GREETING

Good morning. Can you guys give Nick and the worship team a huge hand? All right, it is really good to be with you this morning. And if we haven't met, my name is Josh. If you want to go really formal, you can call me Joshua, but that would be a little bit strange. And it's just good to be with you and glad that you guys are with us.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

OPENING PRAYER

SERIES FORECAST FOR THE NEXT FEW WEEKS

INTRODUCTION

Okay, let's get into Genesis. again, like I said, if you have a Bible, my encouragement is always to bring a copy of God's Word with you to church. And if you don't own a copy of God's Word, we have plenty of Bibles in the back or in the lobby. We'd love for you to have one of those as a gift from us. So Genesis chapter 14. We are learning in this section of Genesis about a man named Abraham. And I said a couple weeks ago, and I still believe it, that apart from Jesus in Scripture, there's no other more prominent or more important biblical figure than Abraham. And this part of Genesis tells us about Abraham and his life. So up to this point in Genesis, we saw, have seen already about God's creation, about God's existence eternally, about mankind's fall and descent into sin and chaos, about God's judgment and redemption through Noah and through the flood. And now we're seeing how God chose to initiate his plan of redemption and salvation through this imperfect man named Abram And we've seen how that even though Abram is imperfect, and a couple weeks ago we saw that Abram failed miserably, we've seen how God is faithful and that was if I'm being honest a very encouraging message to me personally to know that God is still faithful even when I'm unfaithful, even when I fall short. Isn't that so encouraging? And so we can see God's faithfulness in that. And we're also seeing about Abraham that even though Abraham is imperfect, he's learning to day by day, trust in God and lean on God by faith. You're going to hear me cough a few times today, and I apologize for that. When I was going to school in when I was in college going to school to become a pastor, I had a nightmare one night. And my brother was pastoring a church in Indiana at the time. I was attending his church while going to college. And my nightmare was that I was sitting on the front row of his church and he got up to preach and he looked at me and said, Josh, I'm not feeling well, can you come up and preach for me? And I was like, okay, alright, I'll do this. And so I got up there to speak, and he had his notes on the podium, and he just had three words on the paper, and it was one word for each point of his sermon. And it was definitely a nightmare. I I'm in my dream, I preached it and it was amazing, but I'm saying that in case I need to tap one of you to come up and preach for these for me this morning. I do have a cough drop. I'll see I'll see how we do. Yeah. Scotty be ready whenever you're over there. Let's go. So today we're gonna see Abraham do well. So we've seen Abraham do poorly. We've seen them make mistakes. Today we're gonna see Abraham do something well. And his actions are going to point us to the ultimate rescuer and redeemer, and that is Jesus. And so let's stand together in honor of the reading of God's Word. We're going to be reading all of Genesis 14. I do want to encourage you to pray for me. There's a lot of interesting names again in this passage. If you're looking for baby names, you can jot some of these down as we Alright, Genesis 14, starting in verse 1. And pray that we receive this as it is the very words of God.

SCRIPTURE READING: GENESIS 14 ESV

In the days of Amraphel king of Shinar, Arioch king of Ellasar, Chedorlaomer king of Elam, and Tidal king of Goiim, these kings made war with Bera king of Sodom, Birsha king of Gomorrah, Shinab king of Admah, Shemeber king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela (that is, Zoar). And all these joined forces in the Valley of Siddim (that is, the Salt Sea). Twelve years they had served Chedorlaomer, but in the thirteenth year they rebelled. In the fourteenth year Chedorlaomer and the kings who were with him came and defeated the Rephaim in Ashteroth-karnaim, the Zuzim in Ham, the Emim in Shaveh-kiriathaim, and the Horites in their hill country of Seir as far as El-paran on the border of the wilderness. Then they turned back and came to En-mishpat (that is, Kadesh) and defeated all the country of the Amalekites, and also the Amorites who were dwelling in Hazazon-tamar.

Then the king of Sodom, the king of Gomorrah, the king of Admah, the king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela (that is, Zoar) went out, and they joined battle in the Valley of Siddim with Chedorlaomer king of Elam, Tidal king of Goiim, Amraphel king of Shinar, and Arioch king of Ellasar, four kings against five. Now the Valley of Siddim was full of bitumen pits, and as the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, some fell into them, and the rest fled to the hill country. So the enemy took all the possessions of Sodom and Gomorrah, and all their provisions, and went their way. They also took Lot, the son of Abram’s brother, who was dwelling in Sodom, and his possessions, and went their way.

Then one who had escaped came and told Abram the Hebrew, who was living by the oaks of Mamre the Amorite, brother of Eshcol and of Aner. These were allies of Abram. When Abram heard that his kinsman had been taken captive, he led forth his trained men, born in his house, 318 of them, and went in pursuit as far as Dan. And he divided his forces against them by night, he and his servants, and defeated them and pursued them to Hobah, north of Damascus. Then he brought back all the possessions, and also brought back his kinsman Lot with his possessions, and the women and the people.

After his return from the defeat of Chedorlaomer and the kings who were with him, the king of Sodom went out to meet him at the Valley of Shaveh (that is, the King’s Valley). And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. (He was priest of God Most High.) And he blessed him and said,

“Blessed be Abram by God Most High,
Possessor of heaven and earth;
and blessed be God Most High,
who has delivered your enemies into your hand!”

And Abram gave him a tenth of everything. And the king of Sodom said to Abram, “Give me the persons, but take the goods for yourself.” But Abram said to the king of Sodom, “I have lifted my hand to the LORD, God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth, that I would not take a thread or a sandal strap or anything that is yours, lest you should say, ‘I have made Abram rich.’ I will take nothing but what the young men have eaten, and the share of the men who went with me. Let Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre take their share.”

PRAYER FOR THE MESSAGE

And let's ask for God's help. As we understand this word and apply it. God again, thank you for the faithfulness of your people. Thank you for those who've gathered and desire to hear from you. God, I pray that you'll work through me and I pray that there'll be no distractions. I pray that when we leave here today, we will know that we God, you are good and faithful, and you are sovereign and you rule and you reign, and we can't praise you enough for the gift of your son and salvation and new life in him. So God, please bless every person, please bless every marriage, please bless every family. By your grace and for your purposes. In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.

THE MESSAGE

You may be seated.

So how'd I do in those names? So no. what they taught you what they taught me in in college was just say it loud and confidently and, people won't know the difference. So anytime we're studying scripture, and what I want to encourage you to do when you're reading the Bible, on your own, when you're reading passages of scripture, I would encourage you to ask yourself three questions.

The first question I would encourage you to ask is: what does this teach us about God? So when you're looking at scripture, it may be a very obscure passage, it may be like I don't even know what this says or what this means, but ask yourself the question: what does this teach us about God?

The second question I would encourage you to ask is what does this teach us or tell us about ourselves? What does this tell us about humanity and human beings? What does this tell us about ourselves?

And the third question I want us to ask, especially in this passage, is how does this point us to Jesus? How does this direct our gaze and our attention toward Christ? Jesus said in John five thirty-nine and forty, Jesus said to the Pharisees, You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life. See the Pharisees thought that by obeying the laws of the Old Testament, that they would, because they keep the laws and rules of the Old Testament, that they would have life. But Jesus said this: and it's they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. So the point of the scriptures is to point us to Jesus so that we may come to Jesus and have life.

So I think a good s a good verse that would summarize Genesis fourteen and where we're headed with today's sermon is John 6:33, where Jesus said:

“In this world you will have trouble, but take heart, I have overcome the world.”

That's my sermon in a nutshell from this passage. In this world you will have trouble, but take heart, Jesus said, I have overcome the world. So I apologize, but a lot of my illustrations come from sports. So if you're not a sports person, I understand that may not connect with you. That's all I got. Alright? So growing up, I played a lot of sports. I played a lot of soccer. this is back in the good old days of AYSO. And I also played some basketball for my high school. I learned a lot of lessons mainly from losing. You can learn lessons from winning, but you can learn even more from losing. So I learned a lot playing sports. And in sports you get to experience the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. I doubt many of you remember the ABC sports intro that has that line in it, but it's a great metaphor; sports and athletics can be a great metaphor for life.

In life, there are a lot of ups and downs. But we know that in Christ, we have the victory. We know as Christians, we know who wins. And in Jesus, we know that we have redemption and victory. So no matter what life may throw at you, in Christ, we know that we are victorious. Amen, church. So we're gonna walk through this passage. I'll do my best to explain it, and then we can talk about how it applies to our lives, and I hope this is an encouragement to you.

So the first thing that we are going to observe in this first section, where all these kings and all these people are fighting against each other. we can summarize it this way. Number one, that Lot, this man named Lot, got caught up in the conflict of the sinful world around him, and this also happens to us.

So the best way I can explain the first 12 verses, which I'm sure you guys understood it completely as we read it through that time, is it's listing a bunch of kings and it's listing a bunch of names. If you remember from last week in Genesis 13, there's two people: there's Abraham and there's Lot. And Lot is Abraham's nephew, so they're family, but because God was blessing them and their herds were growing, they couldn't occupy the same space, so they they chose this to part ways, and Abraham said, Lot, you choose. And Lot chooses an area that is visually and materially very prosperous, but it's in an area known as Sodom and Gomorrah, an area known for wickedness and sinfulness. So Lot chooses something that is materially prosperous but it's dangerous for him spiritually and so by nature of where lot chooses to go he finds himself in this area of conflict and all these people are fighting with one another. And he gets caught up as collateral in this conflict. And that can happen in life.

Look at the end of verse 9. Just to summarize that section, it says four kings So these are just people who are overseeing areas and they're teaming up with one another and fighting against other people and there's just this conflict that's taking place. Look at verse 10. Now the valley of Siddam was full of bitumen pits. Anybody know what a bitumen pit is? Tar. It's tar. it's like it's like quicksand. You'd find yourself in this and you'd get stuck and you wouldn't be able to get yourself back out of it. It says as this is this is describing the chaos of battle. I think we have a couple pictures of what that might have been like. So as they're fleeing from this battlefield, as they're running for their lives, it says even some of them are trapped in these tar pits. Either they threw themselves in there to escape death, or whatever the case is, this is the chaos of battle. This is the chaos of war.

But I think the point of this story, the point of this section, I think the reason this is in scripture is found in verse 12. Says:

“they also took Lot, the son of Abram's brother, who was dwelling in Sodom in his possessions and went their way.”

I think this is why this is here. I think Moses, the author, is wanting to draw our eyes and attention to the fact that Lot and his family, Abraham's relative, gets caught up in this conflict and this war. And it leads to a question. Have you ever found yourself caught up into something, maybe by your own decisions, or just because of the chaos of a sinful world, and been swept up into the chaos of it through loss or tragedy or some other means. I think this describes life in a fallen world.

My wife and I are part of a family text thread, and we have family that live in Indiana. And they've been going through some a season of storms and flooding that are taking place there. And it's causing problems. And one of the sad tragedies of this that we're aware of through our family that lived down there is there were some high school boys that saw a flowing river that looked fun, decided to jump off a bridge to swim and have fun, and one of the boys didn't didn't surface. So these families are dealing with this tragedy. This is part of living in a fallen world that there's sadness and there's tragedy and there's chaos and conflict, and sometimes it's of our own making, and sometimes it's just because we get swept up as collateral damage in the tragedies. Again, Jesus said, In this world you will have trouble, but take heart because I have overcome the world.

Oftentimes in these biblical stories, we're asking ourselves, we're trying to figure out which character we are. Have you ever done that before? Especially in the gospels where Jesus is giving illustrations or parables. But in these stories too, and we have two main characters: we have Lot and we have Abram. We're getting to Abram in just a second. Abram's like the hero. I would like to think that I'm Abram, but in reality, probably we're more like Lot in this story. Abram's really pointing toward Christ. We're more like Lot. And I read, and this was just so encouraging, such a good reminder, and one of the commentaries that' beens helpful to me in the last couple weeks is the ESV expository commentary. I read this:

“This is the good news, (talking about the fact that Jesus is the better Abraham). Because all of us are more like Lot in this story than like Abram. We too have wandered astray from the pathway of blessing through our own sinful choices and found ourselves in desperate bondage to our sins and transgressions, unable to free ourselves”

So that's the first part is Lot just gets caught up as collateral in the chaos of the sinful world around him.

I love this next part. Number two, Abram rescued Lot at great personal sacrifice and risk. The parallel is that Jesus willingly laid down his life for us. So let's go back to verse thirteen to verse sixteen. Says:

"Then one who had escaped came and told Abram the Hebrew, who was living by the oaks of Mamre the Amorite, brother of Eshcol and of Aner. These were allies of Abram. When Abram heard that his kinsman had been taken captive, he led forth his trained men, born in his house, 318 of them, and went in pursuit as far as Dan.”

Now if you ever think that the Bible is boring, think again. Like this is awesome. And we know to this point Abram or Abraham hasn't had any children of his own. But this is men who are in his household. These are workers of his, these are herdsmen and their families. 318 of these trained men. So we're gonna start a new ministry here. We're gonna start training the men. No, not really. We’ll train them spiritually, but not in sword fighting. You can find that somewhere else. But what a crazy thing, isn't this? That Abram, it tells you about something of the times, it tells you something of the intentionality of Abram and his household. It also tells you that he's willing to go at great personal risk and sacrifice. That they're like, “okay, boys, Lot, our nephew, Lot, my nephew is in trouble. His family has been captured and taken hostage, and we're gonna go and rescue them.” That sounds pretty awesome. So at his own personal risk and sacrifice, Abraham comes or Abram comes and rescues Lot. And then the parallel is that Jesus comes as our rescuer. Jesus is the one who rescues us from sin and from death at his own personal sacrifice.

Jesus reminds us reminds us of this in John 10:17-18, Jesus said:

“No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have the authority to lay it down, and I have the authority to take it up again. This charge I've received from my Father.”

So Jesus is saying that he willingly laid down, willingly sacrificed his life for you and for me so that we could be forgiven of sins and set free from bondage and made right with our Heavenly Father. This is what Christ has done.

In John 10, verse 11, Jesus said:

“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.”

Amen church. So in the same way that Abram risked and sacrificed, Jesus also risked and sacrifice sacrificed for us. And this example of Abram also challenges us and reminds us of the personal obligation we have to rescue those who are dying from an enslaved to sin. James 5:19-20 says:

"My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.”

That we have an obligation, we have a charge. We have a commission as Christians to plead with people at our own personal risk to beg them to turn from their life of sin and to trust Christ. Amen, church?

So two questions. Number one, have you united yourself to Christ by faith, the only rescuer of your soul. Have you put your faith and trust in Jesus as the rescuer of your soul? And then second question is at what cost are you willing to warn and plead and challenge those who have not. Who is it that maybe comes to your mind even this morning that you know is not walking with the Lord, that God may want to use you to help to bring them back in love.

So Abram rescued Lot at great personal sacrifice and risk, and Jesus willingly laid down his life for us. Three hundred and eighteen trained men. Sounds pretty good. I think it should be a goal. Hashtag goals.

Alright, number three. Number three, Melchizedek was a king and priest of God. Jesus is our high priest and king forever. So now we get into this mysterious biblical character named Melchizedek and look at verses 18 and 19.

“And Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought out bread and wine, he was priest of God most high. And he blessed him and said, Blessed be Abram God most by God most high, possessor of heaven and earth, and blessed be God most high, who has delivered your enemies into your hand.”

So after this victory from Abram, after he rescues Lot, there are two kings that come out to him. One is the king of Sodom and one is the king of Salem. And the king of Sodom wants the loot and the possessions from the victory. And the king of Salem, Melchizedek, comes to bring blessing to Abraham.

So Melchizedek is a mysterious Old Testament character. Let me tell you a little bit about him. Melchizedek means king of righteousness. His name means king of righteousness. And he's the king of a town called Salem. And Salem means peace. Salem eventually becomes a town called what? Any guesses? Jerusalem. Jerusalem means city or foundation of peace. So Genesis is describing this mysterious Christ figure in the Old Testament pointing us to Jesus.

If you want to learn more about Machizedek, you can write your job this down and read this later on. Is Psalm 110 and the book of Hebrews, especially Hebrews chapter 7. We don't learn a ton about Melchizedek, but the Bible firmly places Melchizedek in scripture and also connects Jesus to Melchizedek, and we'll talk about that in just a moment.

But Melchizedek brings a couple things to Abram. What does he bring to him? He brings him wine and he brings him bread. What does that sound like? Sounds like communion, doesn't it? And he pronounces a blessing on him.

So Melchizedek is this Old Testament kind of prefiguring or type that points us to Christ. And Abram gives Melchizedek a tenth of everything. What does that sound like? I know you didn't want to say that, but that's what it sounds like.

So we see even before the Old Testament law, even before the Mosaic Law is given, that Abram has this instinct to give to the priest of God or this king of Salem a tithe or a tenth of all that he's been blessed with. And the scriptures talk about the fact that Jesus is a high priest in the order of Melchizedek. Psalm 110 and verse 4 says about Jesus that:

“you are a priest after the order of Melchizedek.”

And Hebrews chapter 7 says this about Jesus connecting him to Melchizedek says:

“The former priests were many in number because they were prevented by death from continuing in office.”

Just pause there for a second. It's hard to continue in an officer role if you have died.

“So the previous priests who were in that role of mediator between the people and God, they couldn't continue that permanently because of death. But Jesus holds this priesthood permanently because he continues forever. Consequently, Jesus is able to save to the uttermost or save completely those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them."

Praise God. So Jesus is our eternal high priest and king. So Melchizedek is this old testament whose person who's prefiguring and pointing toward Christ that Melchizedek did this by God's command for a season, but Jesus does this eternally on our behalf as we put our trust in him. Jesus is our eternal and permanent high priest and king, who's always interceding for us, who's always going before us to the Father on our behalf, who has made complete and total sacrifice for us on the cross. And Jesus is our righteousness, and Jesus is our peace. Lot was saved and rescued temporarily, but in Christ we are saved completely and forever. Those are good spots for hearty amens. Because of Jesus we win. Do whatever you want to the tent of this body, right? This body is called a tent. Do whatever you want to it. If I'm in Christ, I still win. This is the biblical perspective. With Jesus on our team, or more appropriately, with us on Jesus' team, guess what? We win. No matter what life throws at you in Christ, we still win. We are rescued, we are saved, we are redeemed by Jesus Christ. We win.

So if I had to summarize this again with a verse of scripture, it'd be that John 6:33 that in this world you will have trouble, but take heart because Jesus has overcome the world. And in him we are victorious. Amen, church.

So let me tell you as I close, let me tell you about my greatest sports victory. It's not that amazing. So I went to a very small Christian school. I had a great experience. I really appreciate it and grateful for it. I graduated top of my class of a class of thirteen and I had an astonishing an astounding three point seven five GPA. This is actually real, I'm not joking. This is actually real. But still top of my class. We had a a couple sports teams, the main team we had was basketball and because we didn't have enough players to field other teams. But played basketball and really enjoyed it, loved it. So when I was a freshman in high school, at that point, my next older brother, who happens to not be a pastor, he was a senior in high school and he was also on the basketball team. And so it was really fun. For that year we got to play together. Well he got to play. I got to sit on the bench is basically what that what that was that year. My brother, his main position was point guard. That's the person that brings up the basketball and kind of calls the plays and kind of directs the team a little bit. And so he was a point guard. That was also my position. There are a couple other players between him and me that would play if he couldn't play. so I got to ride the bench that year. But we had one game that we had against one of our arch rivals. We drove to Flint and played one of our teams that was we always had intense matchups against this team. They were a bigger, stronger, faster team than us. And you usually beat us. At that point, it was impressive to have anybody that could dunk the basketball, and they had a couple players that could dunk the basketball and they did several times on us.

In this particular game, it was just a few minutes left in the fourth quarter toward the very end of the game. And my brother fouled out. He used the maximum number of fouls, so he couldn't play anymore. for some somehow the next point guard he also fouled out. And so the coach looks down the bench. I think he probably looks several times to see if anybody else would reappear on the bench, but he looks down at me and he says, “Josh, you're in”. I was like, “oh, okay, all right, it's my turn.” And so I jump in the game and like I said, a couple minutes left in the game we,'re down by a couple of points and I dribble the ball down the down the floor and my man's not coming to guard me, so I'm coming up to the three point line. I'm like, I guess I can shoot the ball. So I shoot the ball and I actually make it. It was awesome, it was a miracle And so I was able to score. I he got a couple of assists. At one point I passed the ball and the other team tipped it away. So this guy's on a fast break, and I'm standing this just myself between him and the basket, and he feels like he's eight feet tall. And he was one of the guys that also dunked on us earlier in that game. And I'm a I'm a scrawny little freshman. And so but I he was coming toward me and you know a little ways before the basket I stopped in the lane and just kinda got ready to absorb the blow of him coming. And he kept coming and he plowed me right over. And the referee blew the whistle for a foul and he called a foul on him. He called charging on him. And that was a great moment. We went out and won the game. They wanted to fight us afterward, which was awesome. And we got on the bus and went home. That was my sports glory right there. That's my victory. Sometimes when I can't sleep at night, I will relive that in my mind and go back to the glory days. But no I don't have a letter jacket that I like wear from high school.

As sweet as that victory was, those victories pale in comparison to the victory that we have in Jesus Christ. And I just want to continue to encourage us and encourage you that if you are in Christ, you win. No matter what life throws at you, if you are in Christ, you win. Let's pray.

CLOSING PRAYER

Father, thank you for this time to be together and thank you for these reminders and encouragements from your word. I thank you that we can see Abram's courage to go rescue Lot. And I pray that that would move us and motivate us to not be afraid to move forward at personal risk and sacrifice to tell other people about you and to draw them back, to plead with them, to trust Christ. God, I pray that you'd remind us and encourage us, those of us who are in Christ, I pray, Jesus, that you would be the focal point of our thoughts and our motivations, and that we would see the value, we would see the eternal worth of knowing Jesus Christ. There's nothing more important, there's nothing more valuable than being known by you and knowing you. And God, we get to enjoy so many great things in this world, and we're so thankful for that. But I pray that none of that would overshadow the riches we have in Christ, the joy we have in Christ, the peace and security that we have in Christ, that the enemy wouldn't be able to steal or rob from us our contentment, our peace, our joy. God, you are good, you are gracious, and if we have Christ, if we have Jesus, we have everything. God, thank you for your love for us, your grace, your loving kindness. Just fill us with that peace and with that joy. Help us to fix our eyes, our gaze upon Jesus. We thank you for your love and your grace. We pray this things in Jesus' name. Amen.