Let Everything Go – Part 5 for December 12th

Mrs. Engram lots King truly does have everything what King Jesus is a relationship with.

He wants your heart he want you speaking to them pulling out your heart family confession and joy in praise and sorrow. Everything this Christmas embrace him as your magnificent Obsession welcome to living in the light with Engram.

Lots were glad you joined us for this additional living in the light for today's message in a series from a life of Abraham and is titled the magnificent Obsession now.

If you are open your Bibles to Genesis chapter 13 and were going to continue in the life of Abraham.

Although in chapter 13. The focus is not just on Abraham, but perhaps a little bit more so on his nephew.

Lots and just the contrast between light and Abraham teaches us something so if you turn the chapter 13 of Genesis were going to begin where we left off in verse five and I read to the end of the chapter now.

Lots who is moving about with Abram also had flocks and herds intense but the land cannot support them while they stayed together for their possessions were so great that they were not able to stay together and quarreling arose between Abram's herdsman and the herdsman of lots.

The Canaanites and parasites were also living in the land at that time.

So Abram said the lots that's not have any quarreling between you and me are between your herdsman and mindful where brothers is not the whole land before you. That's part company. If you go to the left. I'll go to the right. If you go to the right.

I'll go to the left lot looked up and he saw that the whole plane of the Jordan was well watered like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt towards Omar. This was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, so lot chose for himself the whole plane of the Jordan, and he set out toward the east.

The two men parted company. Abram lived in the land of Canaan. While lot lived among the cities of the plane and pitched his tent near Sodom. Now the men of Sodom were wicked and were sitting greatly against the Lord, the Lord said to Abram after lot it parted from them. Lift up your eyes from where you are in the North and South, East and West, all the land that you see.

I will give you and your offspring forever. I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that anyone could count the dust then your offspring could be counted.

Go walk through the length and breadth of the land friend giving it to you. So Abram moved his attention went to live near the great trees of member at Hebron, where he built an altar to the Lord years ago. Mr. Briscoe taught me how to catch monkeys and I don't know if you've ever been taught how to catch a monkey but I'm going to tell you if you don't know how. First of all, you have to go where there are some and you take a jar that is bigger at the bottom that it is at the top so it sort of like a beaker and has a small opening you put a banana down inside the jar and then you buried in the ground so that is totally submerged except that the mouth of the jars level to the surface of the ground when you go hide behind a bush, you wait till monkey comes along and monkeys gonna come along and will be sniffing and he can tell is a banana somewhere and then as it was sniffer take them right over that hole in the ground and slips down the hole he knows is a banana down there so he puts his hand and he reaches in the jar and he fishes around and he finds a banana so he puts his hand over the banana but now his hand over the banana has formed a fist is too big to get out the top of the jar and you cut yourself a monkey because the monkey won't let go of his banana and he can fasten scream and say he was meant to be free and swing through the trees and do all the things monkeys are supposed to do but stock because they won't let go of his banana so this is what I want to ask you, are you surrounded by monkeys. Maybe you are one maybe I should've asked you that but I think if you're a Christian ministry, and if you're teaching a Bible class. If you're pastoring a church if you're even leading a Bible study. Sooner or later you're going to come across the monkeys and you know they screech and scream and they want to have victory in the Christian life. They want advances the prayer they want to have peace in their heart they want to have the joy of the Lord. They want the fullness of his blessing, but they won't let go of their banana is very frustrating, isn't it especially when you have decided to embrace the magnificent Obsession and you want to pursue knowing God and making him known and receiving the fullness of his blessing so that you could be a blessing and you challenge other people to do the same and you know what God has to offer. And you know the treasures of heaven. All the blessings in spiritual places and you know bald right down is just cheese and they won't let go of their banana and so want to challenge you to keep your focus on what God is called you to do so don't get distracted by the monkeys that are surrounding you lot was a monkey and is just the way all the scrapping he was someone that in this passage I see clutching at least three bananas the first banana was a banana of superficiality and I'm going to assume that lot had made that initial choice to leave of the Chaldees, along with Abraham, because he also wanted to pursue God, and I think that because he also got off the fence. Inherent EP (and went with Abram when he came down the do Canaan and so I'm going to assume that in some way. Although Godley not of heaven speak a lot. Abram describes what God had said lot also wanted God in his life. He also wanted to pursue the blessings of God. He wanted to be a blessing. One reason I believe that is not so much from the Genesis account, but Peter tells us in the New Testament that lot was a righteous man that he was just that we wouldn't really know that from this passage, but that's what the New Testament tells us, and so I'm assuming that he made that initial choice to commit his life to God. So in other words from the New Testament perspective, we could probably say when we get to heaven were going to see lot because he was a righteous man, and he was just but I see that elderly may that initial choice. He was very superficial in his communication with God because it's very interesting there's never any record that lot had any disciplined prayer life. In fact, is no record that any prayer life at all and chapter 12 verse seven when Abram built the altar. He called on the name of the Lord and that was equivalent of you and praying verse eight he built another altar.

He called on the name of the Lord is equivalent of Abram praying chapter 13 verse four he went back to Bethel he called on the name of the Lord. That's equivalent of him, praying chapter 13 verse 18, he built an altar to the Lord called on the name of the Lord.

That's Abram's prayer life and that's just a hallmark. That's the core of Abram's lies. He's a man of prayer. He's developing his relationship with God through communication through talking to God.

But there's no record that lot ever prayed no record that he ever built an altar that ever called on the name of the Lord and I wonder who the monkey is in your life who is lots. I have a lot in my life and maybe the lot is in your family may be living next door. Maybe within your church may be in your Bible class.

Maybe your Sunday school class. Maybe it's a friend of yours and when do they pray always asking other people to pray for them. You know, substituting the praise of other people for their own discipline prayer are Ms. Johnson who trained me to teach that that you can tell sometimes people don't have a prayer life because when they do play out in public they pray on and on and on and on and you could tell they haven't had any time in private, and maybe your friend is like that.

Maybe there's just no maybe they can pray in public. Maybe they can pray out loud.

Maybe they pray before mealtimes, but you have a sense that there is no personal disciplines work of prayer in their lives and lot had no personal communication with God. You cannot develop a personal relationship with God. If there is no prayer in your life. So maybe I should ask you if there just in the event there is a monkey in our midst. When you pray, are you developing your relationship with God through discipline prayer, not just praying as you drive praying while you're going somewhere you know emergency prayers.

We can all do those even monkeys can pray when they get in a jam, but I'm talking about time spent alone with the Lord speaking to them pouring out your heart, letting them know what you thinking how you're feeling. Just prayer and worship prayer and praise prayer and thanksgiving, prayer and confession prayer and intercession for others what your prayer life like lot was very superficial in his prayer life and the reason I'm guessing that there may be a monkey or two here because since I've been in ministry. I was reading Revelation chapter 3 during the three questions what does it say what does it mean what does it mean to me and it came to our Lord's letter to the church in Sardis and in that letter, the Lord just leapt up off the page.

You have my name on I wish it didn't.

But it did and the Lord seem to say to me.

Amen.

You have a reputation for being alive you go around the world. You tell other people about me you bring other people to Christ. But from my perspective, your dad and I didn't think you meant I was totally dead but dying shriveling in my relationship with him and then he said, wake up, strengthen the things remain.

And I felt he was telling me literally to wake up, you know, get up early in the morning, set my alarm, get up, spend time with them because I was so busy, so tired I was letting that prayer life slide and Alan Redpath great old Bible teacher who is now with Jesus, but he said that he felt that what American Christians needed the most was blanket victory just victory over those blankets in the morning and get up have victory over those blankets, spend time with the Lord in prayer. If you don't, your relationship with the Lord is going to shrivel. You cannot maintain and develop it without an active prayer life lot had no active prayer life.

He had no active schedule, Bible reading, there's no record ever listen to the voice of God. Chapter 12 verse one the Lord said to Abram, God spoke to A+ equivalent of Abram opening up his Bible and reading it in chapter 12 verse seven the Lord spoke to Abram again when he appeared to him and he said that's equivalent of Abram reading his Bible and then we have in chapter 13 verse 14 the Lord said to Abram, once again, this equivalent of Abram opening his Bible and reading at the Lord was speaking to Abram and Abram was listening to the voice of God. There is no record that God ever spoke the lot lot never listen to the voice of God didn't know what it was like to read his Bible and hear God speaking to him through it and I don't know about the monkey in your life. The lots are they reading books about the Bible. Even the Bible studies. They go to on personality traits, or other things are how to be this kind of woman are this kind of man are your books about the end of good and I don't want to put that down. But when do they actually get into God's word where they reading the Bible so that they can hear God speaking to them and maybe they would even make the comment will they don't believe God does that in your taking it out of context and that your interpretation but Nando put down reading the word and listening for the voice because they never do. And if you say that you do and God speaks to that makes him feel uncomfortable, so they just say that you're not you live on the fringe of this outrider will make the time to listen to God's words. He was superficial in his communication with God, and I think if I went years and never spoke to my husband I would damage our relationship are probably him if he stayed with me, I probably wouldn't have much of a relationship having a be just as bad if I did all the talking.

You know and just nothing but a monologue and never listen to my husband when he spoke, just jumping up, interrupting him going on with what was on my mind telling what I want to say never listening and you can develop a relationship with God.

If you don't develop an ear that's attentive to his word, so that you reading it, not just for information and facts, but your reading it, to hear the voice of God speaking to you through it. Lot never did that and so he really didn't have a relationship with God. He was superficial in his communication with God, and therefore he was superficial. I think in his relationship or his commitment to God because his relationship with God seems to be lived out to Abram. So if you notice in chapter 12 verse four says Abram left is the Lord and told him, and Lot went with him. In chapter 13 verse one Abram went up from Egypt with his wife everything he had, and Lot went with him.

Chapter 13 verse five. Now Lottie was moving about with Abram so Lot was just with Abram.

He was living out his life and his commitment to God through Abram's are like maybe children who, at a certain point, they just live out the Christian life to the faith of their parents, and I think they keep doing that when they go to college and they bump into a professor that begins to criticize the Bible or criticize their faith, they lose their faith in raw fabric as our children have lost our faith went to college, you know something you never had in the first place.

They were just living it out to the parents and Lot was living it out to Abram.

I remember as a teenager. That's what I was doing I was just living it out through (and I thought when I stood before God. You know God would say, why have you not have an account for yourself and I would say God you know who my daddy is and you know who my mother is that he would give me credit for my parents. I could serve hot behind my parents and it struck me when I was a teenager was about a senior in high school that when I stood before God, I would stand before him, and give an account of my life the way I had lived the could live it out to somebody else to somebody here.

Maybe pretending to be more spiritual than you are living out your life through somebody else you know something I think and I don't want to be sort of gender specific. Nothing. Sometimes men can do that because the wife seems to be more spiritual or wife's the one that's active in the church and sometimes I think the man just to support the wife and you encourage the wife and he's busy in business and that's the male thing, but the wife is a spiritual person. She goes to church and she reads about when she brazen and he just lives out his commitment to her. Be careful that you don't entwine yourself with somebody and live out your relationship with God through that person or when you are separated from that person you going to go right downhill. We found lots, he did fine as long as he was with Abram, but when he was separated from Abram. He very quickly went downhill when he moved in the Sodom. It wasn't too long before he was totally immersed in the world and he could maintain his focus in his commitment to God. If you are separated from your best Christian friend, your wonderful church all the people around you that support you and encourage you in your faith in your relationship with God. Would you still remain strong because your commitment is your own and your developing at yourself in a one-on-one relationship you've embrace that magnificent Obsession for yourself nevermind nobody around you. Your pursuing knowing God and making them known and receiving his blessing to be a blessing. Lot didn't he live out his life through Abram. One of the most discouraging things I think is a Bible teacher or as a pastor I would imagine of a church is to see people that you teach and that you lead when they leave the church or leave the class begin to drift from their commitment to God. I taught Bible study Fellowship weekly for 12 years and after leaving the class of about five years I never will get over missing the people in my class missing the leadership circle, but that after five years I was really really homesick for them and so I arranged once a month to have a luncheon. Some of the women that had discipled and just to see them again to see what they're doing to encourage them off like I wanted to be encouraged to not dismiss the money so I did it once a month for about a year maybe a little bit less than that. And I stopped doing it because I got so this car. So many of the women would been in my class for five years I would turn out after five years, so your lesson were leadership. They were not class for five years teaching them every week. Never miss the class and then to see them in a five-year period. After that or whatever time. Benson said left class, they will no longer really walking with the Lord just totally immersed back in the world. Some of them have been outstanding and I don't want to think that's generally speaking but there were enough of them to stop having lunch with them because it was so painful and for somebody who's teaching and you have such a desire to impart God's word into the life of somebody else.

Okay, the monkeys can get you so discourage and so we want ourselves to have a genuine commitment to God. That's stands, even if everybody else falls away, but it can be discouraging when we see people that were trying to impart the Lord to and they seem to make a commitment they have that initial choice and speed of the confluence for little while about their communication and their commitment but then when there separated from us to separately leave the Bible class and leave the church they leave the Christian friends. Maybe the job moves them somewhere else and move into another city and then when you recontact with them. They've just drifted from the Lord still say that will mean the loss of salvation on arming that but they're just not on that sharp edge of commitment living for Christ because it won't let go of their banana their superficiality. There wasn't the discipline in their life they made initial choice, but I don't know what pulled him away for a lot, you know what I think it was that I honestly believe is going down to Egypt and when he went down to Egypt and he saw all the same, and the pleasures and the prestige the possessions the position the power the popular all the things that are associated with the world and I think it turned his hearts away from got even though he'd been with Abram for a while and he was pursuing God when he saw the world and all of its glamour and attractiveness and you know Egypt could make sin very attractive and that's what Lot wanted. So now we see them not only gripping that banana of superficiality but gripping the banana of selfishness and when they went down to Egypt. Chapter 12 verse 16 says Abram had a lot of wealth. Chapter 13 verse one says that he came back very wealthy and lots also had amassed a lot of livestock and animals and servants, and he also had become very wealthy down in Egypt and so there was a dispute that arose within the home and the problem was that they had run out of something that both Abram and Lot needed and it was pastureland and there wasn't enough grazing land to support all of Abram's flocks and herds and all of lots flocks and herds and so there was one thing that they both needed, but there wasn't enough for both of answer that created a problem and I don't know if you've observed your lots in a dispute like that that's over problem with is just not enough of something to go around.

You can see it in the office when there's one computer and you need to share that time at the computer or you know something else may be. Maybe it's in your home and is one remote to the TV and something you both may, but there's only one of it maybe is more serious as in a divorce when you're together in a marriage.

There's enough to go around when you want to divide it up. There's just not enough for both of you to live in the way you've been accustomed to living and so there's you both need the same thing. That was the problem. The problem became personal. When fighting broke out between the herdsman and shallots herdsman and Abrams herdsman began fighting over the pastureland and and so I can imagine of lots animals got a run Abrams that Abrams herdsman is a get off of our side.

That's our pastureland and lot would say no that's mine and they would say no that's not no that's not that's not just like two-year-olds fighting over the pastureland pushing him off, grabbing it for themselves and has fighting broken out within your church within your Bible class.

Your Sunday school class within your home and its problem that is arisen because there's not enough of something to go around. And so now the fighting is broken out and you know the practical problem that's a personal problem becomes a spiritual problem because it says in verse seven that the Canaanites and parasites were in the land and it gives us the impression the Canaanites and parasites were watching the Canaanites and parasites coming there. The worldly means there the wicked obscene people that we saw Abraham building his altars in front of. In fact, he had built his altars in front of any and witness to them that the one way to worship God is through the blood of the Lamb and I'm worshiping the one true living God in the way that he prescribes on developing relationship with God not build altars in our prayer in your face and I worship God in your face, and he had been public about his relationship with God, and now fighting is broken out of his home and you know the Canaanites and parasites, just watching to see what's happening in this home because your fighting breaks out in their homes all the time I'm in their disputes personal practically just on the always grabbing for what they can get.

And so they want to see if this weird person when disputes arise is there any difference in the way he handles them in his own what differences there when the rubber hits the road and a dispute arises how they handle it and is it any different from the way it handled in the home of the Canaanites. Who's watching you and your home. Now here's and with this final word. Today's message focused on prayer, disciplined prayer of vitally important aspect of prayer is this you are speaking to a living person. One who has ears to hear you and as the CU and a heart to love you and hands to guide you in a will to direct you. God is not a ghost or an icon in the stained-glass window or marble statue. He's a living person who loves you and me and invites us to draw near and full assurance of faith that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us.

But don't miss the condition to effective prayer in Hebrews 11 six. Anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and it rewards those who earnestly seek him. When you pray you are speaking to a living invisible person at this season of the year and this week as we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. What better time to focus on our relationship with God.

It's why Jesus came come to him and personal prayer. As Abraham stated in God's presence. God stayed in his God allowed himself to be detained. What a wonderful truth that when you and I draw near to God.

He draws near to us to draw new to him. Living in the light is a weekly program with messages from God's word with Engram lots in her current series, the magnificent Obsession for helping your study of God's word look for Anne's book the magnificent Obsession as well as free resources to give you just the start you need for the new year. Now here's and with a question for you in this Christmas we what will you give the King of Kings. This Christmas offers a gift suggestion in John 1334 a new commandment I give you love one another as I have loved you, so you must love one another about this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another celebrate Christmas by giving the king something he really wants love for others. This is a Engram line