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​We are going to talk about hope today. We are going to do that today because we are Christians, and it is the one thing that we truly have that the rest of the world does not. I am not talking about hope as some sort of wish or platitude that you put on a coffee mug. But I am talking about *real* hope. Hope that follows you into the ICU and beyond. This is the sort of hope that cannot be bought or earned. It is a hope that can only be given to you as a gift, because the promise of this sort of hope would be utterly outrageous to offer unless it comes from God Himself. Because, as it turns out, the hope we have isn't a silver lining or a place we will live in someday. Our hope is Christ Himself, and I hope that our time together will be one of worshipping Him and reveling in that hope together. 

I've chosen this passage today because it reflects where I think all of us to some degree where we are today. We lost a great man this week. My task here isn't to try to get us to stop grieving. That's not what this passage calls us to do. This passage calls us not to grieve, *"as those do who have no hope.*" We do have a hope, so our grief is different. It is with sobs and smiles. Tears of joy and pain. One Scholar put it this way: "the hope that we have as Christians does not ignore pain but redeems it." (James Grant Jr.).

Let's explore this together. 

First, this is a letter that Paul is writing to the church in Thessaloniki. Here in this passage Paul wants to help correct a misunderstanding the church had about the return of Christ. You see, like Christians are supposed to, they anticipated the imminent return of Jesus, but they were confused about something. They thought that if you died before Jesus came back, then you would miss Jesus' return! 

Paul, even in stating their question, is here to give them the correct and comforting answer. Notice how he refers to the dead in verse 13 as "asleep." This isn't Paul being cute or coy. This is Paul living in the realest reality. I've been to many funerals where the casket is open and often hearing how people say, "Oh, it just looks like they are asleep." This is said with obvious pain because the expected next line, "but of course they aren't. This is their state forever." 

Paul disagrees with that. Here is why Christians should have hope and this is why he calls the dead "asleep," because they aren't going to stay that way forever. Verse 14 starts with "for," meaning what Paul is about to say here has direct implications for the worry present in verse 13. Christians believe in Christ who died and rose again. We worship a living Savior! He really did die, and He really did rise again from the dead. Leon Morris put it this way, "It is significant that he does not speak of Jesus as ‘sleeping’, but says he died. Christ endured the full horror of that death that is the wages of sin and thus transformed death for his followers into sleep." It happened on a Sunday morning just as real as this one. It is a Person with whom we lodge our hope, not an idea. Christianity is not a philosophy of belief that gets you through the moderately tough stuff. I don't need Jesus to get me through my next traffic jam. I need Jesus to carry me over the threshold of death. Because that is what is going to happen to me and everyone I love. So don't give me some high-brow metaphor of new beginnings. Don't give me other religions who can only point to the full graves of their founders. Give me the promise that the Son of God will raise my body one day because His body has already been there and done that. 

That's what Paul tells grieving families. Jesus isn't leaving their fallen behind. God will bring them with Him. What other promise do you have that goes beyond death? The highest promise that we can give is a lifetime guarantee—good for only as long as you live. Once there is a grave in the picture, the promises stop. But not with the Lord. The promises are only getting started. 

Paul strengthens the promise in verse 15 by reminding us that this is a word from the Lord. Paul isn't writing a children's fiction that ends with, "And they lived happily ever after." Paul isn't an overeager salesman making deals that he isn't authorized to make. Paul is speaking with the authority from God who says the dead are not going to be left behind. In fact, when the Lord comes again, the dead are the first in line! 

Let's now look at this scene in verse 16. Like, prepare yourselves for this image. We have been studying Genesis this year, and we are all pretty familiar with Genesis 1 at least. We see the Spirit of God hovering over the face of the waters, and suddenly God speaks, "Let there be light," and there was light. Does any of that sound familiar reading verse 16? God Himself leaves heaven with a cry of command, "Let there be life!" And the dead rise! And there was life! 

Do you know anything else that makes that kind of claim? This is the hope that we have. And by the way, when the Bible uses the word "Hope," it isn't saying it like we do today. We say things like, "I hope it doesn't rain on our picnic" knowing full well that it can rain. When the Bible says "hope," it means, "this is absolutely for sure what is going to happen." I don't know why you would ever say this, but it would be like saying, "I hope I get taxed this year." It is going to happen. This glorious image that Paul has just painted for you is real and sure. 

But there is a very crucial detail left at the end of that verse 16. This is for the dead "in Christ." What does that mean? A person is "in Christ" if they are united with Christ, and I choose that word carefully. Like I said at the beginning, this isn't some sort of philosophy that you just mentally assent to. You would not say that I was united with my wife if all I did was acknowledge her existence. That does not make a marriage. Promising to see her on weekends doesn't make a marriage. Being united to my wife means shaping my life around her. She is always in my calculations as I make any decision. And it works the other way around, too! This works the same way with Christ. In fact, one scholar went so far as to say, "Believers are so united to Christ that their own life is his, and his life is theirs. This includes not only forgiveness but also resurrection." (James Grant Jr.)

Being united to Christ isn't promising Him weekends. It is a surrender of your life to Him. It is having every decision being shaped by your relationship with Christ. 

But why should you do that? Jesus didn't die and rise again as some sort of display of ability to impress you. Jesus died and rose again because that is what it took to rescue you. Our sin was an act of high treason against the God of the universe, Jesus Himself. The very justice of God demanded satisfaction. You cannot commit a crime like that and it just be let go. We have a name for judges who do that: Corrupt. God cannot be corrupt. It is against His nature, but He wants to deliver us from the only appropriate punishment for the highest crime in the world, eternity in hell. So God sends His Son, Jesus Christ, to be our substitute. He absorbs all the punishment aimed at us in His death, and provides us all the perfection we need in His sinless life. But if He had just left it there, if there was no resurrection, then we would conclude that Jesus' sacrifice wasn't enough. If He is still in prison as it were, then the sentence still wouldn't have been fully served. But Christ did rise. He did pay the penalty so that God can be just and can justify you. 

So if you have been united with Christ. If you have surrendered your life, turned from your sins and put all your trust in Christ, then this chapter's hope is for you! If you die before Christ comes, well then, Christ will come get you first! Your body will be reconstituted and raised from the grave you were put in, you will be awakened, as it were, from sleep. And if you happen to be alive when Christ returns, well, then you will join the rest! Again from Morris: "We should not overlook the fact that believers will be caught up with them. There will be a reunion with Christ, but there will also be a reunion with the friends who have gone before." But the real hope is to meet the Lord to dwell with Him forever. 

That's where the real hope is. It isn't going to a nice cloudy place in the sky. Your hope is way bigger than that. If all you want is a nice place to live, then go get a realtor. If you would like to behold the face of God, the eternal fount of all joy and peace, and dwell forever in the light of His glory that outshines the sun, well, you'll need Christ. And the good news is that He offers Himself to you today. This isn't a clean yourself up program. This is a "I need to be cleaned up" program. Christ said, let all who are weary and heavy laden come to me, and I will give you rest. He didn't say, "Let the weary strengthen themselves, lay down their burdens and then come to me." You need help! He will give it to you. Just ask. 

Now, since all of that is true, verse 18 encourages us to encourage one another with these words. This is our hope. 

But as I close, am I saying that this hope only exists at the end? Christ offers everything to you, but you have to die first to enjoy it? Not at all. If we really spent some time thinking about what we have just looked at here, it would change how we live our lives in everything, wouldn't it?

It's a silly example, but it makes the point, somewhat. When I was on my way back from Togo, we had a connecting flight through Paris. We had already been flying for six hours just to get here, and it was another roughly ten to go. I was very ready to get home, and they were very ready to get this flight going. It seemed as though there was a mile of people ahead of me, as I was in near the back of the plane. Well, I got to the front of the line (finally) and my ticket beeped red. Not good. I was sent to another desk, with another line, while I watched the rest of the flight board. I got to the front of that line, got things sorted, rejoined the now much shorter line to get on the plane when my ticket beeped red again. I was sent, again, to that other desk, with another line to get that sorted, again. My chest was getting tight. I had been pretty easy going up to this point. But I was beginning to think that I was going to miss this flight because some computer somewhere said I didn't exist. 

Do you know what would have calmed me greatly? If the pilot of the plane came out and said, "I'm not leaving without you." I would have patiently waited in that line again.

It turns out that you are more obedient when you know that your destination is assured. 

Christ offers you far more than a sure connecting flight. This sort of promise truly takes the sting out of death. And if you don't have to fear death, then I'm not sure what can scare you. Raising toddlers is a lot of work. But if I know that my eternity is settled, it gives me a brand new perspective. It is only when I am not thinking that way do I lose my patience. I forget what is important. It doesn't mean that hard things aren't still hard. Losing someone to death is still hard. God doesn't promise to fully dry our tears here on earth. Things still hurt. But what He does give us is something to hold onto in the pain. Christians are not numb people bouncing off things in this world. We feel everything, but God is so good to us, His promises so sure to us, that we can sing next to a deathbed. And if you can sing next to a deathbed, you can serve a neighbor, forgive an enemy, lay down your life, because Christ's grace will enable you with a hope that goes beyond even death. 

To really press that point home, that we have a hope that goes beyond death, let me adapt one last thought from a scholar, Rob continues to have the same hope that you and I do. The living and dead in Christ have—present tense— the same hope. Christ will come. Christ will renew the world. And we will dwell with Him.

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Have you ever told someone how to do a particular task but they insist on doing it some other way? Even though no other way exists to do that task, they insist on relentlessly attempting to do that which isn't right. Kids do this all the time, don't they? We have sayings like, "If at first you don't succeed, do it the way mom told you to do it." How much easier our lives would be, eh? 

But we can't judge them too harshly because we often find ourselves in the same boat, don't we? God tells us explicitly how to live and even what to do when we don't do it right and still we resist Him. We can see this on full display here with Lot on his way out of Sodom. 

Last week, we took a deep, hard look at how Lot got into the situation that he got into. We found that even a man given the grace of God can still get terrifyingly used to evil such that he would use it himself. God is merciful, however, and is still committed to not sweep away Lot with the rest of the city. God begins the extraction process, but Lot seems to be doing his best to not cooperate with the process. This is extremely frustrating to watch, but there is a lot that we can learn here, as we finish our sermon from last week with point two: God's grace will save you, so embrace it. 

Ok, so when we last left this story, the whole city of Sodom was trying to break down Lot's door so they could have their way with the guests AND violate Lot for trying to stop them. The only way that they could be stopped was the angels striking them with literal blindness. That didn't stop them from trying, but it did stop them from being successful. God's examination of Sodom is complete, and destruction is coming.  

You would think that this would be enough to convince Lot and his family that it is indeed time to pack up the bags. What could possibly be left in Sodom for them? The whole town is against them now, so Lot's political career is over. And certainly after an event like that, you would think they are ready to flee the town immediately! Plus! The whole thing is about to be destroyed anyway by God Himself! The angels have him warn his sons-in-law, but they don't take that warning seriously. You can feel the tragedy in that, but the real tragedy is in verse 16. 

Lot lingers. 

It is one thing for sons-in-law who haven't seen God work to distrust, but Lot has seen what God can do. Lot just watched angels blind a whole town and those same beings are telling him it is time to get out of doge, but Lot lingers. J.C. Ryle spent a whole chapter on just that verse in his book Holiness. Lot just doesn't want to leave. Do you see how imprisoning sin is here? There is absolutely no future here for Sodom. Doomsday is literally here. But Lot doesn't want to let it go. 

What sins have a grip on you like that? What is the thing that you say, "Yeah, I know, I need to stop doing that," or "Yeah, I know, I need to start doing this." Why are you lingering? Is it because you don't believe judgment is coming? It is. Is the world just that charming to you? God could burn up this system at the end of this sermon, or years from now, but that destruction is coming. Why are you waiting? My old seminary professor put it like this: "No good can come of loving a society so morally bankrupt that it awaits the swift judgment of God—if not temporal judgment, certainly at the end of the age." (Ross, 365) In that, Ross brings up the point that God may not wait until the end of days to bring judgment locally. I've known guys so hooked on pornography they were unable to consummate their marriages. Don't take God's grace for granted. If you are hearing this and God hasn't brought consequences on your sin yet, then this is the time to move it! Leave it behind! 

Next in verse 18, we learn not to negotiate with it. Lot has been lingering and holding up the process here. The angels have to drag them by the hand, place them outside the city and say, "Ok, you're out of the city, but you need to get up to the hills quickly. I can't start until you're gone." And then Lot starts trying to negotiate with the angels! There are a couple of different opinions on why Lot is doing this. One thought is that Lot doesn't trust that God will wait, so he tries to negotiate a lesser distance to go. The other opinion, which I find more persuasive, is that Lot is trying to get some compensation. One scholar put it this way, "...Lot pleaded for a little city for himself. Lot thought that, if the Lord was going to destroy Sodom, then perhaps he would grant him something in consolation." (Ross, 361). Lot has gotten used to the city life, and he thought that he would just die in the hills. If he could just have this little city (Zoar means little), that would be fine. Now, Zoar was on the destruction list, too. Yet, true to God's mercy, He won't destroy it for the sake of one righteous guy, Lot. 

After a full day, they finally get to Zoar, and God rains down fiery judgment on Sodom. Note how absolutely comprehensive this judgment is. Verse 25, the city, all the valley, all the inhabitants, and even down to the plants that grew in the ground (the very thing that drew Lot to the city in the first place), it was all destroyed. J.C. Ryle comments that we should never forget how much God hates sin. It is right there in verse 25. How crazy are we to not take God seriously.  Crazier still must we be to be given an opportunity to escape such a fate and not take it. 

And then we have Lot's wife. We meet her just long enough to see her turn into a pillar of salt! Why? It is because, contrary to the angel's divine instruction, she looked back on the city. This isn't the sort of look that would happen to behold the drama of divine destruction. This is a look of longing. She was pulled out of this place of sin, but she missed it. Her heart was still in the city, so her body became like it, full of salt. Matthews points out that Sodom becomes the Dead Sea, a place of salt where nothing grows (242). 

Don't look back and long for your sin. Leave it behind, and take your heart with you. 

And when you take your heart with you, remember that your sin lives in there. Whenever there is massive judgment that falls in Genesis, it seems as though sin slips into the suitcase. Noah built this big boat, left all the unrighteous people behind, but when he exited, sin survived the flood. The same thing happens here. 

As we head into the sordid tales of verses 30-38, we find that Sodom survives in the hearts of Lot's daughters. They want to have offspring, and for some reason assume that the only way to do that is to obtain offspring from their father. Now, at the very least, the daughters realize that even Lot is not going to go along with this plan willingly. They are going to have to get him blackout drunk in order to pull this off (Matthews, 245), which they do. The angels saved him from being exploited by the men of Sodom, but the women of Sodom eventually used him, nonetheless. 

What a tragedy. 

That's the last we ever hear from Lot. The two children that are born from this disaster become the enemies of Israel for well over 1500 years. 

This whole thing began with Lot wandering away from Abraham for greener grass so that his massive wealth could be sustained. Twenty years later he is in cave having conceived his own grandchildren who will be thorns in the sides of his family descendants for thousands of years. 

How do you come back from that? 

Well, to get that answer, we need to look at the one time Lot comes up in the new testament, 2 Peter 2:7. How does Peter evaluate Lot? He calls him "righteous Lot." Excuse me? Peter, did you forget the "un" to make it be "unrighteous"? No, Peter meant to say that, as he calls him "righteous" two more times. Was Peter wrong? No! The Holy Spirit inspired that. So how on earth after becoming mayor of Sodom, offering his daughters up to the crowds, and getting so drunk he couldn't even remember conceiving his own grandchildren not once but twice—in a row? 

The same way you are considered righteous. The grace of God. God was obviously doing something in Lot's heart, because according to Peter, Lot hated what was going on in Sodom. But just because you have some righteous impulses doesn't mean that you aren't capable of major sin. But just because you've committed major sin doesn't mean that God can't still make you new. 

Don't take God's grace for granted. Watch over your heart, because your sin is there, but don't stop looking to God's grace to wash you clean. That is what we are confessing as we come to this the Lord's Supper. God's grace and God's grace alone makes you able to come and partake of this blessing. The bread tells us that our bodies which should have been broken eternally for our sins are made whole. Jesus' body was broken in our place. The juice, symbolizing the blood of Christ poured out in substitute for our blood. This gospel picture points to the reality that makes us righteous. 

So if you are here today holding onto some sin, I command you to let it go. Its end is destruction and only wants to take you with it. And if you are here today and say, "Oh, that's already happened. My life is absolutely ruined. I'm right there in the cave with Lot." Then come to the God who made Him righteous. Don't take his mercy for granted, don't think its not enough, it is! The only person you need to be made clean for is God, and He has provided you this way. Don't ignore it. Don't stop being grateful for it. If it took sticking you in a cave for the rest of your life so you weren't destroyed by the Sodom of your sin, than praise be to God. 

And if you are here today thinking, "Wow, I'm glad I didn't mess up like that." Take heed lest you fall. If you were spared the consequences of sin, if you were kept from the mistakes of others, than you have great reason to be grateful to God. No one has a boring testimony. If you were pulled from sin at an early age, than you have much to praise God for. 

Don't take that mercy for granted. It'll keep that sin in your heart at bay. Let's pray. 

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Sin is a great trapper. Do you know what a trapper does? A trapper hunts in a seemingly passive way. It would seem that all they do is place traps down and hope animals walk into them, but there is a lot more to it than that. They observe animal tracks, place the trap in such as way that it is disguised. Food is carefully chosen to attract the animal. The prey is sized up to be sure to get the right cage, and of course the trapper places it when they know they won't be seen. It is a very active and effective process. Get the animal to go where it wouldn't go normally by offering it something it wants in a place that looks perfectly safe. 

Sin works the same way. Sin offers you something that looks good and useful. It seems safe, without consequence, and entirely reversible. It's like the mechanic who got addicted to drinking break fluid; he can stop whenever he wants. But this is the fundamental lie of sin. It can give you want you want, no, what you *need* without consequences. Sin doesn't share. It only takes. And that is what we are going to see today as we focus on the fate of Lot in this chapter. We will look at two points: Sin will imprison you, so don't accommodate it. and God's Grace will free you, so embrace it.  
### Sin will imprison you, so don't accommodate it

Let's take a look at Lot. How did this happen?! How did we go from nephew of Abraham to the guy known for offering up his daughters to be violated? Well, like most sins, it started with one choice. J.C. Ryle in his book *Holiness* makes this point. It all starts when Lot decides to leave Abraham for the fields of Sodom with no thought to what this might do to his soul: "He thought of his worldly profit, and not of his soul." (208). Lot looked at Sodom, with all of its wickedness, and only saw the grass and what that could mean for his flocks. "Hey, we need food, and if a compromise with the world is needed, so be it." The trap was set and the bait was material prosperity. It was clear what this city was known for. God looks at homosexuality with great wrath and judgment. Yet Lot doesn't seem to think that this is a big deal, and sets up to live there without consideration of this. It's not like he is going here with the idea of being a missionary. 

Where does this leave us? Am I saying that anyone who chooses to live in California is like Lot? No. But what I am saying is that we need to think about what our decisions are going to do to our souls before we think about what it will do for our savings. Be intentionally Biblical in your choices. Why do you watch what you watch? Read what you read? Post on what you post? Are you doing those things because you kinda fell into them? How are your daily choices in life affecting your soul? It has been well said, "Live by design, not by default." When you live by default, you are just accepting the choices that someone else has made. Maybe those were good choices, and maybe those choices are even still good, but the only way you know that is by comparing them against God's Word. 

Why stress this? After all, most decisions once you've made them you can go back on. If you start watching a show that isn't good you can stop. You can move to an area and then move out! Why place such scrutiny on your life?

The answer is because you can get used to sin. Let's go back to Lot. At first, he just pitched his tent outside the city limits at the end of chapter 13. In chapter 14 he was carried off by the warring tribes of the Canaanites because he moved to living inside the city. We can calculate how long he has been living in the city by what is happening in Abraham's life. Chapter 15 is the covenant with Abraham and the promise of a son, and then twenty plus years later we get to chapter 17. This means that Lot has been living in Sodom for the better part of two decades plus! Now, in chapter 19, when the angels come to Sodom, Lot meets them while he is sitting at the gate! 

Sitting at the gate is a significant detail. The gate of a city was like having a seat at city hall. You are there because you are in some kind of leadership position. In order to be placed in leadership as an outsider in a city, Lot has had to be doing some compromising and looking the other way. He didn't get here condemning the city's sin. Further, as we will see later, Lot's daughters are due to be married to the people of Sodom (v 14), so the ties to the city are tightly woven. 

It seems as though Lot has carved himself a pretty good life here in Sodom. Good grass, urban living, and a seat at the government table. It looks like Lot got it all. However, as one scholar notes, "One may say that, if people crave the best of this world along with the world to come, they may receive neither. One's loves often betray one's loyalties" (Ross, 365). We are going to see exactly this play out when it is time to choose.  

Lot has invited the two angels to stay in his home, and this has not escaped the notice of the men of the city. They announce what they plan to do: violate Lot's guests. Now, Lot here at least holds up the ideals of hospitality. Being kind to strangers was a big deal in Israelite culture, and protection of guests rated highly in Lot's mind. All good so far! You don't want to bring people into your house and then expose them to danger. He goes out to confront them and tells them that their actions are wicked (although, note the fact that he calls them "brothers."). Again, bold! 

But then we get to verse 8 where Lot offers up his daughters. This is an unmitigated failure. But Sodom taught him that sexual misbehavior isn't that big of a deal. As a city leader, he doesn't want to disappoint the citizenry, but he can't allow this wickedness to move forward. He has at least that. But he tries to find a middle way. Maybe the people can have their lusts satisfied, guests protected, and as always, there will be a little damage. That is very twisted thinking. You don't get there in a week. This is twenty years of Sodom thinking. One thing that one scholar points out is that Lot doesn't even pray. While he doesn't know it yet, there are angels just on the other side of the door! How many times do we pass on our most able weapon of prayer (Rick Phillips, 641)! 

Do you remember being shocked at behavior? I mean, we shake our heads at Pride month and the rainbows everywhere, but it has stopped being surprising. Well meaning Christians have even talked about this sin being just like all the others. Sin is sin, we say. What is about to happen here to Sodom tells us that there are categories of sin. God hasn't turned every city into the Dead Sea. Romans 1 sees this sin as contrary to nature and the final stop of a mind that has turned against God. Paul in 1 Corinthians 6:18 sees sexual sin of any kind as a sin against the body unlike other sins. We can't forget that. Our culture, even some churches, are trying to downplay that. We can't. 

So how do we properly see sin like this as heinous without making the opposite error of assuming that our sin is no big deal, even if it isn't *as* bad? 

I would encourage you to think of sin the same way you think about cancer. When someone tells you that they have been diagnosed with cancer you lean forward with concern, and if they are a family member, you make sure that they are pursuing every avenue possible to get rid of it. You would never say to them, "Well, millions of people get cancer every year." You take it seriously. Sin is no less dangerous. Are there degrees of sin? Yes, just like there are degrees of cancer. Brain cancer will kill you very quickly, but skin cancer can kill you too if you ignore it. The longer even a small skin cancer sits there the longer it takes to recover. And while I don't want to stretch this analogy too much, sin works much the same way. The longer you let it sit without repentance, the harder it is to get rid of it. 

Let's go back to Lot for a second to see how that works. Lot has been comfortable in Sodom for a good twenty years now. This was an outgrowth of a short-sighted decision to move away from God's blessing (albeit hidden blessing) towards something that he could see. To repent of that decision two weeks in would involve just pulling up the tent poles and moving back home. Nothing gained, nothing truly lost. 

Now, what does it look like for Lot to repent of this sin currently surrounded by Sodomites? Well, this would be taking his life into his hands. It wouldn't be offering his daughters, it would be going down fighting (Belcher, 143)! Assuming he survived that, it would be leaving behind his daughters' future husbands, the loss of his leadership position, his house, and really his entire way of life!  

So what do we take away from this? How do we resist accommodation of sin? Well, we have to see a vision and gain a love for righteousness. We accommodate sin because often we feel that we need something sinful in order to be ok. All you need is what is contained in the first question of the Heidelburg catechism:  "What is your only comfort in life and in death?"

"That I am not my own, but belong—body and soul, in life and in death—to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with His precious blood, and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil. He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven; in fact, all things must work together for my salvation. Because I belong to Him, Christ, by His Holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for Him."

There is no freer person on earth than the person who understands and lives that. 

Lest we think that, "Well, wrestling against sin isn't worth it because the wicked are always doing better than I am!" Read Psalm 73, and you will see that the Bible has already anticipated and dealt with that question! 

It has been said that there is nothing more threatening than a man with nothing to lose. I would say that there is nothing more peaceful than a man with nothing left to gain. If you have Christ, even death itself is gain (Phil. 1:21 "For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain."). Grasping that is what gives you the freedom to stay out of the trap. 

Once you have embraced that freedom, preach that freedom. We can come away from this chapter assuming that if someone has fallen into the sin of Sodom that there is just no hope for them, but that isn't true. In 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, we are given a list of sins that keep you out of heaven, a list of cancers, if you will, that will kill you. Included on there is homosexuality along with greed. What is the solution? "But! you were washed." There is hope for the greedy and the gay. Homosexuality is no more unchangeable than greed is. Because the power isn't in the sin, it is in the Savior. Now, it may be that turning away from a sinful pattern of decades will take a long time. Sometimes God will remind us to be dependent on Him by allowing us to struggle a long time with the consequences of our sin. But we don't need consequences removed in order to be ok. We need our sin removed from God's sight. 

In Christ, we have exactly that. So if you are struggling with these desires, be honest. Come to Christ. He is the only one powerful enough to not only forgive, but overcome your sin. This isn't going to be an easy process. This is not a magic pill. It is a promise for Christ to walk with you taking you as you are but not leaving you as you are. Let me assure you, just like Lot, you can't have sin and Jesus. Both are going to make you choose. Sin doesn't share, and neither does Jesus, blessedly. Jesus wants all of you. 

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​I had originally planned to just go straight into this text this morning, but as I thought about this over the weekend, I realized that there is a lot of confusion, personal feelings, and complicated relationships surrounding this issue. This is to say nothing of a relentless social media machine filled with a spectrum of people ranging from well-meaning but misinformed to malicious and misleading. 

I'm hoping that we can spend just one sermon sorting out some of this. 

This sin has been placed in the worst possible realm: politics. Politics cannot solve for this issue, and the only place that can is theology. So as we spend the next few minutes thinking about this, I would encourage you not to think in terms of personal experience or culture wars. Let's think about this like Christians, Christians who love our Savior and His Word and desire to communicate that to a lost and dying world. 

Some might say, "Well, why argue from the Bible? People don't believe in it! Wouldn't it be better to point to things we can all agree on like the example of nature, or human flourishing?" The problem with that argument is we surrender the only weapon we have for this problem. Affirming LGBT issues isn't a problem of logic. It is a spiritual problem. You aren't going to move people away from their sexual expression simply because birds and bees don't act that way. Arguing on anything except "Thus says the Lord" will eventually shown to be weak. 

The Lord is real. He has spoken to us in His Word. We and the rest of the world ignore this to our peril. This isn't so that we can own the libs but so that we can convert them to Christ. 

Let's begin by saying clearly that homosexuality is a sin. The action is a sin, and the taking that on as one's identity is a sin. 1 Cor. 6:9-10 clearly identifies the action as something that bars from heaven, yet the next verse tells us that such were some of you. It is something that not only needs to be left behind, but can. It is something that Christians no longer identify with. There are no lying Christians just like there are no gay Christians. There are just Christians who have been washed. They may struggle, but they are clean before the Lord if they have put their faith in Christ. 

Ok, with that introductory statement, let's go over a few things that people have argued at a popular level. There is no way to cover every crazy statement made online, but I think there are a few that we can look at that will provide us with some good additional teaching as well beyond this issue. 

One of the most common arguments that I have heard is, "Well, the condemnation of this is an Old Testament idea. And even in those handful of strikingly clear New Testament passages against this, Jesus never spoke against it. So since Jesus didn't say it, it doesn't matter for us today." This line of thinking comes from two places, a misunderstanding of the nature of the Bible itself, and red-letter Bibles. 

Let's talk about the Bible. In 2 Timothy 3:16 we find, "All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work." What is that first word there? All! All of the Bible that we have before us comes from God Himself. Paul isn't writing his own opinion, He is writing the Words of God (2 Peter 3:16). So if Paul talks about homosexuality being a sin, it is the same as Jesus saying it. Jesus is God, all Scripture is breathed out by God, Paul is writing Scripture, ergo, Jesus is saying it. 

I lay some of the blame for this argument down on red-letter Bibles. These are the ones that put the words of Jesus in the gospels in red text. There is nothing inherently wrong with this, so don't feel bad if your Bible does this. Just think of it as an opportunity to remember the doctrine of the inspiration of Scripture. I saw on the Babylon Bee that there is a new Bible coming out that has all the words of the Holy Spirit put in black text. All this to say, every word of your Bible is important. The words that Jesus spoke when He was on earth aren't any more holy or authoritative than the rest of the Bible. 

Speaking of the Bible, some may say, "Well, still, the clearest prohibitions against homosexuality are in Leviticus, but in that same book, people are told not to eat shrimp (Lev. 11), so why do you accept some parts of the Bible but not others?" Once again, this reflects a misunderstanding of the Bible itself. Lest we look down on the world for arguing this way, let us remember whose job it is to teach them. 

Yes, Leviticus condemns shrimp (to say nothing of bacon) eating and homosexuality. But the reason for why Christians are able with joy to eat these things is because of what is said in the New Testament. Acts 10 clearly lays out for us God's repealing of these laws. The laws were put in place to create a distinct people in the Jews. The Jews needed to be a separate people who wouldn't mix with the rest of the world's population (called the Gentiles) until the birth of the Messiah, who was to be a Jew. The promise that the ultimate descendant from Abraham's would be Jesus needed to be preserved. It needed to be clear that that promise would be fulfilled. So God made a lot of laws, clothing, washing, and yes, food eating, to keep them separate. Now that Jesus has arrived, that purpose is no longer needed. The food laws are repealed (Jesus Himself said so in Mark 7, not that Acts 10 isn't enough!), but the clear witness of the New Testament, as we have already covered, is that God still sees sexual perversion as that. 

There are some out there who make the argument that the great evil of Sodom wasn't actually carnal immorality but rather arrogance and lack of concern for the poor. Now, I can appreciate this argument because it at least comes with a Bible verse, specifically Ez. 16:49 "Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy." Look out, they've got a Bible verse! Worse yet, they've got a point! So what can we learn here? 

Well, first, yes, Sodom was also arrogant and didn't care about the poor. As one scholar points out, sins don't typically occur by themselves. In fact, to think of homosexuality being the only sin of Sodom wouldn't be faithful to Romans 1. The central sin of Sodom is idolatry, worshiping something else other than God, themselves (Phillips, 645). Idolatry is the root, and sexual sin is the rotten fruit. 

All that being said, are we saying that this perversion *wasn't* occurring in Sodom? No. Jude 7 clearly tells us that it was sexual immorality. 2 Peter 2:7-8 tells us the same. Romans 1 also tells us that this sort of sin is a sign of being judged by God for severe idolatry. It in itself is an abomination, but this obviously isn't the only sin at play here. 

Let's take a couple more here, and these are moving into more of the slogans that we see everywhere today. If you don't think about them too hard they seem perfectly logical, but even short slogans are based on some understanding of truth.  

For example, let's take "Love is love." This is saying that love is valid no matter who the members are in that relationship from a gender perspective. This is one of those arguments where if you leave the Bible behind you aren't actually equipped to deal with this one. Saying "love is love" basically means that there is no actual definition for it. It is abandoning any sort of authority and that is precisely the problem! The best you could say in response would be, "Who are you to define what love is," and they could say the same back to you. 

However, if we look to the scriptures, we can see what love actually is, and it isn't warm fuzzies. It isn't a feeling, really, at all. It is an action. True love points people to Christ, and anything that would hinder this process is by definition not love. 

Let's take a look at one more, from that theological powerhouse, Lady Gaga, "I was born this way, so I can't change." The first half of that statement actually is correct. We are all born sinners. But the second half isn't true. As Kevin De Young once said something to the effect of, "Yes, you were born this way, but the good news is that you can be born again another way."

Some of us will find a greater proclivity to some sins rather than others. For some, that is going to be same-sex attraction. For others, it is going to be lying, or anxiety. I have never struggled with same-sex attraction, but I have struggled a lot with anxiety and fear. While it has gotten less and less in my life, I still deal with anxiety and have to seek the Lord for help with that. For others, that is going to be Same Sex attraction. There are some who have been completely delivered from it, and there are others who see progress, but it is still a fight. But the fact that they opposed these desires at all and seek God's help in fighting against them, that should be celebrated an encouraged. A desire even without acting on it is still sinful. Coveting is the desire to steal, as Butterfield reminds us. But the Lord can forgive coveting, and He can forgive disordered desires, as well. 

Let me close with an encouragement to you if you are a Christian who wants to reach out to your neighbor or family member who confesses a homosexual identity, or maybe you are here today and this is your struggle. Let me start by reminding all of us that this identity isn't true. It may be what they think, it may be what they practice, but that is not who they are. It is the sin they struggle with. As Rosaria Butterfield put it recently in an interview (which you can find here: https://www.christianpost.com/news/rosaria-butterfield-gives-advice-for-witnessing-to-gay-friends.html), "Learn to hate your sin without hating yourself." Don't identify yourself with your sin. Yes you are a sinner, but you are not that particular sin. Hate the sin, and then run to the Christ Who will rescue you from that sin. While it is a serious sin, it is not a sin that puts you beyond the reach of God. Remember 1 Corinthians 6, "such were some of you." This can be something that Christ puts behind you. 

Also remember, Christian, what you are calling the person who identifies this way to do. Those who have been wrapped up in this lifestyle are called to walk away from more than just a sexual act. They are often leaving behind friends, lovers, their culture, their very (in their mind) identity. So welcome them into your lives; they are going to need it. Be patient with them. Your job is to love them and point them to Jesus. Let God handle the effect of that and the timing of it. If the Lord should bring them to Himself, then welcome them into the Christian world. Welcome them into marriage, if the Lord should bring the right person into their lives. Again to reference Butterfield, Lifelong celibacy isn't the only future for the ex-homosexual. The creation mandate is for everyone! The full Christian life is for everyone. Welcome them into the pattern of worshiping Christ and serving His people. Yes, the storms of temptation may rage, but remember who is in the boat. Christ died on the cross for the sin of homosexuality. He deserves to have the good news proclaimed to the homosexual practitioners He died for. And since you don't know which ones they are, I guess you'll just have to evangelize all of them. We must be honest and tell them that one cannot live this lifestyle and be a Christian at the same time. They need to repent, but we need to give them the glorious good news that Jesus can help them do so. 

In summary, we don't need to rage at them. We don't need to lie to them. We don't have to be scared that the truth of the gospel will irreparably harm them if it is presented in love. If they know where you stand, you don't have to restate it every meeting. If you've lied to them, then you need to repent and give them the gospel. God is sovereign in His salvation. Rest in that. Lift them up in prayer. Talk about it when it lends itself, and pray for their soul. You just never know what God will do. 

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​God has now risen from lunch and is on His way to be personally involved in judgment. We all can think that we understand something at first glance, but we can't. God is the only one who can do that, but He is still deliberate and careful in His judgments. 

Let's get a couple potential misconceptions out of the way first. To start, God is not ignorant *at all* about what is going in in Sodom and Gomorrah. It is obvious that Abraham is well aware of what is happening in that city, because all God said was, "I'm here to see this alleged wickedness for myself," and Abraham immediately assumes that God is going to utterly destroy the city. If Abraham is aware of what is going on there, God is, too. 

Scripture is clear on God's knowledge of the world. Proverbs 15:3 says, "The eyes of the LORD are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good." He is not only aware of everything but is involved in everything, right down to making the grass grow (Psalm 104:14). God knows what is going on in His world. 

The second potential misunderstanding is Abraham is the one who convinces God to be potentially nicer to Sodom and Gomorrah. I think this passage is here to actually show that God is more merciful than Abraham is. 

So, like we looked at last time, if God is neither ignorant of the situation nor being made more merciful by Abraham's interaction, then why is this passage here? 

Let's answer that question together as we finish up the outline from last week. God is personally involved in blessing and judgment, and judgement is avoided and blessing obtained by keeping the way of the Lord.

God is personally involved in blessing and judgment

God rises from lunch and sets out towards Sodom and Gomorrah with the two angels and has an interesting interaction with everyone along the way. God turns to the angels in earshot of Abraham and asks in a telling way, "Should I tell Abraham what I am here to do?" Then He gives a couple reasons for telling Abraham. The first is that the fate of nations seemed to be tied to how they interact with Abraham, so it seems fitting to let Abraham know when something big is about to happen to one of them (Ross, 350). The second reason is that Abraham has given given God's word to pass down to the following generations. He has given Him the path that everyone should walk in being obedient to God. In the next chapter, we will see what happens when people don't walk in that way. 

What should we draw from this? This is not a secret conversation. God is putting this in the Bible. If this were a movie, God would be breaking the fourth wall here. He is, as it were, staring into the camera looking at us and saying, "Do you want to know what happens when a nation spurns my covenant? Do you want to know what happens when you go your own way?" God doesn't tell you something for no reason. Warnings are real. 

Have you ever seen those videos featuring this crushing machine? It is a couple of metal drums with with dull teeth on them. You see them spinning around, and you can kind of imagine that this thing is powerful and dangerous. Then someone throws in this big metal barrel. You watch the thing for the first few seconds and nothing really happens. The machine keeps whirring, but the barrel just seems to roll along with the machine. You begin to thing that the guy is going to have to adjust the position of the barrel, but then one of those teeth get a bite. Suddenly, the barrel is flattened and squeezed right through those drums as if it was made of cardboard. Now you look at this thing with a lot more respect. You knew it was dangerous in theory, but now you know, in a visceral way, what it is capable of.  

Now, it is the understatement of the century to say that God is way more powerful than a trash shredder. In fact, we just spent all of last week saying that nothing was too hard for the Lord. That works the other way, too. There is no place to hide from God. There is no magic word or spiritual power that you can wield to stop Him. God is above all law; He is the definition of righteousness. You can't hide from Him. He already knows everything that has been done, everything that has been thought. 

And yet, God is coming down to earth in human form to look at it "first hand." Why? I think this is meant to display how God approaches justice. God isn't going on second-hand information. God doesn't have an itchy trigger finger just *waiting* to blast Sodom at the first accusation. He is not a rage monster ready to fly off the handle at the first little thing that goes wrong. He is very deliberate, considered, and, by any standard, just. 

Being deliberate and considered is key to justice. Have you ever had a situation come up that looked like you could judge it instantly? There was a video going around recently of a man who was summoned into court over an alleged suspended license. He was told to appear via Zoom to discuss this suspended driver's license. When he comes up on screen, you can see that he is driving a car while on a Zoom call to a court talking about a suspended license! Granted, he was just pulling into a parking lot when he answered the call, but still. The judge looks at the papers in front of him displaying that the man indeed is still currently suspended. The judge sits quietly for a about thirty seconds shuffling through some papers while the stunned man sits motionless in his now parked car. He tries to say something, but is cut off and told to wait. After all this the judge tells the man that he needs to turn himself in to the local jail by 6 pm that night for driving while suspended. The video went around Twitter, and everyone had a good laugh. 

Until the rest of the story came out about a week later. It turns out that the man had a suspended license in the past, but it was reinstated two years ago. Some person in the government forgot to change the paperwork to reflect that, so all the judge had to go on was the old information. And the only reason why he was driving in the fist place was he needed to get his wife to a doctor's appointment on what he believed to be a reinstated license. Perhaps if the man was allowed to speak they could have uncovered that! The whole story changes, doesn't it? 

God doesn't have details like that miss Him. He is fully aware. And yet He shows us here that He takes the time to personally witness for Himself what is happening. That is a good Father. 

Now, Abraham wants to capitalize on this and opens with a statement, "Surely you won't sweep away the righteous along with the wicked, right? That would be unjust!" And this is a principle that God agrees with. He would spare judgment on people who deserve it in order to preserve the righteous. Now, notice how high Abraham starts! I can imagine Him thinking, "Ok, in order to make sure that God agrees with this, I'll start at fifty. Surely that will be enough righteous people to outweigh the rest of the sin." And, to Abraham's surprise, God agrees! 

But I think at verse 27, Abraham realizes that there probably aren't 50 righteous people in the city. Abraham is probably thinking, "Ok, can't come down too far. Might lose the ground I have. Let's test this out by lowering it by five." Again, God agrees. Abraham keeps doing this until we are all the way down at 10 people! God is willing to stay the judgment of the most wicked city in history for 10 righteous people! As one scholar put it, "It is apparent that although he pleads with God at the beginning on the basis of justice (v. 25), he ends by appealing to the grace of God" (Belcher, 141). 

Does it surprise you that God would spare the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah for 10 righteous people? If it does, than let this passage comfort you. The same God that comes to meals is the one in charge of the brimstone. 

Now, I want to be careful here. God is very merciful, but as we will see in the next chapter, God's holding back judgment has an end. Do you know why that is? It is because God is love. That may sound strange to you, as it did me when I first heard it. But listen to the logic of this thought. I first heard it from a preacher named Paul Washer who said that the most terrifying verse is "God is love." His point can be best illustrated by a bear with her cubs. How do you bring wrath on yourself from a mama bear? Mess with her cubs. What will a father do who loves his daughter? Some of the kindest, gentlest people whom you would trust your own children with can be killers if you break into their house at night and threaten their kids. 

Why? Love. The same motivation for God to withhold punishment is the same motivation to bring it. Why is God visiting Sodom and Gomorrah? Because people are crying out against it. Young men were victims in the city. It is clear as we get into the next chapter what the city is willing to do to new comers. I think what we see in chapter 19 is hardly the first time it has happened. God hears the cries of people. And He will answer. And it is terrifying when He does. 

We shouldn't take the fact that He didn't drop a bolt on them immediately as proof that God was ok with it. In fact, as we will see in chapter 19, He doesn't bring down judgment until Lot and his family are out (which ended up being Lot and his two daughters.) God spared the city for *three* righteous people.

Judgement is avoided and blessing obtained by keeping the way of the Lord.

Now, any mention of Sodom, Gomorrah, and judgment will spark in many minds our own country. Indeed, June has become a month long celebration of the homosexuality that brought on the brimstone to Sodom and Gomorrah. God promised not to destroy the righteous along with the wicked, but that doesn't mean that the righteous are free from suffering. The final third of Genesis is all about Joseph who suffers injustice after injustice on himself. But God never lost sight of him and was indeed working through those very injustices to bring about salvation from starvation. 

The same is true for us. America has committed all the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah and more. We've killed ten times more of our own citizens through abortion than Hitler did. What are we supposed to do as American Christians? What do we take away from this passage? 

Well, we are supposed to listen to Abraham in verse 19. He is supposed to pass down the way of the Lord. We are to do righteousness (upholding God's standard) and justice (acting on that standard) (Ross, 350). These things are defined for us by God, not culture. Never underestimate the power of a people obedient to God. 

In short, if you want to help America, know what God says, act on what God says, and pray for the country. If you can vote, by all means do that. If you can run for office to rule by God's standards, go for it. But all the while, live by God's standards, live not by lies, and pray to the God of justice and grace. Don't worry about God blasting you away with the wicked. Anything that happens to you during times of judgment is under God's watchful eye. Joseph had a lot of hard things happen to him, but it was all part of God's plan to bring him exactly where he needed to be and when. America doesn't need another podcast. It needs you to be obedient to Jesus. 

Above all, preach Christ crucified. That is everything God has to say. 

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For a God who never gets hungry, He sure eats a lot. This isn't because God has been dishonest with us about His needs. God doesn't get hungry or need anything from us. Psalm 50:12-13 put it this way "If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and its fullness are mine. Do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats?" The expected answer is, "No." God doesn't need to eat something because He doesn't have a body. Even if He did need to eat, He wouldn't be waiting around for us to feed Him because He already owns everything in the earth. 

So why is He eating here? He doesn't need it. This is meant to draw our attention when God does something He doesn't have to do. It means that God is making a point. He doesn't want us to walk away from this passage to say that God has a taste for beef. He is showing Abraham, and us, something special by coming down to eat with Abraham. 

We are only going to get to our first point today: God is personally involved in blessing and judgment. 

In our tour of Genesis, I want us to stare at this point for a minute, namely, the imminence of God, His closeness, His intimacy. This was a point that I had missed in my initial study of this passage, so I greatly owe Dr. Allen Ross for pointing me in this direction for this sermon. It is easy to miss the closeness and intimacy with God in Genesis so far because of all the big things He does. He sets up the world, and then He floods the whole thing. He separates all the peoples by introducing different languages. He brings a plague on all of Egypt. He helps Abraham defeat close to half a dozen kingdoms in battle. He is promising that Abraham will have descendants outnumbering the stars! In the next chapter, He turns the green, fertile fields of Sodom into the Dead Sea with flaming brimstone launched from heaven! 

And then there’s this chapter where He stops by for lunch. 

Our God is not a God who drops care packages through the mail or send judgment via drone. He is personally involved. He operates face-to-face. And we are going to look at that today. 

God is personally involved in blessing and judgment

Once again, here in verse 1, God appears to Abraham. We aren't really told how He has appeared before (except in chapter 15 where He took the form of fire and smoke), but this time we are given a clear picture of how He appears this time: in human form. 

The Lord is clearly one of the men (the One who does all the talking), but who are the other two? Is this some sort of appearance of the Trinity, the three in one? No, the passage itself doesn't support that view. We see in verse 22 (which we will look at next time) that after the meal is done, the three move towards Sodom, but the Lord stops while the other two men go on. Later, in chapter 19, verse 1, we find "THE" two angels arriving in Sodom. The definite article assumes that we would know that it is the same two men who were walking earlier towards Sodom. 

Secondly, contrary to popular books like The Shack, the Trinity is not three separate beings, three Gods. There is only one God. Jesus was clear that He and the Father are One, and that he who had seen Him had seen the Father. There are three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but all One Substance, One Being. Does that break our minds? Yes it does, but it isn't contradictory. We aren't saying there is only one God, and there are also three Gods. We are saying three persons, One God. It's God. It's supposed to be beyond our understanding. 

In any event, God has arrived, and Abraham wishes to serve Him. He acts as a great host, offering a foot wash, shade, and food. He runs around in what one of my professors called, "a tornado of activity" (Matthews, 217). He's running here and there getting everything ready as quickly as ancient technology would allow, and then he stands there like a modern waiter while they eat. 

Now, God could have easily spared Abraham this trouble. He could have created food right then and there. So why? Well, eating someone else's food implies good relations between the two of you. Unless you have some sort of terrible allergy which requires you to bring your own food, you don't bring your own food to someone else's dinner. If you were to invite me to lunch, and I turned it down for no other reason other than I brought my own food, that would be an insult, even in this culture. We train our children to eat even food that we don't like all that much, lest we insult the host. This is even more so in a culture like Abraham's. 

When I was in Togo, the director there told me a story of when they were going into a remote village to do some ministry. The people there were so excited to welcome visitors that most of the village took the day off to prepare this elaborate meal for them. It wasn't much, because it was a poor village, but they put all their hearts into it. The Vapor people sat down, and the director told me, "There were no less than five THOUSAND flies on that meal. I turned to my team," he said, "we are going to eat this. Don't finish your plates (because you'll get more), but you have to eat." As a side bar, that doesn't happen on trips that Americans take, so don't let this story prevent you from coming with me to Togo some day, but this director's attitude illustrates the point we are making here. 

Eating is an act of trust. Dr. Ross puts it this way, "A good case can be made at the visitation to eat in Abrahams tent was meant to convey intimate fellowship, and on the basis of such a close relationship, the Lord would guarantee the imminent birth of the child of promise" (Ross, 342). God sitting down to dinner with you tells you that you and He are friends. Because of that relationship, when He tells you that something is going to be done, it will be. It isn't just because God has a contract with you, and is therefore obligated to do so. He is going to fulfill His promise to you because He loves you. Being friends with God should mean that there is very little to fear. 

I remember taking a political science class with a man who was very well connected in Washington many years ago. He told us the story of a friend who had lost their passport and needed a new one. The problem was this friend was flying out of the country the next day. Anyone who has ever had to get a passport done knows that it takes weeks, if you're lucky, to get something like that. But not if you are friends with someone in that office. One phone call was made, and within 24 hours, that friend had a new passport. It pays to have friends in government!

How much more so with God? Don't you just love verse 14? Can you imagine being Abraham and Sarah in that moment? God Himself is talking to you in between bites of bread that you made, and asks, "Is anything too hard for me? I know that you want a son more than anything, and I promise you that son this time next year." 

What do you want from God? Have you really sat down and thought about it? If you could have lunch with God, what would you want your conversation to be? Probably, if we are honest, would initially say something like, clearing of debt, obedient children, better marriage, less pain, the new Mario Kart, and maybe even more episodes of Bluey. But if we were to interrogate those requests for a bit, what we would find is that what we actually want is joy. We think those things will bring it, but they don't on their own. Joy comes from having more of Christ. It is focusing on the Giver, not the gift. 

And that is why Jesus gave us the Lord's Supper. In this chapter, Abraham washes the Lord's feet, but in John 13, the Lord returns in physical form, not to be served, but to serve. He stoops to wash their feet, and in a flurry of activity, He prepares a meal, ultimately symbolizing His sacrifice. He didn't just prepare the bread, He became the bread, as it were. He doesn't just offer us a meal; He offers us Himself. And now, every time we gather together to eat the Lord's Supper, it is a real communion with Jesus. By faith, we eat that supper with Jesus. Just because we can't see it doesn't make it any less real. Paul doesn't call the Lord's Supper a cup of blessing (1 Cor. 10) for nothing. 

Imagine coming to the Lord's Table desiring to be rid of your sin so that you may behold Christ better, and He smiles at you over a table symbolizing His sacrifice on the cross to give you exactly that and says, "Is anything too hard for me? I know the troubles in your life. I gave them to you to draw you here. I am showing you that you don't need a pain-free body to find joy in Me. You don't need the perfect spouse to find joy in Me. You can find joy in Me while being half-starved in a prison camp, because many of your brothers and sisters have. Nothing is impossible with Me." 

Maybe you are thinking to yourself, "Well, that's great for Christians, but there is no way that I can be forgiven." Let the story of Peter set you straight. Peter, one of the top disciples in Jesus' ministry, denied even knowing who Jesus was three times within sight of Jesus at His trial. He thought He was done. But at the end of John, we find Jesus making breakfast for Peter. And it is at that very moment that Jesus assures Peter of forgiveness. He gave Him three opportunities to say, "I love you" to replace the three times he denied. 

Come to that breakfast. Jesus has provided a way to have fellowship with God restored. If you've been wandering, come back. There's a meal for you. If you have been walking with Jesus, be reminded that He desires fellowship with you. Talk to Him in prayer. Hear from Him in His Word. Eat with Him here at the Lord's Table. We aren't trying to toss a note into the clouds hoping Jesus gets it. Jesus has come to Earth with a set table. 

Let me close with this. I heard of a man who would pray everyday at a window in His home. He would sit in one chair, and would place another chair outside the window and said that this was so that Jesus would have a place to sit. Now, I'm not saying that this is the best way to pray, but that man understands what is happening. He isn't talking to the sky. He isn't just spraying words somewhere hoping something sticks. He knows that he is praying to someone Who is listening. Who is personally involved in His life. 

That's true of you. So please, don't deny yourself a meal with Jesus. Spend some time in fellowship with Jesus this afternoon. It doesn't have to stop here. It shouldn't. Pull up a chair. Sit a while. You are sons of God, heirs to the promise of one day sitting with Jesus face to face, to have a meal in heaven. 

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​Symbols are important things. They aren't just images that are nice to have. They are essential to our memory. We have rings for marriage because they are meant to remind us to stay faithful. I don't need reminding that I am married; I need reminding that that marriage makes a difference in how I live. I am no longer just me. I am married to my wife. That doesn't just change what I do in any given bedroom. It changes how I take out the trash, how I spend money, and it even changes things for descendants. My children are greatly affected by my covenant with my wife. Their lives are different because of it. 

Today, we are going to be looking at a symbol for a covenant that has effect even unto today, circumcision. Modern life has made this awkward to talk about, but I think precisely because it is such an intimate symbol, it really strikes a cord that this is what was used by God in the Old Testament. Now, just to clarify at the start, circumcision is not required today (Acts 15). You do not need to undergo this process to be saved. There is nothing that saves you but the blood of Christ. 

That being said, we will see that there are some elements of this covenant that continue. We will see that though this promise is made to Abraham and Isaac, Ishmael will receive the sign, too. We will see that God works in households, not just individuals. Circumcision gives blessing to all in that covenant, but the full enjoyment of the blessings of that covenant are for those who are circumcised in heart and thus obey the will of God (Redd, 142 *Covenant Theology*).  

Today we will explore our two points: God provides a sign of His covenant and We are called to apply and remember His sign.  

God Provides a sign of His Covenant 

Thirteen years have passed since we last met with Abram. He was 86 years old when Ishmael was born, and now he is 99. Still no son by Sarai. It's a lot of waiting, but the Lord appears again and speaks to Abram. He calls Abram to walk before Him and be blameless. This isn't to mean that Abram is going to earn the covenant with God. God has already made this promise to Him. But that doesn't mean that Abram is just going to sit there. Abram's life is called to be different. One commentator had this to say about the word "blameless," "This word does not refer to moral conduct, for that would be too insignificant in this situation and is self-understood. The high demand corresponds to God's, 'Be you mine, and I will be yours." (Ross, Quoting Benno Jacob, 331). What he is saying here is that it should be obvious that Abram is to be a moral person, but that is bottom rung of what it means to be united with God. "Blameless" has the quality of being "whole" (Ross, 331). One can only be that united to God. 

It is like marriage. You don't define marriage as two people who live in the same house and help with chores. That is a roommate. A marriage is something profound. It is tying oneself to another's life. We are bound to each other. Are there expectations on each other? Yes, but that is not what makes a marriage. Marriage isn't checking off boxes of activity. It is belonging to each other such that the activities flow. Are there times where you do things out of duty? Sure. There are times where you soldier on. But the whole of the relationship shouldn't be defined that way. 

The same is true with God. Being in covenant is nothing less than being obedient to God. You have to do what God says. But there's more to it than that. Being in covenant with God is walking with Him, and in so doing becoming whole, healed. This is what is happening with Abram. 

Now, God is going to give a sign to Abram. First, he changes his name from Abram, "exalted father" to Abraham, "father of a multitude." Sarai will also get a name change to Sarah, but it is a little harder to know what the significance is here. Both names, near as we can tell, both mean "princess," but perhaps the altered spelling is here to mark a new era in her life. 

We are called to apply and remember His sign.  

But then we get to the big sign: circumcision. The first thing that I want you to notice here is the wide inclusiveness we have in this rite. This sign is a sign of God's covenant with Abraham, yet Abraham is going to have to do this, along with every male in the household whether born or bought. This means Abraham's sons and male servants are all going to have to undergo this thing. God considers them as having a portion in Abraham's blessing. 

What's really interesting here, as one writer points out, there will be more slaves than sons who received this sign (Myers, 181)! He continues, "...the people of the circumcision would not be a people of ethnic descent, but a people marked by God's promise. Even from this early point, God had a panethnic covenant people in view, a people whose commonality was not blood but God's promise." (181). In other words, we tend to think that the Old Testament people of God were always just Jews, but they weren't. It was always a mixed group of people.  

It is also a promise that is made to the generations following after. It's a plural thing! One thing that southern English gives us is the plural you, known as "y'all." It is needed in Biblical translation, because Hebrew and Greek have this concept of "y'all." We can see this in verse 10. Verse 10 should read, "This is my covenant, which Y'ALL shall keep." That "you" there is plural! Covenants have to include descendants! Otherwise, it isn't much of a promise. The plural nature of this covenant is the first thing I want you to notice. 

The second thing I want you to notice is the broadness of age in this covenant. When is the sign of this covenant applied to the next generation that will come up after Abraham? It is applied when a male child is eight days old. That child doesn't know what God's covenant is, but God wants to show that He considers the children in His work. If you are born in a house that is in covenant with God, there are blessings to it. Babies are part of a household, too. God considers babies as part of that covenant, so they get the sign, too. 

Why on the eighth day? Well, I'm sure some of it is being on the first day of the week, as it were. A full sabbath cycle has gone by. But there is an interesting biological reason for this, too. Obviously, undergoing a surgery like this involves bleeding. The body uses vitamin K to help the blood clot so we don't bleed to death. Do you know when vitamin K levels peak in babies? On the eighth day! The body isn't ready for that procedure until then. God has reasons for what He does. 

So we have seen some important things to notice. First, even though this covenant was made to Abraham and his offspring, every male undergoes the sign of the covenant, the whole household, sons and servants. Second, the sign of the covenant is made on every male of the house as soon as biologically possible, eight days old. 

One final thing to notice: Ishmael gets the sign, too (v 25). You know what is really interesting about that? He is not really in line for Abraham's covenant. Ishmael has his own promise (v 20), but God explicitly says that the covenant with Abraham—land, seed, blessing—is going to Isaac, not Ishmael. But Ishmael gets the same sign that Isaac does. 

Why do I stress this so much? Because this is why we baptize babies as well as adults in this church. When the New Covenant comes along, and Peter is preaching about it in Acts 2, the people ask, "What shall we do?" What does Peter say? Verse 38-39 "And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” Does anything in that text sound familiar? Do you hear something familiar? This promise is for you and for your children! Who is listening to this? Jews! Do you think that for even a moment they don't hear the echos of Abraham's covenant? It's only been the way things have worked for the last two thousand years! "You and your children, you and your offspring," generation after generation after generation, and now Peter gets up and says the same thing, and only now are kids kicked out? I think not. This might help explain things like why the Philippian jailer has his whole household baptized when he comes to faith. Almost like the Old Testament and the New Testament are connected, or something! 

Let me give you the reason why I bring this up, as we close. I'm not saying this because I'm trying to score points with presbyterianism. I'm trying to lead you to Jesus, not dead guys who wrote a catechism. I'm trying to lead you to the same Jesus they were trying to lead their people to. Jesus has given you a gift in a covenant sign. For Abraham, it was circumcision. For us, it is baptism and the Lord's Supper. Baptism isn't really our sign for other people. This is God's sign to us. Our baptism is supposed to remind us of God's faithfulness to us. Baptism is God reaching down to us to say, "Those who put their faith in me can be cleansed of their sins." And it is applied to babies because, as we have seen in Abraham's household and in Jesus' own ministry, babies aren't forgotten. They were in their respective societies, including our own, but God doesn't forget children. We aren't saying that babies are automatically saved by putting water on them, but we are saying that these kids have a distinct advantage because they are in a household with a parent who follows Jesus. They are up close and personal. They are hearing the Word of God proclaimed to them. They are in the presence of someone who has a blessing from God, and because God is so generous, He causes blessings to flow onto the children. 

So when you are feeling beat down by the world, remember your baptism. We don't look back on baptisms as a way of saying, "Wow! Look at how committed I was! I was crying that day! God has to have accepted me because of that." NO! Baptism is supposed to remind us that God has reached down and cleansed me when I didn't deserve it. I have been given the mark of blessing on my forehead, so I need to live in light of that. Receiving the mark of baptism is a greater status change than any other thing you could achieve. I have a degree from Samford university. That is nothing compared to receiving the sign of God! 

This is something that we should revel in, and it is something that we should call our children to. If they have been baptized but haven't come to faith yet, we can tell them that they are part of our family. They need to submit to God as Lord. They have the blessings of being in God's covenant, but in order to experience the full blessings of that covenant, they need to put their faith in Christ! So if they haven't yet, their baptism should point them saying, "God has given you blessings! It is time to submit to Him!"

Circumcision or baptism is never the salvation itself. It was always meant to point to a circumcision of the heart, a changed life. Stephen Myers put it this way: "If you are of Abraham's seed, you are without merit of your own, but you are not without responsibility...God's grace does not nullify obedience; it produces it. Grace makes obedience possible." (183) Does God alone save us? Yes. But does that relationship change us, make us whole, and transform our lives such that we have a responsibility to Him? Yes. We "are saved by grace, yet called to obedience." (Myers, 183). 

For Kids: 
You have a huge advantage. Invite others into it. Listen to your parents apply it to you. 
For Parents: 
You have a huge advantage. The covenant is more powerful than money. The covenant will make your kids more well-rounded than the co-op will. 
For Seniors
You are not defined by what you can't do anymore. You are a member of the covenant. You've been given the grace of time, maturity, and wisdom, all the more so if you have been following Christ your whole life. Use that position winsomely and with the humility it should have given you.  
For Non-Christians  
Right now, no other identity matters. God doesn't care about your career or anything else that you are proud of, and if you are honest with yourself, neither do you. 

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Sarai, from a human perspective, acts in a seemingly logical way. After all, what is the definition of insanity but trying the same thing over and over and expecting a different result? Sarai wants to have the child promised to her, but it has been ten years now, and nothing has changed. They've gone to the promised land, tithed to God's priest, even witnessed a full-blown covenant ceremony, but ten years later, still no child. Trusting God has only taken them so far, so now it must be time to try something different. 

The problem that this passage presents is not that it is bad to use logic. The problem this passage presents is that distrusting God is always illogical. Sarai and Abram are struggling with knowing that God sees them. It can seem that He doesn't when it has been a long time of waiting. This passage is going to proving in an overwhelming way, that God sees and hears and it is disastrous to not trust him. 

It is disastrous to not trust God

Our story starts by stating the big problem: Sarai still hasn't had a child. Chapter 15 told us that there would be as many children to outnumber the stars, but here we are, ten years later, with nothing to show for it. Sarai wants to be the solution to her problem. Sarai looks around and sees Hagar, her foreign servant, and sees opportunity. You see, where laws of nature fail, laws of man make up for. At that time, if a wife couldn't bear children, it was socially acceptable to substitute her servant in her place. Her husband could bear children with the servant, but legally the child would still be considered the wife's. 

At first, this seems to be a pretty reasonable calculation. You want a child, but biologically, it is impossible. There is an alternative legal means to have one, so why not pursue it? 

The problem here is that God was going to give the child through Sarai, and He doesn't approve of multiple wives. We will see what happens when things are not pursued God's way. Human planning against God's commands will always result in disaster.  

Sarai begins with the assertion that God has prevented her from having a child. The next sentence should have been, "But we know what He has promised us, so we will keep waiting." Instead, the next sentence is, in essence, "We can get around God by using someone else." Silly when it is put that way, huh? "God isn't letting me have this, so I will sin in order to outsmart God." It never works out. Even a good gift apart from the Giver is a grief. 

Genesis wants us to understand what is happening here as we get to the end of verse 2 and the rest of verse 3. Adam was punished for "listening to the voice of his wife" when they ate from the tree. Here, Abram is listening to the voice of Sarai in this sin. Notice also, as many commentators pointed out, that Sarai "takes" and "gives" Hagar, just as Eve took the fruit and gave it to Adam (Belcher, 126). It's a repeat of Genesis 3. Notice all the titles here in verse 3, "Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her servant, and gave her to Abram her husband as a wife." None of this should be happening. 

Once this has happened, however, things have been set in motion, and no one is going to like the results. One scholar said, "...human assistance to the fulfillment of the divine promises only complicated the matter." (Ross, 316). Hagar has now succeed where Sarai has supposedly failed, so she is rubbing Sarai's face in it (Ross, 319). That word there means to "treat lightly." 

Sarai isn't happy, even though her plan went more or less how she wanted it to. She got the child she was looking for but lost the respect of her servant, and possibly the status of wife in the house (Matthews, 182)! However, Abram clarifies things by calling Hagar "your servant," but that's about all he does! He tells her that Hagar is her servant, so she can deal with her. And deal with her she does. She treats her so badly, that Hagar, newly pregnant, flees from the household towards the desert. 

It should be clear at this point that sin has caused problems at every turn. Sarai's impatience and Abram's passivity brought an illegitimate child here. Instead of stopping there, sin multiplied! Hagar got filled with pride, Sarai got filled with insecurity, and now, at the end of verse six, they lost their servant along with the baby they just got! They ended up worse than before from a sheer numbers standpoint. 

We serve a God who sees

Now, up to this point in the passage we have seen the mention of "seeing" and "eyes" a couple times in the Hebrew. In verse 4, Sarai was "despised in Hagar's eyes," and in verse 6, Abram tells Sarai to treat Hagar in whatever way is good in Sarai's "eyes." All of these eyes have despised each other, but there is about to be a new set of eyes on the scene. 

Our new section opens with the Lord finding Hagar by a spring of water (which, in Hebrew, uses the same word as "eye," fascinatingly). No one is beyond God's eye. He asks her questions similar to the ones asked of Adam and Eve, namely, "Where?" Yet instead of exile, God tells her to return to the master's house. This will come with a promise and a future that is spelled out in verses 10-12 (Matthews, 189). While this isn't the same promise that Abram is given, as that promise is for Isaac, but there is the promise that there will be many descendants. Sadly, Ishmael (meaning, "God hears") isn't going to get along with people very well, something we see played out in Middle Eastern politics to this day. 

Nevertheless, the Lord has seen and cared for the least thought of. Hagar was one servant in a large household, a foreigner, and a fugitive into a desert place. If there was ever a person who would be ignored or unnoticed, it would be Hagar. But she was not beyond God's eyes and ears. Hagar recognizes this and calls God "the God of seeing" and names the well there "he well of the Living One who sees me." 

No matter how forgotten you think you are, you are never beyond the eyes of God. No matter how despised you are in other people's eyes does not mean you are beyond God's. There is never a need to resort to sin to get what the Lord is going to give you. God hasn't forgotten about you.

For Sarai, she had to be reminded about that every time she saw Ishmael. She would be reminded of this again when she had to call her son Isaac (which means "laughter," a reference to Sarai's reaction when God told her she would have a child.) 

You and I don't have to have reminders like that. The only name we need to be reminded of is Jesus. Jesus coming to Earth is the deepest evidence that God does see and hear. We were far from God, but we were never beyond God's vision. He saw us in our sin, yet came to rescue us from our sin. 

So what does this passage teach us? As individuals, I think there are two. 

1) Please don't try to help God's plans by introducing your own. God is not a toddler. He doesn't need your brilliance. A preacher, Steve Lawson, once said that if his prayers changed God's mind, he would never pray again. God's plans are infinitely wise, so we don't pray to change God's mind. We pray so that God will change us to see that His plans are wise. The saying goes that if at first you don't succeed, do it the way mom told you to do it the first time. This applies to us all when it comes to God. Don't try to do things differently than God tells you. The worst case scenario is you succeed! Sarai got a child and near constant unrest in the middle east for thousands of years! Thankfully, not all of our sins have the same sort of effect, but some do. We sinned in legalizing abortion at the cost of millions of lives. 

2) Notice how your eyes work. How do you see people? Do you see people? I can go my whole day surrounded by people whom I never see. There will be plenty of times where I will see people just long enough to assign them to some sort of category in relation to me (better than me, worse than me) rather than in relation to how God sees them. My eye doesn't hold the gavel. Other's eyes don't hold the gavels. Christ's eye is the only one who truly sees. We need to see others the way He does. 

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​What does it mean to believe? When we tell people that they need to "believe in Jesus," what are we actually telling them? This is a key question to answer, because whatever it means to believe is how Abram was counted as righteous before God. And according to Paul, whatever it means to believe in Jesus is how *we* are counted righteous as well, is how we get to heaven—or not. This passage is mentioned many times in the New Testament, so if they saw it as important, we must see it as important. I will give you the answer up front, and then we will develop it as we go. To believe, simply enough, is to see something as dependable (Ross, 310) or "place trust in someone with confidence..." (Matthews, 166). To believe in God is to see Him as dependable and then live in light of that (Ross, 310)!  

This should be a pretty understandable concept because W]we depend on things all the time. Whenever a dad is loading up a trailer and needs to secure the load, what does he reach for? The ratchet straps! After expertly crisscrossing the trailer, tightening it down, what is he practically *required* to say after giving it a tap? "That's not going anywhere." Why does he say that (every time)? It is because he sees those straps as dependable. While the rest of us nervously look back at the load over each bounce, eyes are forward because he knows what those straps will do. Do you depend on God to at least the same degree your dad depends on those ratchet straps? If not, I encourage you to listen in to what Genesis 15 has to say. 

We will unpack this more as we uncover our two points today:  God promises what only He can deliver and God gives signs so we won't forget His promises.

God promises what only He can deliver

Verse 1 begins by letting us know that after all the events of chapter 14, the Lord comes to Abram promising to be His shield and bring great reward to him. Abram, however, picks up on something that God hasn't provided yet. Yes, God has protected in battle and brought great things, but there is something promised but not yet provided, a son. Abram points out that without an heir, everything will go to a servant, Eliezer of Damascus. That's no son. 

This might look like wavering faith, but it isn't. Wavering faith is next chapter. Coming to God in prayer asking for the things that God has promised is recognizing and declaring where those benefits come from. He isn't saying (yet), "Well, I tried God, and He didn't come through, so I'll do it my way now." That is not seeing God as dependable. To keep coming back to God displays that this is where you place your trust. 

Let's go back to Genesis as Abram's question about a son is answered. First, God assures Abram that this servant is emphatically not going to be the heir. Someone from his very body will be the son of promise. Then God invites him outside to see all the stars He made. He tells Abram that not only is he going to have a son from his own body, but His descendants will be huge in number. 

Then we get to verse 6. This verse is referred to in Romans, Galatians, and even James. This is the gospel according Genesis. Do you want to know how Old Testament saints were saved from hell before Jesus came? The same way you do. And that is exactly the argument that Paul and James make from this very verse, so we MUST pay attention. 

The first thing we want to address is the timing of everything. This isn't the moment that Abram believes in God for the first time. He did that when he left his hometown all the way back in chapter 12. Here the word "believed" is in a very special verb tense called the "perfect." If you missed this in English class, the "perfect" tense is when something has happened in the past but has continuing effect today. When a law "has been written" that is the perfect tense. It happened in the past and has continuing effect to today. It still applies. That is the tense that is here in verse 6. Abram "has believed" in God. It was something that happened in the past and has continuing effects right into this present moment. When Jesus said, "It is finished" it is in the perfect tense. His work, though happening in the past, stands effective to our lives today. 

So Abram has, and continues to, believe in God. He isn't wavering in asking God this question. He believes and lives as if God's promises are true. He keeps trusting in God to provide. It is this "believe" that God counts as righteous. Now, what is righteous? It means "conforming to a standard." Now, Abram hasn't conformed to a standard, per se. God has simply called him to depend on God, and only because of that, God has counted or credited Abram with righteousness. One scholar put it this way: "The term 'credited'...means 'to assign...value'; in this case the Lord assigns Abram's faith the value of righteousness" (Matthews, 167). This is God's economy. The First Bank of heaven issues righteousness to those who have faith. 

Now, Abram's life was changed by that faith. That life change proves that he has true faith. That is what James 2 reminds us of. I can say that I trust those ratchet straps, but if I always use something else to tie down my trailer, I never prove whether or not I actually trust them. I can say all day that I trust a parachute, but the proof of that faith is in jumping out of a plane trusting nothing but it. 

What are you trusting in? Not just in general, but what are you trusting in when you sit down to pay the bills? When you are waiting for the diagnosis? When your kid is screaming? When you feel that cold panic stab through your body? Are you depending on Christ alone? Or do you feel more comfortable when you can see a certain amount of work from yourself? When you can figure it out? Are you looking to Christ? He is the only one that can fulfill a promise like, "I can get you to heaven and care for you along the way."

God gives signs so we won't forget His promises.

What if you still want more proof? God gives more. With the descendant question answer, Abram asks how he can know that he will have the land. From there, God begins a covenant ceremony. As we've said, a covenant split animals apart, the two parties walked between the animals, pledging that if they don't keep their end of the bargain, may God do to them what happened to the animals. Here, God condescends to make the deepest promise a human being could make to another at that time. You know how sometimes kids make you pinky swear to do something? This is like that. God is stooping down to make a promise in such a way that Abram (and us) can see what it means. 

There is a lot of fascinating imagery here. Abram sets it up as requested, and then has to shoo birds away from the sacrifice. As the vision develops, God shows up as an image of a smoking pot and a flaming torch (vs 17), but not before issuing a prophecy that his descendants would suffer under slavery. All of these images are part of that story. One scholar points out that the smoke and fire point to the pillars of cloud and fire that would lead Israel out of Egypt and these images reappear at Sinai (Matthews, 172-3, 5). That same scholar points to these birds of prey trying to eat the animals points to Egyptian slavery as well (Matthews, 172-3). 

So why are his descendants going to be enslaved? Is it because God knows the Egyptians are super powerful and enslavement is simply the inevitable result of ancient geopolitics? Did God have a political science major analyze this? Nope. Verse 16: "the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete." The people currently in the land haven't exhausted God's patience yet. 

That should be the second most comforting sentence in this whole chapter. The first is that you can be counted righteous by your belief in Christ. Your personal life can be completely squared away. This second sentence, however, tells us that the rest of the world is in God's control. This verse tells us that God is playing both sides of the chess board. Israel being enslaved is not a detour, it is a destination. God didn't lost control of the situation for one moment. And can we talk about how long-term God is planning here? I think I'm on top of life filling in my calendar two months ahead. God is operating centuries. The beginning and the end of time all in God's mind. No detail is lost. And look how merciful he was to the Amorites. He says right here that they won't repent. I wouldn't have waited. But God did. One commentator put it this way: "Abram's seed would surely get the land—but 'not one hour before absolute justice requires it'" (Ross, 311, quoting Dods, *Book of Genesis,* 143). If you haven't felt the full effect of your sin yet, God is giving you time. Take the forgiveness offered. Patience isn't forever. 

So what does that all mean for us today? Yes, I'm sure Israel could draw much comfort from the pictures seen here in chapter 15, but what about us? Well, their history is your history, and now the people of God have been given an even greater sign! A new covenant has been made, and it isn't pictured with an oven and torch. It is bread and wine. 

God has made a promise to us sealed in blood. A blood oath is as deep as it comes in our society. Jesus says, "My body has been split for you! Eat and drink this in remembrance of me." Do you want to know how much control God has? He used the death of His Son, the deepest of all injustices and tragedies and turned into something that we gather weekly and sing about! That's both sides of the board! What political figure can do that? Can you do that? Christ can. So when you wake up in the middle of the night worried about your kids, remember the bread and wine. God is working centuries ahead of you. What is happening now has *direct* impact on things for centuries because that is how God works. When you sit in the silence of your mind and wonder how on earth a wretch like you can be saved, remember the bread and wine. Remember the smoke and torch. Remember what they all point to: that God counts faith as righteousness. You're not on the table. Christ is. Abram didn't take on the curse of the covenant; he didn't even walk it. God did. And Christ took the curse on Himself (Blecher, 125-6)!  

It is planned. So rest. Live the life God has called you to live. Depend on God for everything else. It is finished.

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​Last week we discussed how Abram doesn't have to fight in order to obtain the blessing of the Lord, but we did end it with the fact that Abram doesn't have to be a doormat and is to fight for what the Lord calls him to. Here in chapter 14, we see that call come. As one scholar put it, "Sometimes it requires more faith to take action than to remain passive" (Waltke, 237). Sometimes you need to commit to action, and fighting for the protection of his family calls Abram to arms. But as we will note here, Abram isn't saved by the sword but by the Lord and acts accordingly in his tithe to this mysterious Melchizedek. So let's dive into this passage looking at our two points today: Fight the Lord's battles when called, and Win or "lose," return to the Lord His due. The nature of our conflicts and the weapons we use today as Christians are different, but there is much that we can learn and take comfort in in this passage. 

Fight the Lord's battles when called

Chapter 14 begins with trouble in the land. To boil it down, these kings led by Chedorlaomer, are warring against these other nations in order to get them to give the tribute they were supposed to. Now, what you should always do to every Bible passage is to ask, "Why is this here?" We could be satisfied that we are just setting up the conflict so we have a reason for Abram to go to war. That's fair enough, but one should also ask what this might have meant to the original audience. One scholar notices something in that vein. It turns out that the path that these invading kings are taking is the same road that Israel will be walking on its way in from Egypt! If God sustains Abram here, then they can take comfort that He fights for them, too (Matthews, 144).

This is no slouch force either. They have come in an conquered a people who were remembered as the giants of the ancient word (Matthews, 143)! We see these armies advancing seemingly with nothing to stop them on and on and now Lot himself has been captured! It is worth pointing out, that had he not been settled in Sodom (Waltke notes the difference in the Hebrew between Abram's temporary dwelling and Lot's more permanent dwelling, 231), he would have had the protection of Abram in the first place (Belcher, 118). The disadvantage of sin begins almost immediately. One would think that this would have woken Lot up to what kind of risks he was taking, but then how many times do we have to suffer the same consequences of our sins before it sticks? 

Ok, so we seem to have this unstoppable force that is ravaging the land that has now taken Lot. Interestingly, Abram is so far removed from these problems, that the only way he even knows about it is someone escapes to tell him! 

Abram now has a choice, let Lot suffer the fate of his choices (ha! serves him right for his selfishness) or risk his own life to go and get him. Like a good king, Abram goes on a rescue mission. Is our God not the same way? While we were yet sinners Christ died for us. 

But how do we know that Abram is doing the right thing here? Well, we can see the way he is blessed by Melchizedek it was the right course of action, but how could we have known that put in his position? Should we just not pray and let God smite them? 

While each situation is different and requires wisdom, in general, trust in God does not mean the abandoning of reasonable actions of responsibility. God will work through those things, but we MUST remember that the victory is always the Lord's. 

As a personal example, when I was wrapping up my last year of seminary, I was searching for a church job. I applied to church after church with no offers or interviews that led to rejections. I was getting married in a few months after seminary, so I needed a job that would support more than just me! It was getting towards the last two months of time in seminary, so I applied for a job in a world I knew, Apple computers. Thanks to the generosity of friends in the company, I was granted the chance to be interviewed in a few weeks time. Right before the interview, I was approached by a church in a little town called Brewton, but motivated by the desire to provide for my future wife, I kept myself in the computer system at Apple in case it didn't work out. Curiously, in the midst of the Brewton interview, I was mysteriously removed from the computer system at Apple, and my interview canceled. Through this and just so many other circumstances that would take too long to outline here, God made it clear He wanted me in Brewton, and even my responsible actions motivated from a godly desire to provide couldn't keep me from it. 

For Abram, he has the forces, the allies, and a clear crisis to address, so off he goes. He goes out with his forces and is victorious! 

But notice how little time is actually spent here on this. In just a couple of verses Abram is done! Remember, when the narrative speeds up, Genesis isn't as interested in your focus. But when the story slows down, details lingered over, concepts repeated, Genesis wants to point out to you that this is the important bit. 

Win or "lose," return to the Lord His due.

In verse 17, we find what is the actual climax of the story (Waltke, 255). Here Abram is meeting with two kings whose contrast could not be clearer in this passage. We've met the king of Sodom already in this story, but here we are introduced to a new character, the mysterious priest-king from Salem. There is no history for us to draw from here. Even the book of Hebrews (the only other place other than Psalm 110 where he is mentioned) doesn't have anything to add about where he came from or where he went. As near as we can tell, Salem is Jerusalem, and the name "Melchizedek" literally means "King of Righteousness." He is apparently a true priest of God and the king of Salem. 

This is unique in Biblical history because once we have the Mosaic covenant, the promise that God made to Moses and the people and the system set up with it, the role of King and Priest are separate. In fact, whenever the kings of Israel would try to mix those two roles, the Lord would punish (2 Chronicles 26). That being said, there was the prophesy in Psalm 110, which we sang this morning, that anticipates the joining of those two roles. Of course, this King-Priest anticipated in Psalm 110 is none other than Jesus Himself. Hebrews 7 lays out the argument that Jesus is this priest after the order of Melchizedek, the priest that was there before any other priest existed. 

This has led some to think that this figure in Genesis 14 is actually Jesus before the incarnation! As tempting as that is to think, this is not likely. Hebrews 7 says that Melchizedek was *like* the son of man, and if there would ever had been a place to assert that, it would have been Hebrews 7. That being said, Melchizedek is certainly a type of Christ, a shadowy figure that sounds the first few notes of what is to come. He is like Jesus, but Jesus will be far more than him. 

So what are they doing here? Well, this passage starts by contrasting the two kings from the very beginning. King of Sodom "comes out" whereas King of Salem "brings out" (a pun in Hebrew, Waltke, 233); the first words of Melchizedek "blessed" whereas the first words of Sodom are "give me" (Matthews, 146). Considering what we know about Sodom, this is a wicked king, and the king of Salem is literally named "king of righteousness." So who is Abram going to go with? 

Mr. Melchizedek speaks first, after laying out a banquet to feast (bread and wine being a figure of speech for this, Waltke, 233), with a blessing for....God! He launches into this beautiful doxology reiterating the fact that Abram is blessed by God the Creator. The word "Creator" here is also filled with meaning. According to one scholar, "Creator" has the sense of "source of life, buoyancy, and joy in the trials of the day, not just the source of origins...intimately involved in this present reality." (Waltke, 234-5). He is making it very clear who has actually laid the ground work for Abram's victory here. It wasn't because he had the best army, latest in sword technology, or military tactics. He was blessed of the Lord, and that is why he was successful. 

Then, Abram responds by giving Melchizedek a tenth, a tithe, of the plunder. Because he is a priest, Abram's giving to him is acknowledging that God has given him the victory and thus presents some of that spoil to Him. 

Now, King of Sodom comes up. Notice we don't even refer to him by name anymore. It got mentioned once at the start of the chapter, but Moses doesn't want you to forget who it is that Abram is about to be dealing with. This isn't just any old guy. This is the king of the place that has become a byword for evil not only in Moses' time but even until our own day. After a command to Abram (Sodom is hardly in a position to command anything of Abram), he makes an admittedly generous offer. He only wants his people back, but Abram can keep the rest of the stuff.  

Abram has a choice. Will he accept this offer? One commentator put it this way: "The king of Sodom, on the other hand, makes a handsome and businesslike offer; its sole disadvantage is perceptible, again, only to faith" (Kinder). What is that sole disadvantage? Abram zeros right in on it: "You'll say that Sodom made Abram rich." What Abram is afraid of is that Sodom will take credit for God's work. And it is a risk even today. My old seminary professor put it like this: "The people of God may win spiritual struggles, but in the limelight of their success they may give away all the glory to some pagan pretender who would be delighted to rob God of the credit for spiritual success. While believer must use all the resources God has given to them to fight their spiritual battles, they must also keep in mind the true source of their victory and their blessings so that they may discern the confusion from the world" (Ross, 302).  

Abram maintains his honor. He allows those that fought with him to take what they want, but as for him, God's blessings are quite enough, thank you. 

So would Abram had been wrong to accept this gift from Sodom? Yes. Receiving from a gift from Sodom isn't how God's blessing was going to come through. God doesn't need Sodom to give His people what they need. To use a modern example, Knollwood would not accept money from Planned Parenthood. God doesn't need that murderous organization to advance His purposes. For examples that are less clear cut, once again, there is some wisdom from Dr. Ross: How to discern a blessing from a burden: One, consider the person's nature and motives for giving the alleged blessing, second "can it be explained in no other way than from God—miraculous, spiritual, enduring? Abram was simply not willing to say that the best that Sodom had to offer was the blessing of God!" (Ross, 301). In other words, if an alleged blessing is only offered through evil means intended for evil ends, you can safely refuse it. 

I remember a seminary colleague of mine tell me a story of his father who was a pastor. A man approached him from his church wanting to change something about it that would be a turn from faithfulness to God. When the pastor rightly refused, the man threatened to leave the church and take his substantial tithe check with him. To the man's surprise, the pastor responded, "Take your money and perish with it." The church turned out just fine, even without that tithe check. 

Abram doesn't take up Sodom's offer. He won't take as much as a sandal strap from the guy! He is going to continue to trust the Lord of heaven and earth. 

So what do we take away from this passage? Obviously, we aren't taking up swords and slashing our neighbors! But we are taking up the Word of God and fighting for truth in our culture. The church isn't here to win elections. If we do, great. But that is not the sum total of our mission. "For the weapons, as 2 Corinthians 10:4-5 says, "of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete." That is our fight. We aren't here to destroy people but lofty opinions against God. Is it easier to do that in a free country? Yes. Is it therefore a good thing to vote faithfully to that end? Yes. Do we give the credit to that political leader for the blessing of being able to freely preach? No. 

This fight isn't physical for us anymore. We don't go out with swords anymore (2 Cor. 10:3-6). We use something far more powerful than that: the gospel. That is what we have. There is no other fix to our problems than that. 

Let's be wary of enemies who would seem to offer us something to good to be true. Let us not be dependent on those who would like to see the gospel fail. Don't place your hope in compromise because that seems to be the only way forward. Are there times in our fallen world where you have to make the least bad choice? Yes. It comes up every four years. But then we get right back to preaching the only hope that we have. 

No matter who our earthly rulers are, we still have our Priest-King who rules and reigns forever. He is the King who rules all things and the priest who redeems all things. Like Abram, He came to save us from our own sins. While Abram only risked his life, Christ gave up His. And now today the choice stands before you: Which King will you serve? Sodom will give to you in the immediate. The riches and "blessings" of the world are tangible. You can touch them. But they will fail. What good is it even if you were to gain the whole world but lose your soul. Don't do that. Instead be willing to "lose" in the world to win in Christ. That is why the second point has the word "lose" in quotes. In Christ there is no losing, not in the eternal sense. No you won't have as much money or stuff, but you will have Christ. And he who has Christ has everything, the Creator of heaven and earth.