This message was given at Grace Community Church in Minden, Nevada. At the end, we will give information about how to contact us to receive a copy of this or other messages. Go ahead and turn to Genesis chapter 13, please. Genesis chapter 13. This is God's holy word, Genesis chapter 13, starting at verse one. So Abram went up from Egypt to the Negev, he and his wife and all that belonged to him and lot with him. Now Abram was very rich in livestock and silver and in gold. He went on his journey from the Negev 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 formerly and there Abram called on the name of the Lord. Now Lot who went with Abram also had flocks and herds and tents and the land could not sustain them while dwelling together for their possessions were so great that they were not able to remain together. And there was strife between the herdsmen of Abram's livestock and the herdsmen of Lot's livestock. Now the Canaanite and the Perizzite were dwelling then in the land. So Abram said to Lot, please let there be no strife between you and me, nor between my herdsmen and your herdsmen, for we are brothers. Is not the whole land before you? Please separate from me. If to the left, then I will go to the right, and if to the right, then I will go to the left. Lot lifted up his eyes and saw all the valley of the Jordan that it was well watered everywhere. This was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. Like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt as you go to Zoar. So Lot chose for himself all the valley of the Jordan and Lot journeyed eastward. Thus they separated from each other. Abram settled in the land of Canaan while Lot settled in the cities of the valley and moved his tents as far as Sodom. Now the men of Sodom were exceedingly wicked and sinners against the Lord. The Lord said to Abram after Lot had separated from him, now lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are northward and southward and eastward and westward for all the land which you see I will give it to you to your descendants forever. I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth so that if anyone can number the dust of the earth then your descendants can also be numbered. Arise, walk about the land through its length and breadth for I will give it to you. Then Abram moved his tent and came and dwelt by the oaks of Mamre, which are in Hebron. And there he built an altar to the Lord. This is the word of God. Well, Abraham, or let's stay consistent, Abram, had stumbled badly in chapter 12, verses 10 to 20. He thought he would go down to Egypt. He went down there to avoid a famine and got into some very deep trouble. But God is in the habit of rescuing his faltering children. God is in the habit of rescuing his children who make mistakes and make bad choices. Now, when God does rescue his children, They learn. There are lessons to be learned from being rescued by God, right? When God intervenes in your life and does something for you that you obviously desperately needed help in, it is a time to learn. And in fact, the other people that are around you should learn too. And what we have is we have Abram who is advancing in the school of faith. We got a D minus in the previous grade, but he did press on. And he's going to learn, and he's going to demonstrate that he's learned, but then we also have Nephew Lot, and Nephew Lot is not enrolled in the same school. Nephew Lot is enrolled in the school of the fool. One is walking by faith. The other is walking by sight. Now in verses one to four, which we touched on last week because it was significant for Abram coming back up out of Egypt, I wanna point out two things in these first four verses. The text tells us in verse two that after he'd come up from Egypt, Abram was very rich in livestock and silver and in gold. We have to keep in mind that this very wealth that Abram had accumulated was actually accumulated predominantly while he was in Egypt. We have good reason to believe that he probably was a wealthy man as he left Ur, the Chaldees, and as he left Haran. But the fact is, is that the vast majority of his wealth was accumulated while he was in Egypt. And I would remind you that the very direct cause for that accumulation of wealth was his willingness to have Sarai lie in order to keep him safe, which landed her in Pharaoh's palace and ended up causing Pharaoh to give exorbitant gifts to Abraham for such a wonderful new chickie in his harem. In other words, the wealth that he had, although ultimately from the sovereign hand of God, must have left a very bad taste in his mouth as he had to move that livestock all around and care for that silver and gold. There's an interesting play on words in the Hebrew text. In chapter 12, In verse 10, you might notice it says, there was a famine in the land. So Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there for the famine. And this is the word, the famine was severe. It's a Hebrew word, kavod. The famine was heavy in the land. And then when we get to chapter 13, we get this, Abraham was very rich in livestock. Actually, the text uses the same word. Abram was very heavy. in livestock and gold and silver. And what's interesting is that it's no accident that Moses uses the same word to make a wordplay contrasting Abram before he went down to Egypt and then after he came back up. The second observation from this is that Abram pitches his tent at the place of the altar, and there Abram called upon the name of the Lord. We have to understand that in these first four verses, what Moses is doing for us is he is demonstrating to us that Abram has been, as it were, called back. He is now repentant. He's back on track with his faith. Bruce Waltke says, spiritually, Abram is back at his altar in the heart of the promised land. Just by way of reminder, in Egypt, Abram had no word from God, and in Egypt, Abram was operating out of fear rather than faith, and in Egypt, there was no altar built to the Lord, and in Egypt, Abram didn't proclaim the name of the Lord, but here he is, back where he belongs, and the picture is Abram's faith is back on track, he's wiser for the lesson, although certainly bearing the scars. Boy, that sounds like most of us. Does it not? Now, here's the plot. Verse 5, We see strife with Lot. There's a situation that starts to emerge, and so here is Lot, who is his nephew. So Lot is an orphan, and so he has attached himself to Uncle Abram, and Lot actually has now accumulated for himself flocks and herds and tents. And what's interesting is here you have Lot, and Lot is a part of the family, but it's important to remember that the promise wasn't to Lot. and the covenant won't be made with Lot. But make no mistake about it, Lot is in an incredibly favored position by his association with Abram and sticking with Abram. His very prosperity actually proves that Abram is in fact being a blessing to those around him. But not all accumulation of wealth is good, and there results a problem, and verse six actually shockingly says, the land could not sustain them while dwelling together. So you remember, you remember Abram is given the land, he goes down to the land, and here's this great sense of divine blessing, and God has spoken to me, he's appeared to me, he's given me promises, and he goes down to the land, and then the very next line is, and there was a famine in the land. This is not the way it's supposed to work, right? Well, now these two men with their families go back to the land, which is an act of obedience for Abram, and now all of a sudden we realize the land can't sustain them. Tension previously was the severity of the famine, and now the tension is arising from their experience of prosperity. But the reality is, is no matter how you slice it, the land is somewhat disappointing so far. And there was strife. So you have the guys taking care of Abram's herds, and of course, what are they looking for? They're looking for water, they're looking for pasture. And then you have the guys that are taking care of Lot's herds, and these guys are clashing, and so the apparent blessing of prosperity has brought strife to the family, and in fact, that very word strife ends up being, in Hebrew, a legal term that means a dispute. Later, actually, it will be used in the Hebrew Bible for the idea of a lawsuit. So here they are, butting heads, and you might ask yourself, they're in the promised land, why not just expand? Actually, the last line of verse 7 explains why any expansion projects would have been restricted. Namely, the neighbors. the Canaanites and the Perizzites. That's the point of Moses adding that last line in verse seven, is to remind them that they're in a land that although by promise is Abram's, the fact is that they're in a land that's occupied by Canaanites and Perizzites, and probably the significance of this viding up, because Perizzites were actually a subset of Canaanites, But the idea is probably you had town dwellers everywhere and country dwellers everywhere and it wasn't as if they could just go wherever they wanted. And so this is a real problem. The strife is real, the contention is real, the tension between the two families is no doubt real. I mean, we live in Nevada, we know how important water rights are, right? And you could imagine them arguing over wells, and who was gonna be able to water their cattle at this well, and we were here first, and it could be that maybe some of these herdsmen had even come to blows, and it comes back to Abram and Lot, and there is a big problem. And so what we see in verses eight and nine is Abram, the peacemaker, In verse eight, Abram said to Lot, please let there be no strife between you and me, nor between my herdsmen and your herdsmen, for we are brothers. This is actually really impressive when you think about it. Here's Abram and who had seniority? Who actually was the elder? Who was the statesman? Who was the guy that was in control? And the answer is plain and simple, it was Abram. Abram was the one who could have said, listen, you snotty-nosed little lot. That almost inspired me for a sermon title, but I refrained. Could have just said, look, This is your problem. Find somewhere else. take a hike, go back down to Egypt. He could have told him a number of things, but what we see is this immediate sensitivity to his relationship with Lot. In fact, what he does in verse eight is he very lovingly reaffirms his relationship with Lot. And he actually basically says, when he says, for we are brothers, he's basically saying, we're relatives, we're equals, we're friends, we're bound together. And then Abram makes him an offer. Verse 9 is really incredible when you think about it. Verse 9 is such an unbelievably generous offer. Here you think of Abram, the recipient of the promise and deed holder to the very promised land. And what he does for the sake of peace is he does something that is completely self-denying. There is no way that Abram is trying to hang on to anything. In fact, Alan Ross says, the one who believed that God promised to give him the land did not have to reserve it for himself. Do you think he learned something from taking matters into his own hand and going down to Egypt? And so here he is, and he makes this incredibly generous offer. He says, you know, Lot, take your choice. If you go to the left, I'll go to the right. If you go to the right, I'll go to the left, wherever you choose. And in fact, James Boyce makes this great observation, it's so important. He says, when he had gone to Egypt, he'd chosen for himself and had gotten into great difficulty. Now he was content. That's the key, right? Now he was content to leave the choices with God and to trust God for his future provision. He had learned he did not need to take care of number one. Now, when I read biblical narrative, I try to read it with not only good exegesis and interpretive ability, but I try to read it with some imagination. And of course, narrative kind of leaves room for some imagination, right? Because it's telling a story and not everything in the telling of a story is set out. And so, it actually provides a difficulty because sometimes there are things that are not said that may not be said for a particular reason for the sake of the story. And so, I just ask tentatively, When Abram goes to Lot and just says, I don't want there to be strife between us. I don't want there to be contention between our families, between our herdsmen. You know, for the sake of peace, you either choose the left or the right. I'll just take what is ever left over. I just ask tentatively, could not Lot have said something like this? Uncle Abe, You're a servant of God. You are blessed. And you're a blessing. And I don't wanna separate from you. I don't wanna go my own way and so let's, there's stuff more important than money. And so let's figure out how to rearrange my assets so that we can stay together. Unfortunately, that's not part of the story. What is clear is that Lot actually, instead of putting Abram above himself, put himself above his uncle and was looking out for himself. That's what's abundantly clear because in verse 10, we read these incredibly ominous words. Lot lifted up his eyes and saw all the valley of the Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere. Verse 11, so Lot chose for himself all the valley of the Jordan. The Jordan. These are some tragic words, actually. They don't seem like it at the time, but we know the rest of the story. Lot's tragic choice was that it was an unbelievably selfish choice. These three verbs are just unmistakably tragic. He lifted up his eyes, he saw, and he chose. So when he goes and checks out the Jordan Valley, what he sees is a valley that's incredibly well watered. Now guess what? Where he and Abram are right now, water is real valuable. But as Lot actually looks to that Jordan Valley, he sees that it's like the garden of God. What was one of the things about the Garden of Eden is that you actually had the rivers that actually crossed in the heart, the Tigris and the Euphrates, you had four rivers that actually came together, abundantly watered, and then, and then, non-accidentally, the writer tells us, it was also like Egypt. Oh sure, the Nile, and the Nile floods every year, and the fertility of the Nile River Valley is incredible in Egypt, but you can't help but to think that there's also a little something more implied in that it was also like Egypt. What's not clear to Bible scholars is whether this is actually part of the promised land or beyond the promised land. But the fact is, is that this Jordan Valley was unbelievably beautiful. Joyce Baldwin says that Lot's attracted by the promise of prosperous farming. You know, here he is, he's looking over there, wow, you know how easy it'd be to grow crops over there, and then he's looking, I mean, it's like, you know, the grove, right? I mean, how easy is it to grow trees out here? How easy is it? You know, this is gonna be a scratching in existence. And so prosperous farming there, not so prosperous here. Improved standard of living, she goes on to say, he and his family would enjoy the subtropical fertility of the Jordan Valley, where rivers and springs created oases, the growth of vegetation, including trees and luscious fruit. Contrasted with the barrenness of the hills all around, Lot had visions of the good life, just as he had witnessed it in Egypt. With all its latest in artistic and technological development and time and leisure to enjoy it, he'd be a fool, right, to miss that opportunity of self-advancement and assured prosperity. Hmm. Well, Lot makes his choice, verse 11, so Lot chose notice for himself all the valley of the Jordan lot journeyed eastward." Whoops! Let me just tell you that up to this point, all journeying eastward in the book of Genesis has not been a good direction to go. Okay? I still wholeheartedly believe it's not a good direction to go. All right? Lot makes his choice and he makes his choice without any regard of Abram and yet this choice, this choice based simply on what he is seeing in front of him ends up being the worst choice of his whole life. He makes a choice that will suck him into a life that will destroy. His family. He just separated himself from the one who was called to be a blessing to do what? To go live among those who will prove to be a curse. Verse 12 tells us that Abram settles and notice Abram settled in the land of Canaan while Lot settled in the cities of the valley and moved his tents as far as Sodom. And so here's Abram, and he just with contentment just settles in Canaan. And then the text tells us with a sense of vividness that not only does he settle in the city of the valley, but what does he do? He moved his tents as far as Sodom. He got right to the city limits. John Calvin says he fancied that he was dwelling in paradise, but he was nearly plunging himself into the depths of hell. And then here's the plot thickener, verse 13. Now the men of Sodom were wicked exceedingly and sinners against the Lord. By the way, those two words actually should just kind of be like put together to be really wicked sinners. Alan Ross says it's a step below normal sinners. Their lot goes. I'm sure Abram helped him pack. I'm sure he stood there and watched as Lot traveled off with his herdsmen and his herds and his tents and his possessions and his family and watched him head towards that very, very fertile valley. We don't know exactly what was going through Abram's head. Maybe Abram was thinking, you know, I kind of like that land. I wish he wouldn't have been such a brat. I wish, maybe I should have spanked him more when he was a kid. Maybe I should have taught him more respect. We don't know what's going through his head, but all we know is that verse 14, God speaks to Abram again, and this time very intentionally, with the idea, after Lot had separated from him. Notice the time marker. After Lot had separated from him, Then God actually tells Abram to do what Lot had done, but the results are incredibly different, profoundly different. In verses 14 and 15, we see the promise of the land reiterated, and of course there are echoes of Lot when God says to him, now lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward, southward, eastward, westward, for all the land which you see, I will give it to you and to your seed forever. The problem was not that they both lifted up their eyes. The problem was, was that Lot lifted up his eyes to see what he could see by sight and Abram lifted up his eyes to see what he could see by faith. Lot's scene was nothing more than the scene of desire and Abram was now the very site of faith and obedience. And what God does for Abram at this point is he actually reaffirms the promise of the land to him and actually with borders that go so far beyond anything he could even imagine. Verse 16, there's now another promise of descendants. Notice verse 16. I will make your descendants, literally your seed, as the dust of the earth, so that if anyone can number the dust of the earth, then your descendants can also be numbered. And so, God had already made the promise to Abram that he would be a great nation. which of course would require for him to have a multitude of children, but here it is now stated that he is going to have descendants who are as numerous as the dust of the earth. This very promise will be reiterated to Abram over and over as well as to Isaac and to Jacob. The promise of descendants, the promise of seed, and of course here he is, having just left the barren land of Canaan to go down to the fertile land of Egypt to come back to the barren land of Canaan with a barren wife. This is another plot thickener, if you will. We're gonna have a baby, hun. Right. Verse 17 arrives. Walk about through the land, its length, breadth, for I will give it to you. By the way, this walking around the land was actually symbolic of acquiring it, and so God tells Abram, walk around, walk around to this land that I've shown to you, I'm gonna give it to you. You know, years ago when we first bought this property, some of us would come over here and walk around, and one day we were walking, and Dave comes up to a plastic bag tied to a twig, and of course Dave, being Dave, said, it's a vision. I know what we're supposed to do. The church building, the pulpit's supposed to go right here. We're not too far off, are we? Yeah. But we used to walk around that land, there was a sense of, you know what, this is the land God has given to us. It's only 20 acres, it's not like it's Canaan, but you know what, he's given it to us. And here's Abram just walking with this sense of that promise echoing in his heart and his mind, I will give it to you, I will give it to you, I will give it to you. The last verse of the chapter actually then tells us that Abram moved his tent and came and dwelt by the Oaks of Mamre, which are in Hebron, and there he built an altar to the Lord. Now, by the way, this little area, the Oaks of Mamre in Hebron, is going to be the primary settlement, not only for Abraham, but also later for Isaac. This will also become the very burial site for the patriarchs themselves, and notice once again what Abram does, he actually builds an altar. This is a place of worship and it's a memorial. It's as if Abram himself is saying, here I raise my Ebenezer, hither by thy help I'm come. Here I raise the memorial stone. Here I raise a testimony of your faithfulness to me, and it's on the basis of this testimony that I will offer sacrifice and proclaim your name. Once again, remember, as he builds an altar, as he proclaims the name of the Lord, what he is doing is as an act of faith, he is claiming that land which God himself had promised. He's making proclamation of God himself in a wicked place. And so here we have in this very, what seems to be incredibly uneventful chapter, something happening that is relevant to every single one of us here. Walking by faith, not by sight. Let's think about Lot for a moment. Lot walked by sight. He lifted up his eyes, he saw, he chose. And what was the basis of his choice? The basis of his choice was on what he could see for himself. And so what does he do? He selfishly chooses on the basis of what he could see and then he settles in. I can't help but to think that the psalmist in Psalm 1 actually did not have somebody like Lot in mind. As he contrasts the righteous and the wicked. The wicked don't walk with the wicked. They don't stand in the assembly of the ungodly. And there's this progression in Lot's life. He represents the selfish, self-seeking, self-gratifying person who is always looking for something greener. Literally, he was looking for greener pastures. And although the grass may have been literally greener, it was not greener. Makes a bad choice, Alan Ross says he's walking. Walking by sight, he says, provides no cautious perception of the evil and no awareness of God's plan. Walking by sight provides no cautious perception of evil and no awareness of God's plan. So here's Lot walking by sight, and then the very next thing we see is after he makes his deadly choice, he ends up pitching his tent towards Sodom. Think about the imagery for a moment. It is not accidental that he now pitches the place of his dwelling towards the place that is filled with utterly wicked sinners, according to the text. Jim Boyce again says, Lot wanted to live near enough to Sodom to enjoy its supposed privileges, but not get caught up in its life. There was obviously some benefit of being in this valley and then you start thinking, you know, here I am, I've got herds, I've got assets, I need to be able to start bargaining and trading and entering into commerce. I think I can become friends with these people. Now, I'm not gonna live inside the city. I'm gonna live right outside, but I'm gonna live close enough that I get the advantage, but yet far enough so that I'm not taken in. And my friends, that is impossible. It's impossible. It's impossible to pitch your tents facing Sodom and not actually be drawn in. I would remind you that it will be in the next chapter that we'll see Lot actually living in Sodom. And in chapter 19, he will be one of the men who are sitting at the gates of Sodom. His intention to keep some kind of safe distance between him and Sodom just simply did not work. And here's the reality, is that you and I constantly have the wrong thought going through our minds. We are constantly thinking, how close can I get to trouble without falling in? When in reality, we should be asking, how far away can I get? Young people, you are especially prone to this terrible kind of thinking. You want to know, where are the lines? Why do you want to know where are the lines? Because I want to get as close to the line as I possibly can without actually falling over. Let me just tell you that if that's your mentality, you will fall over the line. There is this thing called depravity gravity. It will suck you over, pull you over, and here's Lot, and he wants to, you know what he's doing? He's flirting with the world. He's trying to get as close as he can with the world. He's trying to get as close as he can to get some benefit, to have some enjoyment, I mean, to have some fellowship. I mean, you can only talk to your camels and donkeys for so long, and he just wanted some just good old-fashioned fellowship. We see Lot's family actually suffering from his decision. That decision that seemed to be so innocuous, I'll just take the good land, Abram, you can have the crummy leftover stuff, that seems so, you know, innocent, it seems, yeah, sure, it seems selfish, but I mean, my goodness, I mean, land is land, and the fact is, is a bad company corrupts good morals, I'd remind you, and his family will end up suffering for his decision. Who will his daughters marry? His daughters will marry men from Sodom. His wife, Mrs. Lott, will love Sodom. She will fall in love with Sodom. Even after it's appointed destruction. Lot got her close enough that her heart got entangled with Sodom. His choice that day would have repercussions for his family. What a warning, what a warning It's as if the clarion call of scripture is saying, listen, do not, for the sake of your soul and the soul of your family, pitch your tent close to Sodom. You think it's okay, but it's not. When you're making decisions just simply based on sight, simply based on your own desires, simply based on what you can get from the world, simply based on trying to get ahead, simply based on trying to have advantage and climb some kind of ladder. You have to understand foolish believer, Sodom will pull you down and pull you in quicker than you can bat an eye. And here's something that will never happen. You will never pull Sodom up. But maybe Lot was evangelizing Sodom. Maybe he was enough to Sodom so that he could run weekly mission journeys so that he could drop off tracks to the Sodomites. I don't think there are just a few believers who have been pulled down into a moral abyss under some phony, some sort of phony motivation of wanting to evangelize their lost friends. Oh, we should want to evangelize, but I'll tell you what, you evangelize God's way and you walk by faith, not by sight. The fact is, at the end of the day, Lot wasn't content with leaving the choice in Abram's hand. He wanted to simply take it, seize the day, seize this opportunity. I'd be a fool not to pick this right in front of me, and I will tell you that there are some of you today, you are exactly in that same moral predicament. and you were thinking that by making certain choices that God's gonna bless it, and the fact is you've not inquired of God, you've not sought counsel, you've not sought wisdom, you're gonna do what just seems to be right in your own eyes, and there is something that is profoundly tragic about making choices based on what's right in our own eyes. I have no idea what it looks like for you. Here's the wonderful thing. I don't have to know what it looks like for you. God the Holy Spirit knows exactly what it looks like for you. Now let's consider Abram. I was going to do Abram first, but I think it's better to end with Abram, right? Who wants to end on snotty lot? Abram desperately needed his faith renewed, and guess what? God renewed it. Abram's faith, so here's Abram back in the promised land, and you know how his faith is actually blossoming and demonstrating itself? It is demonstrating himself in him being a peacemaker, in him showing humility, and actually in him being content with whatever God leaves to him. Boy, you talk about faith. Faith works. Faith demonstrates itself. Faith manifests itself. And here's one of the things. Abram now is a peacemaker. He's not throwing his weight around. Hey, listen, you young buck, I'm the one that's in charge around here. You're gonna fall in line and do what I say. No, he was actually willing to be a peacemaker, demonstrate humility, and be utterly content with whatever God had him. And it was nothing more than the fruit of his own faith. Faith in God had taught Abram that God was in control and God would make things happen according to plan and according to God's power, not Abram's. Abram actually could just say, you know what, I've, now, here's the good thing, just to let you know, he doesn't learn the lesson perfectly, okay? But let me just tell you the lesson that he learned, and then we'll see a little later, he stumbles again, but here's the lesson he learned. I don't have to, by my own power, manipulate and maneuver in order to get things to go my direction. I actually can be content and leave it in the hands of God. Because trusting God and believe in his promise actually provides contentment and a very open heart to generosity. Let me just say this, if you have like a really tight, stingy heart, then you've not been liberated by believing the promises of God, right? So child of God, walk by faith, not by sight. There is one who actually humbled himself for our peace, and that was our Lord Jesus Christ. He humbled himself to the point of death, even the death of the cross, and he is now our peace. And so I urge you today, be content in Him. Trust Him. Live by faith in Him. Don't trust your own eyes. Walk by faith, not by sight. Let's pray. Father, once again, we're grateful for Your Word. We're grateful for the very practical lessons of Your Word. And Father, we pray for those that are at this point in the way of Lot. We pray, Father, that you would rescue them before it's too late. We pray that you'd open their eyes before it's too late. Father, we pray that you would help us all to be the children of Abraham, who is the father of those who believe. He's the father of the faithful. And so, Father, we pray today that you would help us to trust you and obey you. In Jesus' name, amen. We hope you've enjoyed this message from Grace Community Church in Minden, Nevada. To receive a copy of this or other messages, call us at area code 775-782-6516 or visit our website gracenevada.com.