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Well, good morning again.
If you've got your Bibles, and I hope you do, I want to invite you to join me in John, chapter 17.
That's actually where we're going to begin.
And then we will head pretty quickly to Genesis, chapter 19.
Today we're going to deal with one of those passages of Scripture which we started last week in Genesis 18.
It's very weighted, and when you hold to a view of Scripture that we hold to that I would be confident to say that good churches hold to, even if we can disagree on some things.
But that all of Scripture, right, is what the Bible tells us, that all of Scripture is breathed out by God.
And so we believe in the authority, we believe in the inerrancy, we believe in the power of Scripture.
And so sometimes that takes us on complicated theological journeys that we have to wrestle with sometimes and try to figure some things out.
But then sometimes it brings us to these stories that we believe are number one, historically accurate.
So what we mean by that is we believe that what the Bible says happened actually happened and that it is there for you and I for our good.
So that I want to just make understand that when I say in this moment that it might be might be good if parents, if you want to send your kids because we're going to deal with some weight of this, it doesn't mean that what's there isn't beneficial.
It's the exact opposite.
And as a family that maybe thrives a little bit in having tough, difficult, complicated conversations with our kids and our kids back with us and Aaron and I together as spouses, we want to champion that.
But we also want to just kind of say we need to kind of pause for that and take some time.
Together as a family to do that as a whole church family.
I want to say that as you're navigating through this and we said this last week, I don't know that there's two chapters in the Bible that are any heavier than Genesis 18 and Genesis 19 that when we read through these events that are there, they can often become these stories that we've heard.
And we can treat them like far off tales that are like a mythological story that aren't real and don't involve real people, but they do, and we need to feel the weight of that.
It's easy for us when we look at things like Genesis 18 and Genesis 19 to draw lines of us versus them.
And that's not me, and I don't have that, and I don't struggle with that.
Instead of taking the step back and looking and seeing how God's showing us our depravity within the pages of Scripture and what it means that Jesus died for our sin, which is where we'll get to when we partake in the Lord's Supper today.
We're a talk today a lot about culture.
And when we talk about culture, when we talk about society, I want us to not just think of their far off culture and their far off society, but I want us to think of our culture in our society that we live in today.
I want us to not think that this is something that happened then, but these are things that are happening now.
And how are we in this?
We use a phrase, and I'm going to talk about this and this while we're going to start off in John 17 this morning, we use a phrase often, be in, but not of.
This phrase.
What this means is like, hey, be in culture, be in society, but don't be of culture.
Don't be of society.
Meaning, like, don't take what culture and society says is good and is right and is normal and is acceptable, and then receive that as believers.
But instead, as we live in this world, as we go to work in these places, as we participate in various activities, to be in but to not be of.
And that statement, it isn't incorrect.
And I've taught that, I've preached that, I've tried to live that so much in my life to be in, but not of.
But it's not incorrect.
But I do think that that phrase be in, but not of is incomplete.
When we say it.
And so I want to look at John 17, verses 14 through 19 really quickly and understand the fullness of this statement.
Because when we get be in, not of, we're drawing from the very words of Jesus.
So let's understand the fullness of that.
Jesus is given a prayer, and he says this in verse 14 of John 17, I have given them your Word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world.
Right?
There's our first of the world.
Just as I am not of the world, so you and I, when we walk with the Lord, there is this conflict that we face because we are not of this world, just as Jesus is not.
We're different.
It's not that we in and of ourselves is better.
In fact, it's the exact opposite, is that we acknowledge our depravity and sin and Jesus is better.
We have this.
And then verse 15, Jesus says, I do not ask that you take them out of the world whoa.
But that you keep them from the evil one.
How many times have you been going through a situation where you feel like.
You'Re attacked oppressed, where sin is there.
And you're like, Jesus, now would be.
A good time to come back.
Right?
That's often, often verse 16, Jesus reminds again, they are not of the world.
Just as I am not of the world.
Verse 17, sanctify them in the truth.
Your word is truth.
So as they're in the world, but they're not of the world, do something in them that's not of the world, but that is of your word.
Here's where verse 18 hits, and I said through verse 19, and I apologize through verse 18, as you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.
Now, we understand the fullness of this.
It's what it means to be in the world.
Is this because I am sent into the world?
It's not that I just wake up one day and I find out that I'm here.
It's that I'm a man on a mission to be and to do what God has for me.
So to not be of the world and to be in the world means that I have to come to grips with my calling, of why I am where I am.
It's because God has sent me where he has me.
God has sent me to my job.
God has sent me to my town.
God has sent me to my neighborhood.
God has sent me to my friend group.
God has sent me where he has me because I'm a man on mission that he has given me.
And when we begin to look at our life this way, this is when we begin to see ourselves as the missionaries that God has called us to be.
Don't be of the world.
But here's why you're in the world because you're sent into the world.
So now that defines my perspective.
That defines my calling.
Like, what if you viewed where you go tomorrow as not a place that you have to be, but what if you looked at tomorrow as the place that God was sending you?
What if you looked at the neighbors that live around you as not the people that I'm forced to be around?
But what if you looked at your neighbors around you as the mission field that God has sent me to?
Now, this gives us the perspective of understanding why we are in where we are in God's sovereignty.
He places you here, and it's what we've seen in God's covenant with Abraham.
From the very beginning, and it's what.
We see in the great Commission.
God calls Abraham to go.
He calls us to go.
God tells Abraham, I'm going to make of you something into something.
And God tells us, I'm going to make you into something.
There's this flow that we get from.
That because we're not of the world, but we're sent into the world.
And when Abraham gets this right and we saw this, you want to go.
Ahead and jump over to Genesis 19.
When Abraham gets this right, like he.
Got this, what we looked at in Genesis 18 in last week, that's what we see.
But we're going to see this morning.
Where someone else misses it.
Misses it now, Lot is someone that we've seen.
Lot is Abraham's nephew.
Lot has been with Abraham since the beginning.
It's a very volatile roller coaster relationship where there is love that is there, but there's also complications in the family dynamics as well, right?
Like, we've all got that person in our life.
We've got that person in our family, right?
We love them.
It's complicated, right?
This is what we see with Abraham and Lot.
And through the life and through the biblical narrative of Abraham, lot appears, lot disappears.
Lot appears, lot disappears.
Like, we see him kind of come and go from the story, but a similar theme that when we see Abraham and Lot in the same narrative of the story together, it's this emphasis on what Abraham is getting right?
And his obedience to the Lord and God's standard actually lived out in flesh, tangible for us to see.
And Lot is missing it.
Lot is completely missing it.
And that's what we see here.
So last week we see Abraham.
He lives in the territory around the area of Sodom, but he does not live in Sodom.
And we've seen these instances where Abraham makes these intentional choices about being where God has him, but not being where God does not have him.
And where God does not have him is in Sodom.
And so the Lord comes, wrapping quickly up the chapter 18.
The Lord comes with two angels, and he tells Abraham of the impending destruction of Sodom.
And what we saw last week is Abraham intercedes for the people.
He intercedes for the people.
The description of Sodom at this time that we give of what God says.
What the Lord says is that their sin is great and very grave.
That's heavy.
God says their sin is great and.
Very grave and that God has come.
As the Judge the Lord has come as the judge to evaluate this.
And so he sends the two angels ahead.
And this is where we pick up in chapter 19, we're going to read verses one through nine.
The two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom.
And when Lot saw them, he rose to meet them and bowed himself with his face to the earth and said, my lords, please turn aside to your servant's house and spend the night and wash your feet.
Then you may rise up early and go on your way.
And they said, no, we will spend the night in the town square.
But he pressed them strongly.
So they turned aside to him and entered his house, and he made them a feast and baked unleavened bread, and they ate.
So it's going to pause for a minute, all right?
There's nothing that points us to that.
Lot knows that these are angels, but Lot knows that the city is wicked.
We'll find out here in a moment.
What he's doing at the gate.
Verse four.
But before they lay down.
This verse is heavy.
Hear every word of it.
The men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man surrounded the house.
There's not one that's missing.
And they called to Lot.
Where are the men who came to you tonight?
Bring them out to us that we may know them and they're not saying.
We want to shake their hands and introduce them.
This word to know them is sexual in nature.
Every man of the city comes.
A city that we've seen earlier in.
Genesis is marked as that great city, that big city.
Every man from young to old comes to them and this is what they ask.
And it gets worse.
Lot went out to the men at the entrance and shut the door after him and said, I beg you, my brothers, do not act so wickedly.
Behold, I have two daughters.
Who have not known any man.
Let me bring them to you and do to them as you please.
Only do nothing to these men for they've come under the shelter of my roof.
But they said stand back.
And they said, this fellow came to Sojourn and he has become the judge.
Now we will deal worse with you than with them.
Then they pressed hard against the man Lot and drew near to break the door down.
That's complicated that.
As a human, I don't understand it.
As a dad of a daughter, Lot wouldn't want to run into me, right?
And I'll deal with my heart with that.
But what we see in this moment is we see a man, unlike Abraham living in compromise over conviction.
Let's understand a little bit who Lot is in this moment.
Lot sees these two angels and does not know their angels but seems to see them as these distinguished guests.
And so he wants to welcome them and protect them.
And the Bible tells us that he's sitting in the gate at Sodom.
It's kind of a weird picture of somebody hanging out in there.
And so here's what the story tells us, is that we've seen Lot's life progress earlier on in his life.
He's looking towards sodom Then we see later on in Genesis that he pitches his tent and he looks towards Sodom.
And now we find out in Genesis 14 that he's living in Sodom because he loses everything when it's attacked.
We saw that.
But now where he's at what kind of custom in history tells us is that he's now a civic leader in Sodom.
What they thought is that the men basically at the town council would sit at the gate and this is where things would be discussed and this is where life would take place.
Now here's where within this what is difficult for us with understanding Lot if we were to jump ahead and read second Peter two, peter two, verses seven through eight we're not going to read them this morning.
But what it talks about in Two Peter Two, is that in all of this mess that's going on.
That Lot knows who the Lord is, that Lot is righteous in, that he's grieved by the sin that surround him.
Then how do we get here?
Leave him alone.
But you can have my girls.
How do we get here?
Compromise.
We begin to take these small turns and the journey that it takes us on is a depth of depravity.
We've got to move.
But I think oftentimes when we look at this and when we judge and when we work through what is going to happen if I compromise, here's the litmus test that I think that we do.
And I say we because I including me in this, because I know that I do this often if I compromise, how does it affect me?
Oh, it doesn't.
In compromise over conviction, how does it affect me?
And I think oftentimes what we will walk away from is a delusion that it doesn't affect me, a delusion that if it does affect me, it's not great, or a delusion that there will not be other people that will not stand in the impending wake of my compromise.
And struggle with it and lots of mess.
But we see a man not embraced being sent into, but has become a man living in and embracing the of the culture.
He wouldn't say that, but his actions point to something different.
Look at verse ten.
But the men reached out their hands.
And brought Lot into the house with them and shut the door, and they struck with blindness.
The men who were at the entrance of the house, both small and great, so that they wore themselves out groping for the door.
Then the men said to Lot, have.
You anyone else here, sons in law.
Sons, daughters, or anyone you have in the city, bring them out of the.
Place, for we are about to destroy this place because the outcry against its.
People has become great before the Lord, and the Lord has sent us to destroy it.
So Lot went out and said to his sons in law, who were to marry his daughters, get up, get out of this place, for the Lord is about to destroy this city.
But he seemed to his son in.
Laws to be jesting.
Verse 15.
As morning dawn, the angels urged Lot, saying, take up, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be swept away in the punishment of the city.
So let me just throw this out to you.
Just word of advice for all of us.
If angels ever come and say leave because it's about to be destroyed, go.
All right.
Don't pack a bag.
Like when I'm on an airplane and they say in case of a crash, like leave all of your belongings, I'm like, that's great, but I'm grabbing my iPhone.
I watch lost.
I need stuff.
All right.
Verse 16.
But he lingered.
He lingered so the men seized him and his wife and his two daughters by the hand.
Look at this.
The Lord being merciful to him.
God's grace is you want to stay in this mess?
I'm going to grab you.
Let's go.
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 Lot said to him, oh, no, my lords, behold.
Your servant has found favor in your sight and you have shown me great kindness in saving my life.
But I cannot escape to the hills lest the disaster overtake me and I die.
Behold, this city is near enough to flee to and it is a little one.
Let me escape there.
It is not a little one and my life will be saved.
He said to them behold, I grant you this favor also that I will not overthrow the city of which you have spoken.
Escape there quickly for I can do nothing till you arrive there.
Therefore, the name of the city was Zor.
What we see in this let's wrestle with what we know about Lot from Second Peter.
Let's wrestle with what I struggled with this week.
I would never do that.
Let's wrestle with God showing mercy to this man.
And let's be honest.
Raise your hand if you think he deserves it, because I'm not.
But he does.
He does over and over and over again.
And here's the confession of my soul in my life.
It's God's mercy in our compromise.
So many times in my life.
I am Lot.
I might not do that, but, man, I'll do this.
And God in his mercy, grabs me by the hand because he chooses to.
Because he loves me.
Because of who he is.
Sometimes, though.
We stay in our compromise.
And we begin to believe the lie that God's turned from me.
I just want to challenge you with this.
This morning.
The biggest lie Satan tells you is this god can't or God won't.
And I don't care what you've done.
God will not turn his back from you.
His mercy is greater than your compromise.
His mercy is greater than the pit that you find yourself in.
And then we see some difficult things that come from this.
They escaped.
They got out.
But it still just keeps on that wave of compromise of what found them there.
And we see.
Let's look at verse 21.
The sun had risen on the earth when Lot came to Zur.
Then the Lord reigned 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 city and what grew on the ground.
Verse 26.
But Lot's wife behind him looked back, and she became the pillar of salt.
And Abraham went early in the morning to the place where he had stood before the Lord, and he looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah and toward all of 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.
And we see this grace sets there.
And what I want us to look at, though, is just the matters of the heart.
We see Abraham's heart pleading.
We see that God remembers Abraham, and we see what God did for Lot.
But there's this piece about Lot's wife that's difficult for us.
They had said the angels had said to them, don't look back.
Don't pause.
Go.
And so what we get when we read this scripture is we get that they're on this journey and two cities destroyed says that everything that lived on the ground was destroyed.
Fire raining from the sky, completely gone.
The Bible tells us that Lot's wife looked back.
Now, she was told not to, but she did anyway.
And so we get this picture, though, of, like, have you ever been startled?
And it's like you turn and look happens all the time, right?
It's easy to scare my wife.
She doesn't like to be scared when she's home alone.
I try to make gradual noises so that she knows that I'm there till she sees me, right?
But we kind of get this impression that Lott's wife, it could have been this.
These words look back in the original language are words that not only describe a physical action of what's done, but it describes a condition of the heart that even in the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah that she longed for what she came from, that her heart in judgment was found wicked and what she received was the wrath of God.
And that's when it comes to the matters of the heart, god didn't just look at her action and judge her.
God looked at her heart, and he judged her.
Let's keep going.
Verse 30.
Now, Lot went up from Zor and.
Lived in the hills with his two.
Daughters, for he was afraid to live in Zor, so he lived in a cave with his two daughters.
And the firstborn said to the younger, our Father is old, and there is not a man on earth to come into us after the manner of all the earth.
Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him that we may preserve offspring from our father.
So they made their father drink wine that night, and the first born went in and lay with her father.
He did not know when she lay down or when she arose.
Verse 34 the next day the first born said to the younger, behold, I.
Lay last night with my father.
Let us make him drink wine tonight also.
Then you go in and lie with him that we may preserve offspring from our father.
So they made their father drink wine that night also.
And the younger arose and lay with him.
And he did not know when she lay down or when she arose.
Thus both daughters of Lot became pregnant by their father.
The firstborn bore a son and called his name Moab and he is the father of the Moabites to this day.
And the younger also bore a son and called his name Benami.
And he is the father of the Ammonites until this day.
When the wake of compromise consumes.
There'S.
A lot of sickness and depravity that seems to be foreign.
But I can't wrap my mind around the actions of what's there.
But I think for us it's a warning to be a light into the culture, not a product of the culture.
I would say in these verses what you saw from Lott's daughters is they had become a product of the culture that they were in and that began with the man who was called to lead them, instead embracing compromise.
This won't affect me.
It's good business.
This won't affect me.
I can become successful there.
This won't affect me.
I can make a name for myself.
This won't affect me.
I'm not going to be like my.
Uncle Abraham who lives out in the prairies and out in the wilderness.
This isn't going to affect me.
I'm going to go into the city.
I'm going to come a part of the city.
And the compromise reigns on and reigns on and reigns on.
And we end up where we end up with in verse 38.
Be a.
Light into your culture and not a product of it.
Abraham was a missionary in the culture.
He stood for his convictions.
He lived into, but not of.
He prayed and was a testimony and a witness to others.
Be that, be that.
Be what Abraham did in your home.
Be what Abraham did in your work.
Be what Abraham did where you play.
Be what Abraham did in our culture, in our community and in this world.
Don't be locked.
Don't become a product of it.
In just a moment, our worship team.
Will come up on stage.
They'll lead us in a time of response and we'll partake in the Lord's Supper together.
I want.
As we looked at the sin and of the depravity and all this that has filled these pages that we wrestle with to understand this, that before Christ before Christ the condition of your heart.
That sin's great and it was grave.
But Jesus stepped off of his throne.
And God did not send down fire, but instead he sent his only son.
And he died for the greatness of the sin.
Of your heart.
And he died for the gravity of what your life was as he died for mine.
And as we take this together, it's the acknowledgement of who he is and what he did.
I want to invite you, if you're a follower of Jesus Christ, whether this is your church home or not, to.
Take this with us.
I want to ask everyone in the room, myself included, that as we enter into a time of worship that we seek under the dependence of the Holy Spirit to prepare our hearts to partake in this, to ask ourselves, are we ready to do what God has called us to do?
I want to challenge you to check your heart for any unrepentant sin.
And if you find it in your heart, then you confess it before the Lord.
I want you to check your heart with your relationships with others, specifically believers, and ask yourself, is there anyone that I need to forgive?
Or anyone do I need to ask forgiveness for?
And you might find that today, this morning, that you're not ready to partake in the Lord's supper together.
And that's okay.
That's okay.
But if you are, then take this time as precious.
Take it before the Lord.
Would you pray with me, God?
We come to you this morning, Lord.
Thanking you for who you are, Lord.
And for what you've done.
Lord, the truth is, what we all.
Deserve, what myself and everyone here deserves, is the full outpouring of Your wrath.
That's what we deserve.
But that's not what you offer us.
What you offer us is a relationship.
With Christ where we understand that he's.
Died for our sins, where he's paid.
The price, he's paid the penalty, he's paid it full.
And we are now covered by the blood of the Lamb.
Lord, our sins past, present and future have been washed away, Lord, and we've been brought into Your family, and that we are sons and daughters of the living God.
God, I pray that in these next few moments, as we prepare our hearts to take this together, Lord, that you would show us these sinful areas of compromise in our life where we've reached out and we've made aware decisions.
That I'm going to choose and desire and long for the sinful things of this world.
And Lord, we miss we miss the devastation that it leaves in our life and in the lives of those around us.
God, we thank you that you show us in your word.
You are merciful to Lot, and you're merciful to us.
May we respond this morning in repentance.
May we respond this morning in worship.
And Jesus, we thank you for paying the price so that we might be made new, and it's in Your name we pray.
Amen.
Thanks again for listening, and be sure to check back next week for another episode.
In the meantime, you can visit us@willowridgechurch.org or by searching for Willow Ridge Church.
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