Then the men rose up from there and looked down towards Sodom, and Abraham was walking with them to send them off. And the Lord said, Shall I hide from Abraham what I'm about to do? Since Abraham will surely become a great and mighty nation, and in him all the nations of the earth will be blessed. For I've chosen him in order that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice, in order that the Lord may bring upon Abraham what he has spoken about him. The Lord said, The outcry of Sodom and Gomorrah is indeed great, and their sin is exceedingly great. I will go down now and see if they have done entirely according to its outcry, which has come to me, and if not, I will know. But the men turned away from there and went toward Sodom, while Abraham was still standing before the Lord. And Abraham came near and said, Will thou indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city. Will thou indeed sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous who are in it? Now, far be it for me to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked so that the righteous and the wicked are treated alike. Far be it from thee, shall not the judge of all the earth to deal justly. So the Lord said, if I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare the whole place on their account. And Abraham answered and said, Now, I have ventured to speak to the Lord, although I am but dust in ashes. Suppose the fifty, black five, will thou destroy the whole city because of it? I will not destroy it if I find forty-five there. And Abraham spoke to him again and said, Suppose forty are found there. And he said, I will not do it on account of the forty. Oh, may the Lord not be angry and I shall speak, Suppose thirty are found there. I will not do it if I find thirty. Now, behold, I have ventured to speak to the Lord, suppose twenty. I won't destroy it on account of twenty. Oh, may the Lord not be angry and I shall speak only this once. Suppose ten are found there. I will not destroy it on account of the ten. And as soon as he had finished speaking to Abraham, the Lord departed and Abraham returned to his place, This is the word of the Lord. Amen. Be seated, please. Change the title of the sermon for those of you who keep track of such things. Let's call it the family business. That's what we're about this morning, a discussion of the family business. Creature got a phone call from a young businessman wanting to meet for breakfast early in the morning. They sat across the table from each other. The young businessman said, Don't know where to start. Was a business trip. I spent too long in the lounge. I was with a female colleague. The laughter got easy. We were too tired. We were too far away from home. There was too much booze. And well, you know, what happened next? We spent the night together. We sat across from this preacher with this sad tale and said, What do I do? Now the preacher was awfully tempted to say, thinking of this young man's little wife, their young children, the baby that she had in her womb, tempted to say, Let's forget it ever happened. And let's just keep it our big secret. God's Word didn't allow that. He said, Let me just ask you a couple questions. Have you talked to God about this? Have you repented? Have you asked for forgiveness? Have you talked to the other woman? Have you made it clear that you'll take responsibility and that your relationship was not going to be like this will not happen again? Are you willing to speak to your wife to confess to her what you've done, tell her the truth to ask her forgiveness, to make the steps of restoration. Are you willing to go get an AIDS test? Are you willing to safeguard the health of your wife and your unborn child by that necessary step? The businessman looked across the table at the pastor and said, I am so disappointed in you pastor. I came to you not for discipline. I came to you for grace. Is the question this morning. God sheds his grace on us. It's free. It's unmerited. We don't earn it. We don't repay it. All the merit is of Jesus. God takes the initiative. God comes to us. God saves. God does it all. It's all his activity. It's all up to him. He accomplishes it completely. We contribute nothing. That's true. If that is true, are we absolved then of any responsibility in light of that grace? Does God's free pardon permit freedom from all responsibility when the father freely of his own initiative comes into your life and makes you his child? You're an orphan. You're apart from him. You're not naturally his. You don't deserve to be his. You will never deserve to be his. But he comes to you and he adopts you and he makes you his own. He brings you into his house, into his eternal family. You receive his grace. You receive his love. You receive his protection. You receive his provision. You become joint heirs with your older brother Jesus. All that is the fathers is given to you. The discipline set out by the pool and dad's backyard. It doesn't work that way in God's family. Once the father adopts you and invites you into his house and under his roof and at his table, he also invites you to take responsibility for the family business. Genesis chapter 18 verse 19. God says to Abraham, I have, I chose you. You didn't choose me. I chose you. I plucked you out of ear of the Caldys. I plucked you out of idolatry. I plucked you out of lostness. I plucked you out of darkness. I did it. I chose you. We call that life. I have shed my grace on you. But that's not the end of the story. I chose you in order that you might join me in the family business. What is that business? What study together? Got to serve an outline. The first order of the family business is that God has chosen. This is so astounding that to almost even say it seems to lessen it. We ought to just sit still and ponder this. And in fact, when I say it, if you want to just write in this wording outline and then tune me out for the rest of the time and perhaps you're playing that anyway, if you want to tune me out for the rest of the time and just ponder this, you have my permission because there's more in this one expression than any of us will digest today. I chose you Abraham to be my friend. We are chosen. The first order of the family business is to be the friend, the partner of God. What we have here is the three visitors to Abraham and Sarah are now making their way to Sodom where God has made it clear that he's going to rain down judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah for the wickedness of their sin. And we have a question in verse 17. God says, should I tell Abraham what I'm about to do? Now don't think that God's really pondering this. The answer is, of course, he's going to tell Abraham because Abraham is his friend. And we know that Abraham is a friend of God. Isaiah chapter 41 tells us that. It's written right there in your sermon outline in the scripture. But Jesus himself gives a definition of friendship. It's written right there. John 15, 15, Jesus said no longer. There's disciples no longer. Do I call you slaves? The slave doesn't know what his master is doing. I've called you friends. For all things I've heard from my father, I have made known to you. A friend lets the other in on this intimate knowledge on this plan. Jesus says to the disciples, you are my friends. And here God says to Abraham, I have chosen you. The expression I have chosen him virtually means I have made Abraham my friend. Abraham is invited into vital discussion about the disposition of Sodom. Converse with me, God said. Let's talk about this. I'm going to let you in. I'm going to tell you what I'm doing. Does God need advice from Abraham? Does God need permission from Abraham? Does God need counsel? Does God need wisdom? No, he's made Abraham though for relationship to be his friend. God, I want you to see, doesn't only tolerate Abraham's input, his questions, his objection, his opinions. God doesn't just tolerate it. He's evoking it. It was God's idea. God's taken the initiative. God started the discussion. God's provoking, evoking, drawing this out of Abraham. You're going to see that in this friendship with God, it's always God who takes the initiative in this friendship. This is so powerful. This is so incredible. It's an Edenic flashback. It's God and Adam walking together, processing life together. It's almost unthinkable. The great God. I've made you to be my co-regions in this world. Genesis 1, rule and subdue the earth in my place. We're partners in the family business and you may not refer to me as the boss who's in corporate office far away. I am your father. I am your friend. We're partners in this and we're going to do this together. I think God would condescend to say, I'm bringing you in with me in the business. I think you ought to just sort of fall over. I don't have any friends. I'm not worthy. Doug, of course you're not worthy. That's what's so astounding about this. Who could be? God would call us his friend. I chose you. Peggy Newton, Ronald Reagan, exquisite speech writer has written a book about Dutch. She's so fond of him. She said, and I found this so endearing. She said, many of us who worked for the old man feel so tenderly about him now in the sunset years of his life as Alzheimer's is stolen him away from us. We feel like we want to just take him and hold him in our arms and rock him to sleep. I thought she's talking about, she's talking in the most intimate terms about the commander in chief, the president of the United States. Somebody who's, they play hail of the chief when they walk in the room and you don't call them by their first name, they're Mr. President. She's saying, something about this man invited us to come near. Something about this man has invited us into this tender intimate religion. God doesn't have any weakness. God doesn't need us to hold him. But God invites us to come close to be intimate with him. Seek me and you shall find me if you seek me with all your religion. Call stands up and says, get a Bible, get a Bible reading guide and dive into the Bible next year every day. He's not saying, hey, let's all earn points as a congregation. Let's make a chart. We'll put a star on it every day and we'll show how good we are because we sing the one who would call your friend, the one who would come down and say, Abraham, we're doing life together. Love the story of the woman who was at the park with her kids at noon time, had to get out of the house, they were rampaging and turned them loose in the park playground and she was sitting there as the time was passing. She saw a sporty car pull in and leaping from the car was an attractive young woman. She almost bounded from the car. There was a palpable excitement to her and vibrancy and joy and she made her way to a picnic table in the park. All of young board mother's mind began to wander and she began to think, I wonder what liaison I'm about to witness. Is this a boyfriend that's going to meet her at the park? Or is this perhaps more clandestine that they chose this hidden little spot? Is this perhaps someone who's married and she's meeting someone else who's married and they have to meet in the secret and maybe we're talking, you know, Gary Springer something so her little mind is just watching, observing people watching, wondering who's going to pull in next and go and meet with this young girl at the park. Nobody show. And so she decides she'll amble over sort of like by where her children are to secretly see what that young woman's up to. And when she sort of peers around and gets her in view, sitting there in another picnic table, her heart falls. Because the young woman is sitting there in rapturous attention reading her Bible. She bound it out of the car with joy and delight to meet Jesus for lunch. The young woman's heart fell because she was a Christian but she couldn't remember the last time she was that excited to be with Jesus. How about you? You're willing to say this is life indeed. Listen, many of us are introduced to this faith cerebrally, we get the doctrine, we get the theology, we're thrilled by the truth. We're thrilled by the way that life begins to make sense and that the truth and the theology of the scriptures begins to help us understand the world but there comes a point in which it has to become more personal than that. There comes a point in which often trial and hardship and adversity are the doors that say to us, you know what, knowing God as the reliable boss in a distant city. This isn't going to make it anymore. I need God. I need Him here. I need Him now. I need to talk to Him. I need to talk to Him face to face. I got to do life with God. And I can't talk to Him as a shivering fearful person as if I'm talking to a potentate far away. I got to talk to Him face to face. I don't know if you've been there. We've got nothing and it becomes personal all of a sudden. You talk to God like Abraham, talk to God, walking together. I don't think we would ever take the initiative to do that. It's always God who takes the initiative. It's God who seeks us. It's God who pursues us. It's God who rules us and beckons us and calls us and disciplines us to draw us into this kind of fellowship. So I want to ask you what about you. This week I came home with something heavy inside of me. I'm an American male. And when we have things inside of us, we just buck up. And that's the way you do it. I mean it's innate. I don't know. You know, I don't know. Talk to somebody about what's inside of you. Why? And so maybe some of you can relate. And yet I came home and I said, if I don't share this with my wife, I don't feel like I need to. But I'm not going to, I've got to share this or I'm not doing life with her. And I've got to open myself up and tell her what's well. You know, I'm tired. It's been a long day. I don't believe me. She's not exactly sitting there saying, how was the day? Tell me, I can't wait. I just want to, I mean she's tired too. She's got a long day too. She's, you know, you know, I suggest we take a walk. I can tell you that the idea of taking a walk with me at that point was like, if I said, hey, how about we go have a little bottomy? You know, I mean, it was that attractive and of an option. But I went to my wife and I said, we've got to go for a walk. Not we have to go for a walk, but I have to be able to go to God and say, I've got to let you know. It's got to be more personal. What's not pretend? This is not easy to know God into a God you cannot see intimately. But it is the first order of the family business. And I want to tell you that you will find there's times where you do it. And then you will find that, I don't know, it's shameful to say days, weeks, months, might go by, where you don't invest in this relationship with God, where you don't pursue God, where you don't, and I'm afraid it's just kind of like that because we're because we're idiots. But I'll tell you something, there's moments where you resolve and there's moments where you do it and there's moments where you meet the father. And when you do, you say what? That's the first order of the family business. You can't work in the business unless you know the owner. And unless you partner up with him, that's all he's got is partners. And he invites you to be one second thing. The second order of the family business is becoming a father, becoming a father. Abraham, I chose you to command your children after you in the ways of the Lord Abraham. But for Abraham to be a father, somebody's going to teach him how to do it. Abraham, I'm giving you a son, but you don't know the first thing about being a father. Who's going to teach Abraham how to be a father? Who do you think? And what do we see in Genesis chapter 18, God mentoring his boy? God coming down and saying, I'm going to, I'm going to share this decision with Abraham. I'm going to talk to Abraham. We're going to think through it together. Again, I don't think God needs Abraham's advice. I don't think he needs his counsel. How often father and son working out in the wood shop when you hand the hammer to your son, do you need your son to help you drive that nail? Do you need your son to measure where to cut for you? That's not the purpose, is it? And too often we don't let the son hammer the nail or because we don't need their help. But good fathers know that you'll let him hammer the nail and you'll let him measure because you're mentoring, you're teaching. Here's how it's done. It's more important than you learn how to do it. So we're going to enter into this. I'm going to almost deal with you like I don't know how to do it. And we're going to do it together. The same with cooking in the kitchen, the same with living life in all sorts of way. And here we see God coming down and in this parapetetic style, he's interacting back and forth. He and Abraham working it out because God doesn't want numb slaves. Abraham, I am going to smash Sodom. Just start. That's not what he wants. We think that's what God wants. We think he's a Marine Corps commandant. He's not. He's a father. He doesn't want yes sir. He wants children who are intelligent and responsible to whom he can trust and trust deep and worthy assignments. God is saying to Abraham, this isn't about you. I'm going to give you a boy. But I'm interested in people who are going to live in Citrus County in 2001. How are we going to get? How are we going to get the truth about me to them? You are going to have to teach your boy about me. And you're going to have to teach him in such a way that he teaches his family and that one that family and that one that family through all the generations. How are we going to get that done Abraham? That's why God is walking through this decision because he says of Abraham he will surely become a great and mighty nation and him all the nations of the earth will be blessed. But that's not going to happen unless God prepares Abraham for this kind of family leadership. So how are we going to do that? God has entrusted the treasure of the gospel preparing Joshua as for me and my house as for me and my house Abraham. I have chosen you to order your family after you in the ways of the world. How are we going to get our families to walk in the ways of the world? How are we going to get our loved ones to walk in the way of life? One foreigner said the amazing thing about America is the way that the parents obey the children. It is sadly true that too many are asleep at the switch. How are we going to construct sturdy and enduring families that are sure repositories of the gospel faith for years to come? Psalm chapter 1 says what? There is a tree. It's planted by streams of living water and that tree bears good fruit. That tree sends its roots down. That tree is full and strong and mighty. And what is that stream of good water? It's the truth. How blessed are those who resist the seed of scoppers and walk in the words of life? We're going to do anything. We have to capture the mind of our children. It is the first order of the family business, the first order, the past, the torch of truth to the next generation. I was reading in Newsweek the question that was being responded to by one who wrote this letter was what kind of effect would the Harry Potter movie have on children? Would it help kids process the terrorist attack? So this woman writes on September 11th my nine-year-old daughter's school had kept a student sheltered from the news all day. We drove home. I tried to explain to her what had happened when we pulled into our driveway. She looked up with tears in her eyes and said mom it feels like word Voldemort has risen. I am red Harry Potter. I don't know who Voldemort is, but apparently he's not a very fellow. He's not a real king guy. In one sentence she summed up how I had felt since nine that morning. Two days later my 11-year-old son returned from an environmental camp in the mountains where he had been far away from TV and newspapers. I'd picked him up not knowing what he had been told. I asked him how he had felt when he first heard about the attacks. His response shocked me. At first I was really upset, but then I remembered what Hagrid said at the end of the fourth book. Not having memorized the Harry Potter book's line for line, the way my children had, I asked what did Hagrid say? His response blew me away. What's coming will come and will meet it when it does. Now I don't have any beef with Harry Potter. I can't. I am red. That's not my point. My point is that those children, the thoroughly reversed in literature, a certain literature, and it was shaping the way they viewed life, wasn't it? They processed all of life through those books. They've read. And guess what? Your children are thoroughly versed in something in their processing life too. They may be processing it through MTV. They may be processing it through Rolling Stone. They may be processing it through Gap or American Eagle commercials. They may be processing it through ESPN. They have a grid too. It's a developing grid by which they will look at and understand all of life. And could we not only desire that we would raise our children to be so versed in the word of God that that would be the grid in which they would process life through the wisdom of the ages? Kids say, I've got to experience it myself. Don't tell me what's right or wrong or why's or good. I've got to discover that for myself. Get on. Have to stick your head in the garbage can't and know it stinks in there. The wise person says, I don't have to make the same failure that you made. I will learn from your failure so I don't do the same stupid thing. And parents have to give this wisdom to their children, surround their children with the wisdom of God's word and say there is a way that leads unto life how dare we bear children and send them into this caustic world without a grid of truth by which they might process this and be wise and true. First order of the family business. We've got to capture the minds of our children. We have to capture their hearts and perhaps that's harder to capture their affections. So some people say what we see in our world today is a titanic clash between Islam and the values of the West, perhaps. But of much greater concern to us ought to be a titanic clash between the values of the West and the Christian church. And the real question for us is will the church survive the materialism, the gross and rampant materialism of Western culture? And any commentator looking at that right now would say the hour is dark, the end is near, the church is not faring so well in the West. And yet parents march idly ahead seemingly blind for the dangers of this culture on their hearts of their own children thinking that buying them a plethora of things at Christmas. I know parents who give their children cars when they turn 16 but don't have enough money to send them on the mission trip to Acapoco to work in the orphanage. Your children don't need cars. They need an investment in their hearts. Now the mission trip you sit there and you meet children who don't have parents who live in an orphanage who sing songs to Jesus and are alive with joy. You haven't got a thing in the world and what happens to teenagers and what happens to the parents and anybody else who goes on a trip like that you say, what do you discover? Having all the stuff we have has absolutely nothing to do with joy. And if we don't wake up to that, then we are just selling our kids down the river. People come to me and they say, I have plenty of money and I'm being real generous to the church and in the building fund and all that I'm given real. So can't I then spend a lot of my self? Can I have the cars and the clothes and the this and the house and everything else I want if I'm doing all that? I'm not God. I don't sit there and say, we have to clear that with me. I don't think so. You know what I say to them? What about your heart? Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. Why would you put your heart at such risk? And if that doesn't motivate you, what about those little eyes? What about your children's hearts? Aren't you subtly, if you're not careful teaching them? This is the way of life. First order of the Father's business. Tell our children that Jesus really is all we and last point. The Father's business Abraham is chosen to be a priest and this is a fascinating part of the passage. Verse 23 is a legal term. All the other two visitors have left is Abraham and God and it says Abraham draws near unto God. The actual word there is a legal term when a judge says to the attorneys approach the approach Abraham approaches to begin his argument. And he stands there as the priest, as the intercessor, as the defense attorney for who? For Sodom and Gomorrah. How'd you like that job? Some people tell you, what if we catch Osama Bin Laden? Who's going to defend him? Abraham's the defense attorney for Sodom and Gomorrah before God. And he stands before God. And I want you to know this is the first intercessory prayer in the whole Bible. It is the only intercessory prayer in the Old Testament in which the intercessor stands before God and intercedes for his enemy. He doesn't intercede for his kin. He doesn't intercede for a lot. He doesn't intercede for his friends or his family or his country. He intercedes for canonites who hate him and aren't his rivals. It's unparalleled anywhere in the Hebrew scriptures. Now, listen to this theological thinking that goes on between Abraham and his father. Abraham's exploring truth. When you go before a judge to talk about the law, it's not a good idea to say, listen, my clients feel they have everything they're charged with, but the law is the problem. We've got to change the law. You won't be in the business very long. But law is in violent. So Abraham's why? And when he goes before God, he says, I can see the law. I can see your justice. I can see when it says, shall not the judge of all the earth, you'll just believe me. Abraham's not trying to indict God. He is a rhetorical question. Of course, you will. Of course, you'll deal, just like God, you're the just God. Your justice is not at the bait here. I just have a question, Abraham's asking, and it is the most profound spiritual question for your eternal life. How to ask something God? If the sins of the many people in Sodom are even going to be accounted to the righteous, would it be possible for the righteousness of the few to be accounted to the sinful many? Do you have to stand before, does a person have to stand before you with just their record, or could they benefit from the record of someone else? Now, in the West, when we look at this passage, we never see that. You know why? Because we are so infected in the West with rampant individualism. At the core of being American is, I am responsible for my actions and nobody else's. I am not responsible for my father's actions, my grandfathers, my race, my people, my country. I should only be held accountable for what I've done and what I've done alone. And Americans believe that and nobody else in the world. Did you know that? I'm going to say some African Americans don't believe that. They believe that white folk ought to be held responsible for the sins of their race and that's the way the rest of the world thinks and that's the way the Bible says there is corporate solidarity. Akin tells the Israelites when you overrun Jericho, you're not allowed to have any of the spoils. We're not going to be like the other nations, we're not just going to get rich and fat and I want you to bring it all to the tabernacle, one guy snitches the stuff, hides it under his tent and when Israel goes into the next battle what happens? The whole nation suffers for the sin of one. One man's sins are imputed for the whole. And when Akin is discovered to be the transgressor, what happens to his wife and his children and his family, they are executed. One man's sins imputed for the whole. Do you understand the power of that? You may not like that, but in a minute you're going to love it because Abraham goes before God and says if we can be held accountable for the sins that we did not commit, if sins that are wickedness that is not ours can be imputed to us. Could it be possible? Could righteousness be so efficacious that the righteousness of a few could bail out the wickedness of many? God, what if there's 50 righteous people in Sodom? He doesn't ask, would you forgive Lot? He says, would you forgive Spare the whole city? And what does God say? What does God say? You're hired on a jump. The principle is established. 50 righteous the whole city is spared. Abraham says, 45? Yeah, yeah, 45 Abraham. Lord, I'm nothing, but I'm going to talk, I'm going to talk, 40? Yeah, 30? Yeah, 30, I'll spare the whole city. All right, Lord, I'm not going to say another word. Just a 20? There's just 20 righteous? 20 you'd do it. Okay, I'm going to break my promise. One more. 10? Just 10 righteous, would you spare the whole city? You're right out, we're right on the precipice, aren't we? To the next question. So God, I have one more question. What if there's only one? But Abraham doesn't ask the question. He walks away and Sodom and Gamora are destroyed. Abraham's intercession fails. His priesthood doesn't work. Why? Why did he ask? I don't know. But I'd speculate this. He didn't ask because he came to understand that there wasn't even one. There wasn't even one. Romans chapter three, there are none righteous, not even one. Abraham was a great priest, but the Bible tells us we needed a better one. We needed a perfect high priest. Abraham risked his life before God to argue with God. The perfect high priest would lay down his life. Abraham pled on behalf of people who hated him. The perfect high priest would intercede for people as they were killing him. He would pray, Father, forgive them. Abraham argues to establish a principle that the righteousness of a few can forgive the many. Jesus doesn't only establish the principle. Abraham actually offers himself up as the one righteous one that would exonerate the many. Brothers and sisters, this is the gospel. The gospel is that if you are in Jesus' family, if you are in solidarity with God, if he is your kin, then your wickedness falls on him. God says for wickedness he did not commit and he becomes responsible for it. And his righteousness is imputed to you. That's the glorious good news of the gospel. God says to Abraham, I have chosen you to be a priest because I am your perfect priest. Now I want you to go to be a priest and I want to tell you a first order of the family business to be friends with God. You are a priest. You are called to priest. What does the New Testament say? You are a kingdom of priest, a royal priesthood. I have chosen you to go out into the world, to pray for the world, to intercede for the world, to bring the shalom of God to the whole community. I want you to intercede. I want you to pray with boldness. I want you to have servants' hearts. I want you to be disdainful of no one. I want you to be deeply sympathetic for the hurting, the grieving and the dying because Jesus, the king, has come to restore the shalom, the peace of his community and you now are given over to the family business. This is the family business to intercede for the world. This is the first order. She is a priest sitting in a prison cell in Afghanistan captive to the Taliban. Now released, set free, but a couple weeks ago before she was set free, she wrote this, please continue. This is what she sent to her family. Please continue to pray for the miracle this nation so desperately need. She is a prisoner in Afghanistan. She is a woman. She is a young girl under the rule of the Taliban and what does she ask for? Pray that I would get out. What does she pray for? Pray for Afghanistan. She prays for the nation. When this is all said and done, my great desire is that God would be more honored and loved and this broken nation restored. The common people of this nation are so precious, so amazing. I believe the lonely women of this country are the true heroes giving up her life to intercede for people that nobody on Earth cares about. That's our calling. That's our calling. Well, how in the world are we ever going to do that? Because most of the time we spend caring about ourselves. There's only one way you'll ever do that. To open your Bible to Genesis chapter 18 verse 19 and ponder this that I chose you. God says, I chose you. I chose to adopt you. I chose to make you my friend. I chose to sit my love on you. I put my arms around you and welcome you into my family and I will never let you go. And now I want you to step up to the plate and join me in the family business.