What You're Moving Toward Matters

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♪ There's nothing, nothing is better than You Lord ♪ Let's go boys, come on. ♪ You turn mourning to dancing ♪ ♪ You give beauty for ashes ♪ ♪ You turn shame into glory ♪ ♪ You're the only one who can save me ♪ ♪ You turn mourning to dancing ♪ ♪ You give beauty for ashes ♪ ♪ You turn shame into glory ♪ ♪ You're the only one who can save me ♪ ♪ You turn graves into harbors ♪ ♪ You turn bones into bodies ♪ ♪ You turn seas into harbors ♪ ♪ You're the only one who can ♪ ♪ You're the only one who can ♪ ♪ You're the only one who can ♪ Amen. Come on, give Him praise today. The God who was and is and is to come. Hallelujah. Man, it's great to be gathered with all of you here this morning. I hope you had such a great week. You know, as we continue together, we're gonna read scripture, we'll worship, we'll hear from Pastor Witt as we continue our series on the life of Abraham. My hope this morning for you and your family is that as we sing, as we worship, that you would be reminded of the goodness of God,

that you would be reminded of His great love for you, that maybe you would be able to set aside the distractions of your week and take the next 10 to 15 minutes to put your attention, your focus upon Him as we worship. Why don't you join me? Let's read our call to worship out of Psalm 145. It says this, I will extol you, my God and King, and bless your name forever and ever. Every day I will bless you and praise your name forever and ever. All your works shall give thanks to you, O Lord, and all your saints shall bless you. They shall speak of the glory of your kingdom and tell of your power. To make known to the children of man your mighty deeds and the glorious splendor of your kingdom. Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom and your dominion endures throughout all generations. The Lord is faithful in all His words and kind in all His words. This is the word of the Lord and we sing. Come on. Come on. How could I express all my gratitude? I could sing these songs as I often do in every song I sing and you never do. So I fold my hands and praise you again and again because all that I have is a hallelujah.

Hallelujah. And I know it's not much. ♪ I'm nothing less before a king ♪ ♪ Except for hearts singing hallelujah ♪ ♪ Hallelujah ♪ ♪ I've got one response ♪ ♪ I've got just one move ♪ ♪ With my arms stretched wide ♪ ♪ I will worship your hands ♪ ♪ So I'll throw up my hands and praise you again and again ♪ ♪ Cause all that I have is a hallelujah ♪ ♪ Hallelujah ♪ ♪ And I know it's not much ♪ ♪ I'm nothing less before a king ♪ ♪ Except for hearts singing hallelujah ♪ ♪ Hallelujah ♪ ♪ My heart cries hallelujah ♪ ♪ Hallelujah to the king of kings and lord of lords ♪ ♪ He is worthy, worthy, worthy, yeah ♪ ♪ Come on my son, oh don't you get tired of me ♪ ♪ Lift up your voice and sing with me ♪ ♪ Cause you've got the light inside of those of us ♪ ♪ So get up and praise the lord ♪ ♪ Oh with everything in you give him praise today ♪ ♪ Oh come on my son, oh don't you get tired of me ♪ ♪ Lift up your song, cause you've got the light inside of us ♪ ♪ Oh stir up your faith, stir up your faith ♪ ♪ He's worthy, he's worthy, he's worthy, yeah ♪ ♪ Oh come on my son, oh don't you get tired of me ♪ ♪ Lift up your song, cause you've got the light inside of us ♪

♪ Yeah, lift it up, lift it up, lift it up, lift it up, yeah ♪ ♪ Come on my son, oh don't you get tired of me ♪ ♪ Lift up your song, cause you've got the light inside of us ♪ ♪ Oh stir up your faith, stir up your faith, stir up your faith ♪ ♪ He's worthy, he's worthy, he's worthy, yeah ♪ ♪ Oh come on my son, oh don't you get tired of me ♪ ♪ Lift up your song, cause you've got the light inside of us ♪ ♪ Oh stir up your faith, stir up your faith, stir up your faith ♪ ♪ So I'm going my way, I'm crazy about it, yeah ♪ ♪ Cause I'm behind you, I'm behind you, yeah ♪ ♪ And I know it's not much, I'm nothing else in your key ♪ ♪ Except for this one singing Hallelujah ♪ ♪ Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah ♪ ♪ Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, yeah ♪ ♪ Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, yeah ♪ ♪ You are worthy, King Jesus, You are worthy ♪ One more time, let's all sing it. ♪ So I'll throw up my hands and praise You again ♪ ♪ For all that I have ♪ ♪ Oh, hallelujah, and I know it's not much ♪ ♪ I've nothing else but for a king ♪ ♪ Except for a heart singing hallelujah ♪ Hallelujah, oh hallelujah How we love you, how we love you Jesus Oh Lord, my God When I in awesome wonder Consider all the worlds Thy hands have made I see the star I hear the rolling thunder Thy power throughout the universe displayed Come on, sing it as loud as you can Then sing to my soul My Saviour God, to Thee Yeah, come on, come on

How great Thou art How great How great Thou art Sing it again Then sing to my soul My Saviour God, to Thee How great Thou art How great Thou art And we love You That God, His Son, our Saviour Sent Him to die Our scares contained in You That Lord, that God My burden that He carried He let it die To take away my sin Then sing to my soul My Saviour God, to Thee How great Thou art How great Thou art Then sing to my soul My Saviour God, to Thee How great Thou art How great Thou art How great Thou art You forever are When Christ shall come With shout of acclamation And take me home What joy shall fill my heart Then I shall know His humble adoration And then proclaim

My God, how great Thou art Then sing to my soul My Saviour God, to Thee ♪ Send Your love to me ♪ ♪ I'll break my heart ♪ ♪ I'll break my heart ♪ ♪ This is my song ♪ ♪ I send Your love to me ♪ ♪ I'll break my heart ♪ ♪ I'll break my heart ♪ ♪ This is my song ♪ ♪ I send Your love to me, yeah ♪ ♪ Yeah, I'll break my heart ♪ ♪ I'll break my heart ♪ ♪ I'll break my heart ♪ ♪ I'll break my heart ♪ ♪ I'll break my heart ♪ ♪ I'll break my heart ♪ How great and strong and mighty you are, God. In you we can put our trust. Lord, we don't trust in ourselves, we don't trust in the world, but Lord, we put our trust in you and you alone. For you are big, you are strong, and you are mighty, and we worship you in this place. One more time, church, this morning, can you clap your hands? One more time, can you lift your voice to the God who was and is to come? Hallelujah! Lord, you reign forever.

We worship you, our heart sings hallelujah. Thank you, Lord, for what you are doing. God is good, isn't he? Why don't you do this as we continue, greet the people you're seated next to. We'll keep things moving this morning. Well, good morning, church family. So good to see you this morning. Listen, I know it's a crazy busy week for so many people in this room. It's end of school stuff, there's graduation, graduation parties. Isn't it nice, though, that we can kind of push pause on all of that just to be reminded about God's goodness and faithfulness and worship together? I know, I needed it. We're so glad to be with you. But if you're new to Church on the Move, my name is Priscilla, I'm up here with my friend Britton. We're a couple of the pastors here. And in just a moment, Pastor Witt is gonna be with us continuing our series on the life of Abraham. But before he comes out, we just wanted to take a minute to say hello, say good morning, and also welcome anyone who may be here for the first time. So if that's you, thank you so much for being with us. In fact, we would love to welcome you into our home by giving you a gift. Absolutely, if you are new here,

you can just take out your phone and text the word new to 23101. We just wanna send you a gift card to our coffee shop out in the lobby. Your first coffee's on us. Man, we're so glad that you're here. Maybe if you're not so new around here, but it still feels like you're new here. I know that my wife and I have been there before. We moved here just a little over two years ago, and the first service that we came to was a Christmas Eve service. And so as you can imagine, my wife is like, oh my goodness, like, what did you bring us to? Like, are we ever going to meet anybody ever? Like, it's huge. How will we ever find community here? And we decided to go through this thing that we do around here called Next Move. And I'm on staff, and we said, you know what? This is something we need to do. And we went, and we had a meal, and we met some people. We made some friends. We heard more about what goes on around here that makes up Church on the Move, kind of a place that we wanted to belong to. And we got to hear some vision from Pastor Witt. And so that's the invitation to you. If you, maybe you feel new, but you don't wanna feel like that anymore,

come eat lunch with us today. Right after our 11.30 service, we have Next Move. And simply, you can just text the word next to 23101. We would love to share a meal with you. That's right, that's happening today right after the 11.30 service. So hang out with us, come share a meal with us. We would love to meet you in person, like Britton said. Well, you know, something that we continue to be so thankful for every single week is how many of our church family continue to partner with us and financially support advancing the gospel through Church on the Move. You know, as the people of God, giving is one of the ways that we honor God with our resources. But it's also a way for us to respond to his faithfulness, knowing that everything that we have in our lives is a gift from God. And if you came prepared to give today, I wanna invite you to give in a couple of easy ways. You can either text the word give and the. dollar amount to 23101, or if you came prepared to give by cash or check, you can use those offering envelopes in the seat backs in front of you and drop those off securely as you leave today. But maybe you're new and you're curious about ways to give around here. I would encourage you, grab the dark green card that's in the seat back in front of you.

It talks about three different ways to give at Church on the Move. Take that card with you and prayerfully consider going on this journey with us and partnering with us in that way. But for those of you who choose to give, thank you so much for your faithfulness. Well, as you continue preparing to give right now, we get to do something really meaningful as a church family and honor our graduating seniors. So I wanna invite all of our seniors to make their way to the stage. You can kind of come up here on the right side. We wanna give you a gift as you make your way up here. As they start heading this way, maybe you're new to the church, you need to know that as a church, we believe in partnering with families to reach and disciple the next generation. It starts really little when these kids are in our nursery classrooms and kids on the move. We kind of got to see the beginning stages of this partnership a couple weekends ago when this stage was filled again with over 40 families who are really committing to dedicate their children. The parents were actually making a commitment to train up their kids in the way that they should go. But as a church family, we were committing to wrap our arms around these families and help equip parents.

But also pour into these kids, pour into these young people as they continue to take next step in becoming mature followers of Christ. And this weekend, we get to celebrate one of those special milestones. And Britton's still talking to everyone. Yeah, my bad, my bad. Give him a minute. Yeah, this is about them, not you guys. So man, super excited. No, I love these students. Pastor Greg, you didn't prepare me for these moments. You don't tell me how hard it is to say bye. I look, man, I see so many of you guys, summer serves and sporting events and plays and retreats and uncommons. Man, I love you guys. I think if I could just say one thing to you kind of before you transition into whatever's next, maybe you're going to a new city, maybe you're going to a new college, a new job, and maybe some of you, you're staying right here, you're staying at home. Here's what I would say. Keep going. Keep taking steps. You see, the tension of the transition that you're entering into is all about what will I do next? And I would challenge you with the same thing that we challenge you with all the time.

It's a lot less about what will you do next and a lot more about who you become. Who will you continue to become through the power of Christ in you? Will you continue taking the steps he's calling you to take? Will you continue in the things that have been instilled in you since a young age? To stay committed to the church, to find a meaningful community that you can belong to, to stay devoted to God's word, that it wouldn't be said of your generation that you were another one that just came and left, but instead that you stayed committed, that you took the steps God called you to take every single day. Listen, none of you are perfect. You're going to screw it up, just like the rest of us in this room. And when you do, just keep going. Just take the next step. I'm so proud of you guys. I'm proud of the people that are standing in front of me, and I'm even more excited to see who you continue to become. Man, thank you guys for letting me be your youth pastor for these last few years. It's been a ton of fun. And some of you, you'll still be here, and I'm glad you'll still be here as well. I'd love to pray for you guys. Church family, would you guys join me

in praying over our seniors? Heavenly Father, God, thank you. First and foremost, I'm grateful for these students, God, for this calling to get to live life with them. God, I look across this stage, and I just see so much of your work, so much of your faithfulness, your grace on display, God. And I thank you for these families that have been committed to raising up their children in the way that they should go. And God, right now, for these graduates, I just ask that you would keep them in your heart and your heart in your heart. And I pray that you would keep them in your heart and your heart in your heart. And God, for these graduates, I just ask that you would continue to fill them with a conviction to live the life you've called them to live. Lord, that you would make clear to them the steps you're calling them to take. God, that when the enemy comes and tries to get them to settle or to maybe step into something that's not of you, God, that they would simply feel conviction from you, Lord, and they'd take the step you're calling them to take. But Lord, in the moments maybe where they screwed up, that they'd remember that your faithful and your grace is sufficient.

But God, here's the promise we cling to this morning, that he who began a good work is faithful to bring it to conclusion. We love you and we praise you, Lord. We thank you for these students. And it's in Jesus' name that we pray. We all said, amen. Awesome, give it up for these seniors one more time. Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! One more time, give it up for these seniors. Well, good morning and welcome. My name is Wed, if you're new around here, glad to have you worshiping with us this weekend, especially if you're new, and if you're joining us online, maybe you're unable to be here this weekend for whatever reason, welcome to you as well. And did you know that we have two churches in prisons? One in a men's prison, one in a women's prison, Dick Connor, Eddie Warrior, and they are part of our church family. We like to say hello and greet them every week, so can we put our hands together, say welcome to you as well.

If you have a Bible, I want you to grab it. We're going to be looking at Genesis chapters 18 and 19, and one of the challenges of teaching this series is just that there's so much. Every week, I think the biggest challenge I face is learning to preach these chapters is just to figure out what to say and what not to say, because there is so much here, and that's certainly going to be the case this weekend. I'm just overwhelmed with stuff to be able to talk about, but this is why I also have a podcast that I do on Mondays called Tell Me More, and I know many of you, you're aware of it, you listen to it. It's where basically I'll take an hour, hour and a half, and we go deeper into the themes and the verses that we study on the weekend. Here's what's cool. Tomorrow morning, I'm going to be recording a special live version, never done this before, out here in our lobby. So I'm just going to be recording the podcast live, and you're invited. If you happen to have nothing to do tomorrow morning at 9 a.m., I would love to have you here. We're going to do this with kind of a live audience around, and we'll take some Q&A. Pastor Ethan will be with me, should be a lot of fun, and we're going to record that tomorrow morning. If you can't make it, totally understand. It'll be recorded, and you'll see it on Tuesday, as you do every week. That's when these podcasts launch, but yeah, love to have you, and love to have you listen on a weekly basis, or whenever we record them. They're meant to be a supplement to what we're doing on the weekends, to help you go deeper in your understanding of Scripture and your journey of following the Lord. So anyway, just want to commend that to you, if it's something that you're unaware of. All right, we're going to be looking at Genesis 18 and 19, and there's so much here, I'm not going to be able to read it all. You have to really kind of consider both chapters together.

That's why we're going to spend some time kind of setting up the context of what we're going to read in Genesis 18, and what we're going to find, the tragedy that we will find in Genesis 19. So the Lord has appeared to Abraham once again. This time, he appears in physical form, and anytime you see the Lord appear physically in the Old Testament, what you're looking at there is Jesus. He's not called by that name, but that's who he is. And so Jesus is here with a couple of angels. They're going to be described or called men several times, but later they will be revealed to be angels. And Abraham greets them at the door to his tent. He welcomes them in, he prepares a meal, and the Lord begins to reaffirm promises to Abraham. He tells him, yet again, you're going to have a son, but this time it's different. He says, it'll happen this time next year. Sarah, your wife, will become pregnant. She'll have a son. She's listening, overhearing all of this, and she laughs. She's like, really? At this age? Like, after my body is shriveled up and I'm not really able to have kids, this is when you're going to give me a child? And there's this fascinating interaction there between her and the Lord. I wish we had time to study it, but we don't. But that's the first part of what God comes to do, what the Lord comes to do. But then, he invites Abraham into what he's going to do in regards to the city of Sodom. And we're going to find this in verse 16. And if you have a Bible, you can follow along. If not, the verses will be on the screen. Then the men set out from there. We're talking about Abraham, we're talking about the Lord himself, we're talking about

these two angels. They set out from there and they looked down towards Sodom, and Abraham went with them to set them on their way. The Lord said, shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him, for I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord, and here's the key, by doing righteousness and justice, so that the Lord may bring to Abraham what he has promised him. The Lord's promises to Abraham, the son that he wants to give him, is more than just about the fulfillment of a long time dream for Abraham. It's about God forming a people. By the way, God still wants a people. You and I are a part of that people. Today it's called the church. We're gathered here this morning. We are God's people. Well, it all started way back with Abraham. God wanted a people who would represent him to the world. They were to be his ambassadors, if you will. Showing the world what this God is like. And here, the Lord intends to pass judgment on a wicked city. We'll see why here in a moment. But he's inviting Abraham into this process. Now, why? Well, it's not because he needs Abraham's help. God doesn't need our help for anything. God can accomplish exactly what he wants to accomplish on his own. Why does he include us? Because he wants to develop us. God, in his grace and mercy, wants to include us as partners in his work. It's a pretty staggering thing that God would include you and I in anything, and yet he does.

He's inviting Abraham into this righteousness and judgment that's about to happen upon the city of Sodom. He's training Abraham for what he's going to do. You're going to represent me? Let me show you how that's going to work. And we understand this because we parents do the same thing with our kids all the time. When they're young, you train them in things, even though they're not very good at this. I remember when I was teaching my kids how to sweep, they were terrible. They didn't even know how to hold a broom. I'm like, here's how you hold it. Here's how you sweep. Watching them try to sweep, they weren't moving the dirt into one place. They were just pushing dirt and dust and debris around the floor. And that's frustrating as a parent, because what do you want to do? You just want to say, here, give me the broom, and you want to take it back and do it for them. But you don't do that if you're trying to train them. You let them struggle, fumble their way through, so that they can learn. That's what the Lord is doing with Abraham here. He wants him to learn how to do righteousness and justice. So he includes them like a parent in the process. Now what happens is Abraham and God begin to have this interesting conversation, this bargaining conversation. How many people would you be willing to spare the city for? Again, Abraham's figuring this out. That's what's happening here. And you see the Lord patiently working with him. To the point that finally Abraham says, what if there were ten righteous people in the city? Would you spare and have mercy on the city? And the Lord says, yeah, I would if there's only ten. And then he sends the Lord, he sends the two angels down to Sodom. Now this is probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 miles from where Abraham is at at the time. They can see it in a great distance looking out in the valley.

The angels journey toward Sodom. And what do they find when they get there but Abraham's nephew Lot. And he's sitting in the gate of the wicked city. That's significant, sitting in the gate. Because if you sat in the gate of a city, it meant that you were something of like a city judge. You would adjudicate disputes between people who were in disagreement with one another. That's what Lot was doing. He had become a prominent figure of some note in the city. And when he sees these two men, he recognizes there's something different about these guys. And he hurries them, for good reason, into his home. Because he knows the reputation of the city in which he lives. And sure enough, it's not long before the men of the city surround Lot's house. And demand that those men, those angels, be brought out so that they might know them. Is the way the scripture describes it. Which is just a polite way of saying they want to sexually abuse these men in the worst way possible. And so Lot begins to try to negotiate with them. And he does the unthinkable. If you read the text, and I would encourage you to read Genesis 18 and 19. You will find that Lot offers up his two virgin daughters as a substitute for the two men that are in his house. It's a despicable, deplorable thing. But remember, the Bible does not always tell. It often shows. What's going to happen? What will be the consequences of such a terrible thing? And a betrayal of his role as father over his daughters. We'll see that a little later in the story. The angels eventually intervene. They step out. They strike the mob, the sex-crazed mob with blindness. And they pull Lot back into the house.

And we'll pick the story up in chapter 19, verse 12. Then the men, or these angels, said to Lot, Have you anyone else here? Is there anybody else that you have with you in the city? Your sons-in-law, your daughters. Anybody in the city. Bring them out. Get out of this place. For we are about to destroy this place. We are about to destroy this place. The outcry against its people has become great before the Lord, and the Lord has sent us to destroy it. If they are willing to do this to these two men who have just entered the city, imagine the amount of injustice and the gross perversion of humanity that has happened within this city up until this point. And the Lord is patient, but there comes a point where he says, I'm finally going to have to deal with this, we're going to judge the city. So Lot went out, and he said to his sons-in-law who were to marry his daughters, Up, get out of the place, for the Lord is about to destroy the city. But he seemed to his sons-in-law to be joking. They couldn't even understand. His words just seemed to joke to them. So ridiculous was what he was saying that they didn't even take him seriously. As morning dawned, the angels urged Lot, saying, Get up, get up, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be swept away in the punishment of the city. But he lingered. So the men seized him and his wife and his two daughters by the hand, the Lord being merciful to him. And they brought him out and set him outside the city. And as they brought them out, one said, Escape for your life. Do not look back or stop anywhere in the valley. Escape to the hills, lest you be swept away. And we're going to skip ahead to verse 23. It says,

That's a small town not too far from the town of Sodom. Then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the Lord out of heaven. And he overthrew those cities and all the valley and all the inhabitants of the cities and what grew on the ground. But Lot's wife behind him looked back and she became a pillar of salt. And Abraham went early in the morning to the place where he had stood before the Lord. Remember, he's at some distance. He doesn't know what's happened with Lot. He doesn't know how everything's gone. He's looking at this the next morning from a distance. And he looks down towards Sodom and Gomorrah and toward all the land of the valley. And he looked, and behold, the smoke of the land went up like the smoke of a furnace. So it was that when God destroyed the cities of the valley, God remembered Abraham and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow when he overthrew the cities in which Lot had lived. Now, I wish we could stop there. And I wish that was the end of this sordid, tragic tale. But it is not. Because eventually Lot finds his way to a cave where he lives with his two daughters. Remember, his wife has become a pillar of salt. Everything that Lot has had, everything that he built his life on, has crumbled around him. And as he is dwelling in this cave with his two daughters, it dawns upon them that everyone they've ever known has died. And they have no future. They have no idea what's going to happen to them. So they concoct a plan to preserve a legacy, offspring for themselves. The most important thing for a woman in that time, I want children. So they concoct a plan to get their father drunk on consecutive nights and sleep with him so they might have children from their father. And we'll end with verses 36 to 38. It says, This is the word of the Lord and we all said,

Thanks be to God. You cannot tell or study the story of Abraham without also studying the tragic story of his nephew, Lot. Lot is with Abraham from the beginning. They're mentioned in the same genealogy. They come from the same family. And yet the outcome of their lives couldn't be more different. Abraham will be established. His legacy undeniable. Jonathan Sachs, the former chief rabbi for the United Kingdom, he said this, Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Muslims trace their faith lineage back to one man, that is Abraham. His line, his legacy, his name has been preserved and established. The life of Lot disintegrated around him. What's the difference? We're meant to look at this as a contrast. That's often what the scripture does. It puts before you two characters, two choices. You're meant to look at them both and consider their choices and choose wisely. The very beginning, we get the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. What most people don't realize is that there was another tree in the garden, the tree of life. Choose wisely. You get Isaac, you get Ishmael, you get Jacob, you get Esau, you get King David and King Saul.

Over and over and over again throughout the scriptures, there are presented two paths you can choose. Choose wisely. Jesus said, there was a foolish man who built his house on sand. There was a wise man who built his house on a rock. Choose wisely. So that's what we're gonna do today. We're gonna examine the difference between Abraham and his nephew, Lot. Where did it all go wrong for Lot? What did he do that we can learn from? After all, it is a wise person who learns from the mistakes and the failures of another because it's really hard to see where and how your life is going off the rails in the moment. It's often only through hindsight can we reflect on our lives and wish that we would have made different choices. But a wise person can look at the life and failures of another person and say, I'm not going to make the same foolish choices they did. Let's contrast Abraham and Lot. How did Abraham end up established and why did Lot end up with nothing, dying in a cave while his own daughters are sexually abusing him? How does such a thing happen? Three questions I think we can ask that come from this text that I think are helpful in helping us make a different choice than Lot made.

First one is this. In what direction are you moving? This is basic discipleship and I gotta tell you, you are being discipled whether you realize it or not. You're becoming more like Christ or you're becoming more like the world. There's really no other option. There is no neutral in the kingdom of God. There's only two choices, life or death. Pick one. And Abraham is making a choice, flawed though he was, to keep moving forward with the Lord. This is what discipleship really is. It's just moving, little by little, step by step, day by day, toward Christ. It doesn't mean you're perfect. In fact, sanctification discipleship is not about perfection, it's about progress. What direction though are you making progress? Where are you moving? Alistair Begg has a quote that I bumped into this week that I just love. He said it like this. He said, it is by a steady, persistent, often dogged commitment to do the right thing that we discover that God opens the windows of heaven and blesses us. In other words, the person who wins in this life, the person who experiences God's blessing and God's best is not the perfect person who has it all together, who always makes the best choices.

It's the person who gets back up when they fall down and they keep moving in the right direction. Progress. We notice that neither Abraham nor Lot are perfect. They both make stupid decisions. Abraham has his own stupid decisions that are put very much at the forefront of his own story. In Genesis chapter 12, we read that Abraham lies about his wife Sarah to preserve his own life. He says, tell Pharaoh you're my sister. Go along with this. And that way if he chooses you to be one of his wives, he won't kill me so he can have you. It's a tragic thing, a cowardly thing. He does not honor and fight for his wife. God has to step in and do that for him. And you would think that Abraham would learn his lesson all these years later, but you know what? In the very next chapter, chapter 20, Abraham's going to do it again. How many times will he have to learn this lesson? How often will God have to show up and bail him out? And yet that's exactly what's going to happen in the very next chapter. But he keeps moving forward. He keeps following the Lord. Not perfectly, he falls down, he gets back up, he keeps moving forward with the Lord. But Lot is moving in a whole different direction. That's the key.

What direction are you moving in? Are you making progress toward becoming more like Christ, or are you moving like Lot toward Sodom? How many of you were here this last Wednesday night to listen to Matt Chandler? Anybody show up? but it was so good, it was an amazing night, had such a great sermon. And there was this idea that he put forward, this illustration that I thought was so helpful of what a journey following the Lord looks like. He said a lot of us kind of get it in our heads that our faith journey looks something like this, just a never-ending set of ascending steps. You're just moving higher and higher and higher. And if you listen to kind of the wrong sorts of preachers, it's easy to get this into your head, that somehow the life of a Christ follower is just one victory after another, right? That it's just, you're always getting better, moving from one level of glory to the next, just becoming more and more perfectly sanctified. And in some sense, that's true. But the idea that you're just constantly ascending, that life is just one set of victories after another is not the case. Scripture doesn't bear that out. Follow any hero of faith and you will find that their story doesn't look like this. And neither does your story and mine.

What he showed us was that the life of faith, the journey of faith looks more like this. A series of ups and downs, but I want you to notice you're not staying in the same direction. You're moving toward a goal. What is the goal? Christlikeness. This is what faith really looks like. Through the highs and the lows of life, the successes and the failures, you're learning to become more like Christ. What's the difference? The trajectory. In what direction are you heading? That's what matters. Abraham is following the Lord, but Lot is being drawn toward Sodom. I want you to notice in Genesis chapter 13, Abraham and Lot are going to have to go their own way. They've accumulated too much wealth, too many livestock, and so they're going to separate. And Abraham says to Lot, here, you can choose whatever part of the land that you want. And I want you to look at Genesis 13, 10. Notice where, this is where it all goes off the rails for Lot. This is the beginning of the end, right here in verse 10 of chapter 13. And Lot lifted up his eyes, and he saw. Do you remember Genesis 3,

where it all goes wrong for mankind? Eve sees that the fruit of the tree is good for food, and a delight to the eyes, and she desired it. That's what's happening here with Lot. He sees that the Jordan Valley is well-watered everywhere, like the Garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt in the direction of Zoar. And if you know the geography of that area, what we're talking about here is the valley that contains Sodom and Gomorrah. He sees it from a distance, and he says, I think I wanna go there. And so the trajectory of his life begins moving in that direction. Now, this is so key, because you can't always tell where someone's at with the Lord by their outward appearance. Let me put it like this. You see this in the New Testament. Do you ever notice how in the New Testament, Jesus reserves some of his harshest criticism for the people that were the most morally upright? The people that were good, in good standing in the community, that had their lives together, that were very moral. Jesus is really harsh with them. And on the other hand, he's really generous and gracious with prostitutes, sinners, tax collectors, outcasts. Why?

What's the difference between them? I'll tell you. It's the trajectory, the direction of their heart. See, you could be very moral. In fact, if we were to kind of posit it like a scale of morality, let's say someone was raised in a relatively good home, had good parents, taught them to be a moral, upright citizen of their community. They might be a plus five on the morality scale, but they might in their morality look down on other people who aren't as righteous or good as they are. You see this a lot with religious people. Religious people are often like this. They look down on the world because the world doesn't live like they do. Now, we don't have any of those kinds of religious people in Church on the Move, but you know what I'm talking about. They judge others because they feel pride in their own moral superiority. So they have a smugness about them as they judge the world around them. You see this in the parable of the prodigal son and the older brother. He's unable to show grace to his flawed and sinful brother because he's holding on to his own righteousness. That's what religious people do.

They're very proud, and they might outwardly be very moral, but Jesus has no real patience for people like that, even though their lives are very well together. In fact, they may sin far less than the other people, but Jesus is not interested in someone like that. Why? Because their heart isn't moving toward them. In fact, he said, oh, you look very religious on the outside, but you're. Your heart's really far from me. Meanwhile, he can show up to prostitutes, tax collectors, sinners, and he can be gracious toward them even though they're like a negative 10 on the morality scale. Why? Because their heart is open to Christ. Do you see the difference? It's not about your outward morality. Make no mistake, sin matters to God. We'll talk about that here in a second. But the trajectory of your heart matters more. Where are you aimed? What are you living for? Who are you living for? Are you making slow, steady progress, becoming little by little by little more like Christ? Or are you attracted, drawn to Sodom? See, Sodom stands for the way of the world. And that's what happens with Lot.

We're going to see as he slides further and further into worldly compromise. What direction are you moving? That's the question that we've got to ask ourselves. Where are you heading? See, the secret of breakthrough is just persistent, steady movement toward becoming like Christ. We often think that breakthrough happens in these sexy, kind of emotional moments, a tear-filled altar call at the end of a service or a special revival night or, I don't know, tears or chills down your spine. But the secret of breakthrough is that there is no breakthrough, that it doesn't happen in some single moment, but that it happens in the quiet, often boring and mundane, just consistent showing up. Again, here's what I can tell you, and this ought to encourage you. You will win in the end if you just don't quit. If you just continue to stick with it, you'll be blown away. You can applaud for that. I'm terrible at applause breaks. But if you just keep with it, if you don't quit, I'm sorry. You can't do this. If you just keep with it. That's why I love Pastor Britton's word to our seniors today, just keep going.

Just don't quit. You're gonna fail or you're gonna stumble. Yeah, you will. We all do. That's what it is to be human. Get back up. Keep going. Don't stay down. When you make a stupid decision, don't let the enemy tell you that somehow you gotta build back a good moral record for several months before you can come back to God's presence and join back in and worship with God's people. No, keep going. Show back up. Don't stop. Don't quit. And in the end, you will find that you are not the same person that you were. It often happens so gradually that you can't see it. That happened to me. I remember distinctly going to lunch one day with my wife and she looked at me. This was years ago. And she said, do you not know how much you've changed? I wasn't aware of what the Lord had done in me. I mean, I knew He'd been working, but I wasn't able to see the growth that had taken place in me

because it had happened so slowly, so gradually that it was seemingly imperceptible. When God feels far, don't worry about it. He's still working. In the dry seasons, in the seasons of joy where God feels close, He's still working. Keep going. Keep moving in the right direction and you will become more like Christ in the end. What direction, though, are you going? Second question is this. Who or what are you surrounding yourself with? Now, this has to be one of the main lessons of the life of Abraham and the life of Lot. We read in Genesis 13, 12, it says, Abram settled in the land of Canaan, while Lot settled among the cities of the valley. Remember what started with just a glance, just looking longingly in the direction of Sodom. Now, he has moved his tent as far as Sodom. This is how compromise works. Compromise begins with a longing glance, maybe at a distance. Ooh, that looks interesting. That draws me in. I desire that. But it will always draw you because this is the nature of life. You're moving somewhere. You're headed in one direction or the other.

Life, death, you choose. The easy road, the narrow road that leads to life. Which direction are you moving in? That's the idea. Here we see that Lot goes where his eyes look. Boy, that'll preach right there. What are you looking at? What are you spending your time listening to? Who do you surround yourself with? The voices that you listen to shape the direction of your life. But I want you to notice, he doesn't stay just near Sodom because in the very next chapter in verse 12, it says that they also took Lot, the son of Abraham's brother, who now, look what he's doing, dwelling in Sodom. Later we find he's become even a prominent figure of that wicked city. This is how sin works. Little compromise here, little compromise there, but it doesn't end there. It leads you, it draws you deeper into greater and greater and greater compromise. Here's the point. You cannot serve the Lord and pursue the world at the same time. You have to make a choice. James, the brother of Jesus,

makes this really clear in James chapter four. I'm gonna read several verses here and I want you to pay attention to what James says. He says, what causes all this quarreling and these fights, the strife and the brokenness among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you, your desires are at war within you? You desire but you don't have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. In other words, you're trying to attain for yourself what God wants to give you in his time. You're pursuing the wrong things, aimed in the wrong direction. That's what he's saying. Verse three, you ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly to spend it on your passions. Your whole life is selfishly oriented. You adulterous people. Now I want you to stop and think about this. This is hard language, but we need to consider it. He calls them adulterous, and this is often what we do. What does it mean to be adulterous? It means to cheat on the one that you've committed to. Now think about this. What he's saying is you can't tell me. Think of it like this. You can't say as a husband, I love my wife, while you're committing adultery against her at the same time.

True? It's not really love. You might think you love your wife while you're cheating on her, but you don't really because your actions show me how you feel about her. You cannot choose one and then commit adultery against her with another, and that is James' point. He's saying this is what the people of God do. This is what we've always done is we commit ourselves to the Lord and then we go pursuing the world. He says do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity or to make yourself an enemy with God? You can't have it both ways. Therefore, whoever wishes to be the friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the scripture says he yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us? In other words, God's like a jealous spouse. He gets no pleasure and he doesn't take lightly our pursuit of other gods at his own expense. He's jealous for us. He wants his people, verse six, but he gives more grace. It's amazing how gracious the Lord is to Lot. Do you notice in this story that it's almost like Lot doesn't want to be saved, that the angels have to drag him out of the city. He can't leave his life of sin behind. This is what happens, and it's interesting because the New Testament tells us that righteous Lot,

that's a stretch, Peter calls Lot righteous after seeing what he did to his daughters, and yet he calls him righteous. It says that he was grieved in his righteous heart. In other words, he's looking at what's going on in the city. He's like, I don't like this. I don't like what I'm seeing. I don't like what's going on all around me, and yet, Lot, you choose to stay there. I find this happens with a lot of Christian people. We recognize that there's brokenness in our lives, but the unfamiliar freedom is something to be scared of, so we choose to stay in the prison of our sin because at least we know it. It's too scary to step outside of what we've always known. We've made our peace with sin, and it becomes very difficult to leave it in the end. This is why people live in patterns and cycles of brokenness for years and years and years because they don't like it. They don't like being imprisoned and enslaved, and yet, they can't imagine a life of freedom either, so they stay, and this is what's happened with Lot. He's stuck in this city. It is the Lord's grace and mercy toward him that he gets out, but he gives more grace. Therefore, it says, God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble. Submit yourselves, therefore, to God.

Do you know what that means? Give yourself to the Lord finally and fully for real. Submit, give yourself over to him. Make a real commitment to the Lord. Then, you'll be able to resist the devil, and he'll flee from you. Draw near to God. Guess what? He'll draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts. You double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. yourselves before the Lord and he will exalt you. It's not about perfection, it's about humility. Instead of trying to get life on your terms, you humble yourself before the Lord and say, all right, Lord, command me. Are you leading? What direction do you want me to go? You give yourself fully to him, but it begins with what you're looking at and what you're listening to, who and what you're surrounding yourself with. Let me put it to you as bluntly as I know how. And I've been trying to drill this into my kids because I want them to understand this as they grow up. You cannot become, hear me young people, you will not become more like Christ.

While consuming content that is the furthest thing from what he values and loves, you will not become more like him. If you're, what you're listening to, what you're reading, those romance books that you're reading, this will not make you more like Christ. Stop fooling yourself and deceiving yourself. I'm not saying you can only listen to Christian music and watch Christian movies. I'm saying we've got to be careful what we consume. You're not gonna become more like Christ scrolling TikTok all day. You're not gonna become more like Jesus doom scrolling on your phone. You're going to have to set aside a different time and space in your life to say, Lord, speak to me. I want to become like you. You're gonna have to listen to different things, watch different things, take in different things, surround yourself with different people. Some of you have relationships in your life that you know as I speak, they are not leading you in the right direction. But I've been friends with them for so long. I don't want to be rude to them. I get it, but your eternal destiny is at stake here and you cannot save them. Neither could Lot save Sodom. Let the Lord deal with that. Let the Lord show up at gracious

in the lives of your friends. You serve and honor the Lord. Well, how can I tell? Well, look at what happened to Lot. Did Sodom influence him more than he influenced it? He had no power to stop them. When the mob showed up, he had some position of prominence in the city, but you know what they said about him? Who is this sojourner? Who is this outsider who showed up in our city, thinks they're gonna tell us what we're gonna do? We often stay in relationships that we should not stay in, believing that somehow God is using us to influence them when exactly the opposite is happening. They're influencing us. We're becoming more like them. So who and what are you surrounding yourself with? Little compromise leads you to surrounding yourself with things that draw you away from the Lord. You're gonna have to make some different choices in what you're consuming. Who you're surrounding yourself, where you're heading, that will make the difference. Last question is this. Where have you settled? Where have you settled? It's an interesting detail about Abraham's life that's recorded all through the book of Genesis, but also in the New Testament.

It's a detail that seems so small that we often overlook it. This is what happens. We miss these things, and so we think, meh, it doesn't really, it's just an incidental detail. But I want you to notice that Genesis 18, one, that's the beginning of the chapter we just read. It says, and the Lord appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre as he sat at the door of his tent. Now over and over again, what you're gonna find in the Genesis narrative of Abraham's life, it's going to mention that he lives in a tent, and it's gonna mention it a lot. Let me give you just a couple of examples, Genesis 12, eight. From there, he, Abraham, moved to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent. Notice he's moving and putting his tent in a new place. Verse 18 of chapter 13, Abraham moved his tent. Notice he's always on the move, and he's moving his tent to wherever the Lord is leading him. This is a detail about his life. He lives in a tent. Hebrews chapter 11, and this is where it really gets interesting, that the New Testament writer also notes, specifically, strangely, why? That Abraham lives in a tent. Look at Hebrews 11, nine. By faith, he, Abraham, went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents, with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with them of the same promise.

What's significant about a tent? What's mobile? You can keep moving. You're never stuck any one place. The other thing about a tent is you can't carry that much stuff with you. You have to live light, attached to very little. You're following, going where the Lord leads. I want you to notice the contrast with Sodom and Lot. It says this in Genesis 19, 15. As morning dawned, the angels urged Lot, saying, up, leave, get out of here, take your wife and your two daughters are here, lest you be swept away in the punishment of the city. And look at verse 16, but he lingered. Lot had settled in the city of sin, but Abraham continued on living in a tent with the Lord. It says this in Hebrews 11, nine and 10. We just read nine, let's look at verse 10. And we get the insight into why this is so significant. It says, by faith, he, that is Abraham, went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. Verse 10, for he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. Lot went to live in the sinful city of Sodom. Abraham kept looking forward to a different kind of city, an eternal city, one that God would make and build.

Now, what's significant about that? It's learning to live on the move, learning to live open-handed before God. That's what we see in Abraham's story, living in tents, is there's a kind of open-handedness with everything that God would bring into his life. In fact, we're gonna see that brought to the climax in Genesis 22. My dad'll be teaching it next week and the Lord will tell him, take that son I promised you, all these years that you've been waiting for, I want you to put him on the altar. This is what God often does. He asks you to give up the thing that he's given you. And if you're settled in where you are and what you're trying to hold onto, if you're clinging so tightly to the things of this world like Lot had done in the city of Sodom, you will be unwilling to follow the Lord where he leads. But Abraham lived in a tent. He traveled light, he could leave things behind, he could move where the Lord was leading, and that's what it looks like to follow the Lord. I don't hang on to the things of this world because I recognize that the things of this world, I can't take them with me anyway. So here's what I've noticed. The older I get, my son Fran just turned 24 last week, I turned 50 just a few weeks ago and I was telling him just last night,

I said, you're 24, your whole life is in front of you, you can't even imagine the end of your life, it seems so distant. But when you turn 50, you're kind of counting down like how many Christmases do I have left? How many summers do I have left? How long, here's one, some of y'all know exactly what I'm talking about, how long will my body hold out? So you can try to keep, and you can see the illusion that we live under and the health and wellness movements that basically promise you're eternal, you can live forever. No, you can't. Your beauty will be taken from you and I'm not trying to be like a downer, but it's just true. Your body will not last, you can work out every day, it will not last all the way to the end. It breaks down. Such is the nature of this world. That's why my hope, your hope, cannot be in this world. What are you gonna take with you? What kingdom will you build? What city will you cling to? That's the problem with Lot. He's trapped by what the world offers

and it nearly breaks him in the end. In fact, it does break him in the end. His life disintegrates, he becomes like the wicked man of Psalm 1 whose life is nothing but chaff that the wind drives away. He loses it all. His family, his daughters sexually violate him in the end and the offspring of that unholy union are two enemies of God's people from that time forward, the Moabites and the Ammonites. By the way, you should know sin has offspring. God is gracious, but grace is not an undue button for sin. You will still face consequences in this life for the stupid choices that you make. God will meet you there with his grace, but grace is no license to sin thinking that I won't have any consequences. Lot is saved, make no mistake about it. The Lord is gracious to him and saves him, but at what cost? He clung so tightly to what he could hold onto in this life. He missed the fact that there was a city, something else to look forward to. This is what Abraham did. Let me illustrate it like this. One of my favorite songs of all time

just on a personal level is the U2 song, I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For. I'm a big U2 fan, have been for many, many years. And this song, when I first heard it way back when, it just arrested me. It's got such a great melody. I love the sound of it, the whole thing. And if you know the song, you know the refrain. I still haven't found what I'm looking for. I misunderstood the song for years. I didn't understand what it was about because if you listen to the lyrics, it sounds as if what he's saying is he's tried everything in life and he still hasn't found what he's looking for. And in some sense, that's true, but there's more to it than that. I wanna read to you the lyrics from this song, the final verse, because there are overtly Christian themes here and some of you, perhaps, have heard the song and you don't like it because you think, basically, he's saying, I tried Jesus, but I still haven't found what I'm looking for. That's not what he's saying. Look at what it says. He says, I believe and the kingdom come, then all the colors will bleed into me.

You know what, I wish I had a guitar and a microphone and a good voice. I believe the kingdom come, then all the colors will bleed into one. Do you know what that means? That all of our flags, all of our colors, all that we identify with will be fused under the one banner of the Lordship of Jesus Christ. One kingdom, one Lord. But notice what he says. Yes, I'm still running. I'm not there yet. You broke the bonds. You lose the chains. Carried the cross of my shame, of my shame. You know I believe it. And if you know it, sing it with me. But I still haven't found what I'm looking for. What I'm looking for. Why? Because what I'm looking for isn't in this life. What I can hold onto now isn't in this life. I'm watching it be taken away from me little by little. And it doesn't mean that I shouldn't be attached to much in this life, somehow blunting the good things so that I can minimize the sorrow.

It just means that whatever good, whatever beautiful thing that I may experience in this life, here's what the Christian understands, it's only a foretaste of the eternal thing that is to come. So I don't hold on to my life too tightly. I'm not trying to remain forever young. I can embrace the brokenness even of my body. Why? Because I know that there's an eternal city still to come. What I'm experiencing in the here and now is not the end. I still haven't found what I'm looking for. I'm still running, and one day I will get there. One day I will be joined together with all of the saints that have gone before me, and all that will be, and we will sing praise and glory and honor to his name forever and ever, and there will be no more sickness, there'll be no more disease, there'll be no more breakdown, there'll be no more loss, no more saying goodbye to friends. It will always be an eternal feast, and that's what I hold onto. Why is that so important? Because if you don't know that, then you know what you'll do? You'll live like the rest of us live. Just trying to hold on to everything that you can. It's why you see people distorting and disfiguring their bodies in some strange, morbid, desperate attempt to look like they're 23 when they're 73. Because they cannot accept the reality that this

is being taken away from you, stripped from you, little by little, and you can hold on as tight as you want, but it will not last. So what do I do? I look forward to a city whose architect and builder is God. I'm not living for the here and now. Oh, don't, make no mistake about it, I'm trying to make the most of the life that I have to the glory of God, knowing that this is not the end. I'm just passing through, and what I find on the other side will be the eternal life that I was made for. That's what God wants to do, and that's how we live. That's what gives you the courage. How can you pull up roots and follow the Lord, live in a tent in this life? How can you give yourself away? How can you give away of your resources, and your time, and your energy? Because you know there's another life still to come. I'm not living for now, are you kidding me? I'm living for what is, because that's what matters. And I want to read this to you. This is the Apostle Paul, and I wonder, he doesn't say, but I wonder if he had a lot in mind when he wrote these words in 1 Corinthians chapter three. He says this in verse 11, for no one can lay a foundation other than that which has been laid, which is Christ Jesus. Now, if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, worthy pursuits, he says each one's work will become manifest.

For the day, that is judgment day, that's what's happening here in Sodom, fire shows up and that fire reveals, doesn't it? It shows you what's really going on. The day of judgment will disclose it because it will be revealed by fire and the fire will test what sort of work, what kind of life have you lived? If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, you'll receive a reward. But if your work is burned up, you will suffer loss. This is Lot. His life was loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire. The call of these verses and the call of the story of Lot is to make your life count now. Have you lived for the world? Have you given yourself over to worldly pleasures? It's not too late. There is grace for you today. Get up, get back on the road, keep following the Lord, keep moving forward and let him work in you and out in you his character, little by little by little. Would you bow your heads, close your eyes, let me pray for us. Father in heaven, thank you so much for these beautiful words in this text preserved. It's a hard story, a tragic story, a painful story, and yet, Lord, it points us to you. Help us, Lord, hold this image in our mind. What are we living for? To ask these questions, to not give ourselves to worldly, pathetic, meaningless pursuits. Help us to enjoy the life that we have knowing that it's only a pointer to what you have yet to come. In Jesus' name we pray, everybody said. Amen. At the close of the service, our prayer team is going to be down front. If you have a prayer need or if you have questions about your relationship with God, our team would love to be able to answer those for you.

They're going to be down front standing right here. So if you're going through something, you'd like to talk to somebody about it. We're a big church, but we're a personable church. We like to think of ourselves as a small church that's big. So our prayer team will be down front. We would love to be able to minister to you today at the close of the service. Stand to your feet. I got to get you out of here because we got other people coming in here in eight minutes. I'm sorry. That's okay. All right. Let's close with this blessing out of number six. Here we go. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace. God bless you. We'll see you next weekend. God bless you. God bless you. I moved in with my friends, we were also invited to have a look around underneath the homestead before we started shooting. It's a bit of a boring backyard with loads of downHEAVY wood ceilinging. It was a hurting idea to be recording with the camera on... weighted, I had to pull the camera out longer in order to get it to focus easily. It got blurry in the foil area while Pony was shooting the clip and I Beory had previously shared her comments on that so I didn't have to edit everything.