If this is your first time joining us here
at Hosanna Christian Fellowship,
whether you're here in our room or online,
we want to say welcome to all of you.
We're so glad you're here to worship with us today.
I am Pastor Nathan and this morning we are going to be
finishing our study of Genesis 14,
looking at Abram's encounter with this very mysterious
figure named Melchizedek.
Now what we'll be looking at today
is a very limited interaction,
and it was really the only interaction recorded
in scripture for us with this man named Melchizedek.
And so what we're gonna learn today through this really
is how to respond to success with humility.
And then next week we're gonna be taking a little bit
of a deep dive into who Melchizedek is,
the different ideas and theories of it
because I know a lot of you always ask that question
and so we'll be dealing with that next week.
But for today, to give you guys the background
of where we're gonna be looking at,
we studied this last time where what happened
right before this encounter with Melchizedek
was one of the greatest covert military operations
in all of history.
In Genesis 14 verses one through 16,
we read how the area of Sodom and Gomorrah,
the Valley of Sidim, which was south of the Dead Sea,
was a place populated by five cities,
Sodom and Gomorrah and three others,
and they had been under the control of four kings
from the east over in the Mesopotamian area
for about 12 years.
And during those 12 years they were subject to those kings,
they would pay tributes to those kings,
but in the 13th year it told us that the people there
rebelled against that rulership.
Now the other detail that makes this story interesting
was that it was this area of Sodom and Gomorrah
where Abram's nephew Lot decided to go settle
when Abram was like, hey look, your flock is huge,
my flock is huge, our businesses can't expand here,
you decide where you wanna go.
We read that Lot chose the place that looked great
on the outside but was unfortunately corrupt
and wicked on the inside.
So when they rebelled against these kings,
the four kings came with their armies
to reconquer this area, and the leader of these four armies
was a guy named Cheddo Leomer,
and he led the nation of Elam,
and there was three other kings and nations with him,
and so they came and they invaded the area of Sodom and Gomorrah,
they conquered the five city states that were there,
and then they took all the people captive.
They took all the stuff, all the material goods,
I mean they looted the whole area to make a message,
to make a statement, don't rebel against us.
We're strong, we're powerful, and so then they started
to leave the area heading back north
and the way back to Mesopotamia,
and we read there that one of the people they captured,
one of the hostages was Abram's nephew Lot.
And so Abram was notified by a survivor of the attack
who came and tracked Abram down and told him,
Abram, your nephew Lot has been taken captive.
Well Abram then rallied up his 318 trained,
loyal, committed servants, and then the three Canaanites
that Abraham had a treaty with,
got some of their men as well,
and he went and chased down this army,
a very small army of 318 plus men
against the army of four major kings and major nations.
Well the scriptures record for us
that Abram had a resounding victory,
routed the entire army, and not only did his small army
rescue every single hostage that was taken
by these four kings, he also recovered
all of the material goods that had been looted
by these four kings.
And so on his return home you can imagine
that Abraham is the hero, General Abram who had gone
and rescued all the people, conquered these kings,
spec ops, seal team six, whatever you wanna call it,
he did something great, and he was probably being celebrated
and congratulated and just thanked
by the people he rescued.
But on the way home he met this mysterious person,
person named Melchizedek.
Now it's so easy for us in our lives,
after putting forth great effort,
after expending our knowledge and our training,
and all of these things to achieve a great success,
it's very easy for us to then wanna take the credit
ourselves, because after all it was my effort,
it was my skill, it was my training, my knowledge,
and so therefore I do deserve the credit
for these types of things, and there's nothing wrong
with a sense of doing a good job,
there's nothing wrong even with somebody acknowledging you
for doing a good job, but as believers,
we have to be very careful because the bigger
the achievement, the bigger the success, the bigger
the victory means that the bigger the temptation will be
to take the glory for yourself and away from God.
You know, Luke said in chapter 14 verse 11,
or Jesus said in Luke 14, 11,
for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled,
and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.
That is one of the most important foundational lessons
for all believers to learn, that it is our God above
who grants us victory, all success is his,
all glory is his, all honor is his,
and when we, as his people, remain in that mindset
knowing that he's given us the hands to work,
the brains to learn, the skills to employ,
it's all from him.
When we keep that mindset, we remain humble people
whom God can lift up and exalt without worry
that we're gonna become puffed up and full of ourselves.
That is what we're gonna see in the story today with Abraham,
but first let's pray, and then we're gonna worship
our Almighty God, Father, we love you.
We thank you, God, for who you are and what you've done.
We thank you for what you're doing, Lord.
God, everything from the very beginning is because of you.
The universe exists because of you.
We exist because of you.
Lord, you gave us the brains to learn and to grow
and to discover.
You gave us the air in our lungs that allows us to be alive
to even do things, Lord, and so God, really,
every success that we would ever accomplish is yours.
Every victory is yours, and yet God, the world and our flesh
and Satan tries so very hard to get us to take the credit
for ourselves.
Lord, the sinful, wicked ways around us work so hard
that those things would be attributed
as the reasons for success, but God, we want you to be
the one that has the glory in all things, at all times.
So God, today, speak to us in the story of Abram
coming back from a major, major significant victory, God,
as we see him being approached by two different kings
with two different points of view
on how they should be responded to,
and God, may we learn the lesson that Abram learned
to respond the way he responded
when you grant success to your people.
Lord, we wanna worship you because you are everything.
You are worthy of everything.
You are, you're it, God, and we praise you, Lord,
for the lives that we get to live for you.
We lift up your name on high.
We bless you, Lord.
It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen.
We are in Genesis chapter 14.
We're gonna be looking at verses 17 through 24 this morning,
and the setting of the story we're looking at today
is a place called Kings Valley.
That is a place today understood to be about two and a half
miles south of Jerusalem where the Kidron
and the Hinnom valleys connect,
and so you're like, what does any of that mean, okay?
There's a valley on this side of Jerusalem.
There's a valley on this side,
and those valleys go south.
They eventually connect into this place
that is known as Kings Valley,
and it was here in this valley that Abram and his men
are met by two kings on their way back
returning from their great victory.
These two kings are a great contrast of response to victory.
They couldn't be more different from each other.
One of these kings is going to look at Abram's victory
merely as an accomplishment of man
that deserves some type of earthly reward.
The other one is gonna look at this victory
as an act of God, a grace of God, a blessing of God,
and then he's going to offer a heavenly reward for that,
and so the question in today's study
is how did Abram see his victory?
Let's read in verse 17.
After Abram returned from defeating Chedoleomer
and the kings who were with him,
the king of Sodom went out to meet him in the Shavev Valley,
that is the Kings Valley.
Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought out bread and wine.
He was a priest to God Most High.
He blessed him and said,
Abram is blessed by God Most High,
creator of heaven and earth,
and blessed be God Most High
who has handed over your enemies to you.
And Abram gave a tenth of everything.
Then the king of Sodom said to Abram,
give me the people, but take the possessions for yourself.
So as we study through Genesis,
we don't know a whole lot about these two kings.
Really, just what's recorded here
tells us as much as we know about them
in the book of Genesis, the king of Sodom,
we've looked at him already
as we studied the battle that took place there.
He was likely the most influential,
powerful king of those five cities
down south of the Dead Sea.
Sodom likely being the largest
or most prosperous of those cities.
So as the king of Sodom,
he was kind of at the top of the heap there.
We make that connection or make that assumption there
is because when the Bible is referring
to these five cities down in this area,
it often refers to them by Sodom or Sodom in Gomorrah.
It refers to this whole area
and these five city states that were down there
by the largest or most powerful or most influential one.
And so the king of Sodom was likely
a very, very powerful guy among his contemporaries
down there in the Valley of Sidum.
We also know that he was probably very brave guy
or extremely confident in himself
and very likely very arrogantly confident in himself
because earlier in Genesis it says
when these four kings came in with their armies,
the king of Sodom had rallied the five cities,
got all their armies together
and actually proactively went out to meet this army.
And then the Bible tells us that Sodom was evil
and the people there were sinning immensely.
And so we could make a connection
that the king of Sodom was likely the same
because I'm sure some of you have heard that phrase before,
as the leader goes, so does the organization.
And so the city being as wicked and evil as it was
was very, very likely a reflection
of the leadership of that city.
So that's what we're told about the king of Sodom.
Not a whole lot, but a few details.
And then we get to this guy named Melchizedek.
Now Genesis 14 is one of the two places
in the entire Old Testament
where we see this guy named Melchizedek mentioned.
Here in Genesis 14 it tells us that he is the king of Salem.
Now in Psalms chapter 76 verse two,
it tells us very clearly that Salem is Jerusalem, okay?
It's the same city.
This is Jerusalem before it became the holy city,
it became before it became the place of God's temple,
before it became the place of the kings of Israel and Judah,
it was this city known as Salem.
But at this point in Genesis 14,
Salem is just another Canaanite city
in the land of Canaan, okay?
So it also tells us that this Melchizedek
is not only the king of this city,
but he was also a priest to God most high.
That is a very, very important detail.
Now the way it's described there,
it's describing God in a very particular way.
That phrase God most high in the Hebrew is El Elion.
That is a phrase used in Hebrews to,
or in the Hebrew language to describe God
in the context of his bigness, right?
The God Almighty, the God that is just big and up there
and can destroy everything in a second,
it's referring to the immensity, the infiniteness of God.
And it's emphasizing his exalted status
that he is above all things,
which is why it's rendered God most high.
Now we don't know how this Melchizedek
came to be a priest of God, it just tells us that he was.
And this is where the mysteriousness
of this character comes from,
because he just appears on the scene here,
and then he's gone.
And that's it, that's all we really see of him
outside of him being mentioned another time,
one other time in the Old Testament.
Now when it comes to the identity of this guy,
there are a lot of different interpretations and ideas.
One of the interpretations is that this guy Melchizedek
was simply a human, he was an actual man
who was a Canaanite living in the land of Canaan
who happened to be a priest of the one and only true God.
That he was not only that priest of God,
but he was also the actual literal king of this city Salem
that would become known as Jerusalem in the future.
Now those that adhere to that interpretation of him
will also say that he is a picture of Jesus Christ,
that he is a type of Jesus Christ
that we see later on in the New Testament,
but that he represents the reality
that God's offer of salvation,
the offer of people knowing him
was from the very beginning open to both Gentiles,
which the Canaanites were, and Abram,
and the Jewish people who would eventually come through him.
One of the other interpretations
that was kind of an older Jewish thought about Melchizedek
is that he was actually Shem, the son of Noah,
that he was still alive at this time,
and he was this priest king who knew God
and was honoring God there in the land of Canaan.
Some say he was an angel,
and some say in the most prevalent interpretation
is that this Melchizedek
is a pre-incarnate appearance of Jesus Christ.
We call it a Christophany in the pictures
of where we see in the Old Testament
what is Jesus, or God the Son,
the second person of the Trinity,
appearing before his incarnation in the New Testament.
Now we're gonna walk through all that next week, okay,
and talk about the implications of all that
because really, at the end of the day,
it doesn't matter too much who you think he is,
but there are ramifications on what it means.
Hebrews chapter seven really explains the significance
of who he is in context of him being a priest
and a king at the same time
because that is something that definitely prefigures Christ.
This union, incidentally, of him being a priest and a king
was a very unique thing in the law of Israel.
It wasn't permitted for kings to also be priests
or priests to also be kings
because it was kind of looked at as a conflict of interest.
But this Melchizedek, who existed before the law,
before the law of Moses, before the temple,
we see here is a priest king.
This reality is what moved King David to write
in Psalms 110, which is the only other mention
of Melchizedek in the Old Testament.
He writes a verse there that we're pretty familiar with
where he says, you are a priest forever
according to the pattern of Melchizedek.
Other translations say according to the order of Melchizedek.
And of course, this is a prophetic verse
looking forward to Jesus Christ,
who is our high priest after the pattern of Melchizedek.
And that pattern is what Hebrews seven gets into in detail,
primarily being the fact that Jesus,
unlike the Levitical priests,
is both a priest and a king,
like this one guy we see very briefly here in Genesis.
So, as I said, we'll get into that next week
and the implications of all of that.
But for the sake of this study
and the sake of the story here,
what we see here is a king from Salem
who has a significant way of responding to Abram
and representing God himself.
And that is the God-fearing point of view
when it comes to success.
And then we have the King of Sodom,
which is the secular or worldly point of view
and response to success.
And what we're gonna see in this story is
how Abram responds to both points of view
and how that applies to us in our lives.
So, the first one it gets into here
as it introduces the King of Sodom,
it immediately goes into Melchizedek
and tells us what he does as he greets Abram
coming back from his victory.
So, in verse 18 of Genesis 14,
it tells us that Melchizedek, King of Salem, arrived
and brought out bread and wine.
Now, the first thing that this king does
when he meets Abram on the way back from his victory
is bring out refreshment to refresh Abram,
to refresh his men.
But some people see a greater symbolism
in the bread and wine there.
There's a couple different things that this could be.
Bread and wine is seen by some as a recognition of royalty.
That when bread and wine was brought to somebody,
it was somebody recognizing that there's a royalty
or an authority in this person.
Not necessarily that they were in higher authority,
but a recognition of position.
What I mean by that is in 1 Samuel 16, 14,
when King David's dad, Jesse, was getting David ready
to send him to see King Saul
after he had been anointed king,
it tells us there that he got his donkey ready
and actually sent bread and wine with him
to present to the king.
So some people look at that and they go,
oh, bringing bread and wine was a recognition of authority.
And people look at that as Abram's name being lifted up,
as God had prophesied that he would do with Abram.
Others go, it's just food and drink.
But then of course we know that bread and wine
are what Jesus offered to his disciples
as part of the Lord's Supper, right?
There was the bread that he broke and he said,
this is my body given for you.
And there was the wine offered
that represented the blood of the new covenant.
And in Jesus' case of offering the bread and wine,
he is the king of kings,
but his offering of the bread and wine
was a recognition of the sacrifice
that he was about to make.
And so some people connect that to the sacrifice Abram made
and going to risk his life and whatnot.
And there's definitely a prophetic connection to that.
But regardless of where you stand on that,
what we see here is this King Melchizedek
expressing his goodwill and his generosity to Abram.
He's being hospitable, he's being welcoming,
he's being ministerial to him.
And so the bread and wine is essentially this picture
that he lays out this banquet for the conqueror
of the four kings of the East as he comes back.
And so Abram and his men get to be refreshed from that.
So he's given this gift of bread and wine,
and then he's also given the gift of blessing
from Melchizedek.
Verse 19, it says he blessed him and said,
Abram is blessed by God most high,
creator of heaven and earth.
Now this is a initial fulfillment of the promise
that God gave Abram back in chapter 12.
If you remember there when Abram was in Ur
and he was just being an Urite and living as an Urite,
God called him, called him to the promised land.
And it said there in Genesis 12, verses one through three,
the Lord said to Abram, go from your land,
your relatives and your father's house,
to a land that I will show you.
And here is the promise, I will make you into a great nation.
I will bless you.
I will make your name great and you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you
and I will curse anyone who treats you with contempt
and all the peoples of the earth are on the earth
will be blessed through you.
So here as Melchizedek is blessing Abram,
we see the initial fulfillment of that promise.
Abram is being blessed as he is also
simultaneously had been a blessing to others.
I imagine the people that were taken hostage
by the four kings when they got rescued,
I imagine they felt pretty blessed.
And so Abram had been a blessing to them.
Now, the promise in Genesis 12 also seems to indicate
that Melchizedek himself is likewise blessed
because he is blessing Abram.
Those who bless you will be blessed.
So what is this blessing that he keeps talking about?
What is this word?
Here in the Hebrew, the word blessing
means to be spoken of very highly,
to be exalted, if you will,
to have your name and your reputation lifted up
and presented for all to see.
Well, that falls in line exactly with what Abram
was promised in Genesis 12, that your name will be made great.
So Abram is being praised.
He is being lauded in that sense,
that you are blessed by God most high,
where the idea is that God is saying,
Abram is well done, good and faithful servant, right?
So he says, God is blessing you,
and then he refers to God again as that phrase, God most high,
the big, almighty, huge God that's up there.
And then he calls him the creator of heaven and earth.
The phrase heaven and earth in Hebrews
was a Hebrew way to say everything.
Everything in heaven, everything on earth.
He is the creator of everything.
And this recognition, this response, this blessing,
it's in contrast to how the king of Sodom responds
to Abram, who would give no blessing to Abram,
who would receive no blessing.
He would just pretty much ask for what he thought
was still his, and we'll get to that in a moment.
But Melchizedek, Abram, you're blessed by God most high,
who is the creator of heaven and earth.
If you have an older translation,
that word creator might be possessor instead,
and that's another way the word can be rendered.
So what he's saying here is he's like,
Abram, you are blessed by God most high,
the eternal, almighty creator of everything,
but he's also, you're being blessed by the one
who is the possessor of everything.
Everything belongs to him.
He is the one to whom all things belong,
both material and immaterial.
This is the God who's blessing you.
This blessing Melchizedek is giving him is grounded
in this God to whom all things flow,
and from all things flow, the creator,
the possessor of the universe, the almighty.
Why do you think he's telling that to Abram?
Well, put yourself in Abram's shoes.
He just had this great victory,
pretty lopsided victory if you look at the numbers.
He rescues his nephew Lot, which was his
real purpose in going.
What else did he get?
Five cities worth of hostages and all their stuff.
That's a pretty significant victory.
That's a pretty significant accomplishment there,
and it might be easy, and it was actually normally,
very normal that when a army would conquer another army,
the spoils of war were theirs by right.
That it was your reward, it was your stuff.
You got to loot the city, you got to take everything
that was theirs, and there was no sense of,
oh, don't do that.
It was like, no, you conquered.
You get it all, it belongs to you.
But in this blessing, Melchizedek is reminding Abraham
who is the possessor of all things.
He was reminding Abraham who all things already belong to,
so that Abraham wouldn't miss the point
who the stuff belongs to and who gave it to him.
That is the idea here.
So he says, look, God Almighty, God Most High,
he's blessing you, Abraham.
And he's the one that is the possessor of all things.
And on top of that, verse 20 again, he says,
and blessed be God Most High who has handed
over your enemies to you.
So again, Abraham, your name is being lifted up,
you're being spoken well of by God.
God is saying well done, right?
The God that is above and over everything,
he is recognizing you for doing a good thing.
The one who owns everything, all that stuff you got
already belongs to him.
And his name, blessed be God Most High,
his name is even to be lifted higher because why?
He is the one who handed your enemies over to you.
Melchizedek understood something that the King of Sodom
didn't, as we'll see in the King of Sodom's response,
that Abraham's victory, Abraham's success,
not just this one, but all victories that he would have
and ever will have were victories from God.
That the success was granted to him by God,
it was from God, and therefore he is to be praised.
His name is to be lifted up for every success,
for every victory.
Abraham, don't miss this point here.
This great victory you did while absolutely impressive
in man's eyes and wow, what a big thing you did,
don't let it go to your head.
Don't take the credit.
Remember who your God is.
Remember who gives you everything you've ever been given
and remember who gave you victory.
It is God Almighty.
God handed them over.
That very language in the Orangier language
is speaking as if God's like,
you know those people in that army?
They were mine.
That stuff that they took, yeah, it belongs to me too.
The King of, yeah, they're all mine, I'm the creator.
So when you went out to do the right thing,
to do the godly thing, to do the honorable thing,
go rescue your nephew, you weren't chasing down the riches,
you weren't chasing down the possessions,
you were just going to do what was right
and God said, yeah, and I handed it over to you.
That is the right place to recognize
when we have victory over our enemies,
when we have successes in our life,
that it is God the one who is handing it to us.
And that is what helps us stay in a humble mindset
after success.
To not get puffed up, to not be like,
well gosh, I'm pretty good.
Wow, I'm pretty smart.
Man, that was a pretty genius idea I put out there
to close that business deal.
And God's always right there to say,
yeah, who gave you the brain to think of that idea?
Who gave you the mouth to speak it?
Who gave you the feet to get to that business meeting
to speak that idea?
Don't forget to give God the glory.
Now, in verse 20 again, we see Abraham's response
to this blessing.
Melchizedek, King of Salem, priest of the most high god,
the implication here is that Abraham understood,
he believes the same God that I believe in.
That God most high he is talking about,
that's the God I know.
That is the God that spoke to me.
That's the implication here that Abraham understood.
And so as he's being told,
Abraham, you are being blessed by God most high.
You are being given a blessing.
You are being given everything
that you have by God most high.
You are given the victory by God most high.
What does Abraham do?
Verse 20, he gave him a tenth of everything.
Now that word tenth there in the CSB,
it's translated tithe and other translations
and that's exactly what it is.
When we hear the word tithe, that word means a tenth, okay?
So Abraham here in response to this blessing
and this admonition and this encouragement from Melchizedek,
he gives him a tithe.
He tithes to Melchizedek.
And he says that he gave him a tenth of everything.
Some people go everything of what?
Is it only referring to the spoils of war that he just got?
Some people go, yeah, that's what it's referring to.
A lot of translations will render it that way
where they'll say Abraham gave a tithe of all the spoils.
Or Abraham gave a tithe of all the stuff
that was captured in battle or the plunder.
But there's other people that go, no, no, no,
the language here of everything is everything.
So it's referring to Abraham, all his assets,
everything Abraham owned and now just increased
that he gave a tithe to.
There's some debate on that and I'm not gonna take a stance
but render that how you will.
The point is is he tithed.
He tithed.
Now this is the first mention in scripture.
In scripture of a tithe, of giving a tenth.
So it's pretty significant.
Again, this is before the Mosaic law.
This is before the temple.
This is before the Levites existed.
This is before all of that.
We see the first mention here
of giving a tenth here in Abram.
Now what we see here is Abram recognizing and acknowledging
that everything he has and has been given is God's.
Right, Melchizedek, don't forget this.
Abram's going, yes, I acknowledge that.
That is what this giving is in response to here.
Not only the stuff but the victory.
He's responding to God's graciousness.
He's responding to God's gift.
He's responding to everything that God's given him.
Specifically, if you look at it this way,
he's responding to the increase he's just received from God
by giving back a tenth.
And his tithing to Melchizedek is tithing to God's representative
or the one who is a priest of God there.
And so we know that later on that tithes were given in Israel
to the priest serving in the temple, right?
But it wasn't like here, priest, this is tithing to you,
meaning your God.
The idea was is that you're the representative
of God most high, God almighty.
And so I'm bringing my tithe in to you
in honor and offering to him.
Now, but again, this is before the Mosaic law.
This is before temple worship, before all of that.
So the question that came up to my head
is where did 10% come from?
Why is it tithe, the 10%, is it because
that's what the word meant and so well, it means tenth.
We're gonna stick to that.
Did they invent the word tithe because somebody said
it should be 10%?
Well, that's, why isn't it 12% or 15%, right?
Where did this 10% come from?
If you're wondering, we don't know for sure.
We're not exactly sure where, we just see it happening here.
But again, the Bible shows us things, it teaches us things
and we develop our patterns and we follow the examples
of things here and so Israel ended up codifying this
in their law later on that you gave 10% of your increase,
right, your first fruits.
But the concept of giving to God, the concept of honoring
him, worshiping him and giving back to him what he's given
to you actually starts in the very beginning.
You guys remember the story of Cain and Abel, right?
The whole story of Cain and Abel was that they were doing
what they do and then they brought an offering
from what they earned in that sense, sheep and grain.
They brought that offering to God in a sense of honoring
him and worshiping him and that whole story tells us
that at the time of Cain and Abel, this concept of giving
an offering to God was already known.
It was already understood, they knew to do that.
Specifically because when God accepts one and not the other
and Cain gets all upset about it, we see God saying,
look, if you just do what is right, you do what you know
you should be doing, we won't have a problem.
So there was already an understanding of giving to God
in worship and honor of him was a thing to do.
Now what's interesting to me is we go back to the garden,
we see Adam and Eve in the garden and God said,
here's everything, it's all yours.
It's all yours to enjoy, have fun, partake,
it's just do whatever you want with it
because it's all for you.
This was the situation that God had created in the garden.
But he said, but there's one little piece that is not yours.
Don't eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
It's almost like God was saying, look, 90% of everything
is yours but this 10% belongs to me.
Not you, you are not to take it, you are not to have it.
What did man do?
90's not good enough, I want 100.
I want all of it.
And so they sinned, they partook of the fruit
and then sin entered the world and everything fell apart
and then the very first kids we have recorded,
we see that this idea of giving back to the Lord
and offering is already instituted.
Now, this is just my personal opinion here
but I think the idea of offering back to God
was instituted after the fall
because God wanted to make sure
that we would always remember,
always remember that everything we have is from him.
And when God says this part is for me,
that we are not to violate that
because how dare you think that all of it's yours
when actually all of it is his
and he's letting you keep most of it.
And so that's my personal opinion
of how this was instituted here
and so we know that offering was in place already.
Then when we get to the flood,
we read how Noah got all the animals on the ark,
God brought the animals and then he said
he also took seven pairs of the clean animals.
After the flood subsided, he got out,
he built an altar and he offered these animals
as burnt offerings, what does that tell us?
That the idea of what was an acceptable clean offering
and what was not an acceptable offering
was already understood by Noah.
The idea of building an altar and presenting that to God
was already understood as a means of worship
and a means of honoring God.
So it's not difficult for us to go then,
he probably taught that to his sons, right?
And then of course we saw how the nations went out,
one of the lines ended up being God's people
and the other ones became the Gentile nations of the world.
We looked at how down through history,
people started deviating in their worship
and creating false gods and doing all this stuff.
But what we do know through looking back
and looking into ancient cultures and archeology and stuff
is in all of these cultures, the Sumerians,
the Babylonians, the Akkadians, the Assyrians, all of this,
all of those cultures had many false gods
and understood that you give offering to those gods.
It was just a part of culture.
They somehow knew that.
It came from somewhere.
Now of course in most of those cultures
that were worshiping all these false gods,
it was wrongly placed, but still there was the idea
of that you bring offering to that which is deity.
Abram grew up in Ur.
We studied back then that Ur was a major center
of moon worship.
They actually had at the top of their ziggurat
the temple to the moon god, Nana.
So Abram having grown up in this culture
knew that yeah, you take offerings to that which is deity.
Now Abram had been introduced to the one true and real god
by God himself.
Abram now knew that all that stuff is false, it's fake.
But the idea of that you give offering to deity
was still a part of his concept.
It was still part of the culture.
It was still a part of what went all the way back
to the beginning when everybody truly did worship
and know the one true god and him alone.
And so Noah gives, Abram is now giving the idea,
and so it's likely that this concept of giving offerings
and stuff, it was just understood.
We don't have any recording where God said
this is what I want you to do.
We just see the examples of it in scripture, right?
Now the idea of 10%, nobody knows for sure.
There are some interesting ideas that in the early cultures
everybody did everything on a base 10 system, right?
Everything is based on fives and tens and so on and so forth.
And so in a base 10 system people said
what's the least I can give?
One tenth, right?
That's conjecture.
And then the Sumerians anyways had a base 60 system,
but go Google that if you're interested.
The point is is that tithing, the offering was recognized
as paying homage to one who is superior.
It was the inferior paying homage to one
that was recognized as superior to themselves.
Now in pagan cultures the giving, the homage, the offering,
even if it was a 10% thing,
was a means of getting what I want.
It was a means of appeasing that God so I don't get killed
so that I don't have misfortune in my life.
It was a selfish means of manipulation
so that I could get what I want.
But in Judaism and then ultimately in Christianity,
the idea of giving to the Lord,
to the Lord is a response of obedience.
We don't do it to earn anything from God.
We don't do it to earn his favor.
We already have his favor.
And so the practice of giving,
going all the way back to here,
Abraham recognizing that you are representing God most high
and God most high has blessed me
and God most high has given me everything I have.
The response is how could I not give back to him
in recognition that all of it is his anyways?
And so in Judaism and Christianity this developed,
this idea of giving in response,
giving out of obedience,
but really giving out of gratitude and thankfulness.
And so this is what we see in Abram's example here.
Now what this means is that Abram's giving of a tithe
to God's priest or God's representative Melchizedek
was Abram giving thanks and recognizing the God
that Melchizedek represented as a priest of that most high.
And as I said earlier, I believe that Abram had understood
the God you're talking about is the same God I serve,
except Abraham knew him as Yahweh, the Lord.
Melchizedek apparently knew him as El Elyon, God most high.
And so we'll deal with that with a little bit.
But this whole idea of honoring and recognizing
and expressing gratitude and giving,
it's the same today in the church
when we talk about tithing or offering.
It's the same idea.
Like God does not need our money.
God doesn't need our time.
God doesn't need our talents.
Right?
I mean did he need any of us in the beginning
when he said let there be light?
No, but God teaches us and examples for us
the idea of giving because it's a response to I recognize
who he is.
I recognize that everything I have is his.
And that he's asking me to steward most of it.
But when we don't do these things
with it's our time, our talents, or our money,
what we're communicating is that no, it's mine.
It belongs to me.
I get to dictate what is done with it.
And we're gonna see that in the King of Sodom in a moment.
So verse 21, that's where we come to the King of Sodom.
So Melchizedek does this awesome blessing, speaks to him.
Abram's like oh my gosh, here's my offering to the Lord
in recognition of who he is and what he's done.
And then the King of Sodom said to Abram,
give me the people and take the possessions for yourself.
That's it, that's all we got about King of Sodom's response.
One little short sentence here.
It's not even a Abram, thanks for the rescue.
There's no thanks, there's no recognition,
there's no blessing, there's no honor given to Abram
as in like hey good job, there's none of that.
There just seems to be the attitude of hey cool,
you rescued me but I'm still a king.
So I'm gonna command you to do what I want you to do.
It doesn't even say he asked Abram.
He said to Abram, he dictated, he commanded.
Give me the people, you keep the spoils.
Maybe when he observed Abram give a test to Melchizedek,
he's like oh here's my chance to get my stuff back.
But the contrast is very obvious between Melchizedek
and the King of Sodom.
Melchizedek greets Abram with refreshment,
with sustenance, possibly a recognition of yeah,
you're God's kid, you're doing what he's called you to do,
you're in the land he's called you to,
you have the authority to do this, whatever.
But Sodom, King of Sodom gave nothing,
not even a thank you.
Melchizedek said you are blessed by God
and God be blessed because he gave you this victory.
Sodom, no acknowledgement of God,
no acknowledge of anything, instead he just says
look, give me my people back.
As if he had any place to dictate anything.
Melchizedek said Abram, God gave you that victory.
Thus, all that stuff and those spoils you got,
God gave that all to you.
The idea is Abram recognized who's in control
and where it all comes from.
King of Sodom apparently still thought that the people
and the stuff was his to give, even though it had all been
taken away from him like that.
Even after hearing Melchizedek tell Abram
that God gave him the victory and that by extension
all the spoils of that war was his,
the King of Sodom still thought
that he got to dictate what was done with it.
Instead of being a man who's now going oh my gosh,
God, you are real, God, you gave me a kingship
and you gave me a city and you gave me all the stuff
and we used it for wickedness and God,
I see now that we're judged for our wickedness
and I'm so sorry, God, you are the God that owns everything
and creator, it's all yours.
Nope, he's still saying give me what's mine.
Give me what's mine.
Verse 22.
But Abram said to the King of Sodom,
I have raised my hand in an oath to the Lord,
God most high, creator of heaven and earth,
that I will not take a thread or sandal strap
or anything that belongs to you
so you can never say I made Abram rich.
I will take nothing except what the servants
have already eaten but as for the share of the men
who came with me, Anor and Eshkol and Mamre,
those are the three Canaanites that Abram had a treaty with,
they can take their share.
You see the Bible talks about the world,
the flesh and the devil.
That is always coming against us,
the world being the system around here
that is like devoid of God and selfish and me first.
Our flesh, our sinful flesh which is definitely me first
and then devil, the devil who is ultimately the first guy
who said me first is now trying to get all of us
to think me first all the time.
Those three things will always want to take the credit
for anything good that happens in our life.
We'll always wanna take the credit.
The world, your flesh wants to say I made you rich.
I made you rich, I made you successful, I made you smart.
Your flesh especially, you put in all this time to learn,
you're the one who earned that, it's because of you,
your success is all yours.
Then of course when we have victory and success,
the world, the flesh and the devil is like look,
you get to keep all the spoils, just give me what's mine,
give me your honor, worship me a little bit
and then look, I'll give you the riches.
Isn't that what the devil did to Jesus in the wilderness?
See all the kingdoms of the world, just worship me,
I'll give you all of it.
And the world will always want to do that,
say keep it, you earned it so it could get a hold on us
and if we listen to that and we go yeah, I did earn that.
I did work, I shouldn't have to give that up.
Well then what happens is the poisonous contagion of pride
begins to take root in our lives.
Abram is telling the king of Sodom, look,
if it comes through you, if it comes from you,
if it comes because of you, I want nothing to do with it.
I don't want money from you, I don't want accolades from you,
I don't want even congratulations from you, why?
So that you will have no place, no standing
under any circumstances to take credit
for what God has done.
God is the one that deserves the credit.
Now we have to take that same stand.
It's a hard stand sometimes, because sometimes it means
walking away from something that we go,
oh that might be really good, you know?
Someone says look, just stop talking about Jesus
and you'll get the promotion.
Why?
So that they could say it wasn't Jesus that gave you
that promotion, it was us.
And sometimes the decision we have to make in that moment
is no thank you, you can keep your measly promotion.
Because I'm a child of the king.
And so Abram makes this stance.
This stance that is saying look, I'm not gonna accept
the world's way, I'm not gonna accept the gifts offered
from the world, I'm not gonna do any of that.
Because if I do, then I'm gonna be poisoned
with the temptation to think I earned it.
It was me and my skill and my effort.
We'll be tempted to shift our trust
and our faith in God into ourselves.
And it's subtle.
There are a lot of Christians that are like,
oh no, I fully trust God, except in these areas of my life
where they lean on themself.
And they take the credit in those areas of their life.
You do that, your witness will be tainted.
You do that, your flesh will be inflated
and pride will be birthed in your life.
Instead, instead of being like the king of Sodom
who lost everything and is still going, it's mine,
I get to dictate what I do with it.
Or to be like Abram that says look,
every success is attributed to God.
Every victory is attributed to God.
We have to do that because that's how we guard ourselves
against getting puffed up.
It's all God.
You may be incredibly skilled and incredibly talented
and incredibly good at what you do
and you put in the fourth in the effort
and things work for you and you're successful
and that may all be true.
But you gotta give the glory to God.
You gotta give the praise to God.
You gotta give the honor and the accolades to God
lest you be puffed up.
It's when we remain in the proper mindset
with what we have, what we've earned,
the successes we've gotten, the accomplishments that we have,
when we stay in that mindset that all of it is of God,
from God, because of God.
When we stay in that mindset that nothing I have
is mined by right.
Mined by birth, mined by effort.
We stay in a place of humility.
And especially in the face of our salvation, right?
God saved us from hell, death, the grave.
We're still working that out in this life
but one day we're gonna be in heaven forever with God.
He did all of that.
And yet we'll still think, yeah,
but I get to negotiate with that thing in my life.
That area of my life that we don't have a place to negotiate.
God has purchased us with his precious blood.
But like the king of Sodom, sometimes we're like,
hey cool, you saved me, awesome, give me what's mine.
Here, I'll offer you this measly little thing as a thanks.
And you miss the point.
Like I said earlier, Abram didn't go chase the army
because he wanted to get rich.
He went to save his nephew Lot.
He was just simply doing the right thing,
doing the godly thing, putting the needs of others
above his own as the Bible teaches us.
How did God respond to that?
Handed him total success.
And in this case, handed him all the spoils
and all the people.
But when offered to keep some of it,
given from the world, Abram's response to the king of Sodom
declared the same thing that his tithes to Melchizedek did.
God deserves the praise.
God deserves the glory.
God deserves the honor for everything.
Not me, not you, not us, ever.
To God be the glory.
We are not the authors of our own success, God is.
And you might be saying, well how come then people
who aren't saved have great success?
You have great success.
Really, in the vapor of this life facing eternity
and hell after, you think they have success?
They have nothing.
In Abram's oath here, he's now understanding,
he's having an enlarged understanding of who his God is
because he says, look, I've made an oath to the Lord.
That's Yahweh.
That's the God that Abram knows right now,
this personal God who spoke to him personally
and said, hey, I'm gonna do these things
and follow me and trust me.
And this personal God that he knows,
he goes, I've made an oath in the name of the Lord.
Then he goes, the God most high,
who maybe he's now being introduced to you
in a unique way from Melchizedek who's going,
I'm a priest of the God most high.
And he's going, oh, I just learned a whole new
scope of who my God is.
And then he says, creator in heaven and of earth,
the one who made everything,
which is an understanding that they both had.
Abram's view of God is just expanding here
and he's exalting his name, he's lifting up his name,
he's proclaiming his name, and he's defining
who his God is to this king of Sodom who's going,
hey, take what I'm offering you.
Are you kidding me?
I've made an oath to the God who loves me personally,
who cares about me deeply.
The God who is so much bigger and more powerful
than anything you could ever think or imagine.
The God who owns all that stuff you think
you have the right to give, who owns the people,
he created them, who owns you?
And you won't even acknowledge him.
This refusal by Abram to allow Sodom to bless him
in this way, it was just Abram's declaring
a total, total dependence on God.
He knew the name of God, he lifted it high
and to allow the world and the flesh
to take credit for his success in any way,
he knew it would just poison his soul.
So at this moment, we see Abram standing in the king's valley
as a victorious yet humble king.
That is, he's the one that's been given the land,
he's the one that's gonna be a progenitor of a people,
he's the one that's been just learning
to just follow God and understand it's all his
and nothing's mine and we see God going, yeah,
and I'm gonna lift you up.
He's making this militant statement of faith
against the perspective of the king of Sodom.
There is nothing the world has or can't provide
that is of any value.
God is the provider, God is the one who blesses,
God is the one who gives and takes away.
So we see Abraham here is humbling himself,
lowering himself that he would lift up the name of the Lord.
We open with Luke 14, 11.
It said, for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled
and everyone who humbles himself will be humbled.
And everyone who humbles himself will be exalted.
I think the king of Sodom may have exalted himself
quite a bit.
Oh boy, did God humble him.
And he still didn't get it.
Yet Abraham here is being lifted up
as he humbles himself before the Lord.
First Peter five, six, and seven says,
humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God
so that he may exalt you at the proper time
casting all your cares on him because he cares about you.
The right and proper response to every success,
every victory we have in our life is praise God.
Praise God, he gives us the talents, the abilities,
the brains as I mentioned, to think, to learn.
He gave us the hands, the feet,
everything to accomplish, everything we accomplish.
And so recognize that, have a humble mindset
and say, okay God, it's all yours, all glory to you.
Because when God gives us a victory and gives us a success,
it is truly us being blessed by God.
Not we who are blessing ourselves.
It's not us who earned it, it's God who gave it.
Always stay in that mindset.
And we demonstrate our belief and our understanding
of that mindset when we bless him through our obedience,
when we bless him through our trust,
when we bless him through our faith.
His name is lifted high in all of that.
So reject everything the world has to offer you.
Reject every opportunity the world wants to take
to shift the credit off of God even a little bit.
And as the word says, those who humble themselves
will be lifted up.
God himself said in his word, humble yourself,
and I'll exalt you at the right time.
But don't try and do it yourself
because you'll mess it all up.
With that, let's pray.
And then we'll move into our baptism.
And then we'll move into our baptism time this morning.
Father, we thank you so much.
God, your word is so amazing, so encouraging.
And Lord, we are so not humble people.
God, it's a work of you in our lives
to create the humility, Lord,
where we don't want the accolades,
we don't want the fame,
we don't want anything to come across
as if it's because of us.
Lord, our sinful flesh definitely wants to do that.
Our sinful flesh wants to do just like the devil
and say, I will be exalted above the most high.
And God, the foolishness of that statement,
how could you be more high than the most high?
God is just so silly what he was thinking.
And yet, God, it was pride that caused it.
Lord, purge us of pride.
Help us to be humble,
especially in our victories and our
to bless your name.
That others would come to know you
as their personal God, Yahweh,
as the God most high creator,
possessor of all things.
That God, we would do as your word says,
to die to ourself daily, to pick up our cross daily.
That we would not be known in any way,
but you would be.
We thank you so much.
We love you.
It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Well, you know, one of the ways that we,
as Christians, proclaim,
lift up God's name when he saves us,
is the act of baptism.
Baptism doesn't save you,
but it's a public profession
that God has saved me.
I've put my faith and trust in him.
And as a public profession,
the reason we do this as a part of our service,
is so that all of you as the public
are here to witness this glorious moment
with our brothers and sisters
that are taking this step today.
So I believe we have a couple people
that are getting baptized today.
If that's you,
I wanna give you some quick instructions, all right?
When I'm done with the instructions,
you're gonna stand up wherever you're seated,
you're gonna walk down the aisle,
and you're gonna go into the back behind the stage, all right?
If you brought clothes to change into for the baptism,
we have changing booths back there for you,
and we have staff back there
that's gonna watch your stuff,
we have cubbies for you to put your stuff in.
If you didn't bring anything,
and you're just like, I need to get baptized,
we have some clothes back there for you.
So if there's anybody else in here today,
and God has said, you need to get baptized,
and you're like, well, I didn't bring any clothes.
Problem solved, all right, we got it.
And so you're gonna come forward,
you're gonna get changed,
and then you're gonna come back out
and stand right up against the white wall right here.
Now, Pastor Rick is gonna be in the baptismal,
doing the baptisms today,
and so he will call you in one at a time,
you'll enter into the baptism,
we'll give you instructions and all that,
you'll get baptized,
you'll make that proclamation before the whole body,
we're all gonna celebrate with you,
and then you just go ahead and come out,
you'll go backstage, change back into your clothes,
and come out and continue to worship with us.
For the rest of us that are here, we're witnessing this.
We're witnessing a work in their lives
that God has done in ours, hallelujah,
what a glorious thing to celebrate.
We're gonna be worshiping during this,
and so I just encourage you, praise God,
lift up his name on high, because he has saved us,
he has saved those that are getting baptized,
and we want the whole world to know that, amen?
Amen, all right, if you're getting baptized today,
stand up right now, and come down to the front, awesome,
don't be bashful, all right, all right, praise God.
Like I said, just go back and get changed,
and we will be celebrating this with you guys.
For the rest of us, I'm just gonna pray again,
and we're gonna start worship,
and I'm just so blessed by the Lord,
and I'm so blessed by this church,
I'm so blessed by the heart that God has worked
in so many of you, I see that humility of Abraham
in so many different ways, but like me,
all of us, we always have edges
that need to be scraped off still,
we always have areas where we get a little puffed up,
and I just pray God is speaking to you today
about surrendering those areas
that you might still be hanging on to.
Surrender them to him and say,
God, I don't wanna take any credit in any way,
be glorified in my life.
I believe that's a prayer God answers,
and so God, we ask that you do that.
Lord, we're here to celebrate the work you've done
in our brother's lives, Lord,
they are here to proclaim that they have died to themselves,
that they have been born again through your spirit, God,
that they are saved forever,
and they want the world to know that.
Lord, that is so awesome.
And God, yet as we continue in this world,
we all still have our flesh with us,
and so we pray God that you continue the work,
and you complete the work that you began in us,
that each day, God, we would shed off more of ourselves,
that there'd be less of us in our life and more of you,
that you would be lifted high in all things.
God, we love you and we thank you,
it's in Jesus' name we pray, amen.