Lip service

Have you ever noticed how many titles we Christians have for God? A very common one is of course, “God.” Another title we give him is, “Lord.” Another that we have talked about more recently is “King.” I sometimes wonder, though, how often we treat the words “God,” “Lord,” or “King” like we do the word “Emperor” in Japan. I mean Emperor Naruhito has an elevated title, but what does it really mean? Not much. Nobody really recognizes him as a true political leader in Japan. He holds no real power in our lives.

How about God, though? Think about this for a second. The terms “God,” “Lord,” and “King,” all have one thing in common. They have the idea that he’s someone we owe our total allegiance to. He’s someone who has the right to reign in every aspect of our lives. But be honest. Do you ever treat God like we treat Emperor Naruhito? We give God a title and pay lip service to him as our King. But when it really comes down to it, do we truly let him reign in our lives? As our Lord and King, do we give him access to every aspect of our lives? Or do we ever hold things back from him?

A life of walking by faith in God requires us to pay much more than lip service to him. It requires us to acknowledge and honor God for who he really is: God, Lord, and King. And to do so moment to moment, day to day. That’s what Abraham was in the process of learning.

When we last looked at Abraham’s life, we saw making some pretty bad mistakes. During a time of famine, Abraham, or Abram, as he was known back then, left Canaan, the land God had promised to give him and went to Egypt. And while he was there, he nearly lost his wife Sarai because he told a very stupid lie. He told everyone in Egypt that Sarai was his sister. The next thing he knew, Pharaoh had taken Sarai into his harem. And only by God’s intervention did Abram get Sarai back. Now Abram had returned to Canaan and by God’s grace, he had a new start. It wasn’t long, though, before trouble came again, this time within his own family. Look at verse 5.

Now Lot, who was traveling with Abram, also had flocks, herds, and tents. But the land was unable to support them as long as they stayed together, for they had so many possessions that they could not stay together, and there was quarreling between the herdsmen of Abram’s livestock and the herdsmen of Lot’s livestock. (At that time the Canaanites and the Perizzites were living in the land.) (Genesis 13:5-7)

Now Lot was the son of Abram’s younger brother Nahor who had died back in their homeland of Ur. I’m not sure, but it’s possible that Abram felt a responsibility to look after Lot after his brother died. So when Abram and his father started traveling toward Canaan, Lot went along with them. At first, that was fine, but now Lot was old enough to be independent, and eventually his being with Abram became a serious problem.

God had promised Canaan to Abram, but at this point, he still didn’t actually own any of the land yet. Two groups of people, the Canaanites and Perrizites had been living there before Abram arrived, and they had the best of the land. So Abram and Lot had to take the “leftovers.” But Abram’s and Lot’s herdsmen started to fight trying to take the best of the leftovers for their flocks. Living together was no longer tenable for them. So what did Abram do? Look at verse 8.

So Abram said to Lot, “Please, let’s not have quarreling between you and me, or between your herdsmen and my herdsmen, since we are relatives. Isn’t the whole land before you? Separate from me: if you go to the left, I will go to the right; if you go to the right, I will go to the left.” (8-9)

By rights, Abram really should have told Lot, “I’m taking the best of the land. You fend for yourself.” After all, he was the head of the family. But instead, he offered first choice to Lot. I wonder how he had expected Lot to respond. Perhaps Abram been thinking this way: “I’ll tell Lot to take first pick of the land. He’ll say, ‘No, no, no,” you’re my uncle. You should take first pick.’ Then I’ll say, ‘No, no, no, you take first pick. I don’t need much.’ Then he’ll say ‘No, no, Uncle. You’ve taken care of me for so long. Take care of yourself now. You have first pick.’ And I’ll say, ‘Oh well, if you insist, okay, I’ll pick first.’” (Sounds very Japanese, right?)

I don’t know if that was what Abram was thinking, but if it was, it backfired. Because when Abram offered first choice to Lot, Lot immediately said, “Oh, really? Thanks uncle. I’ll take the land over there. Bye!” That’s what we see in verses 10-12.

Lot looked out and saw that the entire plain of the Jordan as far as Zoar was well watered everywhere like the Lord’s garden and the land of Egypt…So Lot chose the entire plain of the Jordan for himself. Then Lot journeyed eastward, and they separated from each other. Abram lived in the land of Canaan, but Lot lived in the cities on the plain and set up his tent near Sodom… (10-12)

In short, Lot looks around, takes the land that looked the best, and left Abram with the scraps. And logically, Lot made the wise choice. Remember, they had just come out of a time of famine. So he wanted to go to a place like Egypt where he was less likely to have to face that again. But we see some ominous hints about his choice. You might have noticed some dots in those verses we read. Let’s look at what I skipped.

(This was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.) (10b)

(Now the men of Sodom were evil, sinning immensely against the Lord.) (13)

Not good. And as we’ll see in future chapters, as a result of his choice, Lot’s life starts taking a major spiral downward after leaving Abram.

But back to Abram. After Lot took the best of the leftovers, Abram’s apparently left with the dregs. Not good, right? But look at what happens. Verse 14.

After Lot had separated from him, the Lord said to Abram, “Look from the place where you are. Look north and south, east and west, for I will give you and your offspring forever all the land that you see. I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if anyone could count the dust of the earth, then your offspring could be counted. Get up and walk around the land, through its length and width, for I will give it to you.”

So Abram moved his tent and went to live near the oaks of Mamre at Hebron, where he built an altar to the Lord. (14-18)

In other words, God says, “Hey Abram, don’t sweat it. I’m with you. I will keep my promise to you and I will bless you.” And so Abram settles in this land God promised him and he builds an altar to God. We saw before that this was his regular practice. Wherever he went, he built an altar to God. Why is that significant? Everywhere he’s going, he’s saying, “God, you are my God. I trust you. And I will follow you.”

Hundreds of years later, one of his descendants, a king named Solomon would write this:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own understanding; in all your ways know him, and he will make your paths straight. (Proverbs 3:5-6)

I’ll be honest, I was a little surprised at this translation when I first read it. I’d always learned it, “in all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight.” And that is a legitimate translation. But the Hebrew word is most often translated “know.” What does it mean to know God in all your ways.

I think it means several things. First, know how God thinks in everything you do. Know what his values are. Know what pleases him. Second, acknowledge him as God in your life. Acknowledge him as your Lord and King in everything. Don’t treat him like the Japanese emperor. But as someone who actually has the right to reign in your life. And third, submit to your good King. Do things his way. And Solomon says that if you do this, he will make your paths straight.

What happens when we don’t. We start living like Lot. We make our choices based on what looks good to us. The result? At best, we simply miss out on the best that God wanted for us. We settle for second or third best instead. Sometimes we settle for even worse. Other times, we find ourselves frustrated because things don’t go the way we hoped or planned. At worst, though, we can find our lives falling apart because of the choices we made.

Can any of you relate to those things? I can. One area I find hard to acknowledge God in is my comfort zones. That got me into trouble a while back when I was working for a “wonderful” English school called NOVA. It was an okay place to work for at first, but as time went on, I saw all these warning signs that I should get out of there. The problem was, I was comfortable. The salary wasn’t great but it was okay and the schedule I had was good. To be quite honest, I didn’t even consider asking God about the situation, even when things started going bad. But by not acknowledging him in that one area of my life, it cost me. NOVA went bankrupt and I was left scrambling to find a job when there were suddenly hundreds of unemployed teachers looking for jobs. For the next 7 years, I had to patch together different jobs just to make ends meet. I can’t say my family was in financial hell, but it definitely wasn’t a fun time.

I also think about how stubborn I was about not wanting to come to Japan. Looking back, that was stupid because I found I actually like it here. God knew what he was doing when he called me. So why was I so stubborn? Because I was comfortable living in Hawaii. Had I been more open to coming to Japan, though, I probably would have studied Japanese more in university and done a major that would have been more helpful to me here. Instead, I took a major that I used all of six months in an actual job and have never really used since. Now God has blessed since then, and I’m really grateful for him bringing me here. But I can’t help but wonder how much more he could use me now if I had completely given every area of my life to him from the start.

To this day, I often struggle acknowledging God in my comfort zones. It’s far too easy for me just to sit back and do what’s comfortable, when God is calling me to go out and do something more. But that’s what a life of faith is all about. It’s leaving our comfort zones and walking with God out into the unknown. And what I’ve found over my years as a Christian, is that that’s a life that leads to blessing. How about you? Are you acknowledging God in every aspect of your life?

How do we do that? One way to start is by building altars to him. That’s what we see Abram doing. Wherever he goes, he built altars. And every time he saw them, it reminded him, “God is my God. He is the one I follow. He is the one I’ll trust.”

Now this doesn’t mean we should literally build physical altars. But there are spiritual altars you can build. One is the altar of time.

What do I mean? For one thing, going to church on Sunday. Making church a firm priority in your life, and not just something you do when you feel like it. Every time we go to church, it’s like approaching the altar and saying, “You are my God. You are the one I follow. You are the one I trust. And so I choose to make your family my priority.” Every time you go to church with that attitude, you’re building an altar in your heart to him.

Another is setting a time in your day to meet with him. To read his Word. To pray. We said earlier to know God in all our ways is to know how he thinks and what he values. You can learn some of that in church, but church is only once a week. What about the other 6 days? So set aside a time for him. Ideally you could set the same time every day, but that’s not always possible. It certainly isn’t for me. But one thing is set for me: at my earliest opportunity, I’m spending time in prayer and his Word. I’m very intentional about making time with God. And in doing so, I’m saying to God, “You are my God. You are the one I follow. You are the one I trust. So I’m making time with you my priority.” Every time you intentionally spend time with God, prioritizing him over your hobbies or any other things you could be doing, you’re building an altar to him.

Another form of altar building is tithes and offerings. Every time I give to the church, I’m essentially telling God, “You’re my God. You’re the one I follow. You’re the one I trust.” When we give, we’re acknowledging that the safety net in our life is not money, but God. We’re acknowledging that more than anything our money could buy, we value him in our lives and that he is our top priority.

Those are three very practical ways to acknowledge God in our lives. More importantly, they function as regular checkpoints for us. Daily, weekly, monthly, they remind us whose we are, who we follow, and who we should be trusting. Are you regularly building those altars in your life?

Are you acknowledging God monthly through tithes and offerings? Weekly through coming to church? Daily by spending time with him? That kind of altar-building is a valuable way to remind us of our need to acknowledge God in everything.

That said, these altars can quickly lose their meaning to us if we forget what they represent. That’s what happened to Abram. Think about it. When Abram first got to Canaan, he built an altar. But he quickly forgot what it represented, and without acknowledging God at all, decided to go to Egypt in time of famine. And we saw what a disaster that was. When he returned, Abram would build other altars. And yet we’ll see in future chapters other questionable decisions he made because he failed to acknowledge God in every aspect of his life. That’s happened to me more times than I want to admit.

I’ve been spending time with God daily and going to church every Sunday pretty much ever since I was in high school. And then when I got my first part-time job, I started tithing. So those have been altars for much of my Christian life. But as I said, I was still stubborn when it came to coming to Japan. That was one area in my life that I did not allow God access to for a long time.

But what those altars did do was build a foundation on which God could work in my heart. Where he could say, “I’m glad you’re acknowledging me in these areas. But now, let’s start spreading those areas out.” And as I’ve mentioned in previous messages, the day came when God spoke to my heart and as clear as day told me, “Bruce, you’re holding back Japan from me." And because I had already built a practice of acknowledging him in my life, I was able to quickly say, “You’re right, God. I give that to you too.”

God’s still working on me, though. And I’ll be honest, I’m not always as quick to say “I surrender that to you, too.” Again, a lot of that has to do with my comfort zones. God often tells me, “Get out of your comfort zones and stretch yourself.”

One thing I feel he’s been telling me is to just talk to the teachers around me at school more. Because as Pastor Fumi said last week, each of us are meant to be the intersection point between heaven and earth to those around us. A place where people can encounter God. But we can’t do that if we’re not talking to them. I always talk to the English teachers, of course, but hardly to anyone else, like the math teachers or social studies teachers. A lot of that is just being shy. I may not seem it up here, but I’m not great at meeting people. And I’m certainly not the most natural conversationalist with people I don’t know well. But this is one area God is asking me to acknowledge him in. So by God’s grace, I’m trying. Even if it’s tiny, tiny steps, I’m trying. Because deep in my heart, my prayer is, “Father, let your Kingdom come in my life.” And what I mean by that is, “Lord, let your good reign spread to every part of my life. Let your will be done in every aspect of my life as it is in heaven.”

How about you? As you’re listening to all this, what is God bringing to your mind? What area is he asking you to acknowledge him in. It might be one of the altars we talked about. Making church a priority. Tithing regularly. Or taking time to pray and read your Bible every day.

For others of you, you’re already doing those things. But now God is telling you, “That’s great. But let’s spread my reign out a little more in your life.” Maybe it’s letting him reign in areas of your health: to quit smoking, or perhaps losing weight. For some of you, it might be dealing with sin in your life. It might be porn or anger issues. Or it might be someone you need to forgive. It might be how you treat your wife or husband, or how you deal with your kids. It might be your relationship with your boyfriend or girlfriend. Does God have full reign over each and every part of your life? Do you acknowledge him in all your ways. Or are you holding things back from him? As we close, let’s take some time in prayer, and if God brings anything to mind, I encourage you: offer it to him. And let that be the next altar you build in your life.