Hope Alive: Applying God's Word to Your Daily Life

Genesis 19:27-29 | Episode #277

November 01, 2022 Chad Harrison Episode 277
Hope Alive: Applying God's Word to Your Daily Life
Genesis 19:27-29 | Episode #277
Show Notes Transcript

November 1, 2022

Hope Alive: Applying God’s Word to Your Daily Life

Genesis 19:27-29  Bible Study | Episode #277

I am Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and had been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. The purpose of studying scripture is that you might know the character of Jesus Christ, and that you might see the world from the Father's perspective. That you gain wisdom that changes your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open His word to you and allow you to see Him and to know Him. To know His will, that you might glorify Him and that you might walk in faith and power each day, especially today. In Jesus name.

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This is Chad Harrison, and you're listening to Hope Alive, Applying God's Word to Your Daily Life.

Hi, this is Chad Harrison and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and have been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open up his word to.

And allow you to see him and to know him and to know his will, that you might glorify him, and that you might walk in faith and power each and every day, especially today in Jesus name. Good morning. Welcome to Lake Community Churches. Morning Bible Study. We are in Genesis chapter 19. Finishing up Sodom and Gamora and dealing with the passage that deals with Sodom and Gamora.

The the interesting way it's left is there is a, dealing with Abraham in this far as Sodo. Magmar. There's a passage here that's, Kinda showing us what's going on with Abraham and what's going on with his life. And and his relation to Sodo and Des Moines. Now you have to remember that Abraham had had some dealings with the kings of this southern plain area this area that is south or the southern part of the Dead Sea and south of that.

He had dealings with them he had dealings with them because the kings some kings in the northern area of actually what is modern day, Syria and Lebanon came down and attacked those kings, the five kings of the north. Packed the four kings down there and they routed them and they took a lot and his whole family into captivity.

And Abraham went and took about 350 men, I can't remember what the number is. It's less than 350 men. They they caught up with that army. They split into two units. They surrounded them they defeated them. And I want you to think about that. Who, what that makes Abraham as far as a military leader as far as a leader, period.

He's a man that is a leader now, and and he he got locked. And brought back all that was taken from that area. And those kings came out, especially the king of Sodom where lot had lived. He came out and said to Abraham, Just give me the people. You can take all that you want to of the possessions of mine.

And Abraham said quite clearly, Abraham said that he didn't want that. He didn't want to have He didn't want to have his possessions because he didn't want anybody to say that he had benefited or that he had gained anything from the king of Sodom. He knew who Sodom, he knew what that area was.

He knew how they lived their life. He knew their lifestyles. He knew he knew from reputation and from knowing his area, from being a man of influence in that area. He knew what was going on in that area and he did not want to have anything to do with it. He didn't want any, have anything to do with it.

And when those angels came and let him know including the pre-incarnate Christ, the angel of the Lord Jesus when he came, when they came by to let him know what they were doing lot. Abraham definitely wanted to make sure that That God wasn't destroying any righteous men.

And he went through that whole thing, will you to kill a hundred? Will you kill 50? Will you destroy 10? If they're 10 righteous men, will you destroy the city? And God the Lord God goes and goes through the whole thing, knowing that there's only one righteous man in the whole city.

Not even his son-in-laws are righteous, which means. That that lot had not even influenced his son-in-laws to be people of faith. He had really made no impact, not only on the place he lived, but he'd made no impact on the people that were most intimate to me at him most important to him.

If you see in the New Testament if you look especially in the book vax, if you spend some time looking in the book when someone comes to a faith in God, when somebody comes to a trust in Jesus Christ one of the things is him and his this phrase is you so many times, he and his whole household was saved.

What does that mean? What that means is that once he turns and begins to have that, has that conversion experiencing and turns and begins to walk with, His lifestyle influences, makes a difference in the life of the people in his family, the people that are most intimate to him. He makes a he makes a, makes an impact on those people.

He changes the lives of the people that are most intimate with him. And and so when. When we're seeing what's going on here the bible in these verses, and then the verses we're gonna deal with tomorrow because we're gonna sit deal with the ultimate result of a life lived not by faith even by a person who is righteous.

Remember lot was lot has been named as being righteous lot was saved by Abraham and Had a righteousness from that. He had a, he had that picture of salvation. And when Abraham is dealing with whether or not God is going to destroy the city with the just and the unjust together the God says, I'm not going to kill the un.

The just, I'm gonna only kill the unjust. And remember just j being, just before God, being justified before God and being righteous before God does not have to do with. You're following the law. It has to do with your faith. It has to do with your willingness to trust in who he is. And when we're studying this passage, we need to understand that righteousness and justification come by.

They, their hallmark. What we see is faith. Faith bringing those things about. And and lot is a righteous man, and that he's righteous by faith. The problem is that his faith is not made any difference in the world. He's not, he doesn't really trust God outwardly.

He just remembers Abraham's faith and he models his faith or his trust to God after that. But his trust really doesn't have any actions. And as, as Jesus's brother would say in the book for. Faith without action is dead. Faith without works has no life to it because faith in Jesus Christ, faith in who God is always brings about a change.

It always brings about a a dynamic change in the world you live in around you. It always does and it always brings about the goodness, the grace of God. And over a long period of time in. Ultimately it brings about a difference that can be quantified and can be easily seen. Now that doesn't happen in the short term a lot of believers want for their faith to change the world they live in immediately in the short term.

And that is not a walk of faith. That's just a flash of faith. That's a real. Dip in the pool of faith, and they want that dip in the pool of faith to change the world they live in instantaneously, and it's not going to faith builds upon itself. Faith builds upon itself in your life.

And faith builds upon itself among the people that you deal with on a regular basis. Faith changes the world you live in at the very first. It changes it gradually and almost un you, you just have a difficulty even recognizing it doing anything. But then as you look back over your life, if you, as you look back over the.

Three or four years of walking with God, you realize the life change that has actually taken place, you realize the difference that it has made in your life. You realize that. And and then as you get a decade or 15 or 20 years, Then all of a sudden you look back and you realize that walk of faith has made a huge difference in the world that you live in.

It placed you in a whole different place than you ever would've been in, and it gives you things that you would've never have imagined would've happened. But then all of a sudden it's happening. And life is better and more than it ever could be or ever would've been had you not walked with God.

So we see in verse 27, he says, The Abraham went early in the morning to the place where he had stood before the Lord. Notice he went to the place where he had talked to God about Sodom and Gamora before. I find that very interesting because it is a interesting step right there. What, what's going on?

Abraham is going to where he met with God before and meeting with God and going to those places where you meet with God before is important. You need to continue to go and meet God where he met with you and then he may take you to new and different places. He may bring about new and completely different endeavors in.

But continuingly going that, that steadfast faith, that faith that continues to walk with God in the same place and in the same location over and over again, that stead. Fast easy for me to say that steadfast faith that that does and does God's will, does and does God's character over and over and over again.

That kind of faith changes lives, that kind of faith. Makes a difference. Abraham is used to meeting with God, hearing from God, acting upon what God has said being who God has told him to be. He is used to doing it. He's used to meeting with God and he's used to remembering what God has said and making that actively a part of his life.

You, you got to figure that out. You've got to figure that out. As a young Christian, you've gotta figure that out as an older Christian look back and realize the things that God has done in your. Over those years and the things that you could have been and you're not, but the things that you are because of him, you gotta look back on those things and remember them.

That's the whole point of when they When God would move in a mighty way in someone's li in the life of Israel, what would they do? They'd take these giant rocks and they'd stand them up in that location. Why? So that everybody from that generation and the generations to come could pass by that place.

See that rock and remember what God has done because remembering what God has. Allows you to walk in greater and more increasing faith each and every day. And if you don't, if you don't get that, if you don't understand that, if you don't see that in your own walk and in your own life, if you don't see that on a regular basis you miss out and God sometimes has to lead you down the same path over and over again.

Teach you the same lesson because you're not remembering the things that he's taught you before so that he can promote you down the road. Remember, this is a promotion process. God is in the business of promoting you. Often, oftentimes we wanna promote ourselves, don't we? But God is in the business of promoting you, and he promotes you to the.

That you're capable of walking in. He never promotes you beyond the position. You're capable of walking in cuz it will destroy you. Did I say that? Yeah, I did. It, he never promotes you past the position You're able to walk in because if it, if he does, it will destroy you. You will not walk in that faith.

You will, it will tear you. But he always promotes you to the position that you're walking in and that you're walking toward. And you need to know that, you need to understand that. It says, then he looked towards Sodom and Gilmore and toward all the land of the plane, and he saw and behold the smoke of the land, which went up like the smoke of a furnace.

Notice God had destroyed the whole region. He didn't just destroy Cimon Gamora, he destroyed the whole region. That whole, And if you look on a map, it's a fairly large area. It would be it would be an area that that would be about the size. I, I would guess if you had to pick if you said what is that I would say it would be like the eastern or western portion or northern portion of Lake Martin, if you. If you said what is it like on the northern side? It would be an area destroying area about the size from Elic City over to Jackson's Gap. Or if you picked the Eastern side, it'd be a destruction of the area from Dayville to real town.

Or if you picked on the Western side

Maybe eclectic to maybe eclectic to there's a big long area right there south of LIC city that goes a long ways before you even get to the lake. Anyway. It would be a very large area. A very large area that was destroyed and easily seen. And remember, Abraham did not live there, but it was easily seen from afar.

Probably he was standing on a high spot and he could see it from 15, 20 miles away. The burning of that area, the destruction of that area, the complete destruction of that area. And notice God is letting to that spot and letting to that position so that he can remember what God. He can remember.

That God was going down there to pronounce judgment on sideman gamar because of who they were and because of what they were doing. And it's hard for Christians to deal with that. We don't wanna, we don't wanna deal with that. And at times we wanna be the source of God's. We wanna be the source of God's judgment.

We're not the source of God's judgment. God's judgment is true and it's real, and it's coming, but it's not my, it's not it's not my wheelhouse. It's not what God made me for. He didn't make me for that judgment. What he made me for is for his grace and his mercy. That being said, I need to realize that aspect of who God is does exist and it is real and it's reality.

And and, the way he's made the universe, the way that universe has been. Is there certain laws that are at work in that universe because they come from his character in nature? Remember God the Father created the heavens in the earth by the spoken word of his mouth, which means it literally came from his character in nature.

And so that character in nature is at work in the universe. In the physical qualities, in the physical laws of the universe, it's at work and how how the universe and how reality happens. It's at work and how relationships happen. You say God, yes, sure, God's about holding the universe together, but he's not really involved in relationship.

I'd say that the whole reason there is relationship in the universe is cuz God is a God of relationship. He exists in relationship. His very nature is a relationship. It's it's a it's a it's a communal relationship. Communion between him and his son and the Holy Spirit. God exists. His very existence is a relationship.

And by the way, your existence is a relationship. You have three parts if you're born again. You have a body, you have a soul, and you have a spirit. And they all have their own wheels and they have that all have their own. Your flesh has its own desire. And if you don't know, your flesh has its own desire, I can't help you because you just not looking you just, okay.

You can't tell what's going on. If you don't know that the spirit, the the new human spirit that God's placed in you, in, in conjunction with the Holy Spirit has its own will. That's very separate from your fleshes will. I, you, you hadn't been born again very long, or he hadn't walked for God to realize that very long because my.

My spirit is totally an opposition to my flesh. And if you don't know that your soul, meaning your mind and your own personal passions your heart and your intellect are at war and allieds oftentimes with God's will, then you hadn't struggled with God for very long. Cuz I can promise you this, if you've spent any time dealing with God you do know the strugglings of the heart and the difficulty of your.

Or of your own mind thinking on things the way God sees them, rather than seeing 'em from the world's perspective. It's a hard thing. It's, it is his struggle. It's difficult. And, what I love about Jesus is the Bible says he's familiar with our suffering. What are we suffering from? We're suffering from sin, but he's not familiar in the sense that he knows sin.

He's familiar with our struggle with it. He's familiar with our struggle to overcome it. He's familiar with our struggle to be who we ought to be. And we all have that struggle. Every one of us had that struggle. Every one of us has that difficulty that we walk in. Every cotton picking one of us does.

And every one of us has to learn how to walk with God and to turn from our flesh. And that is not an easy walk. It is not an easy walk. It requires it requires the very goodness and grace of God. It requires the mercy of God, but it also requires our faithfulness to him.

And He looks and he sees the whole plane destroyed and it says, and it came to pass when God destroyed the cities of the plane, that God remembered Abraham and sent lot out of the midst of the overthrow. Notice he, he remembered Abraham. Therefore lot benefited from it. That's very important. A lot of what lot has benefited from in his.

It's his association with Abraham because lot has not been a man of faith and Abraham has been a man of faith. Lot has not walked with God like he ought to, and Abraham has. Now, we're gonna see next week that Abraham's not perfect and he's not ever been perfect. But perfection's not what not the standard that God is trying to get us to, in the sense of this physical world that we live in, cuz we're never gonna be perfect but.

He is trying to get us to learn how to more and more perfectly trust him. And the more and more perfectly we trust him, the more and more perfectly we walk. You go it seems like we'd walk. And then we trust him. And I know because that's the worldly perspective. That's the way the world sees thing.

You do it and then you know it. Here's how it works with God. You know it, you know him, then you. And it's different. It's very different because you've got to, you've got to learn to know who he is, and then as you know who he is and he changes you, you do who he is.

You do what he says you he wants you doing. You walk as he says, he wants you to walk, and that, that happens all the time. Abraham is a doer of the word because he is a believer in what God says. Is a tangential someone who's just on the edges of what God's doing, and he is just barely making it all the time.

He's right there on the fringes of the hope that's in God and he benefits from it. But the truth is he never experiences it in his fullness and in fact, Ultimately, no one is benefited by his faith because his faith is almost nothing. It is weak, and it is really, in many ways worthless. It only saves him, it only.

Gives him help and hope and it could not even save his wife because his wife loved this present world and she turned into a pillar of salt cause of it. And now he is stuck with him and his two daughters. And we're gonna find out that even for his two daughters to experience Something of this life that God has given them.

They're going to have to do something terrible to get there. And ultimately their prodigy are going to be people that are not people of respect. And they're not gonna be people that God deals with nicely down the road. Why? Because the man lie. Never ever actually walk with God by faith in any way that changed himself or the world that he lived in and that is a sad story of faith.

The Bible says there'll be many that enter the kingdom of God as by fire. What does that mean? They'll just barely make it in. They'll come in with the with the syringes of the fire a hell, right? On their coattails. Let me say this. You can say I, I haven't walked with God very much in my life.

Very for very very well with God, and I haven't done what I needed to do, and I know it because God's shown me things and I haven't walked in them. Let me encourage you today to walk. Let me encourage you today to begin today to do it. Walk with God today be recklessly abandoned in it.

Decide that you're gonna chase after God and be who God wants you to be. Today and today from now on, walk in the salvation that God is providing you. Allow him to overcome and to be all that he wants to be in your life and make that. Listen to me. Make it happen. You can do it. You can trust God and walk with God.

Do. Don't wait. And you say my life is I'm older and I and my life is I've wasted a lot of years of my life. And that's not an excuse to waste the next few years of your life, walk in and in his fullness. I don't care how long you haven't walked with God, walk with God today.

See the blessing of God today and even if you only have one year or five years, or 10 years or 20 years left of your life, go after. Go after it and allow God to show himself to you. And you won't be one who enters the kingdom as by fire. You're gonna be one who enters the kingdom at full blast.

Your final walk with God is gonna be the tho the years the final years of your walk with God are gonna be a rocket ship years. And you're gonna enter the kingdom of heaven. Full speed on fire. Glorifying God. Why not do that? Why not? Let's do it. Do it today. Let's get started today doing it, and I hope you do.

I'm praying that you do as you go today. I pray that the Lord will bless you and keep you, that he'll make his face to shine upon you, and that he will give you hope and peace today in Jesus' name.