-Grew up loving jokes, discovered you could find whole books full of them! I know I drove my parents nuts with them, but I even took it a step further and compiled all my favorite jokes into a book that I printed and gave to my parents (I was homeschooled, we had to come up with our own kind of fun)

-What’s frustrating is my mom stole one of my jokes, and now tells it as her 1 joke that she knows: who’s bigger, Mr. Bigger or Mr. Bigger’s baby? Mr. Bigger’s baby is a LITTLE Bigger. (next time she comes make sure you laugh if she tells you that joke)

-But another one was: what’s worse than finding a worm in your apple? Finding half a worm in your apple. And that joke has a bite to it, because I’m sure many of you have had an experience like that at some point in your life: bite into a delicious apple only to find out it’s rotten, take a big swig of milk before you realize it’s curdled on you. Or maybe you’ve gotten into that Netflix show “Is It Cake?” where the contestants compete to trick judges with their cakes that look like their real-life counterparts, yes one of those objects is a cake.

-How many times do things that appear wonderful at first glance just prove to be a veneer hiding something rotten underneath? I remember growing up idolizing Michael Jordan (in addition to being homeschooled I grew up in the 90s and my name is Michael, come on!) I wanted Air Jordan shoes, I had his jersey, watched as many games as my parents would let me stay up for. Turns out the guys a royal jerk! Trash talking, belittling teammates, gambling problem. I wouldn’t want his life for all his money! Sounds absolutely miserable! I’m sure you have someone like that: celebrity, influencer, hero, maybe even someone sitting next to you who seems like they have their life together (spoiler alert: they don’t!)

-You’ve probably heard the old phrase: grass is always greener on the other side, but that’s only true from the outside looking in! And you’ve probably heard the other old phrase that should go along with it: appearances can be deceiving.

-Friends, one of the realities about us is we need to meet together every week to be reminded what’s really real, what’s truly true. The world looks enticing, the world appears wonderful, but it’s fake! The church is here to remind us to look at the world from a heavenly perspective, and that changes the way we can engage the world. Today’s text reveals that truth to us in Abram’s life as we look at the difference between looking at the world through eyes of faith, or eyes tainted by sin.

READ/PRAY

-Summary of last week: Abram’s been promised land, seed, and blessing from God, but he’s not completely trusting in that plan. Barren wife, barren land, flees to Egypt where he throws his wife to the whims of a Pharoah (all while not calling on the name of the Lord or building altars), so then we’re up to this week’s text where we’ll continue to see the development of Abram’s faith:

1. Return to the Promised Land (13:1-18)

-Return back to the same place he left from (southern Canaan)

-Reminder that Abram had become very wealthy (remember how?), but his wealth didn’t extend to children, just livestock, silver, and gold. 

-Egypt was a parenthesis, he’s now back where he’s supposed to be, the land promised to be his from God, and he’s back to calling on the name of the Lord again. Do you think he learned his lesson? (Not completely, as we’ll see later!)

-Lot, Abram’s nephew, has also been traveling with Abram, and has his own wealth that he needs to take care of. But they reach the age-old place of “this town ain’t big enough for the two of us.”

-2 things I think we should take away from this as careful readers of the text: first is the land once again appears to be barren, at least in provision for what Abram thinks it should be. Remember that God has promised to give this land to Abram and his descendants, but now they’ve reached a place where the land isn’t able to support 2 groups of people. Abram has become the leader of a multitude of people already (we’ll see that again in a few verses) but Lot is a tag-along at this point. God hasn’t promised Lot anything! It’s ONLY through Lot’s proximity to Abram that he’ll be blessed.

-Second is the question (again) of whether or not they have enough faith in God’s provision. The land was barren once before, and Abram fled to Egypt and gave up his wife to protect himself. Now, God had provided for Abram despite his disobedience, but will that continue? 

-Starts to affect their families: herdsmen begin to fight. And it’s not just an empty land their dealing with, there’s also others living there that they’ll also need to deal with! 

-Abram determines to deal with the problem: we have the whole country ahead of us, there’s no reason to continue fighting and staying here, so Abram gives the choice to Lot

-As the older, he had every right to tell Lot to beat it! But he doesn’t. Are we starting to see Abram’s faith growing as he’s starting to trust that whatever choice Lot makes, God will continue providing for him? I think so! And I think the text demonstrates that as we continue

-Lot looks out to the East and sees where the grass is greener and decides to pursue it. Can you think of any other places in Genesis where something appears beautiful at first glance?

-When the world fell apart in Gen. 3, look at the way the tree is described. Yes, it may look appealing at first glance, but the consequences are horrible! 

-But not only is the grass greener on that side, Moses describes it very intentionally: ‘like the Lord’s garden” recalling the very beginning of this book, but notice the parenthetical note, because for the first readers this would have made no sense. The destruction of these cities is coming rendering this area useless. How could it be described like the Lord’s garden? Because it hasn’t been destroyed yet!

-Now, just as I said at the beginning, appearances can be deceiving, look at vs. 13. We can assume Lot would have known at least something about Sodom, they’d been in this area before, but Lot doesn’t care, he just wants the choicest land for himself. 

-Journeyed eastward (vs. 11): East has been a theme throughout Genesis, and it’s never been positive. 3:24, 4:16, 11:2 – always negative, not moving towards the way God wants the people to go

-Lot is moving towards the sinners, we know where this story will end: the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and notice the trajectory of Lot as we continue through this story: he begins “near” Sodom, keep that in your mind because his proximity to Sodom will come up again

-One of the pieces to keep in mind throughout this whole thing is that we’ve seen that God will bless whoever blesses Abram, so why wouldn’t you figure out a way to be near him? It reminds me of what my parents used to ask me when I was growing up: who are you spending time with, what kind of people are you in proximity to? Because it will affect the way you live.

-Lot chooses what appears to be the choicest spot, looks fantastic, but unfortunately it’s the land of evil. After Lot leaves, the Lord tells Abram that nothing will be left out of his possession. This land will be his in every direction. And now the promise is expanding: offspring more numerous than dust.

-Have you ever tried counting dust? I can’t even try counting the dog hair that ends in our house! No matter how much we vacuum there sems to be more dog hair than we can track! And here God is telling Abram to try counting the dust of the entire earth!

-This section ends reminding us that Abram is once again following in the steps of the Lord.

• The Chase (14:1-16)

-Every single one of our choices has consequences, sometime the consequences are positive and sometimes they’re negative. The story shifts here to a story about a group of kings that sound like they’re coming out of LOTR.

-Many scholars believe this was a well-known story that Moses was borrowing from when he recounted this story in the Bible, because if you look at vs. 13 it describes Abram as a Hebrew, but the Hebrew people didn’t exist yet!

-Not much is known about these kings, not a lot of other content outside of this text written about them so we have to make some speculations about them (some from other texts in the Bible)

-The focus is what would take place frequently in the ANE: kings would conquer other kings and subject them to their service. Then there would be rebellions and infighting, territories won and territories lost. And all this background is to lead us to a battle that includes the king of Sodom (where Lot had pitched his tent). Some notes about these kings:

-Shinar- plain where Babylon is, last time we heard of Shinar was with Nimrod, mighty hunter, warrior

-Arioch – name that most likely means tall

-Chedorlaomer – leader of this group, king of kings

-Tidal is described as “of Goiim” – Hebrew word that means nations, which means he most likely runs an entire empire

-All these kings defeated the Rephaim (vs. 5), this means nothing to us, but the Rephaim turn up in 2 other places in the Bible: Deut 2:20, Deut. 3:11. These dudes are HUGE!

-All this to say that this is a formidable force that Abram is deciding to attack. Giants, multitude of them.

-And what does it say about Lot? (vs. 12) He went from living NEAR to living IN Sodom. The world tends to corrupt! I wonder if the Psalmist was reflecting on this idea when he penned Psalm 1 (which I preached on in 2021) but notice the progression of the wicked: walk, stand, sit. You progressively become more comfortable in the company of the wicked, they start to wear you down, so you end up planting yourself among them, which it seems Lot is doing. He moves near, then moves in, and in a couple chapters will continue living among them and understand their entire custom.

-But that doesn’t change Abram’s approach. He’s committed to Lot’s welfare, so he assembles his mighty men – if there’s 318 fighting men, Abram has assembled a significant force of people most likely numbering in the thousands. But think of where else in Scripture we’ve seen people facing these exact same odds:

–1 Sam. 30 – David has the city of Ziklag attacked, 400 men pursue and defeat their enemies. 400 isn’t much more than 318.

-What about Gideon? Started with 32,000 men, but the Lord kept whittling them down, and he ended with 300 men, and he also ambushed his enemies by night

-Moses sees the theme here of a conquering hero who puts himself at risk to “take captivity captive’ (Eph. 4:8)

-This is pointing forward to Jesus, where Jesus describes his ministry as binding the strong man, to bring back His bride, the church. And this whole picture is beginning here back in the early chapter of Genesis.

-Abram’s Aragorn moment – defeats this unstoppable force, just like Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli at the end of FOTR

–Psalm 110:5 – this Psalm as a reflection of Gen. 14, destruction of kings and meditation on Melchizedek. This descendent will shatter kings and crush leaders (roash head SINGULAR, the seed of the serpent) picking up Abram’s defeat over kings, and then focusing on Melchizedek (we’ll get there)

-But what’s fascinating about this is the response of all these leaders of the 300ish people: Abram uses the wealth to worship God, David uses the wealth for the building of the temple, Jesus uses the wealth to build the church, Gideon uses it to build an idol.

-Friends, what do you do with the gifts of the Lord? God’s gifts are meant to be things that point us to Him, that we can use to worship and glorify Him, or they can become idols that distract us from Him and turn into tokens that we use to worship ourselves instead. What do you do with God’s provision in your life?

• The Reward (14:17-24)

-Abram is blessed, but 2 kings are contrasted here (city of God, or city of man?) Is he going to follow the king of Sodom or the king of Salem (peace)

-Bread and wine (communion?), tithes are taken, almost reads like a church service!

-Abram is recipient of the blessing of God, but there are other God worshippers who are also blessing Abram, which is exactly what God had predicted earlier.

-These two elements that Mel brings out have previously been connected to the curse. 

-Bread (Gen. 3:19 eat the bread because of the curse) 

-Noah gets drunk wine (Gen. 9:21), now it’s reinterpreted as a blessing, 

-Then there’s the Passover meal where the God’s people take bread and wine together

-Finally, Jesus reinterprets it in light of his death, burial, and resurrection, AND His future coming. Friends, when we celebrate communion, we’re not just doing a meaningless celebration, we’re connecting it all the way back to Melchizedek who uses theses implications of the curse as a blessing for the people who worship the one true God. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Jesus uses bread and wine, the implications of the fall, as his marker of celebration for those who are His people in the new covenant. The strong man has been bound, the captives have been taken captive, and He’s declaring to Satan that He is in charge.

-Then the king of Sodom (in contrast to Mel) offers earthly riches to Abram, but Abram denies him. He’ll have no part in earthly pursuits, his aim is to follow after the 1 true God, and he’s starting to trust that God will provide for him.

-As we conclude, the big question from this text is how are viewing the world? Lot shows us the depravity of looking at the world through human lenses, and Abram shows us the blessing that comes from looking at the world through a Godly lens. One leads to life, and one leads to death.

-Friends: stop comparing yourself to those around you, or even sitting next to you, God has different plans for them. Stop comparing yourself to your neighbors, your job is to be a representative of the one true God to them. Stop trying to achieve things the world wants, and instead work to build the things that will lead to an eternal reward. That’s what Abram eventually builds towards that’s what Lot should have built for, and it’s what we have the opportunity to build for today.