DAY 24: small choice, BIG PAIN!

Good morning. Good morning. It's good to have you. Good to have you all. Much love. Much love. Here we are. It's Friday. You may be listening on a Tuesday or Wednesday or Friday or Saturday or whatever, but it's Friday right now. 7 01 a.m. in the morning time. Are you all in? Amen. Are you all in? That is the question. That's the challenge, right? That's the challenge. I have a big announcement. First, do this first. Tune in tomorrow morning, 10 a.m. Tomorrow morning, Saturday. I don't do episodes on Saturday. I have a very special, very special podcast I'm doing. Been like this on me. And so I gotta do it. It kind of ties into this. So tomorrow morning at 10 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, a very special episode. Logic in the Miraculous. Why Biblical Extraordinary Claims Aren't Just Ancient Fairy Tales. Now the internet wants me to do this. So I'm gonna do it. Because the internet says, well, everybody wants to know the answer to these questions. They need to know the answer to these questions. So I'm gonna give it. But I'm gonna do it in my way. Right? Oh Sean Greener, way. Sean Greener, he don't know no better. He just is all in, brother. All in. I love that. Good to see you all. By the way, we have a live chat. We're streaming to I think 10 or 12 locations today. We also um are on playback, uh, audio only on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, iHeartRadio, Pocket Cast, Overcast, Cast Box, Good Pods. So if you have any of those, whatever your favorite thing is, go ahead and click on. Alright, are you ready? Are you ready? Here we go. Here we go. How can two verses feel like a warning sign? Two verses. That's all that's all we're doing. Two verses. How can two verses feel like a warning sign? How can one small decision bring grief into an entire household? Genesis 26 gives us no battle scene. No thunder. I mean, this wasn't a battle. This wasn't a big like thing, you know. There's no thunder, no dream, no angel, no dream, no, no big dramatic confrontation. Just this. Ready? Esau takes wives from the Hittites. Esau takes wives from the Hittites. Then Isaac and Rebecca feel the weight of it in their bones. The Bible says those marriages made life bitter for them. Bitter. Not mildly uncomfortable. Not a little awkward. Bitter. That's the word you use. Bitter is the word you use when grief settles into the house and starts having dinner with the family. That's the word you use when one's private choice becomes everybody's public pain. Can you identify everybody's public pain? So let me ask you right now, what are you calling small that God is calling serious? Maybe tell me in the comments below where are you tempted to ignore to s ignore a small compromise because it doesn't feel urgent yet. My goodness, welcome. Welcome back to the Bible in a year, walking the story of God. I'm Dr. Sean M. Greener. You can call me Sean. Today we're in Genesis. One two verses. Genesis 26, 30, 34, and 35. These are two verses that prove a decision doesn't have to be loud to be devastating. Episodes brought to you by my book, by the way. True Word Faith for Life, you can find it at the store at TruewordFaithforLife.com. It's awesome. You'll love it. True WordFaithforLife.com, a repository for many great things, including a blog, very detailed study guide, all that. There's so many. And the episodes you can listen on. Uh we have a great player there. You can listen, and it remembers where you were. If you pop out, you know, you got, oh, I gotta go do this, I can do that. Again, tune in tomorrow, tomorrow's Saturday, Saturday morning, 10 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. I am doing an episode I am compelled to do. Logic in the Miraculous. Internet says people need to know. So Logic in the Miraculous, why biblical extraordinary claims, miracles, aren't just ancient fairy tales. I think you're going to love that. So here's the setting. Here's the setting. Esau is 40 years old. He's not a kid. I mean, he's he's not making a teenage mistake. He's a grown man. He grown. Right? He's grown. And he chooses two, not one, two Hittite wives. Well, Hittites. Trouble. So Genesis names them because the Bible wants us to feel the concreteness of the decision. This isn't abstract. This is real people. This is real marriages, real households, real consequences. And in the ancient Near Eastern world, marriage wasn't just romance. It wasn't just personal preference. It wasn't just, I love her, so don't judge me. You know, marriage was covenant alignment. It joined households. It joined loyalties, it joined gods, customs, assumptions, inheritance, worship, and future children. Who you married shaped who your house would become. Take that in. Who you married shaped who your house would become. Hmm. That's why Abraham was so careful about Isaac's marriage back in Genesis 24. He didn't treat marriage like some casual preference. He didn't say, Well, as long as Isaac feels happy, that's all that matters. No. That's what we do. Abraham understood the covenant promise required covenant alignment. So he sent his servant. He prayed. He looked for God's providence. He guarded the household from being swallowed up by the surrounding culture. Can anyone identify with that? Abraham wasn't being controlling. He was being covenantally serious. He knew the future could be shaped by one marriage decision. One. But Esau, now Esau, he does, he does the exact opposite. The text doesn't need it, it doesn't need to shout this. Just shows the fruit. Bitterness and enters the house. On Fridays, you know, bitterness makes me think of this. On Fridays, we go to a bunch of my buddies, and I go to uh this same restaurant. We have the same lady that waits on us. She's precious. And um I get pretty much the same. Everybody pretty much gets it. She remembers our orders. I don't know how she does it, but all of my buddies, she remembers them. I don't know how you even do that. But anyway, point is I've been on this kick about BLTs. And so I get a BLT. And I'll be honest, sometimes they're really great. And not for nothing. Sometimes not so great. Sometimes there's a bitterness to the I like how they chop up the lettuce, but sometimes the lettuce is bitter. You know? Sometimes it's bitter. Hey Jason, good to see you. I don't know what your comment is about. I'm not able to register. Hello, hello. Congratulations, God bless you. Willie Nelson, 92 years old, singer. That's what the local radio station said. Okay. That's apples and art barks from what we're talking about, but that's okay, Jason. Bring it on. So it shows the fruit. The text doesn't shout, it shows the fruit. Bitterness enters the house like that bitter lettuce. I'll be there. I'll be there at 8 a.m. Today. I'll finish this. I'll get in my car and I'll drive up there and I'll get me a BLT. And I'll hope it's not bitter lettuce day. So look, this is where we have to just be real with ourselves. We have to be real. Esau's problem isn't that he knows nothing. Esau's problem is that he values nothing sacred. That's the pattern. Earlier he treated the remember this, we just talked about it. Earlier he treated the birthright like it was a bowl of stew. Just like it was some bowl of soup. Now he treats covenant alignment like it's something optional. That's not an isolated mistake, folks. That's revealed priority. One decision may surprise you, but a pattern exposes you. And to be fair, Esau has a pattern. Maybe some of us can identify with that pattern. That pattern thing, maybe we have a few patterns. Through hurts, habits, a few hurts, habits, and hangups that maybe trip us up a little bit. Some things that seem to get us, it seems like a small choice. That brings on big pain. He keeps treating future things like immediate things. He keeps treating covenant things like some sort of personal preference. And that's how people drift into destruction while they're still insisting. They're fine. I'm fine. How you doing? I'm fine. And while just a little closer to destruction. And don't miss this. This is important. It's all important, but this one. Esau doesn't look like he's declaring war on God. No. He's not shaking his fist at heaven. He's not saying, I reject the covenant of Abraham and Isaac. He's not doing that. He's just living like the covenant doesn't matter. He's living like worship and prayer time and and and you know uh studying things of the Lord don't matter. He's acting like trust and obey doesn't matter. The obey part doesn't matter, trust part doesn't matter. He's living like the covenant itself doesn't matter. And that may be more convicting for us. Us, me and you. Because most people don't destroy their lives by making one loud announcement, they do it quietly. One compromise at a time. One tolerated pattern at a time. One relationship at a time. Secret just one secret at it. At a time. One sentence at a time. Maybe you've heard that coming out of your head. That's why Genesis twenty six matters so much for real people. Right now. We're real people. Some of you aren't in rebellion. It's not rebellion. You're in drift. Drift feels calm. Drift feels calm. It feels drift feels manageable. Drift really almost feels peaceful. Peaceful. Nobody panics when the current is slow, right? I grew up on the water in in uh in Hoboth Beach, Delaware, and you know, we have currents there, not like we have here in North Carolina. I live on the coast of North Carolina. They have rip currents like I've never seen. But nobody panics when the current is slow. But you know what? A slow current can carry you far from shore. You look up one day and you wonder, how in the world did I get here? How did my marriage get this tense? How did things go so far off the rails? We're not sweet and loving anymore. We just don't even look at each other. Some sort of business arrangement. How did my marriage get this tense? How did my children absorb that value? How did my conscience how did my conscience get this quiet? How did my worship become optional? How did my worship become we used to worship it all the time? And now how did my home become so divided? Usually the answer isn't one big explosion. It's one long chain of small permissions. That's the warning in Esau's life. What you normalize, you multiply. What you tolerate, you train. What you excuse, you empower. What you keep saying is no big deal. Lived it. Maybe you have to. What you keep saying is no big deal. Just may become the very thing your family has to carry on their back later. I know that sounds heavy and but you know what? It's also merciful. It's merciful because God is showing us the seed before the harvest. That's grace. That's grace. The Bible didn't just tell us what happened, it teaches us how life works if we know how to read and understand it. That's why I'm here today. The Bible says, pay attention when compromise is still small enough to confront. Now, I want you to bring this into your home. Who are you aligning with? What are you allowing into your home? What are you tolerating in your heart? What are you calling freedom that's actually forming bondage? What are you calling love that's actually pulling you away from God? What are you calling private that's quietly shaping the people around you? These questions matter. They matter because no one lives in isolation. Esau's decision didn't stay with Esau. It grieves Isaac, it grieves Rebecca, changes the atmosphere of the house. And that's the compromise. That's the compromise. That's the thing about compromise. It always promises privacy, but it rarely stays private. Parents. You know this. You can feel it when the home changes. You can feel it when your child's values shift. You can feel it when a a marriage choice, a friendship, or a worldview begins carrying a different spirit into the house. And for Isaac and Rebecca, this wasn't just about preference. This wasn't, well, we don't like her cooking. This wasn't, well, we wish he picked someone else from a family we already knew. No. This was covenant grief. This was the pain of watching Esau step outside of the sacred story he was born into. He had access to promise. He had proximity to covenant. He had a grandfather named Abraham and a father named Isaac. But proximity isn't the same as surrender. Being near holy things doesn't mean your value, it doesn't mean your value is for those holy things. Being near holy things, growing up in holy places with holy people doesn't mean you value those holy things. Heavenly Father, we pray for Gene, we pray for his family. What you know the issue, you know the problem, you know the struggle, you know the strain, you know the sorrow, and you know the grief. I pray that you enact not only in Gene's life, you know him, you know the whole deal, but also in all the Lives that are listening now, live or on playback. You are the only thing. The only thing that can fix what's wrong with this world. In Jesus' name. Listen, folks, that's a word for church people too. You can grow up around. You can grow up around the Bible, right? It's around. And you can still treat God casually, because don't open it. You don't study it. You don't understand. You can grow up around the Bible and still treat God casually. You can know the language and still lack the loyalty. Come on, somebody. Somebody's living it. Right now, you're living it right now. You can know the language and still lack the loyalty. You can be near worship and still be ruled by your appetite. You can have a family history of faith and still choose like Esau. The question isn't, were you raised near covenant? That's not the question we get answered. We get asked. The question is, do you honor covenant now? Because inherited exposure isn't the same as personal obedience. So let's be careful here. This passage isn't permission for arrogance. It's not a license to despise people from other backgrounds, the Hittites. The issue in Genesis isn't ethnicity as superiority, has nothing to do with that. The issue is covenant allegiance. Will this household be shaped by the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, or be swallowed by the surrounding worldviews that worshipped other gods, lived by other values? That's the point. The Bible's not teaching snobbery, it's teaching spiritual seriousness. The question isn't, are they like us socially? The question is, are we aligned covenantally? Oh, that guy, you know, you got a little flutter in your heart when you see him. That girl, when you see her, you got a little flutter in her heart. Got a little flutter right there. Are they aligned with your values, your faith, and your belief? Well, you know, they don't go to church and they don't, they don't really pray. I mean, they're not that but religion for them is private. You know, that's why this still speaks to us today, all this time. All this time. Still speaks to us today. Believers often ask God to bless their future while ignoring the alignments that are shaping it. We want peace in the home, but we keep feeding division. We want spiritual strength, but we keep tolerating spiritual compromise. We want our children to honor God, but we keep showing them that God gets whatever is left over. We want covenant fruit from uncovenanted patterns. Genesis 26 looks us right in the eye and says, Small choices have long shadows. But here's the hope. You don't have to wait until bitterness fills the house. You don't have to wait. You can stop drift early. You can stop drift early. You can repent early. You can have the hard conversation early. You can you can cancel that agreement that there is a problem covenantally with. You can cancel that agreement early. You say, hey. No. You can shut the door early. You can say, as for me in my house, we're not gonna call compromise wisdom just because confrontation is uncomfortable. That's not harsh. We would describe that as harsh in the modern world. That's mercy. That's mercy. That's a mercy. God's warnings aren't hatred. God's warnings are rescue before collapse. If we listen, God whispers to us in our pleasures, and he shouts to us in our pain. And this points us forward to Yeshua. Yeshua Jesus points us forward. Esau treats sacred things as optional, but Yeshua treats the Father's will as life itself. Esau moves by appetite. Yeshua moves by obedience. Esau brings bitterness into the house. Yeshua drinks the bitter cup to bring the sons and the daughters home. Esau shows what happens when covenant is despised. That's the gospel movement underneath the story. And you can't understand it unless you understand it. The Bible doesn't just expose our compromise, it leads us to the faithful son who obeyed where we failed. So, don't hear this as condemnation without hope. It's not. Hear it as a summons. Come on, God is not asking you to be perfect in your own strength. He's not asking for that. He's calling you to stop pretending small compromises are harmless. He's calling you to stop baptizing drift with religious language that sounds good. He's calling you to honor him before bitterness takes root. Because the future isn't only shaped by the big moments everyone sees, it's shaped by the small decisions nobody applauds. It's shaped by what you say yes to when no one is watching. It's shaped by what you refuse when everyone else calls it normal. So why? Have for you today a challenge and a choice. Here's the question. Z. Where are you choosing convenience over covenant? Where are you ignoring the warning signs? Where are you calling something small because you don't want to deal with it? Where are you allowing alignment that's already grieving your spirit? You can look, here's the choice. Here's your choice. You have a choice. You can dismiss it now, or you can deal with it now. You can let it grow or you can cut it off. You can protect your comfort or you can protect your future. You can keep saying, well, it's not a big deal. Or you can ask God to show you what it's becoming. Choose covenant. Choose alignment. Choose obedience while the decision is still small. Because small, small choices grow. Who can identify? Small choices grow, small compromises grow, and what you honor today shapes who you become tomorrow. Pray this prayer. Lord, sharpen my discernment. Help me to see small things clearly before they become big problems. Teach me to honor what you call holy. Prayer isn't asking for an easy journey, it's asking for a strong back. And if you've never placed your faith in Jesus, Yeshua, I want you to pray this prayer with me and mean it. Father, I know I've done wrong things, and I need your mercy. I believe Jesus died for me, was buried, and rose again. Today I turn from my sin and I place my trust in Him as my Lord and my King. Forgive me, make me new, fill me with your spirit. I want to follow you in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. If you prayed that prayer today, you're not alone. Reach out to me through True WordFaithforLife.com slash contact. It's up at the top right. You just click on it. Trueword FaithforLife.com slash contact little button. Or you can leave me a voicemail right on the right's two minutes, your two minutes. I pay for it so you don't have to. It's free. Everything's free there except for the book. You gotta pay for that. Look, don't despise the small choice. Don't ignore the quiet warning. Don't trade tomorrow for today. Don't bring bitterness home and call it freedom. Honor God now. Align now. Choose life now. Come on. If this message touched your heart, share it. Think of one person. Come on, one person who needs hope and truth. Send it, send the link to them today. You don't know what that's gonna do. I can't wait. Tomorrow morning, seriously, tomorrow morning at 10 a.m. Eastern, like I need to add one more thing. But I gotta do it. Tomorrow morning at 10 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, live, very special episode. Logic in the Miraculous, why biblical extraordinary claims aren't just ancient fairy tales. The internet says, man, this is something people need to know and understand. They have questions. Well, he has answers. And I thank God that I'm going to be able to bring them to you and to whomever tomorrow morning at 10 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. Until then. Until then. By the way, there's more teachings at free at TrueWordfaithforlife.com. I encourage you to use it. But until tomorrow morning at 10 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, Shalom Bishem Yeshua. Shalom Aleikum.