you got your Bibles with you this morning. Why don't you turn with me to Genesis chapter 14. Genesis chapter 14. It's a blessing to be able to come together in the Lord's house today and worship our Heavenly Father , it's even amazing I just the province of god that today, on father's day, there are family catechism that we have what we see there but of course a reminder that we've been adopted into god's family on no matter on the the frailties in the inadequacies of us who are fathers and then also the frailties and inadequacies of those who were or are fathers as followers of Jesus Christ we see in our heavenly father all of those aspects Live out those truths and have those attributes in our homes. And today, the title of our message is, Men Are God's Method. And that's a saying or a quote that actually comes from a fellow who wrote quite extensively on prayer. a man by the name of Ian bounds on some you probably heard of the armies but it is the reason why I use that quote today because we look to Abraham and remember that Abraham is still his name at this point in time as we walk through the book of Genesis He's called out of the world and he's called into this relationship with the one true God, the creator of heaven and the creator of earth. He's called into this relationship with God, he's called out of. Remember when he was in Haran and God spoke to him, what did God say? He said, leave your land behind. leave your relatives behind leave your father's house behind and go to a place which I will show you and so he's called out of the world and he's called into this relationship with God which he walks in and he walks in this relationship by faith believing the promises of God. Now at this point, he's not yet, we don't have yet. We're gonna be looking at this next week. We don't have yet Abraham really, or Abram, in covenant with God. We're gonna talk about the covenant next week in Genesis chapter 15. We'll see it there. But Abram has received this promise from God, which we saw there in the call of Abram, there in Genesis chapter 12. and the promise is this, Abram, come on, follow me and those who bless you I will bless, those who curse you I will curse, all the nations of the earth will be blessed through you and so he has that promise from God and he's walking by faith in that truth, sometimes as we saw last week, imperfectly, amen I mean, this is, of course, as we see, our ancestor in the faith. That's who Abram is. And yet, Abram has barely made it to Canaan, the place that God would show him, before his faith is wrecked, when there's a famine in the land, and he leaves Canaan, and he goes down to Egypt. And you remember what he did there in Egypt? Oh, he didn't do anything. I mean, nothing real bad. He just gave his wife away. That's all. Okay? He was not a perfect man. But he was God's man, not because he was good, he was God's man because God had called him. And he responded in faith. And today we will see Abram coming back from a great victory. Coming back from a time when he saw God move in a mighty way. We'll see the blessing of God on Abram, but we'll also see God's blessings flowing through him. You see, Abram, as the one called by God, is also foreshadowing the coming of that Savior who would come from Him who would ultimately be the Lord Jesus Christ If we've come to know God through faith in Jesus Christ, if we've been called out of the world and into relationship with the one true God, then we also are to be those channels of blessing. We are to be those that demonstrate the goodness of God in the midst of an evil world. And so I'm going to ask you if you would, if you'd stand to your feet in the honor of the reading of God's Word, as we read here in Genesis chapter 14, verses 17 through 24. after Abram returned from defeating now what you know a practice is mine, I can only lay a more OK that's why not right, and the kings are with me on the king of Sodom Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought out bread and wine. He was a priest to God Most High. He blessed him and said, Abram is blessed by God Most High, creator of heaven and earth, and blessed be God Most High, who has handed over your enemies to you. And Abram gave him a tenth of everything. then the king of sodom said to abram give me the people but take the possessions for yourself but abram said to the king of sodom i have raised my hand in an oath to the lord god most high creator of heaven and earth and a and more and more and more in taking the foolishness of the gospel preached and Lord, birthing faith in their hearts. Lord, we thank you, Lord, for your grace. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. You may be seated. This morning, as we look at this passage of scripture and we examine here this account, there's several things I believe we can see this morning. I think there's a great deal of application in these things. The first thing that we see here in verses 17 through 18 is that God's blessings flow through the man of God. Now, Abram is the man of God, remember, not because he's so good, but because God's so good, and God's the one that's called him, okay? And so God's blessings flow through the man of God. Look there with me in verses 17 and 18. We read, after Abram returned from defeating that king, and also there were three others, all right, the king of Sodom went out to meet him in the Shavah Valley, that is, in the king's valley. Now let me explain to you what's going on here. All right, Abram and Lot came back from Egypt. Remember, Egypt was where he gave his wife away? All right, and the Lord gave her back. All right, they came back from Egypt. Now, this is after a famine. Abram and Lot, they came there back to Canaan, back close to Bethel, all right, where they had encamped before, where Abram had set up an altar before. All right, they came back there, and the land was not able to support them. Now, you might say, well, man, they must have had a lot of sheep. a lot of goats, a lot of donkeys, well, this is true, but it's also on the backside of a famine, OK? And so at that time, as they came into the land, now Abram was always very conscious of in any way offending the people of the land. There were limited resources during that time. and he and a lot talked about this we need to separate from one another and you know what I was a member said we know why you choose where you need to go and what I did is he looked down to the plane which is at the bottom of the red sea if you look at a map the problem is that there's plenty of food there from a lot of stock in a problem is is it there in that plan there also some CDs may some cities that you've heard of before on Sodom and was the only the moral that's right and a lot had gone down into that area he had made himself at home it's hard to know how long they've been there we do know that that area had been under and we know that they, not only was Canaan, at least in part, was paying tribute to those kings, but also that this valley or this plain, those city-states that were there, like Sodom and Gomorrah, they were paying tribute to that king. Well, they decided to rebel. Those kings came down, and instead of them just giving them some livestock and those kind of things, they decided to rebel against them, and they were soundly defeated. I don't mean just defeated a little bit, okay? But like they got whipped by these kings from Mesopotamia, and then a whole lot of them, as they were fleeing from those kings, they fell into tar pits or fell into asphalt pits that were there in that valley. And so you're talking about adding insult to injury. Now, it's one thing to get beat up, but also to be covered in tar. I mean, it's pretty bad. Now, I didn't read anything about feathers or anything like that, but I mean, this is tough. And these guys went on into these cities, and they took the things in the cities they wanted, but they also took the people. They took them captive. Well, it just so happened that they took the wrong person captive. you see a role was up in Canaan he was up around Bethel you know between Bethel and I was in this area on obviously and so they just gone right around the home on their way there to sodom and gomorrah defeating them and but in the midst of that they mess with the wrong person because you see they took Abrams nephew lot in his family captive and word got back to a room In fact, most of the time, he seems pretty cowardly. Because we see Abram, you know, not only does he, you know, give his wife to another man once, but he does it again later on. He doesn't seem to be a man of great courage. Now, some of you ladies say, I thought this was Father's Day. We're trying to prop men up, and here this fella, he's giving his wife away everywhere he goes, but he seems pretty fond of his nephew. He'll go fight for him. Well, here's what we know. we know that if if you have been called onto the lord if you've been called into If you're a Christian today, now we're way past Abram, okay? Here we are as those who are partakers in this great relationship, this great salvation that we have in Jesus Christ. We're in relationship with God through this new covenant. that is made through faith in his blood, it's a covenant that was made possible by Jesus Christ dying for us, the one who came from Abram many generations later but Abram's seed through whom the entire earth has been blessed certainly that's the seed of Abraham is the Lord Jesus Christ but if you've been called out of the world by God and into relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ then at the very least You have been reconciled to God. You have been born again so that you might bear the image of the Lord Jesus Christ. that you might bear witness to the truth of Christ in this world, both through the way you act and the way you live, but also through your words in the sharing of the gospel. And if you are a Christian today, man or woman, if you're in relationship with this holy triune God, then you are to make much of Him, you're to glorify His name here in the earth. Amen? , I hope you'll be convinced, by the more timely that the U.S. absolutely we've been saved into Christ we've been saved on two, and god's blessings flow through the man of god don't you think all of you these blessings that we see here in a room in a many unwittingly he may not understand it all fully but certainly here we see a room rescuing the He rescues not only his nephew Lot and his family. If you read back in verses 13 through 16 of Genesis chapter 14, you'll read here about Abram going, taking 318 men with him that were raised in his house, men fit for battle. He takes 318 with him. Now, I don't know what kind of army they were facing. I know it was a big enough army to defeat a unified army that was put together from five kings. Okay, five city-states. I have to believe that they had defeated armies larger than 318. We know also that those men who were in treaties with Abram went with him, which seems kind of strange because Abram's a foreigner in this land. We're going to get to that here in just a moment. but what we see here is a room coming to lots rescue and he becomes the savior of lots household but also we see that by this time Abrams conduct and gods favor had made him favorable to his neighbors so much so that they would go and fight with you I don't really know my neighbors that well, to be honest with you. You know, there's like some woods between me and my neighbors. You know, I don't see them, you know, all the time. I see cars pass back and forth. But, you know, I wonder what our neighbors think of us. as far as we know these divers are there not they have been called by god they've seen of goodness in a room they've seen in a room that he's a man blessed by god and and they're willing to go with a role in a room says this bunch is my enemy and they've got my because something's going on here because these men go with him they go to the goodness of the man of god blesses those around them and often times so much that they're willing to go with him to retrieve his team here , you know how your dogs bother us , was a blessing , dog was bothering them And oftentimes, those are the interactions we have with our neighbors, and a lot of that's because we're not really setting ourselves or we're not really making it a goal to do good to our neighbors. They just happen to be the people who live next to us. And we're trying to stay out of their way, and they're trying to stay out of ours, but that's not really the way to be salt and light, is it, in the midst of this world? need to be interested in others we need to see how our lives affect those around us and and the man of god the man through whom the channel of blessing flows with a man of god ought to be a man who's about rescue because he's sharing the gospel with those who are next to him or up the road wherever it might be his own family but also there ought to be such goodness in his life demonstrated in his life that other people notice and pay heed to it, and know that you're someone who can be dependent upon, and know that they're blessed to have you next door, have you as an employee, or have you as a friend, or have you as a fishing buddy, or whatever it might be, that you are one who does what he says he will do, and you are one who is walking under the blessing of God, and I don't mean that everything you do turns out wonderful, but I do mean that whatever you do you do as unto the Lord do it as unto the Lord and so we see rescue, all right, that happens through the man of God, we see security in his neighbors' lives are in this tree together, we see the goodness of the man of God put on display God's blessing flowing through the hospitality that the man of God is willing to show that we're not talking about a broom anymore is where we make will turn . There's a reason there's a reason why I'm just, skipping around you know it has fought through Genesis here but I couldn't I couldn't skip this one because here this guy may milk is a day he's got a funny name of a big deal that this fella came out to me and Jerusalem is actually about he would win around Jerusalem when he was coming down from Damascus which were caught up with those guys in the middle of the valley in the middle of the valley in the middle of the valley in the middle of the valley in the middle of the and I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure I'm not sure He hears that Abram has been successful. God has given Abram victory. Not just any old God. Not one of these Canaanite gods. Not the gods of the Amorites or the Amalekites. But this man who is a priest of the God Most High. He hears that God has given victory to Abram. He knows this guy Abram. He's heard about him. I have to believe that. and he's heard that this guy you know it is here because god's calling here and now god is giving success when others of the group, too bad that much is done in the southwest cities in south east U.S. at the and we find here that one thing that there's two to follow their common for different reasons which remember we're talking about that the man of god are men of god, the people of god in one comes down from Jerusalem are coming down from Salem king of Salem was no kids did he comes and brings a blessing with him he comes to do this not because he has to he calms because he wants to play as the man of god becomes all for hospitality now you know we're in a different kind of church of past play right now as I look across this church I see the people of God I see God's people I see those who've been called just like Abraham was you've been called out of darkness and you've been called into the white and we invite one another in our homes we need to show hospitality to one another not because we want the other person know how good we are, because we want to encourage one another to remind each other how good god is as the Christians will be about and Abraham comes and he's putting on display the blessings of God through his rescue of Lot, through the security that his neighbors feel, through the goodness that they see in him and have responded to, and you have Melchizedek coming, and he's coming, offering this hospitality, and what do you see? You see God's blessings flowing through God's people. To whom? To one another, but then in a secondary way, they're being felt by the world around them. you see god's blessings flow through the man of the men and women the people of god to say what does that mean for us today, Paul mills, Melchizedek and Abraham and god's it was me for a summit that today's father's day, Paul you get away from that fatherhood issue What does the world need to see through Christian men? What does the world need to see through Christian fathers? Well, I kind of think they need to see fathers who are willing to step in the gap and offer rescue to their children. You say, oh, that's right, Brother Paul, I need to get strapped up so I can protect my family. Oh, I'm afraid there's a whole lot of men, especially down here in the south in Louisiana, they're getting strapped up. They're getting strapped up to fight a worldly enemy. And you know what? They're already dead in their trespasses and sins. And they don't have any. They have no, absolutely no defense to give their family in spiritual matters. and some of them have saying they know they've heard the gospel but the gospel and change them in their acting like the gospel is some social construct at all you let me get it we gotta go to church once a month or do whatever else and but but now when they're not all protected with my life and you receive the life of Jesus Christ and are you offering it to the Because there is an enemy who prowls like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. And if your children, grown or young, whatever their age, if they don't know the Lord Jesus Christ, they are defenseless against his attacks. And they are enemies of the one true God because they are dead in their trespasses and their sins. But praise God for the gospel. and we can offer it, it's free! And if you're saved today, you know it! And you can give it to those, you can offer rescue to your children, to your spouse, to your brothers and sisters, to your nephew, to your niece, whoever it might be. They need rescue, but also what do they need? Well, they need security. They need security. I don't mean cameras on the corners of the house, that's not what I'm talking about. you know what God's word says? The Lord Jesus Christ said that those who belong to his Father, that no one can snatch them out of his Father's hand. And then he goes on to say, if you don't really understand that, then he says, and you know what? Those who belong to me, they'll never be snatched from my hand. They're safe. They're secure in Christ. And we live in a world that's full of danger. We live in a world that's full of sin. And all of those things are real. And certainly we ought to seek to protect ourselves and be secure in the things of this world. But if we're not secure in Christ, then we're only seeking that which profits for a moment. And we're forgetting that which to cures us for eternity the blood of Jesus security goodness, my goodness, goodness brothers and sisters, moms and dads, aunts and uncles there's a world that needs to see the goodness of God in your life a lot of times we sing about the goodness of God, we're talking about his blessings poured out on us and that's good. I mean, we're blessed in Christ with every spiritual blessing. That's wonderful. But when we talk about goodness that the world notices, it's not about what's in our bank account or the kind of house we live in. The goodness that the world needs to see is the fruit of the Spirit. A life that's been transformed. A life that's lived with different goals in mind. Our goal is to glorify God and to make much of Jesus Christ. And so that means that the way we live our lives and our desires look different than those of those around us. And that's the kind of man, that's the kind of woman that can be trusted. That's the kind of person that people want in their lives because they can depend on them. That's what we're to be about. Then, of course, hospitality. and we believe we bless others we bless in Jesus' name in the book of Melchizedek verses 19 to 20 of them was 90 to 20 Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine he was a priest of god of the two god most highly blessed him as a woman said a room is a blast by god most high creator of heaven and earth who is this guy? We know he's a priest of God most high. Melchizedek, who is he? Well, the New Testament makes a lot of who he is, and actually in Psalm chapter 110, we read there David prophesying that there's one who's going to come. There's one who's gonna come, and he's gonna be a priestly king. This guy's the king of Salem, okay? But he's also a priest to God most high. And so he's a priest and a king. now we don't have any we don't have any record of his call we don't have any record of who his daddy was who's mama was you know any of those things we don't know anything about him except he's the king of salem and salem means peace he's the king of peace he's the prince of peace and he comes as a king and a priest and he blesses Abram in the name of the God Most High. Now in the New Testament, when you get to Hebrews chapter 7, the writer of Hebrews is trying to help us understand that Jesus is our final Jesus is our final prophet, priest, and king. And there in Hebrews chapter 7, where the writer of Hebrews is really bringing this home, he's sort of hammering this home, he wants us to understand what kind of priest Jesus is. Because he's not a priest from the tribe of Levi, like all the priests that have come along from Exodus forward, but he's a different kind of priest. He's a priest chosen by God. And so what kind of priest is he? Well, he's not a Levite priest. He's not from the lineage of Aaron. He's from the lineage of Judah. And so how in the world can he be a priest? Well, he's a priest, as the writer of Hebrews says, according to the order of Melchizedek. He's a priest like the one prophesied about in Psalm 110. He's a priest that is God's own chosen instrument. All right? He's chosen by God. He's set apart by God. And he becomes a priest not on the basis of his family lineage, not on the basis of who he knows. He's a priest based on the power of an indestructible life. That's what it says. Now, did Melchizedek have an indestructible life? I don't know. I don't pretend to know. But the point the writer of Hebrews is saying is he's saying, we don't have a record of who his mom and daddy were, we don't have a record of where he came from, we don't have a record of his death, we have no record of any of those things. And Jesus is that sort of priest, he's the priest that God has chosen. Now his priesthood is based on the power of an indestructible life. See, Jesus had no sin. And because Jesus had no sin, he was able to make atonement for us, not with the blood of sheep and rams and bulls and steers. Jesus made atonement for us with his own precious blood. And he went into the Holy of Holies there in heaven, and he was able to make atonement there in heaven for our sin, and he sat down. His work of atonement was done because of the precious nature of the sacrifice. It was so perfect, it was so sinless, that His life could be given for the life of all men. And so His life was poured out, His blood was poured out there in heaven, and He continues to be that high priest, not making sacrifices over and over again, but interceding for us. now when is he gonna have to be replaced never the power of the indestructible life he's that final, three in milk is a day is at the very least at the very least At the very least, he's pointing forward to this one who would come, the Lord Jesus Christ, just as Abram is. Because Abram is also a priest and a king. Did you know that? Abram's also a priestly king. He sets up altars at Bethel. He sets up altars in other places. He makes sacrifices. He does those things. And later on, he's called, in Genesis 23, he's called a prince and a king. both of these men are pointing to cry and apart from Christ there is no deliverance from seeing you see the spirit bears witness when these two men come together they both know the other one's a man of God now we see that in the words of Melchizedek look what he says and so we see there by the very words of Melchizedek that Melchizedek wants to bless Abram because Abram is God's man but then what does Abram do? he does something, this is strange that doesn't seem strange to you today because we talk about the tithe and giving all the time but this point, I'm a woman's not receive the wall that we find in excess of it is numbers do run me the points that I was beginning to the priest but the idea here is that the spirit bears witness and the lord is praised both of these men do something is very self-less that glorifies god but at the same time both of them are blessed in the process and in that how it works we serve the lord in the more we're willing to pour ourselves out the more god is glorified you see god's blessings flow through the man of god god's people bear witness to god in each other and lastly and finally god's men women god's people flee from worldly alliances look there with me in verses 21 to 24 we're gonna find out more about him later on but the king of sodom said they were made in com with anything to to help a remittance, showing a remedy hospitality comes there because I have some things he wants back he says give me the people but take the possessions for yourself what he did he do a lot of us do we come to somebody looking for some grace All right, he comes to Abram, and he needs something Abram has. Abram has everything, basically, that was worth taking from Sodom and Gomorrah, both in the possessions, but also in the people. And so the king of Sodom comes, and because we all think everybody's just like us, it's human nature, all of you think that other people think just like you do. Have you ever noticed that? How many times have you been shown different? You made assumptions that you shouldn't have made. You thought that everybody understood what you told them because you understood it. Okay? But they weren't thinking like you think because they weren't like you. They're not like you. And if you're a child of God today and you don't ever run into people who don't think like you do, then I'm afraid you may not be a child of God or either that or you're just staying right here and you don't ever leave this building. Because we're not of the world. And so he comes and he says, well, I tell you what, you did a good job, Abram. You're a mighty man, that's right. I agree with Melchizedek, you're a mighty man. But I'd really like to have my stuff back. And I tell you what, I would never expect you to give all these possessions back because I wouldn't give these possessions back. But if you just give me these people back, you see, I'm not much of a king if I don't have a kingdom. if you just give the people that you keep all the stuff And so what do we see here? We see Abram, at least this time, he passed the test. Because he knew that this man was not a man of God, and he did not want to be in league with him. He did not want to have any sort of connection with him. And what did he do? He said, I don't want anything of yours. Now he had just taken food from Melchizedek, who owed him nothing. he had taken that from him and he blessed him in terms right around the city, I've already told lord I would even take a We as Christians today need to learn a little bit from this. That we love the world, we make partnerships with the world, and in many ways we're making ourselves enemies of God. That we need to be set apart. That we need to be different. Sodom was blessed by Abram, but it was only blessed because of his connection through Lot. He was not in a treaty with them. He had no other alliance with them. And their interests were aligned just for a moment. And they were blessed because of it. And that should have been light. That should have been light that shone into their lives to show them that something's different about this guy. We had thousands of soldiers and that army whipped us. He went with 318 and he brought our people and our stuff back. What should that have done? That should have opened their eyes. But they were blinded by sin, idolatry, selfishness. How we live in this world ought to be a light shining into the lives of those around us. But those who do not walk in the light, we do not need to make alliances with them because of our desire for worldly things. We need to set that aside and we need to keep our eyes on Jesus Christ. We're in the world. but we're not of the world. 2 Corinthians 6, verse 14 through 15 says, do not be yoked together with those who do not believe. For what partnership is there between righteousness and lawlessness? And what fellowship does light have with darkness? What agreement does Christ fellowship, excuse me, does Christ have with Belial? Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? now we use that we like using adverse we start talking about you know Christians marrying unbelievers and that there's application. There's application there but where is our partnership with the world found for most of us in this room is we're not talking about marriage Our partnership with the world is found in those places where we enter into associations, friendships, even contracts, or whatever it might be, with those who aren't walking with Jesus. And we're doing it for the sake of worldly aims and worldly desires. We see Abram pass the test here. this man could not see the light because he was blinded by his own darkness the darkness that was within him and Abraham in this moment at least he remained mission focus remembering the promise all that's my desire for you every father in this room that you remain mission focused every mom, every grandma, every grandfather, that we would remain mission-focused and reminding one another, remembering the promise. What's the mission? Well, our mission is to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ. What's the promise? Forgiveness of sin. Eternity. The salvation that we have in Jesus Christ. that we would turn from the things of this world, fix our eyes on Christ, realizing that it's only by doing that that we'll be able to offer rescue, security, goodness, hospitality, that God's blessings will flow through us and that God might be glorified. I'm gonna ask you if you would, if you'd stand to your feet. Here in just a moment, we're gonna have a hymn of invitation. As Brother D comes to prepare for that, I would just ask you here for a moment.