The World’s most expensive

Soup

Genesis 25:19-34

The World’s most expensive soup

• Served at Kai, a restaurant in London

• Cost: $214 a bowl

• Called: “Buddha Jumps over the Wall.”

• Contents: abalone, quail eggs, shark fin, scallops, ginseng and gold

• But it’s not the world’s most expensive soup

The World’s most expensive soup

• was served about 4,000 years ago.

• was made of lintels and was red in color.

• wasn’t served in a restaurant and had nothing expensive in it.

• But it changed the course of history.

• Was bought by a buyer with a weakness.

• Was sold by a shrewd brother that took advantage of his brother’s weakness.

What was this brother’s weakness

His desire to satisfy his appetite nowwithout considering the cost.

Esau was a “child of the now”.

The danger of wanting it now…

The world (children of the now) wants everything now.

– “We have instant coffee, instant breakfasts, instant soup, instant oatmeal, instant pudding, and microwave popcorn. We also have instamatic cameras, cable Internet and e-mail, universal cell phone coverage, cable TV, iPods, DVDs, Play Stations, and Palm Pilots. We have become conditioned to “fast food,” “Quick-Print,” and “Express Mail.”” (Keith Krell, “Born to be Wild” sermon from bible.org)

– Add to this the desire for instant success, instant health, instant good looks, instant spirituality, ….

Our World is all about the Now

Why Wait when you can get it now.

• Buy your dream house now…

• Get it on credit. Get it now, pay later.

• Rent to own

• Hunt big game now and easy

• Sex now (not after marriage)

The world profits off of immediate self-gratification.

But, getting it now cost so much tomorrow.

Abraham had many children of the now but only one child of Promise

• Abraham’s Children of the now– Ishmael had 12 sons

– Keturah had six sons

– The Child of Promise waits.

What was going on in the heart of Isaac and Abraham? It was through Isaac that promises would be passed, but they were surrounded by everyone else's kids, children of the now. The children of the now had so much.

Children of promise must learn not to be Children of the now – Wait on God.

Our time is not God’s time.

He works His Will, in His Time and in His Way.

In the context surrounding Genesis 25,

Abraham had learned to wait,

Isaac is learning to wait,

and Jacob will learn to wait.

Isaac waited for the right wife

Genesis 2519 This is the account of Isaac, the son of Abraham. Abraham became the father of Isaac. 20 When Isaac was forty years old, he married Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel the Aramean from PaddanAram and sister of Labanthe Aramean.

• She had to be from the family of Abraham.

• She had to come from the land of Abraham.

• He had to wait until he was 40 years old to find miss right.

Isaac had to wait to have children

21 Isaac prayed to the LORD

on behalf of his wife because she was childless. The LORD

answered his prayer, and his wife Rebekahbecame pregnant.

• Rebekah, like Sarah, was barren.

• Unlike his father, Isaac didn’t go to a concubine. He pleaded with God.

• God answered.

Application: Don’t hurry it, don’t force it, plead with God for it, and Wait.

…only to see his wife in pain

22 But the children struggled inside her, and she said, “If it is going to be like this, I’m not so sure I want to be pregnant!” So she asked the LORD, 23 and the LORD said to her, “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples will be separated from within you. One people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger.”

• She had twice the blessing, but twice the pain.

• They fought, even in the womb.

• Like Isaac, she went to the Lord.

• God answered:– Two nations and separate

people.

– One people will be stronger.

– The older will serve the younger. God reverses the natural order.

They waited nine months…

24 When the time came for Rebekah to give birth, there were twins in her womb. 25 The first came out reddish all over, like a hairy garment, so they named him Esau.

• “The time came” – it always comes in God’s time.

• The firstborn was red and covered with hair.

• Esau means hairy.

They waited for the second

26 When his brother came out with his hand clutching Esau’s heel, they named him Jacob. Isaac was sixty years old when they were born.

• The second son held to the older child’s heel.

• The name Jacob (ya‘ăqōḇ, meaning “may He [God] protect”) was selected because of its connection in sound and sense to the noun “heel” (‘āqēḇ) or “to watch from behind”.

• Isaac was married 20 years before their birth.

Different sons, different natures

27 When the boys grew up, Esau became a skilled hunter, a man of the open fields, but Jacob was an even-tempered man, living in tents. 28 Isaac loved Esau because he had a taste for fresh game, but Rebekah loved Jacob.

• Esau was– Hunter - hb. Sayid

– Fields

• Jacob was– Even-tempered (quite,

peaceful, perfect, blameless, complete)

– Living in tents

• Jacob’s love conditional

• Rebekah loved with an ongoing love

Natural tensions caused by their temperaments, likes, natures.Tensions caused by parental favoritism and divided affections.

The calm one becomes the hunter and the hunter the hunted

29 Now Jacob cooked some stew, and when Esau came in from the open fields, he was famished. 30 So Esau said to Jacob, “Feed me some of the red stuff –yes, this red stuff –because I’m starving!” (That is why he was also called Edom.)

• One day he was cooking (lit., “boiling,” wayyāzeḏ) some stew (“vegetable soup,” nāzîḏ; v. 29) The words play off of the word for hunter – hb. sayidJacob is hunting the hunter.

• Esau takes the bait.

Child of Promise vs. Child of the Now

31 But Jacob replied, “First sell me your birthright.” 32 “Look,” said Esau, “I’m about to die! What use is the birthright to me?” 33 But Jacob said, “Swear an oath to me now.” So Esau swore an oath to him and sold his birthright to Jacob.

• Jacob’s request has been thought out, he wants the promise.

• Esau trivializes the promise

– Promise means nothing in the presence of a hungry man. Feed me.

– He sold the promise for a bowl of stew.

The Moment is good, but …

34 Then Jacob gave Esau some bread and lentil stew; Esau ate and drank, then got up and went out. So Esau despised his birthright.

• Jacob gave Esau what he really wanted.

• The Child of the now lives in the moment and will trade it for the future:

– He ate, he drank, he got up and he went out.

• His actions demonstrated he wasn’t worthy of the promise.

Children of the Now

• Want things that satisfy present desires and loose out on the future blessings.

– Adam and Eve chose a peace of fruit over eternal life.

– Cain, in a moment of anger, forfeited his inheritance.

– Reuben (later in Genesis) will loose his preeminence by sleeping with his father’s concubine.

The Children of Promise

• Give up the morsels of the moment to gain the riches of the future.

• They put the promise of God above all that the present world can offer.

Jim Elliott said it well,

“He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot loose.”

As a Child of the Promise

• Don’t trade the Promise of God for a bowl of soup.

• Put God’s Promise above all your earthly desires.

Matthew 6:19–21 19 “Do not accumulate for yourselves treasures

on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But accumulate for yourselves treasures in

heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will

be also.