in a while. Esau, this is not a continuous thing but it was a mindset. Let me give you an example of that. John chapter 12. You know a person in the New Testament who is a classic example of somebody who despised his birthright. The best person I could think of was Judas. Judas Iscariot despised his birthright. What was his birthright? I mean hopefully you can understand what I mean by this. Judas was selected to be one of the 12 disciples. There were many people Judas could pick from. Judas was what Jesus could pick from. Sorry. Jesus could have picked many to be his disciples. He hand-selected Judas as one of the 12. But he despised his birthright. He despised this inheritance that God had given him to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. That it says in John chapter 12 verse 6. Judas was asking why didn't you sell this perfume and give it to the poor. Now Judas was saying this not because he was concerned about the poor but because he was a thief. And as he had the money box he used to pilfer what was put into it. Pilfer. He wasn't doing grand lacernery. Whatever the word is. He wasn't doing grand theft. He wasn't doing huge burglaries. He was just doing pilfering. I wrote it down in the Living Bible. He says he often dipped into the funds for whatever pleased him. This is not emptying the entire box into his pocket. Just a little bit here a little bit there. He used to pilfer a little bit. A little bowl of stew. Little bowl of stew. All I want is a little bowl of stew. Is it such a big sin to ask for a little bowl of stew? Of course I was just joking with Jacob when I said that. Yeah I'm just pilfering a little money here a little bit there. And God is asking me when he asks me to show me different things like that. I'm sure God must have convicted Judas many times when he saw the Pharisees. Judas must have justified himself. I'm not stealing. I'm not stealing. It's not some big amount. It's a small percentage of what people are putting in the box. Just a little bit of pilfering. Titus says that we must within our workplaces should not be pilfering. A little bit here a little bit there. We've got to ask ourselves in the name of saving, in the name of being frugal, can we start pilfering? And as the Lord asks us, asks me, asks any of us to work with any of these areas, the question is you can cry about it all you want. You can say I'm sorry for it all you want. That doesn't mean you're gonna have repentance. You can cry about the fact that you don't have this life, what is your birthright, but if we don't come to a life of repentance, we're not gonna find freedom. We've asked for forgiveness. We may sit here and God may convict us about something and we may say Lord please forgive me. It's not gonna work. It's not gonna help you. Forgiveness is never the way to salvation. It's repentance. Repentance. Asking God to forgive us our sins is not gonna help. Salvation comes through repentance and faith. Not asking God to forgive our sins. In the Old Testament they had forgiveness of sins too. You could kill a bull and a goat. Now God is asking us to repent, to turn around. I remember what Bobby shared many years ago. Here's repentance and I've forgotten it. If I were to do this again, I will never do it the same way. That's what repentance is. If I were to go through the situation again, I will never do it again and that is the heart of repentance that we need to have as it relates to it. Think about these situations, dear brothers and sisters. Think about conversations in the home between husband and wife. Think about when one of us lose our temper. What is it to ask for forgiveness and what is it to repent of it? To repent of it is to say I will never ever ever do that again. Can I have that heart? I will never ever ever show my husband the silent treatment. Never. I know we're not making oaths here but is that our heart as we look at what we did and we gave our spouse a silent treatment, then we have a heart of repentance. Otherwise, we're just asking for forgiveness and we're bound to do it again. I will never ever ever speak that way so God will help me. I don't ever ever want to speak that way to my spouse. That's the attitude I've got to have. You read 2nd Corinthians chapter 7. What zeal, what longing there was to come to have a different life. But let's look at our marriages. Do we have that zeal and longing to change things? Then I'll see radical changes in days and weeks, not months. Our marriages will be transformed. I've said this to people who've met me from other places. I say the New Covenant message gives a guarantee to a happy marriage. A guarantee. A hundred percent guarantee. But it's a tragedy if our church which calls herself New Covenant Church doesn't demonstrate that guarantee. Something is not working on our side, not on God's side. There's a hundred percent guarantee for marriages that they will be happy in the New Covenant. And we must, or every one of us, must ask ourselves in any area of our lives, it could be pilfering, it could be in our speech, it could be in our eyes. God is constantly asking me, are you asking for forgiveness or are you repenting? Repenting is a lot more serious. Repenting is turning around. If I treated the sin of unforgiveness, if I treated the sin of bitterness, if I treated the sin of anxiety with repentance, I will make progress. I won't be struggling with it for years. It's not God's way. It's just not God's way. The land is a very, very good land is what Caleb said when he looked at the Promised Land. Your body, which God has given you, that soul that God has given you, is a very good land. And God wanted us to be overcoming giants all the time, not living in defeat. God's trudging, trudging, trudging, defeat after defeat after defeat. It's not God's way. God wanted us to experience victory. But the reason we don't do it is because we don't repent. And the Lord took me to Haggai, sorry, Habakkuk. What's the way forward, family? What's the way forward? Number one, Habakkuk chapter 2 verse 14. This is what the Lord was asking me to be gripped with. For the earth, the whole earth, will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord. Is it my burning passion? I have to recognize my goal. The reason why God has planted me on this earth is that the whole earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord. Not an inch, not an inch must not see the glory of the Lord. Not a dot must miss out on the glory of the Lord. It must be complete. Not a single area in my life must escape the knowledge of the glory of the Lord. Not a single thought must be allowed to come into my heart and stay there. Taking every thought captive so that the whole earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord. And I must continuously renew my goal and my burning passion that the only way God wants us to work with it is all in. I can't sell myself short, not for even little bowls of stew. And I want to ask dear brothers and sisters, I want to appeal to all of us to renew our pledge, renew our commitment that the whole earth will be filled with the glory of God, knowledge of the glory of God. And it starts with me. So it starts with me that every inch of my body from head to toe, every thought that comes through my head from morning to night, cannot be lustful, cannot be unforgiving, cannot be gossip, cannot be bitter, cannot be from a rude spirit, and on and on. Cannot be angry, cannot be lustful. From morning to night I must never fall short of what my goal is and what my destiny is. And we've heard plenty of messages, we'll continue to hear plenty of messages of what to do when we fall short. Yes, we will fall short, but what is our goal? Have we lost track of our goal for the earth to be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God? Let's recognize our goal. Dear brothers and sisters, we're excusing sin for allowing a little bit of sin to come in. It's just a bowl of porridge. I'm famished today, my feelings are bad today. Let me just give in to my lust for today. Tomorrow I live for the Lord. You know the number of times I've said that? And God started to say, stop, stop. Right now, fix it and have your pledge for the whole earth to be filled with the glory of God. So every bit of my body, at a minimum, every step that my foot goes, if it's going to go to work, it must be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God. Any plane I take, every step I take, every hotel room I live in, every conversation I have, has to be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God. That has to be my goal, not to make money, not to make progress in my career. All those things should be irrelevant compared to the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord. It should be driving, it should be all-consuming. And then God says, here's the guidance, here's the recommendation for me, here's the instructions for me. Habakkuk chapter 2 verse 1, I will stand on my guard post and I'll station myself on the rampart and I'll keep watch to see what he will speak to me and how I may reply when I am reproved. Is the Lord correcting us often? Do we hear the Lord correcting us? Stand and watch, like the watchman. Stand on your guard post at all times. Pick up your sword, let's be soldiers and stand on a guard post and watch. When God said you spoke wrong that way, you shouldn't have done that. Repent, don't ask for forgiveness, repent. You're wallowing in defeat because you're still asking for forgiveness and you never grabbed a hold of repentance with your whole heart. Salvation comes quickly when God sees that we've truly repented. That is the gospel, that is the gospel. Jesus, Peter didn't say on the day of Pentecost, just feel sorry for your sins and ask for forgiveness. He said repent and for marriages that are not what they ought to be, there's only one reason for it. Somebody is not repenting. How I may reply when I am reproved. I was reading Revelation, one of the things that Jesus keeps saying to the churches in Revelation is, I know your deeds and he's telling me, he's telling all of us, I know you. You think you're fooling people, you're not fooling people, I know you. I see you inside out, I see what you're thinking about, I see what your motives are, I know your deeds. You have a name that you're alive, I see all these things you're doing, you're calling out false prophets, but I know your deeds. What's God gonna say to me when what's gonna say to us when he says I know your deeds? What does he mean? You know what he means to you. I know your deeds and you're gonna have to deal with me. That's what the Lord is saying, you're gonna have to deal with me, not with somebody else. This is applying to both, but I want to ask, is it possible that some of us wives are gonna face, must hear God speaking a strong voice to you, saying you are slowing your husband down. You are slowing your husband down from what you should be doing, from how the family of God that I've given you should be progressing. You're slowing him down and you're slowing your children down because you're not letting the whole world earth be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God. Like Nathan came to David and said you are that man. In our families, in our churches, I want each of us to deal with this and say God are you asking me this? Am I slowing my husband down? Am I slowing my family down because I'm not repenting? I know your deeds. God's asking me to say look, you're gonna give everything or let's not have this conversation. The opposite could be true too. My husbands are slowing the wives down. Look, I've heard people say this, look I think my wife is more spiritual than me. As if that's a compliment. That's not a compliment. Why must my wife be more spiritual than me? Flip side is around too, why should the wife say the husband's more spiritual than me? That's nonsense. That's nonsense. Yeah, I'm giving in to the devil a little more than my husband is. Is that what we mean? What does that mean? No, he's been a Christian longer than I have. She's just you know, I've got my issues. Nonsense. We're all called to be conformed to the image of Jesus. We fight really hard that there's no difference between man and woman. Every man, every woman has an equal opportunity to be like Jesus. Why are we being slowed down? Not because of our spouses. We could be slowing our spouses down because they are not able to build a family like they'd like to. Because we're more interested in the things of this earth. Are we distracted by our relatives or by money? Seeking pleasures in our life? I could be holding my wife back. The worst things about these kind of warnings that I've seen for my own life is, the best case is it sobers me up for a week or a month and then I forget about it and I go back to the same old foolishness. And the Lord's gonna keep on reminding us until he decides to take us home for us to come back. But God's calling us again and again, let the whole earth be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God. Let me ask myself, Lord am I slowing my wife down? Let me ask myself, dear sisters please ask yourself, are you slowing your husbands down? Let it not be so. Let it not be so. You have personal conversations with the Lord and say, Lord you know my deeds. You know my deeds. You know how I live in secret and I want not forgiveness anymore. I want to repent. Crying is not gonna help. You can seek for it with tears like Esau did. Still didn't find any place for repentance because we're not all in. We're not willing to sell everything to say, Lord Jesus I want every bit of my body. God's asking me to do the same thing. That's what I wrote down in my notes this morning. Nothing to do with the sermon. Nothing to do with the sermon. God's constantly asking me from head to toe, every bit of you. Are you willing to give everything? It's all or nothing. Every other ambition has to go. Every other goal has to go. There's no place for anything else. The whole earth must be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord. No place for Sandeep's ambitions. Sandeep's dreams. Sandeep's bias. Sandeep's preferences. Sandeep's retirement plans. No place for that. No place for any of my purchases. No place for anything I want. Nothing of that. There's no place for that. It's all nice to have if I can have it. Dear brothers and sisters, I hope then the final day we won't, we will see all the little bowls of porridge, little bowls of stew that we traded in our birthrights for and maybe it'll stop. Maybe it'll stop. It'll stop every time we repent and God's asking us to repent. Don't ever ever want to speak that way. I don't ever want to speak that way and I want to truly repent when I do it. Don't ever ever want to pilfer and I want to repent when I do that. Don't ever ever want to gossip. I want to repent of it and let's renew our pledge to the whole earth to be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God. It has to go beyond our hearts. It has to go to this community. It has to go to the world. We have to be gripped with it. We have to recognize that God calls us to be witnesses to the entire, the ends of the earth. May the Lord help us to be that flaming pure witness for the Lord, this church, that there'll be purity. Purity in our individual lives. No pilfering. No gossip. Non-forgiveness. Purity in our marriages. Done with fighting. This is God's guarantee. Good marriages. I want every one of our marriages to ask ourselves, Lord Jesus, what's wrong? We don't have a good marriage. What's wrong? We need to have it. I want to repent of everything. Where am I seeking my own interest and not the knowledge of the glory of the Lord? Where am I seeking my own comforts? Then we can build up the church as well. May God help us. ======================================================================== Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/JykQr38x_KI.mp4 Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/sandeep-poonen/our-little-bowls-of-stew/ ========================================================================