SPEAKER_02: Today's reading is Genesis thirteen.
SPEAKER_02: So Abram went up from Egypt, he and his wife and all that he had, and lot with him into the Negab.
SPEAKER_02: Now Abram was very rich in livestock, in silver and in gold, and he joined on from the Negab as far as Bethel, to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai, to the place where he had made an altar at the first.
SPEAKER_02: And there Abram called upon the name of the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: And Lot and Lot, who went with Abram, also had flocks and herds and tents, so that the land could not support both of them dwelling together.
SPEAKER_02: For the possessions were so great that they couldn't dwell together, and there was strife between the herdsmen of Abram's livestock and the herdsmen of Lot's livestock.
SPEAKER_02: At that time the Canaanites and the Peritites were dwelling in the land.
SPEAKER_02: Then Abram said to Lot, Let there be no strife between you and me, and between your herdsmen and my herdsmen, for we are kinsmen.
SPEAKER_02: Is not the whole land before you?
SPEAKER_02: Separate yourself from me.
SPEAKER_02: If you take the land, the left hand, then I will go to the right, or if you take the right hand, then I will go to the left.
SPEAKER_02: And Lot lifted up his eyes and saw that the Jordan Valley was well watered everywhere like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt in the direction of Zor.
SPEAKER_02: This was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.
SPEAKER_02: So Lot chose for himself all the Jordan Valley and Lot churned east.
SPEAKER_02: Thus they separate from each other.
SPEAKER_02: Abram settled in the land of Canaan, while Lot settled among the cities of the valley and moved his tent as far as Sodom.
SPEAKER_02: Now the men of Sodom work were weaked, great sinners against the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: The Lord said to Abraham, After Lot has separated from him, lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and southward, and eastward and westward.
SPEAKER_02: For all the land that you see, I will give it to you and to your offspring forever.
SPEAKER_02: I will make your offspring as the dust of the earth, so that if you if one can count the dust of the earth, your offspring also can be counted.
SPEAKER_02: Arise, walk through the length and the breadth of the land, for I will give it to you.
SPEAKER_02: So Abram moved his tent and came and settled by the ox of Mambre, which are at Hebram, and there he built an altar the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: And so reads God's word.
SPEAKER_01: So we will come to verse 8.
SPEAKER_01: If you uh if you need a Bible, you can run down and grab one.
SPEAKER_01: There's no uh uh nobody will say anything, don't worry, or you can pull it up on your on your phone.
SPEAKER_01: And we are uh now kind of coming into to week three of our series proper called Being Human.
SPEAKER_01: And we've called it being human because Genesis is actually um describing in lots of ways things that are always true about humanity.
SPEAKER_01: It's one of the things that people wrongly assume about the Bible uh is that it's irrelevant and antiquated that we've moved on uh as a society.
SPEAKER_01: The 21st century existence is uh is profoundly different from uh the second millennia BC.
SPEAKER_01: But that simply isn't the case.
SPEAKER_01: And Genesis is at pains to show us that the things that were true then are still true of us now.
SPEAKER_01: So you think of last week, last week uh Abraham was faced with a dire economic situation.
SPEAKER_01: There was a famine in the land.
SPEAKER_01: He was also faced with uh with personal threat and people that he was scared of, fearful of, and he operates out of pragmatics.
SPEAKER_01: He goes into fixer mode and thinks, okay, what's going to be the best thing for me in terms of my economic situation?
SPEAKER_01: He also acts out of fear, tries to manipulate and control the situation because he's scared of what other people will think, what other people will say, what other people will do.
SPEAKER_01: And I suspect that perhaps we have done the same.
SPEAKER_01: He's operated out of fear of man rather than of courage or trust.
SPEAKER_01: You might not have ever been in famine conditions, but you've probably all felt the stress and the precariousness of a situation that you've tried to fix and control and manipulate yourself and found that that has not gone particularly well.
SPEAKER_01: And now here this week in Genesis 13, we have a different tension.
SPEAKER_01: That is the tension of relationship strain and stress.
SPEAKER_01: There's a uh there's a family breakdown in this chapter.
SPEAKER_01: This not only happens in families, but it also happens here in the community of God's people in the church.
SPEAKER_01: When Abraham says to Lot, you know, we're kin, it's not just that we're we're blood, but that we have a shared community, a shared kind of tribal culture.
SPEAKER_01: And perhaps you have been in a church where relationships have have broken down and where people have left.
SPEAKER_01: Nobody ever leaves city because city's amazing.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, and everybody loves uh me and all of the leaders here, and uh, and so relationship breakdown never happens.
SPEAKER_01: So this is a very unfamiliar passage uh to me.
SPEAKER_01: Uh the Bible forces us to face situations that we all go through that are shared down the generations by us all.
SPEAKER_01: The difference that the Bible instructs us in is not that a difference in circumstance, it's not that the stuff that goes on in the world or the stuff that goes on in our hearts is different.
SPEAKER_01: What the Bible instructs us in is that our response to those circumstances can be different.
SPEAKER_01: You see, on one level, it's completely normal when faced with economic uncertainty and uh precarious situations, to think in terms of what's most advantageous and what's most practical.
SPEAKER_01: Of course, that's the natural, normal thing to do.
SPEAKER_01: Or when we feel threatened by people, to fear what they will say or what they will do to us.
SPEAKER_01: Surely that's natural and that's normal.
SPEAKER_01: What is not natural is to approach a situation of conflict with grace, with generosity.
SPEAKER_01: But that's exactly what Abraham does here.
SPEAKER_01: Hi.
SPEAKER_01: How does Abram go from messing everything up this week to or last week to absolutely bossing it this week?
SPEAKER_01: The answer lies in what we fix our eyes on.
SPEAKER_01: You maybe have noticed that that's a repeated rephrase.
SPEAKER_01: Lot lifted up his eyes, he fixed his eyes on something, and then God comes to Ab and says, Lift up your eyes, that is, fix your eyes on something else.
SPEAKER_01: The difference in response comes from what we choose to lift up our eyes to, what we choose to fix our eyes on.
SPEAKER_01: If you fix your eyes on the circumstances around you, you'll be given to fear and pragmatics, to control and entitlement.
SPEAKER_01: But here Abram fixes his eyes on God and his promises.
SPEAKER_01: And that does something remarkable.
SPEAKER_01: That frees him to act differently, to act supernaturally.
SPEAKER_01: This whole chapter begins and ends with worship.
SPEAKER_01: You see that there in verse 4, he comes back from this trial uh in Egypt, where he did not particularly cover himself in glory.
SPEAKER_01: And we read in verse 4 that he's come back to Bethel in Ai.
SPEAKER_01: And in verse 4 it says, to the place where he had made an altar at first, and there again Abram called on the name of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Abram comes back to worship.
SPEAKER_01: After all of the messing up, after all of the wandering away, the way that Abram restarts and begins to deepen his faith and trust is that he comes back to worship.
SPEAKER_01: That's where our journey starts.
SPEAKER_01: And it is where it restarts.
SPEAKER_01: It's one of the reasons why here at City Church we take the Lord's Supper every week, because uh as we said in our confession this morning, even this week we have sinned against you.
SPEAKER_01: We have not loved you, God, as we ought to have.
SPEAKER_01: We have sinned in thought and word and deed, as another confession says, and what we have done and what we have left undone.
SPEAKER_01: And when we come to the Lord's table, as we will do in a few minutes' time, it's in a sense coming back to worship and resolving again to follow God, to trust his promises, to depend on him.
SPEAKER_01: That's where Abram starts.
SPEAKER_01: We come back to worship looking outside of ourselves.
SPEAKER_01: We come after we have failed, we come in repentance, and we accept the ready forgiveness and grace that God offers.
SPEAKER_01: When we say the confession that we said at the top of the service, there's no there's no sense in it that God may or may not forgive ye.
SPEAKER_01: If you are coming with penitence, humbly, acknowledging your need of him, his forgiveness and grace is readily and abundantly given.
SPEAKER_01: And so Abram comes back and he calls on the name of the Lord and he resolves to trust again.
SPEAKER_01: He begins to listen to his voice again, trust his promise, and as a result, Abram deepens his faith.
SPEAKER_01: And he becomes in part a blessing to the people around him.
SPEAKER_01: So let's open this passage up a little bit more.
SPEAKER_01: How does fixing our eyes on God and his promises change Abram's actions?
SPEAKER_01: And how does it change our actions?
SPEAKER_01: First, it frees us to choose peace.
SPEAKER_01: It frees us to choose peace.
SPEAKER_01: Now, the situation in this passage is that Abram and Lot are coming back from Egypt and uh they are very wealthy.
SPEAKER_01: They have acquired a lot of stuff down in Egypt.
SPEAKER_01: We read that gold and silver and herds and flocks.
SPEAKER_01: And that's the issue.
SPEAKER_01: Uh when nomads get wealthy, they don't uh log on to their AIB or their Bank of Ireland account and see all the zeros rocking up or racking up.
SPEAKER_01: That's not how you get wealthy in the ancient Near East.
SPEAKER_01: The way you get wealthy is more mouths to feed.
SPEAKER_01: There's more cattle, more sheep, more onkies, oxen, donkeys.
SPEAKER_01: That's when the it's a hybrid there.
SPEAKER_01: Um more stuff, more people to take care of.
SPEAKER_01: And this creates a tension.
SPEAKER_01: And so we re read now there's a tension between the uh the herdsman, this is verse 7, of Abram's livestock and the herdsmen of Lot's livestock.
SPEAKER_01: There's a there's a problem.
SPEAKER_01: There's something very interesting here that I that I picked up on this last week.
SPEAKER_01: When the Bible tells us that Abram was very rich, there in verse 2, that is exactly the same word as we get in chapter 12 of the famine being severe.
SPEAKER_01: Severe and very rich are the same word.
SPEAKER_01: The word kadov, which means even the sign of it, it means heavy.
SPEAKER_01: Kadov, right?
SPEAKER_01: Uh it's a word that means heavy, weighty.
SPEAKER_01: So he's way down with wealth as opposed to being uh the famine weighing you down and uh and being severe.
SPEAKER_01: But isn't that interesting that both wealth and lack lead to trial and difficulty?
SPEAKER_01: Beware the wrong-headed notion that the more you have, the easier your life will be.
SPEAKER_01: He was heavy with wealth, and that led to tension in his family.
SPEAKER_01: So this tension arrives, arises in verse seven, and Abram resolves to have peace.
SPEAKER_01: Verse eight.
SPEAKER_01: Then Abram said to Lot, Let there be no strife between you and me, and between your herdsmen and my herdsmen, for we are kinsmen.
SPEAKER_01: Is not the whole land before you?
SPEAKER_01: Separate yourself from me.
SPEAKER_01: If you take the left hand, I will go to the right.
SPEAKER_01: If you go to the right hand, then I will take the left.
SPEAKER_01: Abram, as the one who is more senior in age, he's Lot's uncle.
SPEAKER_01: He has increased prestige by his age, and he's kind of the leader of the tribe.
SPEAKER_01: He has more nobility than Lot.
SPEAKER_01: He could have simply dismissed Lot and sent him on his way.
SPEAKER_01: This isn't working for me.
SPEAKER_01: You need to head off over there.
SPEAKER_01: But he doesn't.
SPEAKER_01: He comes to Lot and he pursues peace.
SPEAKER_01: And how does he propose that this peace will happen?
SPEAKER_01: Well, the suggestion is that Abram and Lot should separate.
SPEAKER_01: Now that's interesting, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01: It's a surprising proposal because we don't normally think when two people are in conflict that the best thing that they can do is go their separate ways.
SPEAKER_01: We think that actually it's only really a resolved issue if everybody is still together and happy.
SPEAKER_01: And yet there's wisdom here.
SPEAKER_01: Abram says, look, let's go our separate ways in order to preserve further strife or prevent further strife and relationship breakdown.
SPEAKER_01: When relationships break down in the church, we assume that things are only okay if everyone is back together and getting on just like before.
SPEAKER_01: But maybe that's not always the case.
SPEAKER_01: Now we're all journeying towards a day when all of us who are trusting in Jesus, we will all be in that new heavens, the new earth, that new creation existence, where all relationships will be uh will be straightened out and we'll all exist together in perfect peace and harmony, harmony.
SPEAKER_01: And yet the Bible is real in understanding that this side of that reality, it's not always possible.
SPEAKER_01: That there's wisdom in saying there's a tension here, and I don't I don't hate you, I don't, I don't want ill for you, I want well for your sake.
SPEAKER_01: So there's wisdom in the two of us going our separate ways here in order to preserve that.
SPEAKER_01: Why does Abram do this?
SPEAKER_01: Why does he make this proposal?
SPEAKER_01: Is it just again because he's thinking in terms of economics?
SPEAKER_01: He's like, well, you know, we need to, you know, the there's enough land for for all of us, and uh my sheep need to be watered and fed.
SPEAKER_01: Is that what he's thinking?
SPEAKER_01: Well, no, not quite.
SPEAKER_01: Now, of course, it's already been answered in the sense that he wants to keep peace with his nephew Lot, but there's something else going on.
SPEAKER_01: Did you notice it?
SPEAKER_01: It's a little throwaway detail.
SPEAKER_01: Top tip.
SPEAKER_01: There are never throwaway details in the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: If you read over something and you're like, what's that matter?
SPEAKER_01: Like, why is that there?
SPEAKER_01: That's probably the most important bit.
SPEAKER_01: Did you notice it at the end of verse 7?
SPEAKER_01: Verse 7b?
SPEAKER_01: Look at it if you got it on your phone.
SPEAKER_01: And there was strife between uh the herdsmen of Abram's livestock and the herdsmen of Lot's livestock.
SPEAKER_01: At that time, the Canaanites and the Perizzites were dwelling in the land.
SPEAKER_01: Oh I'm so glad that Moses told us that.
SPEAKER_01: Why is he telling us that the Canaanites and the Perizzites are in the land?
SPEAKER_01: Well, do you remember what God's promise to Abram was?
SPEAKER_01: I'll make you a great nation.
SPEAKER_01: Go to the land that I'm gonna show you, I'm gonna give it to you.
SPEAKER_01: And in you, all the nations of the world will be blessed.
SPEAKER_01: There's nations in the land, and they're looking at Abram and Lot.
SPEAKER_01: There are nations in the land, and they are looking at the man who calls on the name of Yahweh, not their God, that calls on the name of Yahweh and thinking, is he just like the rest of us Baal worshippers?
SPEAKER_01: The rest of us Molek people, or is he different?
SPEAKER_01: The Canaanites and the Parasites are in the land, and Abram knows it.
SPEAKER_01: And Abram knows that he's supposed to be a blessing to these people.
SPEAKER_01: If a huge rye had blown up with everybody fighting over what is best, and herdsmen uh getting killed, and this ganglang warfare going on between Abram and Lot, what would that have said to the Canaanites and the Perizzites?
SPEAKER_01: I said, they're just the same as the rest of us.
SPEAKER_01: What would that have said then about the God of the Bible?
SPEAKER_01: What would that have said about Yahweh?
SPEAKER_01: Well, he's just as bloodthirsty as the rest, so why would I change?
SPEAKER_01: He would say exactly the same thing to them as it does now when people outside of the church see the church fighting with one another over trivial earthly things in full view of the watching world.
SPEAKER_01: Now don't mishear me, there are battles that need to be fought and lines that need to be held.
SPEAKER_01: But I think of uh of Paul's letter to the Corinthians, where the Corinthian Christians were uh they were suing one another, they were taking one another to court in order to show their superior status over their brothers and sisters.
SPEAKER_01: That when we're when we're doing that, when we're doing other people down, when we're refusing to celebrate what God is doing amongst other people who we call brother and sister, when we are when we express this barbed rivalry against people who uh who also call on the name of Jesus, and we do that in front of people who aren't believers, who don't call on the name of Jesus, what is it that we're saying to them?
SPEAKER_01: We're saying, well, Christians are just as entitled and just as prideful and just as fixated, they have their eyes fixed on earthly things.
SPEAKER_01: It says that being a follower of Jesus doesn't change your outlook at all.
SPEAKER_01: That fixing your eyes on him is just the same as fixing your eyes on your own well-being.
SPEAKER_01: But Abram won't have it.
SPEAKER_01: Abram chooses the way of peace by coming to his nephew and saying, let's do whatever it takes to sort this out.
SPEAKER_01: Let's do whatever it takes in order to preserve our witness towards the Canaanites and the Perizzites, even if it means us going our separate ways in order to keep that peace.
SPEAKER_01: What is fixing our eyes on God and his promises do?
SPEAKER_01: It frees us to keep the peace.
SPEAKER_01: The second thing that it does is it frees us from our entitlement.
SPEAKER_01: Put it another way, it frees us to set aside our rights.
SPEAKER_01: Abram does something remarkable here, as I've already alluded to.
SPEAKER_01: He gives Lot the first pick.
SPEAKER_01: Abram was more.
SPEAKER_01: Senior and the right was his.
SPEAKER_01: But he sets it aside voluntarily and gives first refusal to Lot.
SPEAKER_01: How does he do this?
SPEAKER_01: Well, he's begun to learn the lesson of Egypt.
SPEAKER_01: There he forgot the promises of God.
SPEAKER_01: He forgot God's sovereign care of him.
SPEAKER_01: And so he felt like he had to control the situation.
SPEAKER_01: But now he's leaning into the promises of God, do you see?
SPEAKER_01: Here he's beginning to deepen his trust in God's sovereignty, in God's loving care of him.
SPEAKER_01: And so he says to Lot, you pick, knowing that God will not forsake his promise.
SPEAKER_01: And so Abram's not so much abandoning himself to Lot's choice, but surrendering to the sovereignty of God.
SPEAKER_01: He's like, Whatever Lot picks, Lot's not going to derail the promises of God.
SPEAKER_01: I can trust him, which means that I can go to this guy, to my nephew, and I can say, you pick.
SPEAKER_01: He sets aside his rights.
SPEAKER_01: In Egypt, he tried to manipulate the situation, he tried to control, and none of it worked.
SPEAKER_01: So instead, he opts for dependence.
SPEAKER_01: And as we shall see, when Abraham gives it all up, God gives him everything.
SPEAKER_01: When Abraham gives it all up, God gives him everything.
SPEAKER_01: Only lifting our eyes and fixing them on God and his promises will make us do that.
SPEAKER_01: Remember what Jesus said?
SPEAKER_01: But if you give it up for my sake and for the sake of the gospel, you will save it.
SPEAKER_01: How can Jesus ask this of you?
SPEAKER_01: Because that's exactly what he did for you.
SPEAKER_01: He gave it all up.
SPEAKER_01: That he might be the blessing.
SPEAKER_01: And bring the blessing of forgiveness to the nations.
SPEAKER_01: Give it all up.
SPEAKER_01: And God will give you everything.
SPEAKER_01: Being a Christian sets you free to set aside your rights, your entitlements, your privileges, and goodness me, what a force that would have to the Canaanites and the Parasites.
SPEAKER_01: In our world where everybody is touting and claiming and gripping onto so tightly their rights, their privileges, what is due to them, what a thing it would be if the followers of Jesus, if those who called on the name of Yahweh, actually said, You know what?
SPEAKER_01: I'm setting aside my rights so that I can fix my eyes on him.
SPEAKER_01: It means as well that say you have been wronged.
SPEAKER_01: And you know that you have been wronged.
SPEAKER_01: And everything in you wants to scream self-justification and go, can't you see how wrong they were?
SPEAKER_01: And how much of a victim I am?
SPEAKER_01: And that may be genuinely true.
SPEAKER_01: But fixing our eyes on God is not saying that none of that matters.
SPEAKER_01: It's saying that one day, one day, I will be vindicated.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, one day all of this will come out in the wash, and I can set aside my rights now in order to keep the peace, knowing that God will not let what happened go unanswered.
SPEAKER_01: That in the end, his promise to be just and loving and kind will come true, and they will be seen for what they have done.
SPEAKER_01: And so you can let go of the bitterness that begins to grip onto our souls.
SPEAKER_01: It frees Abraham to choose peace.
SPEAKER_01: It frees him from entitlement, from clinging to his rights, but it also frees him from fear.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 10 says that Lot lifted up his eyes.
SPEAKER_01: Lot lifted up his eyes and saw that the Jordan Valley was well watered everywhere, like the garden of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: It looked like paradise, like the land of Egypt, where they just made lots of money.
SPEAKER_01: In the direction of Zor.
SPEAKER_01: This is before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.
SPEAKER_01: Come back to that.
SPEAKER_01: So Lot chose for himself all the Jordan Valley.
SPEAKER_01: And Lot journeyed east, thus they separated from each other.
SPEAKER_01: Lot lifts up his eyes, and what does he see?
SPEAKER_01: He sees a beautiful, fertile land.
SPEAKER_01: And he remembers, I'm sure, the famine of chapter 12.
SPEAKER_01: Because he was there.
SPEAKER_01: He probably remembers the pang of hunger, and he maybe even feels the responsibility of all the more mouse to feed and thinks, I'm not going back there.
SPEAKER_01: I need some security in my life now.
SPEAKER_01: I need to make a decision that prioritizes provision and security and comfort.
SPEAKER_01: And he's still operating out of a kind of fear that fixates us on temporal, temporary security.
SPEAKER_01: But here's the problem.
SPEAKER_01: Lot isn't seeing the whole picture.
SPEAKER_01: This is the problem with making decisions on your life to do with your life based solely on economics.
SPEAKER_01: And I see it time and time and time again.
SPEAKER_01: That people make decisions about where they will move to and what they will do based primarily on the material advances and advantages that it will have for them.
SPEAKER_01: That is a consideration.
SPEAKER_01: Don't mishear me.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying that you should all take a vow of poverty.
SPEAKER_01: I understand that we live in a very expensive city, and that requires people to have a certain level of income in order to be able to flip and well live in it, right?
SPEAKER_01: So I get all of that.
SPEAKER_01: But we can't operate with too narrow a lens in terms of the decisions that we make.
SPEAKER_01: And Lot's doing that here.
SPEAKER_01: He's only seeing the pragmatic and the material and the practical when he should be looking with a wider lens.
SPEAKER_01: And that's why the writer is giving us some clues.
SPEAKER_01: He's saying, Whoa, heads up here, guys.
SPEAKER_01: You need to see how this is going to play out for Lot.
SPEAKER_01: He's ignoring the spiritual realities, and the the author is flagging them for us.
SPEAKER_01: We don't haven't even got to Genesis 19.
SPEAKER_01: And I would say that there's a huge percentage of people in this room that when they hear Sodom and Gomorrah are like, oh, Sodom.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, you know, even if you don't know the whole story, you've got stuff ringing in the back of your head.
SPEAKER_01: It's like, oh yeah, no, not somewhere where you go for a holiday.
SPEAKER_01: You've at least got that, right?
SPEAKER_01: You think, eh?
SPEAKER_01: Probably not.
SPEAKER_01: And even the fact that it says, before the Lord destroyed, you get the flaming rotar coming down in Genesis 19.
SPEAKER_01: We'll get there before Christmas.
SPEAKER_01: Merry Christmas, everybody.
SPEAKER_01: Um that's uh that's what we're going to to look at.
SPEAKER_01: And the author is giving us these senses of uh of that there's something going on.
SPEAKER_01: You know, you'd get the you'd get the dramatic kind of dun dun dun dun dun core, like the men of Sodom were wicked and great sinners against the Lord, verse 13, and Lot's going there, it's setting it all up the tension.
SPEAKER_01: It's like, oh no, don't go there, Lot.
SPEAKER_01: Don't make a decision just based on your economics.
SPEAKER_01: Because actually that's going to have spiritual ramifications.
SPEAKER_01: And even just in the the little, uh, there's another little throwaway phrase that again is not a throwaway phrase where it says that Lot journeyed east.
SPEAKER_01: In Genesis, when you journey east, in fact, in the whole Bible, when you journey east, you're journeying away from the presence of God.
SPEAKER_01: Adam and Eve were sent out of the garden and they moved east into the land of Nod, became wanderers away from the presence of God, and Lot's journeying east.
SPEAKER_01: And so you're supposed to be thinking, hold on, this isn't a great decision.
SPEAKER_01: Lot's operating out of fear.
SPEAKER_01: And as we shall see in due course, this will come back to bite Lot.
SPEAKER_01: He is still looking at his life through his natural eyes.
SPEAKER_01: He's seeing a material problem and solving it with a material solution.
SPEAKER_01: He's lost sight of the fact that he is a spiritual being that must make decisions based on his own spiritual well-being.
SPEAKER_01: Abram, by contrast, is seeing with the eyes of faith and trusting the promises of God, because he knows that there's more to life than economics and prosperity.
SPEAKER_01: When he sees with the eyes of faith, Abram is freed from fear and allows Lot to choose.
SPEAKER_01: But Lot is still trapped, and in the end, Lot will lose much more than he ever gained by this decision.
SPEAKER_01: This stretches us a little bit, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_01: It stretches us.
SPEAKER_01: And in order to grow in our faith, we must be stretched in order to think through well, how do we discern God's directing of my life?
SPEAKER_01: What does that look like?
SPEAKER_01: How do I look beyond economics and appearances?
SPEAKER_01: To ask, well, what is what is the direction that would prioritize the spiritual vitality of both me and my family if I have one?
SPEAKER_01: How can I maximize my growth in godliness?
SPEAKER_01: What about my family?
SPEAKER_01: What about my marriage and the decisions that I make?
SPEAKER_01: Frees us to choose peace, it frees us from entitlement and it frees us from fear.
SPEAKER_01: Last one.
SPEAKER_01: It frees us to follow the God who blesses.
SPEAKER_01: So Abram and Lot separate.
SPEAKER_01: And God comes again to Abram, and instead of Lot lifting his own eyes, God tells Abram to lift his eyes.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 14.
SPEAKER_01: Between lifting up your own eyes and being commanded, look, look and see the blessing and promises of God.
SPEAKER_01: And so God comes and he reaffirms and deepens his call of Abram.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Look to the land, look north and south, and east and west, and look at the dust of the earth, and count the dust, if indeed it can be counted, and you're going to have more offspring than the dust of the earth, Abram.
SPEAKER_01: And that's a deepening of what we saw in Genesis 12, right?
SPEAKER_01: He's beginning to press in the promises into Abram's life.
SPEAKER_01: And God responds to Abram's exercise of faith by reaffirming his commitment to Abram.
SPEAKER_01: And this is how we mature as followers of God ourselves.
SPEAKER_01: And we fix our eyes on him, we exercise our faith, and then he confirms to us who he is, and he strengthens our trust.
SPEAKER_01: To exercise our faith is to take actions that will push our faith, that will cause us to depend on him.
SPEAKER_01: And so again, Abram sets off, living the life of tent and of altar, the life of a pilgrim.
SPEAKER_01: Living a life of wandering and worship, looking ahead to the time when the promises of God will be made true.
SPEAKER_01: Looking beyond the present circumstances to a day when God will make good on all that he has said.
SPEAKER_01: So God says, Lift up your eyes, Abram.
SPEAKER_01: All of this, all that you can see, will be yours.
SPEAKER_01: Abram, in coming to Lot the way he did, gave it all up.
SPEAKER_01: And God gave him everything.
SPEAKER_01: A few thousand years later, Abram's offspring stood on a high place.
SPEAKER_01: And there Satan said to Jesus, Lift up your eyes and behold all the nations of the world.
SPEAKER_01: And they will be yours if only you bow down to me.
SPEAKER_01: Satan was lying to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: In a sense, Satan was coming to Jesus and saying, Hey, look, let there be no strife between us.
SPEAKER_01: We can coexist here, you and me.
SPEAKER_01: There can be peace between us.
SPEAKER_01: There's room in this time for the both of us.
SPEAKER_01: You don't have to give up your life.
SPEAKER_01: You don't have to go the road of suffering.
SPEAKER_01: No cross, no shame.
SPEAKER_01: Don't give it all up, and I'll give you everything.
SPEAKER_01: But in that moment, the offspring of Abram chose to fix his eyes, not on the circumstances that he found himself in, but on his father, and says, You shall worship God alone, only him shall you serve.
SPEAKER_01: And in saying that, Jesus knew the cost that that would entail.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes you and I are Genesis 13 people.
SPEAKER_01: We come to a situation as believers in Jesus and we boss it.
SPEAKER_01: We act in faith, we're forgiving, we're gracious, we're generous, we're understanding and encouraging, and we think, yes, there's actually something going on about the Holy Spirit's working my life, growing me as a Christian.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we are Genesis 13 people.
SPEAKER_01: Do you know most of the time though?
SPEAKER_01: We're Genesis 12 people.
SPEAKER_01: Most of the time we're a bit fearful.
SPEAKER_01: We look at circumstances and we try to figure out ourselves the best way through.
SPEAKER_01: We forget about God and we have to come back and go, I'm really sorry.
SPEAKER_01: Same sin again, please forgive me.
SPEAKER_01: And he does.
SPEAKER_01: And then once we receive that forgiveness, we run off and we do our own thing again.
SPEAKER_01: And the cycle just goes on and on and on.
SPEAKER_01: We're sometimes Genesis 13 people, but very often we're Genesis 12 people, aren't we?
SPEAKER_01: Jesus on that high place chose to give up everything for Genesis 12 people.
SPEAKER_01: He gave up his rights and his privileges, he gave up his glory.
SPEAKER_01: He lost it all.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: So that he might give us everything.
SPEAKER_01: Forgiveness and life and love and hope and faith.
SPEAKER_01: So what are you lifting your eyes to?
SPEAKER_01: What are you pursuing?
SPEAKER_01: The things that look most advantageous for success and comfort and wealth?
SPEAKER_01: Or to Jesus, the son of the promised keeping, sovereign God, who by his death sets us free, sets us free to choose peace, sets us free from fear, sets us free from entitlement, and sets us free to follow and to worship him.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what Abraham does at the end of this passage in verse 18.
SPEAKER_01: He comes back to where he started, and I conclude where we started.
SPEAKER_01: He comes back to worship.
SPEAKER_01: He responds to God and to his promises.
SPEAKER_01: If you give me a click pri on the slide behind me, we think about at City Church how we are to respond in worship.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what we're going to do now.
SPEAKER_01: We respond in singing, in praying, in giving, and in taking the Lord's Supper.
SPEAKER_01: We respond in worship.
SPEAKER_01: We start and we end here.
SPEAKER_01: And so, what prayers are you going to lift up as you prepare to take the Lord's Supper?
SPEAKER_01: Will you sing with both heart and voice?
SPEAKER_01: How will you approach this table with a perfunctory going through the motions?
SPEAKER_01: Or will you look down and see your empty hands and realize that God fills them with his grace and favor?
SPEAKER_01: What will you give?
SPEAKER_01: To him who gave it all.