Here's a word of God as you find it in the 13th chapter of Genesis beginning at verse 1 Then Abram went up from Egypt He and his wife and all that he had and Lot with him to the South to the Negan that is the area in Palestine that would be South of Jerusalem and Judah
Abram was very rich in livestock in silver and in gold and He went on his journey from the South as far as Bethel to the place where his tent had been at the beginning between Bethel and AI To the place of the altar which he had made there at first and There Abram called on the name of the Lord Lot also who went with Abram had flocks and herds and tents Now the land was not able to support them that they might dwell together Where their possessions were so great that they could not dwell together and there was strife between the herdsmen of Abram's Lives livestock and the herdsmen of lots livestock The Canaanites and the parasites then dwelt in the land So Abram said to lot, please let there be no strife between you and me and between my herdsmen and your herdsmen for we are brethren Is not the whole land before you please separate from me If you take the left and I will go to the right or if you go to the right then I will go to the left and Not lifted his eyes and saw all the plane of Jordan that it was well-watered everywhere before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah Like the Garden of the Lord like the land of Egypt as you go toward Zor Then lot chose for himself all the plane of Jordan and lot journeyed east and they separated from each other The Abram dwelt in the land of Canaan and lot dwelt in the cities of the plane and pitched his tent even as far as Sodom The men of Sodom were exceedingly wicked and sinful against the Lord and The Lord said to Abram after lot had separated from him lift your eyes now and look from the place where you are Northward southward eastward and westward all the land which you see I will give to you and your descendants forever And I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth so that if a man could number the dust of the earth Then your descendants also could be numbered arise Walk in the land throughout its length and it's with for I give it to you Then Abram moved his tent and went and dwelt by the terrible trees of memory Which are in Hebron and built an altar there to the Lord the word of the Lord Thanks be to God. Let's pray together Father, thank you for this passage. Please help us Help us Lord not so much to understand it for it is It is fairly evident O Lord what is Transpiring in these verses It's our hearts that need help O Lord Not our minds but our hearts So please grant us the help that we need to take the things that we see here the things that we learn and By your spirit work them into our hearts so that in our living There is some measure of testimony to the reality of grace your grace in our lives Hear us we pray in Jesus name Maybe seated The last a couple of weeks or so have seen a significant and terrifying deterioration of relations between Palestinians and Israelis dozens of people are dead a ceasefire that was agreed upon just a few days ago is Shambles there is more violence on the horizon. It seems the effects of this are felt throughout the whole Region of the Middle East and even throughout the whole of the world the rippling effects are being felt all over the place And you know and I know that the issues are complex There's a lot of history long long history There have been acts of terrorism and violence perpetrated by each group against the other for centuries And so it is not an easily resolved conflict, but one does wonder what would be the effect? If a hood baroque
invited Yasser arafat to meet him in some some fairly isolated fairly remote hillock on that spine that runs north and south in the southern part of Palestine and which overlooks the Jordan Valley. What would be the effect if a hood baroque invited Yasser arafat to some isolated hill and And somewhere out there a hood baroque were to say the Yasser arafat please Please let there be no more conflict between us You take your pick if you go to the right I'll go to the left if you go to the left I'll go to the right What would be the effect you wonder that about Northern Ireland? What if Jerry Adams were to say to Protestant leaders in Ireland and England? Here are our guns Here are our guns. Let there be no conflict anymore between us. Tell us what your preferences are Tell us what your desires are and We will take what is left over What would be the effect? And on a much smaller scale, but on a no less significant scale What have our relationships with one another? There's 500 people in this church spit in the ocean when compared with the population that inhabits this globe 6 billion plus We're an inconsequential group of people. We don't act like it most of the time But in the great scheme of things we're in an inconsequential group of people 500 folks What if in our relationships here in this church? What if in our relationships in our homes with our children in our marriages? Especially in this time when people are so secure to secure and protect are so determined to secure and protect their rights? What if in that sort of an environment We were to say to one another look the whole land is before you take what you prefer and I'll take what's left over
Something very much like that is happening in this passage in Genesis 13 and Something very significant is happening to Abraham Something very significant is happening in the life of Abraham This passage has a context and I want to remind you very quickly what that context is As you consider this passage be reminded of a few things Be reminded in the first place that Abram is our example. He is the example of the life of faith We don't read this as mere history and I've been saying to you from the beginning that while we could read this for its Biblical theological and historical Redemptive sorts of themes That's all very legitimate and we'll come to those things again and again as we look at the life of Abraham We're looking at hit at this this whole series of chapters from a different angle We're looking at Abram as an example from whom to learn Because you see Abram is held up in the scriptures as an example of faith a model of faith someone to be emulated Someone whose life is to be studied so that we might understand better and better what it means to walk with God and to walk work on So we're looking at Abram as a model as an example and something very significant is going on in Abram's life you remember just last week that Abram was confronted by all of these threats and he acted if you will badly There was the circumstantial threat of famine and that circumstantial threat He caved into and in caving into that circumstantial threat He exposed himself to yet another threat the human threat the threat of Pharaoh and he exposed his wife by caving into both of those threats He exposed his wife to compromise and he exposed the promise of God The promise that God through Abram and through Sarah would be a blessing to all of the nations of the earth through a seed They would give them all of that was exposed and threatened because Abram caved into these first two threats And of course the thing that has suggested last week is that the Circumstantial threat and the human threat would have been no threat at all if it had not been for this third threat And that is the interior threat the threat of his own duplicitous self-serving self-protecting heart But you come to chapter 13 and we have no idea how long it's taken for Abram to get from chapter 12 to chapter 13 You come to this 13th chapter and something significant has gone on in this man's life And that would be the second thing for me to remind you of as you look at the life of Abram remember That you have 13 chapters Which are a telescoping of a hundred years of this man's life Little over 13 chapters which you can read in 45 minutes covers a whole century and You have to remember that Abram lived every moment of every day the same way you live every moment of every day One moment at a time day after day week after week year after year I have no idea how long he was an agent. I have no idea how long it took him to get from me to the negab this region south of What is Jerusalem and Judah? Could it take him days could it take him weeks could it take him months? Maybe it was a couple of years but in that period of time something significant has gone on in Abram's life And I want to remind you of another thing and that is this In those 13 chapters there are at most at most eight different encounters Which Abram has with gone now you have the idea and I have the idea that Abram woke up every morning got out of his tent And the first person he spoke with was Yahweh and they had breakfast together and Abram got his marching orders for the day That's not the case Eight encounters in the course of that hundred year period of time which Abram had with Yahweh The rest of the time he was walking not by sight not by some sort of command But he was walking by faith something significant is going on in Abram's life between chapter 12 and chapter 13 And you could summarize it in this way you could say that Abram is learning what it means to walk trusting the Lord He's learning what it means to walk trusting the Lord So you get to Genesis 13 and there is this conflict There is this conflict there is a whole conflict which has developed and basically the conflict which develops is the fruit of The blessing of God upon Abram's life Now that's a paradox isn't it but isn't it the truth isn't it the case that many times the blessing of God upon our lives becomes a curse to us Just let me let me sort of stick that in your mental coffers and you think about it for a while Isn't it often the case that the blessing of God in fact that comes a curse It certainly was true for Israel whenever I've got a blessed Israel she forgot the Lord because the blessings were so abundant They were distracted from the giver to the gifts and came to love the gifts more than the giver and the blessing of God became a curse And the people of God abandoning the Lord began to feel the disciplinary corrective judgment of the Lord in their lives Sometimes the blessing of the Lord can become a curse and that's sort of what happens here Abram Experiences great blessing verse two tells us that he has become not only rich, but very rich in livestock in silver and in gold He was blessed when he was in Egypt to God constrained Pharaoh to bless him the promise of Genesis 12 1 through 3 was being fulfilled in Abram's life He was blessed even by those who were his opponents his opponents were constrained To bless him and so the blessing of God is upon his life, but that blessing flows not only to Abram It flows to his whole household lock his nephew is wealthy as a result of the blessing being upon Abram And so they both know extreme and Enviable wealth now wealth can cause problems and it caused problems for Abram Remember the line from the old Bob Dylan son When you ain't got nothing you got nothing to lose But Abram had a lot to lose 20 years ago barb and I just started you know doing what people were supposed to do as you approach adulthood You're supposed to invest you know you're supposed to put some stuff aside and we 20 years ago started doing that now What we've got today isn't very much, but it's a whole lot more than it was 20 years ago, and it's amazing what these little Assistitudes in the stock market due to my heart When you ain't got nothing you got nothing to lose, but when you got something You start worrying about losing it knowing the blessing of God can cause problems for us, and it caused a problem for Abram Abram and Lot are so wealthy that this little tract of land upon which they have located themselves is not sufficient to support them It's not sufficient to support them both That's what brings the conflict verse six the land was not able to support them so that they might dwell together for their possessions Were so great that they could not dwell together, and so there was strife and conflict strife over what well presumably strife Over the sources of water the water supply presumably strife and conflict over the pasture lands who was gonna get To graze their sheep and their goats, and maybe they had camels and all kinds of other Beasts of burden at that sort of thing, and they had too many and the space was limited and you need to know that in this particular region It's somewhat arid, and so the sources of water were fewer and the amount of grazing pasture was less than would have been true down in the valley And so a conflict arises and
Somebody is gonna lose in this deal Somebody is gonna lose in this deal And Abram does What is simply unthinkable Unimaginable Verse eight Abram said a lot Please let there be no strife between you and me Between my herdsmen and your herdsmen for we are brothers
Is not the whole of the land before you Please separate from me If you take the left then I will go to the right if you go to the right then I will go to the left In the midst of this conflict where somebody is going to lose Abram gives up his rights
Abram gives lot The first pick the first choice
Abram is willing to forego What is rightfully his and allows lot to choose And he takes what's left and so lot Like any good bargain hunter any good deal maker Any good opportunistic American capitalist Looks at the fertile ground down in the valley on the south end of the Dead Sea And he sees it lush and he sees it dream He sees all kinds of opportunities for real estate development And he goes for it and he leaves Abram With this rocky arid mountainous Ridge That runs north and south through this whole region
And which is far less desirable Has far less potential Abram gets stuck with second best
Abram is our example Abram is our example so what are we to learn from this Let me try to extract Some principles here three of them predictably enough In first place as you look at the life of Abram You see that faith is willing to give up What is its own Faith is willing to give up What is its own this land be very clear about this This land was Abram's land It was his It was his by right For seven of chapter 12 God had promised Abram That he would give him the whole of the land To your descendants. I will give this land The promise is repeated in verse 14 of this chapter The Lord said to Abram after lot had separated from him lift up your eyes now and look from where you are Look northward to the south of the east to the west all the land Which you see I will give to you for your descendants forever The land was his he had a right to it
But you see faith is willing to give up What is its own for the sake of peace Between Abram and lot Abram was willing to give it up
Now what you see in the life of Abram you see in the teaching of the New Testament Folks, I want to suggest to you. This is the kind of thing we're called to We're called to emulate Abram in this model Abram in this Look at Matthew chapter five
Verses 23 and 24 and let me really quickly put this passage in its context Is I read the sermon on the Mount The Beatitudes represent the character of a citizen of the kingdom That's not my insight. That's the inside of dozens of commentators across The centuries the Beatitudes represent the character the basic internal composition of a citizen of the kingdom And flowing out of that character as a particular conduct And so what you have beginning at verse 17 Actually back up in verse 13 you have the beginnings of a description of the conduct of citizens of the kingdom
So verses 23 and 24 describe the conduct of citizens of the kingdom listen to these verses therefore If you bring your gift to the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you Leave your gift there before the altar and go your way first be reconciled your brother and then coming off for your gift In other words before you come to worship before you would gather together in the midst of the assembly If you remember that there is some conflict between you and one of your brethren
Your first responsibility is to go to that brother and seek to resolve that conflict That's interesting to me that in this passage there isn't anything said about who is to blame Who is the wrong who is the aggrieved and who is the innocent It's simply this fact that you as an individual before you come to worship before you offer your gift of worship In the presence of the Lord if you recall that there is an estrangement between you and another person You go and you resolve that And if you are the aggrieved if you are the innocent person it doesn't matter you see And presumably these two people have given something up they've given up their pride
And they meet each other on the way So that they are reconciled to one another before they come to worship
Look at verse 38 of chapter 5 You've heard that it was said and I for an eye and a tooth for tooth but I tell you Do not resist an evil person whoever slaps you on your right cheek turn the other two him also If anyone wants to sue you and take away your tunic let him have your cloak as well Whoever compels you to go one model go with him too these things are spoken about people who are our opponents Who are evil people if we're to treat evil people in this way How much more are we to treat one another in this way? And you see what has to be given up There's a lot that has to be given up This is one of those passages as you read the commentaries This is one of those passages where there is disclaimer after disclaimer after disclaimer and caveat after caveat after caveat So that the substance and the heart and the guts of the passage get evacuated by all of the disclaimers and caveats It certainly can't mean this It certainly doesn't mean that It certainly wouldn't mean the other thing Nobody wants to look at the passage and take at its face value and say if someone requires something to me I'm going to go two times as far But we qualify the thing out of existence And we look at the life of Abraham and we say isn't it a marvelous story I have no idea what it means for me But isn't it a great story First Corinthians 6 I'll just I'll just read one verse for you The context of this thing is brothers who would go to law with one another in the courts of the unrighteous Christians who have some sort of conflict with each other And they take their conflict into the courts to try to resolve their conflict there
Paul says therefore it is already an utter failure for you that you go to law against one another Why do you not rather accept wrong? That is to say why don't you rather allow yourself to be defrauded
Rather than go to the courts for the resolution of your conflicts Something has to be given up The New Testament calls us to the kind of thing that you see acted out in the life of Abraham I'm telling you this man is growing in his understanding of what it means to walk with him before God What it means to trust God And faith is willing to give up what it's what is its own and isn't Jesus the example Jesus who did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped But emptied himself taking the form of a bond servant to what end that you might be rescued from sin and death He didn't like claim to what was his own he didn't clutch to what were his rights But he gave it all up He gave it all up and Paul says have this mind among yourselves Which was also in Christ Jesus
It's not about rights folks. It's not about what is your do It is about modeling Abraham and Jesus And so faith is willing to give up what is its own Abraham was willing to do it Second thing faith trusts God with a parent earthly loss Faith trusts God with a parent earthly loss Abraham gave it up But he trusted God that he would restore it Again look at verse 14 because there the promises repeated here Abram gave up the best of the land in order to resolve a conflict and God First the promise for him again And Abraham believed that what wasn't a parent earthly loss would be restored Similar thing he said about Moses If you look at Hebrews 1124 and following there's a marvelous description of Moses Moses who refused to allow himself to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter Moses who refused to allow himself to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter Moses who preferred who preferred to associate himself with the Israelites in the midst of their suffering Rather than enjoy The sinful and worldly pleasures of Egypt he gave it all up He gave it all up The point is that earthly loss means nothing earthly loss means nothing when compared with doing the right thing earthly loss means nothing when compared with doing the right thing You remember the film charades of fire You remember when Eric little Removed himself from a qualifying heat in the 100 meter dash Because that qualifying heat was on a Sunday the Sabbath And he refused to run on the Sabbath this is a man who when confronted by his sister regarding his missionary enterprise to China Responded and said I know I know that God wants me to be a missionary But he also made me fast And when I run I feel his pleasure
This one who knew the pleasure of God when he ran the 100 meter dash Was willing not to run that race because it was the right thing to do and when asked about it when asked if he was disappointed He said disappointed yes but regrets none regrets none Faith trusts God with apparent earthly loss and earthly loss means nothing compared to doing the right thing And then third Faith sees beyond this world To heavenly reward Faith sees beyond this world to heavenly reward Somewhere along the way Somewhere along the way in Abrams personal pilgrimage He got to the place Where these earthly rewards began to diminish and pale in their significance And the heavenly reward took on greater and greater and greater place in his own thinking That's what Hebrews tells us about Abram
Hebrews 11 verse 8
By faith Abram obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance And he went out not knowing where he was going By faith he dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country dwelling intense with Isaac and Jacob the heirs With him of the same promise for he waited for the city Which has foundations whose builder and maker is God Verse 13 these all died in faith not having received the promises but having seen them a far off They embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth for those who say such things declare plainly That they seek a homeland And truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out They would have that opportunity to return but now they desire a better that is a heavenly country And so God is not ashamed to be called their God someplace along the way Abram became preoccupied not with his stuff Not with his earthly possessions But he can't became preoccupied with his heavenly home his heavenly city his heavenly possession At least a half a dozen times in the New Testament at least a half a dozen times Galatians 3 29 Galatians 4 7 Romans 8 16 to 19 Titus 3 And others at least that many times the New Testament describes Christians as heirs And in the Romans 8 passage you as a Christian are described as a co-air with Jesus
And an heir is something is someone who receives something from his father Who receives something from her father and what the New Testament wants to press home in that simple little four letter word Is this notion that everything that belongs to Jesus belongs to you
And it's incorruptible and it can never be taken away All of the fullness of the riches of the grace of God in Jesus Christ
Faith sees beyond this world to a heavenly reward folks. I have to believe I have to believe The reason I'm so affected by these fluctuations in the stock market The reason we are so determined to hang on to what is ours is because we have so little comprehension of who we are and what we really possess And if we had the least little notion of who we really are as heirs and what we really possess in Jesus These little earthly losses Would fade into insignificance
Faith Faith is willing to give up what is its own Faith trusts God with apparent earthly losses and you get to the place where while you might be disappointed you have no regrets Because earthly loss means nothing compared to doing the right thing
And by the grace of God as was true with Abram we get to the place where faith sees beyond this world
And apprehends heavenly reward
Each year in this church we give Bibles to our high school graduates And for several years now when I've signed those Bibles
At the end I've made reference to Psalm 16 11
You've shown me the path of life, O Lord In your presence is fullness of joy At your right hand are pleasures Forevermore Faith can resolve conflicts
And faith can resolve conflicts because it has learned to give up what is its own It is learned to trust God with apparent earthly loss knowing that earthly loss means nothing compared to doing the right thing And faith sees beyond this world To a heavenly reward where there are pleasures Forevermore Let's pray together Father we are in the midst all of us of various conflicts please buy your grace help us
Help us to look hard at the life of Abram Help us To take these things into our souls Buy your grace may we conduct ourselves differently For the honor of your name For the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ In whose name we pray And Lord as we come to this table This overwhelmingly marvelous expression of your grace and mercy your loving kindness May we come with grateful hearts May we come knowing that we are sinners May we come having our consciences reassured That your grace is greater than all of our sin Lord as we come hear us and hear us as we confess our sins together