Leave Everything Behind – Part 2

This is Anne Graham Lotz.

What's your place of compromise? Did you start out on a journey of authentic faith, then stop halfway in your commitment? Are you halfway to a vibrant personal relationship with God, halfway to the fullness of all He wants to give you? Welcome to Living in the Light with Anne Graham Lotz. Anne's weekly series of messages are from the life of Abraham, with the desire that as you listen to God's Word, you will make God your magnificent obsession.

Here's Anne with an introduction to today's message. In Genesis 12, when God commanded Abraham to leave Ur and all that was familiar, including his father's household, Abraham was only partially obedient to God's command. He left Ur, but he took his father, nephew and wife with him. Then they settled in Haran, and so did he.

We can only guess why he didn't leave everything behind. But perhaps Abraham had shared the news with his family, and his family decided they wanted to go also. We can see by what happened next that Abraham was hindered by his family, because when his family stopped halfway, so did Abraham, and he postponed experiencing the blessing and life's purpose that God had for him.

You're listening to Living in the Light with Anne Graham Lotz as she continues her series in the life of Abraham. I'm not sure God called Abraham again, and it appears that Abraham got restarted when his father died. And I don't want to ask you who has to die before you get back on the road to pursuing God, but just thinking of that for a moment, I know 9-11 I was home, my daughter called and said, Mom turned on the TV. I did in time to see those trade towers come down, and then the Pentagon go up in flames, and then that crater in the field in Pennsylvania. And I knew on my television screen while I was watching, people were stepping into eternity. And I wondered how many of them were stepping into eternity and they weren't ready to meet God face to face because people like me who knew him hadn't made him known to them.

That's a wake up call. And people are stepping into eternity. They need to know God and you and I do.

And how can we clutch him and hold him to ourselves? Don't start out and stop halfway. If God's called you, you go all the way and follow him. And if you have already stopped halfway, then would you decide to just once again restart and pursue your personal relationship with God, that you would grow in your knowledge of him and that you would commit your life to making him known. Jesus said in Luke chapter 14, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple. And he doesn't say those of you who give up half of everything. He says those of you who don't give up everything can't be my disciple. You have to. You must if you want to be a disciple of Jesus.

You leave everything behind. Verse 4, so Abram left and Abram was 75 years old when he restarted, when he left Haran. So there's somebody here, you're already thinking, God called me when I was younger. I went halfway. I'm sitting here realizing that that call was a long time ago.

I've missed it. It's too late. Well, it wasn't too late. Maybe you think you're too young and you've got a life ahead of and you think, well, when you get married, when you have a family, you know, when you get that good job, when you get your career established. But Abram started out when his father died and that call was re-triggered, restarted in his life when he pursued God at the age of 75. You're never too old. You're never too young.

It's never too late. And so Abraham left everything behind. He left the familiar. He left the fence sitting. Don't sit on the fence. You know, we act one way in church and one way when we're with our social friends and one way when we're with our business partners and one way when we're with our old friends and it's just time to leave all that behind.

And you just leave behind the familiar and you leave behind the fence sitting and you leave behind the fears. And I'm really reading into this because I see no fear of Abram's life in his life at all in Canaan. But I'm just reading into it because of the way I think our mentality is today because in verse 5 it says that he took his wife, his nephew, got all the possessions. They set out for the land of Canaan and they arrived there. Verse 6, they traveled through the land as far as the site of the great tree of Mar at Shechem and the Canaanites were then in the land. So Abram comes down to the Canaan and the Canaanites were all around him. And archeologists tell us that the Canaanites were among the most vile of all civilizations on the face of the earth and all of human history. The Canaanites had male and female prostitution as part of their religious worship. They had human sacrifice.

They were pornographic and obscene to the extreme. And they surrounded Abram. And today you and I are surrounded by Canaanites.

And we see them on television and the movies and we hear them talking and we see them in the magazine and their books are displayed everywhere and we go into the mall, we see the way they dress and what their values are and the atmosphere that they create. We're surrounded by Canaanites. And when you're surrounded by Canaanites are you afraid to witness?

Are you afraid to share the gospel? And Abram right there in the front of the Canaanites in verse 7, he built his altar to the Lord and the Lord appeared to him right in their face. And so I can just imagine him gathering the stones and putting the sticks on top and then getting his animal and slaughtering it and offering the burnt sacrifice and the Canaanites just staring and this is weird.

I mean this is really strange. What are you doing? Well I'm worshiping God. God? Which God is that? The one true living God.

Well who is he? Well he's the creator of the universe. And he has said that we can come into a right relationship with him when we come to him by the blood of a lamb. And the Canaanites and it's the only way to God and the Canaanites would say whoa that sounds exclusive. That sounds a little intolerant to us. You know don't you understand in Canaan we all have our own gods.

And we all worship the way we please and don't try to push your God on us. And there are Canaanites living all around us. Past week I've been listening to some of the talk shows and I mean are they pointing their fingers at us or what? And the way they talk about us and I'm speaking of evangelical Christians. The way they talk about us it's like we're Neanderthals. And really in such disparaging language. And if we're not careful the Canaanites will intimidate us in the silence because we don't want to be labeled stupid, ignorant, not progressive, whatever they want to say.

And so we want to sort of hide our light under a bushel. And Abram was just building his altar right there in front of the Canaanites. And it doesn't say that any Canaanite really worshiped with them or came to know God. But you know what I think the blessing was? That Abraham was set free of any kind of fear. And to build your altar in front of the Canaanites in essence to share the gospel and tell people about Jesus.

Never mind if they respond. You know it's not our job to bring them to Christ. It's just our job to share Christ.

It's the Holy Spirit's job to bring them to Christ. And there's a wonderful freedom that comes when we just live our lives as who we are. In fact you've got to make effort to repress yourself. To repress the light that's within you. You've got to make an effort to hide your light under a bushel. Because I'll tell you what if you're just living your life pursuing God and you're growing in your knowledge of Him and you're making Him known to others and you're receiving a blessing that you might be a blessing, your life is going to be in contrast to the Canaanites around you. I mean you don't have to make much effort at all and you're going to show up a difference. And you have to make an effort to hide your light under a bushel.

Don't do that. Remember when our son Jonathan is here and when he was in high school a long time ago he went to the big public school downtown and he was changing classes and I remember this. I haven't asked him if he remembered or not but I remember because I was proud of him and I felt like it was a life's lesson. But he was walking down the hall and he bumped into some kid and it must have been quite a bump because you walk down the hall you bump into lots of people. But anyway he bumped into this one kid and the kid turned around and just poured out obscenities, just cursed Jonathan out up one side and down the other using profanities and obscenities, taking our Lord's name in vain and so Jonathan just grabbed him by the collar and put him up against the locker and he said, watch out buddy that man died for me.

And then when he came home he was telling me what he had done and then he got this big grin on his face and he said, Mom it just felt so good. And I thought of that recently when I was invited to be one of the speakers at May Day for Marriage on the National Mall in Washington D.C. and they had about 170,000 people there in blustery, windy, cold, rainy and I was the third speaker and when I got up to speak the rain was whipping Jonathan and said my hair stood straight on end, it looked like a gray halo. And as soon as I spoke the winds whipped my words from my mouth so I got into the microphone and I was just screaming my 12 minutes worth and when I got off the platform I was thinking, you know, to stand on the National Mall in the heart of a nation's capital, in the heart of our nation and present Jesus as the only way to get right with God, the only way to have your sin forgiven, the only way to go to heaven when you die, that's a privilege and I'll tell you something, it felt good.

And I don't know if you know what I'm talking about or not. Have you ever shared Christ with a hostile audience? Have you ever shared Christ with a hostile neighbor? I mean, we don't want to be obnoxious and we don't want to shove it down their throat and we want to do it lovingly and winsomely and graciously but do you know what it is?

To share Christ with somebody who just spits back in your face but you know it's okay, it just feels good and there's a freedom that comes in just being who we are. Stuart Briscoe tells a story that when he was in the Royal Marines that the Navy, when they would go out on a battle on the sea, that when they were in battle and the enemy was trying to get them to surrender they were supposed to lower their colors or lower their flag and that was the international signal for surrender and he said when they were in a naval battle he said and the colors were up, when they refused to surrender they would just nail their colors to the mast so that their ship would go down with the flag before they would ever surrender. And I think it's time that Christians today just nail their colors to the mast and we don't drop the flag for anybody, anytime, anywhere. We just let people know right in their face that we worship the one true living God in the only way you can worship Him in spirit and in truth, indwelt by the Holy Spirit according to the truth of His word and the truth which is Jesus Christ.

So we have to leave the fears behind us. You're afraid of sharing the Gospel with a Canaanite, stop it. Afraid of worshiping right in the face of the world, verse 8, he moved on from there and he went to Bethel and he pitched his tents and there he built an altar to the Lord and he called on the name of the Lord and I'm assuming the Canaanites were still around him, he'd shared the Gospel and now in a sense he's praying in public, isn't he? And I, you know, how many times I'm in a restaurant and bow my head to say a blessing, I look around and very rarely do you see anybody just praying in public anymore.

You do that? Or maybe before you give your message and you pray first, even on that mall in Washington, D.C. and they only gave me 12 minutes and every second is precious and I took some of those precious seconds and just prayed before I gave that little message, asking for God, how do we think we can say anything that would be meaningful to anybody except the Holy Spirit would permit us to and bless it. And Abram just praying right in the face of the Canaanites and building his altar and it was interesting to me in verse 7, he had built his altar, worshiped and the Lord appeared to him. Verse 8, he built his altar, worshiped and the Lord did not appear to him and it reminded me after the resurrection, you remember when the disciples were in the upstairs room and Jesus appeared to them and then he was suddenly gone and then the disciples on the Emmaus road, Jesus was with them and then he broke bread and suddenly he disappeared and then Jesus was with them on the shore of Galilee and then he suddenly, and all this coming and going, you know, what in the world is going on? And you know what he was doing I think? He was training his disciples to know that whether they could see him or not, he was present in their midst.

He was developing their faith in him and I think that's what he's doing for Abraham, that whether Abraham can see him or not, whether he appears or not, God is present in his life. Has God been training you in that way? Has he removed a sense of his presence from your life?

Have you been going through a season of dryness? In the last few years there have been times that I have felt absolutely abandoned by God and you know, if you go on feelings you would just want to draw a side, dig a hole and quit. But I turn to Hebrews chapter 13 and in Hebrews chapter 13 it says, Ann, I will never leave you.

I will never forsake you. And I put my faith down in the word of God, not into my feelings. And I think there are times God withdraws our feelings.

He withdraws that conscious awareness of his presence so that he can strengthen our faith. It does not mean you've been abandoned. It does not mean you've done something wrong. It does not necessarily mean there's sin in your life.

Now those things can be a problem but it could be that everything is right. He's just developing your faith in his word so that you're not going on feelings or visions or sights or whatever. You're just learning to worship and witness and walk and live by faith, knowing he's present in your life whether you have a special revelation or not.

Whether you see him or not, whether you hear from him or not, he's present in your life. And so Abraham left the fears, and not that he had fear, but just looking at it from our point of view. If you want to pursue God you have to be willing to leave fear behind, the fear of worshiping and witnessing in the face of the Canaanites. And it doesn't mean that we don't sometimes feel afraid. In fact, I can tell you on the National Mall, my heart was thumping and my knees were knocking and, you know, you can feel afraid, but you just don't give in to it. Just don't be afraid. And I love Jill Briscoe's definition of courage that she shared with us at A Passionate Pursuit. She said, courage is just doing it scared.

And you just do it scared. Abraham was doing it. I don't know if he was scared or not, but he was doing it, worshiping, witnessing, right in the face of the Canaanites. And then he just kept on going. And we find him going through Canaan and he goes down through the Negev. Now there's no word from the Lord that's told him to leave Canaan. He had arrived there. We know from verse 4, verse 5, he had gone to Canaan and arrived there. And so he had arrived where God wanted him to be and now he just keeps going.

He reminds me of a new Christian who just gets so excited that they start to run ahead of the Lord. So now he's going on to the Negev. Nothing's told him to leave.

No one has come to him and told him to leave. He's just continuing to go and leaving the place where God wants him to be. And right at this initial time in his food of God, Abraham fails in a most spectacular fashion. And I'm so grateful that God has recorded it for us, for our encouragement. Because when we sit out to know God and we have this wonderful, you know, desire and aim and vision of following him in a pursuit and embracing the magnificent obsession and receiving his blessing to be a blessing, then all of a sudden we fall flat on our face.

And I wonder how many of us at that point quit. Abraham, right at the very initial stage of pursuing God, fail. And he was leaving Canaan, went down to the Negev and failure in his life was very unintentional. In verse 10 it says, Now there was a famine in the land. And he just decided that, you know, there's a famine. There's not enough food here. I'm used to taking care of my family. I'm the head of the household and so I need to pursue food and I know there's some in Egypt so I'm just going to take them to Egypt. And it was just such a small decision.

He was just going to Egypt for a little while. There's no record that he prayed, no record that he sought the Lord. And failure is often in our lives. In fact, I would say 99.9% of the time failure is unintentional, isn't it? I don't think I've ever talked to anybody who said that they decided they would get up in the morning and they would fail. I've never talked to anybody that said today I'm just going to go out and blow my witness.

And today I've decided to backslide. It just creeps up on you. It's just such a little thing. And it usually starts with a famine of God's Word. And I know in the past 10 years, while I'm busy in ministry, there was a particular time when there was a famine of God's Word in my life.

You know, you can study it to give it out. But I'm talking about reading to receive it, to listen to God, to let Him speak to you, spending time in prayer. That takes time. And when you're busy, busy, busy, sometimes you neglect your Bible reading. And you neglect that personal communion. And there was a time when I did. And I made a little decision, just a little decision.

And you know it's funny when you make a little decision as you continue it like this. After a while, there's a big chasm between you and the will of God. And I found myself straight outside of God's will, just from a little decision that came from a famine in my life. If you've been neglecting God's Word, watch out.

And I know you can study it to give it out. And if you're a Sunday school teacher, you teach a Bible class, and you're in God's Word. And you know, I applaud that. And that's really wonderful. You can be immersed in it. But that's not a substitute for your devotional life.

I know what I'm talking about. And don't substitute your study of God's Word to give out for your personal devotional to take in. And Abraham just so unintentionally stepped out of God's will just for a little while when there was a famine.

And he went to Egypt to handle the practical problem in his life. And I think sometimes we can tell how we step out of God's will when we make a decision and we haven't prayed about it. What decision have you made without prayer? A decision about where you'd spend your vacation or where you're going to go for Christmas or, you know, what job you would take or where you'll send your children to school or whatever the decision is, even something to do in ministry. And we make the decision and while we're carrying it out, we're asking God to bless us instead of praying first and asking God to reveal his will to us.

There's no record that he prayed. He just stepped right out of God's will. And you say, well, and he had that food. I mean, you know, there's a famine in Canaan. He had to do practical things to take care of his family.

But you know something? If he had stayed, now maybe God would have, if he had prayed, maybe God would have said, Abram, I want you to go to Egypt. But he would have had the security that God was leading him there. Or maybe God would have said, Abram, I want you to stay in Canaan.

And God could have fed him with manna. And you know, when we step out of God's will, especially when we're in a hard place and the pressure comes on and we slip out of God's will, we miss the blessing of seeing how God would have provided for us. We miss part of the adventure of the magnificent obsession.

We miss getting to know him and how he can meet our needs when it seems to him to be impossible. And Abram missed the blessing of seeing how God would provide for him if he had stayed and depended on God. And he just goes down to Egypt for a little while. And the failure that was unintentional became very miserable.

This is 11 and 12. We can tell he's starting to worry because he's afraid to stay where he is, where there's a family. He's afraid to go down to Egypt where he's going because he's afraid they're going to kill him for Sarah's sake.

And what's happened to him? He's lost his peace. And that's one of the first characteristics of somebody who's outside of God's will. You're scared inside. And you just lose your peace. And it keeps you up at night. There's that uneasy, isn't that a horrible feeling? It's just misery. It's just spiritual misery on the inside. And you just know you're not where you're supposed to be.

And you're scared to go back and you're scared to go forward and you just take matters into your own hands. And his worry led him to wrongdoing. He told Sarah, just say that you're my sister so that when they see you, they'll treat me well for your sake. And Sarah actually was his half-sister.

She was the daughter of his father but not of his mother. And so that was a half-truth. But a half-truth is a whole lie. And God says in Proverbs he hates lying.

And Abram lied and got Sarah to lie for him. And his wandering had led to worry that led to wrongdoing. Have you wandered out of God's will and then you lose your peace and you get worried? And has the worry led you to do something wrong? Have you lied? Have you lied to cover up your lie?

Have you manipulated? Have you done something selfish like Abram? His sin led to suffering, enormous suffering because Sarah was taken into Pharaoh's harem. Can you imagine a worse situation for her to be in? And Sarah, her name means princess. And I wonder if Sarah had been a princess or maybe just from a very well-to-do family, very wealthy family. And I would expect Sarah the princess had been pampered all of her life, that even her whims were met.

And I know Abram put her on a camel and you know she went 800 miles but I bet you the top of that camel had one of those little platforms with a little roof on it, you know the tassels that dangled and I bet there were curtains drawn so the sun wouldn't get on her skin and when she got to her tent at night there were Persian carpets on the floor and satins and silks and she was the pampered adored beautiful wife of this well-to-do chieftain. And now Sarah the princess is taken into a pagan man's harem and there's strange language and strange culture and she's been put in a compromising position, vulnerable to be defiled by a pagan man. Sarah suffered and the humiliation of knowing her husband had put her there. And think of Abraham's suffering. How was he going to get her back when the famine was over? How could he be so selfish? Selfishness is one of the hallmarks of somebody outside of God's will. Totally thinking about himself and when he saw her disappearing with these pharaoh's men and she disappeared into the king's harem he must have been mortified, horrified, what have I done to my beautiful Sarah?

Oh how will I get her back? God help me. Now here's Ann with this final word. Right at this initial stage in Abraham's pursuit of God, Abraham failed and in a most spectacular fashion because fear drove him to make a decision without asking God. What obvious decision have you made without asking the Lord? Are you neglecting God's word as well? I've never heard of anyone deliberately deciding to fail.

Abraham's failure wasn't intentional either. I wonder, did you begin a journey of faith then run ahead as Abraham did until you too are rudely awakened by unintentional failure in your life? Does it make you apprehensive about beginning again? Is there a longing in you to embrace the magnificent obsession but your past experience warned you that you can't?

Don't give up. No matter how far you've fallen, God offers a way to reverse your failure. Tell God about your sin and your failure. He is so gracious and merciful, full of compassion and loving kindness. He never turns away anyone who comes to him in humble repentance at the foot of the cross.

Tell him you're sorry. Don't settle for less than everything God wants to give you. Come back to the cross. You've been listening to Living in the Light with Ann Graham Lotz. And if you'd like to share today's message, go to anngramlotz.org where you'll find much to assist you in getting into the Word of God and praying and sharing Christ with others. Join us again here next week for Living in the Light.