The Ways of Abram

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Preacher: Ross Macdonald Scripture: Genesis 13:1-13

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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
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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.
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Sin always comes with a cost, doesn't it? The Lord redeems it, He turns ashes into beauty, thankfully, but sometimes
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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.
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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.
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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.
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So we want to consider the ways of Abram in chapter 13, verses 1 -13. The ways of Abram, and we're going to look at that in four different ways, four ways.
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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.
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So the way back, the way forward, the separate way, and the right way.
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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.
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We can almost imagine that long walk back after all that had happened at the end of chapter 12.
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We can imagine he would have had to bring a lot of bouquets of flowers to Sarai, his wife.
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There would have been a lot of mending that would have taken place in that relationship. Of course, there's not only
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Abram and Sarai, but a caravan, all sorts of possessions and peoples and goods, cattle, servants, treasures.
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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.
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Perhaps even there's this faint desire, this feeling of hope and maybe a renewed purpose again.
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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.
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We can imagine Abram beginning to feel that. Sarai, she must have been still in awe of how
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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.
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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.
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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
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Hagar. She's coming back in this caravan. Eleazar, the one of the servants that's named.
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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
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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.
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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.
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And then they go from Haran into the Promised Land. Well, chapter 13 is echoing that language.
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So Abram and Sarai, his wife and Lot and all that they had gathered, they're going back to the
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Promised Land. Two very different journeys. One into the Promised Land, one back to the
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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.
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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,
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God's presence. He had called him. He said, now go, bury your father and go.
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Think of the excitement of that. I'm now finally getting to go to what the promise has been.
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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.
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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.
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He must have just been walking from strength to strength. God was being ever present to him.
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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
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Lord. Well, that was the way in. What about the way back? Not much excitement, a lot more sorrow, a lot more embarrassment.
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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.
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We read Abram went up from Egypt to the south. And so you recognize that he's not traveling south.
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He's traveling north to the south. The south is simply the region called south, called
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Negev. We talked about this in chapter 12. This is where he had been wandering before his flight to Egypt.
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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.
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But when a famine comes, you get almost no carryover. And so Abram, as often in Israel's history, the
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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
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Lord. And we see that with Abram. We don't read of him building an altar in the
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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
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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
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Lord's face, seeking to be restored to him. Now, notice Abram is traveling back.
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There's still famine that's been affecting the land. And yet, verse two, we have this note.
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He was very rich in livestock and silver and in gold. He had gone down with little.
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He had gone down in desperation. He comes back wealthy. He comes back with many livestock, much gold and silver.
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Despite his unfaithfulness, God is faithful to him. Despite his failure, despite his sinfulness,
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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.
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Hopefully, at least, they could be spared in return. God blessed them. He comes back a wealthy man.
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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.
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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
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Negev as far as Bethel to the place where his tent had been at the beginning.
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Between Bethel and I to the place of the altar, which he had made there at first. This is a homecoming of sorts.
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You can imagine as they were journeying through the Negev toward Bethel, they saw some familiar landmarks.
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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
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Lord, when they were finding his presence, when they were walking by faith and not by sight.
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And so there's that quaint feeling of home. It's mixed with sorrow. It's mixed with sorrow.
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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.
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To the place where his tent had been at the beginning, to the place of the altar which he made there at first.
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So it's zooming in on the significance of this place. You can imagine that pain of coming back to the altar.
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In a sense, the altar that he had built was a symbol of just how far he had backslid.
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He could come to this altar and he sees now it's covered in more sand than it was before.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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And now I've come back and I just wonder if he got to that altar scene and he just began to weep.
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Just the symbol of what that had meant at the time and what it meant now. It would be like maybe a
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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.
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And they began to sow and the sins that they sowed, they reaped into corruption and they began to abandon the
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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.
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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.
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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
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Him and they surrendered their life to Him. That would be like the altar that Abraham comes back to. You can imagine just that horror of that symbol.
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Look how far I've fallen. Look how far I've axed with. I want to get back to this place.
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Can I get back to this place? It's the altar that marks his departure.
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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.
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It's a picture of restoration. This is the way back to God.
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Back to the beginning. Back to the place he should have stayed and never left.
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Back to the things he should have sought. When Abraham encountered the famine, he was already in the dry land.
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He was already in a dry place. He took things into his own hands. There was no altar, but there was scheming.
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There was no prayer, but there was manipulation. There was no faith, but there was a self -reliance.
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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.
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Now he seeks the Lord. Now he goes back. He's retracing his steps. He's coming back to the altar.
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He's seeking the Lord. And so in a sense, he's repenting of his sin. This is the way back.
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The return. We find this echoed throughout Israel's history. God calling for his people to return when they're in the
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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.
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Psalm 78, 34 and following. When he slew them, then they sought him and they returned and sought earnestly for God.
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Then they remembered that God was their rock. The most high God was their redeemer.
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Do you see? That's Abraham's story in a nutshell. He's returning to seek
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God earnestly. Hosea 14. Oh, Israel, return to the
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Lord your God, for you stumbled because of your sin. Take words with you. Return to the
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Lord. Say to him, take away all iniquity. Receive us graciously.
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We will offer the sacrifices of our lips. Isn't that beautiful? Prophets saying don't come with a bull.
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Don't come with a turtle dove. Come with words. Come with contrition, a broken heart.
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This he will not despise. And notice the lesson learned, just like Abraham learns the lesson.
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Come with these words to the altar. Assyria shall not save us. We will not ride on horses.
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We will not say any more to the work of our hands. You are our gods. For in you, the fatherless finds mercy.
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And then God responds, I will heal their backsliding. I will love them freely.
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My anger has turned away. That's again, that's the story of Abraham's way back in a nutshell, returning to the
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Lord with very little to bring, but having words on his mouth of confession and contrition,
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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.
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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.
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Come back to the relationships, the seasons, the rituals and routines that once kept you close to the
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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.
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And that's the whole point. God is saying, this is why you can come back. Come to me with words.
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I don't drink the blood of bulls and goats. Come to me with words. Speak to me. Acknowledge yourself before me.
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Acknowledge your native me. Realize my love for you. Receive my grace for you.
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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.
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I don't delight to have men pat themselves on the back and say, isn't this wonderful?
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Look at the sacrifices I've made. Look how much better my life isn't. I delight to show mercy.
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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.
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It's the only place of blessing. You can't just go back to the Negev, live out his life in sheepish humility.
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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
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Lord in strength. They have to go back, find their way back to that original commitment, that surrender to Christ.
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Psalm 116 .6. The Lord preserves the simple. I was brought low. He saved me.
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Return to your rest, O my soul. The Lord has dealt bountifully with you.
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You've delivered my soul from death, my eyes, from tears, my feet from falling. Couldn't Abram have prayed that prayer?
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Return. Where's rest? Not here. Not here. I need to return for that rest.
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Return and find rest. That's the way back. Abram leaves Egypt.
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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.
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Because when he gets to that altar, verse 4, he calls upon the name of the
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Lord. So already what are we seeing between verse 3 and 4? The failure of Egypt is being reversed.
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We're going backward. If he came into the land and then built an altar and called upon the name of the
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Lord and then traveled into Negev and then he went into Egypt, now we have the reverse of that. He's coming out of Egypt through the
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Negev to the altar, calling upon the name of God. Sin and failure is being overturned.
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We have this repetition, the same language. He built an altar to the Lord and called on the name of the
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Lord. Chapter 12, verse 9. You remember that this expression, to call upon the name of the
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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.
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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.
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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
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God in spirit and in truth. This is corporate worship in the days of Abram.
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And when he first came into the land, how glorious it was. He had this wave of zeal.
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He was responding to the awe of God's presence wherever he went and the Lord manifested his glory.
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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.
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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.
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And he's retracing his steps. He's getting back to basics. He's going back to his first love.
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This is the way forward, calling upon the name of the Lord. He comes to worship.
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Worship is the way God restores his people. He comes in a spirit of repentance, not because this will somehow earn his deliverance.
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He's already been delivered. He comes in a spirit of repentance because he recognizes his unworthiness.
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And his unworthiness is heightened. It's magnified because of how free and rich God's grace has been to him.
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I'm not worthy that you delivered me. I'm not worthy that you called me. And yet, here I am, a complete failure.
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I've only shown you faithlessness, and yet you've blessed me. I have silver and gold and my wife.
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What else can I do but call upon your name, restore me? I hate that I betrayed that.
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I hate that I went down into Egypt. He's calling upon the name of the
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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.
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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
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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.
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It's been a long famine. And they might even be here this morning, and you're thinking, yes, yes,
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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.
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And so I'm going to go home, and this week's going to be different. I'm just going to get away.
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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.
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And I, yeah, definitely this week will be the week that I change things. You're not listening, if that's your attitude or your outlook.
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You're not looking at what Abram does. God restores his people in worship.
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This is the way forward. Do you know that Christ is uniquely present here this morning, because we're gathered in his name?
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And of course, the eyes of the Lord are in every place. Of course you can go home and crown to the Lord from wherever you are.
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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.
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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.
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So there's an entirely unique presence of Christ here this morning.
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And you cannot think, if I can just get away from the church, away from eyes, away from brothers and sisters, then
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I will straighten things out in my life. No. You've come to the altar this morning.
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This is where, this is where you bring a broken heart to God. This is where you straighten things out with the
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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.
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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
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Lord. We are experiencing the presence of God in an entirely unique way. Where two or three are gathered there,
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I am also in the midst of them. This is where you straighten out your crooked ways. This is where you make things straight.
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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?
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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.
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You end up week after week, never falling through that resolve. This, this is where the
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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
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Word. And they think, yes, if I can just be secluded from it, then, then
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I will lay hold of it. You never will. You never will.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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You haven't had peace with God in who knows how long. You must trust that the
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Lord has appointed an altar, has made His presence known in a unique way when you're worshiping here, calling upon His name.
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This is what He has provided. And so this is the way forward. It's not enough just to go back.
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All right, 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
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Negev. What good is that? What good is that? You're not actually restored yet.
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You don't have peace and strength and fruit because you haven't come to the altar.
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You haven't gone forward. So you take that way back.
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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.
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Months, weeks, years. Somewhere between the Egypt of your failures, the
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Egypt of your disobedience, and the Bethel where God has said, come to me, come to me with words.
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Enter into my presence. This is the way forward.
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What have you put off? What have you allowed in? You don't straighten these things out on your own.
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You come to the altar. What is the hindrance to you calling upon His name even now?
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I can't call upon His name for you. Hopefully we've all had those experiences we've been sitting in.
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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.
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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.
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Usually that looks like making all sorts of resolutions. The Lord's not interested in resolutions.
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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.
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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,
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Lord. I'm going to embarrass myself today. I'm going to embarrass myself today by really putting it out there to show
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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.
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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.
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And that's what we see next, don't we? We see a separate way, a separate way. Not only do
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Lot and Abram separate, but we see the separate way that they look at the situation.
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They look at the solution. We see a separate manner between them two. Abram has a separate way from the way of Lot.
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We begin in verse five. Lot also who went with Abram had flocks and herds and tents.
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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.
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And there was strife between the herdsmen of Abram's livestock and the herdsmen of Lot's livestock. The Canaanites and the
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Perizzites then dwelt in the land. So we have a few important details as Abram and Lot are resettling now.
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Abram has been restored through worship to the Lord and yet we read several things.
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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.
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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.
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The plunder from Egypt of course has shown its consequence. This is part of the blessing, also part of the failure now.
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Third we read there was strife between the herdsmen of Abram's livestock and the herdsmen of Lot's livestock.
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The pressure of grazing the livestock has caused there to be infighting between these two groups, accusations, bitterness.
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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.
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Fourth and last we read that the Canaanites and the Perizzites were then dwelling in the land.
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Now this is perhaps the oddest piece of information. Why do we need to know that the
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Canaanites and the Perizzites were dwelling in the land? What does that have to do with Abram and Lot dwelling together?
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Well it could be a way of talking about just how scarce the resources were.
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Not only would they have to compete for food and feel the pressure of that, but they're surrounded by Canaanites and Perizzites and they're going to need food too and they're going to keep going until they can find green ground.
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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.
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And he was thinking through the infighting and what this would lead to in terms of conflict. And he was being reminded that the
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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
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God first called them, 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.
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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 Shechem and he builds an altar to Yahweh.
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This is part of Abram realizing that he is going to bless the nations. He's going to be a light to the true
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God and to his true worship. And so I think that's what's taking place here. He knows that he is a light to the surrounding world.
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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.
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Notice, for instance, the strife is only between the herdsmen. Strife between the herdsmen of Abram and the herdsmen of Lot.
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But in verse 8, what does Abram say? Please let there be no strife between you and me. He takes full responsibility for it.
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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.
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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.
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I don't want that. How can we resolve this? Canaanites and Perizzites are watching us.
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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.
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And so even something like herdsmen having a little spat affects him.
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How is this going to affect that calling, that promise? How can I resolve? This doesn't directly include me, but it includes me.
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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.
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I need to step in. I need to make peace. Because the Canaanites and the Perizzites are watching.
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I wish Christians thought this way. Because the world is always watching us. The Canaanites, the
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Perizzites are always watching us, looking for the slightest hint of hypocrisy.
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Why? So they can use that little hint of hypocrisy as an excuse of why they won't become a
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Christian. Oh, I could never go to church full of hypocrites, self -righteous Pharisees. And so they watch.
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They look very carefully. Is there any sense that it's just a put -on? It's just a show?
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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.
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We know what everyone is like when they're at home. We're just honest. We're just realistic about it. They're fake.
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Children, listen to what believing moms and believing dads say about other believers, about other churches, co -workers.
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Look for slips. Look for that joining in with the vulgarity. Look for something off -color.
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They look for things that can confirm. Yeah, they shouldn't go to church. That maybe this
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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
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Canaanites and Perizzites, the world that surrounded us, should see that we love one another.
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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.
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And so almost every letter to a New Testament church is inculcating this, emphasizing this.
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You must love one another. You must put off dissension and bitterness, envy, wrath, clamor. You must love.
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You must forgive, even as Christ has forgiven you. You must have this mindset. You must have this attitude.
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You must constantly be pursuing this. This is how Canaanites and Perizzites know that you were called according to my purpose.
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That's what we're to display. Our testimony matters. In 1 Corinthians 6, the church is so divided.
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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.
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Paul has already laid out, there's no fellowship between Belial and Christ. There's no fellowship between darkness and light.
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You have a totally different value system. You know the truth of God and therefore the truth of the world.
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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?
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This is Paul, perhaps at his most passionate, if we could put it like that.
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1 Corinthians 6, dare any of you, this is just so strong language. You cannot read this dispassionately.
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Dare any of you having a matter against him? This is screaming. This is all caps in a text message.
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Dare any of you having a matter against another go to the law before the unrighteous, not before the saints?
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Verse 5, I say this to your shame. Is it really so? Is it really the case that there's not a wise man among you, not even one who would be able to judge his brethren?
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But a brother goes to law against a brother and that before unbelievers?
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Our testimony matters. Paul knows that. What are you saying to the Corinthians, Paul's saying?
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What are you showing them about the truth of God? What are you saying? What is your strife saying to the world, to the
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Canaanites, to the Perizzites? This is not the way of Christ. And so he goes on.
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Why do you not rather accept wrong? Why do you not rather let yourselves be cheated? This is how much your testimony to make a testimony of strife and bitterness and envy.
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And Abram recognizes this. He steps in right at the beginning. He doesn't want any hint of this. He doesn't want the enemy to get a foothold.
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He has no desire to display sin to a presently watching world. He wants to display the same glory of God that has restored him.
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Paul says in Galatians 5, 20, the fruit of the flesh, right? The fruit of the flesh, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions.
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This is what's taking place between the herdsmen. This is not just, oh, this is just how people are.
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Well, you know, it's been a tough year with COVID. This is just, you know, sort of the effect of quarantining,
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I suppose. This discord and this anger and this envy and selfish ambition.
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Oh, you know, it's just that chemical, you know, hormonal imbalance. And so I'm having these fits of rage.
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No, no. Paul says, no, no, no, no, no, no. This is actually the fruit of the flesh. This is the fruit of the flesh.
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The herdsmen might have a right claim or a sound argument, but their discord is a result of sin.
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And Abram knows that and he goes to make peace. A lot of people in our day can think of nothing less than discord and fits of rage.
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They can't get through a day without discord. There must be enemies all around them at any given time in the most simplistic ways.
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We see this on the highways all the time driving in Massachusetts, don't we? Truck drivers have a name for us in Massachusetts.
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I used to work at the docks at the factory and all the long haul truckers hated coming to New England.
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It is said, this is the only place in the country where an 18 -wheeler hauling 40, 50 ,000 pounds of material will be cut off by a
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Prius barreling through the yield sign and have to just lay on the horn and try to brake and not jackknife.
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That's Massachusetts. We have a reputation. And then what's going to happen? What's going to happen as soon as that Prius runs in front of that truck and almost causes a whole three -lane accident?
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What's the guy in the Prius going to do? He's going to give the burr to the truck driver like it's his fault. That's Massachusetts for you.
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I was at the grocery store just the other day just getting a few things and there was a line and the line was meant to stop before any of the open registers.
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And so there was another line that was going to the self -checkout. There was maybe three or four people in front of me. Everyone only had a handful of things and we were just waiting for the right register to open up.
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Someone obliviously just walks down and just goes to an open register. Everyone in front of me, oh, oh, turning around with these start of looks.
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Can you believe the nerve of some people? I can't believe it. And it's just, I'm thinking there, you know, maybe this added two minutes to your, like what is the, does this really warrant that kind of reaction?
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Is your blood pressure really that high right now because of this? People can't deal a day of life without discord.
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That's the fruit of the flesh. What's the fruit of the spirit?
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Peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, all of the things that we see
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Abram exhibiting in a situation. He seeks to be a peacemaker. He's very gentle in the way he approaches law, as we'll see.
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Abram is full of the spirit here. This is a result of being restored to the Lord. He was walking in the fruit of the flesh when he was in Egypt.
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He took the way back. He went back to his first love. He went back to basics. He returned to the
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Lord. He returned to worship. He came with words. He was restored to fellowship with God.
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And look at the fruit of that. Look at the fruit of the spirit when a sinner is restored to fellowshipping with God.
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Like any follower of Christ walking by the spirit, Abram now can love those who are hurting him.
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That's a spirit -wrought capability that only a Christian can know, that you can actually genuinely love someone who's hurting you.
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Love them. The world knows nothing of that. The most they could hope to do is put up with someone.
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A Christian can actually love someone who's hurting them. He can be patient with difficult herdsmen in a very difficult situation with hungry stomachs and crying mouths.
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He can respond with gentleness. Instead of harsh words or aggressive behavior, he can show self -control.
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All of this is the fruit of God's spirit. This is not extra
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Christian living. This is not bonus Christian living. This is
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Christian living. This is Christian living. The fruit of the spirit is Christian living. This is the fruit that the spirit causes to bud and to blossom in the lives of his people.
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And so in verse 8, look for example, look at his gentleness and his kindness and his goodness. Abram said to Lot, please, just stop there.
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Please. In the Hebrew, literally, it's pray because it's an entreaty. You can do a couple of things with commands in Scripture.
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You can have an imperative, a command, and that command goes from one who is of higher rank or of higher authority, and he can command those who are of inferior rank or inferior authority.
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Go do this. Go receive this. You can also have an entreaty. You can have an imperative, a command that's addressed to God in prayer, but you would never translate it as a command.
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You would translate it as an entreaty, as a request. Please, pray. Do this. That's what
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Abram is doing here. Lot's his nephew. Abram can just command him to do as he pleases.
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You go here. This is how it's going to be settled. End of the matter. I'm your uncle, you know.
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I'm your father's brother. I have authority over you. I took you with me. I provided for you, and now it's time for you to go.
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You go here. He doesn't do that at all. Look at the gentleness. Comes to him and he says, please, let there be no strife between you and me.
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Between my herdsmen and your herdsmen. We're brethren. He's actually bringing
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Lot up to the same level as him. Please let this happen, and then he's bringing up alongside.
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We're brethren. Not, hey nephew, beat it. You know, bucko, go over there.
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Down towards Zoar. Just out of my sight, out of my grasp. This is the fruit of Abram's restoration.
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This is the fruit of the Spirit. He's really carrying out the heart of Ephesians 4, right?
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Ephesians 4, beginning in verse 25. Therefore, putting away lying. He did that in Egypt, right?
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He put away lying in Egypt. Let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor. He jumps in.
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He doesn't try to make excuses for the herdsmen. He just jumps in and he says, there's strife. It's beginning to affect things.
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I'm going to make peace. He's telling the truth to his neighbor. We're members of one another. We're brethren. Be angry.
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Do not sin. Don't let the sun go down on your wrath. Don't give a foothold to the devil. Verse 29.
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Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification that it may impart grace to the hearers.
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Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.
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Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice.
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Be kind to one another. Tenderhearted. Don't you see that in Abram? Look at the astonishing kindness he shows in verse 9.
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He's already said to his nephew, brother, please. And now he says, look at verse 9.
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There's not the whole land before you. Please separate from me.
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If you take the left, I'll go to the right. If you take the right, I'll go to the left. He's saying, this whole land that was promised to me, take your pick of it.
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Take what you want, and whatever you don't want is what I'll take. In the ancient
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Near Eastern culture, which is still an honored Eastern culture, still an honor shame culture, Abram gets the inheritance.
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He gets the best of everything. This is true just at a social level. Sorry, you've got to put your time in. You've got to wait.
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This is my inheritance. I get the best of it. Maybe I'll give you some of it.
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But look at what Abram's doing. Not just a social custom. This is divine right. God said,
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I'm giving this land to you. That's a lot. And yet Abram comes to him and he says, brother, please.
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Please separate. The whole land is open to your choice. Take what you will. Where do you want to dwell?
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I'll go to the opposite direction. Whatever you prefer. I'll take what's left. What a picture.
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What a picture of the attitude of Christ. Do you remember in Philippians 2, do nothing out of selfish ambition.
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In humility, consider others better than yourselves. Don't you see Abram doing that? Brother, take whatever you want from this land.
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Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus.
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Abram's attitude is the same as that of Christ Jesus. Not only do we see his humility here, we see his faith, don't we?
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We see his faith. He had traveled down to Egypt as though God's promise wasn't true. He tried to scheme his way into security.
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He walked around in lies. He simply was not trusting the promise of God. But God delivered him and he restored him.
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And now what does he do? He says, this land is mine. It's promised to me. And I'm so confident of the fact that God will be true to his word, true to his promise, that I'll give you any part of it you want.
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Any part of it you want. And I'll dwell somewhere else because I know that this land ultimately will be given to me and my descendants.
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And then lastly, as a result of Abram's attitude and a result of Abram's choice, we have the right way.
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The right way. Now to say there's a right way tells us there's a wrong way.
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And Lot chooses the wrong way. Beginning in verse 10, Lot lifted his eyes and saw all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere before the
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Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. Like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt.
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Oh, sorry, I think I missed a line. No, okay. Like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt as you go towards Zoar.
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Then Lot chose for himself all the plain of Jordan and Lot journeyed east and they separated from each other.
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Lot is heading toward Sodom. Not to Sodom, but toward Sodom.
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This is the wrong way. The summary statement of verse 13 tells us it's the wrong way.
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The men of Sodom were exceedingly wicked and sinful against the Lord. Doesn't really sound like the neighbors you would want to have if you're seeking to have close fellowship with God.
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Notice the details that are given to us. We read that Lot saw the plains of Jordan, that they were like Egypt.
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Abram was brought out of that place of failure. He never wants to go back. Lot wasn't his wife.
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He's got a lot of silver and gold. He's a wealthy man. City living is pretty good. I liked being in Haran.
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I liked being in Ur. I'd like to be in somewhere like Egypt. He is not living by the faith of Abram.
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This is part of the consequence of Abram's failure. We have to ask the question, would Lot have craved a land like Egypt?
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If Abram had never led Lot into Egypt? Mothers and fathers have to really think through this carefully.
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What are we exposing? What are we leading our sons and our daughters into? That perhaps they'll have an appetite for.
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And even though we've left it, and we've departed from it, and we've come back, there's a sense in which just because you left
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Egypt doesn't mean Egypt has left you. So even though they've come back to Bethel, back to the altar of God, back to God's promises,
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Lot, his heart is still drifting toward Egypt, toward gain, toward security, toward plenty.
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You can't blame him. They're still famine. They're having a hard time feeding the livestock. He's thinking, well, this land looks well watered.
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There's plenty of vegetation and food. This seems to be the way I want it. I know, I know.
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A little beyond it, there's men who are sinful against the Lord, but you know, I'll just kind of stay away from them a little bit.
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And so that's what he tries to do. As Genesis continues, Lot is living outside of Sodom.
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So he's sort of in the suburbs of Sodom, and he's reaping some of the benefits of that. But then by chapter 14, he's actually moved into the city.
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Now he's actually living in Sodom, and by the time we get to chapter 19, he's sitting at the gate, which likely means he's an official in the city, or he's an elder of the city.
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He has some elite capacity in the city of Sodom. And then what happens?
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What happens? In chapter 19, he loses his wife, he loses his home, he loses all of his relatives, he loses all of his possessions.
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Everything that he had built and found security and joy in is completely demolished. He barely escapes with his own life in the lives of his two daughters, and they live in a cave, and his daughters get him drunk, and in that night of debauchery, he bequeaths
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Moab and Ammon, who become a perennial thorn to the people of Israel. And that whole lineage of misery and loss and ruin come from this initial choice to go to a land that looks a lot like Egypt.
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Do you think Lot would have ever believed all of that could have been possible? All of that misery? You could have told him, you're going to lose everything,
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Lot. You're going to lose everything, everything. Abram is living by faith.
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It doesn't seem like much, but he's living by faith. He's living by the promise that his posterity is going to be a blessing, a blessing to the world.
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Lot, if you go back toward Egypt, if your heart is still in Egypt, it's going to take you for everything.
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You're going to lose your wife and your family. Your daughters are going to make you an abomination. Your offspring are going to be a curse.
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All of this begins not by moving into Sodom and doing what the
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Sodomites do. It begins by very carefully and strategically living in the suburbs of Sodom.
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Not quite all the way, just on the outskirts, just enough to get some carnal benefit. Now who's scheming?
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Now who's manipulating? Now who's risking? This is the deceitfulness of the heart.
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This is the vanity of flesh. This is the corruption of sin. You can sympathize with this downgrade, can't you?
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You can sympathize with it. It should ring true to us because we think and look like this all the time.
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Lot went from the lush vineyards, the fields that were enriched by the Nile delta, to an empty land scarred by famine, with herdsmen that are infighting.
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It's a downgrade. I remember being in Munich back in 2015, and one of the marvels of Munich was the
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German precision of engineering in their train system. The trains. And it was sort of an inside joke as we were there.
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German efficiency, what the Germans call detuktigkeit, just well made, perfectly smooth, perfectly stable.
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The whole system was just well oiled, very carefully thought out, and there's no engineering like German engineering.
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Then we got back to Logan and back to Boston, and the T, screeching its way, rattling its way down the green line.
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That's a downgrade. I think Munich was really nice. It's a downgrade. That's the wrong way.
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You got to love that dirty water if you're living in Boston. The difference is this.
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Lot chooses by sight, not by faith. Lot chooses by self -confidence.
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No, I know not to get too far. This will be good. I can provide, and then maybe I'll provide enough, and I'll move back.
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I'll come back. I'll go to the other side. Self -confidence, not self -distrust. Abram doesn't trust himself anymore.
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Nope. Nope. I'll stay in the sandpit. I'm not going anywhere near Egypt or anything like it.
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Lot chooses from fleshly gain in the short run, not spiritual gain in the long run.
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These are all ways that we choose the wrong way as Christians, choosing by sight, not by faith, choosing by self -trust rather than distrust, choosing by fleshly gain in the short run rather than spiritual gain in the long run.
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Do you notice the echoes of Israel in Lot here? How they wished that they could go back to Egypt.
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Oh, didn't we have it so good there? Wasn't it amazing to have cucumbers and leeks on demand? The irony is that the plain of Jordan, which at this moment looks so attractive, so appealing, so lush and full of promise, is just like the fig tree.
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So lush, so full of promise, and yet there's no fruit, and it's going to be cursed, and it's going to be destroyed.
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It's going to wither away. That's what takes place in Sodom. He leaves the desert, he leaves the land scarred by famine, built by promise, to go to a land that seems to be full of plenty.
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What becomes the famine land? What becomes desolation? The very place he goes.
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There's never been a truer example of the statement, the grass is always greener on the other side.
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And eventually that green grass becomes a desolation, a desert. Even though 2
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Peter 2 says Lot was a righteous man, be very careful. You'll hear sermons all the time where they say
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Lot was a carnal Christian, as if there's two categories of Christians, spirit -filled
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Christians and carnal Christians. Carnal Christians will be saved, but they won't be. No, that's all unbiblical nonsense.
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Lot was a righteous man, according to 2 Peter. We have to take that at face value. He was living in Sodom, vexing his soul daily over their abominations.
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But he chose to live there. He chose it. And all that misery and sorrow, even though God delivered him because Abram interceded, he brought that upon himself.
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He chose the wrong way. He chose the wrong way. It might be that God delivers you by the skin of your teeth, and yet look, choose carefully.
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Choose by faith and not by sight, because you bring that misery upon yourselves. Alexander White said, if Abram is the father of all those who believe,
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Lot is the father of all those who are barely saved. Lot chose the wrong way.
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Maybe this world and its privileges have too much of a hold on your heart, and you're thinking,
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I can just live in the suburbs of Sodom, and then if it ever gets to be too much,
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I'll leave. You know, Lot probably thought like that until he became a city official and lived in the gates of Sodom, and he had lost so much influence with his family as a result of that, that when he goes to warn them of that coming judgment, they just laugh at him.
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They laugh at him. You old fool. Now you've woken up. Now you're going to live in fear of God.
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It may be that this world and its privileges have too much of a hold on your heart, and so God is calling you by the example of Lot to humble yourself, consider your end, live by faith and not by sight.
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Be very careful about the plans you make for your family and for your future. Be very careful and thoughtful and prayerful about what you're reacting to, what you're scheming and hoping to bring about.
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Humble yourself, consider your end, live by faith. That's what Abram does. Abram chooses the right way.
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Abram dwelt in the land of Canaan. Lot dwelt in the cities of the plain. He pitched his tent as far as Sodom.
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Abram chooses the right way. Abram chose the right way in light of the bigger picture of God's promise.
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But notice this, and please notice this. Abram once thought and acted and chose just like Lot.
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Just like Lot. He led them into Egypt. So what's different now?
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Why does Abram choose the right way now? Well, it's because, first of all, Abram was humbled by his sins.
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He was embarrassed by his cowardice, humiliated by his deceitfulness. He was humbled.
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He was humbled, made reliant upon God, not upon himself. Secondly, he had experienced
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God's deliverance. He knew that God was for him, not against him. He knew that God would be true to his promise even when
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Abram was untrue. Third, notice that Abram had to retrace his steps.
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No wonder he was humble. He had to go back and literally see, step by step, his back sliding into Egypt.
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But then also, he was restored when he came to that altar and he called upon the name of the
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Lord. And so he had this resolve. I won't lapse in this way again. I won't make the same mistake.
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And so he's communing with God, not because he was this superhero of Christian faith, but because he was a failure in light of his failure.
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He's humbled enough to choose the right way. So it's not some innate snap in our life.
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It's not some power that comes upon us and all of a sudden we're given supernatural wisdom to choose the right way.
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Sometimes you won't stop choosing the wrong way until the Lord humbles you like he humbled Abram, until you find your way back and you're restored by the
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Lord. And know this, even then, it's not a snap. It's not some single moment of power.
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It's in a dozen small decisions that you make every single day. That's the life of faith.
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It's in a dozen small decisions you make every single day. What you do when you do it, how you do it.
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This is the life of faith. This makes all the difference in the world. Walk in the
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Spirit. You won't fulfill the lust of the flesh. You won't bear the fruit of the flesh. You walk in the
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Spirit. How do you walk in the Spirit? In a dozen decisions you make every day, where you consciously walk in the
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Spirit and not according to the pull of your flesh, not according to the reality of your situation, but according to God's Word, according to that prompting you have.
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We're to live by faith in the promises of God, in line with His promises. We don't live by the immediate gratification of our flesh.
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We don't look at the world with worldly wisdom. We live by faith, not by sight. We live like Abram lived.
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But please remember, Abram could only live this way because he took the way back.
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He retraced his steps, got back to basics, back to his first love. And when he came to the altar of God's presence in worship, he found the way forward.
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And in that way forward, he was a changed man, a separate man. He had a separate way from the way of the world, a separate way from the way of the lot.
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And and all of that together is why Abram chose the right way. We'll close with this from Titus 2.
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The grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great
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God and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your
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Word. Thank you, Lord, for this tremendous picture we have in Abram, Lord, a picture that resonates with us.
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We've all known what it's like to be a sinner, Lord, a failure, and to need to find the way back and be restored to you.
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We know that the joy and the power of that restored fellowship, the zeal that it brings forth, the fruit that it bears, how it makes us so distrusting, self -disowning, how it makes us so patient and kind and good, so gentle in our humility, so loving.
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Lord, I pray for each in this room, Lord, wherever they might be. Perhaps there's one who's been in Egypt.
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Perhaps, Lord, they're in Egypt not because they departed from you to get there, but they've just, they're an Egyptian as it stands.
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They don't know you. They've never known you. Save them, Lord. Call them out of that, out of that bondage, out of that darkness.
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If there's been one, Lord, who's been distant, they've been pitching their tent towards Sodom, Lord. They've been in the
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Negev, in that dry place, distant from you, Lord. Egypt always promising what it never delivers, only adding the misery and the bondage.
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Lord, move in them in such a way that they hear your call to return and by your
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Spirit, Lord, they're led and carried and even dragged back to the beginning, back to their first love.
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Let them see that way back, that they might be restored to you, Lord. They might come to that altar, come back to that commitment, come back to that season of strength,
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Lord, and begin to find again that way forward. Lord, we pray that as your people, we would be conscious of our flesh and its influence,
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Lord. The ways that we operate out of sight, the dozens of small decisions we make every day that lead us away from you and your purposes, that help us live in self -reliance upon the flesh rather than by faith.
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Help us to know what it means for each one of us here in all of our different circumstances to walk by your
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Spirit and not by our flesh. Help us to choose and love and live by the right way.