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Welcome everybody to Hosanna.

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I am Pastor Nathan and this morning we're going to be continuing our look at the life of this man Abram.

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I love his story because he is like all of us, a very paradoxical mixture of trusting in ourself

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and trusting in God and trying to figure out that dynamic every single day of our life.

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Moses, who is the author of these writings, he makes no attempt to gloss over any of this.

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He just gives it to us as it is.

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And so the story of Abram's failure in Egypt, which is what we looked at last time in the end of Genesis 12,

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and today's story of his success in Canaan with his nephew Lot,

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they just dig into the contradictions that we have as people of faith.

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They dig into the contradictions within him as a man of faith,

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and they highlight the same exact contradictions that exist in our own hearts.

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You know, we talked about it last week that Abrams, man I'm going to mix that up until he changes it,

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Abram's name, Abram's life has been one of just trying to follow the Lord.

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And his debacle in Egypt was not a story of a man who had abandoned his faith, walked away from his faith.

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It was a story of faith, and we can't forget that.

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That even though his self-serving representation of his wife as his sister seemed to be the act of a faithless man,

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it didn't mean that Abram had lost all his faith.

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It was the act of a faithful man who had temporarily given in to doubt and fear and worry.

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His trust had momentarily become distrust.

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But despite all of this, the Bible is very clear that Abram was a man of faith.

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And so his faith is something that wasn't fake.

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His faith was something that wasn't insincere.

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His faith wasn't the type of faith where he would only call out to God as a get out of jail free card when he was in trouble.

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But instead his faith was real, and it was genuine.

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But his failure in Egypt was simply a picture of that faith being buried under his fear and worry for the moment.

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Has anybody ever experienced their faith being buried under fear and worry for a moment?

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Every single one of us in this room.

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And so we can all relate to the story of Abram.

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Now, as we've been looking at his life, we looked at the time when he left Ur, and the day he left Ur, which was his hometown,

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he was leaving simply on the bare word of God.

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God had spoken and said, go, and I'll tell you when you're there.

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And he said, okay.

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And so he went out on faith.

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We know that he believed God's promises, that God said great blessing will come from you and through you, and he believed it.

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When he finally got to the promised land in Canaan, and God said to your offspring I'm going to give all this land, he believed it.

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But in Egypt, it was distrust that was not at all reflective of his faith that characterized him.

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Abram's just like us.

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And today, as we see the opposite side of the Egypt story, his success, his spiritual success in Canaan,

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we're going to see the positive outworking of his faith in response to the lessons he learned in Egypt.

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And we're going to be encouraged with a number of things, namely that if you were God's child,

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failing and falling doesn't mean he disowns you.

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It's quite the opposite.

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It means that you could run back to him anytime because he is waiting for you with arms wide to help you,

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to help you heal, to help you grow.

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And that's a beautiful thing.

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Amen.

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Let's pray.

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Father, we love you so much.

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We're so grateful, God, to be your kids.

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Lord, we know you saved us when we were still sinners.

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We know, Lord, you choose to dwell within us, knowing everything we think and do.

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And Lord, it's just amazing that you are so faithful when we are faithless.

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And God, we do need the encouragement, Lord, that when we stumble, when we fall,

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Lord, it doesn't mean we're no longer your children.

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Quite the opposite.

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The fact that we can run back to you, that you still accept us, that you still love us, Lord,

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proves that we are your children.

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And Lord, it is you that we find the strength to be who you're calling us to be.

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It is in you that we find all we need to live the life you're calling us to live.

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And Lord, so as we look at the life of Abram and continue to study his life, Lord,

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may we be encouraged of how he responds after his failure in Egypt,

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how he responds to you, how he deals with his own issues, Lord,

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in struggling with the fact that he fell.

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Lord, may we all be encouraged today because we are all the same people,

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struggling with trust and distrust, struggling with hearing you and wanting to obey

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everything you tell us, and then at the same time wrestling with our own flesh

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that wants us to do whatever it wants us to do.

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God, we do love you and we ask that you would increase our faith,

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that you increase our trust, that your spirit would grow big and bright in our life, Lord,

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that it would be you shining out through our life to the world and not ourselves.

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God speak to us today. We thank you for everything.

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It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

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We are going to be in Genesis 13, looking at the first 18 verses of this chapter.

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And so as we've been following Abram's story, we looked at last week how he went down to Egypt

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and really put a lot of faith in himself, trusting in his own plans, his own ideas,

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and really was selfishly motivated, looking to protect himself and, you know,

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by extension, possibly looking to protect God's promise because if he would be killed

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or if he was to be killed or whatnot, you know, that would obviously mess up a lot in his mind.

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But he ended up leaving Egypt without a word.

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Pharaoh rebuked him for bringing the plague upon him and his household.

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And it doesn't record for us that Abraham said, Abram said a single word to Pharaoh.

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He just left.

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And that's often where we find ourselves as believers when we misrepresent the Lord

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and the world that we're supposed to be a witness to calls us out for doing the wrong thing.

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It's a very humiliating experience when that happens.

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And so Abram leaves, likely shamed, likely humiliated, likely bummed out

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because he didn't represent God rightly, and that's where we pick it up here in Genesis 13, verse 1.

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It says Abram went up from Egypt to the Negev, he, his wife, and all he had and lot with him.

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Abram was very rich in livestock, silver and gold.

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He went by stages from the Negev to Bethel, to the place between Bethel and Ai

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where his tent had formerly been, to the site where he had built the altar.

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Abram called on the name of the Lord there.

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So as Abram left Egypt, chastened, without a word, we see that he's journeying back to the place

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where his relationship with God was strongest, where it was at its peak.

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The place where he had arrived in the promised land and God said, here we are.

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This is the place. Your descendants are going to get this.

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Just an amazing time of him just being with the Lord.

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Now it says he returned to the place where he first called on the name of the Lord

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because right there between Bethel and Ai when he built that altar,

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it was the first time we have recorded in the promised land where he was calling on or proclaiming God's name.

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Not just thanking God in praise and worship, but then proclaiming who God was to the people that were there.

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Now it's interesting, his journey is like a reverse description of his initial trip down inland through Egypt.

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So he's actually just playing it and rewind back up to Bethel.

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And I find that an interesting detail because the Bible tells us repentance is the idea of a 180 degree turn

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where we face back to Jesus after facing away from him.

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And so it's like Abram is doing that repentant turn.

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The reason I believe he's going back to Bethel and this place where he called on the name of the Lord

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because he was taking a humble pilgrimage, right?

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We often like to return to those places where our relationship with God was the strongest,

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where we had the experiences that kind of define our walk.

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And this is what Abraham's doing here because this was that place for him.

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Now this account in Genesis 13, it is meant to be an intentional contrast to Abram's failure in Egypt.

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And I say that because both the story of his failure in Egypt and the story here of him returning to Canaan,

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they both open with the same Hebrew word describing the condition, if you will, of the moment.

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The Hebrew word is kabed.

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And kabed means heavy or weighty or burdensome.

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Like if you've ever said or heard somebody say, I have a heavy heart, right?

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That's what this word kabed means.

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But it can also be used to describe circumstances and situations.

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For example, the Egyptian narrative started in Genesis 12, 10, and it opened this way.

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There was a famine in the land, and it was severe, kabed.

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It was heavy, it was burdensome, and so they end up leaving to Egypt.

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Here in this story, as he's returning into the land, it says Abraham was very rich, kabed.

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He was heavy with riches, right?

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And so we're seeing this contrast of what led to this and what is leading to the story we're looking at today.

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And really all that tells us is that when we read this story in Genesis 13,

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we're meant to read it with Genesis 12 in context.

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We're meant to have that in mind as we look at this story because they're meant to be contrasted against one another.

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So yeah, Abraham was very wealthy now.

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We looked at in Genesis 12 where it said he had female donkeys and what that meant, right?

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Those were the transportation of the rich in the day.

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He had many camels, which are the prestige symbols of the rich in his day, and he had silver and gold on top of that.

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Now, this type of wealth was a very unusual or extraordinary place to be in for Abraham because he was a wandering shepherd.

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That was the culture he was a part of.

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That's how they lived.

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They were nomads, and so to be so laden down with wealth was very unusual, and yet that's what Abraham or Abram found himself doing here.

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Now, if you remember, he was given all these riches because he had made his wife lie and say that she was his sister,

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and then Pharaoh took her and then said, hey, here's all the money in compensation for your sister that I brought into my harem.

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Now, this whole situation is a foreshadowing of what later on happens with Israel in Egypt

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because if you remember in Exodus chapter 12, it says that when God brought the plagues upon Egypt,

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the people eventually said, please go, get out of here, and here's all our gold and here's all our stuff,

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and it tells us that in that sense Israel plundered Egypt.

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This story here with Abram is a foreshadowing to all of that,

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and I believe it was a great encouragement to the wandering Israelites when this was written.

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I believe that Moses wrote this book Genesis and the first five books of the Bible while they were wandering in the wilderness time,

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and so as he wrote that down and the Israelites who were wandering in the wilderness for 40 years wondering what's going on,

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when are we going to get to the promised land, where is God leading us, that as they read this story and they said,

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oh, how encouraging is it to know that our great forebearer, our forefather, also found himself in Egypt

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and also found himself leaving Egypt with great, great wealth,

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just like the Israelites had found themselves in the wilderness after having left Egypt themselves.

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And so it traces his journey back up through the Negev Desert, back to Bethel, where the altar that he built was still there.

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It was the second altar that he had built in the promised land, but it was the first place where he called on the name of the Lord,

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where he was standing proclaiming the glory of God and who he was and telling everybody around,

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worshiping and praising him without concern in the midst of a Canaanite land with all their pagan gods around him.

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And so he's returning to this place, kind of in a sense renewing his spiritual connection with God and the land.

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And it's very important that we see again he calls on the name of the Lord.

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Often when we fail, when we mess up, one of the hardest things to do is to come back and worship God.

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Because we feel guilty, the devil is saying, how dare you sing songs to God, how dare you worship him,

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how dare you fail, you terrible Christian, you this, you that. And sometimes we'll come to church after stumbling greatly

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and we'll sit there and cross our arms and be like, I can't sing to God, I can't possibly do that after what I did.

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But we have to understand that God is God no matter what we do.

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And if you truly know him as your Savior, you are his child no matter what you do.

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He's your dad now and forever.

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The first thing you could do when you've stumbled is to come back to him and say, God, I'm so sorry.

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I messed up, I sinned, please forgive me.

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And then when you experience that forgiveness again, like you have so many times,

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you can't help but to worship him and to praise him and to thank him.

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And so we see this with Abram here, worshiping God again.

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Now, his calling on the name of the Lord, as I said, involves worship, it involves proclamation.

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And really what this is, is Abram refocusing his gaze on the one who gives him all his strength.

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You see, when he went down to Egypt, he took his eyes off of God and put him on himself.

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He was like, I've got a plan to make sure my wife doesn't get taken.

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I've got a plan to protect me. I've got a plan to make sure that I don't get killed.

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And so it was his own ideas, his own understanding.

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And in that, he was taking his eyes off of God.

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And here, he comes back to that place of returning his gaze to the Lord, saying,

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God, my way didn't work. I just want to focus on you.

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I want to know you. I want to listen to you. I want to do things your way.

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And so really what this is, is he's putting his failure behind him.

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That failure in Egypt is behind him now, and he's really entering into a fresh start.

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And that's one of the most encouraging things I think every believer needs to know.

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Lamentations chapter 3, verse 22 and 23 says this,

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Because of the Lord's faithful love, we do not perish.

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For his mercies never end.

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When is never? It's never. Okay?

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His mercies never end. They are new every morning.

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Great is God's faithfulness.

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We all need to understand that.

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Because we're all going to stumble and fall repeatedly over and over.

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Now as God's children, we want to honor him.

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We have an intention to obey him.

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And yet, there are times where we give in to our flesh.

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Where instead of trusting in what God has said, we trust in ourselves and we fall on our face.

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And in those moments, the devil, man, he doesn't waste any time condemning us, does he?

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To tell us how terrible we are, how horrible we are, how we don't deserve heaven, we don't deserve salvation.

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And you know when the devil does that to me, I've learned over many, many years of falling on my face,

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That when the devil says, you don't deserve salvation, I'm like, you're right.

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You're a terrible Christian. You know, I can be.

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You don't deserve God's love. You're right, I don't.

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I have it. He loves me. I am his child.

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And so, knowing verses like this, when it says, because of his love, we do not perish.

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Even though we deserve judgment, even though we deserve to be wiped out because we are sinful people,

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It's because of his love that we won't perish. His mercies never end.

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Never. Put that in your brain, put that in your heart, internalize that.

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Because the next time you fall, and there will be a next time,

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You need to be able to find yourself like Paul going, okay, I'm doing the things I don't want to do,

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And I'm not doing the things I want to do. And man, this is a Nathan translation.

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What does that mean? Praise Jesus. I'm so glad I'm saved.

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I'm so glad it's he who loves me, not based upon me loving him.

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Because in that is where we find our salvation, and internalizing these ideas is where we find peace.

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His mercies are new every single morning. Don't let the enemy rob you when you fail.

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Now, this doesn't mean go out and fail, right?

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Paul said that in Romans 2, should we sin that grace would abound? Certainly not.

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But we're not going to be perfect people here on this planet.

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We're not going to be without sin here on this planet.

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That's what we look forward to in heaven. Hallelujah, I can't wait.

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But here, while we wrestle with our born-again spirit that is alive and made alive and connected to God,

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Still dwelling with our sinful flesh that wants to pursue its own means,

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And the fight goes back and forth all the time, and sometimes we fall.

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God says, I still love you. You're still my child.

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Get up. Come back to me. Let me help you. Let me hold you.

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Get into my word. Just be close to me.

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This is what we see Abram doing here in Canaan.

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So the story advances in verse 5. It says,

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Now Lot, who was traveling with Abram, also had flocks, herds, and tents.

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But the land was unable to support them as long as they stayed together,

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For they had so many possessions that they could not stay together.

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And there was quarreling between the herdsmen of Abram's livestock and the herdsmen of Lot's livestock.

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At that time, the Canaanites and the Perizzites were living in the land.

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So Lot is the antagonist of this story, if you will.

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When Abram was in Egypt, there was no mention of Lot.

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Now, we know that they went together as a family, so Lot was with him.

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Lot was there observing what his adopted father was doing, how he handled the situation.

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Lot was there as a part of it, and it tells us that Lot also benefited from the riches

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that God dropped into Abram's lap through that situation.

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But no mention of Lot in that story because that was the focus on Abram.

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But here, Lot comes back in and we're reintroduced to him.

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Now, like I said, being part of the family, he became wealthy as well, piggybacking on Abram's blessing.

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And so now you have Abram as the patriarch of the family who has flocks and flocks and flocks,

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and Lot, his nephew, who also has flocks and flocks and flocks.

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And then it gives us this little parenthetical that the Canaanites and the Parasites were living in the land at that time.

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What that's inferring is that they had flocks and flocks and flocks,

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and so there was flocks all over the place and not enough room for all of these animals that were grazing and all of that stuff.

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And so what happened was a good old range war.

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You guys remember those range wars in westerns, right?

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Your cows are on my land. Pew, pew, pew, right?

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No, it's my land.

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You know, this is what is taking place here.

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And the irony of this whole situation is that the material blessing that they gained in Egypt is now the source of their problems.

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See, always be careful what you pray for, and always be very, very careful with how you use what God's given you.

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If God gives you wealth, praise God, use it to glorify him and his kingdom.

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But wealth isn't the solution to all the problems that we have, which so many people think that, you know, if I just had more money.

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And yeah, there's some truth to that, right?

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But if you have God, you have something greater than wealth and finances.

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And so they have this wealth.

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God gave it to them, and it should have been something to draw the family together.

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It should have been something that they were using altogether to glorify the Lord, and yet it's driving them apart instead.

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And that's what prosperity can do to us.

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It can drive us apart.

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We can come to trust in the prosperity instead of trusting in God, right?

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We see parables of that in the New Testament, where Jesus says it's harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God than it is for a camel to go through the eye of a needle.

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Why?

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Because when you have everything met, all your needs are met, you have riches.

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How often do you need to say, God, we can't pay this, please help?

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You don't, because you're like, I got it.

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I don't need to pray.

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I don't need to depend on God for lack.

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I don't need to pray that God would put the next meal on the table, because I could afford meals for the rest of eternity, right?

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Riches can cause us to trust in ourselves.

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Riches can also lead us to a place where we hoard it.

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That God gives prosperity, and then you're like, oh man, I can't spend a penny of this.

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I can't help anybody.

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I don't care if that person needs food and that person needs clothing.

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No, no, no, no, I need to hold on to it, because I'm afraid of losing it.

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And then it can also cause us to mistrust everybody around us, thinking that they're going to take it from us.

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And really it causes us to believe that all this prosperity, this material, this financial wealth, it's actually ours instead of God's.

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And you have to be careful if God blesses and when God blesses that you don't fall into that type of thinking.

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And if God blesses you with a lot, it's still all God's.

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If God's blessing you with a little, it's still all God's.

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And the biblical teachings that talk about how we handle what God's given us, we dealt with that earlier this year in our generosity series.

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There is an expectation of God for us to be generous the way He's generous, even when it's scary and it doesn't make sense.

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And God says, look, you be that way, I'm going to take care of you.

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But as we're going to see here that Abram has learned the lesson of trust from Egypt.

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He learned the lesson from going to Egypt, trusting in himself, everything falls apart.

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And now he's going to apply those lessons and demonstrate a godliness with his possessions that is pleasing to God.

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We're going to get into that in verse eight, but this whole scenario brings up an important truth to consider for every single one of us.

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Trials, one, God allows trials in our lives, but trials prepare you for the next trial.

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Right? I've talked to believers and sometimes it's just like, man, when's it going to let up?

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And I'm like, when you're dead. Right?

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I mean, really, we live in a fallen world, right?

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Now, God is working in us and molding us and shaping us, and He does that through trial.

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We looked at James last week where it says, look, count it all joy when you fall into various trials.

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Why? Because they produce character.

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They refine who you are.

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The Bible talks about the refining fire just as gold is refined in the fire, so are we when God puts us through the fire of difficulty.

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And Abram is learning here that one trial prepares you for the next trial.

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You see, the first time he got to Bethel and the first time he called upon the name of the Lord, what happened?

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There was a famine in the land trial.

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And he went to Egypt and we talked about that.

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Now he returns in shame and humiliation, really.

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Comes back to that place where he should have stayed to begin with, calls on the name of the Lord again.

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And what happens?

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Another trial, dissension among the family.

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And so verse 8 says, so Abram said to Lot, please, let's not have quarreling between you and me or between your herdsmen and my herdsmen since we are relatives.

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Isn't the whole land before you?

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Separate from me.

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If you go left, I will go to the right.

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If you go to the right, I will go to the left.

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There's a word that's not used a whole lot in our modern parlance, but the word is altruism.

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Altruism is simply an unselfish regard for or a devotion to the welfare of others.

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When you hear that somebody is being altruistic, what it means is they're putting the needs of others above their own.

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They're saying, I'm devoted to doing what's best for you, what's good for you, and we're seeing an altruistic faith here in Abram.

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See, the first time he was tested, there was a famine in the land.

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It was severe.

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He ended up thinking of his own well-being first.

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You remember he said, wife, lie so that it goes well with me.

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Lie so they won't kill me for your sake.

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He was in self-preservation mode.

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He was in really selfish mode, but now it's a different story.

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This trial comes up.

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His nephew and his herdsmen, they're complaining.

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The herdsmen are complaining with Abram's herdsmen.

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Some people will suggest that the reason Lot's herdsmen were complaining or arguing with Abram's herdsmen is because Lot had been grumbling against Abram.

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This is all conjecture, but I was talking with a brother earlier this morning about the reality of Lot being in Egypt, watching his adopted father do what he did in Egypt, and then they leave.

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They leave the place of fertility.

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They leave the place of the lush Nile and all the riches they got there, and they're leaving.

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Why are we leaving?

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Abram, of course, is going, we're going back to the promised land.

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We're going back to where we should have stayed to begin with.

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Perhaps Lot has been wrestling with this.

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Perhaps Lot was grumbling about his dad Abram, and the herdsmen were picking up on it.

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Now, Lot's herdsmen were arguing with Abram's herdsmen.

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We deserve the land.

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No, we deserve the land.

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That's speculative, but it's a possibility.

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Now, Abram is going to respond in a very different way.

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Instead of Abram going, well, I'm most important.

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I'm the patriarch of the family.

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I'm the one God gave promises to.

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I've got to protect me so that I can protect God.

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He says, please, let's not fight.

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Now, I find it interesting here.

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Sometimes there's things in the Hebrew that just kind of make me chuckle.

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In modern parlance, and maybe this isn't the youngest of the young, but in my world,

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there's this phrase that when somebody brings up an issue that you disagree with, you go,

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nah, nah, I don't think so.

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The word for please in the Hebrew is nah, N-A.

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So the herdsmen are arguing, and Abram goes, nah, let's not fight.

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Let's not quarrel.

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Now, this word nah in the Hebrew usually refers to an inferior person addressing a superior person, right?

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So like the employee maybe addressing their boss or a subject addressing their king.

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It's a weird word to use here because Abram is the patriarch of the family.

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He is the superior in the cultural context of their family unit.

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He is the head.

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He is the father.

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He is the one over everybody else, and specifically Lot is his adopted nephew, adopted into the family.

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And so he's going, look, let's not fight.

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Let's not have quarreling between us or our herdsmen.

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Why? Since we are relatives.

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You know, one of the biggest things that affects the witness of the church is when the outside world watches the children of God

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quarrel among themselves.

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It just really wrecks things.

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We're supposed to be family, and yet sometimes the world will look in and they're like, man, they're tearing themselves apart.

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Why do I want to be a part of that?

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My family's already messed up.

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Why do I want to join another one?

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And so Abram, though, is taking the high ground, really.

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He's putting himself in a place of inferiority to Lot in this and saying, please, I beg of you, let's not quarrel.

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Let's not fight.

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And so he tells them this really amazing thing.

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Abram, who likely has bigger flocks than Lot, likely who has more possessions, again, the one to whom God made the promises, he says,

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Lot, you choose.

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You pick what place in the land you want to go to.

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If you go right, I'll go left.

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If you go left, I'll go right.

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He's submitting and yielding, in a sense, his authority, his power, what he deserves, what he owns, what he's doing, he's yielding it

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to really someone that is inferior in the place of position among the family.

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That's exactly what he says.

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We're relatives.

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Why are we going to fight over space?

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Why are we going to fight over land?

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Why are we going to fight in the midst of the Canaanites and the Parasites and all these pagans around us?

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Why are we going to do that?

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What we see here is Abram now being a selfless person, a generous person, not the calculating, self-serving schemer that he was in Egypt,

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but instead demonstrating something that Jesus Christ himself taught us in Matthew chapter 6, verse 25.

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This is what Jesus said.

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Therefore, I tell you, don't worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear.

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Isn't life more than food and the body more than clothing?

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Consider the birds of the sky.

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They don't sow or reap or gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them.

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Aren't you worth more than they?

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Can any of you add one moment to his lifespan by worrying?

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And why do you worry about clothes?

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Observe how the wildflowers of the field grow.

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They don't labor or spin thread, yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was adorned like one of these.

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If that's how God closed the grass of the field, which is here today and thrown into the furnace tomorrow,

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won't he do much more for you, you of little faith?

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So don't worry, saying, what are we going to eat?

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What are we going to drink?

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What are we going to wear?

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For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.

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But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all of these things will be provided for you.

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Therefore, don't worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will worry about itself.

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Each day has enough trouble of its own.

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That is an amazing teaching for us.

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And right in line with what we're seeing here in Abram.

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Now, this isn't teaching us, incidentally, to not plan, right?

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Stick your head in the sand and just, oh, God will take care of it.

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No, we're told otherwise throughout Scripture to exercise wisdom.

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But what it is telling us is don't be so worried about your life.

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Don't be so worried about your material possessions.

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Don't be so worried about your money and your clothes and your food.

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Don't be so worried about that, that you take your eyes off of God to protect those things.

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Or don't make God a lesser priority than yourself in life when it comes to your life and what you need.

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The applications for this are broad.

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Don't be stingy with your money.

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Be generous, as Jesus is generous.

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He says, don't worry about your real needs.

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Don't be so worried about your financial position that you're not going to be generous.

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He says, look at the grass.

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Look how beautiful it is, the lilies of the field.

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God did that.

423
00:32:47,000 --> 00:32:50,000
You don't think he's going to take care of your needs?

424
00:32:50,000 --> 00:32:56,000
The birds, right, they don't have to build, you know, chick-fil-a's and stuff.

425
00:32:56,000 --> 00:32:59,000
God just provides.

426
00:32:59,000 --> 00:33:02,000
Meaning that God is taking care of his creation.

427
00:33:02,000 --> 00:33:06,000
How much more value are you than the birds and the lilies of the field?

428
00:33:06,000 --> 00:33:10,000
You who are made after his own image.

429
00:33:10,000 --> 00:33:17,000
And so what that means is we have situations where we have lack.

430
00:33:17,000 --> 00:33:20,000
We have lack, and God is saying, trust me.

431
00:33:20,000 --> 00:33:24,000
Now that doesn't mean, again, don't do what he's calling you to do, right?

432
00:33:24,000 --> 00:33:30,000
It's like the person, you know, and you guys have all heard this story, the floods come in, God save me.

433
00:33:30,000 --> 00:33:32,000
Car drives by, hey, the floods come in, get in.

434
00:33:32,000 --> 00:33:34,000
No, I'm counting on God.

435
00:33:34,000 --> 00:33:37,000
Then the water level rises and the guy gets on his roof.

436
00:33:37,000 --> 00:33:39,000
God, I know you're going to save me.

437
00:33:39,000 --> 00:33:41,000
The boat comes by, hey, man, jump in the boat.

438
00:33:41,000 --> 00:33:44,000
That's all right, I'm praying, God's going to take care of me.

439
00:33:44,000 --> 00:33:45,000
Flood water rises.

440
00:33:45,000 --> 00:33:49,000
Now he's at the tip of his house, the helicopter comes by, drops a ladder.

441
00:33:49,000 --> 00:33:51,000
Get on the ladder.

442
00:33:51,000 --> 00:33:54,000
I don't need that, I'm trusting God, he will save me.

443
00:33:54,000 --> 00:33:57,000
Then the guy drowns in the flood.

444
00:33:57,000 --> 00:34:00,000
And God goes, welcome to heaven.

445
00:34:00,000 --> 00:34:03,000
And the guy goes, I'm kind of disappointed, Lord.

446
00:34:03,000 --> 00:34:05,000
I mean, I was trusting in you.

447
00:34:05,000 --> 00:34:07,000
I was trusting in you to take care of me.

448
00:34:07,000 --> 00:34:10,000
Look, I sent a car and a boat and a helicopter.

449
00:34:10,000 --> 00:34:13,000
What more do you want me to do?

450
00:34:13,000 --> 00:34:19,000
So when you're sick, it's okay to go to the hospital, right?

451
00:34:19,000 --> 00:34:23,000
Sometimes when you have a headache, it's okay to take an aspirin.

452
00:34:23,000 --> 00:34:26,000
When you have situations where it's like, okay, we're lacking here,

453
00:34:26,000 --> 00:34:29,000
it's okay to do things, side hustles or whatever.

454
00:34:29,000 --> 00:34:32,000
But in the process of all that, it's like, God, do you want me to go here?

455
00:34:32,000 --> 00:34:33,000
Do you want me to do this?

456
00:34:33,000 --> 00:34:36,000
Do you want me to take care of this this way?

457
00:34:36,000 --> 00:34:39,000
So the idea of saying, I'm gonna do what I need to do to be a part of what

458
00:34:39,000 --> 00:34:43,000
God's doing in my needs, but I'm not gonna worry because I'm God's child.

459
00:34:43,000 --> 00:34:46,000
He's gonna take care of me.

460
00:34:46,000 --> 00:34:50,000
Don't be so focused on material things that you forget that God is the one who

461
00:34:50,000 --> 00:34:52,000
gives and God is the one who takes away.

462
00:34:52,000 --> 00:34:57,000
Don't be so worried that you're gonna lose everything, that you're hanging

463
00:34:57,000 --> 00:35:02,000
onto it with this desperate hope that this is what's gonna keep my life good.

464
00:35:02,000 --> 00:35:10,000
This is what's gonna protect my life because it could be gone in a second.

465
00:35:10,000 --> 00:35:15,000
God wants us to lean on him and trust him for everything and with everything

466
00:35:15,000 --> 00:35:18,000
because everything is his anyways.

467
00:35:18,000 --> 00:35:24,000
We're so afraid to, at times, and don't get me wrong, I'm not saying there aren't

468
00:35:24,000 --> 00:35:28,000
times where we're really worried about things, but we get worried about giving

469
00:35:28,000 --> 00:35:34,000
and our tithing and stuff because, yeah, I can't pay the light bill.

470
00:35:34,000 --> 00:35:37,000
I get that.

471
00:35:37,000 --> 00:35:44,000
But biblically, I see God going, you don't think I could keep the light on?

472
00:35:44,000 --> 00:35:47,000
Now, again, this is all between you and the Lord.

473
00:35:47,000 --> 00:35:50,000
I'm not here to beat that drum, but the idea is trust.

474
00:35:50,000 --> 00:35:53,000
The idea is faith.

475
00:35:53,000 --> 00:35:57,000
God, I can't give my Saturday to go help at this event because then I won't have

476
00:35:57,000 --> 00:36:03,000
time to do ABC, and God's like, you don't think I could take care of ABC?

477
00:36:03,000 --> 00:36:05,000
He wants us to be like him.

478
00:36:05,000 --> 00:36:08,000
That is why he came and lived, that we would have this example.

479
00:36:08,000 --> 00:36:12,000
And so the contrast between the Abrams in these two stories could not be more

480
00:36:12,000 --> 00:36:14,000
defined and more clear, right?

481
00:36:14,000 --> 00:36:17,000
Abram in Egypt, Abram in Canaan.

482
00:36:17,000 --> 00:36:19,000
In Egypt, Abram was consumed with self.

483
00:36:19,000 --> 00:36:23,000
He was focused on his own survival, his own future.

484
00:36:23,000 --> 00:36:27,000
Here, now he's back in Canaan, back to that place where he's like, no, no, no,

485
00:36:27,000 --> 00:36:29,000
I'm just going to go back to that place where it's all about God.

486
00:36:29,000 --> 00:36:34,000
His attitude is, look, Lot, I don't care where you go.

487
00:36:34,000 --> 00:36:38,000
I'm not worried about which part of the land you take, where you go with your

488
00:36:38,000 --> 00:36:42,000
flocks because I know that God's going to take care of both of us.

489
00:36:42,000 --> 00:36:43,000
I trust that fully.

490
00:36:43,000 --> 00:36:45,000
I'm not going to operate out of fear.

491
00:36:45,000 --> 00:36:51,000
I'm not going to operate out of selfishness like I did in Egypt.

492
00:36:51,000 --> 00:36:56,000
And the thing that changed in Abram's life was his faith, right?

493
00:36:56,000 --> 00:37:00,000
Again, as I said earlier, it's not that he left his faith when he went to Egypt.

494
00:37:00,000 --> 00:37:02,000
He just kind of forgot about it.

495
00:37:02,000 --> 00:37:06,000
He just kind of put that on the back shelf as he focused on himself.

496
00:37:06,000 --> 00:37:11,000
But he learned that when he forgot about God in Egypt and tried to trust in his

497
00:37:11,000 --> 00:37:14,000
own ideas, everything fell apart.

498
00:37:14,000 --> 00:37:18,000
He's learning here again that believing in God's bare word, regardless of how

499
00:37:18,000 --> 00:37:24,000
crazy it might seem, was the right and only way to live.

500
00:37:24,000 --> 00:37:30,000
Paul said this in 2 Corinthians 5-7, we walk by faith, not by sight.

501
00:37:30,000 --> 00:37:33,000
How hard is that, right?

502
00:37:33,000 --> 00:37:37,000
How hard is it to hear God say, go and I'll let you know we're there when we

503
00:37:37,000 --> 00:37:38,000
get there?

504
00:37:38,000 --> 00:37:40,000
But he did.

505
00:37:40,000 --> 00:37:46,000
He wasn't a perfect guy along the way by any means, but he believed God.

506
00:37:46,000 --> 00:37:49,000
When he got there, God said, we're here, this is the land I'm going to give to

507
00:37:49,000 --> 00:37:50,000
your descendants.

508
00:37:50,000 --> 00:37:51,000
Abraham believed it.

509
00:37:51,000 --> 00:37:52,000
Okay.

510
00:37:52,000 --> 00:37:53,000
It's ours.

511
00:37:53,000 --> 00:37:55,000
I don't care that there's Canaanites and false gods here.

512
00:37:55,000 --> 00:37:57,000
I believe it.

513
00:37:57,000 --> 00:38:03,000
But when he went down to Egypt, he forgot.

514
00:38:03,000 --> 00:38:06,000
I think he learned that lesson very well because now that he's back in Canaan,

515
00:38:06,000 --> 00:38:09,000
essentially what he's displaying here is the attitude is, look, I could give

516
00:38:09,000 --> 00:38:14,000
away this land a thousand times and it doesn't matter.

517
00:38:14,000 --> 00:38:16,000
It would still go to my descendants.

518
00:38:16,000 --> 00:38:17,000
Why?

519
00:38:17,000 --> 00:38:20,000
Because God said so.

520
00:38:20,000 --> 00:38:23,000
Think about that kind of faith.

521
00:38:23,000 --> 00:38:26,000
I don't have to hang on to the land.

522
00:38:26,000 --> 00:38:28,000
I could give it away.

523
00:38:28,000 --> 00:38:30,000
Why?

524
00:38:30,000 --> 00:38:32,000
Because God said it's going to my descendants, so it's going to my

525
00:38:32,000 --> 00:38:34,000
descendants.

526
00:38:34,000 --> 00:38:37,000
God's promises aren't thwarted by our stupidity.

527
00:38:37,000 --> 00:38:40,000
God's promises aren't thwarted by our disobedience.

528
00:38:40,000 --> 00:38:44,000
We do experience the chastisement when we do the wrong things.

529
00:38:44,000 --> 00:38:45,000
We experience the disobedience.

530
00:38:45,000 --> 00:38:49,000
But if God has said he's going to do something, he's going to do something.

531
00:38:49,000 --> 00:38:52,000
And Abraham's walking in this faith.

532
00:38:52,000 --> 00:38:55,000
He's not looking around and by sight going, well, let me see.

533
00:38:55,000 --> 00:38:56,000
He's just like, look, God said so.

534
00:38:56,000 --> 00:38:58,000
That's all I need.

535
00:38:58,000 --> 00:39:03,000
And that is a life that God wants to develop in all of us.

536
00:39:03,000 --> 00:39:06,000
Remember Jesus, he said, look, a mustard seed of faith and you can move

537
00:39:06,000 --> 00:39:10,000
mountains.

538
00:39:10,000 --> 00:39:17,000
Myself included, had any of us moved a mountain by believing it yet.

539
00:39:17,000 --> 00:39:23,000
So we've got some room to grow our faith, don't we?

540
00:39:23,000 --> 00:39:28,000
Abraham was experiencing just this beautiful, wonderful lifting of his

541
00:39:28,000 --> 00:39:29,000
soul.

542
00:39:29,000 --> 00:39:34,000
I mean, right in the middle of this conflict with Lot, his total trust in

543
00:39:34,000 --> 00:39:37,000
God's promise, his total, like, I don't have to hang on.

544
00:39:37,000 --> 00:39:40,000
Look, go where you want.

545
00:39:40,000 --> 00:39:41,000
Take what you want.

546
00:39:41,000 --> 00:39:46,000
All of that just kind of lifted him up as an example.

547
00:39:46,000 --> 00:39:50,000
Very much like Jesus Christ was the example to us when he lived a life here

548
00:39:50,000 --> 00:39:53,000
on this earth and he didn't look out for his own interests, but he looked out

549
00:39:53,000 --> 00:39:54,000
for the interests of others.

550
00:39:54,000 --> 00:39:57,000
That really is the whole mission that Jesus came to do.

551
00:39:57,000 --> 00:40:00,000
God in the flesh said, I'm going to come live a perfect life.

552
00:40:00,000 --> 00:40:02,000
I'm going to go die on the cross.

553
00:40:02,000 --> 00:40:03,000
Why?

554
00:40:03,000 --> 00:40:06,000
Because I love you and it's good for you to do that.

555
00:40:06,000 --> 00:40:07,000
I have to live a perfect life.

556
00:40:07,000 --> 00:40:08,000
Why?

557
00:40:08,000 --> 00:40:10,000
Because your life is messed up.

558
00:40:10,000 --> 00:40:14,000
So I'm going to suffer the penalty for all the bad stuff you did and then

559
00:40:14,000 --> 00:40:20,000
I'm going to attribute to you the life without sin that I lived.

560
00:40:20,000 --> 00:40:22,000
And it was very altruistic.

561
00:40:22,000 --> 00:40:26,000
It was very about the welfare of others.

562
00:40:26,000 --> 00:40:31,000
Abraham, or Abraham here, was foreshadowing Christ himself.

563
00:40:31,000 --> 00:40:35,000
And all of us that believe today, all of us that today we are the spiritual

564
00:40:35,000 --> 00:40:42,000
offspring of Abraham, when we truly believe that the promises that are ours

565
00:40:42,000 --> 00:40:45,000
in Christ, when we believe them, when we truly understand and believe that we

566
00:40:45,000 --> 00:40:50,000
are seated right now in heavenly places with Christ Jesus, when we truly

567
00:40:50,000 --> 00:40:58,000
understand that all things are ours in Christ, when we get that, we're going to

568
00:40:58,000 --> 00:41:01,000
cease trying to hold on to what we have.

569
00:41:01,000 --> 00:41:07,000
We're going to cease striving to make sure we make our own decisions without

570
00:41:07,000 --> 00:41:13,000
God's input to ensure our future.

571
00:41:13,000 --> 00:41:16,000
We cease walking by sight.

572
00:41:16,000 --> 00:41:20,000
We cease our partial obedience to God.

573
00:41:20,000 --> 00:41:24,000
We then learn to call on God and live and give and serve in the world the way

574
00:41:24,000 --> 00:41:30,000
he wants us to, with wisdom, with planning, yes, but with him as number one

575
00:41:30,000 --> 00:41:32,000
in the priority chain.

576
00:41:32,000 --> 00:41:35,000
Him as number one in the driver's seat guiding our life.

577
00:41:35,000 --> 00:41:40,000
Now, Lot, as a contrast to Abraham here, we're going to see that he was a man

578
00:41:40,000 --> 00:41:43,000
living by sight rather than faith.

579
00:41:43,000 --> 00:41:45,000
He was doing what Abraham did in Egypt.

580
00:41:45,000 --> 00:41:47,000
Look at verse 10.

581
00:41:47,000 --> 00:41:51,000
Lot looked out and saw that the entire plain of the Jordan, as far as Zohar,

582
00:41:51,000 --> 00:41:55,000
was well watered everywhere like the Lord's Garden in the land of Egypt.

583
00:41:55,000 --> 00:41:58,000
This was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.

584
00:41:58,000 --> 00:42:02,000
So Lot chose the entire plain of the Jordan for himself.

585
00:42:02,000 --> 00:42:05,000
Then Lot journeyed eastward and they separated from each other.

586
00:42:05,000 --> 00:42:10,000
Abram lived in the land of Canaan, but Lot lived in the cities on the plain and

587
00:42:10,000 --> 00:42:12,000
set up his tent near Sodom.

588
00:42:12,000 --> 00:42:17,000
Now, the men of Sodom were evil, sinning immensely against the Lord.

589
00:42:17,000 --> 00:42:22,000
I had a really cool picture I was going to show you guys, but I can't do that.

590
00:42:22,000 --> 00:42:24,000
So I'm going to try and describe it as best I can.

591
00:42:24,000 --> 00:42:29,000
If you look at Israel, the land of Israel, there's a lot of hills and mountains.

592
00:42:29,000 --> 00:42:33,000
But on the eastern side of Israel, there's a mountain range that's here and a

593
00:42:33,000 --> 00:42:34,000
mountain range that's here.

594
00:42:34,000 --> 00:42:38,000
In the middle of that is this valley called the Jordan Valley.

595
00:42:38,000 --> 00:42:39,000
It's where the Dead Sea is.

596
00:42:39,000 --> 00:42:45,000
Now, if you visited it in modern days, it's a pretty desolate-looking place.

597
00:42:45,000 --> 00:42:49,000
But as this valley that had this water flowing through it at the time, it was a

598
00:42:49,000 --> 00:42:53,000
very verdant and green plain that was dotted with cities.

599
00:42:53,000 --> 00:42:58,000
As this place called the Plain of Jordan, there was also cities there that were

600
00:42:58,000 --> 00:43:01,000
known as the cities on the plain.

601
00:43:01,000 --> 00:43:09,000
You see, Abram and Lot are standing in this hilly area by Bethel.

602
00:43:09,000 --> 00:43:15,000
There's a hill that's just a few miles north of Bethel called, what is it?

603
00:43:15,000 --> 00:43:18,000
I wrote it down somewhere.

604
00:43:18,000 --> 00:43:19,000
I can't find it.

605
00:43:19,000 --> 00:43:20,000
It's a hill, okay?

606
00:43:20,000 --> 00:43:23,000
But it's the highest peak in central Israel.

607
00:43:23,000 --> 00:43:27,000
And really from that peak, you can see all the way to the borders in every

608
00:43:27,000 --> 00:43:29,000
You can see out to the sea, the Mediterranean.

609
00:43:29,000 --> 00:43:31,000
You can see to the northern mountain range.

610
00:43:31,000 --> 00:43:34,000
You can see the whole place.

611
00:43:34,000 --> 00:43:38,000
And Abram is standing there and going, Lot, where do you want to go?

612
00:43:38,000 --> 00:43:44,000
So Lot looks down and sees the greenest part of the area, the most lush part of

613
00:43:44,000 --> 00:43:48,000
the area down there in the Jordan Valley and says, that's where I want to go.

614
00:43:48,000 --> 00:43:52,000
Now, this was the place where cities like Sodom and Gomorrah existed, a city

615
00:43:52,000 --> 00:43:57,000
named Adma, a city named Zeboim, and a city named Zohar, which was way down at

616
00:43:57,000 --> 00:44:01,000
the south past what we know today as the Dead Sea.

617
00:44:01,000 --> 00:44:04,000
Now, again, Moses is writing this in the wilderness.

618
00:44:04,000 --> 00:44:08,000
Israel is reading this, and Israel is going the Jordan Valley because at their

619
00:44:08,000 --> 00:44:11,000
time it was a wasteland.

620
00:44:11,000 --> 00:44:15,000
And so Moses includes the parenthetical, this was before the Lord destroyed

621
00:44:15,000 --> 00:44:18,000
Sodom and Gomorrah, right?

622
00:44:18,000 --> 00:44:20,000
And so they're reading this.

623
00:44:20,000 --> 00:44:26,000
They're telling the story about what Lot saw was the physical place of

624
00:44:26,000 --> 00:44:28,000
blessing.

625
00:44:28,000 --> 00:44:32,000
It's really interesting because it says when Lot looked down there and saw it,

626
00:44:32,000 --> 00:44:37,000
it said it looked like the Lord's garden to him, referring to the Garden of

627
00:44:37,000 --> 00:44:40,000
Eden, which was a place of abundance, right?

628
00:44:40,000 --> 00:44:44,000
He also says it reminded him of Egypt, which is that Nile area that they had

629
00:44:44,000 --> 00:44:49,000
just come back from that was all full of life and full of everything that they

630
00:44:49,000 --> 00:44:55,000
think they needed or thought they needed in the midst of the famine in Canaan.

631
00:44:55,000 --> 00:45:00,000
And so Lot, having been in Egypt, watched Abram do what he did, boom, they were

632
00:45:00,000 --> 00:45:04,000
blessed abundantly with riches, very possibly coming back and going, why are we

633
00:45:04,000 --> 00:45:07,000
leaving this place?

634
00:45:07,000 --> 00:45:10,000
Like that promised land thing, it's hills.

635
00:45:10,000 --> 00:45:13,000
It's hills and dirt.

636
00:45:13,000 --> 00:45:16,000
And then they finally get back and their flocks are so huge and now they're

637
00:45:16,000 --> 00:45:17,000
fighting.

638
00:45:17,000 --> 00:45:20,000
Abram's like, hey, wherever you want to go.

639
00:45:20,000 --> 00:45:25,000
I'm going to go down to that place that reminds me of the Garden of the Lord.

640
00:45:25,000 --> 00:45:27,000
I'm going to go to that place that reminds me of Egypt.

641
00:45:27,000 --> 00:45:32,000
But the problem was, is he was walking by sight.

642
00:45:32,000 --> 00:45:36,000
He was looking at what appealed to his vision, what he thought would be the best

643
00:45:36,000 --> 00:45:38,000
physical blessing for him.

644
00:45:38,000 --> 00:45:42,000
Now, it's very ominous that it refers to Eden in Egypt because in both of those

645
00:45:42,000 --> 00:45:46,000
places, judgment happens.

646
00:45:46,000 --> 00:45:50,000
And then it also tells us that he went eastward.

647
00:45:50,000 --> 00:45:53,000
We've talked about that earlier in Genesis, that every time you see somebody

648
00:45:53,000 --> 00:45:57,000
or group going eastward or to the east or from the east, every time that's

649
00:45:57,000 --> 00:46:03,000
involved, what it represents is a people that are drifting away from God.

650
00:46:03,000 --> 00:46:05,000
And this is what Lot represents for us.

651
00:46:05,000 --> 00:46:09,000
Now, the decision was easy for him.

652
00:46:09,000 --> 00:46:13,000
The tragedy is that Lot had a share in the land of Canaan, in the promised land,

653
00:46:13,000 --> 00:46:16,000
being a part of the family of Abram.

654
00:46:16,000 --> 00:46:20,000
But he chose to move to the very edge, as close to the edge as he could, to be

655
00:46:20,000 --> 00:46:24,000
as close to the outside of the land without really ever leaving the promised

656
00:46:24,000 --> 00:46:26,000
land.

657
00:46:26,000 --> 00:46:29,000
Does that sound familiar to anybody?

658
00:46:29,000 --> 00:46:35,000
How close to the world can I be and still be a Christian?

659
00:46:35,000 --> 00:46:39,000
How close to the line can I get?

660
00:46:39,000 --> 00:46:41,000
Because where did it say he pitched his tent?

661
00:46:41,000 --> 00:46:42,000
Sodom.

662
00:46:42,000 --> 00:46:43,000
What does Moses tell us here?

663
00:46:43,000 --> 00:46:46,000
The men of Sodom were evil, sinning immensely against the Lord, and yet

664
00:46:46,000 --> 00:46:50,000
that's where this man, Lot, wanted to go live.

665
00:46:50,000 --> 00:46:51,000
Why?

666
00:46:51,000 --> 00:46:55,000
Well, it's going to benefit me personally, physically.

667
00:46:55,000 --> 00:46:57,000
So he went eastward.

668
00:46:57,000 --> 00:47:00,000
And then it tells us that the men of Sodom were evil, sinning immensely.

669
00:47:00,000 --> 00:47:04,000
It's an interesting phrase in the Hebrew, sinning immensely, because what it

670
00:47:04,000 --> 00:47:08,000
suggests is that they were a step worse than what would be your normal

671
00:47:08,000 --> 00:47:11,000
run-of-the-mill sinner.

672
00:47:11,000 --> 00:47:14,000
This phrase in Hebrew, it's rare to refer to, but it says, like, they're

673
00:47:14,000 --> 00:47:18,000
sinners, and then there were the men in Sodom.

674
00:47:18,000 --> 00:47:20,000
Right?

675
00:47:20,000 --> 00:47:23,000
Like, the men in Sodom made the sinners look like righteous people.

676
00:47:23,000 --> 00:47:26,000
Those types of phrases that we've said sometimes in our own lives.

677
00:47:26,000 --> 00:47:30,000
And we're going to see how bad they are when we get to chapter 19.

678
00:47:30,000 --> 00:47:35,000
But the physical material prosperity of the valley, of these five cities that

679
00:47:35,000 --> 00:47:39,000
were down there that were doing very well, it wowed Lot.

680
00:47:39,000 --> 00:47:42,000
He was like, oh, my gosh, that's amazing.

681
00:47:42,000 --> 00:47:45,000
But just like Abram, we can't look at Lot and go, you're a terrible person,

682
00:47:45,000 --> 00:47:47,000
and you're a horrible person.

683
00:47:47,000 --> 00:47:55,000
Because 2 Peter chapter 2 verse 7 refers to him as righteous Lot.

684
00:47:55,000 --> 00:48:01,000
So as far as Scripture is concerned, Lot was still a righteous man.

685
00:48:01,000 --> 00:48:06,000
What that means is we can deduce from that that he was likely a man who would

686
00:48:06,000 --> 00:48:10,000
definitely choose heaven over hell, right?

687
00:48:10,000 --> 00:48:13,000
When it comes to the spiritual things, of course I want heaven over hell.

688
00:48:13,000 --> 00:48:15,000
Who would want hell?

689
00:48:15,000 --> 00:48:19,000
But when it came to heaven over the earth and what the earth could give,

690
00:48:19,000 --> 00:48:23,000
that's where he started to have a little problem in his decision making.

691
00:48:23,000 --> 00:48:27,000
Because wow, look at this valley, look at all this place has to give to me.

692
00:48:27,000 --> 00:48:32,000
Lot's an example of believers, saved people who choose hoarding over

693
00:48:32,000 --> 00:48:38,000
generosity, who choose selfishness over selflessness, people who choose

694
00:48:38,000 --> 00:48:42,000
anything that's going to elevate them or their family name or whatever at the

695
00:48:42,000 --> 00:48:46,000
expense of being sacrificial.

696
00:48:46,000 --> 00:48:51,000
And Lot is the picture of the man walking by sight, not by faith, and it was

697
00:48:51,000 --> 00:48:53,000
the biggest mistake of his life.

698
00:48:53,000 --> 00:48:59,000
And so after Abram had this awesome display of altruistic faith, knowing

699
00:48:59,000 --> 00:49:02,000
that he could give the land away a thousand times and it would still come

700
00:49:02,000 --> 00:49:07,000
back to his people, watching Lot choose what visibly looked the best, even

701
00:49:07,000 --> 00:49:11,000
though it was almost outside of the promised land, God again speaks to Abram

702
00:49:11,000 --> 00:49:13,000
in verse 14.

703
00:49:13,000 --> 00:49:17,000
After Lot had separated from him, the Lord said to Abram, look from the

704
00:49:17,000 --> 00:49:21,000
place where you are, look north and south and east and west, for I will give

705
00:49:21,000 --> 00:49:25,000
you and your offspring forever all the land that you see.

706
00:49:25,000 --> 00:49:29,000
I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth so that if anyone could

707
00:49:29,000 --> 00:49:32,000
count the dust of the earth, well then they could count your offspring as

708
00:49:32,000 --> 00:49:33,000
well.

709
00:49:33,000 --> 00:49:37,000
Get up and walk around the land through its length, through its width, for I

710
00:49:37,000 --> 00:49:39,000
will give it to you.

711
00:49:39,000 --> 00:49:42,000
So this is from that area in Bethel and this is where I wrote down the name

712
00:49:42,000 --> 00:49:43,000
of that hill, right?

713
00:49:43,000 --> 00:49:46,000
It's Ramath Hazor, okay?

714
00:49:46,000 --> 00:49:50,000
The highest point in central Israel and so a lot of people think that's

715
00:49:50,000 --> 00:49:54,000
exactly where he was standing just north of Bethel looking at the four

716
00:49:54,000 --> 00:49:57,000
compass points all around him.

717
00:49:57,000 --> 00:50:00,000
Now it's very interesting that it's the same language here.

718
00:50:00,000 --> 00:50:04,000
The look of intensity that is used of Lot looking down into the valley and

719
00:50:04,000 --> 00:50:06,000
seeing, oh, it's so great, right?

720
00:50:06,000 --> 00:50:09,000
It's like looking with, man, this is, I'm focusing.

721
00:50:09,000 --> 00:50:13,000
I'm not just taking a quick glance, but I'm really taking it in.

722
00:50:13,000 --> 00:50:17,000
But this time instead of Abram looking around, it's God saying, look here, look

723
00:50:17,000 --> 00:50:18,000
here, look here, look.

724
00:50:18,000 --> 00:50:21,000
Lot went and chose what he thought was the best.

725
00:50:21,000 --> 00:50:25,000
And then God says, but look what I'm giving you.

726
00:50:25,000 --> 00:50:27,000
Look what I'm giving you.

727
00:50:27,000 --> 00:50:31,000
You're not seeking any of this out, but I'm going to give this to you.

728
00:50:31,000 --> 00:50:36,000
And so God's reaffirming and further defining his promise to Abram of a land

729
00:50:36,000 --> 00:50:38,000
and a people.

730
00:50:38,000 --> 00:50:42,000
Now again, from that point, if you looked north from Ramath Hazor, you could

731
00:50:42,000 --> 00:50:47,000
see Mount Hermon in the north, which was the farthest northern limit of the

732
00:50:47,000 --> 00:50:49,000
land conquered by Joshua.

733
00:50:49,000 --> 00:50:53,000
You look to the east, you'd be able to see the Dead Sea and Hebron to the

734
00:50:53,000 --> 00:50:54,000
south.

735
00:50:54,000 --> 00:50:57,000
Hebron was actually the place where Abram purchased a burial place for his

736
00:50:57,000 --> 00:50:58,000
family.

737
00:50:58,000 --> 00:51:01,000
He could see, oh, that was to the south.

738
00:51:01,000 --> 00:51:03,000
He could see Jordan to the east, and then if you look west, he could see the

739
00:51:03,000 --> 00:51:05,000
Mediterranean Sea.

740
00:51:05,000 --> 00:51:07,000
And God said, that's all yours.

741
00:51:07,000 --> 00:51:10,000
I'm giving it to you.

742
00:51:10,000 --> 00:51:12,000
Again, verbally promising the land.

743
00:51:12,000 --> 00:51:14,000
What does it mean when God promises something?

744
00:51:14,000 --> 00:51:16,000
It means it's unbreakable.

745
00:51:16,000 --> 00:51:20,000
It means it's sure.

746
00:51:20,000 --> 00:51:23,000
This particular promise was unconditional.

747
00:51:23,000 --> 00:51:26,000
He didn't say, Abram, if I will give this to you.

748
00:51:26,000 --> 00:51:28,000
He just said, Abram, look around.

749
00:51:28,000 --> 00:51:30,000
It's all yours.

750
00:51:30,000 --> 00:51:33,000
We have to be people who depend on God's promises like that.

751
00:51:33,000 --> 00:51:38,000
That is the kind of faith God wants to build within us.

752
00:51:38,000 --> 00:51:44,000
When God says something that is so insanely impossible in our mind, we don't

753
00:51:44,000 --> 00:51:46,000
start with, well, I don't understand.

754
00:51:46,000 --> 00:51:47,000
Let's debate.

755
00:51:47,000 --> 00:51:48,000
We just start with God said so.

756
00:51:48,000 --> 00:51:51,000
It's going to happen.

757
00:51:51,000 --> 00:51:55,000
Now, yeah, we have to do the exercise of discerning God's will, and we study

758
00:51:55,000 --> 00:51:57,000
his word to learn his will.

759
00:51:57,000 --> 00:51:59,000
We get counsel from godly people to learn his will.

760
00:51:59,000 --> 00:52:07,000
But when you know what God said, you rest on that.

761
00:52:07,000 --> 00:52:12,000
God said, okay, I don't have to doubt.

762
00:52:12,000 --> 00:52:13,000
I don't have to question.

763
00:52:13,000 --> 00:52:17,000
And there's so much more peace in your life when you're just like, okay, God

764
00:52:17,000 --> 00:52:20,000
said so.

765
00:52:20,000 --> 00:52:21,000
You start going, what about this?

766
00:52:21,000 --> 00:52:22,000
What about this?

767
00:52:22,000 --> 00:52:23,000
Don't mess with me with all that stuff.

768
00:52:23,000 --> 00:52:24,000
God said so.

769
00:52:24,000 --> 00:52:25,000
I'm good.

770
00:52:25,000 --> 00:52:27,000
I'm at peace.

771
00:52:27,000 --> 00:52:29,000
Can you imagine the faith it took Abram?

772
00:52:29,000 --> 00:52:31,000
Hey, God, I'm God.

773
00:52:31,000 --> 00:52:32,000
I'm speaking to you.

774
00:52:32,000 --> 00:52:33,000
Go.

775
00:52:33,000 --> 00:52:35,000
I'm not going to tell you where we are.

776
00:52:35,000 --> 00:52:36,000
Okay.

777
00:52:36,000 --> 00:52:37,000
He eventually got there.

778
00:52:37,000 --> 00:52:40,000
Hey, this is the place that I'm giving to your descendants.

779
00:52:40,000 --> 00:52:41,000
Awesome.

780
00:52:41,000 --> 00:52:42,000
Praise God.

781
00:52:42,000 --> 00:52:43,000
He worshiped.

782
00:52:43,000 --> 00:52:47,000
See, through that whole place where Abram walked through the land, he

783
00:52:47,000 --> 00:52:49,000
believed God's promises.

784
00:52:49,000 --> 00:52:53,000
Now, yeah, we have this detour into Egypt where he failed.

785
00:52:53,000 --> 00:52:56,000
And now he's coming back and returning to that place.

786
00:52:56,000 --> 00:53:00,000
Now, God mentions offspring three times here, and he says your offspring is

787
00:53:00,000 --> 00:53:02,000
going to be like the dust of the earth, right?

788
00:53:02,000 --> 00:53:06,000
Like if somebody could count all the grains of dust, then they could count

789
00:53:06,000 --> 00:53:07,000
your offspring.

790
00:53:07,000 --> 00:53:12,000
It's really neat because later in Genesis 15, 5, he tells Abram, look up.

791
00:53:12,000 --> 00:53:15,000
Your offspring are going to be as numerous as the stars in the sky.

792
00:53:15,000 --> 00:53:22,000
And it's just this beautiful thing that he's telling Abram, look, as you're

793
00:53:22,000 --> 00:53:27,000
going to walk through the land, right, and you know, sometimes when you walk,

794
00:53:27,000 --> 00:53:29,000
you're looking down at where you're going.

795
00:53:29,000 --> 00:53:31,000
Here's all that dust you're going to see.

796
00:53:31,000 --> 00:53:34,000
And then later on, he says, you know, when you're camping at night and you're

797
00:53:34,000 --> 00:53:38,000
looking up into the sky, whether Abram looked up or down, he was continually

798
00:53:38,000 --> 00:53:42,000
reminded that him and his barren wife were going to become a great nation in

799
00:53:42,000 --> 00:53:43,000
this land.

800
00:53:43,000 --> 00:53:48,000
Now, the whole idea of walking around the land, some early Jewish commentaries

801
00:53:48,000 --> 00:53:53,000
point out that it was a practice of the early days that you took legal

802
00:53:53,000 --> 00:53:57,000
possession of something if you kind of walked around the borders.

803
00:53:57,000 --> 00:54:01,000
And so the altars that Abraham was doing as he traveled from the north to the

804
00:54:01,000 --> 00:54:05,000
south before he went to Egypt was a symbolic possession, like I'm taking

805
00:54:05,000 --> 00:54:09,000
possession, but this is kind of like the legal, like I'm finalizing the

806
00:54:09,000 --> 00:54:10,000
contract here.

807
00:54:10,000 --> 00:54:14,000
And so what it is a picture of, though, is Abram seeing what was previously

808
00:54:14,000 --> 00:54:15,000
unseen.

809
00:54:15,000 --> 00:54:18,000
The land that I will show you was unseen.

810
00:54:18,000 --> 00:54:20,000
Abraham walked by faith.

811
00:54:20,000 --> 00:54:21,000
He got to the land.

812
00:54:21,000 --> 00:54:24,000
He said, hey, this is the place, but Abraham hadn't seen every corner of it

813
00:54:24,000 --> 00:54:27,000
yet, but Abraham believed God's promise.

814
00:54:27,000 --> 00:54:33,000
Faith in the promise was now enough for him, and so God goes, okay, now that

815
00:54:33,000 --> 00:54:36,000
you have the faith that I've been trying to build in you, let me show you

816
00:54:36,000 --> 00:54:38,000
everything I have for you.

817
00:54:38,000 --> 00:54:42,000
Hebrews 11 tells us faith is the reality of what is hoped for and the proof of

818
00:54:42,000 --> 00:54:45,000
what is not seen.

819
00:54:45,000 --> 00:54:52,000
You see, I don't think God can tell us everything he has in store for us

820
00:54:52,000 --> 00:54:55,000
because we either won't believe it or will deny it or will argue with him

821
00:54:55,000 --> 00:55:01,000
about it, but when we as his children get to the place where we say, God, you

822
00:55:01,000 --> 00:55:02,000
promised this.

823
00:55:02,000 --> 00:55:04,000
I believe you.

824
00:55:04,000 --> 00:55:05,000
I don't need evidence.

825
00:55:05,000 --> 00:55:08,000
I don't need to, well, can you show me what it's going to look like?

826
00:55:08,000 --> 00:55:09,000
I don't need any of that, God.

827
00:55:09,000 --> 00:55:11,000
I just believe you because you're God and you said it.

828
00:55:11,000 --> 00:55:16,000
When we get to that point, I think that's when God starts to reveal more of

829
00:55:16,000 --> 00:55:21,000
what he has for us in our life because as our faith grows to that point, we're

830
00:55:21,000 --> 00:55:25,000
not going to argue with God when he shows us this is what I have for you.

831
00:55:25,000 --> 00:55:29,000
When we get to that point where we say, cool, you said it, I'm there.

832
00:55:29,000 --> 00:55:31,000
Okay, let me show you what's next.

833
00:55:31,000 --> 00:55:34,000
Cool, God, I don't need that, but hey, thanks for showing it to me.

834
00:55:34,000 --> 00:55:36,000
I'm going to go no matter what.

835
00:55:36,000 --> 00:55:40,000
What if God showed you that, hey, I want you to believe in me because the next

836
00:55:40,000 --> 00:55:42,000
thing I have for you is martyrdom?

837
00:55:42,000 --> 00:55:46,000
How many of us would say, okay, God, you said go, I'm going?

838
00:55:46,000 --> 00:55:53,000
Now, every single one of us, right, I'd do it, of course, but when the rubber

839
00:55:53,000 --> 00:55:56,000
meets the road, we'd be like, ah, right?

840
00:55:56,000 --> 00:56:01,000
Very important things, wife, family, kids, job, other things like, well, I

841
00:56:01,000 --> 00:56:04,000
wanted to accomplish it, right?

842
00:56:04,000 --> 00:56:06,000
So he doesn't say you're going to be martyred there.

843
00:56:06,000 --> 00:56:09,000
What he says is go to a place I'm going to show you because he's going to do a

844
00:56:09,000 --> 00:56:10,000
thing in your life.

845
00:56:10,000 --> 00:56:13,000
Now, I'm not saying we're all going to get martyred when we follow God now, but

846
00:56:13,000 --> 00:56:18,000
if it was that, would you follow?

847
00:56:18,000 --> 00:56:22,000
And I think the reason that God doesn't always tell us those things is because

848
00:56:22,000 --> 00:56:24,000
he's building our faith.

849
00:56:24,000 --> 00:56:27,000
He's building our faith through where we become those people who just say, God,

850
00:56:27,000 --> 00:56:29,000
you said it, I'm going to go.

851
00:56:29,000 --> 00:56:33,000
And so now that Abram is in that place and now he's like, hey, look, I could

852
00:56:33,000 --> 00:56:36,000
give this away a thousand times, God goes, okay, cool.

853
00:56:36,000 --> 00:56:37,000
Well, a lot left.

854
00:56:37,000 --> 00:56:38,000
We'll deal with that later.

855
00:56:38,000 --> 00:56:40,000
But now look at everything.

856
00:56:40,000 --> 00:56:42,000
I'm going to show you the borders of what I'm giving you and I want you to walk

857
00:56:42,000 --> 00:56:44,000
the whole thing.

858
00:56:44,000 --> 00:56:48,000
And so with his faith walk completed, the story concludes in verse 18.

859
00:56:48,000 --> 00:56:54,000
So Abram moved his tent and went to live near the Oaks of Mamre in Hebron where

860
00:56:54,000 --> 00:56:56,000
he built an altar to the Lord.

861
00:56:56,000 --> 00:56:59,000
So now it's a third altar that he's built.

862
00:56:59,000 --> 00:57:03,000
You know, this whole thing from him getting to the land, falling, coming back

863
00:57:03,000 --> 00:57:08,000
to the land, really it's bookended with worship, with beautiful, peaceful, sweet,

864
00:57:08,000 --> 00:57:12,000
contented Abram worshiping God.

865
00:57:12,000 --> 00:57:15,000
When he was trusting God, it was altars and worship.

866
00:57:15,000 --> 00:57:18,000
When he trusted himself, it was failure, no altars, no worship.

867
00:57:18,000 --> 00:57:24,000
When he came back to trusting God again, it was now again altars and worship.

868
00:57:24,000 --> 00:57:29,000
As the story opened with Abram, he's here in chapter 13 humbled by his

869
00:57:29,000 --> 00:57:31,000
experience in Egypt.

870
00:57:31,000 --> 00:57:35,000
And it ends here with him building a third altar at Hebron covering this whole

871
00:57:35,000 --> 00:57:38,000
thing in his praise to God.

872
00:57:38,000 --> 00:57:42,000
Now I think what would be best is if we had the front end and the back end and

873
00:57:42,000 --> 00:57:45,000
just skip the middle part, right?

874
00:57:45,000 --> 00:57:49,000
But that's not the reality of our life.

875
00:57:49,000 --> 00:57:52,000
As much as we want it to be, it's not the reality of our life because our sin

876
00:57:52,000 --> 00:57:55,000
nature still dwells with us.

877
00:57:55,000 --> 00:58:02,000
And so we have stories like this to remind us and to encourage us that we're

878
00:58:02,000 --> 00:58:08,000
going to go from Abram entering the land to Abram in Egypt to Abram entering

879
00:58:08,000 --> 00:58:13,000
the land again to the next fall, to the next success, the next fall, the next

880
00:58:13,000 --> 00:58:15,000
success, over and over and over.

881
00:58:15,000 --> 00:58:18,000
And God allows all those things to happen in our life because he's molding

882
00:58:18,000 --> 00:58:19,000
our character.

883
00:58:19,000 --> 00:58:21,000
He's teaching us to trust him.

884
00:58:21,000 --> 00:58:24,000
He's teaching us to return to him when we've stumbled.

885
00:58:24,000 --> 00:58:28,000
He's teaching us how to believe that when he says you're saved, you're saved.

886
00:58:28,000 --> 00:58:32,000
How many people do you know or maybe this is you that every time you stumble

887
00:58:32,000 --> 00:58:37,000
into sin, you start questioning it, am I even saved?

888
00:58:37,000 --> 00:58:38,000
Does God love me?

889
00:58:38,000 --> 00:58:41,000
How could he love me?

890
00:58:41,000 --> 00:58:42,000
You go back to the Word.

891
00:58:42,000 --> 00:58:45,000
You go, yeah, I see the promises where God says I love you.

892
00:58:45,000 --> 00:58:46,000
I saved you.

893
00:58:46,000 --> 00:58:47,000
You're mine.

894
00:58:47,000 --> 00:58:49,000
But I'm not sure.

895
00:58:49,000 --> 00:58:50,000
Well, you know what?

896
00:58:50,000 --> 00:58:54,000
God needs to work that out in your life before he takes you to the next thing he

897
00:58:54,000 --> 00:58:55,000
has for you.

898
00:58:55,000 --> 00:58:58,000
And it's going to be this constant up and down.

899
00:58:58,000 --> 00:59:01,000
The goal is to have more ups than downs.

900
00:59:01,000 --> 00:59:04,000
And we do that as we draw closer to the Lord.

901
00:59:04,000 --> 00:59:09,000
And so looking at Abram and Lot's story side by side, yeah, it teaches us a

902
00:59:09,000 --> 00:59:10,000
whole lot.

903
00:59:10,000 --> 00:59:16,000
Lot chose the things that were seen and he ended up being corrupted by those

904
00:59:16,000 --> 00:59:17,000
things.

905
00:59:17,000 --> 00:59:18,000
Still saved.

906
00:59:18,000 --> 00:59:23,000
Still righteous Lot, but we don't see God using Lot to do a whole lot in the

907
00:59:23,000 --> 00:59:25,000
Bible, do we?

908
00:59:25,000 --> 00:59:29,000
He kind of got set aside, if you will, because of his own choices.

909
00:59:29,000 --> 00:59:32,000
Abram saw through the eyes of faith.

910
00:59:32,000 --> 00:59:35,000
And because he believed God's promises at this point, he said, okay, I'm not

911
00:59:35,000 --> 00:59:36,000
going to rely on myself anymore.

912
00:59:36,000 --> 00:59:38,000
I believe your promises.

913
00:59:38,000 --> 00:59:42,000
He ended up then seeing what was unseen.

914
00:59:42,000 --> 00:59:43,000
But it didn't matter.

915
00:59:43,000 --> 00:59:44,000
It didn't change his faith.

916
00:59:44,000 --> 00:59:48,000
He already possessed that which was unseen because it was as visible to him as

917
00:59:48,000 --> 00:59:51,000
if he had it already.

918
00:59:51,000 --> 00:59:53,000
Abraham found assurance in that.

919
00:59:53,000 --> 00:59:54,000
He found peace in that.

920
00:59:54,000 --> 00:59:58,000
Such assurance, such peace that he could give the land away knowing it's going

921
00:59:58,000 --> 01:00:01,000
to be his anyways because God said so.

922
01:00:01,000 --> 01:00:07,000
And because of that, he was able to live this altruistic faith where Abraham

923
01:00:07,000 --> 01:00:13,000
could be devoted and committed to the needs of others, not his own.

924
01:00:13,000 --> 01:00:16,000
God's taking care of me, so let me worry about you.

925
01:00:16,000 --> 01:00:19,000
That was where we find Abraham getting to here.

926
01:00:19,000 --> 01:00:23,000
It was a faith that expressed itself in unselfish regard for the welfare of

927
01:00:23,000 --> 01:00:24,000
others.

928
01:00:24,000 --> 01:00:25,000
Why?

929
01:00:25,000 --> 01:00:28,000
Because he didn't have a doubt in his mind that God was going to take care of

930
01:00:28,000 --> 01:00:29,000
him.

931
01:00:29,000 --> 01:00:31,000
So he didn't have to worry about those things.

932
01:00:31,000 --> 01:00:36,000
And because Abraham walked in faith, God revealed more and made those promises

933
01:00:36,000 --> 01:00:38,000
clearer to him.

934
01:00:38,000 --> 01:00:40,000
Look north, south, east, west.

935
01:00:40,000 --> 01:00:44,000
It's the same for us when we come to that place where we say, God, I don't

936
01:00:44,000 --> 01:00:46,000
need to see the outcome to believe you.

937
01:00:46,000 --> 01:00:50,000
I don't even need you to explain it to me.

938
01:00:50,000 --> 01:00:51,000
You just said it.

939
01:00:51,000 --> 01:00:52,000
I believe it.

940
01:00:52,000 --> 01:00:55,000
When we're in that place, we find that God is going to reveal more and more to

941
01:00:55,000 --> 01:00:58,000
us of what he has in store for us because he knows it's not going to affect our

942
01:00:58,000 --> 01:00:59,000
faith.

943
01:00:59,000 --> 01:01:02,000
Lastly, we have Abraham here compared with Abraham in Egypt.

944
01:01:02,000 --> 01:01:05,000
That really just represents all that we are, right?

945
01:01:05,000 --> 01:01:11,000
People of faith who live in doubt, a strange mixture of trust and distrust,

946
01:01:11,000 --> 01:01:14,000
this paradox of God, you're my God.

947
01:01:14,000 --> 01:01:19,000
Oh, I don't believe you can get me out of this over and over and over again.

948
01:01:19,000 --> 01:01:24,000
Abraham in Egypt was a shriveled, sad, worried, fearful, selfish man with a

949
01:01:24,000 --> 01:01:25,000
selfish heart.

950
01:01:25,000 --> 01:01:29,000
Abraham in Canaan now, large.

951
01:01:29,000 --> 01:01:32,000
He's a man that's at peace.

952
01:01:32,000 --> 01:01:36,000
He's a man that has an altruistic heart, and so the closing application for us

953
01:01:36,000 --> 01:01:39,000
is which heart do you want to have?

954
01:01:39,000 --> 01:01:42,000
As a believer, as a child of God here today in this world, which heart do you

955
01:01:42,000 --> 01:01:43,000
want to have?

956
01:01:43,000 --> 01:01:45,000
Do you want to have the Abraham in Egypt heart or do you want to have the

957
01:01:45,000 --> 01:01:48,000
Abraham back in Canaan heart?

958
01:01:48,000 --> 01:01:51,000
Do you want to have the heart that says, God, I believe you're God, but let me

959
01:01:51,000 --> 01:01:54,000
take care of it and watch it all fall apart?

960
01:01:54,000 --> 01:01:58,000
Or, God, I believe you're God, just because you said so, I believe it.

961
01:01:58,000 --> 01:01:59,000
I don't need an explanation.

962
01:01:59,000 --> 01:02:02,000
I'm just going to follow you.

963
01:02:02,000 --> 01:02:07,000
One of those comes by trusting in God's promises and then living that out.

964
01:02:07,000 --> 01:02:10,000
The other one comes by distrusting God's promises and trying to figure it out on

965
01:02:10,000 --> 01:02:12,000
your own.

966
01:02:12,000 --> 01:02:19,000
The distrust leads to a constricted life, an ineffective walk of faith because

967
01:02:19,000 --> 01:02:22,000
you're walking by sight.

968
01:02:22,000 --> 01:02:26,000
You're only believing based upon what you could see, and unfortunately, you

969
01:02:26,000 --> 01:02:33,000
end up very little used to God in that because he can't get past you limiting

970
01:02:33,000 --> 01:02:35,000
yourself by your sight.

971
01:02:35,000 --> 01:02:39,000
He can do whatever he wants, but he's trying to get you to choose.

972
01:02:39,000 --> 01:02:43,000
But trusting, when we trust God, when we say, God, you said it, I believe,

973
01:02:43,000 --> 01:02:44,000
that's it.

974
01:02:44,000 --> 01:02:47,000
A faithfulness will rise in you that is going to allow you to live this life

975
01:02:47,000 --> 01:02:54,000
here without worry, without fear.

976
01:02:54,000 --> 01:02:57,000
That faithfulness where you say, God, I trust you no matter what, is going to

977
01:02:57,000 --> 01:03:00,000
allow you to live this life with boldness, with confidence.

978
01:03:00,000 --> 01:03:04,000
I don't have to grasp for and try to hold on things because, hey, God knows

979
01:03:04,000 --> 01:03:07,000
what I need.

980
01:03:07,000 --> 01:03:12,000
Living that type of life is living after the example of our Lord Jesus Christ,

981
01:03:12,000 --> 01:03:15,000
who trusted in God.

982
01:03:15,000 --> 01:03:18,000
Jesus trusted in the Father for everything.

983
01:03:18,000 --> 01:03:24,000
He gave of himself to the point of death for the welfare of others.

984
01:03:24,000 --> 01:03:28,000
And he was raised up to the right hand of God for it.

985
01:03:28,000 --> 01:03:31,000
Through our trust in him, we are coheirs with Jesus Christ.

986
01:03:31,000 --> 01:03:37,000
We are sitting today in heavenly places with him.

987
01:03:37,000 --> 01:03:40,000
Every decision is just working that out in our lives.

988
01:03:40,000 --> 01:03:44,000
And so I pray that we would all be people of faith, that God would increase our

989
01:03:44,000 --> 01:03:49,000
faith, that God would keep growing it beyond bounds, that we would be people

990
01:03:49,000 --> 01:03:51,000
who believe the impossible without question.

991
01:03:51,000 --> 01:03:52,000
Why?

992
01:03:52,000 --> 01:03:54,000
Because God is God.

993
01:03:54,000 --> 01:03:58,000
That as we live our lives trusting him in everything and saying, okay, God,

994
01:03:58,000 --> 01:04:00,000
you told me to work, and if I don't work, I don't eat.

995
01:04:00,000 --> 01:04:02,000
Okay, I'm going to go to work.

996
01:04:02,000 --> 01:04:04,000
But God, I trust you with how that works out.

997
01:04:04,000 --> 01:04:07,000
God, you told me to do the work of an evangelist even if I'm not an

998
01:04:07,000 --> 01:04:08,000
evangelist.

999
01:04:08,000 --> 01:04:11,000
So I'm going to trust you and do that even though I'm scared.

1000
01:04:11,000 --> 01:04:14,000
God, I'm going to believe your promises that you say you're going to bless me

1001
01:04:14,000 --> 01:04:15,000
when this happens.

1002
01:04:15,000 --> 01:04:20,000
I'm going to live based on those things that we would truly have a blessed life,

1003
01:04:20,000 --> 01:04:26,000
a content life, a peaceful life, and a real powerful life in the power of the

1004
01:04:26,000 --> 01:04:27,000
Holy Spirit.

1005
01:04:27,000 --> 01:04:28,000
Amen?

1006
01:04:28,000 --> 01:04:29,000
Let's pray.

1007
01:04:29,000 --> 01:04:37,000
Father, I do pray, God, that you increase our faith.

1008
01:04:37,000 --> 01:04:44,000
We're so thankful, God, that you came to this earth, that you clothed yourself in

1009
01:04:44,000 --> 01:04:50,000
the frailty that is our human frame, that you lived a life tempted in every way

1010
01:04:50,000 --> 01:04:55,000
we are, challenged in every way we are, yet you got through it without ever

1011
01:04:55,000 --> 01:05:03,000
stumbling, ever sinning, and that, God, then you went to the cross to die for

1012
01:05:03,000 --> 01:05:10,000
our sins, to pay the price for our salvation, that, Lord, through faith we

1013
01:05:10,000 --> 01:05:16,000
would be able to take each step of faith in our lives moving forward, stumbling,

1014
01:05:16,000 --> 01:05:20,000
getting back up, stumbling, and getting back up, Lord, yet not having to worry

1015
01:05:20,000 --> 01:05:23,000
about does God still love me?

1016
01:05:23,000 --> 01:05:24,000
Am I still saved?

1017
01:05:24,000 --> 01:05:28,000
Because that work is done.

1018
01:05:28,000 --> 01:05:31,000
So, Lord, we ask that you would increase our faith that we would be people who

1019
01:05:31,000 --> 01:05:37,000
would believe more than we ever have, to believe the impossible, to believe,

1020
01:05:37,000 --> 01:05:41,000
Lord, that we could reach not just hundreds but thousands and millions with

1021
01:05:41,000 --> 01:05:46,000
the gospel, even in our little church, Lord, that we would believe that in the

1022
01:05:46,000 --> 01:05:51,000
impossibility of our finances and our work that, God, you're going to take care

1023
01:05:51,000 --> 01:05:57,000
of us because you take care of the birds and the grass, that, Lord, when you call

1024
01:05:57,000 --> 01:06:01,000
us to step out in faith in things we don't understand, we don't wait until we

1025
01:06:01,000 --> 01:06:07,000
understand it, but we step out anyways, trusting that if you want to reveal it

1026
01:06:07,000 --> 01:06:11,000
to us so we can understand that you'll do that, but not ever thinking that we

1027
01:06:11,000 --> 01:06:14,000
need that before we'll obey God.

1028
01:06:14,000 --> 01:06:21,000
Lord, help us to be like Abraham and Canaan, not Abraham in Egypt.

1029
01:06:21,000 --> 01:06:24,000
Lord, we're going to learn so much from this man's life, and I just pray, God,

1030
01:06:24,000 --> 01:06:29,000
that we would learn from his mistakes, we would learn from his successes, God,

1031
01:06:29,000 --> 01:06:34,000
because you gave us this word that we would grow closer to you through it.

1032
01:06:34,000 --> 01:06:36,000
Use us, Lord, bless us.

1033
01:06:36,000 --> 01:06:38,000
We love you so much.

1034
01:06:38,000 --> 01:06:39,000
It's in Jesus' name we pray.

1035
01:06:39,000 --> 01:06:40,000
Amen.

1036
01:06:40,000 --> 01:06:55,000
Let's worship church.