The Ways of Abram

The Cost of Abram’s Failure and God’s Deliverance

We want to keep in mind how significant chapter 12 has been, the initial call of Abram and his entry into the promised land, and then, of course, as we saw last week, his failure, his lapse of faith when the famine came, and he traveled down into Egypt, and this morning, as we begin chapter 13, we see God's deliverance has brought Abram out of Pharaoh's clutch and resolved the failure of Egypt, and he's making his way back to the promised land, and yet we'll also see that the failure in Egypt comes with a cost.

Sin always comes with a cost, doesn't it? The Lord redeems it. He turns ashes into beauty, thankfully, but sometimes His people need to walk with their hip out of joint. Sometimes they need to bear the wounds and bear the baggage of their sins and the consequences of their sins, relational consequences.

Our Lord can redeem it, but He humbles His people in this way, and we'll see that this morning. We see that Abram returns to Canaan, and we'll see the fruit of God's mercy to Abram. It's really a remarkable change we see between the man who is willing to put his wife out and risk her life and his life and God's promise and the man that comes back into Canaan.

So we want to consider the ways of Abram in chapter 13, verses 1 through 13, the ways of Abram, and we're going to look at that in four different ways, four ways. The four ways that we have in the first 13 verses are first, the way back, second, the way forward, third, the separate way, and then fourth and last, the right way.

So the way back, the way forward, the separate way, and the right way. Beginning in verse 1, then Abram went up from Egypt, he and his wife, and all that he had, and lot with him to the south. We can almost imagine that long walk back after all that had happened at the end of chapter 12.

We can imagine he would have had to bring a lot of bouquets of flowers to Sarai, his wife. There would have been a lot of mending that would have taken place in that relationship. Of course, there's not only Abram and Sarai, but a caravan, all sorts of possessions and peoples and goods, cattle, servants, treasures.

Abram, perhaps he's still feeling humiliated by what took place as he walks back with his head hanging low, back to what he had abandoned in the promised land. Perhaps even there's this faint desire, this feeling of hope, and maybe a renewed purpose again.

That's what happens when God delivers his people. There is a sense of humiliation, but the silver lining of that dark cloud is this sense of hope, of renewal. We can imagine Abram beginning to feel that.

Sarai, she must have been still in awe of how God had answered her prayers, of how God had delivered her out of the harem of Pharaoh. She must have been recounting to all of the servants that she was reunited with of the great act of God and how he brought her through this ordeal, untouched.

We can picture Lot trailing behind them. Based on what we know about Lot, I'm sure he was still quite taken with all the goods they brought out of Egypt. Maybe he was test-riding one of the camels. Remember, we said that was sort of the Lamborghini of the day.

We also can imagine Hagar. She's coming back in this caravan. Eleazar the Damascene, he's one of the servants that's named. Several hundred others, we just don't have any information about them, but this is quite a train of people that are making their way back into the Promised Land.

This long journey back to Canaan with Abram and his wife and all that he had and Lot with him, that sounds a lot like chapter 12 when they were first going into Canaan. There we read, Abram took Sarai, his wife, and Lot, his brother's son, and all of the possessions that they had gathered and the people whom they had acquired.

And then they go from Haran into the Promised Land. Well, chapter 13 is echoing that language. So Abram and Sarai, his wife and Lot and all that they had gathered, they're going back to the Promised Land.

Two very different journeys, one into the Promised Land, one back to the Promised Land. Both different journeys, but they're described in the same way. They use the same language. And yet how different these two journeys are.

They're at the opposite end of the spectrum. The way to Canaan back in chapter 12 was filled with all of the excitement of God's power, God's presence. He had called him. He said, now go, bury your father and go.

Think of the excitement of that. I'm now finally getting to go to what the promise has been. Back when he called me in Ur out of the Chaldeans, he said, I'm going to show you a land. And now he's saying, go, go to this land.

Think of the excitement of that. This is like Christmas morning times a million. He's entering into Canaan with all the momentum of God's promise. He must have just been walking from strength to strength.

God was being ever present to him, the anticipation of that promise. As he began to take steps toward it, he must have seemed ready to burst in his devotion to the Lord. Well, that was the way in. What about the way back?

Not much excitement, a lot more sorrow, a lot more embarrassment. I'm sure there was a sense of relief. After all, God had delivered him from his schemes. And yet there was this failure that had taken away that joy, maybe even that strength that he had the first time he entered into Canaan.

We read, Abram went up from Egypt to the south. And so you recognize that he's not traveling south. He's traveling north to the south. The south is simply the region called south, called Negev. We talked about this in chapter 12.

This is where he had been wandering before his flight to Egypt. And it's already an arid land. It's already dried up until the rain season comes and the wadis begin to flow with water and it becomes very lush for a very short period of time.

But when a famine comes, you get almost no carryover. And so Abram, as often in Israel's history, the Negev, the south, the dry region, is used as an emblem of being distant from God, of being at a low ebb of devotion to the Lord.

And we see that with Abram. We don't read of him building an altar in the Negev. In fact, we see him walking away from the promised land and hence the promise when he's in that dry place, when he's walking in distance from the Lord.

So the geographical note here has a spiritual reality to it. In order to be restored to God, restored back to fellowship, he must travel through that dry region. He must journey through that distant place in order to be restored to God.

And this is what many believers at any given season of distance or dryness experience. They stray from the path. It doesn't seem that they're straying. They're after all, they're kind of dwelling in the midst of the Lord's people, in the midst of church.

You know, they have the outward appearance of things, but they're really in the Negev and they're about to head into Egypt. And God calls them out of Egypt. He delivers them out of Egypt and they have to journey back through that dryness, journey back through that distance, seeking the Lord's face, seeking to be restored to him.

Now, notice Abram is traveling back. There's still famine that's been affecting the land. And yet, verse two, we have this note. He was very rich in livestock and silver and in gold. He had gone down with little.

He had gone down in desperation. He comes back wealthy. He comes back with many livestock, much gold and silver. Despite his unfaithfulness, God is faithful to him. Despite his failure, despite his sinfulness, God has blessed him.

They end up leaving Egypt far better than they came into it. He was going to Egypt just to hopefully make it through the famine. Hopefully, at least they could be spared in return. God blessed them. He comes back a wealthy man.

But that's not why verse two is recorded for us. Verse two is recorded so that we can understand the strife that's to follow with all these mouths to feed, whether livestock or servants. And the gold and the silver made him wealthy, but you can't eat gold and you can't eat silver.

And so we read verse three and four, he went on his journey from the south, again, that's the Negev, as far as Bethel to the place where his tent had been at the beginning. Between Bethel and Ai, to the place of the altar which he had made there at first.

This is a homecoming of sorts. You can imagine as they were journeying through the Negev toward Bethel, they saw some familiar landmarks. Their memories would have been tripped to the sites they had seen before the famine.

Back when times were good, when they were walking in the strength of the Lord, when they were finding his presence, when they were walking by faith and not by sight. And so there's that quaint feeling of home.

It's mixed with sorrow. It's mixed with sorrow. There's a sense of nostalgia, perhaps a rush of it. And when he gets to that altar that he had made, right? Notice that in the narrative, it's repeated twice.

To the place where his tent had been at the beginning, to the place of the altar which he made there at first. So it's zooming in on the significance of this place. You can imagine that that pain of coming back to the altar.

In a sense, the altar that he had built was a symbol of just how far he had backslid. He could come to this altar and he sees now it's covered in more sand than it was before. It's in perhaps disrepair.

And he comes back to this altar and he immediately realizes, I'm not the man who built that altar. Back when I built this altar, I never thought I'd be capable of doing what I did. I never thought that I would go down to Egypt.

I never thought that I would lie. I never thought that I'd sacrifice my wife for my own safety. I never thought that I'd be in such a mess. And now I've come back and I just wonder if he got to that altar scene and he just began to weep.

Just the symbol of what that had meant at the time and what it meant now. It would be like maybe a Christian who had a very vibrant confession of faith, a very powerful witness. And then they began to stray and they got into the wrong circles.

And they began to sow and the sins that they sowed, they reaped into corruption and they began to abandon the Lord. Maybe they went down very dark paths. They began to do all sorts of sins that came with consequences to their minds and to their bodies.

And they finally were brought to an end of themselves like the prodigal. And maybe they come back and they find an old shoebox with a journal. And they open up and they see a journal entry they had written back when they knew the Lord and they knew his grace and they loved him and they surrendered their life to him.

That would be like the altar that Abram comes back to. You can imagine just that horror of that symbol. Look how far I've fallen. Look how far I've axed. I want to get back to this place. Can I get back to this place?

It's the altar that marks his departure. But by God's grace, it's also the altar that marks his return. And so it's not just what he left, but it's what he's coming back to. It's a picture of restoration.

This is the way back to God, back to the beginning, back to the place he should have stayed and never left, back to the things he should have sought. When Abram encountered the famine, he was already in the dry land.

He was already in a dry place. He took things into his own hands. There was no altar, but there was scheming. There was no prayer, but there was manipulation. There was no faith, but there was a self-reliance.

And so there's no mention of worship when he's in the Negev. There's no mention of seeking the Lord. But now look at him. Now look at him on the way back. Now he seeks the Lord. Now he goes back. He's retracing his steps.

He's coming back to the altar. He's seeking the Lord. And so in a sense, he's repenting of his sin. This is the way back, the return. We find this echoed throughout Israel's history. God calling for his people to return when they're in the Negev, when they're in the Egypt of their life.

And he's calling for them to return back to him, to be restored to his fellowship. Psalm 78, 34 and following. When he slew them, then they sought him and they returned and sought earnestly for God. Then they remembered that God was their rock.

The most high God was their redeemer. Do you see? That's Abraham's story in a nutshell. He's returning to seek God earnestly. Hosea 14. Oh, Israel, return to the Lord your God, for you stumbled because of your sin.

Take words with you. Return to the Lord. Say to him, take away all iniquity. Receive us graciously. We will offer the sacrifices of our lips. Isn't that beautiful? Prophets saying, don't come with a bull.

Don't come with a turtle dove. Come with words. Come with contrition, a broken heart. This he will not despise. And notice the lesson learned, just like Abraham learns the lesson. Come with these words to the altar.

Assyria shall not save us. We will not ride on horses. We will not say any more to the work of our hands. You are our gods. For in you, the fatherless finds mercy. And then God responds. I will heal their backsliding.

I will love them freely. My anger has turned away. That's again, that's the story of Abraham's way back in a nutshell, returning to the Lord with very little to bring, but having words on his mouth of confession and contrition.

Egypt will not save me. You have shown me mercy. Restore to me the joy of my salvation. Again and again, this call of God goes forth to his people. Return. Return. Take the way back out of that Negev, out of that distant dry place.

Come back to the altars you once stood at. Come back to the relationships, the seasons, the rituals and routines that once kept you close to the Lord and dependent upon him. And when his people like Abraham answer his call and they begin to approach the altars that they've departed, they often feel so ashamed, so unworthy.

And that's the whole point. God is saying this is why you can come back. Come to me with words. I don't drink the blood of bulls and goats. Come to me with words. Speak to me. Acknowledge yourself before me.

Acknowledge your native me. Realize my love for you. Receive my grace for you. In doing so, you've come with the best sacrifice. You've come with something that pleases me when you come humbled and broken, hungry for mercy, because I delight to show it.

I don't delight to have men pat themselves on the back and say, isn't this wonderful? Look at the sacrifices I've made. Look how much better my life is. I delight to show mercy. That's the sacrifice that I want.

People that are broken, this is the way back. For the believer that's been duped by Egypt, duped by the world, the only place of blessing is to return to the altar. It's the only place of blessing. He can't just go back to the Negev, live out his life in sheepish humility.

He must go back to the altar. He must be restored. And so Christians must return to the last place, the last way they had been when they were walking with the Lord in strength. They have to go back, find their way back to that original commitment, that surrender to Christ.

Psalm 116, 6. The Lord preserves the simple. I was brought low. He saved me. Return to your rest. Oh, my soul, the Lord has dealt bountifully with you. You've delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from falling.

Couldn't Abram have prayed that prayer? Return. Where's rest? Not here. Not here. I need to return for that rest. Return and find rest. That's the way back. Abram leaves Egypt. He goes through the Negev, back to the altar near Bethel.

This is the way back. But as we'll see next, it's also the way forward. Because when he gets to that altar, verse 4, he calls upon the name of the Lord. So already, what are we seeing between verse 3 and 4?

The failure of Egypt is being reversed. We're going backward. If he came into the land and then built an altar and called upon the name of the Lord and then traveled into the Negev and then he went into Egypt, now we have the reverse of that.

He's coming out of Egypt, through the Negev, to the altar, calling upon the name of God. Sin and failure is being overturned. We have this repetition, the same language. He built an altar to the Lord and called on the name of the Lord.

Chapter 12, verse 9. You remember that this expression, to call upon the name of the Lord, is an idiom for worshiping God. It's a roundabout way of talking about God's worship. Abram had been walking in strength originally in chapter 12.

He was worshiping, bringing out the worship that had been passed down from Adam through Seth and on down through Noah, down through the line of Shem. Abram is continuing that even though he was plucked out of his paganism in Ur of the Chaldeans.

He's brought into this great lineage of the faithful who worship God in spirit and in truth. This is corporate worship in the days of Abram. When he first came into the land, how glorious it was. He had this wave of zeal.

He was responding to the awe of God's presence. Wherever he went and the Lord manifested his glory, there he would build an altar. He must have just walked around, just shell-shocked, stunned by the power of God and the grace of God and the glory of God.

But now, as he's returning to this altar, calling upon the name, he doesn't have this wave of strength. He's coming from this place of having stumbled, of having risked everything, of having lost his faith.

And he's retracing his steps. He's getting back to basics. He's going back to his first love. This is the way forward, calling upon the name of the Lord. He comes to worship. Worship is the way God restores his people.

He comes in a spirit of repentance, not because this will somehow earn his deliverance. He's already been delivered. He comes in a spirit of repentance because he recognizes his unworthiness. And his unworthiness is heightened.

It's magnified because of how free and rich God's grace has been to him. I'm not worthy that you delivered me. I'm not worthy that you called me. And yet, here I am, a complete failure. I've only shown you faithlessness.

And yet, you've blessed me. I have silver and gold and my wife. What else can I do but call upon your name? Restore me. I hate that I betrayed that. I hate that I went down into Egypt. He's calling upon the name of the Lord from this place.

That's all taking place in the context of worship. The way forward is the restoration that comes to God's people through worship. And I really mean that. I know what it's like. There's a lot of believers who they're at a place in their life.

Maybe they're in the Negev. Maybe there's some secret sin, some secret bondage that they're in. And they have just begun to see how far they've slid away from the presence of God. It's been a long famine.

And they might even be here this morning. And you're thinking, yes. Yes, I feel ashamed. I feel guilty. There's this part of me deep. Doesn't know how it's possible, but I want to be restored. And so I'm going to go home, and this week's going to be different.

I'm just going to get away. If I can get away, then I can get things straightened out. Things are all messed, all crooked, and I just need to smile and get my way out of the door. Yeah, definitely this week will be the week that I change things.

You're not listening if that's your attitude or your outlook. You're not looking at what Abram does. God restores his people in worship. This is the way forward. Do you know that Christ is uniquely present here this morning because we're gathered in his name?

And of course the eyes of the Lord are in every place. Of course you can go home and cry out to the Lord from wherever you are. You don't need to go back to an altar in Bethel. Now that we live in the age of the Spirit, God can be had in any place at any time.

And yet, there's a unique way in which God makes his presence known, his mercy shown, when his people gather and call upon his name. So there's an entirely unique presence of Christ here this morning.

And you cannot think if I can just get away from the church, away from eyes, away from brothers and sisters, then I will straighten things out in my life. No, you've come to the altar this morning. This is where, this is where you bring a broken heart to God.

This is where you straighten things out with the Lord. This is where brothers and sisters love you, put their arm around with you, weep with you, pray with you, restore you to God. This is where that takes place.

You're in a sense at the altar because the faithful have been gathered and they're calling upon the name of the Lord. We are experiencing the presence of God in an entirely unique way. Where two or three are gathered there, I am also in the midst of them.

This is where you straighten out your crooked ways. This is where you make things straight. You know how it is. It's how it is every week. You go home to do this on your own. You leave this place where God's presence has been known, where God's conviction by his Spirit has been felt, and what happens?

All that resolve, all that conviction, all that lingering hope, it gets stamped out. It gets suffocated by the busyness of the week, by the mundanity of the days, by the responsibilities of life. You end up week after week, never falling through that resolve.

This, this is where the Lord has made an altar. This place, this day, this time, so many people, they're met by the presence of God under the worship and under the ministry of the Word. And they think, yes, if I can just be secluded from it, then I will lay hold of it.

You never will. You never will if you're experiencing God's presence, the Spirit's conviction, the Lord's calling. You have to act on it now, in this place, at this time. You don't go through those doors until you've made things right with the Lord, until you've used the means of grace that he's given in the body of believers calling upon his name.

What a lesson for the failing believer here. It may be very well that you know the things you must repent of, the things that have been lost and they need to be recovered, the things that have been broken down that you need to rebuild, or simply the fact that you need to return back to a place where you have strength and blessing and peace.

You haven't had peace with God in who knows how long. You must trust that the Lord has appointed an altar, has made his presence known in a unique way when you're worshiping here, calling upon his name.

This is what he has provided. And so this is the way forward. It's not enough just to go back. Alright, I'm going back to church. That's like going back through the Negev. Yeah, yeah, you're done with Egypt, now you're back in the Negev.

What good is that? What good is that? You're not actually restored yet. You don't have peace and strength and fruit because you haven't come to the altar. You haven't gone forward. So you take that way back.

You go back to the last place, the last time, the last way that you knew the Lord's presence when you were walking in faith, walking in joy, walking in light, however far back that goes. Months, weeks, years.

Somewhere between the Egypt of your failures, the Egypt of your disobedience and the Bethel where God has said, come to me, come to me with words. Enter into my presence. This is the way forward. What have you put off?

What have you allowed in? You don't straighten these things out on your own. You come to the altar. What is the hindrance to you calling upon his name even now? I can't call upon his name for you. Hopefully we've all had those experiences where we've been sitting and in one sense the worship of the church and being in the scriptures has led us to this experience in the body of God's presence and yet we're in a totally different world at the same time.

We're crying out to Lord. We're recounting all the things that we know are between us and the Lord. We're crying out. Usually that looks like making all sorts of resolutions. The Lord's not interested in resolutions.

He's interested in contrition. He's interested in the broken heart. He's interested in a genuine cry from a sincere place of need. I know I can't do it. I know I won't do it. I need you to help me. I'm going to put some skin in the game, Lord.

I'm going to embarrass myself today. I'm going to embarrass myself today by really putting it out there to show Lord I know that I'm distant from you. I know that I need to be restored. I'm not going to leave the altar.

I'm going to keep calling upon your name. When you repent and you take the way back and you return to the altar even here this morning and you find that restoration in your soul, know that you will be a very different person than you were when you were in that dry place or in the failure of Egypt.

The Separate Way of Abram and Lot

And that's what we see next, don't we? We see a separate way, a separate way. Not only do Lot and Abram separate, but we see the separate way that they look at the situation. They look at the solution.

We see a separate manner between them two. Abram has a separate way from the way of Lot. We begin in verse 5. Lot also who went with Abram had flocks and herds and tents. Now the land was not able to support them that they might dwell together for their possessions were so great that they could not dwell together.

And there was strife between the herdsmen of Abram's livestock and the herdsmen of Lot's livestock. The Canaanites and the Perizzites then dwelt in the land. So we have a few important details. As Abram and Lot are resettling now, Abram has been restored through worship to the Lord, and yet we read several things.

First, we read the land was not able to support them. They've come back with a lot more livestock, a lot more servants, and there's only so much arable land. Secondly, we read their possessions were so great that they could not dwell together.

They could survive, but not together, not on the same plot. The plunder from Egypt, of course, has shown its consequence. This is part of the blessing, also part of the failure now. Third, we read there was strife between the herdsmen of Abram's livestock and the herdsmen of Lot's livestock.

The pressure of grazing the livestock has caused there to be infighting between these two groups. Accusations, bitterness. You know the old Western movies. This place isn't big enough for the both of us.

That's what's taking place between these herdsmen. Fourth, and last, we read that the Canaanites and the Perizzites were then dwelling in the land. Now, this is perhaps the oddest piece of information.

Why do we need to know that the Canaanites and the Perizzites were dwelling in the land? What does that have to do with Abram and Lot dwelling together? Well, it could be a way of talking about just how scarce the resources were.

Not only would they have to compete for food and feel the pressure of that, but they're surrounded by Canaanites and Perizzites. They're going to need food, too, and they're going to keep going until they can find green ground.

Or, it could be that Abram was aware, now that he's a restored man, of the calling that God had put upon his life, and he was thinking through the infighting and what this would lead to in terms of conflict.

And he was being reminded that the Canaanites and the Perizzites were surrounding them, these pagan peoples. Because when he's going back to the altar, back to where he was when God first called him, he's also going back to the promise of God.

And part of the promise of God was, Abram, I'm going to make you a blessing for all of the nations of the earth. You're going to be a blessing. You're going to bless them. And so when he walks in, he goes right to that great tree at Morah, at Shechem, and he builds an altar to Yahweh.

This is part of Abram realizing that he is going to bless the nations. He's going to be a light to the true God and to his true worship. And so I think that's what's taking place here. He knows that he's a light to the surrounding world.

The promised one is going to come from his lineage. And so now that the Canaanites and the Perizzites are watching him, he doesn't want the strife and the bitterness and the conflict to ruin that testimony, to undermine that promise.

Notice, for instance, the strife is only between the herdsmen. Strife between the herdsmen of Abram and the herdsmen of Lot. But in verse 8, what does Abram say? Please let there be no strife between you and me.

He takes full responsibility for it. Lot, I don't want you to have anything against me. I don't want your herdsmen to go to you, and you have anything. I don't want that to be the case with me and you.

I don't want my herdsmen to come to me, and all of a sudden, it's awkward. I don't really know how to address it with you, and we have this unsaid bitterness and tension between us. I don't want that.

How can we resolve this? Canaanites and Perizzites are watching us. He takes it personally. I wish we would take things personally in that way. Abram is aware that God's promise has made him a light and a blessing to the nations.

And so even something like herdsmen having a little spat affects him. How is this going to affect that calling, that promise? This doesn't directly include me, but it includes me. I'm responsible for these men.

And there is this circumstance that's causing it. It doesn't look like it's going away anytime soon. I need to step in. I need to make peace. Because the Canaanites and the Perizzites are watching. I wish Christians thought this way.

Because the world is always watching us. The Canaanites and the Perizzites are always watching us, looking for the slightest hint of hypocrisy. Why? So they can use that little hint of hypocrisy as an excuse of why they won't become a Christian.

Oh, I could never go to church full of hypocrites, self-righteous Pharisees. And so they watch. They look very carefully. Is there any sense that it's just a put-on? It's just a show? It's the smiling on the way to church on a Sunday morning, but we know what they're like when they're at home.

We know what everyone is like when they're at home. We're just honest. We're just realistic about it. They're fake. Children listen to what believing moms and believing dads say about other believers, about other churches, co-workers.

Look for slips. Look for that joining in with the vulgarity. Look for something off-color. They look for things that can confirm. Yeah, they shouldn't go to church, that maybe this Jesus isn't really who he says he is, doesn't do the work he says he'll do.

And so we're surrounded by Canaanites and Perizzites, and yet we're told, and Abram knows this, we're told that the Canaanites and Perizzites, the world that surrounded us, should see that we love one another.

This, John 13, 35, is what marks us out as belonging to Christ. By this, all will know, you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. And so almost every letter to a New Testament church is inculcating this, emphasizing this.

You must love one another. You must put off dissension and bitterness, envy, wrath, clamor. You must love. You must forgive, even as Christ has forgiven you. You must have this mindset. You must have this attitude.

You must constantly be pursuing this. This is how Canaanites and Perizzites know that you are called according to my purpose. That's what we're to display. Our testimony matters. In 1 Corinthians 6, the church is so divided and there's such strife between people in the church that they're actually going to the pagan courts.

They're going to have the magistrates of the city try them as believers. Paul has already laid out, there's no fellowship between Belial and Christ. There's no fellowship between darkness and light. You have a totally different value system.

You know the truth of God, and therefore the truth of the world. You're going to go to pagan courts where they have all these things upside down and have them teach you what justice and morality is? And so this is Paul, perhaps at his most passionate, if we could put it like that, 1 Corinthians 6.