Audio Transcript:

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So, let me pray over the preaching of the Word, and we'll get started.

Heavenly Father, we praise you for who you are in your majesty and your holiness, and your spender. We praise you that you are not a God who is far off but you are a personal God. Lord, we are weak, we are humble, we are sinful beings, yet you want to be in a relationship with us. Lord, we praise you that we are, like Abraham, we are recipients of your Word and all its power. And Lord, I pray that it would just fill our minds with wonder, with joy about who you are. And we would be inspired to trust it as we hear preach today. Lord, but we know that only you can make it alive for us in our hearts, in our minds, and we pray the Holy Spirit do that now as we dig in to your Word. I pray, feed us well today. I pray this in Jesus' name, amen.

While many of you, some of you who are here regularly, you might notice this is the first time I'm wearing glasses up here. So, it's my public appearance, and I'm actually wearing them. They're not just a prop for my little illustration in a second. Actually, struggle to see the text when I read up here often, and it's good to actually see some faces. I just have a slight astigmatism that makes my vision weak. So, I'm wearing these glasses today and I'm the type of person that I have good vision. I can walk around, I can function without glasses. But when I wear them, and look at things, especially like the flowers on the trees that are blooming right now, the flowers in the gardens; just... I didn't know it was blurry, all of a sudden become super clear. And I can see details that I can't see.

And I'm amazed. I'm brought to awe, I'm brought to wonder. And I want to know more, and often this is part of my daily worship, just thinking, "Wow, think of the God who made that." And this Jesus and Genesis series, that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to make a lot of connections. We're in the first book of the Bible, and 2000 years before Christ's life on earth. And we're taking you through Genesis and pointing out chapter after chapter, all the shadows, the types, the symbols that direct us to Jesus Christ this early in God's special revelation to us.

And we don't want... Sometimes you hear Pastor Jan, Pastor Shane preach, and I'm just in awe about the connections, the faithful connections that they make. I'm just more impressed with them than I am at the Word itself. And, we don't want you to just come here and being in awe. We don't want you coming just being, saying, "Wow, that's impressive." We want you to be in awe of the verses, of their relevance, of their purity, of their truthfulness. And just look at them with a different reverence.

There's a famous church document, The West Minister Larger catechism, question four. It says, "How doth it appear that the scriptures are the Word of God?" And it says, "The scriptures manifest themselves to be the Word of God by their majesty and purity, by the consent of all the parts, and the scope of the whole, which is to give all glory to God by their light and power to convince and convert sinners, to comfort and build up believers unto salvation. But the Spirit of God bearing witness by and with the scriptures in the heart of man is alone able fully to persuade it that they are the very Word of God."

So, just it's really powerful to read one piece of scripture, especially a New Testament piece of scripture to see how relevant it is to your life. But even more powerful to see how relevant all of scripture is, just points to the redemptive story that God created man in his image, to walk in perfect relationship with him as his son. And, as his sons and daughters, and man sins, and at the heart of this story, begin with Genesis 3. The seed of the woman shall bruise the head of the seed of the serpent.

God gives us the beginning of his rescue story. And here in the past couple weeks we started Genesis 12. The seed gets more clear. Who is God going to work through? Abram. And how does God tell Abram that he is going to work through him? He gives him his holy Word. So, we're trying to bring you to the point of wonder and awe of this holy God who has preserved this Bible, 66 books, written by 40 authors over approximately 1500 years. He's written this story for us to know a way back to him through faith in Jesus Christ. And it's when we see the unity, when we see the consent of all the parts, the majesty of it, the purity; we should we brought to wonder at the power of God to use man to write these scriptures and to preserve them more perfectly than any book in ancient history.

And, we should be amazed that God is a personal and loving God. We should be brought to wonder in this series, and when you're brought to wonder you see that this, the Bible, is not just a book. It's God himself talking to us. A lot of people say, "If I were like Abram and God spoke to me audible, like he did in chapter 12 when he first told him to go. If God appeared to me like he did Abram, then I would be a Christian. Then, I would walk more faithfully."

But no, we want to show you that no, the scriptures themselves, reveal themselves to be the very Word of God. We should approach them with reverence, with awe. And not fluctuate between criticism and skepticism and weighing it against the whims and thoughts of the world. And, we just want to inspire you to that, and when we talk about these things we're engaging with exactly what Abram himself had to deal with.

Abram received a special word from God, and he had to decide, "Am I going to trust it?" In Genesis 12, God says to him, excuse me. Now the Lord said to Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred, and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I'll make you a great nation, and I'll bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing. I'll bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you, I will curse. And in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed."

God targets Abram graciously. There's nothing special in him compared to any other man. And he gives him his word, and the story that we're following today is how is God going to save humanity, bring peace between himself and humanity through this man? And there's really exciting parts, he goes right away and he goes to the Promise Land, travels hundreds of miles for Chapter 12. Next, Chapter 13, and by the end of Chapter 12 he goes down to Egypt when he first faces hardship. But last chapter we see him, he repents of going to Egypt, not trusting God to bless him.

He repents of selling his wife to the Pharaoh and profiting from it. And we see him now trusting God at his Word. So today, we're talking about Abram and his peak, in a moment of peak faith. He fluctuates, and the comfort in that is that all of us do that. That points us to God's grace towards us and our sins, but Abram fluctuates. We're at a peak moment, and we look at the story today from Genesis 14, and it gives us a pattern of what does active faith look like?

When we have full confidence in who God is, and the truthfulness of his Word, how should we act? So, we have Abram him, and pulling of strength. And this is good for a lot of people. I speak, I do the baptism seminars. My God's grace, we have new Christians coming to Mosaic constantly and asking, "I'm a Christian, now what? What do I do? How do I engage the world? How do I engage my non-believing friends, my believing friends, my family? How do I apply the Word of God in my life? In a meaningful way, how can I be of service?"

And if a lot of you, who are seasoned believers, you're constantly wrestling with this. In this new phase of life, how do I do it? Or I feel like God called me to this, but I'm just drained. I am dying. How do I know if I'm in God's will for my life right now? Where do I invest the scripture of guidance for how Christians should spend their time when they turn their faith to action?

So, I'm going to talk about Abram. We're going to learn lessons when he was at a high point in his faith. We're going to learn faith leads to action, action leads to refreshment, and refreshment leads to faith. Now, I'm going to begin faith leads to action. The first 12 verses, they set the context for Abram's actions. So, I'm just going to do my best to get through these names, and talk you through the context.

So, in the days of Amraphel, this is the Word of our Lord. In the days of Amraphel, King of Shinar, Arioch king of Ellasar, Chedorlaomer king of Elam, and Tidal king of Goyim, these kings made war with Bera king of Sodom, Birsha king of Gomorrah, Shinab king of Admah, Shemeber king of Zeboyim, and the king of Bela (that is, Zoar). So, these are kings of city states essentially. Kings, might not be huge nations, and there's four kings aligned with Chedorlaomer. He's the big boy. He's basically the ruler of all of these kings. There's four kinds lined up against five. The five are from the area of Cannon, where Abram lives.

So, when they had squabbles they'd make coalitions, they'd make alliances, and this is what's happening right now. And all these joined forces, the five kings in the Valley of Siddim (that is the Salt Sea). The five kings closest to Abram, they meet and they say, "In the 12th year, they had served Chedorlaomer. But in the 13th year they rebelled."

So, they meet. They say, "We're going to band together and protest giving tribute to Chedorlaomer this year. And if he comes our way, we're going to fight together." So, this is what they planned. They're attempting Chedorlaomer to come, and he does. Verses five through seven illustrate the power of Chedorlaomer as he travels almost 1,000 miles from where Southwest Iran is today to this land, to these vassal states of his.

In the 14th year Chedorlaomer, these verses reveal his power. In the 14th year, Chedorlaomer and the kings who were with him came at the feet of the Rephaites and Ashteroth Karnaim, Zuzites in Ham, the Emites in Shaveh Kiriathaim and the Horites in their hill country of Seir, as far as El Paran in the boarder of the wilderness. They turn 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 Hazezon Tamar.

So, this king is sweeping west and sweeping south to the land of Khanim. And then, the king of Sodom, the king of Gomorrah, the king of Admah, the king of Zeboyim, and the king of Bela (that is, Zora) went out and they joined battle in the Valley of Siddim. So, the five kings near Abram go out to battle with Chedorlaomer king of Elam, Tidal king of Goyim, 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.

The kings, the five kings, on their home land, they go to war against these four kings. We don't really know how even the numbers were, but they fall into these bitumen pits. Some translations say slime pits, but they're really like tar pits. It's petroleum slime that oozes up from the ground, and it's sticky and it's flammable. So, it's kind of confusing. They're on their home ground. One translation says they went down into the slime pit, so maybe they didn't fight the enemy, they just let them pass. And in verse 11 the enemy... 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.

So, regardless of what happens in these pits, Chedorlaomer wins. The point to note is they also took Lot. Lot, Abram's nephew, remember? Abram doesn't have a son, he has this nephew right now. He's a knuckle head, he's a thorn in his side. He's always making bad choices. Abram gave Lot the chance when their flocks got too big in their family to take them to his choice of land. Lot chooses land that looks more beautiful, more fertile, in the direction of Sodom. And Sodom, known for its sinfulness, and Lot just goes in that direction.

Here we have Lot going further to Sodom. He gets caught up in this war. He gets pulled, gets captured as a prisoner of war. This is where Abram gets involved. I want to focus faith and action, what does Abram do?

The one who had escaped came. Then, one who had escaped came and told Abram, the Hebrew, who was living by the oaks at Mamre the Amorite, brother of Eshkol and Aner, these were allies of Abram. 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. 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 kinsmen, Lot, with his possessions and the women and the people and just went reveal in Abram's face. So, in the past, he had God's Word, he faced the challenge in the famine, he went to Egypt. This time he has God's Word. What does God's Word say in Chapter 12? God's going to curse those who curse him, and he knows that. He's now in a phase where he's trusting God's Word. He trust that it'll come true in physical reality. And he takes 318 men. Apparently he himself had... There was a nomad essentially. He had a large household and 318 men of war, and immediately goes to war.

God gives him an incredible victory. All the build up was to say, "Look at this opposition that is heading Abram's way. This is an insurmountable enemy, force." And Abram takes 318 men and beats him. Clearly, this is God's Word reigning true in Abraham's life, and Abram trusting him. So, he might have stumbled in Egypt but he's now taking God's Word as face value and just what faith he has. Remember, he's 75 years old. I don't know if you know any 75 year olds willing to mount a camel in the middle of the night to go and pursue of an army. But that's next level.

My dad, he's mid 60s and he set up a scaffolding on top of a picnic table last week to fix his shed roof. And I thought that was hardcore. Abram's a next level man with faith. We should look at him in awe in this story. We see he has this special Word of God, and he acts, but really our situation is no different.
We have seen the Old Testament prophecies pointing to Christ come true. We've seen, we have the revealed will of God in its entirety, so how should we act? And this is a big question. Where do we start? Not every Christian has to ride off and fight wars. So, where do we start? How does Abram decide to put his faith into action?

Now, this is... It's when his family gets involved, verse 14. When Abram heard that his kinsmen had been taken captive, he led forth and his trained men. This kinsmen word could often translated brother. Lot's his nephew but there's this element that he calls Lot his brother a couple of time in Genesis, and he's also, scripture, the New Testament tells us, Lot is righteous. Though he's a knuckle head, by grace he seems to have been saved. Christ's righteousness was accounted to him it seems from scripture.

But Abram, he sees this force gathering, the news of war was probably spreading in the land. And he's deliberate about when he gets involved, and that's Christians. How do we know in our position as God's people, how do we know how to engage with the world around us? And it's family. This text guides us to family. There's a lot of wisdom here, not getting involved in something not related to you, your family and those closest to you. And there's this element, this ambiguous element where it's spiritual family and biological with Lot.

Proverbs 26:17 captures this. Whoever meddles in a quarrel not his own is like one who takes a passing dog by the ears. This is the ultimate Brookline, Massachusetts verse. Maybe the Hebrew word for dog is fur baby. Like everybody in Brookline knows you do not grab a dog passing by by its ears. You're just asking for trouble, and in Brookline that parent of that fur baby, you'll have to face their wrath.

But, as Christians, do we know not to meddle in matters and affairs that do not impact us? Our family, our close loved ones. Can everyone here say they don't sprinkle on their social media posts just to stir the pot? I don't think so. A lot of Christians go looking for wars. They go looking for activity. They busy themselves with conferences, with studies on topics that are no where near close to them at the cost of addressing matters that are right next to them.

So, Abram, this is a righteous cause. This is his family member. So, he's acting naturally going to save his family member. And, a lot of people, it's hard. Actually engaging family is really difficult. We'd prefer not to touch the sore spots, poke the bruises because it can open up a whole plethora of challenges. But that's the element. That's why we need to be discerning about what we involve ourselves in. Abram, he goes to rescue his kinsmen. He gets involved in a really long trek north, probably a couple hundred miles. He captures, he wins the battle. He gets the former prison, gets Lot, gets the former prisons. The booty of war, and now, he has the added responsibility of stewarding all of that well in a way that glorifies God.

So, as Christians, when we just begin with family, scripture says to love God. Christ says love God, love your neighbor. There's this element where we focus on being right with God. We wake up every day and we acknowledge God, thank you for being gracious to me and my sin. And we fix that vertical relationship so that on a horizontal level we can bless, we can love, truly love the people closest to us. And there's this element that it's neighbor, it's close biologically. People close physically, relationally, and this is just counterintuitive to our society right now. There's expectation that we have to involve ourselves in issues.

If something happens in the middle of Arkansas, we are expected to make a post. We're expected to give a statement. We're expected to care, show our simply, our empathy for those who face injustice. And of course, we hate injustice. God defines that for us. He gives us the absolute truth to actually provide a basis for calling something that. But we can't busy ourselves. We have to be discerning and allow margin for the way that we spend our time.

This modern approach of being involved with every issue, making a statement, "here's what I have to think". It's overwhelming and we miss just the test that God places right before us, particularly with our family members. And so, who are family members? It's your church, it's your biological family, in Mosaic it's your community group. How often are you in the week spending time thinking about the great issues of society when you know a brother or sister in Christ said at prayer time that they're struggling this week. Well, just imagine a community, a church, imagine how we can truly be salt, be light, be a city on a hill, focused on the people around us.

And just this kind of church, this kind of family mindset, a lot of people think in the Old Testament it was Israel. Come and see this righteous nation with God's law. And then, Jesus gives us the great commission, "Go and make disciples of all nations in the New Commandment." Yes, we want to make disciples, but they're always tethered to a local church under the care and accountability of a local church. They're not lone rangers going out evangelizing people, converting them and not making sure they're in a local church.

In the New Testament church we care about our brothers and sisters. John 13 says, "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another just as I have loved you. You are to love one another. By this, all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another."
And James 5 shows us the importance of pursuing brothers and sisters in Christ. This is the hardest part about going to church. You have a brother or sister who's in sin, who is not admitting it, and they don't want your care, they don't want your love and you are called to go and pursue them. How many of us easily just pivot away from those situations?
James says, "My brothers, if anyone among you wonders from the truth, then 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."

So, how do you put your faith into action? Are you busying yourself with fights that are not your own? Are you engaging in fruitless dialogue on social media? Does that ever accomplish anything? Or are you spending time building up the brothers and sisters closest next to you? Are you engaging your believing and non-believing family members and neighbors that God has put you next to? You are the person, though you might feel unequipped, you know their situation best. You can relate to their situation best. God has equipped you to pursue them like Abram pursued Lot.

So, we need to be faithful with the big and small tasks that God naturally, organically places in our lives. Just it honors God. It's a means to following Christ's basic commands and with my next point I want to make the claim, in turning our faith into action, stretching ourselves for his glory in these situations, we're positioning ourselves to be fed more by Christ. So, action leads to refreshment.

There's some biblical, paradoxical about this. Acts 23:5 taps into it. "In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way, we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord, Jesus Christ, how he himself said it is more blessed to give than to receive." We don't have a tank where we serve and our tank gets empty. There's something different in that we can serve and still have a full tank. A lot of Christians don't believe this. The message that we're hearing a lot right now is self care. Care for yourself so that you can care for others. Christ says lose yourself for my sake, and that's the means to find yourself.

And I see this in our text. We stretch ourselves, our faith is like a muscle. We stretch and extend ourselves, just like when we stretch and push a muscle. The more we do it, the more we enjoy it. We like that burn. We like the benefit that we gain and derive. We can, we're capable to do more activity. That's what faith is like.

In verse 17 in our passage, after Abram's return from the defeat of Chedorlaomer and the kinds 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." So, Melchizedek, we could spend weeks talking about Melchizedek.

His name means king of righteousness. His name is king of Salem, probably king of what was then Jerusalem, king of peace. He serves bread and wine. He blesses Abram. He blesses God. He is this, but he comes out of nowhere and scripture leads us to believe that since Noah, all of man, when God wiped of man from the earth with the flood, we have this impression that there are not many true God worshipers. And yet, this Melchizedek arises. There's a lot of debate, as if Jesus Christ himself, a Christophany, is this a type of Christ? You can talk about Melchizedek forever.

But what I want to focus on is that how he is a type of Christ in a way that Christ, as our high priest meets us and cares for us, and sends his spirit to us in times of need when we are stretching ourselves for him. So, what does Melchizedek do? He meets Abram after Abram's contending for the faith, he's contending for righteousness in pursuing his captured nephew from this evil king. Melchizedek provides refreshment.

Why? One, because he knows that Abram is weary and is spent from going on this task. Scripture shows that when servants of the Lord contend for the faith, believers can expect the Lord to meet them there. Think of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego on the fiery furnace. Think about Daniel in the lion's den. Christ comforted them with his presence. I think those were a Christophany. This is a little different.

Charles Spurgion once said about Christ meeting us, "As in the building of Jerusalem in trouble less times", he's referring to in Nehemiah, "they had the sword in one hand and a trowel in the other. So our Lord, Jesus Christ, while he teaches us to use the sword, takes care to edify and build us up in the faith at the same time. He understands that warriors require strengthening meat and that especially when they're under stern conflict they need extraordinary comforts that their souls may be stayed and refreshed. The martyrs protest that they've never had such communion with God anywhere as among the caverns of the hills or the swamps of the woods, to which they were exiled for Christ. And that even on the rock, an extremity of torture or even upon the grit iron in the heat of the fire. Even there, the sweet presence of Christ has been overpoweringly delightful to them so that they almost lost the sense of pain.

Spend your strength for God, brother, for when fainting seems inevitable then shall come such a sweet renewing of your strength that like an eagle you shall stretch your wings and mount aloft to commune with God in solitary joys. Christ, your Melchizedek will meet you in your conflicts if he never did before." This is just radical stuff, just thinking it's when we stretch and extend ourselves that we will be fed. A lot of us, a lot of Christians get fear that stepping out in faith to support a brother and sister, acting on a faith, acting on a calling that just seems insurmountable, they just fear that physical exhaustion. Or they do step out initially and it's challenging, it is draining, and upon that first feel of challenge, they fall back to the crutches that they leaned on. That the old man weaned on.

The habits, the patterns, the self soothing, the escape. For a lot of Christians, I think a lot of us are really, if we're honest with ourselves, we're living vacation to vacation to vacation to vacation. Those of us who can afford to live here in a place like Boston, take those comforts, take those patterns that you've grown up with, those leisurely activities out of your life. And would you trust God to satisfy you? Now, it's hard, but scripture says he's going to show up. Melchizedek does that for Abram after this battle.

The New Testament taps into this. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ. The Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in our affliction. It's more theologically correct to not say... I don't want anyone to think that Christ is just going to keep popping up in your life physically. The Holy Spirit, John 14:26, the helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.

So, we have the Holy Spirit. Christ has ascended and his spirit pours out upon us, and he comforts us just on the field of battle. And furthermore, it's not just comfort, it's not just tender soothing love sometimes. Sometimes it is a hard poke. It's a strength and it's a fixing, a recalibration that Christ's presence offers to us. And just in our text, it's subtle, verse 20 B says, "And Abram, he meets Melchizedek, receives his blessing and Abram gave him a tenth of everything." Hebrews 7:4 comments on this. "See how great this man was to whom Abram, the patriarch, gave a tenth of the spoils."

Verse 7 says, Hebrews 7:7, "It is beyond dispute that the inferior, Abram, is blessed by the superior." So, Abram, he's this king, this victorious king that just captured this enemy, who's just bossed everybody in the region around for the past decade. Abram is met by Melchizedek and what does he do? He offers a tithe. This isn't tribute. Abram's the victor. Abram sees something in the regal character, the awesomeness of this priest king, and he worships. He's brought to a point of humility. Maybe this is God offering when we're victorious, there's that tendency when we stretch ourselves when we're in faith, there's that tendency to get pride, to well up, to get over confident, to think that we won the victory.

Or sometimes when we're not so victorious, when we're still in the battle, and it's challenging and it feels like we're losing; bitterness, anger, entitlement towards God starts growing. And what is the best way to counter that? It is God's presence himself. So, we have... there's nothing that humbles us more, comforts us and humbles us more, than the presence of God himself. And the Holy Spirit, when he comes to us, he gives us these little corrections.

I want to hold a grudge against my wife about something, thinking probably she's being childish right now. But, what does the spirit do in such a moment? He reminds me, just little reminders, "You think she's childish? Look at you before your Heavenly Father, look at the way you complain, look at the way that you gripe." He has been gracious to you, you be gracious to her. Pursue reconciliation for my glory.

And the Lord meets us. He doesn't just comfort us. He corrects us, and this is like Isaiah, this sort of shock present that we fill in the presence of God. Woe is me, for I am lost. I'm a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. We get the sense Abram's experiencing something like that. He is taken to worship, and taken to service to his God, when he... this replenishment rekindles his faith.

My last point, replenishment leads to faith. And the king of Sodom said to Abram, "Give me the persons, but take the good for yourself." But Abram said to the king of Sodom, "I've 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. Less you should say I have made Abram rich. I'll take nothing but what the young men have eaten, and the share of the men who went with me. But Aner, Eshkol, and Mamre take their share."

Abram, he receives the replenishment of the Word, and he's prepared to step forward in faith once again. He's prepared to turn his faith into action, and he has to be swift because what happens? The king of Sodom, this guy who just lost the war, Abram rescued him. He tells him, he's this complete opposite of Melchizedek. He says, "Take the spoil. I want my people." Abram, and this is just what happens, why we need the Lord to meet us in moments because when we often have victory for the sake of God's kingdom, who sweeps in? Satan himself.

And a lot of the commentators, they say this is Abram's ultimate battle in this chapter of faith. The physical war, sometimes physical battles for God are easier to face than the spiritual battles. Abram's confronted unexpectedly by the enemy to trust God. And what does he do? He's saying he's caught between choosing taking God's word, his promise of blessing and we're taking this short cut. He rightly deserves this booty, the riches that he recovers from the war. And he chooses God, the presence of Melchizedek says he raises his hand. He's making a pledge. "I've 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. Less you should say I made Abram rich."

And so, this is Abram. Whatever you thought of him in Chapter 12, when in his first trial he went to Egypt and sold his wife, prostituted her to Pharaoh to protect himself. Abram is at... You see the growth here. You see he's willing to forgo really all the pleasure that these riches had to offer. This temporal pleasure to trust that God would fulfill his greater promises.

Furthermore, he sees through that this treasure will not satisfy him. It won't deliver like this Lord can, this great God who has graciously revealed himself to him and wants a personal relationship. Abram's holding on to God's promises, though he doesn't see them coming through in fruition right there and then, he trust that God will deliver. So, that's... And he's more prepared because he doesn't stumble. When we lose these battles, when we stumble, it's almost like we have to regain that strength again. We have to regain that cycle, that trust in God.

Abram's at a point of strength, he's getting gains. And we can have that in our Christian life. Do you believe that? Do you pursue that? Or are you just constantly just going to those little sources that are going to soothe you, give you temporary satisfaction? Abram places his trust, his satisfaction in God himself and ultimately scripture tells us he finds it in eternity. And by our faith in Christ we, like Abram, have access to the Promise Land. We, by faith, have access to the great treasure, a home in Christ's mansions.

And when we're facing this question, am I going to trust God, his promises? Am I going to be honored even to receive his word? And serve him? Or am I going to take the ways of the world? We have to follow our father Abram. Christ himself, his ministry is taking off, Satan approaches him and he takes him to a mountain and he says, "I'll offer all of this to you, the kingdoms and cities of this world, and all that they have if you follow me." Christ said no. What did Christ do in his life? He left his heavenly perfection of Father, Son and Spirit, begotten from the beginning, existed in the trinity. The Word became flesh and dwelled among us. He left a perfect wealth, perfect joy, and splendor and he went to the depths of hell to redeem us.

And we, like Christ, we, like our father Abram, we need to make the same choices. We need to choose God, choose his riches, choose his presence over the world's. Will you do that? Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we praise you that you are gracious to us. Often we don't deserve your presence. We don't deserve you meeting us in the moment, for we are wondering, we are straying, we are turning away from you intentionally. But Lord, you pursue us, and you give us the chance to turn away, to turn and repent, turn towards you and faith time and time again. I pray Lord, help us to stop the cycle. Help us to stop the cycle, help us to go on an upward trajectory of gains and the faith. However, we just feel the burn and attention of the moment we don't turn to comforts. We don't turn to the things that the world and say, no. First, we turn to you and are fed, and satisfied. Lord, help us to stay faithful until you return. We get to enjoy you in all of your perfect glory. I pray this in Jesus' name, amen.