Faithfulness to Family

Genesis 12:10-20

People

Abram allows for a fear to “break” the people God said he would bless him through by allowing the Pharaoh to bring Sarai into his household.

-It was technically true that Sarai was his half-sister (NOT uncommon for the time). But half-truths should not conceal a whole lie to defend ourselves.

-Sometimes I’ll say “traffic was really back-up” which may be technically true, but I was going to be late before the traffic backed up. Or you may say you lost your homework but that is only after you had stuffed it in your backpack with no intention of actually doing it.

-Sarai was “beautiful” at 65. It shows God was blessing his people with a youth that spread out their life longer than everyone elses.

Place

Wasn’t necessarily the wrong place to be. God will call Egypt a “refuge” for them.

-Egypt has the Nile river run through it, one of the most fertile sources throughout the world. Canaan is dependent on rainfall. It was a temporary residence, not long-term.

Promise

We never find word that Abram “inquired” of God if he was to go to Egypt. This is also revealed in that he makes a step in fear of his neighbors rather than in trust of the God who had just told him “I will bless who blesses you and curse who curses you”.

-Abram also allowed him to blessed by this new place that give him many gifts because of his deception.

-Guess what? God holds up his promise! He cursed Pharaoh because Pharoah had unwittingly become an enemy of the promise God had given Abram!

Because Abram didn’t trust God’s promise others suffered for his sins.

Often our choices make others suffer.

Genesis 13:1-14:16

People

Abram and Lot

-We have this “disagreement” between Abram and Lot. We will see a pattern throughout the book of familial disagreements.

-We will see Lot as this passive figure, he just “goes with the flow”, finds an easy route and takes it.

Later the 5 kings who came together. Chedorlaomer had a reputation of winning battles.

-Their greed was their downfall, they weren’t satisfied with taking over many of these areas. They had to “take all the goods” and also “Lot and his possessions”. If they had been happy with just the goods of others they wouldn’t have seen their defeat.

-Whereas Abram gives back all the possessions to the people.

Place

Land of Canaan and the Land of Jordan near Sodom (near those who were evil and sinned immensely)

-Abraham trusted that wherever he was that God would bless him. He goes “where his tent had formerly been, to the site where he had built the altar. And Abram called on the name of the Lord.” Abram renews his lapsed obedience to the Lord, he abandons the “fertile” Egypt.

-While Lot wanted what seemed to him as the best and ignored the land God had promised would be blessed.

-The language used alludes to Eve in the Garden and to the “sons of God”

-Lot “saw” a land that looked like “the Lord’s Garden”. The same word for “looked out” is in Genesis 3:6-7 where it says Eve “saw the tree” and that it was “good for food and delightful to look at”

-He also “chose for himself” the land “eastward”. When Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden they went east. In ch. 6 before the flood people would “choose” for themselves what they wanted

-Lot treated lightly God’s promises, thinking that God would bless him wherever he went.

-He chooses the forbidden cities instead of the promises of God. A place that would soon be consumed by fire. He was attracted by the beauty but ignored the wickedness that hid underneath.

-Lot also chooses to live “in the cities”. He wants to integrate himself into society.

-Sometimes we think we can live like the world and keep ourselves safe. The problem is that when we get cozy with the world it is hard to leave. We will see this later because an angel literally has to drag him out of a city that is about to be destroyed.

-We have to be okay with being outsiders in this world. To choose the things the world may say isn’t “best” but trust God’s promises.

-Abraham chooses what is unseen. Lot chooses that which is seen even though it was corrupt and insecure. Lot goes where he will be isolated with no good support system.

-Often we want what “looks” best to us but ignore the faults that lay there. A dream job, a car that we really want, a place that we want to live. We think about what we want and don’t ask if that is where God wants us to be.

Promise

Notice the promise God gives to Abram in v. 14-18. God will give him “all the land that you see”

The lion king “all that the sun reaches is yours” except for the place with the graveyard. But where does Simba want to go? The one place that isn’t his to take.

-”If Father Abraham could defeat the invincible Kedorlaomer, the Israelites could take courage facing enemies in their own day”

Lot chooses to go to a place without God’s presence with him, he ignores God’s promise and His presence and we see the outcome for lot. War, a wicked people, and ch. 19 shows us that Lot will end up in a place with no other people and living in a cave.

Abraham going back to the altar he had made after God’s promise shows us that Abraham hasn’t distracted himself from worshipping God in this land.

-”Abram neither has the land in hand nor a descendent to whom he may bequeath it, yet he continues to wait on God.” - Mathews

Ephesians 3:17–21 “I pray that you, being rooted and firmly established in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the length and width, height and depth of God’s love, and to know Christ’s love that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do above and beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us—to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”

God can do more than we can even ask or think, bless us in ways we don’t even understand.

God’s people are to trust God’s promises more than fears they have in the world.

Deception is a distrust of God’s good promises

-We can think that in order to get out of a tricky situation that we have to deceive, scheme, tell a white-lie, or straight up lie. But deception only leads to

In doing so we also jeopardize God’s blessings with our own plans. We try to attain our own blessing apart from God.

“Sin acts cannot save God’s people from threatening situations. Evil cannot bring about good.”

Although Abram did “profit” this profit would actually become a problem in the story with Lot when they couldn’t stay together and Lot is kidnapped.

Live by faith in God’s promises rather than in sight of man’s reward

Lot’s eyes deceived him. We can’t trust our eyes, they will lead us astray and we can get trapped by the “fancy”, the “paradise”.

Whereas, with Abram, he trusted God and he gave Lot the greater “wealth”, but it didn’t matter to him because he trusted God’s promise.

Lot acted in self-seeking ways that gave him short-term reward. Even as Abram could had made this a larger conflict, he let go and God blessed him. Those who trust God can be generous.

We can trust God promises even in the midst of our failure

“Even when they were unfaithful” God wouldn’t relinquish his promises.

God blessed Abram in Egypt even with he was unfaithful.

Lot was living by sight and not by faith, but God’s blessing through Abram allowed lot to be saved and for Abram to have victory over these enemies.

When we face conflict we can know that it doesn’t threaten God’s promises. That God’s plan still works out even when it feels like everything is falling apart.