Real Men – Husbands & Fathers in Sodom

– All right, hey, we’ve not met for a few weeks, good to see you guys, I missed ya. We had a little thing in there called Easter, it was great. Be praying for 86 people who gave their lives to Christ got baptized, we had a great party. Good time. And so many of you guys are new. My name is Mark, one of the pastors here at the church, and we get together on Wednesday nights. It’s kind of our version of guys night out. It’s the one guys night out, you won’t get in trouble with your wife for being with these guys, amen. And so the reason we get together is we wanna find like-minded guys to help encourage one another in a world that really discourages men from leading strongly and to build men up in a world that really beats men down. And so I tend to preach through books of the Bible. We’re in Genesis right now. And then for the men on Wednesday night, it’s more of a leadership lesson and lecture. ‘Cause you gotta lead yourself. If you’re married, you gotta lead your family. You got kids, you gotta lead generations, including your grandkids. Some of you are leaders in business, you’re leaders in ministry and leaders in the community. So what I wanna talk about in our time together is preparatory for what I’ll be preaching this coming Sunday. This coming Sunday, we’re at Genesis 18 and 19 on two twin cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. God sends flaming road tar out of heaven to Sodom and Gomorrah, a little spoiler alert, and he judges them for their sin. And so in preparation, I wanna look at two families that are case studies in Genesis 18 and 19. And I wanna set it up ’cause I think in Genesis 18 and 19, there’s Abraham and his family, Lot and his family, these two men are both believers, they’re both leading their families, but they’re making very different decisions. Abraham has some good days and some bad days. Lot has pretty much just bad days. He makes a lot of bad decisions. And I wanna look at how his decisions implicate and affect his family for generations. And your homework assignment this week, is read, slowly, carefully, Genesis 18 and 19. But let me catch you up on the story of these two families. And what they are, they’re case studies, Abraham’s family and Lots family. And so the story of Abraham starts, just to catch us up in Genesis, Abraham was a guy he grew up. How many of you grew up, your dad was not a Christian, you just grew up as a regular old pagan, just like everybody else? That’s where you start, that’s where I started. I didn’t know the Lord. I grew up in a neighborhood with a bunch of kids that didn’t know the Lord. Joshua 24:2 says this about Abraham, “Long ago your father’s lived beyond the Euphrates, “Terah, the father of Abraham and of Nahor, “and they served other gods.” So it starts Abraham’s dad, pagan guy, serving demon gods. Abraham grows up in a pagan place, pagan guys, pagan dad, just like everybody else. What we saw in Genesis 12, God showed up in Abraham’s life one day, just showed up. Abraham wasn’t looking for him, God was looking for Abraham. How many of you that’s your story? You’re like, “I was just a regular old dumb pagan guy. “And then one day God showed up in my life. “I was kind of surprised, he showed up looking for me.” That’s Abraham. And then God tells him, “We need to start over. “Your family for generations has been a lot of brokenness, “a lot of trauma, a lot of mistakes, “we can’t build on that foundation. “Your family’s a tear down. “You need to move to a place I’m gonna show you “and we’re gonna start over and I’m gonna give you a son, “and you’re gonna be the first link in the chain, “brand new family, legacy and system.” So Abraham was like, “Okay, where are we going?” Answer, I’ll tell you later. So Abraham’s first act of faith is, leave his father, leave the business, leave the family, leave the real estate. He’s not sure where he is going. He’s following a God he just met. And the, then

God brings him and shows him, “This is where you’re going to settle. “And eventually I’m gonna give you a son.” And so ultimately he comes from a place, Ur of the Chaldees, which is in the Old Testament called Babylon. Today, we would call it Iraq. Babylon, good or bad place? Bad place, The Rolling Stones named an album after it. That’s how you know, it’s a bad place. And so the last book of the Bible tells us that Babylon isn’t just a place that existed, it’s a demonic power that works in a lot of cultures and places. So Revelation 14:8 talks about Babylon the Great, “Made all the nations drink the wine “of the passion of her sexual immorality.” The spirit of Babylon works in all kinds of cultures and cities and is trying to get men to be addicted and perverted. So the spirit of Babylon still at work. Revelation 17:5 calls Babylon the Great, “Mother of prostitutes and the Earth’s abominations.” So prostitution, pornography, swinging, friends with benefits, all of that sexuality that’s perverted comes from the spirit of Babylon, trying to ensnare and entrap men. Revelation 18:2 talks about Babylon the Great, “A dwelling place for demons “and a haunt for every uncleaned spirit.” So in Babylon was not just an ancient culture, but a demonic, spiritual being that works in every culture. So God told him, “You need to leave this place. “The way they do sex, the way they do marriage, “the way they do family that ain’t working. “We gotta start over.” How many of you, that’s why you’re in church? You’re like, “You know what? “I look at our family, that ain’t working. “That smells like Babylon, lot of perversion, “lot of addiction, lot of brokenness, lot of foolishness. “We need to do things differently for our family “and for our future and for our legacy.” Now he takes with him when he moves, Abraham does, he takes a nephew of his named Lot. So Abraham had a brother, his brother died and left a son named Lot. Abraham’s got a heart for this guy and wants to help him ’cause he doesn’t really have a dad. So Abraham brings him along for the move. They end up in the promised

land and they become so prosperous, Abraham and Lot, so much livestock, so much business, God’s blessed them so greatly that they’re struggling to manage it. How many of you, you’ve had seasons in your life like this? You’re like, sometimes the hard times are hard to manage, sometimes the good times are really hard to manage. It’s when businesses booming and you can find enough employees and you can’t keep up, and the supply chain is broken and everything is a mess, and the opportunity is so great that it’s hard to manage. That’s the season that he’s in. So he goes to Lot and he says, “Okay, let’s divide the land. “You take one side, I’ll take the other.” And it says that Lot shows the land that was South. And every time you see people in Genesis going South, it is not just physical and geographical, it’s spiritual. Like they’re going down, it’s going to South, when somebody’s like, “It’s all going to hell.” It’s going South. And that’s what he’s indicating. So he takes that land ’cause it looks more fertile and prosperous. Lot is a man who makes his choices by sight, not by faith. “Well, that looks good.” But he doesn’t pray about it. He doesn’t ask the Lord. He doesn’t take his time. He just looks at it and says, “I’ll take that, it looks best.” But it’s right next to Sodom. The story of Genesis continues, he’s living just north of Sodom. So he’s like, he’s not in Vegas, but he’s in Henderson, Nevada. That’s where he is at. He’s like right, you could smell it and see it. We’re like, “I don’t live on The Strip, “you know, they live in Henderson.” So that’s where he is at. And then what happens is there’s a war that breaks out in that region, he and his family are right on the border of Sodom. They get taken his captives in war. Now his whole family’s in jeopardy, Lots is. So Abraham is over a hundred miles away, saddles up takes 318 mercenaries, men trained, raised in his household. So he raised them from youth to literally be a military fighting unit. This is seal

team six. He rides in, hundred miles, he assembles the head of five kingdoms, he aligns the armies, and Abraham goes to war. Hebrew says that he slaughters all these guys, rescues Lot and his family. So now lot has to decide, “We barely made it out of Sodom alive, “where are we gonna live now?” Where does he move? Into Sodom. He was living just out, so he went from Henderson to Vegas. Imagine you, you’re a believing family, you look at your wife, you’re like, “Hey babe, we’re moving.” “Where?” “The Vegas Strip. “Pack up the girls, we’re gonna homeschool, “we’re moving, we’re gonna move to the Vegas Strip.” Good or bad idea? Worst idea. You don’t even have to pray about this. Even if you’ve had a few drinks, you’re like, “Still seems like a bad idea.” It’s just no matter how you look at it, it’s a bad idea. So he then, after barely escapes being a prisoner of war because he lived on the border of Sodom, he moves into Sodom and he raises his kids there. What would that be like today? A lot of cities in America, if you raise your kids there, it’s pretty much Sodom, which is the same spirit or the same culture that they just got delivered from Babylon. So they went from Babylon to Sodom, same thing. This is like, you know, “Hey, San Francisco is terrible, “so we’re moving to West Hollywood.” I don’t know why, it’s the same thing, right? Go to Dubuque, Iowa, maybe there’s a chance it’ll get better there. No. So he moves this family in. They live there, they raise their kids there. Who are his daughters gonna marry? Sodomites. Says the only guy who is willing to say that word in church, okay. So, ’cause they don’t give ’em a choice. So, if you just send your kids to public school and have only non-Christian friends and a bunch of crazy people in your neighborhood, who are your kids gonna grow up and marry, the people that are there, unless you put them around some other people. So his daughters grow up, they get engaged to godless men. So here’s where we hit the story in Genesis 18 and 19. Three guys show up one is called the Lord. So, I think it’s the Lord, Jesus Christ, and two angels. So there’s one Lord, two angels, three guys show up. First they go to Abraham’s house. He’s not Sodom, he’s North, where he is supposed to be, the promised land. They think that they’re human beings. The Bible says in Hebrews that when we entertain angels, sometimes we’re unaware because they appear as people. Some people are like, “How come I’ve never seen an angel?” Well, you probably have, they just didn’t have the wings. They were incognito, they kept it a little more on the down low, right, they’re undercover. They don’t show up like a Victoria’s Secret model, you know, announcing their presence. They, they come incognito. So that’s the way that the angels show up. And what Abraham and Sarah do, they welcome them into the home, they practice hospitality. And basically they’re told by Jesus and the angels, we’re here to check out Sodom and Gomorrah. In the Bible, it talks a lot about two or three witnesses. And here it’s two angels and Jesus. So however you slice it, it’s two or three witnesses. And it is said, “The outcry of all of the perversion and corruption in Sodom and the nearby city of Gomorrah, “God has heard it, we’re here “to investigate it for ourselves.” So what happens then is Abraham entertains them and then cares for them, and the Abraham and Sarah send them into Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham does not saddle up and go to rescue Lot, he waits to see how this is gonna to play

out. So what happens then, these three men, Jesus and the two angels, they show up in Sodom and Gomorrah. And who do they meet at the gate to the city? Lot. Who sits at the gate to the city? Leaders. How many of you, your wife likes Proverbs 31? You know the Proverbs 31 women? You’re like, “Does she make chicken wings?” No, you gotta read it. Proverbs 31, it is a noble wife. So yes, I take that back, she does make chicken wings. So Proverbs 31, the wife of

noble character, where does her husband sit? At the city gate. She’s a good woman, he’s a godly leader. Here, Lot is sitting at the city gate, that means that he is one of the leaders of Sodom. Okay, ask you this, should Lot the believer be a leader in the city of Sodom, yes or no? Okay, let’s talk about this. Why might he be a leader in the city of Sodom? Why?

– [Man] No different than everybody else?

– Yeah, he may be just like all the other guys. And he is like, “Hey, they’re really naughty, “they do crazy stuff and I kinda like that.” He may be the believer who kind of has a dark side and a secret life. Another reason why Lot may be a leader in Sodom.

– [Man] Change from within.

– Yeah, I mean, he may be there to try and change things. Maybe God called him as a missionary. We’ll get there in a moment. If so he gets an F in being a missionary. Right, he gets an F. ‘Cause like if he moved to the Vegas Strip and then you’re a dancer in the Chippendales, like you failed in your objective, right. You didn’t change anything. You got converted, you didn’t convert them. Another reason that he may be there, it may be very profitable. He’s a very wealthy affluent man. He’s already had to split from Abraham ’cause his business was booming. And sometimes God’s men will move into Sodom ’cause it’s really profitable. How many of you in your business, if you disobeyed some of God’s commands, you would make more money? How many of you, if you were willing to disobey God’s commands, you could have a totally different job that would profit you? He may be there for a series of reasons that are not that great. So what happens is these three men, Jesus and the two angels, show up and Lot greets them, and he asks them, “Where you gonna stay tonight?” And they said, “We’re gonna stay in the town square.” And he says, “Oh no, you can’t do that, “this is a terrible place to be.” In that day, they didn’t have hotels and motels. So when you showed up in town, if somebody doesn’t practice hospitality you’re in danger. How many of you have been in a city, alone in the middle of the night, and unless somebody knows what’s going on, you’re in real danger? I still remember the first time I went to South Africa and we went to Cape Town, it was beautiful, went to Durban, it was great. And then I sent Grace home ’cause I was going to preach at a casino in Johannesburg. There’s two kinds of casinos, there’s casinos and there’s casinos in Johannesburg, South Africa, run by diamond money. So I sent Grace home and I said, honey, you can’t go to Joburg with me. She said, “Why?” I said, I don’t think it’s safe and I’ve never been there. We showed up in Joburg, I kid you not, the driver picks me up, I get in the backseat. First thing he tells me is, he says, “Take your money, “take your credit cards, put them in your sock.” I was like, why? He said, “They may steal your shoes, “but nobody wants your socks.” I was like, wow, okay, they didn’t say this, you know, in the Chamber of Commerce brochure, I got for Joburg. And he said, “Just do what we tell you to do.” I was like, okay. So we pull up to the first traffic light, coming out of the airport in Joburg. I kid you not, there was a car in front of us and we stopped, and then armed guys with guns got out and carjacked the car in front of us. I’ve been in Joburg, 15 minutes, there’s monkeys running around and two guys with a gun. They carjack the rental car in front of me. And the driver looks over and he is like, “That’s why you’re

never the first car “in line at the light.” I was like, really? I didn’t know this, right, I would’ve been first car in line with my wallet, dead man. What he said is they carjack the rental cars ’cause they have insurance, so they know that the tourists are coming out and they carjack them all the time. I’ve been in Joburg five minutes and I’m lucky to be alive, right, and I’m glad I packed another pair of underwear ’cause I’m terrified of Johannesburg, South Africa. Can you imagine what it would be like if I just rolled into Johannesburg in the middle of the night. Sodom was like that. If you don’t know what’s going on and you don’t know who you can trust and you don’t know where the dangerous spots are and you don’t know who the dangerous people are, you’re in harm’s way. So, Lot looks at, he doesn’t know it, but it’s Jesus and the two angels, he’s like, “No, no, no, you gotta come to my house, “stay at my house, I’ll keep you safe.” So he brings ’em home. For those of you don’t know the story, here we go. What happens is all the men in the town hear that there’s new guys. So they grab their sons, it’s fathers and sons and grandsons. They encircle lots house and they are. Banging. And what are they demanding? Send the men out so we can have sex with them. The fathers, the sons, the grandsons, generations of sexual perversion and brokenness and trauma. Lot is literally fighting the door, and they’re trying to get into his house. He’s got his foot down, he’s shoving. Who’s in the house? Guys, they’re trying to rape Jesus. See some of you would think, well, you know, we’re good people and we have good hearts. No, we’re sinners and apart from Jesus, we’re capable of horrific things, unconscionable things. So, Lot is fighting them and they’re trying to get in, and he’s like, “I won’t give you, this is my guest. “You can’t have these guys.” So then lot comes up with an alternative plan. What’s his alternative plan?

– [Man] His daughters.

– I got two daughters and ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah. So here’s Lots plan, “I have two daughters “that are still virgins, why don’t I send them out?” Okay. And see, we hear this, we’re like, “That’s disgusting.” Who have you handed your daughter over to? Who have you let her date, right? Who have you let her sleep with, move in with? Right, Lots not the only guy who’s handed over his daughters to the wrong guy, or tried to. The guys actually turn the offer down. They’re like, “No, no, no, do you have “any other guys in there? “Like son-in-laws or any sons?” He says, no. True or false, this is gonna end really badly? So Jesus blinds, everybody ’cause Jesus, he’s not gonna participate. So he blinds everybody so they can’t organize, and eventually things dissipate. Now, Jesus and the angels told Lot, “We are going to eviscerate the whole city. “It’s a tear down. “We’re gonna burn it to the ground. “There’s nobody here that has any conscience. “Everybody here is just evil “and they’ve trained their kids and grandkids “to just do unconscionable, “unspeakable, unthinkable things.” So what does Lot do? Goes to bed. How many of you would move at this point? You’re like, “Okay, so lemme just get this straight, “road tar is coming from heaven soon. “Good to know. “Honey, let’s go.” Amen. How many of you, if you’re up in Prescott and they’re like, “Your neighborhood’s on fire, “please evacuate.” “Hey babe, it’s bedtime.” Like, what? What? He gets a good night’s sleep, sleeps in. Next day, wakes up, he’s going about his business. Jesus and the angels, “Hey, we can’t nuke strike the city “until you get out.” So literally Jesus is. How many of you are in the military? How many of you you would call in for air support? If you were let’s say, you’re in the Marine Corps, you’re in the

army, you’re on the ground, you arrive at a prime target, so you mark it, you call in for air support and then you evacuate. That’s what Jesus does. He literally says, “All right.” He’s calling in air support from heaven, flaming road tar. You’ll hear this in the sermon this weekend, I prerecorded it, and we’re gonna cut in a lot of Disney and politics and agendas and I’m gonna get kicked off social media and it’s gonna be awesome. And there’ll be a screen here, so if you want to throw tomatoes, feel free. Just go ahead and do that. But the big idea is this Jesus is calling in an airstrike and Lot is there with his family. So Jesus and the angels drag him out of town, literally drag him out. As they’re going, he’s a arguing with the Lord and he’s like, “I don’t want to go there. “I want go to this little town called Zoar.” So the Lord is like, “Okay.” Zoar means small, so he lets him go to that town. What does lot’s wife do? See Jesus told them, “Flee and don’t look back.” And Lots wife looks back? Why did she look back? She liked it. She liked it. She’d been there so long, she got used to it. She’d been there so long, she enjoyed it. And so she looks back, you know, and I like to say she had her, I Heart Sodom, sweatshirt and her, Keep Sodom Weird, hat on. And she’s reminiscing about the good old days with whatever they were doing. And so she turns into pillar of salt. Jesus tells us in the New Testament that we’re supposed to be salt in this decaying and dying world. What salt does, it takes something that is dying and it preserves it and it extends its life. That’s like, if you’ve got meat and you salt it, it’s gonna last longer. The culture of the world we live in, Babylon and Sodom, same thing, it’s dying. But if believers are in it, we’re supposed to salt it and it should preserve it a little while longer. She failed to do that spiritually, so God punished her physically and made her into a pillar of salt because she was supposed to be salt in the culture. They finally flee to the hills. His two daughters think it’s the end of the world. They’ve just seen cataclysmic, apocalyptic event. Everything is torched and gone. And I’ll show it to you on Sunday, the archeologists have actually proven that it did happen and it’s all there. The temperature they say was 2,000 degrees Celsius. It’s the equivalent of an atomic bomb being dropped on a city, okay, from God. So then they’re in the hills and they realize, or they fear rather, the end of the world is coming. We’re not pregnant, we never got to be mothers. So what’s their plan, “Let’s get our dad drunk, you get him one night, “I get him the other night. “We’ll get him so drunk that he passes out. “We’ll take turns sleeping with him “and he’ll get us pregnant “and we’ll have kids with our dad.” Lot is a, believer. He’s a believer. Here’s what it says about him, if you want a mind melt, 2 Peter 2:7-8, “Lot greatly distressed “by the sensual conduct of the wicked, “for as that righteous man.” How many of you guys looking at Lot and you go, “Righteous, I mean, pretty much Billy Graham, “I mean pretty much, you know, Mother Teresa’s brother. “I mean just what a guy.” He’s righteous not because of his performance, but because of God’s grace. See righteousness was gifted to him, not achieved by him. But it says this about Lot, “Lot, greatly distressed “by the sensual conduct of the wicked, “for as that righteous man lived among them. “Day after day, he was tormented in his righteous soul, “over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard.” Okay, I do love ya, I’m trying to help. How many of you think that Lot never planned for it to end like this? Right, I mean, “My city’s gone, my wife is gone, “my daughters are pregnant with my kids.” How many of you, all of a sudden, right now you feel better about your life. You’re like, “I’m doing pretty good, “I’m doing pretty good. “Right, I was doing really bad, “’cause I talked to my table lead “and he memorized Leviticus, but I’m doing pretty good. “You know, somewhere on the scale “between my table lead and Lot, I’m doing pretty good.” How many of you don’t think

that Lot anticipated that this would be how everything ends for his marriage and ends up with his kids? From his two daughters come two people groups, again, read Genesis 18 and 19, the Ammonites and the Moabites, they become enemies of God’s people. They descend from his two daughters. Their whole legacy is godless. And then there’s an occasional exception. There’s a great woman named Ruth, she was a Moabite, she came from the incest between Lot and his daughter and she met the God of Abraham. So let me just, okay, throw open your mouth, take a deep breath. Here’s a question gentlemen. Number one, here’s the questions. Was Lot a believer? Yeah. Okay. Did Lot plan for his life and family to go like this? No, I mean, nobody plans this. Number three, was he bothered by everything that was around he and his wife and his kids in Sodom? Yeah, Peter told us he was troubled. Question number four, what did he do? Nothing. That’s it. That’s it. Do we live in Sodom?

– [Man] Yes.

– Are your kids going to Sodom High? They don’t call it that, but if they are honest, they would. Yeah. Right, do we live in Sodom? What happens if we do nothing? Something like that. We learned in Genesis, ’cause Genesis is not just about what happened, but about what always happens. Our first father, Adam, a dragon shows up has a conversation with his wife, attacks his God, what does Adam say and do? Nothing. You see a pattern here? There’s two kinds of sin, men, commission and omission. Commission is where we do something really bad. Omission is we don’t do anything. Most men, it’s sins a of omission. So, what does Lot say? Nothing. What does he do? Nothing. Does he have any sense of urgency? Why, do you think he has no sense of urgency? I mean, obviously things are going bad, his two daughters are engaged to godless Sodomites that God nukes. His wife obviously is not doing well and his daughters, they’re not doing, his family’s obviously not doing well before it all gets bad, but it’s not good and then bad, it’s bad and then it’s really bad. Why doesn’t he do anything? It’s convicting, isn’t it? I don’t want it to be condemning, but I want it to be convicting. And it causes us as men to ask, “Okay, what am I not doing? “What am I not saying?” Lot is a painful prototype of a passive man. His dad dies and Abraham says, “Come with me.” So he follows Abraham. He’s a follower, not a leader. When he is following Abraham, at least he’s in a good place. Here’s the only two decisions we see him make. “I want that land close to Sodom.” Which was the wrong choice. And then, “I’m gonna move my family into Sodom.” He made two choices, one was bad, the other was really bad. Every other thing that happens in Lots life, he is the passive participant. He gets captured in war. Who comes to rescue him? Abraham. And his family need to be delivered from Sodom. Does he get them out? No. Jesus and the angels drag them out. Lots wife doesn’t look at him and say, “Honey, I really miss the past, can I turn around?” No, she just. Everything in lot’s life, everybody makes decisions and here’s lot. He’s bothered, but he’s quiet. He’s troubled, but he’s passive. He’s worried, but he’s timid. And let me say this guys, you don’t need to be perfect, but you do need to be engaged in active. Okay, who’s the other family in the story? Abraham. Does Abraham always get it right? Nah. He let Lot pick the land. That was a mistake. He gave away his wife twice. Which after the first time, you know, and a good six years on the couch, you think he would’ve wrote a post-it note, “Don’t give Sarah away.” You think he would’ve wrote that down. Right. God tells him he is gonna be a dad and he laughs at God. Abraham’s not perfect,

but he’s engaged and he tries. Lot is not engaged and he doesn’t try. The point is this, you don’t need to be perfect, you need to be engaged and you need to try. Okay, Abraham’s family is not perfect, but he does get his son Isaac. does come the nation of Israel, does come Jesus Christ. They got their own problems. Here’s what I’m saying, it’s not like there’s a good family and there’s a bad family, there’s a bad family and a bad family with a dad who’s engaged and trying and a dad who’s disengaged and not trying, and a dad who has some good days and some bad days, and a dad who lets everybody else decide what kind of days his family’s gonna have, okay. Here’s why we’re here, men, here’s why I’m here every week, pretty much. It’s why we plug it into the internet every week. Right now, two questions, and then I’ll just pray for you ’cause I could tell you I’ll feel like you got punched in the soul. Do we live in Sodom?

– Yes.

– Yeah. What happens if we’re all passive? Really bad things to women and children and the people we love the most. Okay, that’s why we’re here. You don’t have to love conflict, but you need to love God and people. You don’t need to love hard work, but you need to love God people. You don’t need to love controversy, but you need to love God and people. And if you really engage and are active and love God and people, some of those things are gonna happen. Some of you men are young, you’re right at the beginning. Guess what us older men would tell you? The earlier you start, the better it is, amen.

– [Men] Amen.

– Like if you’re gonna walk with God and try and lead yourself and your wife and your kids and your family, like, the earlier you care and you’re engaged and you try the better it is. Some of you guys you’ve tried for a while, you’re a little worn out and discouraged. “Hey man, I have been engaged, I have tried. “It’s not going like I wanted it to.” What I would say is, it’s not gonna get better if you try less. And even if it’s not great, if you disengage, it’s going to get worse. ‘Cause just like Lot, if you just watch and wait, everything goes South. So I’m sorry, it may not be in a great place, but if you’re not engaged and active, it’s not gonna be in a better place. Number three, some of you guys are in that season where you have been engaged and you have been active. You’re not Jesus, you’re Abraham. I have faith in a perfect God, but I don’t have perfect faith, and I’ve not walked with my God perfectly. But you do have a testimony. And we want you to share that with the guys around the table of like, “You know what actually, I mean, “it’s not as good as it could be, but I mean, “you know, it’s pretty good.” I’ll be honest with you guys, I freaking love my life. I’m the happiest I’ve ever been. I love my life. It’s not great ’cause I’m in it. Right. If I wasn’t in it, it would be amazing. I keep tripping over my own feet. I identify with Abraham, I’ve said stupid things, I’ve done bad things, there’s been seasons that I’ve not led and there’s things I regret. But here’s what I do know, I’m not perfect, but my faith is in a God who’s perfectly faithful.

– [Man] Amen.

– And now my wife and I will be 30 years married this year, faithfully married. I love my girl. I just adore her. I mean like in a way that I’ve never, I mean, we’re closer than, I just adore her, I truly do. And I’m glad to be with her. I look forward to the future. I love my kids. I actually enjoy ’em. I have two teenagers, so if you don’t believe in miracles, now you do. Okay, I mean, and it’s not because I’ve never lived in Sodom, okay, I raised my kids in Downtown Seattle. People in Sodom are like, “Wow.” I mean like, you know. Okay. And it’s not because I’m a great guy and I’ve always made great decisions. In fact, if you wanna see my worst hits, just Google me and you’ll feel better about yourself. Okay. But because you know, I was a engaged and I tried and God was gracious and faithful. Some of you guys are older, maybe you’re in that, your kids are grown or you’re even at the grandpa phase. And when we talk around the table, your honesty is a tremendous blessing to the younger men. You share your good days and your bad days, and they learn from both. And we learn about the good days and the bad days from Abraham. I’m guessing if Abraham wrote Genesis, he’d just tell us about all the things he did right. But instead God wrote it, so he tells us about the things he did wrong too. And as we’re honest about our successes and failures, it can encourage other men, especially younger men, okay. And here’s what I’m saying, if you’re a dad or you’re a grandpa, you’re not being engaged and you’re not acting is going to open opportunity for some horrible things that you never anticipated or expected. I love you, thank you for the honor of teaching. Let me just give you three things and then I’ll pray. Around your table, pray and invite the holy spirit to help you understand and apply Genesis 18 to 19, as you read it carefully this week. At the end of your time together, just covenant, we’re gonna read Genesis in 18 and 19 and pray as a group. Okay, God, help us all see and understand what you would have for us. Number two, how is the spirit of Sodom at work in our culture today, seducing men, women and children? I think we gotta be really honest about this, from entertainment, to social media, to educational platforms, to school curriculum, it’s kind of everywhere. And then three, how can we pray for you to be a wise, active leader? If you’re not wise, you’re gonna lead in the wrong direction. If you’re not active, your family is gonna suffer. If you’re not a leader, the spirit of Sodom is gonna do the leadership. I love you guys with all my hearts, it’s why I’m here every single week. You guys matter, your lives matter, your wives matter, your kids matter, your grandkids matter, your great grandkids matter. Father, thank you for an opportunity to teach. And God it says in Romans that what was written in the Old Testament was for our instruction. Meaning we’re supposed to learn from it positive and negative lessons for men who had good and bad days. And God, Lot is a terrible story, he moved from Babylon to Sodom. God sometimes change isn’t good. Sometimes change isn’t better. Unless we have wisdom to go into a new season. God, sometimes we can get a new wife, we can get a new job, we can get a new house, we can get a new city, we can get a new church, but if we don’t get new wisdom, we just repeat the old patterns. God, Abraham went from Babylon to the promised land. He wasn’t perfect, he had good days and bad days. He made some wise decisions and some foolish decisions. But his faith was in a God that was perfectly faithful. And God, we’re gonna see as we continue to study Abraham, he’s active and engaged. He’s not like Lot, he doesn’t just sit back constantly and watch his life. He engages and he’s active for himself, for his wife and for his kids. God, I pray for all the wives represented in this room, that they would have husbands of faith who are active and engaged. I pray for all the children, not just born, but to be born. God, I think we’ve had a dozen young men get

engaged in the last two weeks. I pray God, that their kids would have fathers who are filled with faith, active, engaged. God, I pray for the grandchildren that are born and still to be born, including my own Lord, as I’m not a grandpa yet, but they would have grandfathers who are filled with faith, honest about their good days and their bad days, active and engaged. And we pray, Lord God, against the spirit of Babylon and against the spirit of Sodom. Everything in the culture around us wants to wreck us and have us wreck everyone and everything around us. And so we pray against the enemy, his servants, their works and effects. Pray that these men could encourage one another and help one another. And that they would figure out what their next step is in their walk with Jesus, in whose name we pray, amen.