SPEAKER_00: Father, we give you all the praise, Lord, because you're worthy of it.
SPEAKER_00: Testimony of the reason why you were worth praise.
SPEAKER_00: That we read in Genesis 15 is that if Moses could describe Abram in any way, it would be as a man who believes.
SPEAKER_00: This is what Paul takes up in the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: Every time almost that Paul talks about Abram, in fact, three times in three different letters, Paul brings up Abram.
SPEAKER_00: He calls him a man of faith, a man who believed God's word.
SPEAKER_00: It's the same with James.
SPEAKER_00: When James brings up Abram, he calls Abram and Abraham a man of faith, a man who believes.
SPEAKER_00: Something happens in Genesis 13 and 14.
SPEAKER_00: Chapters that we're taking up this morning.
SPEAKER_00: To move Abram from this man in Egypt who does not trust God, who does not believe God, to move him to this place where he can only really be described as a man of faith.
SPEAKER_00: And what Genesis 13 and 14 recount for us are a series of battles that Abram endures.
SPEAKER_00: Series of conflicts that Abram endures.
SPEAKER_00: That because of God's power working mightyfully in him, Abram wins.
SPEAKER_00: The most important battle, the battle that all these battles point to, is really the battle of Abram's heart, of whether or not Abram would be a man who had faith, a man who believed God's word.
SPEAKER_00: And so I myself, and I hope you this morning should be very interested to know what happened in Abram's life.
SPEAKER_00: What did he do to become this man in Egypt who did not trust God's word, to have this battle of the heart, a battle of placing his faith in God, whether he was going to place it in God or place it in himself to get to Genesis 15 and be called a man of faith, a man who believed God's word.
SPEAKER_00: I'm interested in that battle.
SPEAKER_00: I want to know how Abram won that battle of the heart, because it's a battle that my heart wages every day, and it's a battle that your heart wages every day.
SPEAKER_00: This battle of the heart is the battle that our heart has, whether it will trust in God or trust in ourselves when we lie awake at night filled with the anxieties of tomorrow, instead of trusting in God's provision, trusting in God's presence with us tomorrow.
SPEAKER_00: This is the battle of the heart that we have when we struggle with continuing and habitual sin in our life that we want to put off, that we repent of, but then the battle of the heart is so great that we lose, and instead of living for God, we fall into that sin again.
SPEAKER_00: This is the battle of the heart that our heart experiences at work when there's that coworker that is just so hard to love, and you know you're called to love them, but instead your heart is filled with jealousy when they thrive, your heart is filled with envy of them.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, you're irritable with them.
SPEAKER_00: This is a battle that our heart wages every day.
SPEAKER_00: And so my question is, what did Abram do to win the battle of his heart for God?
SPEAKER_00: And we see this in Genesis chapter 13 and chapter 14.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not going to read both these chapters for us this morning.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to walk through them as we work through this message.
SPEAKER_00: But the first thing I want you to know about a heart that is for God is that when your heart is for God, it engages in the pursuit of God.
SPEAKER_00: It engages in the pursuit of God.
SPEAKER_00: And so notice that Abram in the end of Genesis 12 comes out of Egypt and his life is spared.
SPEAKER_00: Even though he had wronged Pharaoh, even though he had afflicted Pharaoh, he comes out of Egypt with his life.
SPEAKER_00: And notice that as soon as Abram comes from Egypt, verse 1 says that he and his wife and all that he had and with him went into the Najeb.
SPEAKER_00: Look what it says in verse 2.
SPEAKER_00: Now Abram was very rich in livestock, in silver and in gold.
SPEAKER_00: Abram leaves Egypt and realizes not only what is he punished for his failure, in fact, he leaves Egypt rich with the treasures of Pharaoh.
SPEAKER_00: And so look what he does in verse 3 then.
SPEAKER_00: It says he journeyed on from the Najeb as far as Bethel to the place where his tent had been at the beginning between Bethel and Ai.
SPEAKER_00: You know what Abraham does right after his failure?
SPEAKER_00: He gets right back to the pursuit that God had put him on.
SPEAKER_00: This is so instructive for so many of us.
SPEAKER_00: So many of us, when we fail, what do we do?
SPEAKER_00: All right, it's all over.
SPEAKER_00: I'm done.
SPEAKER_00: And so many of us are so slow to repentance.
SPEAKER_00: So many of us, if we fail, it's like, okay, it's going to be a few weeks before I'm back on the path of pursuing God.
SPEAKER_00: You know what Abram does?
SPEAKER_00: Because of the mercy and grace that he's shown in Egypt, because he leaves Egypt with his life, you know what he does?
SPEAKER_00: He gets right back to the pursuit of God.
SPEAKER_00: This is so instructive for us.
SPEAKER_00: Christian, do you know that because of the grace and mercy of God, every morning you wake up, his mercies are new for you.
SPEAKER_00: The slate is wiped clean.
SPEAKER_00: Sins of yesterday are forgotten.
SPEAKER_00: They've been paid on the cross by Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And you have full freedom to get after the glory of God each day.
SPEAKER_00: This is what Abram does.
SPEAKER_00: He engages in the pursuit of God.
SPEAKER_00: But what does that pursuit look like?
SPEAKER_00: Well, notice that first Abram engages in the pursuit of God's praise.
SPEAKER_00: He engages in the pursuit of God's praise.
SPEAKER_00: So notice where Abram goes in verse 4.
SPEAKER_00: He goes to the place where he had made an altar at first.
SPEAKER_00: And there Abram called upon the name of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And understand this that if you want to engage in the battle of your heart and you want to have your heart won for God, the place that you need to be daily is the place of praise.
SPEAKER_00: You'll win the battle of your heart when constantly your heart is overflowing with this praise that despite the fact that you failed God time and time again, he has forgiven you.
SPEAKER_00: This ought to be the place of every Christian, every morning, worshiping God because you have been forgiven of much.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't it Jesus who said that he who forgives much, who has been forgiven much, loves much?
SPEAKER_00: And so it is in our lives that even as we open up the word in the morning for our time of personal worship, really we should be doing that until our hearts get to a place that they're overflowing with praise.
SPEAKER_00: I cannot believe that I once was lost, but now I am found.
SPEAKER_00: Our hearts should be overflowing with this praise that once we were blind, but now we see that God has done this work of redemption in us.
SPEAKER_00: You know what happens so often in our walk with the Lord?
SPEAKER_00: Don't we just get to a place where our testimony, it's kind of like, okay, I'll bring it up if someone asks me, but we just don't really think about the work that God has done for us.
SPEAKER_00: We don't really meditate on the fact that God has saved us from eternal separation from Him and given us eternal life in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And so we kind of live our lives with this melancholy, uh, you know, I'm a Christian now.
SPEAKER_00: Without often reflecting on how God's constantly forgiving us of our failures.
SPEAKER_00: And this is what Abram does.
SPEAKER_00: And so as soon as he gets out of Egypt, he immediately goes to the place of praise.
SPEAKER_00: Not only is he in pursuit of God's praise, but I want you also to notice that Abram is in pursuit of God's presence.
SPEAKER_00: If we're gonna engage in the pursuit of God, then our question needs to be where is God?
SPEAKER_00: How do I live in the presence of God?
SPEAKER_00: And so in verses five and six, a problem comes up.
SPEAKER_00: The problem that Abram and Lot have is really a good problem to have.
SPEAKER_00: It's a problem that many of us have.
SPEAKER_00: It's just they're too rich.
SPEAKER_00: Put up your hand if you have that problem, then I'm gonna come and talk to you after the service, and maybe I can help you with that problem, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Abram and Lot are too rich, and so when they go to this place of praise, they have so many flocks, they have so many people working for them that the land can't support them anymore.
SPEAKER_00: And actually, these people that are working for Abram and Lot are starting to like have strife with each other, Moses tells us.
SPEAKER_00: And so Lot, Abram looks at Lot, and in verse 8, he says, Let there be no strife between you and me and between your herdsmen and my herdsmen, for we are kinsmen.
SPEAKER_00: And so Abram says, Is not the whole land before you?
SPEAKER_00: Separate yourself from me.
SPEAKER_00: If you take the left hand, I'll go to the right.
SPEAKER_00: If you take the right hand, then I will go to the left.
SPEAKER_00: See what Abram does is he looks at the land and he says, Listen, this land can't support us, so you go one way, I'll go the other way.
SPEAKER_00: Reminds me of uh when I was a kid with my brother, we shared a room and I like taped off the room.
SPEAKER_00: This is my land, don't touch it.
SPEAKER_00: That's your land.
SPEAKER_00: And this is what Abram does.
SPEAKER_00: You take whichever one you want.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if we think about the context of Genesis, this is really kind of a, it seems a little bit like a foolish thing to do, isn't it, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00: Because Abram was told specifically by God to go to the land of Canaan.
SPEAKER_00: Abram was told by God that he was gonna be given a land.
SPEAKER_00: Abram had a mission, and it was to go to a specific place.
SPEAKER_00: And so it seems like what Abram is doing is kind of foolish.
SPEAKER_00: Like he's kind of putting it into Lot's hands if he's gonna be able to fulfill this mission.
SPEAKER_00: But really, what we see is that Abram's decision to let Lot choose the land is a decision of faith.
SPEAKER_00: Abram does this knowing that God had told him that he would receive the land.
SPEAKER_00: So he knows exactly what Lot's gonna choose.
SPEAKER_00: And Abram knows that if God's promised something, he can wait on the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: He can put all these things into the Lord's hands and trust that the Lord is going to bring him to the land that he has reserved for him.
SPEAKER_00: And so he lets Lot choose.
SPEAKER_00: And look what happens in verse 10.
SPEAKER_00: Lot lifted up his eyes and saw that the Jordan Valley was well watered everywhere, like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt in the direction of Zoar.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 11 says, So Lot chose for himself all the Jordan Valley.
SPEAKER_00: Well, what happens is Lot has this decision.
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like the Genesis 3 decision that Eve has that keeps coming up again and again.
SPEAKER_00: And really, it's a decision that comes up in our life day after day, really hour after hour.
SPEAKER_00: It's the Genesis 3 decision.
SPEAKER_00: Are you going to pursue what looks good to your eyes and what seems good to you, or are you going to pursue the thing that the Lord tells you to pursue?
SPEAKER_00: And what Lot chooses is the thing that looks good to his eyes.
SPEAKER_00: He looks to the Jordan Valley and it's well watered.
SPEAKER_00: It's like Egypt.
SPEAKER_00: There are riches in the Jordan Valley.
SPEAKER_00: And so even though Lot has left Egypt rich beyond what he could even imagine going into Egypt, the only thing that his heart desires is more and more.
SPEAKER_00: And so he goes to the valley of Jordan.
SPEAKER_00: But I want you to see something at the end of verse 11.
SPEAKER_00: Notice where Lot has to go, what direction Lot has to go in order to go to the Jordan Valley.
SPEAKER_00: It says, and Lot journeyed east.
SPEAKER_00: Now at this point, as we have read through Genesis, whenever we hear of someone going east, it should be like a gasp moment.
SPEAKER_00: You say, Oh, Lot's going east.
SPEAKER_00: Well, why is that a gasp moment?
SPEAKER_00: Because you know that as we've worked through Genesis, the farther east the people of God have gotten, the farther away from the presence of God they have gotten.
SPEAKER_00: To go east is like this idiom to say, like, you are far from the presence of God.
SPEAKER_00: Now listen, this isn't true geographically because I live east, so I need to just clarify that.
SPEAKER_00: If you're saying, okay, I'm east of Newmarket, redemption of this building, that means I'm not in a good spot.
SPEAKER_00: But in Genesis, it certainly means that.
SPEAKER_00: And that's because Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden of Eden to the east.
SPEAKER_00: They're cast out of the very presence of the Lord, the very temple where God dwelt was in the east.
SPEAKER_00: And so Lot, as he makes this decision, what he chooses to do is to go farther away from the presence of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: But notice also that this place where Lot settles in verse 12, it says Lot settled among the cities of the valley and moved his tent as far as Sodom.
SPEAKER_00: Now the men of Sodom were wicked, great sinners against the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: See, what Lot chooses is what he thinks will benefit himself the most, but really is to move himself out of the presence of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And why Abraham is so content to settle in Canaan is because in verse 14, this is where the Lord will speak to him.
SPEAKER_00: This is where the Lord is present with him.
SPEAKER_00: And this is so instructive to us in our daily battle, the battle of the heart for God, is that the place that you need to pursue is the place of God's presence.
SPEAKER_00: This is what Paul is getting at in 2 Corinthians chapter 6 and 7, and this is going to come up on the screen.
SPEAKER_00: What Paul does for us here is he collects two promises from Leviticus and Isaiah, and he quotes these promises.
SPEAKER_00: He says, This, that God made these promises to us.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, go out from their midst and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing.
SPEAKER_00: Then I will welcome you, and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.
SPEAKER_00: See, what Paul says, what Paul does is quotes these promises to say, listen, you know what God has promised you as a Christian?
SPEAKER_00: God has promised to be present with you, and as God is present with you, God has promised to be your father.
SPEAKER_00: You can live in a way that the presence of the Almighty God who created the universe is with you, and that God is present with you as your father.
SPEAKER_00: That's a reality because of the promise of God.
SPEAKER_00: And so then look at what Paul says.
SPEAKER_00: Since we have these promises, again, what promises?
SPEAKER_00: Well, the presence and the fatherhood of God, the felt presence and the felt fatherhood of God.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.
SPEAKER_00: You know what helps Abram make this decision that will ultimately glorify God?
SPEAKER_00: And you know what helps us make daily decisions that will ultimately glorify God?
SPEAKER_00: Is this desire to live in the presence of God.
SPEAKER_00: This desire to feel God's presence.
SPEAKER_00: There is a way to live that by sin you quench the Holy Spirit of God so that you can no longer feel his presence in your life.
SPEAKER_00: And there is a way to live that ushers in the felt presence of God so that you feel and know that he is with you.
SPEAKER_00: There's a way to live that absolutely ruins the presence of God in your life.
SPEAKER_00: We know this to be true in our lives, don't we?
SPEAKER_00: As maybe as married couples, you know that if you go out on a really nice date with your spouse, there is a way to ruin the atmosphere.
SPEAKER_00: There's a way to ruin the presence of your spouse with you.
SPEAKER_00: Well, just bring up maybe, maybe use that time, you know, you're at a really nice meal, it's really expensive.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe use that time to just pick out some sin in your spouse's wife in your spouse's life.
SPEAKER_00: Well, you know that all of a sudden the atmosphere is gonna change.
SPEAKER_00: All of a sudden, even though your wife's gonna be present with you, it's not gonna be the same presence.
SPEAKER_00: And so many of us wonder why we don't feel the presence of the Lord, and yet we spend our days pursuing the things where God is not present, instead of pursuing in obedience the commands that God has given to us.
SPEAKER_00: And what God is telling teaching us this morning about the battle of our heart winning or the battle of our heart for God is that if we're gonna do it, we need to love the presence of God.
SPEAKER_00: And you need to know this that if you don't love the presence of God more than you love the things of this world, you will never pursue God.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us wonder, why can't I just get my heart, why can't I just get my heart to pursue the things of the Lord?
SPEAKER_00: Why do I keep falling into this sin?
SPEAKER_00: Why do I keep messing up in this way?
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's because in that moment, you, like Lot, would rather have the riches of this world than like Abram be in the presence of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And until God does a work in your heart to transform your heart so that you are given perspective to see what is truly valuable in this life, then you'll never make the right decision.
SPEAKER_00: See, Lot, he pursues the materials of the world wanting more and more riches.
SPEAKER_00: It's helpful for us here to think about riches as well.
SPEAKER_00: It's helpful for us to think about the places of riches in our life.
SPEAKER_00: Notice that both Abram and Lot both leave Egypt rich.
SPEAKER_00: And the scriptures never condemn riches.
SPEAKER_00: The scriptures actually say that if you're given riches, it's a blessing because it's more blessed to give than to receive.
SPEAKER_00: And what you notice here are two rich men who both have a choice to either glorify God or dishonor God.
SPEAKER_00: And the way that you honor God with your riches is by valuing his presence more than you value accumulating more and more riches.
SPEAKER_00: Abram looks at both these lands and he says, I would rather be in the place where God's presence is than to be in the place where I can get more and more.
SPEAKER_00: And this kind of gives us a metric for how we're using our money and our possessions and our wealth to glorify God.
SPEAKER_00: See, our riches, is money possessions, do they get in the way of you giving your life to the Lord and pursuing his presence?
SPEAKER_00: Or are they just a subcategory of your pursuit of God?
SPEAKER_00: Are you more interested in the presence of God than you are in the accumulating of more and more things and stuff?
SPEAKER_00: But it also pursues God's promise like Abram did, so that what the Lord finds himself after Lot leaves him in verse 14, the Lord is in front of Abram, speaking to him.
SPEAKER_00: And what the Lord says to Abram is a reminder of the promise that he has given to him, that all the land that he sees, north, it says in verse 14, northward and southward and eastward and westward, all this land would be given to Abram.
SPEAKER_00: The last thing way that we per engage in the pursuit of God is by pursuing his promise.
SPEAKER_00: And just like Abram, each of us are given this choice day after day.
SPEAKER_00: Do we want to pursue what God has promised will give us joy?
SPEAKER_00: Or do we want to pursue the things that we think in our own flesh and our own ability that will give us joy?
SPEAKER_00: What do you want?
SPEAKER_00: God's promise?
SPEAKER_00: Or what you think you can achieve for yourself.
SPEAKER_00: And what we find here is the tale of two people following different paths.
SPEAKER_00: Lot follows the path of achieving what he thinks he can achieve for himself, and Abram follows the path of God's promise, knowing that God would give him a land.
SPEAKER_00: That's the first thing.
SPEAKER_00: If we want to win the battle of our heart, we need to be engaged in the pursuit of God.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to see the second thing, though.
SPEAKER_00: Second thing we must do if we want to win the battle of our heart for God is endeavor in the power of God.
SPEAKER_00: That means we need to live our days filled with the power that God wants to pour through us.
SPEAKER_00: What happens in Genesis 14 is pretty amazing.
SPEAKER_00: All of world history starts rotating around this decision that tiny little Abram has to make.
SPEAKER_00: And what God starts to do is he starts to move all the kings of Canaan, actually nine of them, in fact.
SPEAKER_00: Starts to move all of these kings and all of their military forces, all to highlight this one faithful action that Abram would make.
SPEAKER_00: See what happened was there's four Eastern kings.
SPEAKER_00: And again, we hear Eastern, not a good thing in Genesis.
SPEAKER_00: And so these four Eastern kings who are far away from the presence of God start to expect tribute from the kings of Canaan.
SPEAKER_00: And they expect that every year these kings of Canaan would give tribute to these kings.
SPEAKER_00: And so it's kind of like this military bullying.
SPEAKER_00: These four Eastern kings look at the kings of Canaan and say, hey, listen, if you don't pay us money, if you don't give us your lunch money, we're gonna come and beat you up.
SPEAKER_00: And so year after year, Genesis 14 tells us these Canaanite kings would pay a tribute to these eastern kings until one year they decided not to.
SPEAKER_00: And so it took a year for these eastern kings to discover what was going on, and then they started this march from the north end of Canaan southward.
SPEAKER_00: They started taking city after city, taking what they believed to be theirs.
SPEAKER_00: And they led this military conquest that was massive in its extent, all the way through Canaan, taking city after city, taking from these kings what they felt was theirs, the tribute that they believed they deserved.
SPEAKER_00: They won battle after battle, these eastern kings, until eventually they got to Sodom and Gomorrah, where Lot was.
SPEAKER_00: And in verse 11, it says that the enemy took all the possessions of Sodom and Gomorrah and all their provisions and went their way.
SPEAKER_00: But look what they also took in verse 12.
SPEAKER_00: They also took Lot, the son of Abram's brother, who was dwelling in Sodom and his possessions, and went their way.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to notice the end of Lot's decision.
SPEAKER_00: Lot is given freedom in Genesis 13, isn't he?
SPEAKER_00: Abram says to him, choose which way you'll go.
SPEAKER_00: Choose whichever land you want.
SPEAKER_00: And Lot thinks that he has freedom to make a choice that is for his benefit, that is for his good.
SPEAKER_00: But where does this choice ultimately lead him?
SPEAKER_00: Well, it leads him to slavery to his enemy.
SPEAKER_00: You need to know that this is saying something theologically about who we are outside of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Outside of Christ, you are a slave to choices that only lead to your death.
SPEAKER_00: Outside of Christ, you think that you have freedom to make choices that are your benefit, but because your heart is broken before God, because your heart is not renewed by the Holy Spirit, instead of using your freedom for righteousness and therefore eternal life, what you do is you use your freedom.
SPEAKER_00: Freedom to make these decisions like Eve did, and ultimately like Lot did, that only lead to your death.
SPEAKER_00: This is what Paul is talking about in Romans 6.
SPEAKER_00: This is going to come up on the screen in Romans 6, verse 16.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: What Paul is saying is that you have two choices to live.
SPEAKER_00: You can either live in obedience to God's command, which is in righteousness, or you can live in what you believe is freedom, but when you do that, no matter what, you're a slave.
SPEAKER_00: And when you don't live for God, what Paul is saying is you are a slave to sin, and the ultimate end of that decision, the way that you're living, is death.
SPEAKER_00: Only way that I could kind of illustrate is you've ever seen those movies where maybe someone's they're working on a boat and all of a sudden the chain wraps around their foot, and on the end of the chain is a heavy stone that's sinking in the water, and eventually they're gonna get dragged into the water.
SPEAKER_00: Outside of Christ, theologically, that's kind of how you're living.
SPEAKER_00: You're walking on a boat with a chain around your ankle, and there's a stone in the water that's slowly sinking to the bottom.
SPEAKER_00: And you walk around that boat, and an unbeliever will say, Well, I have freedom to do whatever I want on this boat.
SPEAKER_00: I can choose to do whatever I like.
SPEAKER_00: And what God is revealing to you is that your freedom is not freedom.
SPEAKER_00: Your freedom is really slavery to sin, which is leading you to death.
SPEAKER_00: The amazing news of the gospel is that what God offers you is freedom from slavery to sin, so that you might live for the purpose for which you were created, that you might live for Him.
SPEAKER_00: This is why Paul says in verses 22 and 23 of Romans 6, he says this, but now, but now that you have been set free, God breaks those chains of captivity through the gospel of his son, Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit that you get leads to sanctification and its end eternal life.
SPEAKER_00: For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And this is what God does when the Holy Spirit comes upon you and shows you the truth of the gospel, is he breaks the chain so that now you can live like Abram and receive the fruit of living a life of sanctification, which is eternal life.
SPEAKER_00: You no longer have to be a slave to sin, which is leading you to death.
SPEAKER_00: What God does is the God in the gospel is he frees you to live and then receive eternal life because of the way that you have lived.
SPEAKER_00: This is the end of Lot's decision.
SPEAKER_00: It's really a choice to be enslaved to his enemies in Canaan.
SPEAKER_00: Well, in verse 13, all of these movements of the mighty kings of the east and all the kings of Canaan, what Moses shows us is that they all really are just setting the scene for Abram to display his faith.
SPEAKER_00: And it really is a David v.
SPEAKER_00: Goliath story of what we're told of in verse 13 in chapter 14.
SPEAKER_00: It says, Then one who had escaped came and told Abram the Hebrew, who was living by the oaks of Mamir, and the Amorite, brother of Eshkal and Anner.
SPEAKER_00: These were the allies of Abram.
SPEAKER_00: Look what it says in verse 14.
SPEAKER_00: When Abram heard that his kinsmen 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.
SPEAKER_00: And he divided his forces against them by night, he and his servants, and defeated them and pursued them to Hobah, north of Damascus.
SPEAKER_00: This is really astounding for Abram to do.
SPEAKER_00: Think about it.
SPEAKER_00: These four Eastern kings and their mighty military forces have just done a military conquest all the way down Canaan, through all the cities of Canaan.
SPEAKER_00: Not one of those kings could stand against the might of these four eastern kings.
SPEAKER_00: They had taken the whole land.
SPEAKER_00: It was a mind-blowing, astonishing military achievement.
SPEAKER_00: And what does Abram do?
SPEAKER_00: He stands up with his 318 men.
SPEAKER_00: The text has to remind us that they're trained men, just so that we know.
SPEAKER_00: And he takes these men and he defeats all the eastern kings.
SPEAKER_00: It's an amazing display of God's power.
SPEAKER_00: And it's an amazing display of Abram's faith that God would deliver Lot from these people who had enslaved him.
SPEAKER_00: If we were disappointed in Abram and Egypt, in Genesis chapter 12, and his lack of faith in Egypt, here we are proud of Abram, aren't we?
SPEAKER_00: That he would display the faith necessary to take these 318 men, and without even blinking, without even casting a doubt, he said, God's going to deliver a lot.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, God would use these 318 men in the faith of Abram to deliver all of Canaan from the enslavement of these eastern kings.
SPEAKER_00: And I think something is really unique for us that we need to take in our heart from this passage, and that's this that God delights more in the acts of faith of his children than he does in the mighty movements of the kings of the nations.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know that?
SPEAKER_00: You know the God of this universe is more interested in whatever faithful action you will take in order that he might be glorified than he is in politics, than he is in famous celebrities.
SPEAKER_00: He's more interested in whatever acts of faith you display in your life than he is than anything else in this world.
SPEAKER_00: I think of it like this.
SPEAKER_00: If I were to uh bring up, I mean one of the things my kids love doing right now is drawing.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm very aware that there's only two people that are really interested in their drawings.
SPEAKER_00: It's me and my wife.
SPEAKER_00: And if I were to show you some of these drawings, you would be like, you know, you're you're a kind person, and so you would fake interest, but you would say that's it's not a great drawing.
SPEAKER_00: Some of the drawings that, you know, my daughter right now, she hasn't figured out the whole body thing, so it's just a face with an eyes and a mouth, and then legs and arms.
SPEAKER_00: And I look at it and I think that's gonna be in my nightmares later.
SPEAKER_00: But I love looking at these pictures.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, I would rather look at these pictures that my daughters draw.
SPEAKER_00: I have more delight in my heart looking at them than I would have looking at any of the paintings of the best painters in the world.
SPEAKER_00: Well, why is that?
SPEAKER_00: Why would I rather look at these paintings or these drawings and all these paintings of amazing artists?
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's because these are my children.
SPEAKER_00: And I delight in them.
SPEAKER_00: And I delight in the things that they do.
SPEAKER_00: And you need to know that if you're in Christ, when God looks at you, he's more interested in the small acts of faith that you make to bring glory to his name than he is in all the movements of the world, than all the world news, and all world history.
SPEAKER_00: All the things in this world really revolve around the acts of faith that his children make and the glory that God gets from us as we serve him.
SPEAKER_00: This is important for us to hear.
SPEAKER_00: It's important for us to hear in the context of serving, even inside this church.
SPEAKER_00: You know that if you're a greeter in our church, God is interested in the hands that you shake and the smile that you have on your face because you're faithfully serving there to say that I want to glorify God.
SPEAKER_00: I want the people who are walking in this room to see God and experience a loving community.
SPEAKER_00: And you're serving in kids' ministry and you're teaching kids the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: And it feels like you're really just getting more spit up on, and there's too much uh kids need to go to the bathroom, and it feels like maybe you're not being used.
SPEAKER_00: God is more glorified by your act of faith there than he is in the movements of kings, politicians, celebrities.
SPEAKER_00: He is interested in the faith of his children.
SPEAKER_00: And here in Genesis 14, he sets up all of world history to highlight the faith of Abram, a faith that would redeem Canaan from their enemies.
SPEAKER_00: It's a reminder to us that if we're gonna win the battle for our heart, we need to endeavor in the power of God.
SPEAKER_00: Last thing we need to do, if we're gonna win the battle of our heart, is embrace the provision of God.
SPEAKER_00: Embrace the provision of God.
SPEAKER_00: And so after Abram goes on his military conquest and not only redeems Lot, but saves all of these Canaanite kings who were under the oppression of these eastern kings, we find that two kings come to Abram to offer tribute to him and to offer thanks.
SPEAKER_00: And what we find here is that in choosing which one of these kings Abram will align with, Abram has an opportunity.
SPEAKER_00: Really, all the battles boil down to this battle of Abram's heart of whose provision will he take?
SPEAKER_00: The first king that Abram meets is the king of Sodom.
SPEAKER_00: You see that in verse 17.
SPEAKER_00: It says the king of Sodom went out to meet him at the valley of Shavah, that is the king's valley.
SPEAKER_00: And the second king that comes out is Melchizedek, king of Salem.
SPEAKER_00: Now notice that what Melchizedek brings is praise and blessing to Abraham and praise and blessing to God.
SPEAKER_00: So then in verse 18 it says that he brought out wine and bread as an offering, and in verse, and that he was a priest of the God most high.
SPEAKER_00: Then in verse 19 it says 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 hands.
SPEAKER_00: And notice what Abram does in response to his acceptance of this provision that Melchizedek brought, Abram gives him a tenth of everything.
SPEAKER_00: Now Melchizedek is an interesting character.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, one of my takeaways from preaching this far in Genesis is that I've got to write a sci-fi book that links the Nephilim that we talked about in Genesis 6 and Melchizedek because a lot because of the lacking details that we have about Melchizedek, people love to just kind of add in details about who Melchizedek was and his significance.
SPEAKER_00: It's important that we ask this question: who is Melchizedek?
SPEAKER_00: Well, Melchizedek is a king and a priest.
SPEAKER_00: And he's not only a king and a priest, he's a king and a priest of Salem, which will eventually become Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: So Melchizedek takes up this important role in Scripture because he's one of the only examples of someone who is a king and a priest we have in Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: That's why in Psalm 110, when David is talking about the throne of Jerusalem, which was once Melchizedek's throne, the first Israelite to stand or to sit on that throne is King David.
SPEAKER_00: King David is talking to about that throne, and then in Psalm 110, he's promised by his Lord, which is God, that one day there's gonna come a king who's gonna sit on the throne of Jerusalem, who's gonna be like Melchizedek.
SPEAKER_00: He's gonna be a king and a priest.
SPEAKER_00: And David recognizes in Psalm 110 that this king isn't himself, that this king one day is coming, and that this king would be Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus would be both king who would sit on the throne, and he would be a priest who would intercede on behalf of God's people and God.
SPEAKER_00: This is why the writer of Hebrews in Hebrews chapter 7 also takes up Melchizedek, because here you have a figure that is like Jesus in that he is a king and he is a priest.
SPEAKER_00: And not only that, Melchizedek is one of the only people in Genesis, some of you will be very thankful for this, that doesn't have a long genealogy.
SPEAKER_00: Every time an important figure is introduced, they're given this long genealogy.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, here's who this guy is, but not so with Melchizedek.
SPEAKER_00: And so it is with God, with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus shows up in the New Testament, and it's almost out of nowhere.
SPEAKER_00: His lineage is from God Himself.
SPEAKER_00: And the writer of Hebrews finds in Melchizedek a foreshadowing of who Jesus would be, both a king and a priest who would sit on the throne of God's kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's who Melchizedek is, king and a priest.
SPEAKER_00: What we find here in Genesis 14 is the king and a priest that is bringing provision to Abraham.
SPEAKER_00: And the provision is this blessing from God.
SPEAKER_00: And Abram looks at this and he says, This is what I want.
SPEAKER_00: Notice what the king of Sodom tries to do in verse 21.
SPEAKER_00: King of Sodom said to Abram, Give me the persons, but take the goods for yourself.
SPEAKER_00: What does the king of Sodom bring to Abraham?
SPEAKER_00: Well, Abram is brought by the king of Sodom's the goods of all of the military bounty.
SPEAKER_00: What the king of Sodom says is, hey, Abram, I can make you more rich.
SPEAKER_00: Take my provision, okay?
SPEAKER_00: I'll just take the people of Canaan, but you take all the possessions, all the riches, all the wealth.
SPEAKER_00: You can have everything, Abram.
SPEAKER_00: And Abram has a decision.
SPEAKER_00: Which provision will he take?
SPEAKER_00: The provision of blessing from God, or the provision of the material possessions of earth.
SPEAKER_00: And look what he says in verse 22.
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: I will take nothing but what the young men have eaten, and the share of the men who went with me.
SPEAKER_00: Let Aner, Eshkel, and Mimer take their share.
SPEAKER_00: This is what Abram says.
SPEAKER_00: He looks at the provision of God's blessing, and he looks at the provision of all the material possessions of these wars, and he says, I want God's blessing.
SPEAKER_00: The provision that Abram chooses to embrace is the provision of God's blessing.
SPEAKER_00: And it's the same battle that we have day in and day out.
SPEAKER_00: The question for you is this which provision do you want?
SPEAKER_00: As a child of God, do you want the provision that God has offered to you?
SPEAKER_00: Do you know what the provision God has offered you is?
SPEAKER_00: That's the riches of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: In Ephesians chapter 1, verse 3, Paul says to us that in Jesus we have been given every spiritual blessing that is in the heavenly places.
SPEAKER_00: Let me say that again.
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus, you have been given every spiritual blessing that is in the heavenly places.
SPEAKER_00: That's what God says to you.
SPEAKER_00: What God says to you this morning is, hey, hey, do you want peace?
SPEAKER_00: Do you want peace in this world and peace with God?
SPEAKER_00: Listen, it's all yours in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: It's all yours.
SPEAKER_00: You can have it all.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not reserving anything from you.
SPEAKER_00: Everything in Jesus Christ is lavished on you, all the peace you could possibly imagine that's beyond understanding.
SPEAKER_00: God looks at you this morning and he says, Hey, do you want joy and satisfaction in this world?
SPEAKER_00: And what God says is, I'm not holding any of it back.
SPEAKER_00: It's all yours.
SPEAKER_00: I've given you every blessing from Jesus Christ in the heavenly places.
SPEAKER_00: It's all yours.
SPEAKER_00: Here's take it, take it.
SPEAKER_00: The choice is ours.
SPEAKER_00: Do we want every blessing that has been reserved in Jesus Christ in the heavenly places?
SPEAKER_00: The peace that God offers to those of us who are anxious with trouble and strife of this world.
SPEAKER_00: The joy that God offers for those of us that are seeking joy and entertainment or video games or other people.
SPEAKER_00: The delight that God offers in his children for those of us that are seeking the praise of other men and women in our life.
SPEAKER_00: And God says, as you are in Christ, you have all of these things from the most important source you could possibly have them from God in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: And are you going to go and try to win the provision of the world?
SPEAKER_00: Are you going to go and try to win the respect of your boss when God has given you all of his respect?
SPEAKER_00: Are you going to try to win the joy of the things you can get from this world when God has given you ultimate lasting satisfaction and joy in himself?
SPEAKER_00: What God says to us is what embrace and what provision do you want to embrace all the blessings that he pours out on you in Jesus Christ?
SPEAKER_00: Or the things that you can win for yourself.
SPEAKER_00: And for Abram the choice is easy.
SPEAKER_00: Abram's desire is the blessings that God pours out on him through Melchizedek and the glory that God receives through Melchizedek.
SPEAKER_00: That's Abram's desire.
SPEAKER_00: The question for you this morning is Is that your desire?
SPEAKER_00: To receive the provisions that Jesus Christ has given to you in himself.
SPEAKER_00: As we celebrate communion, we really celebrate that provision, don't we?
SPEAKER_00: There are a few different ways that we can think about communion, aren't there?
SPEAKER_00: But you can think about communion in a sense of repentance.
SPEAKER_00: You know, often it's more reflective.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe we reflect on our lives and our sinfulness and our need for forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: You can think about it in repentance of things you need to turn away from and turn to.
SPEAKER_00: But you can also think about communion in a sense of rejoicing.
SPEAKER_00: Rejoicing in the fact that this is the provision that God has made for us.
SPEAKER_00: And as we take communion this morning, and there's going to be some ushers that are come to the front, if you weren't able to grab a cup on your way in, I got one here.
SPEAKER_00: I'm good.
SPEAKER_00: You can grab, slip your hand in the air, and they'll make sure that you get one.
SPEAKER_00: And as you receive this cup, as you take this bread, I want you to take this as a celebration of the provision that God has made for you on the cross in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: This really is a celebration.
SPEAKER_00: It's a feast that we take together to say, God, thank you for the provision.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for the blood.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for the bread.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you that in every way you have taken care of all my failures, all my weaknesses, all my shortcomings.
SPEAKER_00: Like Abram was a failure in Egypt, so I have failed you, God, and yet you are here offering me the blood and the bread to remind me that eternal life is for those who have failed God in the deepest ways.
SPEAKER_00: And so we take this cup, we take this bread to celebrate the provision and to embrace really the provision that God has given us in Jesus Christ, and to say, I will lose all the things of this world so to keep Christ, that if all I have is Christ, I have all the gain in the world, that all I need is all of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You find here the cup with two layers, the top layer is bread, the bottom layer is juice.
SPEAKER_00: And there are a few reasons why you might not take this this morning.
SPEAKER_00: If there's any sin in your life that you are unrepentant of, that just shows really that you haven't embraced this provision, that you don't really care for the blood and bread of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And so we would just ask that you let this pass, or that in this moment you repent and take this as a celebration of the provision that God has given to you.
SPEAKER_00: The other is if you're not a believer and you haven't accepted this provision in your heart, and we ask that you wouldn't take this as a symbol of the provision that Christ has given to you.
SPEAKER_00: Let's take a moment now as we take communion to just reflect.
SPEAKER_00: Father, we thank you.
SPEAKER_00: God, we give you praise for the provision that you have given us in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And the blood that He shed in His body that was pierced for us.
SPEAKER_00: God, so that the many times that our heart has been for this world rather than for God, Lord, you have forgiven us of all of them.
SPEAKER_00: And you've made a way for sinners and for failures.
SPEAKER_00: God, to find eternal life in your Son Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And so, God, we embrace this provision because we need it.
SPEAKER_00: God, we embrace this provision to say that more than we want the riches of this world, more than we want the joys of this world, God, we want blessing from you.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we want joy in you.
SPEAKER_00: We want riches that are lavished on us in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And so, God, we embrace this provision to celebrate all that you have done for us eternally in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: God, we give you praise for Him.
SPEAKER_00: And we thank you for the provision of communion, the symbol of the freedom of forgiveness that we have in you, God.
SPEAKER_00: We give you all the praise.
SPEAKER_00: We pray this in your name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Lord Jesus, on the night that he was betrayed, took bread.
SPEAKER_00: And we had given thanks, he broke it, and he said, This is my body, which is for you.
SPEAKER_00: Do this in remembrance of me.
SPEAKER_00: Let me take the bread.
SPEAKER_00: In the same way, he also took the cup after supper, saying, This is the cup, the new covenant in my blood.
SPEAKER_00: Do this as often as you drink in remembrance of me.
SPEAKER_00: For as often as you drink as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes, you can drink the cup.
SPEAKER_00: Would you stand in me as we pray and then celebrate together the provision that God has given to us through worship?
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Father, God, thank you for the blood body of Jesus Christ that has been given to those who have placed their faith in you, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: It's a provision that we needed.
SPEAKER_00: God, as slaves to our sin.
SPEAKER_00: We were slaves to choices that could only lead to eternal separation from you and death.
SPEAKER_00: But thanks be to God that you have done a Work in your son.
SPEAKER_00: By faith, Lord, you break the chains of enslavement to this world, to our flesh, to sinfulness, to the prince of the power of the air, but you have risen us, given us life, and we are once dead in our trespasses and sins.
SPEAKER_00: And you've done this all through Jesus Christ, who is rich in mercy and lavishes his grace over us.
SPEAKER_00: And so, God, we give you all the praise that because of faith, Lord, because of our belief in you, Lord, you have washed us clean so that we can celebrate, Lord, every provision we need has been given to us by you, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: You have won every battle.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, you have won the most important eternal battle of our salvation and life with you.
SPEAKER_00: And so, God, we sing now to praise you and to celebrate this provision that you have given to us, God.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for the cross.
SPEAKER_00: God, we pray this all in the name of your son.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Church, know that you leave this place into the battle.
SPEAKER_00: The battle is not in the world.
SPEAKER_00: The battle's inside, it's in your heart, but go with this truth encouraging me.
SPEAKER_00: What we just say, that the battle is the Lord's.
SPEAKER_00: Paul writes in Romans 8:2.
SPEAKER_00: He says, No, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
SPEAKER_00: Nor power, nor hide, nor death, nor anything else.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, something was forgotten.
SPEAKER_00: All creation.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus our Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: That's the truth that we can celebrate.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: You've already won the battle.
SPEAKER_00: You have all the power you need to win the battle.
SPEAKER_00: What an amazing truth that we celebrate together through communion and through praise.
SPEAKER_00: If you're new here this morning, we can't wait to meet you at Connections Church.
SPEAKER_00: Go this week, knowing that you are loved every week.