Good morning. Praise the Lord for the Lord's day. Let's ask him to bless our study now. Our gracious God and Father, we're so grateful to be here, to be able to hear your voice through the scriptures. to be taught, to be encouraged, warned, sharpened, convicted, helped, shaped. We do pray that you will work in us through your word, through the truth that is here, that you will glorify Christ, you'll help your people on, that you will awaken those who are lost. Bless us now in the precious name of Jesus, amen. on our journey through Hebrews, so we'll be back in Hebrews 12. Hebrews 12, picking up in verse 14. I hope you're loving Hebrews more than ever after having come 12 chapters in with this careful study. That's what we want. We want to love the word of God more, and ultimately, the one who speaks the word, to love Christ, to love him, Let's look at what he says, Hebrews 12, 14 through 17. He says, strive for peace with everyone and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. 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. 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. Amen. This is God's word for us today. And he had just spoken of in chapter 10 how God as a Father disciplines us, and the reason is it's for our holiness and that we may share in His holiness. And holiness is being worked in us by God's fatherly discipline. Parents cannot work holiness into their children, but God does, and He can and He does all His children. This is now the thing to be pursued by us. Holiness, he says, without which no one will see the Lord. So he's preparing us to see him. Think of that language, to see the Lord. So there's a clear call to this perseverance. In this discipline of God, He disciplines, and you're to persevere in it. He loves us, and that's why we're being disciplined, is because He loves us, and we're not to take it lightly, or despise any form of His discipline, and we're not to sink under the pressures of it, into some kind of despair or discouragement. We're to press on, knowing God loves us, and He's working and producing this peaceful fruit of righteousness that He spoke of earlier. So the following verses here, starting in verse 14, speak now of two key words, peace and holiness. Those two words are joined together, peace and holiness. These are things that characterize Christians, or they should. And the author now exhorts the readers who are holding fast their confession, they're holding on, that they are to strive for peace with everyone. Strive for peace. This is the Christian's calling, right? Jesus himself, our Lord, is also known as the Prince of Peace. He's the Prince of Peace, and he said, blessed are the peacemakers. And there may be or have been, or there is right now for you, a hard struggle. A trying circumstance, a disappointment, pressures, pains, different things that are coming in the forms of God's discipline. But how are we to respond and live? He's telling us right here, we're to be striving for peace, striving for peace. Now, the flesh, or the devil, the world, or whatever, let's just say the flesh, that part of you that's still fleshy, it may say, wait a minute, I'm not gonna strive for my peace in this situation, I'm gonna strive for my rights. What about me, what about my rights? Or you offended me, I'm going to make things straight. I'm going to get justice. That's what I'm going to strive for. Or I'm going to strive for setting things straight here. I'm going to set them straight. Or I'm going to be combative, argumentative. So is that the way you're living? Or are you doing what the scriptures call you to do, what God calls you to do here? Strive for peace. And this is not a meager, whimsical, little attempt at peace. Are we seeing that? Well, I tried to be peaceful, but things just got out of hand. I had to turn, I had to switch out of peace mode into whatever, beast mode or whatever. I had to get into, I didn't change gears, no. That a meager puny attempt won't cut it. It won't cut it, and that's not the calling. It's a battle for peace. There's to be a strong determination, even a toughness, even a stubbornness when it comes to, no, no, I'm a peacemaker. That's what I'm gonna strive for, endeavor for peace. It says we must earnestly pursue peace. This is something we gotta earnestly pursue or follow after in one sense, because peace almost has this imagery of something that can fly away or run off. And if you're not pursuing it, it'll totally get away, right? And now peace isn't the thing. It's something else, it's something sinful. So there's this pursuit of this peace, almost like it's a bird that could just, And don't we know that's the case in life? Things are peaceful, then something happens, like a hummingbird or something, it's like, it's just gone. Where'd the peace go? But we're Christians, we're to be striving for this peace. And look what he says, who he's saying to strive for peace with. My Bible says, everyone. Does yours say something like that? That all-inclusive? Everyone, strive for peace with everyone. Now, possibly the first interpretation of the everyone I do think would be those everyone within the assembly. Everyone in the church, everyone in here. There should not be a single person you aren't striving for or at peace with in the church body. Right? Because if you have a divided, bickering, backbiting, you know, strife, a church full of strife among ourselves, that's the sign of an unhealthy church, an immaturity. And that's what the Word of God is saying, you need to strive for peace. With that person, that family, that them, all within the body ought to be striving for that peace. Now, second, it would go beyond just these walls and just this assembly of believers. It goes beyond. Everyone, I think, also includes society out there, the world, and all that includes. Everyone. It should be a target for our peacemaking efforts as Christians. Consider how the Lord Jesus calls us to treat even our enemies, right? There's a loving kindness towards them. And the Apostle Paul in Romans 12a, he said, if possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. So as far as you go, you live peaceably with all. Now this tells me the people out there, the world, they should look at Christians and true Christian churches and be ready to say, you know, there's one thing, as I get to know them, or have gotten to know that Christian, if I could say one thing, I know this, they're a peaceable people. They're peacemakers. They sure work hard at making peace. I can say that about them, even though I'm not one of them. They aren't bigoted, actually, or narrow-minded, or hateful. No, they're clearly called by their God to make peace. We had dinner with a couple last night. They're here, I don't want to embarrass them, from England. England's hard on some Christians. Harder than you may realize, harder than we realized last night. And this church actually got investigated just for teaching the truth in ways to where the English authorities were concerned about this hatred or bigotry towards certain lifestyles, alternative lifestyles. And once they got to investigating and got to talking, they were actually, the authorities themselves were kind of embarrassed and thought, no, they're not like that at all. See, this is what society ought to say about us. Our enemies, even if they're unjust or they treat us harshly, our efforts should be peacemaking. And what this does is it beautifies God's people. It's like an ornament we wear. It is a beautiful mark upon you if you are a peacemaker and a peaceable person, one who is striving for peace. And if the enemy or slanderers or those who are against you come at you or accuse you wrongly or all of this, mistreat you and you are doing everything you can to strive for peace, it also is going to be a comfort to you. It beautifies you and it comforts you. because your conscience is gonna preach and comfort you, okay, you did everything you could to make peace. So that glorifies Christ, and that's the calling. And this is what identifies us as children of God. This is a mark upon you, is you're a child of God. Jesus says in Matthew 5, 9, in the Sermon on the Mount, blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called, what? sons of God, children of God. What's our author just been talking about? The fatherhood of God, His discipline in your life, you being marked out as children. He's disciplining you, we're receiving this from Him, and He's working this peaceful fruit of righteousness in us. This is marking us as His real children. Now consider this second part of the verse. It goes on, strive for peace with everyone and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. This word holiness can also be translated sanctification. If you have a new American standard, I think it says, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord. But this is another thing we're to strive for. Strive for the peace, and we're also to strive for the sanctification, the holiness without which we won't see the Lord. What a statement. God in His discipline and shaping us, we saw earlier, fashioning us. What He's doing is He's fashioning us into the image of Christ. He's working Christlikeness in us. And we see here that we're actually called to action too. We're called to action. So when He talks about holiness, I want us to understand what He's not saying. First, he's not saying that you can strive and labor and earn your holiness. That righteous standard to which no one gets into heaven, you can never earn that. That is unattainable, right? No holiness can be achieved by man in that sense. And so justification and that holiness, that one time separation of you as a child of God, your acceptance into heaven, it all comes from Christ. It all comes from the righteousness of Christ and His finished work for you. It's a gift. So in no way is this a kind of striving that earns your salvation. You'd miss the whole point of Hebrews if you come away with that thought. He had just been saying all that central theme, chapter 5 through 10, on the high priestly work of Christ, all the blood, without the purification of blood, there's no forgiveness of sin. So he's already talked about that. But we're looking more now at this purity aspect of holiness, this purity, this pureness, which is kind of an interchangeable term with holiness. So we have this gift given to us, okay? That's one thing, it's given, but there's also this call. You're in this positional state as a Christian, you're separate from the world, you are holy, you're His. But now there's this call, and what he's saying is you have to be, in this pursuit, in this striving for holiness and purity of heart yourself. You need to be striving for more growth in Christlikeness. It's gonna take an effort. It's gonna take this, I keep saying the word striving, because that's the word here. We sing the hymn, Am I a Soldier of the Cross? That phrase, shall I be carried to the skies on flowery beds of ease? while others fought to win the prize and sailed through bloody seas. This is what he's saying. You won't drift your way into this growth, into this maturing, into this sanctification. You don't catch this kind of thing like you catch a cold. Right? This statement is actually put in the negative. Like, if you don't do this, then you won't see the Lord. There's another statement in scripture by Jesus that puts almost the same statement in the positive. And it says, he says in Matthew 5.8, blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. It's the same truth. Now the warning is, you're gonna strive because if you don't, you won't. Jesus saying, blessed are those. The pure in heart aspect, this holiness or sanctification is speaking of this purity of heart. We want our hearts to be more pure in that sense, don't we? I don't think anyone in this room could say, my heart's as pure as I ever want it to be. No, it's gonna take this, almost like the psalmist, it's exactly like the psalmist. We want this purity, he says, search me and know my heart, oh God. I want to have a pure heart that's sanctified or growing in sanctification. And this is something we can strive for and must strive for. This pursuit of holiness would be speaking of our role in the process of sanctification. I think that's the bottom line right there. It's growing in grace and purity, growing more in Christ-likeness, hungering for righteousness. That's our pursuit. That's to be our pursuit. In fact, that's to be our greatest quest in life. I like that word quest. If you're on a quest, that's big. It is a quest in life, this pursuit of holiness. And He says, He gives us incentive. Without it, we won't see God. Now, this vision of God, this seeing God, what that means is living in Him, beholding His glory as He is. That ought to be our greatest quest. That matters more than anything. That's what finishing the race was all about, too. We want to finish that so that we can behold Him, behold our King, behold our Lord in His fullness, in His glory, living in His presence in eternity forever. So all outward privileges that there can be when there's this inward profaneness of heart, these greater eternal privileges will be cut off. Now, he gives us a biblical example as we move through the text here, doesn't he? A little mini biography of someone who lived counter to what he's talking about, namely Esau. So he would be a negative example. He would be a warning story. Now, I want us to note again, the warnings in Scripture and the warning stories of people, certain people like King Saul or Judas, Simon the sorcerer, Demas we'll hear about in the book of Acts as Lee preaches through that. Hearing these stories are actually a great mercy to us. To hear this means our being spurred on. We ought to be spurred on once we hear about that, what happened to that person, or how they turned, or how they turned out, or what they did to fall in that way. It ought to spur on the true Christians to press on in this striving for holiness. You see that? Because there are warning stories in our day. Even in our recent news and times, there are warning stories of certain people who have fallen. Even people who have preached, or people who we thought were godly, or things like that. It's not just one, it's several. But what does that do to the true child of God? It ought to do or cause us to want to do what the author of Hebrews is calling us to do. You strive for holiness. You strive to be a peaceable person. You strive, you press on. You ought to take heed lest, and this is the call. And so he says in verses 15 to 16, See to it, that might be a little bit weak, I'll admit, that see to it, how does the NAS, or King, says see to it? What does a king say, the King James? Looking, so this looking into or seeing it, it is emphatic, you better see to it. If you see to anything, see to this, 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. This is a warning, really, against rejecting the grace of God. Rejecting what's to be yours and to be had in the gift of Christ and the gospel. So, key themes throughout Hebrews. Holding fast, persevering, this persevering endurance, right? Striving to enter God's rest. These have clearly been preached throughout the letter. And Esau's a man who did none of this. He's an example. And the thing for us to take heart is, here, is this can turn out to be our story. It could. Right? It wouldn't be a warning if it wasn't a possible reality. This could be your story as well if you don't pay attention to God's warnings. It could be you. It could be you. Because you have not arrived. We don't want to get that I've arrived mindset. Once saved, always saved. I've arrived. No, it's if saved, always saved. You have not entered that rest. Yet, right, you haven't finished your race. In other words, you haven't entered your rest. Why? Because you're in the race. Racers don't rest. Enough of us have read the hare and the tortoise and the hare to know racers shouldn't rest. You have not entered that rest. You have not fought the good fight and finished your race yet. So this striving, see to it. It's something we have to do for ourselves and for each other. It's not an in-it-for-myself thing either. There are the one and others of Scripture. If you have an in-it-for-myself, save-my-own-teeth mindset, or save-my-own-skin, that's bad. That's not good. I hope you're thinking about this about other people. I want to help you not fall behind in the race, or fall out of the race. If we mutually watch over each other, So what did he mean by fail to obtain the grace of God? Now another way to say that, that failing to obtain, it's not like someone earnestly trying and trying to attain the grace of God, it's not what it means. It's more of a, I'm gonna let that go. It's more of a forfeit, it's more of a fall short of, I'll forfeit that. That's not worth pursuing. See, this whole idea is the opposite of what he's just been talking about with this striving for peace with everyone and the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. Falling short, failing to obtain, forfeiting the grace of God is the end result. And he warned against all these dangers. Didn't he, I mean, just go back through Hebrews. You can grow dull of hearing. You can stop paying close attention to what you've heard. You can drift. You can neglect this great salvation. You can have a hard heart of unbelief or harden your heart when God speaks. All these things. You cannot hold fast your confidence in Christ. And most recently, you cannot take seriously the discipline of the Lord. or lose heart when you're reproved by him. See, what it amounts to is a heart of unbelief. It will grow negligent, it will grow lazy, slothful, it will go through the religious formalities, but the heart isn't engaged. It'll really be because it's holding on to what verse one of chapter 12 said, you better let that go. Those weights that weigh you down and those sins that so easily beset, you don't let go of that because you love it. You love the things of the world. You love these sins. You love these things that just matter so much to you, more than this race. And so this is the great forfeit. That's quite a word, forfeit. When a team forfeits in a race or a competition of some kind, you don't come away with any good thoughts about that, do you? You think about, they're just out. They're not even gonna try to finish this game or this race. They're forfeited. This is the thought, really, I believe. And when this happens, what creeps in is this root of bitterness. Man, this is a big one. This root of bitterness. What comes from the root of bitterness is the opposite of the blessed, peaceful fruit of righteousness. Roots of bitterness have fruits of their own, right? The fruit that comes from bitterness is fruit leading to destruction. Trouble, it says here. Ultimately, death. The Apostle Paul in Romans 6 Verses 20 and 21, he says, for when you were slaves of sin, that's not a son of God, that's a slave of sin. When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. This holiness we're talking about, you were free regarding that, you had no Part of it. He said, but what fruit, there's the fruit language, what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? The root of bitterness will bring shame, guaranteed. And then after that, he says, for the end of those things is death. So what's significant even about a root or the root metaphor, this picture is that it lies beneath the surface, right? It lies beneath the surface. You don't see it. And it's the fruit, it's the plant and the fruits and the tree or whatever, it's that that you're seeing. You know the tree. Right, by its fruit and leaves and all that. But you don't see the root. It's the same with the root of bitterness. It lies beneath the surface. It goes hidden for a while. And that's what happens. That's what happens. All of a sudden, the fruit starts exposing the realities. Up comes the sensual immorality. Boom. Up comes bad stuff. That's a long sermon in itself. But I want us to notice a very important piece of the scriptures here. This came from Moses in Deuteronomy 29. Moses preached this early, and I'm gonna read just three verses here. Deuteronomy 29, verse 18, 19, and 20. This is where the whole thing comes from. Now listen to this. This is Moses preaching the same sermon. And this is the author, he's drawing in this piece of, this important piece of what Moses was speaking of, which is possible for us today. He says, Moses says in Deuteronomy 29, 18 and following, he said, beware, lest there be among you a man or woman, okay, male, female distinction, out. Can happen to any of them. or clan or tribe whose heart is turning away today from the Lord our God, to go and serve the gods of those nations." And don't you know that happens? If they're not serving the God of the Bible, they're serving some god. And there's a lot of false gods out there, right? So this is what happens, serving the God of the nations. Beware, he says, lest there be among you a root bearing poisonous and bitter fruit. This is where the whole thought comes from, the whole truth. One who, when he hears the words of this sworn covenant, blesses himself, now take note of this, he blesses himself, it's a self-inflicted or self-declared blessing upon yourself, those are no good. He blesses himself saying, I shall be safe, though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart. And what were we talking about? Heart purity. I can do what my heart wants, everything's gonna be fine. You know, I walked the aisle, I got baptized, I went through that, I did this and that, I go to church. Yeah, I live like this out here, but I'll be fine. Isn't that, is that common? This is what God speaking through Moses was saying. This assumption, I'll be safe, though I'll walk in the stubbornness of my heart, rather than holiness of heart, striving for peace. This will lead, he says, to the sweeping away of moist and dry like. The Lord will not be willing to forgive him, but rather the anger of the Lord and his jealousy will smoke against that man. And the curse as written in this book will settle upon him, and the Lord will blot out his name from under heaven. That's the reality. And that, you know, the very end of Deuteronomy 29, that sweet verse, 29, 29, he says, the secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us. and to our children forever that we may do all his law, walk in his ways. Doesn't Psalm 119, that's what it's all about. You wanna be happy, you wanna be blessed, walk in his ways. Love his law, love his precepts, keep his statutes, all of this. But the bitter root that's mentioned is an actual person. Or even a group of people if you notice, it's a person. And this bitter root within the assembly will eventually, from their fruits, show themselves. And it causes trouble, damage to a local assembly. And that's where, in one sense, we want to root out, as Paul says, the sexually immoral, the schismatics, these people that are unrepentant. He said you gotta root them out, why? Because it's gonna destroy the assembly. Revelation, early on, those seven churches, Jesus warns, you better deal with this. I know you've had this good stuff, but you better deal with this. If you don't, I'm gonna blow your candle out. This is the truth, isn't it? And just think of a person, just a person who is bitter, a bitter person who just has that in them. It's a total opposite of what a Christian should be. We should not be marked by bitterness at all. A person who's bitter is more hostile, aren't they? They're just hostile. They're combative. They're just prone to anger. They're nitpicky, selfish, unforgiving. It's hard to get them to forgive, if at all. They grudge. They're just a destroyer of peace. That's a bitter person. And the author's concern, and our concern, is that this root of bitterness does not set in among us. It's not just the pastor's job, it's all of us. We need to help one another and prevent this. See, it causes trouble. It's the opposite of what he said, strive for peace. The bitterness causes trouble, not peace. See the contrast? It defiles many. And what's he talking about? Sanctification, holiness, purity. That's what God's working. The root of bitterness causes defilement, trouble. You see, it's such a contrast. And it seldom just stops with themselves, the bitter roots. This disorder, unloving accusations, disputes, schisms, all of these things start happening and they're characteristic of apostates. It's a characteristic. And he says a lot about that. So we're back to Esau. He was the twin brother of Jacob, right? Son of Isaac. His grandfather was Abraham, the father of the faith. So a mistake can be, oh, because of my family, I'll be fine. My father was a holy guy, or my grandfather. No, he's shown right here. He's actually referred to him here in the ESV in chapter 12 as sexually immoral. The Greek word's pornos. I mean, if you read the Old Testament, you don't really explicitly see that, but that's what the New Testament author says about him. which that word pornos could also be translated immoral or fornicator. Now from the book of Genesis we do know that he had multiple Hittite women, right, the sons of Heth, these Hittite women that were a great grief to his parents, especially his mother. And so we do know that much. And he's referred to that here in Hebrews 12. He's also referred to as unholy. He's not striving for holiness. He is unholy. This could also mean profane or irreverent towards the things that are holy, especially God and his people and his word, irreverent, godless. Paul said in Ephesians 5, Verse three, but sexual immorality and all impurity. So we're talking about purity. All impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, right, as is proper among saints. Well, what's the big deal drawn from Esau's life right here in Hebrews 12? The big deal is that he sold his birthright for a single meal. And this statement summarizes the episode of when the twin brothers, Jacob's cooking, he got this pot of red lentil stew, boiling and ready to eat. Esau comes in hungry out of the fields, really tired and just wants it. And so he makes this deal and sells his birthright so he can have one bowl of that stew. And we need to understand, I mean, he sold, he didn't say, hey, I'll give you a lot of money, like I'll give you $100 for something that should cost six or whatever. No, it was infinitely beyond that kind of comparison of what he gave up for one simple pleasure or indulgence or satisfying fleshly thing. Something as natural as physical hunger. He sold his birthright, so the older son in that culture was to get the double portion, which came with a lot of authority. It came with a lot of responsibility. It came with a double portion of all the property and money, all the wealth and possessions. And it came with great responsibility too, but also great blessing. Great, you are a blessed person. If you're the oldest son in a culture in that day, God's marked you out as, wow, you're the heir. And some countries are still like that. I'm looking at the English people here. Sorry. They're a sweet couple. Y'all say hello and get to know them. There's probably heirs. You're the older son or whoever. You're marked out for blessing. But he gave all that up. This birthright from Abraham that came to Isaac was gonna physically come to him, but it didn't turn out that way. Abraham, it does not go to Ishmael, it goes to Isaac. Isaac, it does not go to Esau, it goes to Jacob. So this sin was his selling it or trading it for a single meal. And this single action of Esau speaks volumes about his attitude and heart towards God. It just does. He regarded it lightly, the Lord's great blessing of being the heir of Isaac. He made an unthinkable exchange. We see that in the scriptures. The exchange you make for what's to be had in Christ or in the gospel, for that, it's unthinkable. And in a moment of physical hunger, weariness, or some kind of desire, in this case, he overreacts saying things like, what good's a birthright to me? I'm gonna die. If I don't get that bowl, I'm dead. Now what is that? I want us to notice something here. That's called an overreaction. That's called an overstatement. And overreactions are dangerous. They really are. Overreactions come from the root of bitterness. And they are the opposite of faith. Right? It's the opposite of pursuing peace with all men. This overreaction. Is that pursuing peace? No. You're being ridiculous. This comes from the root of bitterness. So who he is in the warning story, even in the scriptures, he's a biblical portrait of everyone who's carnal and earthly minded. He's the living example, carnal and earthly-minded. He's a living example of people who live for the moment and self-gratification. This moment, we're in this moment, things are getting hot, I'm getting mad, or I'm getting desperate. It's this moment that matters, forget about eternity or other things. It's this moment and self-gratification. We're seeing that? That's what he's personifying here. People who disregard the unseen heavenly realities for the earthly moments and realities. Let me wrap, I'm propelling toward this great verse 17. Because he says now, 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. So now the time comes for him to receive the blessing from his aged father. So that, selling the birthright, happened when he was younger. A long time elapsed, and now it's time for the blessing to be bestowed upon him. And long story short, Rebecca and Jacob make a plan to trick Isaac so that Jacob will get the blessing instead of Esau. That's long story short. And there's no time to get into all that, nor does the author. He doesn't get into it, so I'm not gonna get into it. It was God's sovereign providence that Jacob got the blessing, not Esau. And that's what we're seeing. Esau desired to inherit the blessing, he wanted it, but he was rejected. In other words, he was rejected by God. God rejected them, right? And there's a lesson here, too. There's a little lesson. This isn't the big lesson, but a long time can go by. When you do something over here you haven't really repented about, this long, maybe half a lifetime can go by, and you're assuming things will be all right. Things will work out in the end. I'll get the blessing. It'll be fine. It won't be fine. Right? You see that? A long time passed from him selling that birthright, and he's assuming it's gonna be all right. I'm gonna get the blessing. It's not. God knows, and without true repentance, God will judge and condemn you. Okay, so what about this repentance? It says right here, Esau was in tears. Doesn't that mean he repented? Don't tears mean that, that you're crying? No, it does not mean that. Not always, not always. We need to remember the Genesis account and pay attention to what's being said there, because he's interpreting that account in Hebrews 12. Esau realized he was tricked by Jacob. Isaac seemed to realize also that Jacob He is blessed. He indeed is blessed when he bestowed it upon him like he himself knew that it was of the Lord. See, the repentance on Esau's part, it wasn't that he was sorry for his sin, but that he missed out on the blessing. That's what he was sorry about. That's what he was crying about. John Owen said, sin may be the occasion of great sorrow, where there is no sorrow for sin. Now when verse 17 says that he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears, the key to the verse is what the it is referring to. What's the it referring to? Now based on the Genesis account, he was crying and he was in tears and sad and frustrated and angry and all that, begging Isaac for the blessing. Don't you have one blessing? I lost the big one, but what about any blessing? So it's not as though Esau was weeping and pleading with God for true repentance for his sins. No, he was not in tears for his sins, but he was in tears because he lost the blessing. He was actually pleading. Now, if there is a repentance going on, the repentance doesn't target Esau. He was actually pleading for Isaac, his father, to repent and change his mind, right, about the whole ordeal. But again, Isaac wouldn't do it. He realized finally that unlike himself, it was Jacob that God loved and not Esau. Remember when he found out, like he didn't know, he thought it was Esau, didn't he? He didn't know, but when he found out that Esau comes in later, remember he starts trembling? It was like a holy trembling, it's like the Lord landed with the truth. He realized Jacob's blessed and he is definitely blessed. There's no going back. And he realized it for himself for the first time. So Esau gave up this blessing for something so small, so temporary. And that's how it is in life. You give up Christ, the gospel, the pearl of great price for anything, the wealth of Elon Musk and Bill Gates and LeBron James, all that combined, it's a bowl of soup. It's nothing. Not to mention the sin. Whatever pleasure, indulgence, whatever happiness, it's that bowl of soup that's gonna damn you forever. And think about Jacob. I know I'm a minute or two past, but he actually risked a lot to get that blessing. That was a gutsy, attempts, he could have lost everything, right? In a way, you got to commend him for that. If there's one thing I want and I have to have, I will take great risks to get this blessing. That's what I got to have. And his mother was in with it and he wanted it. So forfeiting your place, like Esau, in this earthly lineage and blessing, that's one thing, but losing your place among the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, that is another thing entirely, and that's what the author's concerned about. You don't lose your place among the assembly of the firstborn enrolled in heaven. Everything in this life is just that temporary bowl of soup. It's what it is when compared to this glory of knowing Jesus Christ, having him as your savior and high priest. So let's strive for peace, saints, with everyone in the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. Amen. Father, bless your word. Take it and attend it, apply it to hearts. Encourage us in the truth. Spur us on to love and good deeds and to this holiness and peace with all men. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.