Hebrews 7:1-10, Pastor Dean Delfosse

If you have a copy of God's Word, would you find Genesis chapter 14?

Genesis 14 · chapter mention

We'll do our Old Testament reading as it connects to our scripture passage today.

Genesis 14.

And if you don't have a Bible in front of you, just listen.

And I think I'm making a mistake, so I'm gonna double check my notes here.

Yeah, Genesis 14.

Um and uh it relates to our preaching passage this morning.

Uh the second half does.

The first half of Genesis 14 uh reads like a biblical game of thrones.

It's just the it's it's intense.

Um so hear the word of the Lord from Genesis 14.

In the days of Amfrel, King of Shinar, Ariak, king of Elieasar, Kiadelomer, King of Elam, and Tidal, the king of Goim, those kings made war with Berah, king of Sodom, Bersha, king of Gomorrah, Shinab, King of Admar, and Sember, King of Zeboim, and the king of Bella, that is Zoar, all these joined forces in the valley of Sidon, that is the Salt Sea.

Twelve years they had served Caedalomer, but in the thirteenth year they rebelled.

In the fourteenth year Caedalomer and the kings who were with him came to def came and defeated the Rephaim in the in Ashturah and Yah, that word with an A, my bad.

Um, the Zuzim in Ham and Elam the Shevakanib, and the Horites in the hill country of Seir, as far as El Paran on the border of the wilderness.

And they turned back and came to En Mispat, that is Kadesh, and defeated all the country of the Amalekites, and also the Amorites who were dwelling in Hezron Tamir.

Then the king of Sidon of Sodom, the king of Gomorrah, and the king of Admar, the king of Zeboim, the king of Bela, that is Zor, went out and they joined battle in the valley of Siddim with Kidalomer, king of Ilam, and Tidal the king of Goim, and Amphhrel the king of Shinar, and Arok the king of Elieasar, four kings against five.

Now the valley of Siddam was full of bitumen pits, and as the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, some fell into them, and the rest fled into the hill country.

So the enemy took all the possessions of Sodom and Gomorrah, and all the provisions, and went their way.

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

Then one who had escaped came and told Abram the Hebrew, who was living by the oaks of Mamre, the Emirite, brother of Eshkal and Aneer, 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, three hundred and eighteen 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 Hobath 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.

After his return from the defeat of Calodomer, and the kings who were with him, the king of Sodomon, the king of Sodom, went out to meet him in the valley of Shabbat, that is the king's valley.

And Melchizedek, King of Salem, brought out bread and wine.

He is 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 hands.

And Abram gave him a tenth of everything.

And the king of Sodom said to Abram, Give me the persons, but take the goods for yourself.

But Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have lifted my hand to the Lord, God most high, possessor of heaven and earth, that I will not take a thread or sandal strap or anything that is yours, lest you say, I have made Abram rich.

I will take nothing but what the young men have eaten, and the share of the men who went with me.

Let Aeneer, Eskol, and Mamre take their share.

This is the word of the Lord.

Would you pray with me?

Lord, thank you so much for the day that you have made, and for the way that your mighty hand works all things together for your glory, for the welfare of your people.

And so we ask, Lord, that having knowledge of you, Lord Most High, we pray, Lord, that you would search our hearts with your word.

Lord, we ask that you would move among us and so transform us, continue to change us and form us in the likeness of Christ, so that friends, neighbors, co-workers, teammates, fellow walkers on the path.

The people that you bring into our lives, Lord, would have opportunities to hear of your great grace to undeserving sinners like us.

We pray for a transforming grace in our lives through your word that will change our homes and turn us into more loving and respectful children and husbands and wives.

So that no matter what is done to us or around us, you would be our rock in the midst of stormy times.

We pray that you would rescue us from all the ways in which our enemy delights to trip us up and cause our faith to falter.

And so, Lord, continue to reveal yourself as marvelous in our eyes.

Please continue to draw attention to Jesus Christ, our rock and our redeemer.

And by the power of the Holy Spirit, we ask for reminders throughout the week to lean hard into you.

And we think of those who we have commissioned out from us as they do their gathering work of planting the church in Adams.

We pray, Lord, that you would provide for all of their needs in Christ Jesus.

We pray that you would go ahead of them and prepare hearts and minds, blessed encounters.

And grant them the courage, boldness, wisdom, insight, words to say in moments of meeting.

And we pray that you'd shelter them from all the wilds of the enemy that seeks to divide them, to depress them, to discourage them, to bump them off track, lose focus.

We pray, Lord, that you would surround our brothers and sisters who've been sent out from us.

We pray, Lord, that you would watch over our missionaries in North Africa.

We ask, Lord, that in your mercy, that you would strengthen this young couple, that their new addition, Lord, would grow healthy under your hand and your care.

We pray for them and their team, Lord, that they would not grow discouraged in doing what's right, but that a church would be planted there, that unbelieving folks would come to know you, the one true God and Jesus Christ whom you've sent.

We pray that you'd bless the message and the messengers.

We pray for our sister church, sower in Lincoln.

We ask, Lord, that you would continue the ministry of this church family in central Lincoln.

Lord, we pray that you would bring men and women, boys and girls of all ages to rally around the word of the gospel and to be built up in their faith and sent out like an army of your word by faith and gentleness into the city in which we live.

Please, Lord, bless the people, the believers of the Sower Church family.

And we ask, Lord, that you would have your hand heavy on us as well as we turn our attention to the text in Jesus' name.

Amen.

In Jesus' name.

What's in a name?

Shakespeare put that in his uh Romeo and Juliet.

What's in a name?

Like, what does it matter what your name is?

A rose by any other name is still a rose, according to Bill Shakespeare.

The value, nature, essence of a person does not change because of the label we give them.

And yet, Scripture shows us time and again that no names aren't ultimate, but some names are absolutely revealing because of what comes to mind whenever we hear them.

One commentator says it this way: Scripture is overflowing with names.

Names, famous names like Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, David, Daniel.

It resonates with us.

Especially Christians who are familiar with the Bible, these names are familiar with us.

They resonate with us.

They bring certain things to mind.

They bring Daniel in a cat den.

No, in a lion's den.

They bring certain things to mind whenever you hear their names.

In fact, even many non-believers, non-Christians, recognize names in the Bible.

And certain names like Sarah, Rachel, Mary, Martha still connect with us because of the roles that these figures played in salvation history.

And some of the figures in biblical history are also less familiar to us.

For instance, if you started reading the Bible and you've been working your way through the book of Genesis, do you remember the name Phineas?

Now, if what comes to your mind is Phineas and Ferb, I get ya, that's just not where we're going.

Cartoon character, if you know, you know.

Even those who study the scriptures well could forget that Phineas in Numbers 25 was a young man who heard the call of Moses to do something about the wickedness that was spreading through the camp of Israel, and he rose up and was a champion for God's righteousness.

We consider names, certain biblical characters just can't be overlooked.

Certain individuals in the Bible storyline play key roles in redemptive history.

And so we must learn to recognize and appreciate who they are in order to understand how scripture unfolds and leads us to the gospel.

So, for example, and the book of Hebrews is great about this.

When we get to chapter 11, it's like a roll call.

We cannot fail to speak about Abraham, Moses, David, and the part these men in particular played in bringing about the new covenant, God's new arrangement with his people.

And we are all blessed as believers in Christ Jesus of the new covenant.

So in order to have a tighter grasp of the realities of the gospel, we need to know some of the names, and some names more than others.

And what's weird is if it wasn't for the book of Hebrews, that name, Melchizedek, by the way, there's a there's a reason I spared all of you Bible readers from asking you to come and read Genesis 14 for us, and you heard me trip over it.

So, all you better readers, raise your hand and I'll I'll ask you to read in the future.

I give you a genealogy to read.

You'll love me then.

Some names like Melchizedek might be left off it wasn't for the book of Hebrews, and we would never know his significance.

As we saw in Hebrews chapter 5, the author develops the priestly identity of Jesus, this role he played as priest.

Hebrews 5 · chapter mention

And he described Jesus as a great high priest according to the priestly order of Melchizedek, Hebrews chapter 5.

Hebrews 5 · chapter mention

And now that we open chapter 7, we're unpacking the significance behind this name and what it means for Jesus to be the great high priest according to Melchizedek.

So the first mention of Melchizedek, Genesis 14, that I read for you just before we started, when Moses describes Abram's encounter with that man.

And Hebrews doesn't merely reference this encounter, it draws deep theological comparisons between Melchizedek and Jesus that inform how we are to understand Christ's identity as our great high priest.

So for your own soul's sake, try to stay awake.

I'll try to help as much as I can with song and dance.

No, I won't.

I'll spare you.

In other words, in order to understand better who Jesus is more fully, we must understand who Melchizedek is.

Melchizedek is one of those names that we really need to know.

So that's where God's word takes us today.

So if you have a copy of God's word, would you open to Hebrews chapter 7?

Hebrews 7 · chapter mention

It's towards the back of your Bible.

And although it'll be on the screen, God's willing, I just want to encourage you that if you have a copy of God's word on your own for yourself to use that.

Because if you're like me, you're kind of visual.

When he said that it was on this side of the page, maybe find it more easily later on on your own.

Or Google it, follow it along with your smartphone, just something to be able to kind of mark it and take it with you.

And if you don't have a Bible, there are some available in Foyer.

Please take one as you go and call it your own.

And today I'm just gonna zero in.

I was gonna be ambitious and try to do all of chapter seven.

The Lord gave me better sense than that, so you can thank him and praise him.

So we're only gonna work on the first ten verses this morning.

Scripture says, for this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the most high God, met Abram returning from the slaughter of the kings, and blessed him.

And to him Abraham apportioned a tenth part of everything.

He is first by translation of his name, King of righteousness, and then he is also king of Salem, that is, King of peace.

He is without father or mother or genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but resembling the Son of God, he continues a priest forever.

See how great this man was to whom Abraham, the patriarch, gave a tenth of the spoils.

And those descendants of Levi who receive the priestly office have a commandment in the law to take tithes from the people, that is, from their brothers, though these also are descendants of Abraham.

But this man who does not have his descent from them received tithes from Abraham and blessed him, blessed him who had the promises, it is beyond dispute that the inferior is blessed by the superior.

In the case of one, tithes are received by mortal men.

But in the case, in the case of the other, by one of whom it is testified that he lives.

One might even say that Levi himself, who receives tithes, paid tithes through Abraham.

For he was still in the loins of his ancestor when Balchized met him.

Okay.

So today's time in the text is probably giving more teaching than preaching.

And that's okay.

So if you think of this as part one and next week is part two, this is this is Ligolus pulling back his bow, giving it all the power so that when he finally lets go, the arrow will shoot straight and true.

So you're gonna have to wait for it.

This is the pulling back of the bow.

And I needed help to condense ten verses into two words of knowledge that you could hang on.

So two stepping stones to ponder and hang on to and stand on from these ten verses for today.

Two big stepping stones of knowledge.

First, verses one through.

The first one is God's word makes Melchizedek like God's son.

Yes, I will say it again.

The Bible, in the way this writer of Hebrews read carefully, Genesis 14, the Bible, God's word, makes this weird, obscure, out of nowhere person in the Old Testament, Melchizedek, God's word makes him like God's son.

The descriptions are unheard of.

So, just again, by way of review, for this Melchizedek, King of Salem, priest of the most high God, met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings, and blessed him.

And to him Abraham apportioned a tenth part of everything.

He is first by translation of his name King of righteousness, and then he is also King of Salem, that is, King of peace.

He is without father or mother or genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but resembling the Son of God, he continues as priest forever.

So verse one, Melchizedek meets up with Abraham, and Melchizedek blesses Abraham.

So this weird Game of Thrones, I don't watch a show, don't recommend the show, don't send me emails.

I know better.

Sorry, that's not whatever.

But if you if you just hear what's happening in the text, it's called the slaughter of the kings.

So Abraham finds himself wrapped up in this political tussle between superpowers of the ancient world.

And he wanted nothing to do with it, but he learns that his nephew Lot, who chose to live in the rich old Sodom, was schlepped off as a spouse of war.

Lot, his family, all his stuff.

And Abraham says, Okay, I'm gonna do this.

I'm gonna get involved.

And so small little Abraham, with all his household, all his entourage, decides to take on the kings of the valley of the kings.

The war set up is five against four.

Then there's huge war and big defeat, and then all these captives are let off, and Abraham goes up against the winning side.

Please understand that's crazy.

That's like Denmark trying to stand up against the United States.

That's crazy.

So small, insignificant, but walking by faith, Abraham moves forward to rescue Lot.

And on return, in the middle of the discussion about who's gonna get what and who's gonna get paid this much, whatever, we have this weird encounter.

And of all the things that scripture includes or kind of passes over, Moses writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit slows the narrative down.

We don't know how Abraham defeated the winning side of the kings.

We don't know their casualty count.

We don't know jack squat about any of the stuff that would make HBO TV.

What we learn is a worship service.

Moses slows down to give us these details.

So hear the word of the Lord.

In the way Moses describes this person, the writer of Hebrews picks up on that and says, hmm.

So, verse one, this person, Melchizedek, is a person who Abraham gives a tenth part of everything.

So Melchizedek blesses Abraham and Melchizedek receives from Abraham.

Let's take the first one first, because that's what really sets it all off.

Melchizedek, having encountered Abraham, blesses him.

He is priest of God most high.

He is a king, and he is also acting as priest, which was not supposed to happen.

Israel was instructed to keep these two roles very clearly distinct.

As a matter of fact, as you get to know your Bible better, you become more and more familiar with certain parts of the Bible.

Isaiah 6 is a famous chapter for all of us who are worship leaders or worship folks and then missionaries.

Here am I, Lord, send me.

Isaiah 6 begins with, in the year King Uzziah died.

King Uzziah died.

And when he did, Isaiah said, I saw the Lord lifted high on his throne, and his train of the robe filled the temple.

The reason King Uzziah died is because King Uzziah decided to play the role of a priest.

And God said, No.

But here we have a man encountering Abraham, who is King Melchisedek.

He is king of Salem, and he blesses Abraham as if he's a priest.

And Abraham reciprocates.

Abraham gives to Melchizedek a tenth of all the spoils of war.

That's not chump change.

That's not, here's a tip.

It's a tithe, not a tenth.

It's a tithe with spoils of war, not what you made at the restaurant last night when you were waiting tables.

This is huge.

The proceeds like this could be lived on by families for a long while.

This is the spoils of war for over what?

Four plus five, nine cities?

And Abraham gives a tenth part of it to Melchizedek as a tithe.

Dave Ramsey says you should use cash, not cards, because when you have to pay something with cash, you sit there as you're handing it over and going, Do I really want this?

Where a card you just swipe and move right along, but when you have to fork out cash, you're just like, oh, I don't think I want that Coke after all.

That seven brew can wait.

Abraham gives over a tenth of all the spoils of war, hard-earned spoils of war, because Abraham knows his victory was because of God, not himself.

And then look at how verse 2 ends.

The writer of Hebrews starts to unpack who Melchizedek is.

By his name, it means king of righteousness.

Melchizedek, the king of righteousness.

So already there are things about this man's name that are standing out.

He's not one of the wicked kings of the land.

He's a king of righteousness.

He's a king of righteousness.

Not just a righteous, he's a king of righteousness.

And then the realm, the plot of land that he rules over, he's a king of Salem.

That's an old school name for Jerusalem, way back in Abraham's day.

He's a king of Jerusalem.

Or Salem, or maybe more familiar to your hearing, Shalom, the king of peace.

He's a king of righteousness who rules over the land of peace.

He's the king of peace.

Again, if you pay attention to any Christmas carols beyond jingle bells, you are familiar with terms of righteousness and peace and the birth of the Christ.

You don't have to be a Bible scholar to know, wait, whoa, wait, wait, wait, something's going on here.

Really?

How coincidential is that?

This dude's name is King of Righteousness, and he's the king of peace?

Awesome.

Somebody is setting up foreshadowing all the way back in the first book of the Bible.

And then if you're a if you started reading Genesis and you made it past what, chapter four, five, with the genealogies, and so-and-so begat so-and-so, and so-and-so begat so-and-so, and so-and-so begat, or English translation, so-and-so was the son of so-and-so, so-and-so was the son of so-and-so, so-and-so.

Like these long genealogies.

Every time there's a new person on the scene, there's a gene.

Anybody of note, you give them who their mother, father is, how long they lived, but not Melchizedek.

And the writer of Hebrews would have would have passed over that as just like, okay, well, he's just kind of, you know, saving space on the scroll.

Except for Psalm 110, that Jesus loved to quote about himself.

In Psalm 110, the only other place where this name Melchizedek pops up.

The writer of Hebrews realizes, wait, wait, wait.

God just swore to his son that he would be a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.

I need to go back and see this person Melchizedek.

And all we have is what we just read.

And someone tells it he's a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.

Okay, so this character who has no genealogy tied to him, and we're not told anything about how long he lived, and then he died, like almost every other major character in the book.

The writer of Hebrews concludes resembling the Son of God, he lives.

Here's a second one.

The first one was God's word makes Melchizedek like the Son of God.

Here's a second one.

Melchizedek was priest both for Abraham and for Levi.

And who is Levi?

Levi is the ancestor of Israel's priests.

Okay, bear with me.

Melchizedek was made priest both for Abraham and for Levi.

And this guy, Levi, encompasses all of Israel's priests.

Verses four through ten.

So when you start reading the gospel and you read Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, pick either one, you know that you don't have to read very far before Jesus encounters certain people who are giving him a hard time.

And the people who are giving him a hard time are the religious leaders of Israel, the Pharisees, Sadducees.

They bump heads with the Lord Jesus over and over and over.

And their great ancestor, descendant was Levi.

And then eventually Abraham.

So the first way we see this, Abraham, well because it was Abraham's priest, is that Abraham gave him a God's tithe.

Verses four through five, like a thank you.

See how great this man was to whom Abraham, the patriarch, gave a tenth of the spoils.

So there is this zeroing out as Abraham as the patriarch.

Like the greatest of men, of Israel's men, God's chosen people, is Abraham.

And Abraham thinks Melchizedek is greater than him.

See how great this man was, to whom Abraham, a patriarch, gave a tenth of the spoils?

And those descendants of Levi who received priestly tithes of office have a commandment in the law to take tithes from the people, that is, from their own brothers, even though they also are descendants of Abraham?

Okay, let me unpack that.

And they are gonna be so busy in the tent of meeting, talking to God and making sacrifices and mediating on behalf of God's people.

They're gonna be so busy, they don't have time to farm their fields, so they don't get any property.

They don't get any farmland.

Everybody else, it's agricultural society, their farmers, the priests are busy serving the temple.

And so God says, I'm gonna provide for the priestly class.

By all of you farmers, have to give a tenth of your crops to your brothers, the priests, so that they have something to live on.

And all of those folks are descendants of Abraham.

So a tenth of everything is happening all over the place, and Abraham, the greatest of them, is giving a tenth to this guy out of nowhere, Melchizedek.

But more than that, number two, there's an exchange of ties and blessings that shows that the priest was installed without a proper genealogy.

The Levitical priesthood had to be handed down from father to son, to son to grandson.

And Melchizedek has no genealogy listed.

And Melchizedek is intervening between Abraham and God.

God blesses him through Melchizedek.

Abraham offers in worship a tenth of the spoils of everything to God through Melchizedek.

Verse six.

But this man who does not have a descendant from them received tithes from Abraham and blessed him who had the promises.

God's promises.

And then finally, number seven, Melchizedek pronounces God's blessing on Abraham, verse seven.

It is beyond dispute that the inferior is blessed by the superior.

The person of higher rank is blessing the one of lower rank.

Now here, as we're going to figure out in the rest of chapter seven, already the writer is alluding to that when we say Jesus is our high priest in the order of Melchizedek, he's not throwing away words.

In God's eyes, something huge is happening here, and we're just getting set up.

Because not only was Melchizedek acting as Abraham's priest, now here the writer gets a little weird.

Because Levi, the father of all Israel's priests, is Abraham's descendant, you can kind of think of it like even all the priests who received tithes paid tithes to Melchizedek through Abraham.

All of Israel's priests, everyone who was to mediate between sinful man and a holy God is lesser than this stranger in the desert, Melchizedek.

Verses nine through ten.

In the one case, tithes are received by mortal men.

So in one of those guys, and then in the other case, but by one who has testified that he lives, a priest forever.

Here's a weird part.

One might even say that Levi himself, who received tithes, paid tithes through Abraham, for he was still in the loins of his ancestor when Melchizedek met him.

That's weird reasoning.

That may not make a lot of sense to you and I.

You and I have were born into a culture that is all about self.

Even if you're not selfish, you're still the main way you think of things is what's gonna be my job, who's gonna be my family, where am I gonna go with like where am I gonna live?

The main thing we think about is self.

We don't really think about family.

We're not a shame and honor family culture.

Some cultures around the world are.

We are a justice individual culture.

So when they talk like this, we scratch our heads and go, what?

So bear with me.

Scripture does not think like we do.

Scripture reflects, especially in the Old Testament, mainly a Collective mindset, a corporate identity.

So, what a father does, or the head of a family tree, what he does, in essence, his descendants do also.

I encountered this when we when I was at Country Bible Church preaching there, we were in Deuteronomy, and when I was in Deuteronomy 4, I really had to scratch my head about this because in Deuteronomy 4, Moses tells the Israelites gathered at the gates of the Promised Land.

He says, Remember back when we were here 40 years ago and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And I'm thinking, Mo, these are their kids.

They weren't there.

But corporate identity helps you understand that the sins of the Father are passed on to the Son.

Which is why, as unfair as you might think it is, what our first father Adam did in sinning against God, we all did in him.

Romans chapter 5.

Romans 5 · chapter mention

That's the part I didn't read for you this morning.

And if you think, dude, that's so unfair.

This corporate identity thing stinks.

Well then you need to realize the other side of the coin that Jesus is considered our corporate head.

And his perfect life and perfect sacrifice is credited to us just as if we did it.

There is no salvation without this reality of corporate identity.

Period.

By the way, that's commercial number two for the Pactum Conference.

Covenant theology is less about what Israel it has everything to do with Adam and Christ.

Come join us.

God has done all these things in Christ.

And did you see?

Did you see all these pointers to Christ?

He is the King Priest.

He is of God most high.

He is one who blesses.

He is one who endures death.

He is one who receives worship and tithes and offerings.

This is pointing to Jesus.

And how should we respond to this?

When you think about how Abraham understood that his whole life was in the hand of God, and God gave him victory over an army that he shouldn't have.

And provides this mediator between God and man in Melchizedek.

Like it should humble us to know that we cannot just stand before God on our own.

It's okay, I'll face judgment day because my good outweighs my bad.

I turned over a new leaf.

Like, dude, get it through your head.

It's never gonna happen.

There is no doing enough to unraise all that was done except for Jesus.

And the right response we have to grace like that is humble adoration.

And to pay tribute and homage, uh even gifts and tithes and blessings back to the one who has blessed us.

But mainly, the main response is that we have such a high priest, and let us draw near to God through him in worship and prayer.

Chapter 7, verse 25.

So Melchizedek may seem obscure to us, but by investing ourselves in head-twisting passages like Genesis 24, Psalm 110, Hebrews 7, we find that we are we develop a much richer appreciation of what Christ has done for us as our great high priest.

And with that, we turn our attention to the supper.