Lifting Up Our Eyes
Genesis chapter 13. So Abram went up from Egypt, he and his wife and all that he had, and lot with him into the Negeb. Abraham was very rich in livestock, in silver and in gold, and he journeyed on from the Negeb as far as Bethel, the place where his tent had been at the beginning between Bethel and Ai, to the place where he'd made an altar at the first. oh And there Abram called on the name of the Lord. And Lot who went with Abram also had flocks and herds and tents, so that the land could not support both of them dwelling together, for their possessions were so great they could not dwell together. And there was strife between the herdsmen of Abram's livestock and the herdsmen of Lot's livestock. At that time the Canaanites and the Perizzites were dwelling in the land. Then Abram said to Lot, let there be no strife between you and me, between your herdsmen and my herdsmen, for we are kinsmen. Is not the whole land before you? Separate yourself from me. If you take the left hand, then I will go to the right. If you take the right hand, then I will go to the left. Lot lifted up his eyes and saw that the Jordan Valley was well watered everywhere like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, in the direction of Zahar. This was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. So Lot chose for himself all the Jordan Valley, and Lot journeyed east. Thus they separated from each other. Abram settled in the land of Canaan, while Lot settled among the cities of the valley and moved his tent as far as Sodom. Now the men of Sodom were wicked, great sinners against the Lord. The Lord said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him, lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are, Northwood. and Southwood and Eastwood and Westwood. For all the land that you see, I will give you and to your offspring forever. I'll make your offspring as the dust of the earth. So that if one can count the dust of the earth, your offspring also can be counted. Arise, walk through the length and the breadth of the land. for I will give it to you.' So Abram moved his tent and came and settled by the oaks of Marmaray, which are at Hebron, and there he built an altar to the Lord. Just before Ned speaks, let's just pray. Father, we just thank you that you've brought Ned to us this morning and we just come to you all, as Smithy pointed out, all as sinners. But Lord, we just thank you for the righteousness of Christ that clothes us all. We just pray that you will speak through Ned. Give him your words. Help us to listen to your word. Help us to do your word. Help us to be obedient to you. We just thank you in Jesus' name. Amen. Go now. Thank you. I like the clock on the lectern, that's good. Thanks for the pressure. As I informed right earlier, it's only 85 minutes so you can deal with it. Also a joke, sorry. Anyway, um pretty exciting. I'll pray as well, just because I don't want to feel left out. So we'll pray and then we'll get into it, I reckon. Father, we are incredibly grateful for this time that we get to share together. We thank you for the brothers and sisters that are before us, Lord. I pray in the same way that you've brought this word to my heart. this word can be poured out to the people's hearts before me Lord that our hearts all may be softened by your word and our ears may be open to see, understand what you have to say to us Lord. We thank you in Jesus name, amen. So our story, we pick up basically, well right after Abram's been called out of the land of Haran, from the land of his ancestors and his fathers. and he gets brought into this land that God promises to him. We'll unpack this a little bit as we go. But right after he's called, we see the next step in the story is that a severe famine has gripped the entire region, compelling Abraham and his family to journey down to Egypt, which is often what God does with these people. Sends them to Egypt, and as we'll unpack Egypt from Egypt, they get a heap of stuff, and they leave Egypt, and the poor Egyptians are just left with nothing, basically. Fearful that the Egyptians would kill him to take his stunning wife Sarai, as we've pointed out. Abram tells her to say, oh please, tell him you're my sister, okay? Please, I don't wanna die. I'm just giving you a bit of context, all right? The Pharaoh's princes, as Abraham assumed, the Pharaoh's princes see his wife, go, goodness me, she's stunning. She's about 65, by the way, so good on you ladies. We've still got plenty of time of beauty, so that's good. And they brought her straight to Pharaoh's house, okay? And Pharaoh, in turn, dealt with Abraham very handsomely by granting him great wealth in livestock, servants, silver, gold, ah anything really that he wanted. However, as we learn from the promises that God made to Abram, that those who dishonour you, a curse shall be upon them, we see this unfold in Pharaoh's own household, that as he takes Abram's wife as his own, a great many plagues uh fall his household. And he gets Abraham to him and goes, Abraham, sorry, and says, what are you done? Get out of here. I don't want you in Egypt anymore. You can leave. See you later. And that brings us to the beginning of Genesis chapter 13, where I want to dive deeper into the themes of really our own broken, wicked human nature, the faith that God has given to us, God's promises and how they have endured forever. So we pick up from Genesis 13, 1 to 4. So if you have your Bibles with you, it'd be unreal to open them up and follow along, or if it's going to be up on the screen or whatever, I don't know how works here, sorry. But we'll just go through together. Abram went up from Egypt, he and his wife, and all that he had, and allot with him into the Negeb. Now Abram was very rich in livestock, in silver and in gold. And he journeyed on from the Negeb, as far as Bethel, to the place where his tent had been at the beginning. Bethel and I to the place where he had made an altar at the first and there Abram called upon the name of the Lord. So as Abram and Sarai leave the richness of Egypt with all its fertile soil and the water of the Nile right nearby they've got Lot with them, Abram's nephew, they enter the Negeb which is like a desert region I had to look up and that's what it meant because I like I'm just interested why does it keep saying they journey into the Negeb? Well that's translated into dry land. So basically saying these guys are going from rich, fertile soil where there is water plentiful in Egypt and they are being called out and forced out at this point into the dry land. So not really an easy transition for them. Yet in an almost poetic and beautiful fashion we see that Abraham, Abraham sorry, deliberately returns to the exact location we had first made an altar to the Lord where his tent had first been pitched between Bethel and I. The importance of this return is absolutely crucial. While the Lord spoke to Abraham, while the Lord spoke to Abram when he was initially called, as we see in Genesis 12.1, the Lord spoke to Abram. It was here at this very spot where he built this altar that the Lord appeared. to Abram. The importance of language, the Lord appearing to him at this specific location. It marks really for Abram a place of profound worship where God's presence had first appeared before him. A presence that we later see underscored as you guys go through your series in Genesis by Jacob's dream at Bethel, which is how it got its name, the house of God, where he dreams of the ladder with angels ascending and descending. This is all in the same area. God's presence is dwelling pretty strongly here at this point. It is after this moment of worship and renewed focus on the Lord that Abram pulls out at the altar. that the next of the human issues start to rear their ugly head. So we go on from verse 5. And Lot, who went with Abram, also had flocks and herds and tents, so that the land could not support both of them dwelling together, for their possessions were so great that they could not dwell together. And there was strife between the herdsmen of Abram's livestock and the herdsmen of Lot's livestock. At that time, Canaanites and the Perizzites were dwelling in the land. You see both Abram and Lot had amassed really a great wealth especially upon leaving Egypt but we also see when they were initially called out of Hurran that they already had great possessions. It says they took the people with them that they had had, the livestock, anything that they had they left Hurran, they left to this new land that God was calling them to. However, these immense possessions, as we have probably experienced in this world, with great possessions comes great conflict and great strife, not just to our own hearts, but to those around us. Also, with great wealth and prosperity comes a level of self-importance. Well, I should rephrase, with great sin comes a level of self-importance. So they start to be at odds with one another, saying, no, we... we're entitled to this feed, we need this feed for our livestock and you can see the tension start to build as it also mentions that the Canaanites and the Perizzites are present. So not only is there Abram and Lot who have amassed great wealth and are there now together in this land but we also have another two amount of people that are within this land who are looking, by the way, still a famine, and they're looking. for feed for their livestock and now all of these families, all of these people are competing with one another to keep their livestock fed. So tensions are pretty high. They're starting to get really grisly with one another and wanting to hurt one another because they go, no, you need to leave. So despite how dire things may have seemed though, Abram's faith in God's control allowed him to extend a pretty generous and self-sacrificial offer to Lot only through God's promises that Abraham was given. Sorry if I keep changing from Abraham to Abraham, you get it, you understand. Then Abram said to Lot, we'll go through this conversation with Abram and Lot now. Then Abram said to Lot, let there be no strife between you and me, and between your herdsmen and my herdsmen, for we are kinsmen. Is not the whole land before you? Separate yourself from me. If you take the left hand, then I will go to the right. If you take the right hand, then I will go to the left. Now it is at this point where we see the wickedness of man become very clear. Now I also want to really try and dig into your hearts here. If you're reading this story along with me now and you are trying to identify with Abram, I apologize. I think every single one of us in this room is lot. You look up, we'll see now. If you're offended by that, feel free to talk to me afterwards. I'll be sure it'll fall on deaf ears maybe, I don't know. But we'll see. And Lot lifted up his eyes. Okay, pay attention to that. And Lot lifted up his eyes and saw that the Jordan Valley was well watered everywhere like the Garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt in the direction of Zor. Now this was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. So Lot chose for himself all the Jordan Valley and Lot journeyed east. Thus they separated from each other. Abram settled in the land of Canaan, while Lot settled among the cities of the valley and moved his tent as far as Sodom. Now the men of Sodom were wicked, great sinners against the Lord. Lot here seeking desperately his own earthly prosperity. He looks up. He sees the most fertile and beneficial land he goes, well, if my silly uncle is going to give me the option, what am I going to choose, you reckon? Of course I'm going to choose the land that looks like the garden of the Lord. I'm going to give myself the best chance here to make a bit of coin. But we see, and I want to point out the significance of this. It says he then journeyed east. Now within the Old Testament narrative, I could be reading into this too much, but when the Old Testament narrative journeying east often signifies a departure from the Lord's presence, a separation, casting out, moving away from God. We see this when Adam and Eve were cast out of the east of Eden. You see they're pushed out of the garden and God places a flaming sword at the eastern gate of the garden. We then see, not long after, Cain, after killing Abel, settled in Nod, further east, removing himself from the presence of the Lord or being cast out from the presence of the Lord. We see Lot's decision to head east really signified a choice to remove himself not only from Abram, but also from the promised land itself. He moves, he's settled near Sodom. This is really the, like right on the edge of the border basically. He's gone, how can I get as far as possible from this place? Oh cool, I'll go to these places here, no worries at all. Whose inhabitants by the way, explicitly stated as wicked. sinners against the Lord. We see Lot was prioritizing the earthly, visible prosperity over his kinsmen and over proximity to the covenant promise to be with God. We then go on to verses 14 to 18. So immediately following Lot's self-serving departure as such, the Lord speaks to Abram again. The Lord said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him, lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and southward, eastward and westward, for all the land that you see, I will give to you and your offspring forever. I will make your offspring as the dust of the earth. so that if one can count the dust of the earth, your offspring also can be counted. Arise, walk through the length and the breadth of the land, for I will give it to you. I wanna say here the reason why I pointed out with Lot before with him looking up, I wanna point out the difference here, because it's pretty striking. When Lot was given the choice and Abram said, look at the land and choose what you like. It says, Lot lifted up his eyes and saw. And what did he see? He saw the prosperity of the world. But then we see here the Lord speaks to Abram and the Lord says to Abram, lift up your eyes and see. Lot looking to his own self-interest and yet Abram waits for the Lord's call to be told which land is his. You see what Abram saw was the fulfillment of God's covenant to him. That same promise that we'll hear in just a little bit. You see Abram's faith in giving Lot the first choice, it was really a great sacrifice in a way to his own earthly prosperity. Because if you know anything about Canaan, he's in the hill country. If you know anything about the hills, they suck. They're not real good. However, despite this, God speaks to him, reinstates the promises again, providing a really powerful continuation on from the promises that he was given back in Genesis 12. And I do want to read, I want to read back through Genesis 12 together, it's only at the start of Genesis 12, so if you want to turn with me there, it's a real long flick through your Bibles by the way, maybe one page back, I don't know. Now, I want to read here from verse one. Now the Lord said to Abram, go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you, and I will make of you a great nation. and I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and in him who dishonours you, I will curse. And in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. So we say the promise of the land, go to the land that I will show you. I will make a great nation out of you. He's gonna make a great people out of him. And there's blessing. I will bless you and make your name great so that you will become a blessing. and then there is a universal blessing. In you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Now we go on to the continuation of this, where we go through these promises. The Lord said to Abel, as we just discussed, really, we see the same promises, I won't read it again, we've read it just before, we see the same promises really reinforced. All the land that you see, I will give to you and to your offspring forever. I will make your offspring as the dust of the earth, so that if one can count the dust of the earth, your offspring can also be counted. Arise, walk through the length and the breadth of the land, for I will give it to you. He has given land, offspring and nations and possessions, the land under his very feet and within his eyesight. This promise is now cemented as an everlasting promise and a lineage of Abram that I will make a great nation of you. and everyone will be blessed. So we see in response to this, Abram moved his tent and came and settled by the oaks of Mamma, which are at Hebron. And there he built an altar to the Lord. In response to this great promise, Abram does exactly what he did before. He moves, he settles, he builds another altar. Again, calling upon the name of the Lord in faith and worship. I don't have much about this here, but I really want to point this out just as a little side note. The importance of this worship, this coming before the Lord, pouring your heart out to God because of the promises in which He has poured out to us. is of utmost importance to our relationship and to our, really, the core of our creation. The core of us being children of God and understanding that our worship, our calling out to the Lord, as Abram puts on display here, is so important for the depth of our heart. Because without that relationship to the Lord, I tell you what, as you in this very room will understand, we will chase anything that will fill that hole that is left from a lack of relationship with God. So calling upon the Lord, I just wanted to point that out. There's something really intimate and special about it and something that is so crucial to our relationship with God. You see, this story of Abram demonstrates God's unconditional grace and the power of faith. However, Abram's while central to the beginning of our Christian faith, isn't the end. The promises of land, nation and this universal blessing culminated in the pledge that, you all the families of the earth shall be blessed, were not fulfilled through the physical descendants or the literal land. Isaac is not our Messiah. Israel is not our true home. This was meant to point to something far beyond, something far greater than ourselves. Something far greater than what we see put on display within the earth this very day. You see, the true inheritor and the ultimate fulfillment of all of God's promises to Abram is Jesus Christ. It's awesome to hear that you guys are going through Galatians. Matt's told me that a couple of times now. But we see the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Galatians makes this connection very explicit, showing how Christ takes the covenant forward from a national promise that is just contained within the Israelite people and the Jewish people to a universal and a spiritual reality that has now gripped the entire world. The Gospel of Christ. So we see this in Galatians 3 and I'll be going through verses 23 to 29. So if you want a moment to get there, I'll let you sort of flick through your Bibles and we'll just get to it. Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then the law was our guardian until Christ came in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian. You see, for centuries after Abram, God gave the people of Israel the law. Now this law served as a temporary guardian. Really, the way in which you can look at it is it's almost like a principle. Okay, the law serves as a principle, not there necessarily to uh love and care and nurture, but there to teach and correct. and show the right path. That's a very general view by the way, so I wouldn't go running with that. But it didn't actually provide, the law didn't provide life, instead it actually seemed to bring about the condemnation of the people's hearts because they could never, ever, ever meet the standard that was put before them on those tablets that very day. You see, it held humanity captive. showing us the complete impossibility of meeting God's through our own efforts. And this reinforces the point that we see, this wickedness of men that we see on display from the Old Testament all the way to Revelation. This wickedness of men means we will always fall short of God's standards. unless we trust in the One, which if you don't know who it is, well you're on the edgy seat, we'll find out soon. But the Law pointed ahead to a time when true faith would be revealed. The Law wasn't the thing that we were meant to take a hold of and go, this is the be-all and the end-all of our existence. This is what I'm supposed to hold on to for eternity. As long as I have the Law, I'm in no need of anything else. No, the law served as a sign of what was to come. a sign of the faith that would be embodied and secured by Jesus Christ himself, the Son of... We'll continue on in Galatians 3, in Christ Jesus, you are all sons of God through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. just as Abraham was justified by his faith and it was counted to him as righteousness. We are now justified not by works of the law, not by our ability to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, but by faith and trust in Christ. When you understand the freedom that gives you as children. I don't know what kind of household you grew up in. Whether it was one where there were no restrictions placed on your life and you got to do whatever you want or it was one where the law was struck down hard and you were not able to do anything and if you breathed wrong, well, look out. But this freedom that we have, that the Father has now poured out onto us through Christ, I need you to understand, it cracks through the most solid rock of a heart and melts it, giving us a heart of flesh that can finally experience the love that the Father has for us, the promises that have been poured out to us. You see, through these promises, through Jesus' fulfillment of the law, This new reality that we now live in accomplishes two profound things in our lives. One, it gives us a brand new identity. We are no longer just servants or subjects living under God, but we are made sons of God through faith. Sons, like you understand the title of sonship. Just being a child of the King of the universe, the very creator of your being. Two, this second profound thing is this radical unity that we just don't seem to understand. You see, the covenant blessing is no longer defined by tribal or social boundaries. Like I was saying before, this new reality that we live in, it's no longer bound to this world. No longer bound to just Jerusalem or to Israel. I want you to be encouraged by that. That's incredible. Because if it was solely bound to this earth and it was bound to those promises that were poured out to Abram that day, then we shouldn't be worshipping here in Chinchilla. We should all be hopping on a flight and going to Israel and worshipping there instead. But that's not the reality that we now live in. The reality that we now live in is the blessing of being children because the Holy Spirit has been poured out into our hearts right at this very place. You see these divisions that create strife in this world, whether it be the ethnicity, Jew or Greek, the social status, slave or free, and the gender, male or female, they're transcended. Get rid of that out of your understanding. That is no longer the plane in which we live on. Because in Christ, we're all one. We are united under Christ. You see, when we put our trust and our faith in Christ, when God looks at us, he doesn't see Ned anymore. He doesn't see Rick and Diane anymore. He looks at us and he sees his beloved son before his very eyes. And he says, with you, I am well pleased. See this very promise that we're talking about now, this is the one that fulfills the promise that was made to Abram so many centuries ago. All the families of the earth shall be blessed. And our final point in the end of Galatians here, and if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring as according to the promise. Paul finishing up like this is no mere coincidence. This is where you understand the depth of God's Word being God-breathed. God working through his Scripture all the time. It is no random thing that Paul just happens to write, oh, you become children of Abraham, sons of the promise. God is saying, can you see? Can you see? This promise has been fulfilled. the offspring that God promised Abram would be as numerous as the dust of the earth. Ultimately, we receive our sonship through Christ. Anyone who becomes a believer becomes a child of the promise. You see, by putting on Christ through faith and our baptism through the Holy Spirit, we are grafted into the singular, true seed of Abraham, and that is Christ, the true vine that everyone receives their nourishment, everyone receives their life. We become spiritual heirs of the promise, soon to return to our Father in heaven, where we will sit within His house and enjoy great feasting and great worship and glory to the Father for eternity. It's not just this world that we need to look to, but this spiritual blessing and salvation and the righteousness that has been poured out to us through Christ. This fellowship that we now share in for eternity. Abrams' great act of faith and trust in God over earthly comfort. is mirrored by our faith in the Son, where Jesus says, will be hated for my name's sake, you'll be hated because I was hated. Doesn't sound like a very comfortable life to live as a Christian and yet we know that it's not about this life. Who cares? I don't want to be too blunt, but this life really means nothing. Because in the grand scheme of things, when we're with God for eternity, However many years we get to live here are insignificant. because the comfort that we will receive when we are finally welcomed home will be beyond anything that we've ever felt here. So encourage you, look to the son who is the ultimate fulfillment of the everlasting covenant through God. Let's pray. Father, we are incredibly grateful for your grace and mercy to us, Lord. We thank you for the love in which you've poured out to us as your children. We thank you for the security that we have as your children, that we are held firm to you, Lord, by your Holy Spirit. We thank you, Lord, that it is by Christ's work that we are made enough. I thank you Lord that the pressure and the impossibility of fulfilling the law in our own strength has been taken away. that trust and faith in your son restores us to you. Thank you Lord for this day and the blessing it is to be your children. We thank you in Jesus' name, amen.