Steven Furtick - Hidden Issues (03/29/2017)
This sermon from Genesis 32 focuses on Jacob's hidden issues, particularly his lifelong struggle with his brother Esau. Steven Furtick uses Jacob's story to illustrate how we often hide behind our gifts, personas, and accomplishments to avoid confronting deep-seated fears and insecurities. The conclusion is that true blessing and peace come only when we stop hiding, face our internal issues, and become vulnerable before God, who has already handled our shame and guilt.
Jacob, Valentine's Day, and Our Hidden Issues
I want to go back to Jacob. Jacob is going to be our Valentine's date. We're going to learn some lessons about life and love and loneliness from Jacob, and we'll pick up in Genesis 32:19. I love you guys, man. Genesis 32:19: "He also instructed the second, the third, and all the others who followed the herds, ‘You are to say the same thing to Esau when you meet him, and be sure to say, "Your servant Jacob is coming behind us."’ For he thought, ‘I will pacify him with these gifts I'm sending on ahead. Later, when I see him, perhaps he will receive me.’" So Jacob's gifts went on ahead of him, but he himself spent the night in the camp.
That night, Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two female servants, and his eleven sons, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. After he had sent them all across the stream, he sent over all his possessions. So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. I want to speak to you today on the subject: hidden issues. And I pray that the Spirit of God would help make application to the truth in this text. Let's pray. Father, I lift up every need before you today and ask that you administer, do surgery, provide knowledge, wisdom, insight, conviction, yes, God, even comfort and encouragement to every heart so that we may leave this place very different and very assured that you are with us and for us in all that we do. In Jesus' name, and everybody who loves Jesus and who wants to hear a little sermon about Jacob shouted, amen.
Hey, before you take your seat, if you're married, turn to your spouse and say, this counts as our date. Got you a concert. The feast on the Word of God. What more could you want? Amen. Amen. Thank you, worship team. You guys have been enjoying the Hear Us in Heaven album. Well, praise the Lord. I hope so. There's blood and sweat and tears and joy in those songs. So listen to them and crank them up, man. Roll up beside somebody at a red light, turn it up loud, say, this is my church. Well, it's the first weekend of our next decade. How about that? Your response is not indicative of the gravity of this occasion. It is the first weekend of our second decade as a church. Wow. And to celebrate, I want to talk about your issues.
What Are You Hiding Behind?
Touch your neighbor, say you have issues. Now, they're not surprised by that. Depending on your proximity, you could continue that conversation in great detail, depending on how you see them. And it's an interesting season in America because, well, we're in a season where almost every three days, there are people on stages debating about issues. Have you been watching the debates? No? Stacey, you don't watch them? I don't understand why you wouldn't watch them. I mean, they're fascinating. Where else are you going to see grown people demonstrate that level of selective hearing and answering? I mean, usually you only get this with like four-year-olds and five-year-olds. To me, it's fascinating.
I watch, not because I'm so civically informed or patriotically inclined. I'll admit to you, I do consider myself engaged, but really I'm fascinated. I'm fascinated by the ability of some candidates more than others, and I won't name names, but there is one candidate that trumps all the other ones who just has the ability. Whenever you think about him, you have to marvel at how he can take any question and pivot. They call it a pivot. That's not just for NBA. They can pivot. It's like an all-star thing. You're watching somebody who is so adept at the art of pivoting from whatever issue is raised to the platform that he has established. They all do it, but one candidate does it exceptionally well.
This particular candidate, who shall remain nameless, enjoys conversations about walls. If you ever watch him, anything they ask him, anything they ask him, he can take it to a wall in less than a second. Just real quick, it all comes back to the wall. Touch somebody and say, it's all about the wall. With this guy, it's all about the wall. You ask him a question, you know, Mr. Candidate, what do you think about the education issues in our country? Well, I think the children in our schools need to feel safe while they're being educated, so I'm going to build a wall so they feel safe. It all comes back to the wall. Anything you ask him, what's your foreign policy? I'm going to build a wall. What about women? Women love walls. Just anything you ask him is quick.
I don't care what you believe about politics or even where your value system is. That's not my point. My point is some people can pivot from any issue to their platform. None does it better than Jacob, but I want to keep him back there on the pulpit for a minute. I want to talk about how sometimes you can have a real strong opinion and be really ignorant of the issues. Because I asked a young staff member at our church the other day, if you're voting today, who would you vote for? You don't have to tell me if you don't want to. And he told me real quick who he wanted to vote for. I said, wow, why? He said, I like him. I like him. I said, I didn't ask you who you wanted to have wings with.
I said, who do you want to be the leader of the free world? So why do you like him? He said, I don't know. Just something about his personality. And it baffled me that a grownup could be so narrow in their thinking that you would reduce your decision about who you want to be the president of your country to a personality type. Don't even care where they stand on the issues. Don't even really want to understand the issues. Just, I like him. Seems pretty crazy that you would put more weight on someone's personality than you would on their position on the issues if this person is going to make decisions that will affect not only you but your children. Seems crazy to me.
Choosing Partners and Facing Our Own Issues
And it hit me on Valentine's Day that some of us in our relationships, on the same basis by which my staff member said they would pick a president is that you connect with people based on their personality and have no idea about their issues. Tell your neighbor again, you have issues. You have issues. And look back at them and respond and say, well, you have a subscription, so get off me. Issues. Issues. And I see Jacob as someone who was greatly blessed by God even though he had deep issues. Jacob had issues. Jacob was born with issues. Jacob started a fight in Rebekah's womb because of his egocentric issues. Got to be first.
He was born with a twin brother who was scheduled to come out ahead, but something within him wanted to disrupt the birth order. Issues. Everybody say issues. Come on, I'm a participatory preacher. Say issues. Yes. We met a guy on our Valentine's Day. You have to do it four days early, by the way, for all you rookies that are trying to go out on Valentine's Day. You'll learn. And the guy seated at the table said, come on, church. I love it. He said, what's up with the touch-your-neighbor stuff? I said, what do you mean? He said, you always touch your neighbor this and touch your neighbor that. And so I told him, I said, motion creates emotion.
I can't have you falling asleep in my sermon, so every once in a while, I'd like you to turn to your neighbor and tell them, you have issues. Do it again. Tell them, you have issues. I noticed some of y'all are saying that really emphatically, by the way. Some of you are making a list. It's true, though. When you get into a relationship with someone, you often see their personality before you discover their issues. This is not necessarily a relationship sermon or marriage sermon, but I thought in the spirit of the season, I would just throw some little bit of advice in there. Before you get engaged to somebody, take inventory of their issues.
I don't mean you have to know everything about them. But don't ignore their issues because you like their personality. Jacob had issues that ran so deep that when he couldn't be born first, he tried to find a way to trick himself into the birth order. By the way, for those of you who are new to our church and you want to study this in greater detail, you can check out a series that I did. I did a whole series on Jacob called Death to Selfie. The church loved it. It was a good time. It's actually on Netflix, Netflix. You can go watch it on Netflix. It's on there. Instead of binging on the House of Cards, you can binge on the Word of God. Amen. Put it on the Netflix.
Jacob deceives his brother later in life, and he comes out ahead in a sense. I won't review all the material, but I was going to a pastor's conference, and I preached on Jacob to our church for several weeks. The Lord took me back to this passage that I thought I had worn out. When I was looking at it, I was like, God, I got Jacob. I preached in five weeks. The Spirit of God said, you haven't even scratched the surface of Jacob because you talked to the church about his relationship with God, but you never got to his encounter with Esau. That's what I want to talk about today. There comes a time in your life where you've got to make peace with Esau.
The Inescapable Confrontation: Making Peace with Your Esau
Let me teach a little bit. Esau was the one Jacob had struggled with but never prevailed against his whole life. Esau was the one Jacob pretended to be to get what he thought he needed to have. Esau was the one Jacob even subconsciously and prenatally had problems with. He was predisposed to wrestle with Esau before he had a conscious thought. Now he's 97, and he's preparing to meet with Esau. If you have a Bible with pages, there's probably a heading on chapter 32 of Genesis that says, Jacob prepares to meet Esau, because there comes a time that no matter how much God has blessed you and no matter how much you've grown to accumulate stuff or no matter how good your body looks or no matter how fit you are in your physique, you cannot outrun your dysfunctional relationships forever.
One of the greatest blessings that God gives is peace. If you want to pray for anything, pray for peace, because if all of your prayers center around provision, if you have the provision but not the peace, you have the external stuff without the internal infrastructure to even enjoy what you prayed for, pray for peace. The greatest blessing God gives us often has little to do with the resources he provides but the relationships he restores. We're looking at an Old Testament picture in Genesis 32 of Jacob, who has been able to pivot his whole life. When he gets in trouble at home, he runs to his uncle Laban's house. When he accidentally marries Leah after serving God for Rachel seven years, he's able to pivot and get Rachel anyhow.
When Laban begins to cheat him, and the Bible says that his heart turned against him, Jacob was able to have the business savvy and the common sense to devise a system by which he could stay ahead. But Esau… Esau is that enemy. Esau is that thing that he's been fighting against and fleeing from his whole life. By the time he prepares to make peace with Esau, he's been hiding from him for 21 years. I want to ask a question. What are you hiding from? It is the central question of my discourse today, and I believe it's a penetrating question if you'll really answer it in your heart. What are you hiding from? Because no matter where Jacob turned or where Jacob went, what Jacob did, what he accomplished, there was always Esau…
It's the battle he was fighting when he was nine months old. It was the battle he was fighting when he was 97. What is your Esau? What is the thing that no matter how many herds and cattle and goats and relationships you acquire, there is always an Esau? It's your hidden issue. It is not the thing you mention to the people in your e-group. It is not the thing you talk about to people you just met. It is the thing beneath the thing beneath the thing. It is not your behavior. It is not your symptom. It is your issue. Church is ineffective when preachers only address behaviors, because until you get to the issue that creates the. What are you hiding from? Your heart may be in hiding because of your fear of rejection. Your heart may be in hiding because of your fear of failure.
The Root of Jacob's Issues and Our Own
I understand why Jacob had issues. It's pretty plain in the text. Well, the Bible says that there was a lot of favoritism going on in Isaac's household. In fact, I'll show you the scripture in Genesis 25:28. It says that Isaac, his father, who had a taste for wild game, loved Esau, but Rebekah loved Jacob. There it is. No wonder the guy spent his whole life in hiding because from a very early age, he discovered that he didn't have what his father wanted. He didn't have the skills to be acceptable in the sight of the ones whose affirmation meant the most. When that happens to you, you develop all kinds of devices to hide behind. Psychologically, they call this abandonment issues.
And they say that when you have abandonment issues, it can happen through a divorce. It can happen through abuse. It can happen through love with help. It can happen through a circumstance that is so embedded that you can't even remember what it is. But when you have these abandonment issues, they tell us that you tend toward two extremes. One is attachment and the other is avoidance. So you attach. This is Jacob grabbing the heel of Esau. Or you avoid. This is Jacob running from that same brother he was trying to attach himself to. One thing I love about God's Word is that it doesn't just address my spirituality, it addresses my psychology.
In Jacob, I see an illustrated sermon about the psyche of someone who is running toward and chasing something that they can never get, meanwhile running from something that they don't want to face. And I believe every person in our church can relate to Jacob. Hiding from an Esau in your life. Hiding and hoping, hoping that no one sees you for who you really are. So you invent methods by which to be impressive. That's what Jacob did. He makes a plan. He makes a plan. He makes a plan to hide his issues. He gets his messengers. And you have to understand, in the last 21 years, Jacob was not struggling. Jacob was prospering. Jacob was succeeding. Jacob was accumulating. Jacob was working his way up.
And by this time, Jacob is very rich and he's got a lot of kids. So what he does, and I think we all do this, is he tries to use what he's accumulated to hide who he is. You know, it's the right amount of quiet today. I can tell I'm on that nerve. I'm up in your stuff. Touch your neighbor. Say, come out of hiding. Come out of hiding. Come out of hiding. Yeah, because Jacob gets a strategy. He gets a plan. He calls his messengers. He's got a lot of people working for him. He got a lot of representatives and he calls his representatives and he says, here's what I want you to do. Line up the goats and line up the rams and line up the camels and line up the cows and line up the bulls.
We'll get some donkeys, male donkeys, female donkeys, put the servants out there, and he arranges what's around him to hide what's within him. Maybe Esau will accept me if I send him a goat. Maybe Esau will accept me if I send him a donkey. Maybe people will like me if I make them laugh. So, I'm the life of the party. When I get alone, what I had out in front of me can't help me for the battle I have to fight within me. We all have herds that we hide behind. It is those things, it is those inauthentic personality traits that you project, fearing that who you are is not enough. How could it be enough? Isaac never loved me. How could it be enough? Nobody has asked me to marry them yet.
How could it be enough? I'm the last person invited. How could it be enough? I sound stupid when I talk. How could it be enough? I don't know what other people know. How could it be enough? I wasn't raised right, so now I'm hiding behind my herds. It can be money. Some people hide behind money. It can be labels. Some people hide behind labels. It can be brands. Some people can hide behind brands. It can be language. Some of you talk in a way that is not even indigenous to your personality. And I'm listening to you trying to figure out who you're mimicking. I put something in my book. I'm going to preach on my book in two weeks. You've got to come. It's going to be great. I'm going to preach on it.
The Danger of Hiding Behind Your Gifts
My mom asked me one time when she heard my band play and she listened to the concert and we did all kinds of cover songs from Darius Rucker from Hootie and the Blowfish and Eddie Vedder from Pearl Jam and Kurt Cobain from Nirvana and all these great bands, the kind of music that you just can't get anymore out there in the cold streets of today's modern society. But she said, she sounded good tonight because I was a lead singer. She said, I got a question. When are we going to hear you sing? She said, tonight, I heard an imitation Hootie. I heard somebody trying to sound like Pearl Jam, but it's kind of hard to sound like Pearl Jam when you just hit puberty. But see, what I was doing was. I was trying to project what I thought would impress. And you cannot be blessed while you're projecting to be impressive. You can't be really blessed that way.
Jacob had a plan. He said, I got issues with Esau, but if I send my gifts... This is why I preached it at a pastor's conference. I told the pastors that I was preaching to in California, I said, your gift can only get you so far because if you're good with a microphone, you can hide behind a microphone and suck as a husband. Hide behind a microphone and be absent as a father. Hide behind a microphone and inwardly not have a real connection with God and be preaching stuff that God showed you 13 years ago because you've mastered the technique. I ministered that to the pastors, and it was real tense in the room because any time God peels back your persona, any time you can't do what you do and you have to come to terms with who you are.
It puts you in an awkward position, but that's the place where God blesses you the most. Not while Jacob was lining up the cattle. Not while Jacob was configuring the cows. But the Bible says... I've got to show it to you again. It's so beautiful. I love the way that the Scripture weaves together the historical narrative and brings it into alignment with my current psychological condition to show me that there is a way forward, no matter what I've been through. It said that Jacob thought... Look at verse 20. Jacob thought, I will pacify him with these gifts. I will pacify my problem with my persona. I'm not going to make peace with it. I'm just going to pacify it, so I develop ways to get through.
I'm real sarcastic, and the reason I'm sarcastic is because if I'm sarcastic, I don't have to be sincere, so I hide behind sarcasm. People think I'm cocky, but what they really don't know is that what they see as overconfidence is really just a little girl scared to death because I'm hiding behind my herds. People think I'm arrogant, but what they really don't know is the reason I'm coming across so strong is because I'm scared to death that they're going to find out that I'm a fraud, and I don't know what I need to know. So I'm hiding behind my herds. In this Esau, this issue, everybody say issue. It remains hidden behind my herds, and what I hide, God cannot heal. I cannot make peace with what I am content to pacify.
So I'm sending out my best. I'm sending out my stuff. I'm sending out all my stuff, and maybe then they'll like me, and maybe then they'll love me, and maybe then if I buy them stuff, maybe I'll buy them stuff. Maybe that's what I'll do. Maybe I'll sleep with them. If I sleep with them, then maybe I can keep them. If I give them my body, maybe then he'll give me my heart. I'm going to hide behind my herds, but the only problem with this approach to life is what you get them with is what you have to keep them with. So if you get them with a fake you, what are they going to do when they see the real you? Man, help me preach this sermon! It's those hidden issues.
The Blessing in the Loneliness and the Wrestling
I'm encouraged, because the Bible says that when Jacob sent his gift ahead, he remained alone in the camp. To every lonely person today, I want to encourage you to know that the places of your greatest isolation will often become the places of your greatest revelation. Jacob had seen God in the form of an angel when he was with people, but he only saw God's face when he was all alone, separated from his stuff. He sent his gift ahead, but he himself spent the night in the camp, and God dealt with him, and God pushed him around a little bit. God brought him to his breaking point, so much so that the Bible says when he got done and he left that camp, he was limping.
He was limping, but he was blessed. His hip was dislocated, but his identity was now securely in place, because he found out who he was. God said today, through the preaching of his word, he was going to restore unto you an awareness of your identity, because you've gotten so enmeshed and entangled with your stuff and your skills that you've lost your sense of substance. But today is the day that the hand of God is upon you heavy to show you who you are. Wow. So he crossed the Ford. Look at verse 22. He crossed the Ford of the Jabbok. Say what? The who now? The Jabbok. Jacob crossed the Jabbok. Let me try it like this. All his life, he thought he was fighting against Esau.
For 21 years, he thought he was running from Esau. But God showed up to show him that the only real enemy he was ever fighting against… See, I've learned this because I want to digress for a minute. The real enemy is not the issue I see. Your life will change. Your marriage will change. Your relationships will change. When you stop trying to fix Esau, Jacob crossed the Jabbok. Do you think those two sound similar on accident? Do you think there is a sense of poetic justice in the mind of God that he wants to show us that all the time you were running from Esau, all the time you were running from issues, all the time you were running from relationships, all the time you were running from fears? The only issue is you.
Getting Over Yourself and Finding Peace
And if you can get right with you, you can get right with God. And if you can get right with God, God can make it right with Esau. That's three people. Tell him, get over yourself. That's the real enemy. It's the. The practical implications of this revelation are staggering. If the only thing you really have to cross over is your own misconceptions of what it means to be accepted by God, you're going to be all good. Single, you're going to be all good. Married, you're going to be all good. Touch them again and say, Get over yourself. That's my message today. Get over yourself, Jacob. If you can get over your conniving, scheming, dysfunctional ways, God will fix your relationships.
On the other hand, if you don't get over yourself, you're going to carry your issues into your next relationship, and your issues are only going to increase when they are multiplied by the human interaction that is required for you to connect with another person when you have not even learned to correctly connect with yourself. That's free. The issue is you. I am not responsible for fixing Esau, because when I do battle with the enemy in me, the insecurity in me…. Issue starts with an I, people. Issue starts with I. I'll try to get an Apple endorsement here. You need to start sending more I messages. Not, you need to, and you need to, and if you adjust, and if they adjust, and they don't want you to, and I don't want, and they don't want… No, no, no, no, no, no.
I will bless the Lord at all times. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. I am the head and not the tail. I am a child of God. I will not fear, though the darkness beset me, though the enemy enraged around me. I, I, I…. How can I make peace with Esau if I can't even make peace with me? God is so good, because if you will devote yourself to the issues within you, he'll handle the issues around you. He'll do it. I'm going to prove it. I'm going to prove it. You got nine minutes? I can prove it in nine minutes. When Jacob finally met Esau after he left the Jabbok, touch somebody and say, It's you, it's you, it's you, it's you, it's you, it's you, it's you, it's you, it's you. It's you you got to wrestle with. It's you you got to contend with. It's you. You're misinterpreting people. It's you. You're blowing things out of proportion. And even if it's not, what can you do if it's them? I can only do me.
The Final Meeting: Vulnerability Leads to Reconciliation
So, Jacob crossed the Jabba. He was preparing to meet Esau, but Esau wasn't even his enemy anymore. Can I show you? Can I show you? Because I didn't get to this in Death to Selfie. I'm the one to get to. I'm waiting a year and a half, so you've got to watch this. That night, when Jacob got ready to set out, it says in verse 33, verse 1, Jacob looked up, and there was Esau. There was Esau. This is the God. This is the thing. This is what I need. This is it. Here comes Esau. He thinks Esau is going to kill him, because when he saw him 21 years ago, the last thing that was echoing was Esau said, I'll kill him if I ever get my hands on him. And Jacob was fast, so Jacob got out of there.
And now Jacob has got to come back, because you can only run for so long. You can only hide for so long. It's eventually going to catch up with you. Eventually, you have to deal with the real issue. You can only pivot so much. Fighting against people. It's going to wear you out. Jacob's 97. He can't run anymore. Now he's got a bad hit. So he's limping up to Esau in a compromised position in a vulnerable state. And here's Esau with 400 men. Esau, the skilled hunter. Esau, still steady with a bow, even though his hands have arthritis. Esau… I'm filling in some details for the imaginative time. So he divided the children among Leah, Rachel, and the two female servants.
And he put the female servants and their children in front, Leah and her children next, and Rachel and Joseph in the rear, because that's the ones he loved the most. But he himself… That's my phrase. He himself went on ahead and bowed down. He himself, before he had sent his stuff out ahead, but now he sent himself. Before, he had surrounded himself with the appearance of success, but now he steps out from behind all of that and bows down, and it is in that weakened state that a limping Jacob meets his enemy of 97 years. And as he lays prostrate, all of the pain that he's caused now accumulating in this moment, the Bible says that when he went out ahead of his stuff, when he came out from behind his persona, when he came out behind the appearance of having it all together, when he came out behind his need to look cool and look right and sound right, when he came out from behind, it is when you come out from behind that God can bless you.
It is when you stop hiding that he can heal you. What are you hiding from? Mom, what are you hiding behind? Do you want to be healed bad enough to step out in front of it and say, It's me, God. It's me, Esau. Present yourself in a position of vulnerability. I haven't been the husband I ought to have been. I haven't been the friend I ought to have been. You want right relationships? It's going to require the right posture, and the right posture is not for you to try to make yourself appear impressive. If you really want to connect with people and stop pivoting from issue to issue, you have to deal with what's within. Come out from behind your herds and stand before Esau and face your fears and face your failures and face your frustration.
When Esau saw Jacob on the ground, he took out his buck knife and put it in the… Wouldn't that be crazy if that happened next and Jacob died right there? Wouldn't that be crazy? Isn't that just what you expect is going to happen if you ever get real and come out from behind what you're hiding behind? Come on, be honest. You are scared to death that if you ever show the real you, if you ever get out from behind all the religious talk… Because one of the things people hide behind more than anything else is their religious pretension. Spiritual sounding and seeming stuff, but he comes out from behind that. Watch what Esau did. This is like the father in the prodigal son's story. This is how God treats every son, every daughter that comes running home with no excuses but just an admission I have sent.
The Gospel Conclusion: It Is Handled
Esau ran to meet Jacob and embraced him. The thing he had been hiding from for two decades was handled the whole time. I came with an announcement. What you're hiding from has already been handled. The shame, the guilt, the disgrace, the disappointment, the uncertainty. I need you to turn to your neighbor and tell him, in your best Olivia Pope voice, tell him, It's handled. It's handled. It's handled. It's handled. It's handled. It's handled. It is handled. That is the gospel. That he already took my sin. He already took my shame. He already nailed it to the cross. My sin, on the bliss of this glorious thought. My sin, not in part, but the whole. It is nailed to the cross. It is handled. It is handled. It is handled, and you don't have to flee it anymore. You don't have to fight it anymore. All you have to do is face it. Face it.
I'm not running from relationship to relationship to relationship, from job to job to job, from church to church to church with my hidden issues unhealed. He blessed him when he came out of hiding and opened his heart. Now, if you will open your heart, God can handle your issues. The only thing that has kept God from doing a maturing work in your life, Jacob, is that you've been so busy collecting herds and the appearance and the appearance of blessing, that you've never made yourself vulnerable. When you make yourself vulnerable, when you lift your hands to God and you're not ashamed to say, I need you. I need you. I need you. I need you. I need you. I need you. I need you. I need you. I need you. I need you. I need you.