“ 1 So Abram went up from Egypt to the Negev, with his wife and everything he had, and Lot went with him. 2 Abram had become very wealthy in livestock and in silver and gold. 3 From the Negev he went from place to place until he came to Bethel, to the place between Bethel and Ai where his tent had been earlier 4 and where he had first built an altar. There Abram called on the name of the LORD.
5 Now Lot, who was moving about with Abram, also had flocks and herds and tents. 6 But the land could not support them while they stayed together, for their possessions were so great that they were not able to stay together. 7 And quarreling arose between Abram’s herdsmen and the herdsmen of Lot. The Canaanites and Perizzites were also living in the land at that time.
8 So Abram said to Lot, “Let’s not have any quarreling between you and me, or between your herdsmen and mine, for we are brothers. 9 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.”
10 Lot looked up and saw that the whole plain of the Jordan was well watered, like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, toward Zoar. (This was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.) 11 So Lot chose for himself the whole plain of the Jordan and set out toward the east. The two men parted company: 12 Abram lived in the land of Canaan, while Lot lived among the cities of the plain and pitched his tents near Sodom. 13 Now the men of Sodom were wicked and were sinning greatly against the Lord.
14 The Lord said to Abram after Lot had parted from him, “Lift up your eyes from where you are and look north and south, east and west. 15 All the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring a forever. 16 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. 17 Go, walk through the length and breadth of the land, for I am giving it to you.” 18 So Abram moved his tents and went to live near the great trees of Mamre at Hebron, where he built an altar to the Lord. ”
You need to start with what’s certain and work from there. That’s how you budget. You start with what’s certain—what you know about your income and expenses like mortgage and food; you include your tithe and your savings. You start with what is certain and you work from there.
That’s how you set a calendar. You start with what’s certain. One of the reason that planning has been so hard for so many people these past few months is that there is so little that is certain to plan around. You start with what’s certain and work from there.
That’s how faith works. You start with what’s certain and work from there. You start with God’s promises.
When Abram left Ur for Canaan, he started with God’s promises. He knew that God had promised that if he left Ur, he would be blessed, have descendants, and receive the Promised Land. He knew that because God promised that.
Now as we saw last week when Abram left the Promised Land for Egypt, he didn’t start with what was certain; he didn’t start with the promises. He ignored God’s promises and started with the “what ifs.” “What if God can’t or won’t take care of me? What if the Egyptians kill me?” He ignored what was certain and started with the uncertainties. That never goes well.
This week, Abram goes back to the promises. The author of Genesis put stories of remembering the promises and forgetting the promises and remembering the promises back to back so you could see the difference. Abram’s example teaches you that it is always better to start with the promises. You start with what’s certain and work from there.
Starting with what’s certain gives you clarity. It gives you clarity in making a budget. It gives you clarity in making a calendar. It gives you clarity in faith. Faith finds clarity in the promises of God. That’s the claim of this sermon: faith finds clarity in the promises of God.
We see this in three points. First: Abram rededicates himself to God and the promises. Second: in the midst of a mess, Abram trusts the promises. Third: God reaffirms the promises. First, in verses 1-4, we see Abram rededicating himself to God and the promises. Second, in verses 5-13, we see Abram trusting the promises in the midst of a mess. Third, in verses 14-18, we see God reaffirming the promises.
First: Abram rededicates himself to the promises. Last week we saw Abram take his eyes off God’s promises. As a result, he left the Promised Land, landed his wife in a harem and dishonored a King. Even though Abram didn’t trust the promises of God, God kept the promises. We see the aftermath beginning in verse 1, “So Abram went up from Egypt to the Negev, with his wife and everything he had, and Lot went with him. Abram had become very wealthy in livestock and in silver and gold.”
God had made Abram rich in Egypt. God had blessed Abram despite Abram. The livestock, silver, and gold had come from Pharaoh. This was mercy in the face of sin. This was grace to Abram. It also raised a question for Abram. How would he respond to this surprising grace of God?
Abram could have abused it. He could have said, “it seems that no matter what I do, I will be blessed. After all God promised it. He will bless those who bless me and curse those who curse me.” Abram could have abused grace. That is a popular choice; ‘I’m under grace, so sin doesn’t matter.’
This wasn’t Abram’s response; verse 3, “From the Negev he went from place to place until he came to Bethel, to the place between Bethel and Ai where his tent had been earlier and where he had first built an altar. There Abram called on the name of the Lord.”
Abram responded to grace by rededicating himself to God. He returned to the place where he had worshipped God and he worshipped again. He sought to recapture that experience.
Think of it in terms of a husband rededicating himself to his marriage. This husband has made some poor decisions as of late and he wants his wife to know that he is serious about putting it right. So he recreates their first date. He then takes her to the place where he proposed and tells her that he would marry her all over again. He is trying to recapture the past. He is rededicating himself. That’s what Abram was doing by returning to this place in the Promised Land where he worshipped before and worshipping again; he was rededicating himself.
Maybe that’s where you are this morning. Maybe you’ve wandered from God. Maybe you haven’t taken His word seriously. Maybe you haven’t taken His will seriously. Maybe you haven’t taken Him seriously. This moment is an opportunity to rededicate yourself to Him. Take it. That’s the only proper response to the grace of God. The man of faith who has truly received grace will rededicate himself to God. That’s what Abram did.
Abram rededicated himself. He didn’t know it, but this rededication was also an act of preparation. His faith was getting stronger for what lay ahead. If you’ve ever seen the Rocky movies, this rededication is Rocky training hard before the fight. Abram was about to face another sticky situation—in some ways similar to what he faced in Egypt but in other ways very different. He would have another chance to show whether or not he trusted the promises of God. God was using this rededication to prepare Abram for this upcoming crisis.
Now Abram didn’t know that he was about to face another crisis. He simply knew that it was right to rededicate himself because God had surprised him with grace. You have no way of knowing what crises you will face and you have no way of knowing how God will use your full dedication today to prepare you for these crises, but if you have any grace about you, you do know that dedicating yourself fully to God is always the right response to the grace of God.
God used Abram’s rededication to prepare him for a crisis. We see that crisis in our second point: in the midst of a mess, Abram trusts the promises. If you have any grace about you, you want to show that your dedication to God is real. You especially want to show that after you’ve fallen flat on your face the way Abram did last week. Fortunately, life will give you plenty of opportunities to show that your dedication to God is real.
Last’s week’s opportunity came in the form of a famine. Abram botched that one. This week’s opportunity comes in the form of wealth. The same Hebrew intensifier used to describe the famine in chapter 12:10 is used to Abram’s wealth here in verse 2. Last week, we saw the famine was severe. That same word translated as “severe” is used in verse 2 to say that Abram had become very wealthy.
The author used the same word to show that both famine and wealth can bring trouble that call for faith. Life will be troubled and bring trouble until the new creation. Are you unmarried? That brings troubles. Are you married? That brings troubles. Are you unemployed? That brings troubles. Do you have a job? That brings troubles. Are you the lowest man on the totem pole? That brings troubles. Are you the boss? That brings troubles. Troubles can arise because of any of those situations and all those troubles call for faith in the promises of God.
Please don’t imagine that you will ever escape the messes of life in this life. They can arise out of anything. Last week Abram had difficulties because there wasn’t enough. Now he has difficulties because there is too much. Each of these difficulties was an opportunity to trust God. Just as they are in your life.
You see the problems caused by Abram’s wealth 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 together, for their possessions were so great that they were not able to stay together. And quarreling arose between Abram’s herdsmen and the herdsmen of Lot.”
If you’ve farmed with family, you don’t envy Abram’s situation. Family quarrels involving land and money can get nasty. There were doubtlessly any number of disagreements then just as there would be in this situation today. “Abram, Lot’s men are at it again. They need to keep their sheep on their side. There’s only so much pasture to go around.” “Lot, I know Abram’s your uncle, but you’ve got to think about the future. Abram’s thinking too small. You need to step up the operation if we are going to make it in the long run.” Abram and Lot were tied together by money and by blood. “Domestic conundrums of unbelievable complexity are never far from Abram,” as Victor Hamilton put it.
The Bible is quite interested in the sort of problems in which we find ourselves. The problem before Abram came down to who got what land and who got to decide who got what land. If you’ve ever been in a similar situation and I imagine that some of you have, you know that can be a mess. You know there is a real probability of damaging a relationship that you cherish. You know that you need to live with your decision for the rest of your life. These are anxious moments.
Now Abram’s situation is a bit different than those of our family farms because Abram’s difficulty wasn’t only about the pastureland; it was fundamentally about the promises. To this point it has seemed as if Lot was going to be Abram’s heir. It seemed the promise to them would run through Lot. This is why Lot has been mentioned so often to the point. This quarrel with Lot called the promises into question just as last week’s famine called the promises into question. What if the heir rejected the father? What if the heir rejected the promises?
Now if Abram were in the same frame of heart as last week, he would have figured out some sort of plan—we love to plan—and it would have gotten even messier. Abram wasn’t in the same frame of heart as last week. He was ready to trust the promises of God and that’s just what he did. He was ready to start with what was certain and even if Lot wanted nothing to do with the promises, Abram trusted that God would still keep the promises. Even if Lot wasn’t going to be Abram’s heir, God would keep the promises. That’s what’s going on in verse 8, ‘So Abram said to Lot, “Let’s not have any quarreling between you and me, or between your herdsmen and mine, for we are brothers. 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 could choose to be part of the promises or Lot could choose his own way. If God wanted to make Abram a great nation through Lot, God would make Abram a great nation through Lot. If God wanted to do it a different way, he would do it a different way. What matters is that Abram wasn’t scheming to make the promises happen the way he thought they would. He was trusting God. He was treating the promises as if they were certain and working from there.
You need to do the same. You need to start with the promises of God and work from there. Tonight we will see the Christian is promised that nothing in all creation can separate her from the love of God. She needs to start with that and work from there. She needs to interpret her messy marriage in light of that rather than asking whether or not God loves her in light of her messy marriage. To have faith like father Abraham, you need to start with the promises like father Abraham did. You need to start with what’s certain and work from there and what’s certain is the promises.
It doesn’t seem as if Lot was thinking in terms of the promises. He chose the area around Sodom and Gomorrah. He chose an area outside of the Promised Land. Verse 10, “Lot looked up and saw that the whole plain of the Jordan was well watered, like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, toward Zoar. (This was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.) So Lot chose for himself the whole plain of the Jordan and set out toward the east.”
This is our first indication that Lot would not be Abram’s heir. Abram left that to God. He left the promise keeping to God. That’s the only sane way to live.
You see the superiority of Abram’s choice when you compare it with Lot’s. Genesis wants you to compare them. If you have your Bible open, look at verse 10 and verse 14. In verse 10, Lot lifts up his eyes and sees. In verse 14, Abram lifts up his eyes and sees. Look at verse 9 and verses 15-17. In verse 9, Lot is offered land. In verses 15-17, Abram is offered land. Look at verse 11 and verse 18. In verse 11, Lot travels across his land. In verse 18, Abram travels across his land. To the outside observer, the two men were behaving the same way. The eye of faith can see that as attractive as Lot’s choice was, it led to disaster. The eye of faith can see that Abram’s choice led to blessing because and only because of the promises of God and nothing in the land that Lot couldn’t see and Abram could. Everything hinges of the promises of God.
That is the simple faith of Abram. It’s not simple because it’s easy. It’s not simple because it’s naïve. It’s simple because it brings clarity. Abram put the promises first and worked from there and so the way forward was clear. That’s what we all long for in life. We want the way forward to be clear. That’s what the Bible means when it says, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.” This is the faith of the old song, ‘Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus, and to take him at his word; just to rest upon his promise, and to know, “Thus saith the Lord.” Jesus, Jesus, how I trust him! How I’ve proved him o’er and o’er! Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus! O for grace to trust him more!’
Start with the word of God. Work from there. Start with “Thus saith the Lord.” Now perhaps you never start with the word of God. Perhaps interpreting your life by the light of the word of God sounds alien to you. If that’s the case, I want you to consider the possibility that you are not alive to God. Jesus was clear, “man does not live by bread alone but every word that comes from the mouth of God.” If you’ve never lived by the word the way that you live by food, you aren’t alive to God.
You can be. In other words, you can have faith like Abram. He was offered promises and he lived by them. You are offered promises in Jesus. Trust them. You are offered the promises of life. We see God’s response to this sort of faith in our third point: God reaffirms the promises.
Abram received God’s grace in the face of sin in Egypt, and he responded with faith. God saw this faith and He responded with grace. Grace and faith are a back and forth affair. Verse 14, ‘The Lord said to Abram after Lot had parted from him, “Lift up your eyes from where you are and look north and south, east and west. All the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring a 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.”’
God reaffirmed the promises to say that Abram had chosen wisely. Scheming is no way to get the promises. Faith is the only way to get the promises.
God promised Abram the land and descendants. Now God had already promised him that in chapter 12. In other words, there was nothing new in what God was saying. That didn’t seem to bother Abram. He didn’t turn to God and say, ‘you already promised that. I trusted. Now I get more.’
Faith doesn’t put that sort of requirement on God. Furthermore, there is nothing that God could add. God had already promised Abram comprehensive blessings. We saw that in the seven-fold blessing in chapter 12. He has already promised the whole world would be blessed through Abram. He had already promised blessings that could only find fulfillment in God Himself taking on flesh. There was nothing that could be added.
God simply reaffirmed the promises and Abram was satisfied with that. You need to consider whether you are satisfied with that. Abram heard the promises that led to Jesus and he was satisfied with that. You need to consider whether hearing about Jesus yet again satisfies you yet again. You need to consider whether encountering Jesus yet again satisfies you yet again.
Born again hearts know that Jesus will keep satisfying. As Robert Murray M’Cheyne put it, “Unfathomable oceans of grace are in Christ for you. Dive and dive again, you will never come to the bottom of these depths. How many millions of dazzling pearls and gems are at this moment hid in the deep recesses of the ocean caves.”
Pity the man for whom Jesus is not enough. Pity the man for whom God is not enough. You can’t want more than Jesus. There is no way to want more than God. You can only want less that God. If you want something other than God, you are wanting less than God. If you spend your whole life wanting less than God, God will give you what is less than Him for all eternity. That isn’t satisfying you now and it won’t satisfy you ever.
Abram wanted what God offered. You see that in verses 17-18, God said, ‘“Go, walk through the length and breadth of the land, for I am giving it to you.” So Abram moved his tents and went to live near the great trees of Mamre at Hebron, where he built an altar to the Lord.’
God invited Abram to walk through the land to remind him that the promises were certain. They didn’t depend on Lot. They didn’t even depend on Abram. They depended upon God.
God invited Abram to walk through the land to remind him that the promises were certain. We will see in future weeks that Abram needed such reminders. He needed them again and again throughout his life. We all do. You do. You need to be reminded that the promises are certain. You need to be reminded that you find clarity in life by putting the promises first.
You need to keep putting the promises before yourself just as God put the promises before Abram in this command to walk the land. I keep urging you to read through the New Testament this year because that is how you keep the promises before you. There is a difference between the people of God who read their Bibles and the people of God who don’t. That difference looks quite similar to what we saw in Abram last week and what we see in Abram this week. You can’t start with the promises if you don’t encounter the promises. You can’t trust the word of God if you aren’t in the word of God. You can’t start with the certainties and work from there if you ignore the certainties. God kept repeating the promises to Abram because Abram needed them repeated. The same goes for you. The same goes for me. You need to hear, “thus saith the Lord” to trust, “thus saith the Lord.”
These promises given to Abram reach their climax in Jesus. He is the way in which the whole world has been blessed through Abram. He is the only reason we are studying Abram this morning at all. In a way all these promises to Abram took the form of a person. This is why Paul could tell the Corinthians, ‘for whatever promises of God there are, they are “yes” and “amen” in Jesus.’ Jesus is the promises in flesh, which is part of saying that he is the word made flesh.
Now if you love Jesus, it is because your heart finds its satisfaction in him. It is because all that you need and long for in him. It’s because all God’s promises are in him. So if you love Jesus, you love the promises, but flip that around. Since you love Jesus, love the promises. They tell you why you love Jesus. You love him because is the way in which the whole world can be blessed as promised to Abram. You love him because he is the way in which you can be blessed rather than cursed as promised to Abram.
Today our nation numbers the reasons that we love our mothers. When you number the reasons that you love Jesus, by and large what you are doing is saying that you love the promises of God. Abram did. He put that first and worked from there. Put Jesus first and work from there. That’s faith. Amen.