When God Draws Near 20 Mountain Life Church LIFE PACK Message #2 in The Friend of God series. May 8, 2011
When God Draws Near Sermon Notes Genesis 13-14 14 I. So Far A. God has Chosen Abram. 1. God initiated relationship with Abram. 2. He has promised to bless Abram. 3. He has promised to give Abram s offspring all of Canaan. B. He has Blessed Him Greatly. 1. Abram becomes wealthier and wealthier. 2. God has kept him alive through famine. C. Abram Deceived Pharaoh. 1. Though commanded to be a blessing, Abram became a curse. 2. The sin of deceit becomes a family curse. Write any notes from the week here II. Family Problems A. Growing Strife Between Lot s Herders and Abram s. 1. Abram gives Lot first choice of the land. 2. Lot chooses the beautiful and bountiful valley of the Jordan. 3. Lot moves his tent near the sinful city of Sodom. B. The Peace of Abram. 1. Abram grows more and more dependent on God. 2. God promises Abram all of Canaan for his inheritance. (This won t happen for 600 years!) 2 19
Teens Meal One: As a family read Genesis 13. After returning from Egypt, Abram and Lot shared a considerable amount of wealth in livestock, silver and gold, but the crowding of the lands led to disputes and strife between their people. Even when God has blessed us abundantly, describe why people continue to have disputes, strife and arguments. Meal Two: Describe how Abram acted in his fight with his nephew Lot. How did Abram show that he trusted God? Meal Three: When you have disputes or arguments, describe how you usually act. When Abram trusted God, what was the result? Memory Verse: The Lord said to Abram after Lot had parted from him, Lift up your eyes from where you are and look north and south, east and west. All the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring forever. ~Genesis 12: 14-15 III.Abram to the Rescue A. Vassal States Rebel Against the Kingdom of Elam. 1. Lot lives near the city state of Sodom. 2. Sodom joins others in rebelling against Elam. B. King Chedorlaomer of Elam invades. 1. The rebelling armies retreat. 2. Lot and his family along with many others are taken captive by Elam s army. C. Abram takes his men and stealthily attacks Elam. 1. Abram had 318 men. A large group for a man, but a small number when attacking an empire. 2. Abram divides his men, and slaughters by night. 3. Abram brings Lot, the other captives, and the spoils of war back. IV. The Honors Given by Kings. A. The King of Sodom meets Abram at the Valley of Shaveh. B. Melchizedek, King of Salem comes and blesses Abram. C. A type of Christ. (See Hebrews 7). D. Abram gave a tithe. E. Abram recognized God when He came in the form of Melchizedek! F. Abram continues to be blessed! 18 3
Life Group Questions for May 8 - The Friend of God Series - Message = When God Draws Near Ice Breaker: Have you ever been rescued or significantly helped by a family member? Or, have you ever rescued a family member? Tell the story. Read Genesis 13 1. What do you observe about this passage? 2. What specifically speaks to you about this chapter? 3. Abram gave first choice of land to his nephew. Do you think Abram was a little bit of a welcome mat in this situation? 4. Have you ever had to deal with squabbling between family members or fellow believers over something material? How did things end up? 5. Does anyone in the group know what the Bible says we should wisely do when two family members want the same thing? Wait for some responses from the group, then have someone read I Corinthians 6: 1-8 and discuss the teaching Paul gave in this passage. What is Paul s attitude toward material possessions in this passage? 6. Lot chose a beautiful place, but it was inhabited by evil people. Have you ever chosen a direction based on the external beauty or desirability of a place rather than on the quality of people involved? Tell us how it worked out for you. Elementary: Meal 1: Read Genesis chapter 13 as a family. Talk about how Abram and Lot had many, many possessions between them and they were crowded. Ask children how they would feel if they had to share their room with their brother or sister (if they are an only child, make up an imaginary brother or sister). Talk about what problems this might cause. Meal 2: Retell/reread Genesis chapter 13. Talk about what the brothers decided to do. If given the choice between two different rooms, would you let your brother/sister decide which one they wanted or would you want to decide? How is Abram being like God when he lets Lot decide where he wants to go first? Meal 3: Summarize Genesis chapter 14 (it is kind of difficult to read) Lot gets into trouble because of the wars that are happening in the land that he chose. When have you been in trouble and had a sibling (if no siblings, friend or family member) help out? 7. By this point in Abram s life, he is building an altar and worshiping the Lord wherever he goes. He seems to be preoccupied with God. Where would you say you are spiritually? Are you just getting to know God, or is He beginning to direct more and more of your motivations and passions? 8. Pray for each other. 4 17
Personal Devotion Pages This section of our curriculum is aimed at helping parents disciple their own children. We hope you will take a few evenings a week to open the scriptures and talk to your kids about kingdom things. You can mix and match these ideas to meet the needs of your family s children. Babies through preschool: Many children s Bibles stories of Abraham, Lot, Sarah, and God s promise are combined into one story. Read Genesis 13-14 and tell your version of those chapters to your children. Talk with your children about: How your family handles quarrels. How we should look to God for answers. How being greedy like Lot is not what God wants for us. Bible Verse: Genesis 13:8 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. Prayer: Now, may we serve each other, As we love and obey You, Lord Help us grow in wisdom To hear and do Your Word. Amen. Activity: To illustrate how we become desensitized to sin, fill a clear glass with water. Share how the water is glean and pure. Now put a tea bag, food coloring, or dirt and notice how the water becomes cloudy or dirty. When we are around sin a lot we become used to it and over time we begin to sin also. Share how we must try to do right and follow God all the time-at church, at school, at home and everywhere. The following pages are designed to help you to enjoy a regular time alone with God. We have divided up the curriculum to help us grow wherever we are at in our relationship with God and in our knowledge of His Kingdom. LEVELS: Since we are a Colorado church, we use skiing imagery to communicate the different levels of intensity and time involved in relating to God. BEGINNER: If you are new in your relationship with God, we encourage you to try the exercises under this symbol: INTERMEDIATE: If you have walked with God for some time and would like a little more challenge and more time involvement, try the exercises under this symbol: ADVANCED: These exercises are for people who have walked with God for some time and display maturity in their walk with God. These exercises provide a practical way to encounter God and His truth on a daily basis. There are no rules here. Please don t hurry through the process. Slow meditation and memorization seems to soak in better than cramming. Enjoy! 16 5
1. This is a week of worship, so take some time to quiet yourself before God, and then to praise Him and thank Him for whatever comes to your mind. 2. In order to help you worship the Lord, read Psalm 40. 3. As you read Psalm 40, take time to thank God for pulling you out of death, and making you alive in Christ. Can you think of 3 people who are still far away from God? Pray for them and write their names here. 4. Verses 14-15 of Psalm 40 talk about the enemies of David. As you meditate on these verses, think about the enemies of your soul: bitterness, greed, selfishness, etc., and think of those verses with those personal issues as your enemies. Meditate on and memorize Psalm 40: 5 this week Abram said to the king of Sodom, "I have sworn to the LORD God Most High, possessor of heaven and earth, that I will not take a thread or a sandal thong or anything that is yours, for fear you would say, I have made Abram rich. ~Genesis 14: 22-23 The king of Sodom is so grateful to Abram because he overcame the Elamites when his army could not. He asked Abram to return the captives from his city, but then told Abram he could keep all the spoils (many of the spoils are riches from the city state of Sodom). Abrams response is written above. Abram refuses to keep the spoils. For the second time in two chapters, he has revealed that he is not interested in material things. God is at work in this man. He could have rewarded his men with him with the spoils. It was a dangerous mission. Why not keep the riches? Maybe, just maybe Abram is learning what it means to be a blessing to his neighbor. He refuses to have any reputation with this king except that he once did him a huge favor. God, I release my hold on material things, and ask You to grace me with the ability to tenaciously hold on to You today! Meditate on and memorize Psalm 40: 1-5 this week. Meditate on and memorize Psalm 40: 1-8 this week. 6 15
1. Take some time to quiet yourself before God, and then to praise Him and thank Him for whatever comes to your mind. 2. In Genesis 14, Abram took the men in his clan (318 total) and attacked a marauding army from the Elam Empire. He was unaware of how big of an army he was going up against, but bravely attacked them and destroyed them in order to save his nephew. Is there anyone near you today who needs an extra special effort to rescue them from darkness? Ask the Holy Spirit what you should do about this. 3. Pray for loved ones, friends and coworkers who do not know Jesus and ask for God to draw them to Himself. Ask God to show you specifically how to pray for them, and then pray for God to show you specifically how to show love to them in a practical way. 4. Finish memorizing your verses today. See if you can quote your memory verses or passage to a friend or spouse. He went on his journeys from the Negev as far as Bethel, to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai ~Genesis 13: 3 Abram has just returned from a disastrous trip to Egypt. That s right, Egypt - The place known metaphorically as, Self Reliance Land, and the Place of Slavery in scripture. Abram has returned richer in goods, but has realized that he is lacking in character. God commanded him to be a blessing to his neighbors, but he was literally a curse to Pharaoh because of his deceiving ways (see Genesis 12). So, with his tail between his legs, he returns slowly to the place where his tent had been at the beginning. It seems something has changed in Abram. Chapter 13 shows that he is now preoccupied with the worship of Yahweh. He builds altars and worships, and he seems less concerned about his possessions. Sometimes, after a great folly, it helps to go back to the place where we first met God. Then comes family conflict. His nephew, Lot and he share a large number of flocks, and Lot s herders are fighting with Abram s. They decide, this country ain t big enough fer the two of us. Here s where Abram starts to act like the God who has recently introduced Himself. (I will always act like what I worship. I will tend to resemble what I treasure the most but I digress). Abram gives Lot first dibbs on whatever land he wants. As 21 st century Westerners, we can t really grasp how countercultural this is. The patriarch of the clan always gets first choice, and young men always defer to the wiser and older. Yet Abram gives the choice to Lot. Lot apparently hasn t been impacted by selfless, gracious Yahweh, and takes the best land he can see. He chooses the Jordan valley, which is compared by the author to the garden of Eden. Father, remove the love of things, and the fear of not having enough from me today. 14 7
1. Take some time to quiet yourself before God, and then to praise Him and thank Him for whatever comes to your mind. 2. Genesis 13. Write down anything that stands out to you here. 3. Do you have unrest and perhaps even quarrels with someone in your family? How about with someone in church or Life Group? 4. Ask God these things based on your ability: Ask God to show you how to hear His voice today. Ask God to speak to you today, and then to confirm that it is Him through the Scripture. Ask God what He is doing around you today, and ask Him to show you how you can get in on what He is doing. 5. Meditate on I Corinthians 6: 1-8. What did God tell people to do when there were quarrels? Continue memorizing the verses for the week. He [Jesus] has become our eternal High Priest in the line of Melchizedek. ~Hebrews 6:20 Abram is the hero of the day. He s just returned with his 319 guys after routing the army from the kingdom of Elam. He got his nephew back after he was kidnapped. He got all the captives back, and he got a lot of spoils of war. It seems like everywhere Abram turns, he is blessed. God helps him in all things, and he continues to prosper. Even the vile king of Sodom, who was routed by the Elamites has come to pay homage to Abram (Genesis 14). We can easily read over this without weighing the gravity of the moment. Obviously, everyone around Abram knows he has done something extremely dangerous, daring, and courageous. And he was victorious. As Abram and his band journey southward, they are met by a mysterious figure: Melchizedek, the king of Salem. His name means, My King is Righteous. And he hales from Salem, which means, Peace. Hmmm. Kinda reminds me of a Nazarene known as the Righteous Branch, aka the Prince of Peace. I just like to call Him, Jesus. The writer of Hebrews spills the beans for us. He says that Melchizedek was a pre-incarnational (the Son of the living God before He came to us in the New Testament) appearance of Jesus Himself. Melchizedek blessed Abram. Abram knew who He was. He gave Him a 10 th (tithe) of the spoils of war. He knew that God showed up in an earth suit to affirm His love for Abram, and to make a huge statement about how proud He was of him. Father, grant that I ll recognize You in working in my life today. Help me to see you, and glorify You with my motives, my actions, and my thoughts! 8 13
1. Take some time to quiet yourself before God, and then to praise Him and thank Him for whatever comes to your mind. 2. Read Genesis 14 and write down any observations you make about it. 3. Melchizedek was a type of Jesus Christ (Read Hebrews 7). He blessed Abram, and Abram gave Melchizedek a tenth of the war spoils. Is giving at least 10% a regular part of your worship? Why or why not? 4. If you are married, take time to pray for your spouse. Ask God: How can I honor my spouse today? How can I serve my spouse today? What has my spouse been saying to me that I m not listening to? Show me how to unconditionally accept and love my spouse today. If you are single: pray for a coworker: How can I honor my coworker today? How can I serve them in kindness? Lord, show me how to share my relationship with You with my coworker today. 5. Continue memorizing the verses for this week. Abram settled in the land of Canaan, while Lot settled in the cities of the valley, and moved his tents as far as Sodom. Now the men of Sodom were wicked exceedingly and sinners against the LORD. ~Genesis 13: 12-13 So Lot and Abram go their separate ways. Lot takes the best land but Abram never seems to mind - and he never seems to lack. Abram makes a choice that may appear to many of us as a decision to become a Welcome Mat. Yet, Abram has learned early in his relationship with God that deferring to others in regard to earthly things is not weakness. It is the way of faith. Biblically, God cares much more about relationships than stuff, and He has always challenged His children to be that way too. Paul taught this principle when he heard that the Corinthian believers were taking one another to court. He wrote this scathing statement in I Corinthians 6: 7: Actually, then, it is already a defeat for you, that you have lawsuits with one another. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be defrauded? Paul actually believed the relationship was worth much more than each of us getting what we want out of the deal! Unbelievable! James then said something similar. In James 4:1 he says, What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? Both James and Paul got this perspective from Jesus, who summed it all up by saying, "Beware, and be on your guard against every form of greed; for not even when one has an abundance does his life consist of his possessions." (Luke 12:15) Father, teach me today to refuse to let things and money own me. Give me Your passion to love others as You have loved me! 12 9
1. Take some time to quiet yourself before God, and then to praise Him and thank Him for whatever comes to your mind. 2. Re-read Genesis 13 today, and ask God to show you any new insights today. Write them down here. 3. As time goes on, Abram is becoming more and more in love with God. Everywhere he goes, he puts up an altar to the Lord. In the midst of this, there continues to be difficulties, but Abram is preoccupied with worship. Take time to ask God to be in the back of your mind for the whole day today. Take time to put up another mental altar, and praise Him for how He has revealed Himself to you in the past. Now ask God to show Himself to you afresh today. 4. Continue memorizing the verses for this week....for all the land which you see, I will give it to you and to your descendants forever. I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth, so that if anyone can number the dust of the earth, then your descendants can also be numbered. ~Genesis 13: 15-16 What a promise! God promises Abram that He will give him and all his descendants all the land he can see! And God fulfills that promise too - 600 years later! (He actually tells Abram it ll be about 600 years in Genesis 15). Wow, that s a long time to see a promise come true. As Americans, we tend to see God through the lens of fast food consumers. We place our order, and expect it to be filled to perfection as soon as we get to the second window! Only in America can you order a happy meal and find yourself angry that it s not hot and ready and in your hand within 120 seconds! Yet God refuses to be relegated to the clock. One of my friends once told me, God is never late, but He is almost never early. However, in the midst of my yearning to see God fulfill His promises, He s building character in me. He s teaching me to seek His face and not His hand. For God, relationship always trumps - well, it trumps everything! Father, the things so important to me, I lay down at Your feet. I want You, Lord! I want You more than I want what You give. I seek Your face and not Your hand. 10 11