Sermons

Genesis 13 - More Than Our Eyes Can See

March 25, 2012 Speaker: Series: Genesis

Topic: Sunday Worship Passage: Genesis 13:1–13:18

[Text: Genesis 13)

We learn a lot through the senses God has given us, especially through our eyes. Life certainly doesn’t end if our eyes fail us, but if given the choice (which is not normally given, of course) most people would choose to be able to see the sunrise or set or the smile of their loved ones. But what our eyes can see is not the measure of all things. Confidence isn’t always based on what we can see with our own eyes.

[pray about where our eyes look for hope and life – confess and supplicate]

Introduction: I’ve been thinking about retirement lately. No, not in the “maybe I should retire” kind of way! I mean the financial planning kind of way. Here’s the thing about that…it is baffling. You see all kinds of companies and you see all kinds of options. Everyone says, “Look at us! We’re the sure thing! You’ll be safe and happy and completely secure if you just look at the facts and go with us.” And I want to believe them. My eyes see the advertisements and they look appealing. They look certain. They look profitable! And yet if I have learned anything from the past decade of financial house failures is that our eyes can be deceived and what looks certain is actually as fleeting and uncertain as the rest of life.

FCF: We naturally want to run after the sure thing. After all, “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,” right? A sense of security comes when we can see something with our own eyes and we believe that what our eyes see – what we can even touch and sense – is really all there is.

But the feeling of security that comes through choosing what we can see is often fleeting, too, isn’t it? Our confidence gives way to confusion when the “sure thing” falls through. Hope gives way to anxiety as certainty disappears before our very eyes. Relationships thought to be forever come to an end through death or divorce or betrayal or simple geographical distance. We all know how health can disappear in a moment, as can wealth. Jobs end. Dreams fail. So where is there room for hope? Look around and tell me where we can set our confidence? Where do my eyes need to look in order for my vision to be true and sure? Let’s consider the text to understand how God’s people have answered this question throughout time:

At the end of chapter 12 we saw how God conquered the threat of famine and the fear-filled, unbelieving lies of Abram because God’s faithfulness is not dependent (thankfully) upon human faithfulness. God protects and keeps his people even in spite of their sinfulness and makes provision for them in his promises, with the fulfillment of them all being found in Jesus!

We also saw how God used even the king of Egypt to bring Abram to his senses so that, as chapter 13 opens, God brings Abram back to the place he needed to be, back to Bethel, “the house of God,” and back to faith and worship as (in v. 4) Abram again “calls upon the name of the LORD.” That’s a phrase we’ve already heard before in Abram’s story, at the beginning of chapter 12 as Abram hears and believes God’s promises to give him offspring, blessing and a land as the means of restoring and redeeming the whole world, all the families of the earth, to a right relationship with the LORD.

Even in Abram’s return to the land and to worship of God, we must learn what the right response to grace and forgiveness looks like. We don’t see Abram trying to earn God’s favor again as if he’d lost it. We see him going back to the altar, almost definitely with a sacrifice to confess his sin, and calling upon the name of the LORD, the covenant keeping God, who had established a relationship with him and guaranteed the promises by His own Word. What we see is Abram turning away from unbelief and self-effort and turning his eyes and his voice toward the LORD in belief and trust in Him. He has heard the Word of God and he believes it even though he can’t see how it all works.

And immediately a new challenge arises; conflict between family. Abram and Lot are both extremely wealthy and the land simply can’t support the two of them. Their employees are butting heads, the neighboring Canaanites and Perizzites are going after the same resources and (what is possibly more significant) are watching how these people who worship this new God, YHWH, (new to them anyway) will actually resolve the conflict.

So what does Abram do? Is he cunning and crafty and deceptive like he was when he went down to Egypt to save himself and his family? No. The promises of God that he heard from the LORD himself lead him in confidence to do something extraordinary. He goes to Lot in v. 8 and initiates a crazy offer. He says, “Lot, I’m not going to fight you or bully you or claim any rights for my own. We do need to separate but you get to chose where you want to be. Whatever you want, it’s yours.” Like a kid cutting a candy bar and letting his little brother chose the piece he wants, Abram gives up his choice. Abram, the head of the house, the covenant representative of God, the one to whom blessing has been promised, gives up his rights and lets Lot choose where he will live.

The text says that when given the choice, Lot “lifted up his eyes and saw” that the Jordan Valley, just to the east of the Jordan River and outside of the land of Canaan, was “well watered everywhere like the garden of the LORD [like Eden, that is], like the land of Egypt.” Now if you had just gone through a famine in Canaan and survived because of the Nile River’s fertility down in Egypt, which place would you have chosen? You look to the west toward Canaan and you see rocks. Lots of rocks as far as your eyes can see. Big ones, little ones, rocks, rocks, rocks, like in the old Jewish story about the leftover rocks from creation being thrown into the land by God. You look to the east, though, and as you shade your eyes from the rising sun you see a land that is fertile and well watered, light and dark green shining in the sun with the diamond points of light reflecting off of water everywhere. Where do you go? Your eyes tell you that East is the way to go. Go with the sure-thing! That’s what Lot does. He moves his tents outside of the Promised Land as far as Sodom.

Later in the Story we’ll see what this text twice foreshadows in vv. 10 and 13. Verse 10 tell us that the land Lot chose was later destroyed by the LORD and that was because the people who lived there, as we learn in v. 13, were “wicked, great sinners against the LORD.” Lot followed his eyes, but in doing so chose plenty in an evil land over uncertainty in the Land to which he has heard are tied the promises of God himself.

After Lot leaves, the LORD speaks to Abram in v. 14. Listen to that again. The text says, “The LORD said to Abram…” Now we don’t know if Abram’s heart sunk a little when Lot chose the better looking land as his home, but here God uses His Word to give Abram confidence that what was hearing being promised to him was greater than what his eyes could see. And still, God told him then to use his eyes, too. God said, “Lift up your eyes [the same action Lot took to look at the Jordan Valley] and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward, for all the land that you see I will give to you and to your offspring forever.” He goes on to assure Abram that even though his eyes can’t see how the promise is better than the reality he sees, even though the land of Canaan looks barren (compared to the Jordan Valley outside of the Promised Land), that God will make Abram’s offspring like the dust of the earth.

Next time you are at the beach, I want you to fill up a child’s bucket with sand and count the individual grains until you are finished. You should probably put on some sunscreen because I’m pretty sure you’ll look like a boiled lobster before you finish counting that one bucket.

What God is promising Abram here is that even though his eyes can’t see it, God will be the one continuing to sustain and bless Abram and his family to work out his plan of redeeming the world from the sin and brokenness that has marred it NO MATTER WHAT Abram’s eyes are telling him. So, Abram believed what he hears from God “more than what his eyes could see,”[1] which makes what he does next perfectly natural. He hears, believes God and then worships. He moved his tents, staying within the Promised Land of Canaan, and then built an altar to the LORD to worship the One who both made him and established a gracious relationship with him.

So back to our question: where is there room for hope? In what can we set our confidence? Where do our eyes need to look in order for our vision to be true and sure? For Israel leaving slavery in Egypt, the answer should have been clear. Belief in God and his promises could not be based only on what they could see. Even though they were walking through the wilderness, seeing only barrenness around them, they had heard the promises of God to their father, Abram; promises to bless and multiply and give a land and use them in God’s plan to restore everything that human sin and rebellion had broken since the beginning. And yet the story of Israel is the story of a people again and again judging everything and making decisions based on what they could see for themselves; wanting a human king instead of YHWH because they saw all the other nations around them with kings; running scared because they saw armies far beyond the size of their own; rejecting Jesus himself, the Savior of the world, because they didn’t see in him the kind of Savior they wanted.

And isn’t that our story, too? I often look to things other than Jesus to be my functional savior; to relieve the weariness and pain my own brokenness and the brokenness of the world brings to bear on my life. My eyes are captured by the appearance of things, things seemingly more tangible than the promises of God right now and yet, in the end, more temporary, more burdensome, more disappointing, more deadly than satisfying, more life-taking than life-giving. What do you see that appears to give you life apart from the LORD? (Pause)

Wealth and the things that it can get for us catch the eyes of the rich and poor alike and make promises that it cannot fulfill. Marriage itself (a good creation of God) when looked to as one’s true hope of fulfillment, will always let you down. These things fail to satisfy the longing of your heart because you weren’t made to be fulfilled by them. So, setting your confidence and hope in them will always lead to frustration and confusion.

The Answer: The reality is that hope and confidence don’t come through what we can see, but through hearing and believing the Word of God. If he has promised it, then we must believe that what he has promised is greater than what our eyes can see. That is the essence of faith.

Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” It goes on to talk about how God has always saving people, including Abram, by faith in Him beyond what human eyes could see, actually in spite of how things appear to our own eyes. Some may call it a blind faith and in the most literal sense I understand what they mean. I have not seen God or Jesus or the Holy Spirit. I do not believe our faith is blind, but even if our eyes haven’t seen our risen Lord our faith is not a senseless faith, because our ears have heard what the God of the Universe has said to us through His Son, Jesus!

And what has He said to you? Hear the promises of God in Jesus and believe more than your eyes can see! To you Jesus says:

- Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. (Matthew 11:28-29 ESV)

- Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” (John 7:38 ESV)

- “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. (John 3:16-17 ESV)

- “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. And you know the way to where I am going.” … “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:1-7 ESV)

- And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son. (Revelation 21:3-7 ESV)

Hearing God’s promise of redemption and forgiveness and new life and the full restoration of all things in Jesus leads to faith and yet our faith then causes us to turn our eyes away from the things of this world that would promise life but deliver death and look to Jesus alone, the Founder and Perfecter of our faith.

And when we fix our eyes on Jesus, knowing we belong to him and living and rejoicing in that security, then something else can happen. We hear with our ears and believe. We look with our eyes and see our Living Savior and our Risen King, whose beauty overwhelms the best this world of dust has to offer. And then we speak with our mouths and begin to witness, even in small ways, as we bear testimony to the goodness of God in Jesus. As those who see that our eyes are fixed elsewhere ask about the hope that is in you in Christ, you will have an answer to give them as you speak to them about Jesus and the work he has done for you. Speak to them the same promises of God that were used to stir your heart to faith. Listen and ask questions to learn where their eyes look for salvation in the things of this world (just as you and I often do) and then tell them how Jesus is better and a more sure hope!

Hear the Word of God, Look to Jesus who saves you and Speak of him to those whom God has set you among. Hear, Look and Speak.

The room for hope in all of this is that even though our eyes and our own hearts deceive us and cause us to run after false hope that only disappoints and kills, when God gives us ears to hear and new hearts to believe what we have heard from Him, then our confidence in His Word, in Jesus himself as the Living Word of God, is more certain, more eternal, more freeing, more satisfying, more life-giving than anything our eyes see in this life.

And there will be a day, a day promised by the Word of God, that your walk of faith will give way to the dawn of a bright, eternal day that your very own eyes will see. A day of judgment, yes, but for the people of God whose faith is in Christ it is not a day to fear because it will be the day of the vindication of your faith when your confidence will not be shaken or broken, for your confidence is not in anything that you now see, but in the person of Jesus whose eyes will see you and love you and take you to himself.

But while that day waits, there is hope for you who have heard the promise of God and believed through the gift of faith God has given to you. For, “Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” (1 Peter 1:8-9 ESV)

[1] Sally Lloyd-Jones in The Jesus Storybook Bible

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