St Michael's Fulwell
Living by faith: making choices
The following talk is from St. Michael's Full Well, a Gospel-centered community for full well, Teddington and beyond. Our passion is to see every life following Jesus. For more information, visit our website, St. Michael's Full Well dot code dot uk. We are about to head into our time in the Bible and Ed is going to come and preach in the moment on the next bit from Genesis in the life of Abraham. And Genesis is about to come and read that to us. So let's all turn to Genesis, the first book of the Bible. We are in Genesis 13, picking it up in verse 5. Now Lot who was moving about with Abram also had flocks and herds and tents, but the land could not support them while they stayed there, for their possessions were so great that they were not able to stay together. And quarreling arose between Abram's herdsmen and lots. The Canaanites and parasites were also living in the land at that time. So Abram said to Lot, let's not have any quarreling between you and me or between your herdsmen and mine, for we are close relatives, is not the whole land before you. Let's part company. If you go to the left, I'll go to the right. If you go to the right, I'll go to the left. Lot looked around and saw that the whole plain of the Jordan towards Zor was well watered like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt. This was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. So Lot chose for himself the whole plain of the Jordan and set out towards the east. The two men parted company. Abram lived in the land of Canaan while Lot lived amongst the cities of the plain and pitched his tents near Sodom. Now the people of Sodom were wicked and were sinning greatly against the Lord. The Lord said to Abram, after Lot had parted from him, look around from where you are to the north and south, to the east and west, all the land that you see I will give you and your offspring forever. I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth so that if anyone could count the dust, then your offspring could be counted. Go walk through the length and breadth of the land for I am giving it to you. So Abram went to live near the great trees of Marmar at Hebron where he pitched his tents. There he built an altar to the Lord. Chapter 14 verse 11. The four kings seized all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah and all their food, then they went away. They also carried off Abram's nephew Lot and his possessions since he was living in Sodom. A man who had escaped came and reported this to Abram the Hebrew. Now Abram was living near the great trees of Marmar the Amorat, a brother of Eshkol and Arna, all of whom were allied with Abram. When Abram heard this, heard that his relative had been taken captive, he called the 318 trained men born in his household and went in pursuit as far as Dan. During the night Abram divided his men to attack them and he rooted them pursuing them as far as Hobar, north of Damascus. He recovered all the goods and brought back his relative Lot and his possessions together with the woman and other people. After Abram returned from defeating Kedalama, all the kings allied with him, the king of Sodom came out to meet him in the valley of Shavar, that is the king's valley. Then, Makizadek, king of Solomon, brought out bread and wine. He was priest of Godmost High and he blessed Abram, saying, "Blessed be Abram by Godmost High, creator of heaven and earth, and praise be to Godmost High who deliver your enemies into your hand." The king of Sodom said to Abram, "Give me the people and keep the goods for yourself." But Abram said to the king of Sodom, "With raised hand I have sworn oath to the Lord Godmost High, creator of heaven and earth, that I will accept nothing belonging to you, not even a thred or the strap of a sandal, so that you will never be able to say I made Abram rich. I will accept nothing but what my men have eaten and the share that belongs to the men who went with me, to honor Eshkol and mamra. Let them have their share." God, let me lead us in prayer. Let's pray together. Father, thank You that You speak to us even through these stories of long, long ago. Lord, please help us to see how they speak of You, of Your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and would You grow us in our trust in Him? In His name You pray. Oh, man. Now life is full of choices. According to Google, we make 35,000 choices every day. I don't know if you've realised that. Most days we're completely unaware of, I guess, but they do shape our lives. The decisions we make in our lives, small ones, big ones, they shape the people that we are. And of course, summer, particularly significance. And we're thinking a little bit about choices this evening and what lies behind the decisions that we make, the choices that we make. And Christians are called to live by faith and not by sight. We're called to live by faith and not by sight. What does that mean? What does that mean for us in our decision-making, for our decision-making to be driven by faith and not by sight? What does it look like? One of the wonderful things about the story of Abraham, Abraham as he's called at this point, is that he gives us a wonderful example of what it looks like to live by faith. And he is described in the New Testament as the man of faith, in Galatians chapter three. As well as saying, he wasn't always a good example. So if you were with us last week, you'll be very aware of how Abraham completely blew up. He got it totally wrong. And one of the things we'll be seeing as we look at the life of Abraham is the ups and downs in his journey of faith. But this week, he is a great example of faith, of living by faith and not by sight. And we get a sense of that actually in this passage, by the way in which the beginning and end of chapter 13 is sort of bookended with the fact that Abraham built an altar to the Lord. You see that in verse four, he built an altar to the Lord, then he called on the name of the Lord where he had built the first altar. And you see it again a little bit later on in verse 18, there he built an altar to the Lord. And the sense is that Abraham is in a good place with the Lord. He's a good example for us. The contrast in this passage is with Lot, his nephew. Lot is not a good example. Lot, we will see, made his choices by sight. Whereas Abraham made his choices by faith. And interestingly, it's set them on very different courses as we'll see play out. Now, there is a problem at the beginning of this chapter. And the problem is a lack of resources, a very sort of 21st century problem. There is just not enough resources to go around. God has blessed Abraham and Lot. They both have enormous wealth. They've got loads of tents and herds and flocks, lots of people as part of their entourage. And they're also worth noting, as we're told, Canaanites and parasites living in the land, verse seven. And basically, the land can't sustain them all. All their flocks and herds, that there's not enough to sustain them. And it's led to growing tension. And in verse seven, we see that their herdsmen, Abrams, herdsmen and Lot's herdsmen, are beginning to quarrel with one another. And it's at this point that Abraham steps in. And he steps in with a very practical, very generous solution. I have a look at verse eight with me. This is what Abraham does. So Abraham said a lot, let's not have any quarreling between you and me or between your herdsmen and mine, for we have close relatives. It's not the whole land before you. Let's park company. If you go to the left, I'll go to the right. If you go to the right, I'll go to the left. In other words, Abraham goes up to Lot and says, "Here's the land. You have what you want. You take what you want." Now, how does Lot respond to that? And the first heading you'll see on the handout is Lot's choice. His choice is. What does he do? How does he respond to this incredibly generous offer of Abraham? Well, he says, "Great. Thanks very much. I will. Thank you." So verse 10, have a look at verse 10. Lot looked around and saw that the whole plane of the Jordan towards Zol was well watered, like the Garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt. This was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. So Lot chose for himself the whole plane of the Jordan and set out towards the east the two men parted company. Abraham lived in the land of Canaan, while Lot lived among the cities of the plain and pitched his tents near Sodom. It's striking. Here's Lot. Do you notice there? He looked around verse 10. It was really significant. He said, "He's looking what's before him to help him make this decision." And what does he see what he sees of really well watered plane, like the Garden of the Lord, like Eden? It's like Egypt, the Nile Delta, full of water, lush. It looks fantastic. And what does he do? He thinks, "I love that. Thank you very much." That looks great. And we might think, "Well, fair enough." He was offered to take what he wanted to take, and he took it. We think, "Well, fair enough." But I want us to see that actually it wasn't really fair enough. Lot, because it wasn't wrong for him to go after something that was good, that's certainly not inherently a problem for Lot to take something that was really good. It was not wrong, and it's not wrong to enjoy the good things that God gives us. The problem is that he puts other things behind that. He decides that the land that he's going to take is more important than some other things that should have been more significant to him. That's where Lot goes wrong. I just want to show you two ways in which Lot put things ahead, well, put the land ahead of two things. The first was his family. He put this land, this choice of land, ahead of his family. And we need to understand a little bit about the culture here, and what's going on? Abraham is Lot's uncle. He was the senior guy. And what he should have said to Abraham with this generous offer, what would have been polite to have said would have been this, that's so kind of you, Abraham, but no, you must choose first. You're my senior here. You choose after you. In what level? That's just sort of good manners, isn't it? Imagine the scene. A friend of yours goes off, you're so hungry, they go off and get a couple of slices of pizza, and they bring them back to you. One for you and one for them. And they offer you the two slices of pizza. And then what you do is you look at these pieces of pizza and you think, okay, which one's bigger? Which one's got more toppings on it? Which one looks much better? Fantastic, I'll have that. Thank you very much. That's probably not the politest thing to do, isn't it? Good manners, what would good manners do in that case? Good manners to probably see which size they are and say, oh, I'll have the smaller one. That would be a generous thing to do, or translate pizza for cake or whatever you sort of like. And in the sense that's going on here, but there's even more to it than that, because Abraham, he is his uncle, he is the more senior one, and actually in the story, he's the source of blessing. The reason why Lot has so much blessing is because of the promises God has made to Abraham, and he is the source of blessing. So Lot should have deferred to him, and he didn't. He put the land ahead of his family. Second, he put the land ahead of his purity as well. Let me explain that a little bit. It is striking that the narrator is really keen for us to see that there's a real problem in what Lot has chosen here. Do you notice in those few verses from verse 10, which speak of Lot's decision, he speaks of Sodom three times, and just the word Sodom in scripture is kind of another word for sort of wickedness. It comes associated with wickedness. Sodom is not a good place. And again, again, Sodom's mentioned, verse 10, the narrator just mentions, by the way, this is before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, just flagging that things are about to go seriously wrong in that place, and you can read on to chapter 19 to see that. Verse 13, it's really clear here, the narrator says this, "Now the people of Sodom were wicked and were sinning greatly against the Lord." And so to live near a place like that was a pretty unwise thing to do. I heard someone sort of describe it as a bit like sort of moving in with a drug dealer, and just to sort of say, not necessarily anything inherently wrong with it, but you're just putting yourself into a situation where you could be very easily led astray. And in fact, it's quite interesting. If you read through the story, there's quite a progression in Lot's relationship with Sodom. So in chapter 13, verse 12, we see how he's pitched his tense near Sodom. And then in chapter 14, a little bit later on, we discover that he's living in Sodom. And then by chapter 19, if you carry on reading a story, it seems like he's become a citizen of Sodom, the beginning of chapter 19. So what Lot has done, by choosing the land, by choosing what looked great, by choosing wealth, he put that ahead of his family, he put that ahead of his purity. And it led him in a bad direction. It actually led him to suffering great loss. In chapter 14, verse 12, we see that he's caught up in a big war and he's taken off to captivity. Now, what exactly was going on in Lot's heart? We don't really know. Maybe there was greed going on, perhaps ambition, perhaps he's just wanting to do better than his uncle. We don't really know, but it does seem he is someone living by sight. He made the decision of what he could see and he made foolish decisions with it. And it's very sobering for us this. Lot, if you look in the New Testament, 2 Peter, chapter 2, verse 7, seems to be suggesting Lot was a believer. And yet he made some really foolish decisions with his life. And that is sobering for us. We're following the Lord Jesus Christ. It's still possible to make some really bad decisions, to live by sight, to live by what seems tangible and attractive. And for us to put those things ahead of how the Lord is calling us to live, to honor him, to do what is right, to love people as we're called to love it. It's so easy to do that. It's easy to do that. And the pursuit of wealth is easy to do that, the pursuit of ambition. Maybe it's that we're after the praise of this world and we put that ahead of living for the Lord. Maybe it's short-term pleasure. Maybe it's just wanting the easy life in the short-term and not making the difficult decisions that the Lord calls us to make, following the easy path, even though it's not quite right. And we can do that in so many different areas of life, perhaps dating a non-Christian, perhaps taking on a job which will make it impossible for us to honor our family, perhaps leading a lifestyle or pursuing a lifestyle that will make it very easy for us to be compromised. And we can easily make choices living by sight, not by faith. And that only leads ultimately to loss. So that's a lot. Here's the negative example. Contrast to Abraham. Contrast to Abraham here. And we see Abraham's choices which are really quite impressive. His first choice he makes there is in verse 8 and 9, his offer, as we thought about earlier, his open-handed, generous, actually very practical and wise offer to Lot. It was sacrificial. He was willing to give up power, to give up what rights he had for the sake of dealing with a potential problem. That's always impressive, isn't it? It's even a very small thing to the other one. Someone's willing to give up what is there right. That's always very impressive. Even if someone lets you in on the road, they could carry on driving down the road, but they let you in. They give way. That's always a nice thing, isn't it? Or just imagine walking along a pavement and you can see someone coming the other way and there's only room for one of you to go. It's just such a good thing, isn't it? To step back, to give up your right to proceed and let the other person through. Or if you imagine you turn up at the office and you could take the bet you're there at the beginning of the day, before anyone else, you could take the best desk. But you choose not to. You take another desk, so someone else can enjoy that good desk. Not grasping, not being out for self, willing to give away. It's a really beautiful thing, isn't it? It's an attractive thing and that's what Abraham is doing here. Oh, that's the first great choice he makes. Giving ways it were, being generous, open-handed to a lot there in verses 8 and 9. Another great example of him living by faith is actually in chapter 14 and we see it in verse 14. Just to give us a little bit of context, let me just tell you what happens in the first part of verse 14. We didn't read it through, not least because there are a lot of names in there which aren't easy to go with. But let me just explain. This is giving us a big international picture of war between various groups in and around the nearest Middle East. So verses 1 to 10 describes battles between four Babylonian kings, people lined up together and five kings from the Dead Sea area. So four kings from Babylonia, five kings from the Dead Sea area and the latter, the five kings, they have stop-paying tribute to the Babylonian kings and they rebelled against them. They said they had enough, but the rebellion is quickly crushed by the four kings and caught up in all these international affairs. Verse 12, as the four kings, defeated the five kings, they also carried off Abraham's nephew Lot and his possessions since he was living in Sodom. So Lot is called up and it all. News travels to Abraham and then what does he do? His response is really remarkable. It's a remarkable Harry response. Just have a look at this. Verse 14, "When Abraham heard that his relative had been taken captive, he called out the 318 trained men, born in his household and went in pursuit as far as Dan. During the night Abraham divided his men to attack them and he routed them, pursuing them as far as Hobart, north of Damascus. He recovered all the goods and brought back his relative Lot and his possessions, together with the women and the other people." I'm quite remarkable what he had done here. Just sort of honourable thing to do. His nephew's been taken captive. He could have just sort of said, "Well, I'm not risking my life for that one. He got the best land anyway. I ended up with the scraps." He didn't do that. He did the honourable thing. He's courageous. He's bold. He only has 318 men taking on these great might of these kings of Babylon. He's astute, attacking at night, dividing his forces and God gives him success. He recovers everything. No one left behind. So it's pretty clear in this passage. Abraham, he's making good choices. Why? Why is he making good choices? What lies behind it? Why is Abraham living differently from Lot? And I think the key point is this. He is trusting God's promises. He is trusting God's promises. Abraham's choices, his generosity, his courage, his boldness were founded upon the fact. He knew and trusted God's promises to him. I do remember his promises. We looked at these a couple of weeks ago that God promised that through Abraham he would bring about, he would give a people who would live in a place and enjoy blessing, people place and blessing. And those promises are actually repeated in large part in chapter 13 from verse 14 where Abraham is shown the land and he's invited to sort of walk around this. He's promised offspring, he's promised a people. And there are so many reasons why Abraham could have rejected those promises. The land wasn't really doing them much good at the moment. It wasn't providing enough resources for all his wealth and Lot's wealth. And so he could have thought, well, this land's not much good. His wife was barren. They didn't seem to be much prospect of having children. And yes, he trusted God's promises. He trusted that all would be well. He trusted that God would be faithful. And therefore he could do the right thing. He didn't need to grasp. He didn't need to sort of take things into his own hands. Rather, he was free to do the right thing. Lot's decisions ironically led him into captivity. Abraham's decisions led him to freedom. And think of it like this. Think of a person who knows that they are going to receive a massive inheritance in life. They know that one day they will receive a massive inheritance. And as much wealth as they could ever need, it was going to come one day. They won't have it yet, but they knew it was going to come. What would that do for you? If you knew that was going to happen for you, it would free you in so many ways, free to be generous. And I think that's what's going on here with Abraham. He knows he has an amazing inheritance to come. And there was a deep security and a deep confidence in that. And so for now he was freed to do the right thing, to be generous. And of course, the promises made to Abraham are promises actually for all of God's people. They're promises for you and I if we're following the Lord Jesus Christ. We too are promised to be part of a great people, to be children of the living God, that God is our Father. We are promised a place, the new creation, where there will be no crying, death or pain, where we will know life in all its fullness. There we are promised that we will experience. We will experience blessing beyond measure. He will be our God. We will be His people. And of course, we can know many of these blessings for now. We can know the blessing of forgiveness, of God's spirit living with us. We can know the blessing of having purpose and meaning. And knowing this inheritance, knowing this inheritance that we have, that is sure and certain, it releases us to live for God. It frees us to live for God now. And yeah, that's so hard, isn't it? It's so hard to trust those promises. It's so much easier, so often, to live by sight and not by faith when God tells us how to live in a certain way. Sometimes we can find that really difficult in the culture that tells us to live differently. We can find it really difficult to pray. Even though we know that prayer is such a good thing to do, but it takes living by faith to pray and not by sight often. But the encouragement of this passage is to say, look, follow Abraham. Trust in his trusting God's promises, live by faith, not by sight. As a fascinating incident, we haven't got time to look into it now of Melchizedek, a king of Salem, who comes out, the king of Salem contrasted to the king of Sodom. And what we see is a wonderful example of Abraham coming before the king of Salem, who's the righteous king, the one who gives God honor for the victory that Abraham had. And he comes before him and he gives him a tenth of what he has. Contrast that to the king of Sodom, who represents the world and is offering a deal to Abraham, and he rejects that. And that was a wonderful example of Abraham living by faith. Giving is all going all in with the one who honors God. And the king of Salem, Melchizedek, is a sort of foretaste, three figures, Jesus Christ, so much we can tell about that afterwards. We haven't got time, unfortunately, to go into that now. But a wonderful picture of coming for Christ and giving him our best and putting out all in with him and not the world. Well, we need to wrap up. Maybe the bands will like to come up and we're going to close with a song. But let's just take a moment. Let's take a moment. There's a question you might like to think about over coffee. Where do you feel most tempted to live by sight rather than by faith? Maybe chat about that over tea and coffee. But why don't we stand and let me leave this in prayer, and then we will express our trust in God with our final song. Father, we thank you here for this example of Abraham, of how he lived by faith and how it changed the decisions that he made. Lord, help us to follow his example to give our all to you trusting in your promises of an inheritance that can never fail, fade, spoil, or perish. Pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. [Music]