Cuando Rebelarse Se Siente Correcto

How are you? Happy day. Today is a good day to talk about Jesus Christ. God is alive. Amen. God is good and God is worthy. Thank you, Lord, for your life. Thank you for your presence in this place. Raise your voice with us. I praise you. I praise you at night, I praise you in the middle, being surrounded. Because when you are next to me, you are by my side. His presence is as long as there is wind, my soul sings and praises God. My heart praises God. I praise you. I praise you when I feel it and even when I don't. I praise you and I know that you are in control. It is more than a sound, it is worship. And when we praise, the air falls. It is while I have breath, my soul sings and praises God. I praise you. I don't stop. I don't stop. God is alive. How can I be silent? I praise God with my heart. I praise the Lord. Thank you, Lord. I praise the one who reigns. I praise the one who reigns. I praise the Lord. I praise the one who was sacrificed for your tomb.

I praise the one who is kind. I praise the one who is faithful. I praise him because he is the only one, I praise the Lord. I praise the one who reigns. I praise the Lord. I praise the one who was sacrificed for your tomb. I praise the one who is kind. I praise the one who is faithful. I praise him because he is the only one, I praise God my heart. I praise God my heart. I praise God my heart. I praise God my heart. I do not stop, my God is alive. How can I be silent? I do not stop, my God is alive. How can I be silent? I do not stop, my God is alive. How can I be silent? I do not stop, my God is alive. I do not stop, my God is alive. We celebrate! Thank you for your name, Lord! All right. Buenos días, familial de Cross Church! Good morning, Cross Church family! I have been practicing my Spanish on Duolingo. That is all I got this morning. I pray for this room every single week, and so today it is such an honor to be able

to stand here and teach God's word. I have been praying for this group every week, and so today it is such an honor to be able to be teaching in front of you. I am overjoyed with what God is doing. There is a clear movement of God happening among this congregation, and I am really thankful. I know some of you, I'm brand new, so let me introduce you to my family on the screen. So I've been married to my wife Rachel for 20 years, she's down here at the front. My son is 16 years old, so all of you drivers, beware on the road. We've got two daughters, so Allie and then Mae is to my left. And then we've got one dog that is really cute, but also very dumb. So that's my family, yeah. As we begin today, thank you, thank you. As we begin today, I've got a question for the room. Have you ever noticed a piece of instruction that you knew was for you, but you refused to submit to it? If you're having trouble, speed limits are a perfect example of this. All right, somebody help me out. What does this sign mean? It's not, it's not, yeah, 60 is wrong. It's not confusing, right? It doesn't whisper, it doesn't make suggestions, speed limit is 55 miles per hour. But let's be honest, we have all created our own personal theology of speed limits. Have you ever thought this, everybody goes five miles over? Or maybe it's this one, I drive this road every day and it feels like a 65 mile per hour. We act shocked when we get pulled over. But even then, we don't say, I didn't know there was a speed limit. We say, I was just going with the flow of traffic.

Which is another way of saying, I noticed the law. But I didn't want to submit to it, so I just adjusted it to what felt right to me. How many of us in this room do the same thing with the laws of God? That's exactly what we're going to see in our text today. If you would, go ahead and open your Bible to Genesis 28. But before we get there, I want to give you a little background information. We have been studying about this very dysfunctional family. And I don't know about you, but I'm grateful that God chooses to use dysfunctional families. But in this one, there are two sons named Jacob and Esau. Jacob has already made a lot of bad decisions, I'm sorry, Esau. He sold his birthright to his brother. He missed out on his father's spiritual blessing. And we're going to see him in our text just continue to make bad decisions based on what felt right to him. And so I'm going to start by reading out of actually Genesis 26. Here's what it says. When Esau was 40 years old, he married two Hittite women, Judith, daughter of Beri, and Basemath, daughter of Elon. And we continue there in verse 35, it says, But Esau's wives made the lives of Isaac and Rebekah bitter. This text tells us that Esau married two Hittite women. And that they became a source of grief to Isaac and Rebekah. Hopefully none of you feel this way about your daughter-in-laws. But the question becomes, why did it grieve them so much? There's two reasons. Number one, Esau married multiple women. This was against the clear design that God had for marriage. All the way back in Genesis 2, where one husband is to marry one wife forever. You're going to see this same thing lived out many times in the Old Testament.

And it always goes wrong. Because it's outside of God's design. But there's a second reason. Esau married outside of the covenant family. The Hittites were a group that was called the Canaanites. They did not worship Abraham's God. And they did things that were totally contrary to what God wanted. The rest of the Old Testament, they would be seen as the enemy of God's people. And Esau decided, I'm going to align myself with them. You can see why this would grieve Isaac and Rebekah. It's this decision that sets the stage for the text that we're going to be looking at today. We're going to read Genesis 26, 6-9. He had obeyed his parents and had gone to Badan Aram. In verse 28, Esau had no doubt that his father did not like the Canaanite women of the place. And verse 9 says, therefore he went to visit the family of his uncle Ishmael. And he married one of the daughters of Ishmael. In addition to the wives he already had. His new wife was called Mahalat. She was the sister of Nebaioth and the daughter of Ishmael, the son of Abraham. Two things that are happening here that are meant to be a warning to all of us in this room. If you're taking notes, I want to encourage you to write these down. Number one, Esau noticed God's will but refused to kneel to it. Twice in our text it says that Esau saw all of these things. He notices the clear instruction, who you marry matters. He notices that his past choices were displeasing to his parents. He notices that his past choices were displeasing to his parents. He even notices that God's blessing is with Jacob when Jacob obeyed his parents. The issue for Esau is not clarity in what he observed. It was a personal lack of submitting to what he saw. We do this in a lot of areas.

Today is February 15th, which means most of us in this room are about a month and a half late on all of our New Year's resolutions. One of my New Year's resolutions was this year I am going to begin to eat healthy. I turned 42 years ago, and I'm just saying things change. One of my goals is every time I eat something, I'm going to look at the nutritional value before I eat it. Two weeks ago, I walk into my pantry, and there on the shelf is one of my health goals greatest enemies, a chocolate chip cookie from Half-Baked Goodness in Rogers. If you've never been there, I highly suggest it. Best cookies in the world. So before I looked at this cookie, I said, I need to find out the nutritional info. And this is what I saw, 650 calories in one cookie. There's no lack of knowledge in looking at that. I could see clearly what the nutritional value was. There's nothing healthy about that cookie. And so I looked at disgust with this cookie, and I threw it away. How many of you believe I did that? I ate every bit of that cookie to the glory of God. Now what does that reveal? That clarity of information does not guarantee surrender of our will. You can know all the right things to do, but still choose to do what feels right to you in the moment. This is one of those places in the Bible that isn't just talking about Esau. It's talking about all of us. Because there is a version of Christianity that is very content just to sit back and observe. I wonder how many of us come into rooms like this, and we observe every week. We're around the things of God. We sit and listen in small groups. Some of you can even tell me all the biblical reasons to do something or not to do something.

You may even feel the conviction of the Holy Spirit. But how many of us refuse to kneel in submission before what God tells us to do? This is why some of you know that your anger is an issue. This is why some of you know that your anger is an issue. You can explain where your anger comes from. Maybe you've been hurt. Or maybe your parents were angry. You can tell me all the verses that you know about patience. You can even apologize for the outburst. But nothing ever changes because you refuse to surrender that area to God. This is why some of you are in strained relationships right now in this room. You've seen clearly what God says about forgiveness. You can even recite all the things that you've been forgiven for. But you refuse to yield that forgiveness in that situation. It's why some of you in this room are anxious and fearful this morning. You know mentally that God is sovereign. You observe that God is good. But when it comes to control of your own life, you've been unwilling to surrender, trusting that God knows better than you do. This week I wrote down three questions from my own heart that I want to give to you. Number one, where do I clearly know what God wants but keep negotiating? Number two, where have I replaced obedience with explanation? Here's all the reasons I can't do what you're telling me to do. And then question three, what conviction keeps returning because I won't yield? What is God showing you right now? If he has his finger on something in your life, you need to know that this text is not condemnation. This text is mercy. The reason God keeps putting his finger on that place is because he loves you too much to leave you there.

And he has something so much better for you. But the only way you will ever experience that is to submit your will to God. Here's the second thing we see in our text that Esau does. Esau changed his strategy but not his heart. Look again at verses eight and nine. What you find is that Esau takes it one step further. He doesn't just notice what God wants. He actually does. he responds to it. The problem is how he responds. He doesn't say, I repent from that. He doesn't turn from his prior decisions that were wrong. He doesn't ask for forgiveness. But instead he adds something to his life. What does he add? Another wife. Husbands. This is never a good decision. He again does what feels right to him. Now to Esau this felt like a religious thing to do. He doesn't make the same mistake in marrying a Canaanite. But instead he marries a daughter of Ishmael who is connected to Abraham. He feels like this is a religious thing to do. But here's the problem. He changes his strategy, but there is zero change in his heart. God never asked him to add a wife. God asked him to repent. There's a point that I want you to write down if you're taking notes today. Because many of us will just try to add religion rather than getting our hearts right with God.

Religious motion does not equal spiritual transformation. I want you to lean in here because there are many people that think religion is the answer. There are many examples of this in the Old Testament. But let me just give you an illustration from today. Imagine that Cross Church decides to start a new campus in Siloam Springs. And we need to find a new pastor. And I come to you, and I say, I want you to be on the search committee with me. Somebody gives you a resume, and you begin to read it. And it looks amazing. This person attended the very best seminary for theological training. He worked under a world-class Bible teacher. He had led many mission trips. He had a history of caring for the poor. He'd even been engaged in spiritual warfare, casting out demons. He was so trusted that he was made the CFO of an incredible missionary organization. How many of you think we should at least interview that person? I've got both hands up. I want to interview him, right? Here's the only problem. At the top of that resume is the name Judas Iscariot. The person that betrayed Jesus. He was a man that was full of sin. of religious motion. He played the part. He was doing all the things that you would want him to do. But his heart was closed toward the person of Jesus. He had a cold, hardened heart. Church family. God doesn't just want your behavior. He deserves your heart. He desires your heart. Think about how this plays out in your own families. Have you ever had a kid that you asked to do something, and they did it, but in the most spiritually resistant way possible? You asked them to take out the trash, and they do it, but they slam the door. You asked them to clean their room, and they do it, but the whole time they're sighing and rolling their eyes. In that moment, do you as a parent

think, what an obedient child I have? No. You don't think, I deserve a gold medal for my parenting. You didn't want them to just do the task. You wanted their heart behind the task. If that's what you want for your children, and that's what I want for my children, why do we assume that God wants his children to give behavior without the heart? The life of Esau is one of Genesis' most sobering warnings. Say it again. The life of Esau is one of the book of Genesis' most sobering warnings. Because what you see is not outright rebellion. It's what I would call almost repentance. Esau observed the law of God. He even had an emotional response to his father's will. But you flip to Hebrews chapter 12, you don't have to do that right now, and it says that Esau did all of those things without true repentance. You see, if the Bible stopped right here, this would be a crushing text. Because all of us see Esau in us. We know what God wants us to do, but we refuse to submit to him. And we just do what feels right to us. Many of us in church look like we're doing religious things. But how often are our hearts cold toward Jesus? But praise God the Bible doesn't stop with Esau. But it points us forward to the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the exact opposite of Esau. Whereas Esau refused to submit to his father's will, Jesus fully submitted to his father's will, even dying on a cross. He voluntarily died for you and for me. Even when we were living in our sin. Even when we were choosing to do what feels right to us. And today he offers his grace to every single one of us. Some of you are in this room and you have never turned and given your life to Jesus. You're just like Esau doing whatever feels right. And today Jesus loves you and is asking you, put your trust in me. Turn from living for yourself and put your faith entirely in me. Submit your life to me. Today, if you've never received that grace, his forgiveness is available to you. No matter who you are, no matter what you've done,

he died for you and he gives you the opportunity to receive his grace. But don't miss this. For all of you who are Christians in the room, repentance isn't just a one-time thing. Whatever he has revealed to you today that you need to turn and give to him, make today the day that you yield that thing to him. He has something so much better for you on the other side of yielding to him. We're gonna move into a time of response. And I'm gonna ask that everybody would just bow their heads and close their eyes. I wanna encourage you not to waste this moment. I wanna encourage you not to waste this moment. But to say, God, what do you want to say to me? Maybe you're here and there's an area of your life where you know exactly what God is asking of you. There's no confusion, no lack of clarity. No hay falta de claridad, no hay confusión. Ya sabes lo que tienes que hacer. Just a lack of surrender. Maybe you've been delaying. Negotiating. Explaining. But never yielding. Today, the Spirit is inviting you to step into obedience today. I wanna invite you to come. Maybe you're here and you're like Esau.

You're doing all the right things outwardly. Saying the right things, keeping up appearances. Está bien, estás haciendo lo correcto. But you know this morning that your heart is distant from God. Maybe even hardened. I wanna encourage you this morning. God is not after some performance from you. He's after your heart. I wanna invite you to come. Maybe you're here and there's a specific conviction the Holy Spirit keeps bringing back to you. A relationship, a habit, a compromise. Maybe it's a decision, and you keep pushing it, hoping it will go away. But God keeps putting his finger on that area, because he loves you too much to leave you there. Today is an opportunity to finally yield. I want to invite you to come. And finally, maybe you're here, and if you're honest, you've never surrendered your life to Jesus. You've noticed God, you've been around church, you've observed the faith of others, but you've never personally knelt to Jesus as Savior and Lord. And today, his grace is available to you, but it must be received through surrender. If you desire that grace, I want to invite you to come today. For all of us, Hebrews 12 brings this warning home. When it says, see to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God as Esau did. Grace is not missed because it lacks power, or because it's not available. Grace is only missed if we resist it, if we miss it, if we resist it. Heavenly Father, I pray that you would meet with us in these next few moments. Would you show each one of us what we need to yield to you?

I pray that this altar would be open and full of people who are bringing all of their heart to you, saying, I don't want just religion, I want you. And so would you meet with us in these moments? In Jesus' name, amen.