What Do the Things You Despise Reveal About Your Heart?
Adapted from the sermon, What You Despise Reveals Who You Are. Listen here!
There's a profound truth hidden in the ordinary moments of our lives: what we despise reveals who we truly are. Not just the obvious things—the wickedness we all condemn—but the subtle dismissals, the quiet judgments, the preferences we've elevated to moral positions without even realizing it.
The biblical concept of "despising" something is simpler than you might think. To despise doesn't necessarily mean to hate with burning passion. Rather, it means to value one thing so much more than another that the lesser thing becomes worthless in comparison. When we place greater value on immediate satisfaction than eternal promises, we despise those promises. When we treasure our comfort more than holiness, we despise holiness—even if we'd never admit it out loud.
The Danger of Exhaustion
Consider the story of Esau, the firstborn son of Isaac, who should have inherited the covenant promises passed down from Abraham. Esau was a man's man—a skilled hunter, an entrepreneur type, always on the move and making things happen. His brother Jacob was quieter, more ordinary, content to dwell in tents. By every human expectation, Esau had it all.
But one day, Esau came in from the field exhausted. His brother was cooking stew, and the aroma filled the air. In that moment of weakness, Esau made a trade that would echo through eternity: "Give me some of that red stew," he said, "and I'll give you my birthright."
Think about that. He traded an inheritance—everything God had promised his family—for a single meal. The text is brutally honest: "Thus Esau despised his birthright."
How does someone make such a catastrophic decision? It rarely happens in a single moment. Exhaustion is often the culmination of despising discipline, of running too hard in our own strength, and valuing the wrong things for too long.
The Trap of Personality Worship
Here's where it gets uncomfortable for all of us: we often despise personalities different from our own. The go-getters look down on the contemplatives. The planners dismiss the improvisers. The artists can't understand the athletes, and vice versa.
This isn't just about preference. When we add moral value to personality types — when we believe our way of being is somehow more godly — we become blind. Blind to our own weaknesses. Blind to the strengths in others. Blind to the ways God wants to use different people to shape us.
God isn't interested in making all the skilled hunters become tent dwellers, or all the tent dwellers become hunters. He's interested in making both holy. He sanctifies us by pushing back against our natural proclivities, whatever they may be. The call to follow Jesus includes a call to deny ourselves—and that self includes our personality, our preferences, and our natural way of doing things.
Esau likely despised his brother's quiet, ordinary life. He was out there making things happen, being productive, providing for the family. What was Jacob doing? Just sitting around. This contempt for a different way of being made Esau susceptible to his downfall.
The Gift of Discipline
When we despise how others live and operate, we inevitably despise the discipline God wants to bring into our own lives through them. We can see others' flaws better than we see our own. You can have a log in your eye and still spot the speck in your brother's.
This is why community is essential. We need people who are vastly different from us. Not echo chamber friends who validate all our choices, but people who make us uncomfortable, who question our assumptions and pull back on our excesses.
The same sun that hardens clay melts ice. The same boiling water that makes an egg hard softens a potato. A single circumstance can have multiple outcomes on different people. What shapes one person for good might lead to another's ruin. The difference? What we value and what we're willing to be disciplined in.
God uses discipline to transform us from self-centered people into those who love Him, love others, and care about His purposes. When we begin valuing things based merely on their usefulness to us—"Of what use is this birthright to me?"—we've become dangerously narrow in our thinking.
The Birthright We Risk
Here's the spiritual reality behind Esau's story: if we're not careful, we will sell our salvation for an impulse. We will trade our inheritance for far less than it's worth.
In Christ, every believer has a birthright. We are co-heirs with Christ, destined to reign with Him and to inherit all that God has. This inheritance is beyond our wildest imagination—we're talking about a God who speaks worlds into existence.
Yet day by day, moment by moment, we're tempted to trade it. For what? For the approval of others. For temporary comfort. For the satisfaction of being right. For avoiding the discomfort of discipline. For the exhaustion-driven decision that seems to make sense in the moment.
The warning is clear in Hebrews 12: "Strive for peace with everyone and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord […] See to it that no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal."
Today Is the Day
The most dangerous game we can play with God is waiting. Waiting to repent. Waiting to change. Waiting to take holiness seriously. Esau found out too late that when he finally wanted to repent, he couldn't. He sought it with tears, but found no opportunity.
Today is the day of repentance. If you're reading this, the Lord is offering you that chance right now.
Lift your drooping hands. Strengthen your weak knees. Make straight paths for your feet. Don't let the cares and concerns of this world choke out what matters most. Don't get so exhausted running your own race that you trade away everything for temporary relief.
The question isn't whether you're good enough. The question is: what do you treasure? What do you value most? What would you trade away when you're at your weakest?
What you despise reveals who you are. May we despise nothing that God values, and may we value nothing more than knowing Christ and being found in Him.
There's a profound truth hidden in the ordinary moments of our lives: what we despise reveals who we truly are. Not just the obvious things—the wickedness we all condemn—but the subtle dismissals, the quiet judgments, the preferences we've elevated to moral positions without even realizing it.
The biblical concept of "despising" something is simpler than you might think. To despise doesn't necessarily mean to hate with burning passion. Rather, it means to value one thing so much more than another that the lesser thing becomes worthless in comparison. When we place greater value on immediate satisfaction than eternal promises, we despise those promises. When we treasure our comfort more than holiness, we despise holiness—even if we'd never admit it out loud.
The Danger of Exhaustion
Consider the story of Esau, the firstborn son of Isaac, who should have inherited the covenant promises passed down from Abraham. Esau was a man's man—a skilled hunter, an entrepreneur type, always on the move and making things happen. His brother Jacob was quieter, more ordinary, content to dwell in tents. By every human expectation, Esau had it all.
But one day, Esau came in from the field exhausted. His brother was cooking stew, and the aroma filled the air. In that moment of weakness, Esau made a trade that would echo through eternity: "Give me some of that red stew," he said, "and I'll give you my birthright."
Think about that. He traded an inheritance—everything God had promised his family—for a single meal. The text is brutally honest: "Thus Esau despised his birthright."
How does someone make such a catastrophic decision? It rarely happens in a single moment. Exhaustion is often the culmination of despising discipline, of running too hard in our own strength, and valuing the wrong things for too long.
The Trap of Personality Worship
Here's where it gets uncomfortable for all of us: we often despise personalities different from our own. The go-getters look down on the contemplatives. The planners dismiss the improvisers. The artists can't understand the athletes, and vice versa.
This isn't just about preference. When we add moral value to personality types — when we believe our way of being is somehow more godly — we become blind. Blind to our own weaknesses. Blind to the strengths in others. Blind to the ways God wants to use different people to shape us.
God isn't interested in making all the skilled hunters become tent dwellers, or all the tent dwellers become hunters. He's interested in making both holy. He sanctifies us by pushing back against our natural proclivities, whatever they may be. The call to follow Jesus includes a call to deny ourselves—and that self includes our personality, our preferences, and our natural way of doing things.
Esau likely despised his brother's quiet, ordinary life. He was out there making things happen, being productive, providing for the family. What was Jacob doing? Just sitting around. This contempt for a different way of being made Esau susceptible to his downfall.
The Gift of Discipline
When we despise how others live and operate, we inevitably despise the discipline God wants to bring into our own lives through them. We can see others' flaws better than we see our own. You can have a log in your eye and still spot the speck in your brother's.
This is why community is essential. We need people who are vastly different from us. Not echo chamber friends who validate all our choices, but people who make us uncomfortable, who question our assumptions and pull back on our excesses.
The same sun that hardens clay melts ice. The same boiling water that makes an egg hard softens a potato. A single circumstance can have multiple outcomes on different people. What shapes one person for good might lead to another's ruin. The difference? What we value and what we're willing to be disciplined in.
God uses discipline to transform us from self-centered people into those who love Him, love others, and care about His purposes. When we begin valuing things based merely on their usefulness to us—"Of what use is this birthright to me?"—we've become dangerously narrow in our thinking.
The Birthright We Risk
Here's the spiritual reality behind Esau's story: if we're not careful, we will sell our salvation for an impulse. We will trade our inheritance for far less than it's worth.
In Christ, every believer has a birthright. We are co-heirs with Christ, destined to reign with Him and to inherit all that God has. This inheritance is beyond our wildest imagination—we're talking about a God who speaks worlds into existence.
Yet day by day, moment by moment, we're tempted to trade it. For what? For the approval of others. For temporary comfort. For the satisfaction of being right. For avoiding the discomfort of discipline. For the exhaustion-driven decision that seems to make sense in the moment.
The warning is clear in Hebrews 12: "Strive for peace with everyone and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord […] See to it that no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal."
Today Is the Day
The most dangerous game we can play with God is waiting. Waiting to repent. Waiting to change. Waiting to take holiness seriously. Esau found out too late that when he finally wanted to repent, he couldn't. He sought it with tears, but found no opportunity.
Today is the day of repentance. If you're reading this, the Lord is offering you that chance right now.
Lift your drooping hands. Strengthen your weak knees. Make straight paths for your feet. Don't let the cares and concerns of this world choke out what matters most. Don't get so exhausted running your own race that you trade away everything for temporary relief.
The question isn't whether you're good enough. The question is: what do you treasure? What do you value most? What would you trade away when you're at your weakest?
What you despise reveals who you are. May we despise nothing that God values, and may we value nothing more than knowing Christ and being found in Him.