Decisions with Lasting Consequences - Genesis 13:1-18

Some decisions drastically alter the course of your life. I think about my first weekend at college. I met a handful of people during the registration process and made plans to go out with them on our first weekend together. I didn’t really give much thought to what “going out” with them meant, but I thought we’d have fun together. But instead of going out with these new friends, I spent the weekend in my room bonding with my new roommate by throwing up. Somehow I had gotten very sick and ended up stuck in my room for the weekend. While I was home, I met some people who were Christians and part of a campus ministry. Those people became some of my closest friends in college and changed the course of my life. The “friends” I had planned to spend the weekend with didn’t make it past their freshman year.

Most of us can point to decisions that changed the course of our lives. The schooling you received or didn’t receive, the person you married, the career you chose, the place you did or didn’t move to—all of these choices have a profound impact on our lives. Similarly you might point to a great or a bad business deal, a momentary lapse of judgment in a vehicle, a failure to restrain your sinful impulses as decisions drastically altered the course of your life.

This morning we are going to look at a decision that drastically altered the course of Lot’s (Abram’s nephew) life. We’ll also look at the choice Abram made. Both men’s choices put them on different paths, and they made their choices for different reasons. Our challenge this morning is to learn from their examples so we can make wise choices in our lives going forward.

Abram’s Response to His Sin

Last week we looked at the story of Abram trying to pass off his wife as his sister in Egypt. It didn’t go well for a number of reasons. Ultimately, Pharaoh discovered the ruse and kicked Abram and his family out of the country, but also compensated him handsomely. I suspect as Abram was being escorted out of the country he realized how foolish he had been (his wife may have helped him come to that realization too!) What is interesting is how Abram responded to his failure.

So Abram left Egypt and traveled north into the Negev, along with his wife and Lot and all that they owned. 2(Abram was very rich in livestock, silver, and gold.) 3From the Negev, they continued traveling by stages toward Bethel, and they pitched their tents between Bethel and Ai, where they had camped before. 4This was the same place where Abram had built the altar, and there he worshiped the Lord again. (Genesis 13:1-4, NLT)

First off, we are told that Abram was very rich in livestock, silver, and gold. The text doesn’t say this explicitly, but a good chunk of that wealth likely came from Pharaoh after leaving Egypt. It is distinctly possible that as a result of Abram’s ruse he became quite wealthy. And yet, I suspect Abram found that didn’t satisfy him. After leaving Egypt, they went back to familiar land—the land between Bethel and Ai, a place they had camped before. When Abram had been there before he had built an altar to the Lord, and we are told that when he returned there, he worshiped the Lord again.

Here is why I think this is significant: Abram was surely ashamed of his failures, he was aware of his poor decision, but he didn’t run away from God. Instead, in that time of utter failure and embarrassment, he returned to God.

This is often the opposite of what we do. In times where we know we have blown it, we try to hide from the Lord. We absent ourselves from church, we don’t read our Bibles, we don’t talk to God in prayer. We are ashamed, and so we distance ourselves from God. But this is the height of foolishness! We can’t hide from the Lord. He knows what we’ve done. And he has promised us that if we will confess our sins, He will purify us and make us whole once more (cf. 1 John 1:9). Abram didn’t have this promise yet, but he instinctively knew the One who would always be there was the Lord. So when he was still smarting from his embarrassing failure, he returned to the Lord once more. It was the right move.

A New Problem

Unfortunately, there was a new problem. Though Abram and Lot had previously camped in this area, they were now wealthier, with significantly larger flocks and numbers of servants to support than before. The land simply could not support such a large number of people. You might say that the blessing of the additional riches given to Abram (and possibly Lot) by Pharaoh was actually a curse.

Apparently, Abram’s and Lot’s servants started fighting with each other, as the resources became scarce. Abram knew the conflict was only going to escalate unless something changed. So, he took action.

8Finally Abram said to Lot, “Let’s not allow this conflict to come between us or our herdsmen. After all, we are close relatives! 9The whole countryside is open to you. Take your choice of any section of the land you want, and we will separate. If you want the land to the left, then I’ll take the land on the right. If you prefer the land on the right, then I’ll go to the left.” (Genesis 13:8-9, NLT)

Abram took preemptive action to make sure this dispute didn’t cause problems between him and his nephew. That, in itself, was a wise decision. But what is even more interesting is how Abram went about solving the problem. He let Lot choose which direction he would like to go and agreed to take whatever was left. Abram was the elder. He was the one with more wealth and the one who had the right to the first pick. He was allowing Lot to tag along on his journey. He was under no obligation to let Lot have the choice of which land he wanted. He would have been perfectly within his rights to make a unilateral decision and issue a command to Lot. But that’s not what Abram did.

Here’s where I think the wisdom of Abram’s decision is. Sometimes it is better to allow yourself to get the short end of the stick in order to keep the peace. But in order to actually have peace, we have to be willing to accept that inequality (real or perceived) and leave it in the past. That is the hard part.

I can’t tell you how many times we have seen families torn apart after parents die and a large inheritance is left. Even when one party agrees to give in to the demands of another, there is still often a bitterness left behind that they just won’t let go of. They continue to hang onto the notion that they have been treated unfairly. I know what those feelings are like. It’s hard to let things go when you feel like you haven’t gotten your due.

But in Abram, we see the secret to being able to do this. He trusted God to provide. He believed that no matter what happened—even if Lot took the best land and left him with the desert—God was in control of his situation and God would keep His promises. Abram was willing to put aside his “rights” in order to preserve the relationship with his family. He understood God would ultimately take care of him, provide for him, and honor him for doing what was good. And because of that, he was able to let it go.

This is the challenge we each face as well. We must be willing to let go of some of the hurts we have been holding onto for so long, and instead trust that God is in control and will continue to take care of us. We seem to fear that if we let these things go that somehow people are going to “get away with it.” Ultimately that is not our concern. We need to trust that God is going to deal with people fairly…just as He will deal with us fairly. Instead, we must rest in His provision. Often it is not until we rest in Him that we will begin to see how He was using this situation to ultimately bring about something even better. We don’t see the rewards of faith until we actually exercise our faith.

That’s what happened with Abram. After he made the deal with Lot, God reiterated to Abram his promise that this land would one day belong to him and his descendants. God was reminding Abram that His plan cannot and will not be thwarted. We must remember that truth and act upon it. Only then can we let go of the past, and trust God enough to mend the relationships that need mending, even if we feel like we’re being slighted.

Lot’s Choice

We’ve talked a lot about Abram’s actions so far, but we must not overlook Lot. Lot was Abram’s nephew, and had been his traveling companion ever since he left home. Lot plays prominently in several stories in the coming chapters, as he repeatedly gets himself in trouble.

Lot was faced with the choice of which direction he should go. Listen to what the text says about his decision.

10Lot took a long look at the fertile plains of the Jordan Valley in the direction of Zoar. The whole area was well watered everywhere, like the garden of the Lord or the beautiful land of Egypt. (This was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.) 11Lot chose for himself the whole Jordan Valley to the east of them. He went there with his flocks and servants and parted company with his uncle Abram. 12So Abram settled in the land of Canaan, and Lot moved his tents to a place near Sodom and settled among the cities of the plain. 13But the people of this area were extremely wicked and constantly sinned against the Lord. (Genesis 13:10-13, NLT)

Lot took a long look at the land before him and decided that he wanted the place that reminded him of the Garden of Eden and the bountiful land of Egypt. So Lot decided to go into the Jordan Valley and chose that land for himself, and left Abram to go in a different direction. But the text gives us a bit of foreshadowing here, telling us that in addition to being well watered and lush, this land was also full of people who were very wicked and were constantly sinning against the Lord. There was a definite downside to this land. It appeared good at first glance, but looking deeper you could see there were some major problems.

But Lot didn’t look deeper. He only looked at the potential for prosperity and made his decision based on that superficial fact alone. He ignored the fact that the people of this land were evil, and that decision had profound consequences.

Before we are too hard on Lot, however, we must remember that we often make this same mistake. Too often we only consider the worldly elements of a decision and pay no attention to the deeper, more significant, spiritual elements of it. We make our decisions based on worldly pleasures rather than seeking to honor God first. Listen to how James Montgomery Boice described this tendency.

You may think that you are different from Lot. But if you have put your job ahead of your family’s spiritual life, if you have put your social advancement ahead of a proper association with God’s people, if you have let your choice of a home keep you from a church in which you can grow in faith and worship—you have moved from the highlands to the plain of the Jordan. I know you will say that you can serve God there as well as at Bethel. Lot would have said, “I am as eager as you to serve the Lord. After all, the cities of the plain need witnesses too.” That was true; they did. But Lot’s heart was not in witnessing. He was doing nothing for God. His heart was set on his possessions, sophistication, and glamour, and for that he lost everything.[1]

We have a tremendous capacity to justify all sorts of sinful decisions. We tell ourselves that ultimately making decisions based only on worldly criteria is ok. We reason that we are strong enough to be able to handle whatever challenges are thrown at us. We believe we won’t make the same mistakes as those who have gone before us. Or worse, we don’t even consider the spiritual implications of our decisions. When we do these things, we make the same mistake as Lot.

Here is the problem for us. We live in a world with hundreds of voices shouting at us about what we should do. And we try to listen to all the voices and find a way to make a decision that pleases them all. A better approach is for us to choose one voice and listen to it—the voice of God.

Conclusion

As we look at this account from the life of Abraham and Lot this morning there are many ways I think we ought to apply what we see here.

First, we should examine our lives for areas we have been hiding from God. Abram had sinned and he knew it. But instead of continuing to run away from the Lord, he turned to God, confessed his sin, and worshiped. This is the right response to our failures. Satan wants nothing more than to keep us from God, and if he can use our own feelings of inadequacy to do so, he will. He will tell you that God will never forgive you, that you’ve failed to often or too greatly, and therefore you are no longer worthy of His love. Don’t buy into that lie!

Instead remember that the first step in being made whole and pure is to confess your sin to the Lord. Maybe there is some area of sin you’ve been holding on to. Maybe you know holding onto it is hurting your relationship with God. Maybe you don’t want to deal with it because it’s something you’ve struggled with for a long time, or because you are ashamed because it’s a big sin, or something else. Let me tell you from personal experience, the only way to experience healing and victory is to lay your soul bare before God and ask for His forgiveness and His help to change you. Don’t hide from Him, worship Him! That is the only way to be made whole once more. As amazing as it sounds, God has promised to forgive us and purify us from all unrighteousness—even the sin you struggle with. So stop hiding, admit your failures, and run to Him.

Second, we should look for areas where we may need to make peace with someone else. The scriptures don’t give us a lot of leeway here. The principle is this: if someone else has something against you, you need to go make it right. And if you have something against someone else, you need to go make it right. In other words, it is always our responsibility to make the first move!

In many situations making peace may require us to let go of a real or perceived injustice, to stop trying to punish the other person, and to be willing to take the short end of the stick in order to make things right once more. That’s really hard to do. I’m still working at it. But continuing to hold onto those areas of bitterness is a symptom of a lack of faith. It shows that we don’t believe God will deliver on His promises. It shows that we believe committing ourselves into Gods hands is going to somehow keep us from “the good life” or that we will be letting the other person “get away with it.” When we state things that way, it becomes clear how silly that mindset is. But that’s what’s really in our hearts. Instead, we should be like Abram, and trust that God will be faithful to His promises, that He will take care of us, and that He will ensure justice is ultimately served (both for us and for the other person.) And we can rest in that truth in order to bring healing to our relationships. So examine your life for places where you may need to do that…then get started.

Third, we need to examine our decision-making matrix. How do you go about making decisions? What factors weigh most heavily in your decision-making process? At what point in that process do you consider what God would have you do? Do God’s commands rank higher or lower than other things in those decisions? These are tough questions, but if we’re honest, the answers to these questions can serve as a corrective.

Lot’s decision-making matrix was much more about what he thought would prosper him than about what he thought would feed his soul. He was more concerned about material success than he was about spiritual purity. We must not make the same mistake. Take inventory of the decisions you’ve made and are making in your life. Think about what really led to those decisions. And then recognize that if you ignore God in your decision-making, you may find yourself in a very difficult place down the road, just like Lot did.

Fourth, we need to examine which voices we are listening to. Our society is full of noise. We are constantly bombarded with opinions, thoughts, and insights from every angle and from all over the world. You can find almost any opinion you can imagine on the internet. You can always find people who will tell you what you want to hear. But just because people agree with you doesn’t mean you are right. We need to be careful who we allow to influence us. We need to listen primarily to the Lord and give much less weight to the competing voices of the world around us. The problem is that we spend a lot more time with worldly voices than we do with the Lord. That is why it is important to feed yourself a steady diet of God’s Word. Find time to study the Bible regularly for yourself, make corporate worship a priority, get involved in a Bible study or small group, read Christian books, listen to Christian radio (talk and music), and immerse yourself in the Word of God. Only then can we begin to drown out the voices of the world around us and focus in on the only voice that matters.

You never know what decision is going to change the course of your life. We make thousands of decisions each day. The knowledge that any one of them could forever alter the course of our lives could paralyze us with fear, or it could drive us to change the way we make decisions. Neither you nor I know where your life is ultimately leading, but God does. So instead of fretting about which direction you should go when faced with a decision, seek the Lord. Place greater emphasis on the things God tells us are most important. And choose to listen to Him over the din of the world. Rest in the truth that even when we mess up, even when we lack faith, God is still faithful to us. So we can and should always run to Him.

[1] Boice, James Montgomery. Genesis: An Expositional Commentary. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1998.