A Root of Bitterness

At the time of the patriarchs, a firstborn son was a very important event. And part of the reason why was he had a birthright. The firstborn son received double inheritance than the other children, especially the sons. They usually came through the sons unless there were no sons. But in the case of like Abraham, and during that tribal system of that day, the patriarchal day, it was even more important because when you were the firstborn, you not only became the head of the family, you became the head of a tribe. Now we don't know how large the tribe was by the time of Jacob and Esau. We only know how big it was during the time of Abraham, a couple generations before. There were hundreds of people in the tribe. He had hundreds of men that were servants, plus their children and their families, and plus his own family. So this was a fairly large nomadic tribe that traveled throughout the area, herding their sheep, herding their animals, and they were wealthy because of the animals they had, and they were able to sell things. So you're looking at an important position. Remember when Abraham went into Egypt with his tribe, he was noticed, and it was brought to Pharaoh. He was bringing in a nomadic tribe into the country. So what we're going to look at here is a conflict between two brothers over that birthright, over who was going to be in charge of the tribe, and have all the special blessings of being the son of the birthright. And I'm going to tell the story because the story itself leads into a point that I want to make a little bit. So let's go to Genesis 25. You all know the story. The patriarch stories are all fascinating. But Genesis 25. Verse 21, just to pick up the story flow, what we're going through here. It starts with, in verse 21, Isaac pleaded with the Lord for his wife because she was barren, and the Lord granted the plea, and Rebekah his wife conceived. And the children struggled together with her. And she said, if all was well, why am I like this? She was having distress and pain that it just wasn't normal for pregnancy. And then they found out, well, there's two. You have two children in here. So they inquired of God, and here's what God told them in verse 23. Two nations are in your womb. Two people shall be separated from your body. One people shall be stronger than the other, and the other shall serve the younger. Or the older shall serve the younger. Now this is important. God had already determined from these two men, they would go into men, these two males inside Rebekah, He already determined that there was problems with one of them, and the other one was the one He was going to use. Because there was a promise, Abraham, Isaac, there had to be passed on a birthright from Abraham. You and I are recipients of the birthright of Abraham.

In fact, the entire church is no matter who they are in terms of their lineage, because Paul says that all nations are blessed through Jesus Christ, who is the descendant of Abraham. And that the church is a blessing. It's the current blessing that what God is doing spiritually in this world, which is a lot more than what he's doing just with the physical descendants, where he's creating his family in the church, which are made of a people from all over. So these promises carry on through the plan of God right up until the millennium and the great white throne judgment. So this promise, not that Jacob would have understood that, but he understood that there was a promise here to Abraham that was greater than any promise that had been made to any family ever. So when the days were fulfilled for her to give birth, indeed there were twins in her womb. The first came out red. He was like a hairy garment all over, so they called him Esau, you know, big hairy guy. I'm sorry, every time I read this I think of orangutan. You ever see orangutan with a long red hair? That's, you know, he's a baby, okay? But obviously he has a lot more hair than what's sort of normal, and it's sort of red in color, and so they notice, you know, they notice they give him a special name. Afterward, his brother came out and his hand took hold of Esau's heel, so his name was called Jacob. Isaac was 60 years old when he bore them, and so he grabbed his heel. In fact, the word Jacob means supplanter, or supplanter. In other words, he's grabbing the heel. They're fighting even as they come out, okay? I got a hold of you, brother. They're fighting even as they come out of the womb. So the boys grew, and Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of the field, but Jacob was a mild man, dwelling in tents. And Isaac loved Esau because he ate of his game, and Rebecca loved Jacob. Now, there's something important here that's a side point, and you're going to see this throughout the lives of the patriarchs, is that their families produced offspring that competed with each other, and almost always it ended up in some kind of tragedy. And that was just the history of the four generations of Abraham that are carried out in Genesis. They always were, the offspring were always competing with each other, and there was always some kind of tragedy because of it.

So we know what happens is that in this story they grow, and Esau becomes a man, a leader of men. He becomes sort of a hunter, a man that is well looked up to, he is strong, and he's just not like Jacob. I suppose Jacob looked a little wimpy compared to Esau. Jacob took care of, you know, he knew all the tribal things, how many sheep we have, what's the plans for today, who gets the work done. He's the manager of what's going on. Esau's the guy that everybody says, now that, there's a man, there's a leader. You want to follow that man. So we know the story where he's out hunting, he comes along to Jacob, he says, I'm starving, give me some of the food you have. And he was creating some kind of lentil soup. And Jacob says, I will give it to you if you sell me your birthright. If you sell me your birthright.

Now, we try to put this into context of why Jacob would have even wanted this. This was the greatest gift in his mind he could ever receive. He would be the leader of the tribe, but he would also be the next step in this plan of God. This blessing that comes to Abraham, to all nations. And he wanted that. He wanted to be part of that. Esau, on the other hand, did not understand it. Look at chapter 27.

And they had this little bartering going on here.

And, well, I tell you what, I'm going to summarize this. We'll move around here in a minute here, because I… we have a Bible study, so I can't go too late. What happens is, is that Jacob and Esau are bartering, and it says Esau despised his birthright. That is really important here, because that's going to become centered on what we're talking about today. He despised his birthright. He despised the fact that God was involved in his family. He despised the fact that he was going to be the head of the tribe, because his whole life was about doing what he wanted. He was a man's man. He was a self-made man. There's a difference between a God-made man and a self-made man. And as a self-made man, he said, what's good as a birthright if I'm starving here? I've been out hunting. I've been physically active. Jacob, what are you doing? You're sitting around doing paperwork, right? Not really paperwork, but, you know, ciphering and taking care of numbers and making sure everything's organized. What do you want? You're, I'm out here working, and I need food. What's a birthright mean to me? And he sold it to him. He said, sure, you can have it. Now, how much he was sincere about that, no one knows. What's obvious that the scripture says he despised it. In other words, it meant nothing to him. He was living his life the way he wanted to. You know, he was facing life on his terms. Strong, healthy, probably, you know, the one man you would never want to fight, right? This is Esau. And to him, oh, come on, this big birthright thing in the future, it's not that big a deal.

It's interesting, he was already a leader, so he saw no reason to have this leadership given to him. He saw no reason for the birthright to be important to him. He was already a successful person, and in that environment, he was very successful.

So what happens, of course, as we know the story, is that Jacob now, Isaac is about to give the blessing. He's about to give the birthright. Lay hands on the oldest son and say, you are now the head of the tribe. You are now the leader. You are now the one God works through. And Rebecca, who played a major part in this, told Jacob, well, you know what we have to do is your dad is blind. So what we have to do is we have to fool him in the blessing you. Now, I don't know if Jacob just didn't have the faith.

I mean, it already had been given to him by his brother, right? But he probably thought, and I'm just guessing here, dad's never going to believe that, right? Or he's just going to say, oh, come on, my brother took advantage of me. You know how he is. He's dishonest. He's always got some trick up his sleeve. He's always trying. And you know, when you look at the life of Jacob, one of the things he had to learn was he manipulated himself through life. He was doing that all the time. So, you know, Jacob probably thinks this is the only way this will work. And Rebecca has him convinced, and he pretends to be his brother.

His dad, his father doesn't recognize what's happening, doesn't understand what's happening, and he gives him the blessing. He gives him the blessing. Well, you can imagine when Esau comes in to receive the blessing, you know, Jacob leaves, he comes in. It's almost immediately afterwards. He comes in, and Isaac says, who are you? And he says, okay, well, you are hairy. I don't know, I can feel you're, you got to hairy all the hair.

But see, Jacob had put some skins on him, animal skins, so he felt hairy. So he would smell like his brother smelled. He came in and disguised his voice, and he had received the blessing. Isaac realized this wasn't right, but he never, he didn't accuse him of fraud. It's very interesting.

He didn't accuse him of fraud, and there's a Jewish tradition behind this, because Jacob says, or I'm sorry, Esau says to Isaac, this is the second time my brother has grabbed hold of my heel and supplanted me and taken away my birthright. Now wait a minute, he did, you know, first time he, they came out, he wasn't taking away his birthright.

So what the Jewish tradition is, is it's when then Isaac says, what do you mean, what do you mean the second time? And Esau says, well, the first time is when he cheated me out of it for, you know, a pot of stew. And that's when Isaac says, oh, you gave it to him. Because there is, it is interesting. Isaac doesn't say he doesn't have it now.

And so that's the Jewish tradition. The Jewish tradition is he figured it out. Wait a minute, you sold it to him. You gave up your birthright. You don't have it anymore. And God is now given it to him. Now we have no biblical proof of that, but I do find that interesting. All we know is Isaac won't give him the birthright.

He gave it to him. He did the ceremony before God. Jacob had it. And so Esau becomes so angry, he becomes bitter. And what he does is he decides there's only one way out of this and that's to kill him. Kill my brother, and then guess what? I get the birthright. Because I'm the next one in line, and I will be in charge of the tribe. I'll be the big man, and I'll have all these privileges.

And I'll have twice the blessing he gets as far as the inheritance. And so he decided to do that. And so Jacob flees, and he spends many years away from his family, many years out there by himself, learning not to manipulate his way through life. So you have two problems here. One is a man who manipulates his way through life, and the other is the man who bullies his way through life. But God knew when they were in the womb that one would not be satisfactory to be the one who the promises made to Abraham would go through.

So it was decided then. And Jacob didn't have the faith or the knowledge or the understanding to let God work it out, so he worked it out himself and God let him. And then he paid a price for it, because he was away from his family for much of his life off by himself. Now, I give you this story. You all know this story, and I'm just going through it very quickly. To set up an understanding of something that we need to learn about Esau.

Not about Jacob, but about Esau. We understand Jacob's problems. We talk about them a lot. I mean, he's always trying to make a deal, right? He's always trying to make a deal. He ends up in trouble all the time. But let's look at Esau for a minute, and let's go to the New Testament. Hebrews 12.

Hebrews 12. Verse 12.

And we start reading this, and okay, what's this have to do with what we've been reading or talking about here? He says, This is all one sentence in Greek.

And he says, I mean, we could spend 25 minutes just going through these few verses here.

Okay, we'll have to discuss what is a root of bitterness. And by this many become defiled. They become profane.

Verse 16.

The point he's making here is Esau was a profane person. You can almost take this story and say, well, Esau is the victim here, right? I mean, Jacob tricked him. He tricked him. Esau's the victim. He's the poor guy that got mistreated, tricked by his trickster brother into giving up his birthright. And then his own father was tricked. That can't be true. God is so unfair here. Right? Doesn't God seem unfair that the trickster won out over the legitimate receiver of the inheritance? But remember, from the very beginning, God said, the older one is not going to turn out well, and he wasn't going to be chosen. I'm not saying what the way Jacob handled this was right. I'm saying God saw something, and he was going to remedy it, that the firstborn was not going to receive the birthright. And what we have here is a statement that he was profane.

What good is a birthright to me? He told Jacob. What good is this?

Self-made man could do whatever he wanted, did whatever he wanted, had power. We know at one point he had hundreds of men who followed him. He became the leader of his own tribe. With hundreds of people, the men would have had children. A huge tribe that was his own tribe. This is the type of man he was, just that man that other people gathered around.

But he was profane. Profane means that basically we lack any comprehension with the sacred. In other words, he lacked any real comprehension of who God was and what God wanted. He was a profane person.

We don't see him ever talking of God in the way that Jacob did. We don't see him having a relationship with God anywhere even close to what Jacob did or Isaac did or Abraham did. But he was born first, so by that tradition he should have been the leader of the tribe and God wasn't going to allow because he was profane.

And so we must understand here, he's not the victim. He can seem like the victim, he's not. God was never going to let him lead that tribe because there was something in him that wasn't responding to God. So we have a profane person and he gave up his birthright. He said, oh, I love this story.

I always loved the patriarchic stories and everything about them, but what does that have to do with me? Let's go to the last verse here in this chapter, verse 28 of Hebrews 12.

Because everything that's in chapter 12 here gets summarized here in this therefore statement, verse 28, therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace. Now we just talked about how we could lose our grace, our relationship with God, this special calling that God gives us. Let us have grace by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear, for our God is a consuming fire. Esau is the example of someone who is given by God a birthright, and he did not serve God with reverence and godly fear. He did not, and God was never going to give it to him. He wasn't capable of being what Jacob could be. A root of bitterness. Here he warns us that not to be shaken, that God has given us a birthright. Those who have been called by God are given a birthright. It's called the better resurrection. It doesn't mean God loves the rest of the family less. All those that are brought into the family, at the end of the Great White Throne Judgment, but there are those who are called to help Christ serve. That's a place in this salvation history. Jacob had a place in salvation history. Esau was not qualified. That's the whole point of the story. He could have let Jacob come out first. Now the point is, God's going to make sure he gets into the place that people he wants.

And yet we still see through the Scripture that some fail.

One of our greatest fears sometimes is, I'm going to lose my birthright. Right? Christ is going to come back and say, I don't know you. How would we lose our birthright? Esau lost his. And one of the things we see is he was a profane man. And he was a profane man. And in that same section here, earlier in this chapter in Hebrews, it says that there was a root of bitterness, or were warned not to have a root of bitterness. And that's what I'm going to talk about. Esau was a bitter man. Now, Esau was a bitter man. Now, at the end, he accepted Jacob. He did not kill Jacob. And they just lived as two separate tribes. But he never was used by God. Esau and his followers were never really used by God. Can we jeopardize our birthright because of a root of bitterness? And what does that even mean? A root of bitterness. So let's talk about a root of bitterness a little bit. And this is just an overview here. I'm not going to go into a lot of great detail, but I want you to think about this.

A tree, you know, I have trees in my yard. You have trees in your yard. I'm always looking. Oh, is there some kind of disease on the tree? What's happening with the leaves? What's happening with the limbs? What's happening with the trunk? But you know, a tree can have a lot of problems and survive. But you get some kind of rot in the roots, and eventually that destroys the whole tree. So this root of bitterness means that there's something deep in the core of who you are. Remember Esau's problem was he was profane. So we have to make sure we don't head in that direction, that a root of bitterness is created in our lives.

Because it is at the root of who we are then, and it affects everything about us.

And just to make this simple, bitterness, and we'll even talk about what the Greek word means bitter here in a minute, but bitterness is a distressed state of mind that is motivated by unresolved anger and the feeling of being a victim. Esau was an angry man. I'm going to kill my brother. He spent decades wanting to kill his brother. And he was the victim. He was the victim instead of the one who had not cherished what God had given to him. Bitterness creates a very hard heart, and in doing so, it becomes difficult for us to respond to God's Spirit. Now bitterness can come from a lot of different directions. I'm going to zero in on one here, but it comes from a lot of different directions.

Sometimes a husband or wife can not resolve the issues between them, and a bitterness can set in, and they just get where they can't talk, they can't stand to be around each other, you know, and it gets worse and worse and worse. And of course, she tells her friends, he tells his friends, we share bitterness, by the way. It's part of the problem with bitterness. We share it. And I've seen couples, with the help of God, change, and I've seen couples that don't change, because bitterness gets so deep, they just can't stand each other. It's a bitterness for everything. Well, I remember 10 years ago, you did this. I remember 15 years ago, you did this, and they just lock into this bitterness, and it eats them up. It's like an emotional, mental, and spiritual cancer that eats them up. Or you get frustrated at your job, you've worked hard there, you've been a good employee, and suddenly you realize they're mistreating you. I mean, everybody else is getting promoted. You do more than anybody else, but it's really hard when the boss's nephew, who isn't even qualified to sweep the floors, gets promoted above you, and is making more money. And it's a wrong. Now, some of these are real wrongs. Esau had, he was the one in the wrong, okay? But remember, Jacob did mistreat him. Jacob tried to manipulate it, but many times when we have a bitterness, it's because something really bad did happen to us. It really wasn't our fault. Somebody did something, said something, and it hurt, and it was destructive in your life, and you struggle. Or how about a church member? Some church member, you have a little bit of a disagreement, and they go around and tell everybody how you're a dishonest person, or say something terrible about you. And it's wrong that they did that, and it doesn't get resolved. And so what you do, it just, it eats away. This gets inside of you, and you can't get out of it. You can't get rid of it. It's not like, okay, I'm upset. Ah, man, I'm just gonna let this go. Or you have something that happened to you, and we've all done this. You've had something bad happen to you that's years ago, and it's two years later, and you remember it, and you feel that anger, and you feel that angst, and you feel, you know, bad about it, and you then work through it, and you let it go. What happens if you don't? What happens if you're now three years down the line, and every day you're thinking about wrestling with something that somebody did to you, and they were wrong. Bitterness gets into us at the core, until it begins to control us. Once we allow this to become rooted into us, like the tree, you know, it's rooted into the roots, it begins to affect every aspect of our lives. We're bitter over one thing, and we become bitter over more and more and more things.

The problem is, once we reach a certain level of bitterness, we believe our emotional, mental, and spiritual state is justified, and it's because you could go back and show. Remember what Esau said? This is the second time he took this from me. No, the first time he gave it to him, but now he's even twisting the past.

So we let it in there, and we can't let go of it. And the hardest part is when the other person never repents, doesn't care, has forgotten about it, has absolutely forgotten about it. They don't even remember they did it. And it's five years later, and you're still carrying that around, and that bitterness is in there, and it's... it just doesn't go away. I mean, it goes away for a little bit, but it always comes back. And then you have... you... everybody else is mistreating you. Bitterness becomes a way of looking at life. We all struggle with bitterness from time to time, and a lot of it's because something bad happened to us. But if bitterness starts to eat us up, we can't respond to God's Spirit. We're in danger of becoming profane. That we see life in no way the way God wants us to see it, but we see life only through these bitter feelings we have. And bitterness is a strong emotion, and usually it's because something bad was done to you. Sometimes very terrible things. Look at Jerimiah 17.

Jerimiah 17 Verse 7 And you've...this is one of those memory passages, but let's go through this and think about it in this terms of not becoming profane through bitterness. Bless is the man who trusted the Lord and whose hope is in the Lord. For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters which spreads out its roots by the tree and will not fear when heat comes. But its leaf will be green, will not be anxious in the ear of drought, nor will cease from yielding fruit. Now see the imagery here.

When we trust in God, when we're in a right relation with God, the roots of our spirituality is creating good things in spite of drought, in spite of blight, in spite of the things that happened to us in life. Because life is always messy. It's never in a straight line. It's never fair. There's not a lot of justice, right? But if our roots are here by the waters of God, God's Holy Spirit, then if God's Holy Spirit is working in us, we weather those things. See? It's talking about weathering, right? Surviving what's going on around you and still being strong. The heart is deceitful, verse 9, above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? I, the Lord, search the heart. I test the mind even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings. You and I struggle with all this because we live in Satan's world. We live with eight billion other people that are all very flawed people. Of course, remember, they're all living with you, too. I think about that a lot. You know? Oh, yeah. Before I get too upset over somebody, I better remember they're living with me, too. I'm not talking about my wife. I'm just... although I do think that with her, too. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. I'm not easy to live with sometimes. So maybe I should back off a step, right? So we realize we're desperately... no, we have God's Spirit. So we're... that desperate wickedness is being taken out of us. The word desperate is amazing. It's like I'm desperate to be wicked, okay? We're moving away from that. We have God's Spirit. We're no longer desperately wicked. We are fighting wickedness. But the world... the world around us is a mixture of good and evil, and always will be.

And verses seven and eight actually give us the positive part of this message. God's going to be working with us, and we got to remember nothing's ever going to be perfect. And what we have to remember is that we can't let bitterness become so much a part of us, that begins to eat up who we are, and let God heal us, and let God help us. Because the strange thing about bitterness, you can be bitter over a job. You can be bitter over a relationship. You can be bitter over just life. You know, sometimes it's a health issue. There's all these things that can turn into bitterness. Once it reaches the bitterness stage, now I'm not saying the discouragement stage. That's normal. I'm not saying the upset stage. That's normal. Even anger at what happens to you is normal. The grief stage is normal. Bitterness, though, is when it's part of you at the core of who you are, so that you are in a state of just despair, anger, and you want it fixed at all costs. You want it fixed at all costs.

And sometimes there's no way to fix things in life. I say, well, boy, that's discouraging. No! That's reality. There comes a time when God fixes everything. You know that. I know that. That's an incredible gift. There's lots of people that get up every day and think there's no hope ever for anything. So you might as well have a good time today because, you know, you don't know how bad tomorrow will be. So the bitterness gets in the core of us, and we now normalize being angry. We normalize being filled with just absolutely distrust towards anybody, and we get just filled with this feeling that I'm a victim.

We're all victims, and we're all... we all are the ones who victimize others. We're all on both ends of that one. We have to recognize that. Sometimes we mistreat other people.

This root of bitterness at the root of the tree of who we are is a very dangerous state.

Now, you're going through... many of you are going through very serious trials, and where there is turmoil and stress and worry and angry, anger, those of themselves are normal, as human beings work through things. So I want you to understand the difference. Bitterness is when it's a permanent state, no matter what. You could wake up and say it's a nice day today, and your answer is shut up, it'll only get worse, right? Because there's nothing ever good. You never see God in anything. Esau did not care about God's promise. We have the promise. We read it, the promise of the kingdom. We have that promise, and that has to be something we believe in so strongly that we know God's going to get us there.

But what happens is, the more bitter you become, the more you damage every single relationship in your life. People can't stand to be around you. You're just negative. You can't talk about anything good, and you tend to be totally self-absorbed. This is what bitterness does to us. I won't ask you, because I wouldn't. If I asked, who has never felt bitter in your life, I don't think anybody could raise their hand. Everybody has felt bitter sometime. It's when it gets in the root, right? You let go of your bitterness. That's the whole point here, is learning to let go of bitterness. But somebody did me wrong, and they haven't paid for it.

They haven't paid for it. That's right.

Let's look at a couple scriptures here, and I'll wrap it up. Romans 12 verse 16.

These are very, very general concepts, but I want you to write down these next two passages, and I want you to... if you have any problem with bitterness, and because at first you'll say, well, these are too general. These are...

you know, I read a book on how to deal with being a victim, and it didn't say any of this. Okay. These general ways of approaching life is how God wants us to deal with this.

Chapter 12 of Romans verse 16. Now he's talking to the church. He says, Be of the same mind toward one another. Do not set your mind on high things, but associate with the humble. Do not be wise in your own opinion. We start with, we can't govern everything in life or view everything in life by our own opinions and our own feelings, especially our own feelings. Feelings are feelings. They could be right or wrong.

We can't govern our lives on just our feelings. He says, We pay no one evil for evil, have regard for good things in the sight of all men. Okay. We don't get in a tit-for-tat situation where you did me wrong, I'm doing you wrong. You did me wrong, I'm doing you wrong. No, someone does us wrong. We deal with it, but the answer isn't doing them wrong. Well, I'm justified. You know, just in a, the way we think as human beings, someone does you so wrong, you do them wrong. That's the way it works, but that's not what we're told to do here. That doesn't mean you let them get away with it. It means you don't get dragged into the pit where they are. Now, it's just two people doing wrong, right? It's just two people doing wrong. If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men. That's not always possible. That's why he says it that way. You can't always be at peace with everybody because some people won't let you be at peace with them. They just won't let you, probably because they're bitter.

They have their own bitterness to deal with. Bitter people are very hard to get along with.

Verse 19, he says, Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath for as written vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. So he then goes on and says, so guess what? Feed your hungry enemy. Right? Verse 20. If he's thirsty, give him a drink.

Just try to do what is right, even in the face of people who are doing what's wrong. Now, he doesn't say, let yourself be victimized. He doesn't say, let yourself be abused. He doesn't say, there isn't a time to stand up to somebody who's misusing you. There is. That's a whole other sermon. He's talking here about how not to become filled with a root of bitterness, that you say, I will do what's right here. I will do what's right, even if you're wrong. In other words, it's not an excusing somebody else's wrong. I will do what's right. Ephesians 4, the other set of scriptures, there are verses here. Hebrews 4. I'm just opening the thought process here, that we need to be very, very careful about a root of bitterness. And it happens because we sort of have uncontrolled emotional responses to negative things in our lives.

And then we begin to feel like a victim. We're the victim. Well, okay. You can be a victim and decide not to feel like a victim. Those are two different things.

Yes, you've been a victim, but you can grow beyond it. With God's help, you can grow beyond it. And that's why Paul here in Romans and now Ephesians 4 gives these pithy little statements. They're all stacked up. That's why I'm giving you these two sections because you can study these sections in detail. You can take each one of these verses and break them down into the segments in each verse. Be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your wrath. How many times have you heard that? In other words, yes, you're going to be angry. Don't let it control you so that you become bitter. I've had times in my life I've had to fight anger and there's times I've had to fight bitterness because uncontrolled anger leads to bitterness. Do not let the sun go down on your wrath or give place to the devil. So he goes, he says, don't steal anymore. If you were a thief, don't steal. Rather, learn how to work. Do what is good. Give to him who is in need. Verse 29 says, let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good and necessary edification that may impart grace to the ears.

Think about what you're saying to try to impart the mercy of God, the understanding of God to them. They may reject it. You can make somebody do what's right. The point he's making is look at situations in terms of what must I do that's right. Every time I react out of emotion, not every time, most of the time, when I react out of emotion, later I think, that I didn't handle that right. Sometimes I'm okay, sometimes it's no, sometimes I have to go back to people. Here's what I meant to say. Here's what I wanted to say. Then verse 30, do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. God is grieved by us sometimes. That's amazing to think about grief. God feels grief because of us. He doesn't let go of us. He doesn't throw us away. That's because there's no bitterness in God. We don't have to ever worry about God being bitter. It's not even part of his makeup. He can't be bitter. We wrestle with it. Then verse 31 says, let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice. Those things are all connected. Bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, evil speaking, malice, they're all connected. And at the root of it many times is bitterness. We're upset because life, we've been mistreated, and bad things have happened, and we can't let go of it. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you. We always come back to how is God dealing with us?

So I've given you these two sections to really study this week. Think about this week. Think, is there bitterness in me? Pray to God and ask Him to show you your bitterness, and ask Him to show you how to overcome it, and how to let go. And of course the problem is, but if I let go, that person never repented. That person never said they're sorry. That person is never going to come. There's been people, I've done counseling with people, and I understand it, who are just devastated because somebody did something terrible to them, and then died, and they were never able to get an apology. They were never able to get some kind of closure. Life doesn't always give us closure.

And we have to make sure that that root of bitterness doesn't set in, so that we begin to forget and let go of our birthright, the greater birthright. Jacob wanted that birthright so much. He did wrong things to get it, and God had to punish him. But he just wanted it so much, because he just wanted to be what God wanted him to be. And God was able to work with that. He couldn't work with Esau, the self-made man. Couldn't work with him. Here's the problem that we have to work through, because many times we're bitter over things that can never be resolved in this life. The word bitterness in Greek is very interesting. It comes from a root word. In fact, there's bitter, there's bitterness, there's a number of words that are translated bitter or bitterness, and they come from four different Greek words. But they come from the same root, and the root word is what's interesting, because the root word is cut, like you cut something.

It's like painful. So it comes from cut. There's a bitterness. So bitterness, when that root word is attached to other endings, it becomes what we mean. I mean, it can mean a sharp, pungent taste, right? Or a smell. Well, that's bitter. But it can also mean grief. It can mean evil. It can mean jealousy. It can mean hatred. Bitterness is used in a lot of ways.

So if someone is grieving, they're bitter. We understand it's an emotion that cuts at you, right? It cuts at who you are. So think of this, the bitterness is something that's inciting you, that's cutting you, that's tearing you apart, and you never let go of it. It's never gone. It's always there. Or it always keeps coming back. You have to fight it. We have to fight bitterness. I was thinking about this, the cut, and then I was thinking about what if you're in a situation where you've been so abused, so hurt, and the person never repents. And so you are filled with bitterness. When that happens, I want you to think of something. This root word to cut. When you're bitter, you know what you're doing? You're taking a sharp knife and you're cutting yourself in a hundred different places and hoping the other person bleeds.

You're internalizing something that you can't control, so you're cutting. You're bitter. I'm cutting myself all over. There. That'll show you, and the other person doesn't even know.

That's the problem with bitterness. It doesn't solve the evil with the other person. That's why we just read. Vengeance is mine, says the Lord. There's times where God says, leave this one alone. I will take care of it. That's a little scary when God says, I'll take care of this one for you, right? That's a little frightening.

So next time you're struggling with bitterness, remember all you're doing is cutting yourself, hoping the other person feels some pain. That bitterness will just eat us up, and it's emotional cutting us apart.

That's why there's so much in the Bible about it. So I encourage all of you to take those two passages. I'll give you a little homework to do once in a while. The one in Romans, the one in Ephesians. Take those two little passages, and really think about them and study them in terms of emotionally understanding where I am as a Christian and understanding the birthright that has been given to me so that you are not in danger of becoming a profane person because of a root of bitterness like Esau. Pray about it because God will help you through it. God will help us through all these things. That doesn't mean it goes away in two days. Sometimes we deal with these things for years.

What's wrong with me? It's called being human. Welcome to the human race.

Spiritual change is never easy, and it never happens with the, you know, just like that. Jacob could change. Esau could not. There's the difference. That's why God chose the one over the other. Jacob could change. Esau could not. And it took a long time for Jacob to be where God wanted him to be before even letting him come back to his family. Esau just became the leader of a rough gang.

He had his own tribe, but it had nothing to do with God. It had nothing to do with God. God has given you or offered you the greatest birthright anybody could ever have. It's to be in his family forever. And it's not just that. It's to be part of the plan so you can help others come along. You know, sharing the gospel today, and when Christ comes back, what are we going to do? Help him convert the world. What a birthright! You know, take care of the tribe. Take care of the kingdom. Take care of the people. That's what we're supposed to do. That's what we're called to do. Don't allow root of bitterness to take hold of your life so that you're never in danger of selling this birthright for the equivalent of a bowl of lentils.