Recently, I was driving with my oldest son (16), and our conversation shifted to what it means to wholeheartedly follow the Lord in the midst of “a crooked and perverse generation” (Philippians 2:15). I shared with him that Scripture shows only two kinds of men among those who claim to know the Lord: the lukewarm, and the one who truly walks with God, “bearing His reproach.” So much is wrapped up in that single truth! I told him that it is unquestionably the latter that God desires, and that living such a life will cost us everything. But “the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus our Lord” is worth “suffering the loss of all things” (Phil. 3:7-8). And I reminded him that drifting rarely begins with a loud rebellion but with a quiet compromise.
I began contrasting the lives of four men: Abraham and Lot, and Paul and Demas. We’ll begin today with Abraham and Lot, and trust the Lord to return to Paul and Demas at a later date if He desires.
A Man Led by God, and a Man Led by His Eyes
Beginning with Abraham, we know that “the God of glory appeared to him while he was in Mesopotamia” (Acts 7:2). He “went out, not knowing where he was going…he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God” (Hebrews 11:8, 10). Abraham “lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents” (Hebrews 11:9). He built altars for God wherever the Lord moved him. In the eyes of the world, nothing about his life made sense. But in the eyes of God, everything did. This man of heavenly vision initially took his nephew Lot with him when he left. And as we keep all of Scripture in mind, I believe it becomes clear what kind of man Lot was.
When strife arose between the herdsmen of Lot and the herdsmen of Abraham, Abraham graciously offered Lot his choice of the land. Lot lifted up his eyes and chose the region that appealed to him. It is noteworthy that he ventured eastward, away from Canaan, the land of God’s promise. He “moved his tents as far as Sodom.” I can hear his discontented heart say, “I just want a place to put my feet down!” Finally, he had a place to call home; no more following his uncle Abraham. But what immense loss!
Over the course of roughly twenty years, we see Lot rescued by his godly uncle, return again to Sodom, and eventually he sat at its city gate when the angels of God arrived. He had become a man of authority in a wicked city. Yet his nonexistent missionary efforts resulted in fewer than ten converts. (See Abraham’s intercession in Genesis 18.) It is sobering to consider that outward success, position, influence, and reputation, can coexist with inward spiritual decay.
Although regarded as a “righteous man, oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men,” this inner vexation did not produce actions reflecting a holy life. Lot even offered his virgin daughters to the lust-filled men standing at the door of his house. When he warned his sons-in-law, “‘Up, get out of this place, for the Lord will destroy the city,’ he appeared to his sons-in-law, like one who was jesting.” (Gen. 19:14) Why? I believe this reveals the kind of man Lot was day in and day out: he was a man of the flesh. His eyes were not set on a heavenly city; his eyes and heart were fixed on Sodom. What sorrow!
Interestingly, the name Sodom means “scorched” or “burnt.” When we recall Lot’s wife, who became a pillar of salt, and his daughters who lured him into sin, a sobering question comes to mind: What inheritance did Lot receive at the end of his life? He lost the very city he was infatuated with, his wife was shaped by his worldly desires (“Remember Lot’s wife.” Luke 17:32), and his daughters gave birth to two nations, the Moabites and Ammonites. I invite you to trace the Moabites and Ammonites throughout the Old Testament; it is an interesting study. Both became snares to, and enemies of, the people of God. Lot’s life warns us that a divided heart eventually yields a divided home; compromise always reproduces after its own kind.
Well, that’s Lot. He bowed before the angels of God; he recognized their holiness. But in his heart, he bowed to the most important man in his life: himself. What a tragedy! Right after “Remember Lot’s wife,” in the same passage, our Lord added, “Whoever seeks to keep his (soul) life will lose it, and whoever loses his (soul) life will preserve it” (Luke 17:32-33). Lot’s life was constructed of the combustible materials of wood, hay, and straw. When the fire of God came, he suffered loss, but he himself was saved, “yet so as through fire” (see 1 Corinthians 3:10-15). What a contrast between “so shall your seed be” (gold, silver, and precious stones) and “yet so as through fire!”
But Abraham’s descendants (lit. seed) are as innumerable as the sand on the seashore! That “stranger and exile on the earth…desired a better country, that is, a heavenly one” (Heb. 11:16). Does this sound familiar? “I urge you as strangers and aliens…” and “our citizenship is in heaven” (1 Peter 2:11 and Philippians 3:20).
“For here we do not have a lasting city, but we are seeking the city which is to come” (Heb. 13:14).
And seeking that city shapes every step we take today; those who see Christ clearly walk differently.
The One Who Fully Pleases the Father
My dear brothers and sisters, here is the real basis of our walk with God: only One Man fully satisfies the Father’s heart: His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ! It isn’t our striving to walk with Him, trying to keep pace with Him, or following a carefully crafted checklist of things that please our Lord. No!
“When He came into the world, He said, ‘Sacrifice and offering You have not desired, but a body You have prepared for Me; in whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin You have taken no pleasure.’ Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come (In the scroll of the Book it is written of Me), I delight to do Your will, O God.’” (Hebrews 10:5-7 & Psalm 40:6-8)
“While he was still speaking, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and behold, a voice out of the cloud said, ‘This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased; listen to Him!” (Matthew 17:5)
The beauty of our new birth is that the old Adamic humanity, which could never fully please God, has been nailed to the Cross. “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:22). “The first man, Adam, became a living soul. The last Adam, a life-giving spirit” (1 Cor. 15:45). It is the cross of Christ which has put an end to one kind of humanity, the fallen humanity in Adam, “in which [we] formerly walked” (Ephesians 2:2).
“Knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin” (Romans 6:6). This is incredible, but there’s more! “God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us…made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus…so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:5-7). The fully-pleasing One is in our hearts through faith!
The Purpose of the Ages and Our Calling
In Ephesians 3, the Apostle Paul sheds light on “the purpose of the ages.” So much could be written and said on this one verse, and we would barely scratch the surface of the unsearchable riches of Christ! Paul unveils to the saints that, in the foreknowledge of God, he was “made a minister” of “the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God who created all things” (Eph. 3:7, 9). What is this mystery? That “the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the Church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places. This was in accordance with the eternal purpose (lit. purpose of the ages) which He carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and confident access through faith in Him” (Eph. 3:10-12).
This mystery is nothing less than God’s eternal intention: that Christ would be central and supreme in all things, and the Church, His Body, would display His life, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to every realm, seen and unseen.
It is the same heavenly purpose Paul declares earlier, “the summing up of all things in Christ,” which we are called to (Eph. 1:10). “He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless.” And He is returning for a holy and blameless Bride; a Bride who has “no spot or wrinkle or any such thing,” but one who shares His life, bears His likeness, and is united with Him in every way (Ephesians 1:4; 5:27; Romans 8:28-29; 2 Corinthians 3:18)!
Let’s look to our Lord with great expectation today, to open the eyes of our hearts, “as long as it is still called Today” (Heb. 3:13), that He might reveal more of His Son in and through our lives.
O God, let us not be entangled in the affairs of everyday life; may our eyes and hearts be set on things above, that we may walk worthy of Your eternal purpose.
“I have no greater joy than this, to hear of my children walking in the truth” (3 John 4).
Walking with you.
Your brother,
Eric