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Welcome to week 3 of our look to the book of Genesis, day 13, chapter 13. Let me
begin today by reading Genesis 13, 1-4. So Abram went up from Egypt to the Negev
with his wife and everything he had and Lot went with him.

Abram had become very wealthy in livestock and in silver and gold. From the
Negev he went from place to place to place until he came to Bethel, to the place
between Bethel and Ai where his tent had been earlier and where he had built his
first altar. There Abram called on the name of the Lord.

This is just Abram's life in the promised land. He's going from place to place.
And there at Bethel he called on the name of the Lord.

By faith Abram, as we saw yesterday, went to the promised land, but then he did
something even more difficult. By faith he stayed in the promised land. He made
his home in the promised land.

It's one thing to leave for, the excitement of that, oh we're moving, it's going
to be great. It's another thing to live in the promised land. And I've met, you
probably have too, many people who do the first, they're excited at the
beginning, but they're not faithful, they're not faithful all the way through.

And faithfulness, your faith is going to be tested when you go to the promised
land. And when I say the promised land for your life, I'm talking about the
place that God wants you to be. The promised land for you might be being a
parent or living in a marriage, might have to do with a relationship.

The promised land for you might have to do with serving in a ministry that God
has given to you to do. As a volunteer in ministry or as a pastor in ministry,
God said, I want you to be doing this. The promised land for you might be a
business that he's asked you to start.

The promised land for you might be, well there could be a hundred things. When
you move towards that promised land, you're going to have the same experience as
Abram did. Abraham immediately faced two barriers in the last chapter when he
got to the promised land, Canaanites and famine.

There were Canaanites in the land, people already living there, and there was
famine in the land, there was not enough food. There were Canaanites in the
land, that's the problem of too many obstacles, things in the way. How am I
going to take over this land?

There's a bunch of people already living here. And there was famine in the land,
that's the problem of too few resources. And when you and I move towards God's
promise, we're going to face the same two things, too many obstacles.

God, there's things in the way. How could this be your promised land? God never
promised there would be no obstacles.

He just said it's his promised land. And you have to move through the obstacles,
through faithfulness and faith. Too many obstacles and too few resources.

Now both of those things, it's pretty obvious, cause us to depend on God and not
ourselves. If there were no obstacles, I would think, well, I conquered the
promised land myself. If there were more than enough resources, I could depend
on my resources and not depend on God.

Now because there were too few resources in the land, Abraham had struggled. And
as we see at the beginning of Genesis 13, 1, he was coming back up from Egypt,
back to the promised land. Why was he coming back from Egypt?

Because he'd gone there to find food. And in going there to find food, he'd also
faced his fears. He'd faced the fear that he often had that somehow his life
would be threatened.

Abram's a great man of faith, but he struggled his way to faith. If you think he
is a perfect man of faith, you haven't read the book of Genesis lately. No, he
struggles his way to faith.

And while he was in Egypt, he had said to his wife, Sarah, say you're my sister
so they won't kill me to get you. That's a lot of faith, isn't it? He struggled
his way to faith.

Even there in Egypt, God had protected him. God had told the people there that
Sarah really was his wife. Even there in Egypt, God had blessed him even as he
struggled his way to faith.

And now as he comes back to the promised land, Abram shows us that to face
barriers is something we have to constantly do. We have to constantly renew our
vision of God's promise. And in this case, Abram did that by going back to the
place where he'd built an altar when he'd first come.

And there the Bible says he called on the name of the Lord. There are some times
in order to move forward in faith, you have to go back in your thinking. You
have to remember those places of faith and build on those places.

Abram had built an altar just like Noah had built an altar when he came off of
the ark. He saw the enemies, but he recognized God's presence. He saw the lack
of resources, but he recognized God's presence.

And this experience of this altar, what happened there was a refreshing
experience of the presence of God. Abram lived like a stranger in a foreign
land. The book of Hebrews tells us he lived in tents.

He'd had a great life apparently where he had come from, probably a nice home
that had been built up by his family because his father had brought them there.
But then he moves to the land of Israel, which is primarily a rocky, barren
place. He had to go down to Egypt several times because of famines.

And he must have thought more than once, so this is God's promised land? If this
is the promised land, then how in the world is God going to bless a nation here?
But Abraham learned to do something.

He learned to build his present upon the foundation of the future. He began to
build what he did in his daily life upon the promise that God had for the
future. And that is an entirely different way of looking at things.

It's God's way of looking at things. Usually we build on the foundations of the
past. And as I said earlier, we do need faith points that we'll remember, but
that's not what you build on.

That's what you remember, but not what you build on. What you build on, faith
demands that you and I build on the foundations that are yet in the future. That
is what Abraham did.

He looked to the city of God that was in the future, and he built on that.
That's what Jesus did. He looked to the joy that was beyond the cross, the fact
that you and I would come to know him.

And in that, Hebrews 12 tells us that's why he went to the cross. That's what
the early Christians did. Even as they were suffering persecution, they looked
to the joy of heaven.

They looked to the joy of being together forever. We don't build upon the past.
We actually build upon the future.

That's how we build in faith. We don't build upon the pains of our past. We
don't build upon the uncertainties of our present.

We build upon the security of our future. And that changes everything. As you
look at how people live their lives, some people live in a rut, just doing the
same thing day after day after day after day.

Other people live in the clouds. You never know what they're doing. You never
know what they're thinking.

But a special few people climb the adventurous path to real faith. And how do
you do that? You do it by building on the future.

So which one is you right now? Are you living in a rut of routine? Are you
living in the clouds of never realized wishes?

Are you living on the path of a growing and changing life? Are you living in the
promised land? You see, too often an initial excitement about change turns into
a lifelong settling for the routine.

And so a couple gets married and a life-changing love settles into a routine
habit. God has more. Or a business gets started, but before long the dream turns
into just drudgery.

Or, and this is the important one, a fresh and real commitment to Christ is
made. And yet you find yourself settling for an average life rather than an
abundant life. You see, if my commitment to Christ is refreshed, then my
business is going to get refreshed.

My marriage is going to get refreshed. All my relationships and all the things
that God wants to do in my life. Faith is not all about learning just how to get
to the promised land.

Faith is mostly about learning how to live in the promised land. And Abraham
learned how. How did he do it?

He went to the places where he'd built an altar of worship. And he reminded
himself that it was all about the presence of God in that place. But then he
also focused on the future.

And he built towards the promise of God in his life. So we spend a few minutes
talking to Jesus today. Jesus, we may be living in confusion right now.

In fact, our lives might be a mess right now. But every one of us, we have an
incredible promise for the future. And nothing can take that away.

No circumstance, no unfairness. Nothing can take that away. So help us to build
on that today.

Help me to build on that today. Your promise for eternity. Your promise of a
home in heaven.

Your promise that all those who come to know you will be with you forever. Not
only us, but all that we bring along with us. Your promise, Jesus Christ, that
you love us with a love that will never fail us.

Your promise for the future. Jesus, give us the faith today to build on that. To
build not on the past.

To build not even on the present. Help us to build on your promise for the
future. We ask this, Jesus, in your name, amen.

And join us tomorrow. We're going to be looking at Genesis 14. It is one of the
most important chapters in Genesis for understanding Jesus.