INTRODUCTION
For those of you who don’t know, I am the oldest of three boys and I grew up in a family that went to church every
church every Sunday?
Let me just say, most of the time, it wasn’t a piece of cake. My brothers and I would fight our parents about getting ready. Then, my parents would fight us, to get us ready. Voices would rise louder and louder until screaming would ensue. The screaming would begin with us boys screaming out our parents, then our parents would begin to scream back at us, but usually by the end our parents ended up screaming at each other.
You see (we boys) knew that if we began crying when Mom or Dad screamed at us, their focus would be taken off of us and on to each other (classic deflection). One of them would get mad about the way the other treated us. They would start arguing with each other. Their voices would get louder and louder and then it wouldn’t just be the boys crying, Mom would be crying too! 5 minutes late, this is how we would enter the church parking lot. Then, we’d dry the eyes, put on the smiles, ‘cause we’re walking into church.
Anybody been there? God having a wonderful sense of humor has blessed me with three boys. l’ve been there myself.
So we go to church on Sunday morning to celebrate the Prince of Peace, but many times our Sunday morning ritual of getting to church is anything but peaceful. And, unfortunately for many of us Sunday mornings are often just microcosms of the rest of our lives. We fight and quarrel with spouses. We fight and quarrel with our parents. We fight and quarrel with our kids. We fight and quarrel with our bosses, and our co-workers. We fight and quarrel with our neighbors and our friends.
If we worship the prince of peace, why are our lives anything but peaceful? How do we grow in our journey to become people of peace? How do we quit fighting and arguing? What happens if we don’t? We will answer these questions as we look at Abram and Lot and see how Abram journeyed in his faith to become a man of peace and Lot did not!
A JOURNEY
The first thing I want you to know is this: It’s a journey to become a person of peace. It doesn’t happen overnight and this is the case with Abram. Let’s look at Genesis 13:1-4:
" So Abram went up from Egypt to the Negev, with his wife and everything he had, and Lot went with him. Abram had become very wealthy in livestock and in silver and gold. From the Negev he went from place to place until he came to Bethel, to the place between Bethel and Ai where his tent had been earlier and there he first built and altar. There Abram called on the Name of the Lord"
Remember,… last week we learned that Abram didn’t have faith that God would provide for him during the famine. So, he left the land God gave him. He left God’s promise to give him a great future and went down to Egypt. Abram’s journey paralleled his spiritual condition. Abram’s faith was decreasing. It was deficient.
This week we pick up the story of Abram after, God graciously intervened in Abram’s faithlessness to get him and his family back on track—to get him moving back to the promised-land, to get him growing up in his faith once again. The text tells us that Abram went up from Egypt to the Negev. Now, Abram’s journey is taking him up and he is growing up in his faith.
Abram’s journey parallels his spiritual condition.
Take a look at this picture. It is the Negev. It is the desert Abram has to go thru on his way back! Put yourselves in Abram’s shoes. He has to trust or have faith that God will provide for him and all the livestock he accumulated in Egypt on his journey back thru this desert to the promised land where he will become a man of peace. That’s hard!! Abram couldn’t get around the famine—he has to go thru it! He tried to get around it by going to Egypt, but God makes him go thru it in another way.
THRU THE DESERT PLACE
Why? Why does God make Abram go thru the desert place? God wants to grow Abram’s faith so he will become a man of peace! As Abram goes thru this desert place, he sees God provide in difficult circumstances and his faith grows! That is what God wanted for him in the first place.
God makes us journey thru the desert, thru the valley, thru the famine, thru our difficulties in our life to grow our faith. Our journey to become people of peace takes us thru famine and the desert place. Our faith has to Grow Up in order to become people of peace.
TAKES TIME
The next thing I want you to see is this: Growing in our faith takes time! It doesn’t happen overnight!! So don’t feel bad if you’re not there yet, if you still struggle with fighting and arguing! It took Abram a long time to reach his destination and become a person of peace. Look at verse 3 says. It says: “…from the Negev Abram went from place to place until he got to Bethel.
Here are a few things I want you to see from this verse. Take a look at this picture. Abram is moving from the Negev to Bethel. Abram is moving from the desert hills, which direction? UP! He begins to ascend the central mountains on his way to Bethel. (You see, Abram is still growing in his faith journey!) Second, noticed the text tells us that he moved from place to place. This means he moved in stages. He didn’t climb these mountains overnight. It took him time. Third, Bethel means House of God. Abram’s movement slowly up these mountains from place to place is a picture of his growing relationship and closeness to God. His relationship with God is growing, because he is learning to trust God. Deuteronomy 11:10-12 tells us that this area, the central ridge, can’t be irrigated in a manmade way like the land Abram came from in Egypt. It is dependent upon God to bring rain. Abram is learning to trust God with his life, his possessions, and his wealth!
REQUIRES WORSHIP
When we begin to trust God with our whole life, we see God provide, our faith grows, and we can’t help but worship him, be close to him, love him, be one with him!! Look what Abram does. Verse 4 tells us that Abram returns to the altar and calls on the name of the Lord. Abram gets close to God! He is living in Bethel—God’s House. He talks to God. He worships God. This is what it means to call on the name of the Lord.
Abram returns to the altar at God’s house and in so doing is telling God I trust you with my life and my possessions. Paul tells us in Romans 12:1 and 2 that offering our bodies or our whole lives to God is our spiritual act of worship. When Abram offers God an animal on the altar that he built, he is saying God I give you my possessions and when he gives God his possessions he is saying I trust you with my life. He is saying, “God, you have the rights to both my possessions and my life!” It is a journey to get to this point! But we have to get to this place and have this attitude if we are going to be people of peace instead of people who argue and fight!
QUARRELING
Now we come to the fighting and quarrelling. Let me read verses 5-6
Now Lot, who was moving about with Abram, also had flocks and herds and tents. But the land could not support them while they stayed together, for their possessions were so great that they were not able to stay together.
God has been good to both of them. He has taken care of them so well on their journey that their herds have gotten so large they can’t stay together. (I’d like to have this kind of problem wouldn’t you!) Let me continue with verse 7:
And quarreling arose between Abram’s herdsmen and the herdsmen of Lot. The Canaanites and Perizzites were also living in the land at that time.
I want you to put yourself in this story. Imagine you are living in Abram’s time. God has blessed you! He has made you rich! He has given you and your nephew huge herds of livestock.
This is where you live, between Ai and Bethel in the central plateau, central mountain region of Israel. It looks like this. Grassland, but there is not a lot of grass! Not a lot of water! Like I mentioned earlier, at Bethel, Abram and Lot have to trust God to bring the rain, in order fill the wells so their livestock will survive.
Do you see how the quarreling might start? Lot’s people or Abram’s people say, “We are grazing by the well—you go somewhere else. Move your herd. They say your heard is eating all the grass—move on! They say our herds are going to drink from the wells first. Yours will have to wait! …They fight over their rights! They fight over their right to the best pasture. They fight over their right to be closest to the wells, and so on and so forth.
Now admit it, isn’t this the way most fights begin, someone protecting their rights? Isn’t this the basic conflict that causes war? One country or group of people wants to defend its right to land, it right to resources, or its right to financial security and they fight to do so?
But we see it on the playground too, kids fighting about who gets to use the field first. Will it be the kick-ballers or the ones that want to play football?
I remember being so mad. I was first to the field to save it for my friends and I who wanted to play football, but a mob of other kids took it over to play kickball before my friends got there. I can tell you that there was pushing and shoving and name calling taking place. I didn’t want to give up my rights! I was there first!!
Shoot this happens with my boys and the Wii all the time. It’s my turn! It’s not fair he’s had it forever! Any of you experience that drama?
Adults, we are no different. Our co-worker has a better office. It’s closer to the water cooler! Or they get the new computer and we didn’t. Doesn’t that grate on our nerves? And so it makes it hard for us not to fight with that person over the little things that come up.
For me it wasn’t a co-worker, but a neighbor. Their fence gradually angled into my property. And in another section of my yard this neighbor had about 3 ½ feet of his shed on my property. Really it was nothing. But every-time I mowed around that shed and around that fence, I couldn’t help but tense up. Why? Because my neighbor had part of my property! It tell you what, it would have been real easy to start a fight with that neighbor, with the way I felt inside, because I had the right to my property!
How about our spouses? Anybody here quarrel with their husband or wife? Please don’t tell me I’m the only one. What is it that makes you fight? What is it that makes you want to argue? Raise your voice? Do you feel like you have to defend your rights in your marriage—so there is no peace! You know, If I would quit insisting on my right to be right, half of Paula and I’s arguments would go away! The other half would go away if I gave up my right to not be hurt! She hurts me in some way. I have the right not to be hurt! So I fight with her, raise my voice, maybe yell—because I have the right not to be hurt!
What do Christians fight about? Do you know some of the silly things churches split over? Carpet, furnishings, paint color, what ministries get what amount of money. People say I have the right to get my way at church! They say I will defend my right with other like-minded people. So, they argue and raise their voices and hurt each other. Then we wonder why people leave?
ABRAM PURSUES PEACE
What does Abram do when fighting erupts between his shepherds and Lot’s? Abram pursues peace. Look at verse 8. It says:
"So Abram said to Lot, “Let’s not have any quarreling between you and me, or between your herdsmen and mine, for we are brothers."
He says we have to quit fighting and then he does something, he acts, to pursue peace!
How does Abram put a stop to the fighting and pursue peace? He sacrifices his rights. That is how we pursue peace, we sacrifice our rights! Look at what Abram says and does in verse 9. He says:
"Is not the whole land before you? Let’s part company. If you go to the left, I’ll go to the right; if you go to the right, I’ll go to the left.”"
Abram says, “I love you man. Brothers don’t fight. You take whatever land you want. I will take what is left.”
Abram is the Patriarch of the family. Custom and law say that he has the right to all the land. That is what God said too. Remember God gave the land to Abram. He didn’t give the land to Lot. Abram the social superior humbles himself before the inferior to preserve peace. Not many of us would do this for someone that ranks below us, would we? I have a hard time doing this for Paula, the woman I love!
Abram is sacrificing his future prosperity. He is putting his future and his rights in God’s hand by giving Lot the opportunity to have the best pastures, the best wells, and therefore the ability to be wealthier and more prosperous. Abram sacrifices the potential well-being of his financial portfolio, his financial future. He does this all for the sake of peace. He does this so there will be no fighting. (Imagine growing in your faith to the point where you can do this for peace!)
Abram has journeyed from being a person that will protect his life and his rights at all costs—event to the point of handing his wife over to Pharaoh’s harem—to being a man that will give up it all up to be a man of peace. That what growing in our faith does. The greater our faith in God the more we are willing to sacrifice ourselves and our rights for others. This is the Journey of Peace. What do you need to sacrifice for the sake of peace?
LOT’S JOURNEY TO DESTRUCTION
Abram’s journey has led him to become a man of peace, but in this passage Lot begins a journey in the opposite direction. His is a journey to destruction. Take a look at verses 10 and 11.
"Lot looked up and saw that the whole plain of the Jordan was well watered, like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, toward Zoar. (This was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.) So Lot chose for himself the whole plain of the Jordan and set out toward the east. The two men parted company:"
Abram walks by faith. He trusts God to provide for him no matter what Lot chooses. How does Lot choose where he will go? By sight! He looks out over the well watered Jordan Plain and decides to go there, a place that doesn’t rely on God to bring rain. Who else chose by sight in the beginning of the book of Genesis? Yes, Eve. And it wasn’t a good choice. When God kicked Adam and Eve out of the Garden where did they end up? East of Eden! Which way does Lot go? East!
East is not a good direction in the Bible. It is the direction of faithlessness. Take a look at this picture again. Lot leaves Bethel (God’s House!) He goes east, he goes down, he descends the mountains to the Jordan plain. Lot’s journey to pitch his tents near Sodom mirrors his spiritual journey. His faith begins to decline! Lot doesn’t know this yet, but his Journey will take him to near destruction. He will barely make it out of Sodom with his life, before God destroys the city for its wickedness.
Let me ask you this question? Which direction are you journeying in your faith? Are you journeying away from God, away from faith, away from peace? Or are you letting God grow your faith thru difficult times. Are you learning to trust God to the point where you can give up your rights? Are you becoming a person who pursues peace with others no matter the cost to you?
WE POINT TO PRINCE OF PEACE
Abram grows in his faith. He becomes a man willing to give up his rights to bring peace to his world. He is an Old Testament reflection of Jesus Christ the Prince of Peace. Jesus trusted or had enough faith in God His Father that he gave up his rights in order to pursue peace with us! He gave up his right to his throne in heaven and came to earth to live as a man. He gave up his right to life and died on a cross to pay for our sins in order to restore peace between us and God.
If you are not at peace with God, if you don’t have a relationship with him, I pray that you will begin your journey to peace by placing your faith in him this morning. He is the only one that can help you create peace in your marriage, peace with your children, peace with your parents, peace with your neighbors. Isn’t this what you long for? Only thru him can you be at peace with God!
If you have placed your faith in Christ, continue to climb in your journey of faith. Learn to trust him to the point that you are willing to give up your rights in order to pursue peace with those around you. Then you will point others to Christ the Prince of Peace! They will see your relationships where there is no arguing or conflict. They will want what you have, because nobody wants quarrelling and fighting.
If you don’t continue in your journey of faith you will not become a person of peace. You will begin the journey to destruction. You will see your relationships, your marriages hurt or destroyed by fighting. You will point others to the way of destruction. They won’t want our Christ, because he makes no difference in our lives and our relationships. Which way will you chose to journey?
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