He is Superior and We are Inferior
Sermon • Submitted • Presented
0 ratings
· 1 viewNotes
Transcript
Hebrews 7:1-10
Hebrews 7:1-10
7 For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God, met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him, 2 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. 3 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.
4 See how great this man was to whom Abraham the patriarch gave a tenth of the spoils! 5 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 descended from Abraham. 6 But this man who does not have his descent from them received tithes from Abraham and blessed him who had the promises. 7 It is beyond dispute that the inferior is blessed by the superior. 8 In the one case tithes are received by mortal men, but in the other case, by one of whom it is testified that he lives. 9 One might even say that Levi himself, who receives tithes, paid tithes through Abraham, 10 for he was still in the loins of his ancestor when Melchizedek met him.
Pray
We are all gifted in different areas. I have always had a knack for finding similar situations and combining them with concepts. This is helpful when it comes to any sort of teaching. I have a friend that has a troubled mind, she loves math. Haha. I don’t get it, but she helps Clive from time to time and she is great at breaking down math in terms and ideas that he and some of his friends can understand. This gift is particularly useful when teaching the bible.
People get overwhelmed when they see the bible and they want to have all the knowledge in it but the thought of digging to get the gold inside is a daunting task for most, so if someone can break down the concepts so that it is easier for you to approach the Scripture, that is a solid gift and help from the Lord.
For instance, I have used this before, our relationship with Christ is like a good marriage. You are one with your spouse, the husband sacrifices and takes care of the bride. Both husband and wife in the relationship work together to accomplish goals and raise children and love each other well. Christ dwells in us that way in that, through the Holy Spirit, He is intimately in tuned with what I am doing, what I need, where I fail and He will use my life to advance His kingdom.
To understand the grace and love of God I often use the child to parent analogy. If you have children, you do not love them only if they meet certain conditions, but you just love them because they are yours. It is not, “I will love you only if you do the chores I have asked you to do and only if you come to me a certain way.” No. It is a father saying, “Because I love you, will you follow the direction I have for your life?” Because the child sees and can feel the love, they follow and obey the father because they have been loved first.
The Lord loves to tell stories like this. All throughout the Gospels Jesus teaches just like that. The parables are Jesus’ way of making the complicated easy to understand and to point us to a lesson that we need to learn.
The Lord has done this throughout the Old Testament. The garden, that God created and put Adam and Eve in, is like what the future looks like as we are reunited with the Father in a communal relationship.
The choosing of Abraham from the dust. A pagan, from a pagan family with no known ties to God is chosen by God. It was nothing that Abraham had done but only God’s sovereign choice, love and mercy did He choose to save the world through Abraham. That is how God chooses us and loves us and cares for us. Not for anything that we have done but for what He has done.
Abraham believed before the law was written down, before the prophets, before all the signs and wonders, God called him and he had faith that the one who called would be able and willing to save. This is how we are saved, not through works of the law but by faith in the redemption sent by God. We know that as the work of Christ.
God uses these stories to help us see what He is doing. He takes the complex and puts it in terms we can understand. When you are casually reading through Genesis and you stumble upon Genesis 14, you find this King by the name of Melchizedek. This is another example that God uses to show you what Jesus is like and the type of role that He plays. This takes us into our text today.
7 For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God, met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him, 2 and to him Abraham apportioned a tenth part of everything.
The author of Hebrews basically gives us everything that we know about this guy right here in the introduction of this chapter. He is king of Salem which actually means that he was the King of Jerusalem, Salem becomes Jerusalem. He is a king and priest. There is no other person in the bible that holds both of those titles until Jesus. Abraham is blessed by Melchizedek and Abraham FREELY gives him 10% of all the spoils that he had taken from the army he defeated.
Our writer goes on to explain who this person is..
He is first, by translation of his name, king of righteousness, and then he is also king of Salem, that is, king of peace.
This is a glowing example of what Jesus would come to be. He pops into the pages of Scripture and pops right back out, mysteriously. When we read about Christ we see that He is the king of Righteousness. No one was/is as righteous as He is. Christ is our rest, He is our peace. We see it in the pages of the Gospels and the explanation of Jesus in the letters, but that definition of Christ is in the book of Isaiah. Isaiah 9:6-7
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.
There is a uniqueness to this Melchizedek character that we have to examine. His is like Christ in many ways.
3 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.
Jesus, though He had an earthly mother and a father that took care of Him, also refers to himself as God which is the Alpha and the Omega. The beginning and the end. Many scholars look at this text and think that Melchizedek IS Jesus showing up in the Old Testament. These events are called a theophany. These are events when Jesus shows up in the Old Testament. Much like when Genesis 18 says that the Lord came to visit Abraham and Abraham lifts up his eyes to see three men that tell Abraham and his wife that they are going to have a child in their old age. Or when in Genesis 32, Jacob wrestles with a man that puts his hip out of place and Jacob says that He has seen the face of God. Or in Daniel when the three men are thrown into the fiery furnace and they see a fourth man in there with them that resembled a “son of the gods” according to King Nebuchadnezzar.
These events take place in the Old Testament and scholars debate if it is Jesus or not.
This text lends itself to that interpretation, but another way to see this is Melchizedek is a man. We will see in verse 4 that the author of Hebrews refers to him as a “man”, but he does not have a familial line mentioned that we can see, he was chosen as priest by God. He jumps in and out of Scripture with no announcement of coming or going seemingly without beginning or ending. He seems eternal because we do not see these things presented as he “resembles, not IS the Son of God” and because we do not see a death to him it would seem that he was a priest forever.
Either way you look at this, this priesthood that was carried by Melchizedek is much greater than what the Jews would have known as their priests in the Levites.
4 See how great this man was to whom Abraham the patriarch gave a tenth of the spoils!
You have to remember that Abraham was the father of the faith. If you have ever heard children’s bible songs then you have heard, “Father Abraham had many sons and many sons had father Abraham. I am one of them and so are you, so lets just praise the Lord.”
Abraham was the mammoth of the faith because it was by his belief in the promise that all the nations of Israel are here. This Melchizedek character was such a great man that the greatest man in the Jewish faith, Abraham, freely gave him a tenth of all that he had.
This priest and King blessed Abraham and out of love and respect for him, he gave. Now lets contrast that with this next verse.
5 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 descended from Abraham.
You see the difference. This line that was in the line of Aaron, the priestly line, Moses’ brother, they receive the priestly office just because of their last name. If you came from the line of Aaron, you were a priest and you had to take tithes from the people. If you were a Levite, this is the only way that you would eat. A Levites job was to take care of the Temple and to make sacrifices to God for the people, so they needed that tithe because there was no other way for them to provide for their families. This is not wrong, God set it up this way but there is a large difference. The Levites needed the tithe and Melchizedek was a king. He didn’t need Abraham’s tithe, but because of how great a blessing that Abraham recieved from Melchizedek, Abraham wanted to give something.
Having children really helps me understand these concepts. We try to raise our children with manners. I know it is almost an obsolete art, but their mother and I still hold to those values. Common curtesy would state the if I give you something, you say, “Thank you.” We have taught and are teaching that to the boys. If you have ever had little children they can be shy or selfish or a mixture of both and when you give them something isn’t it better when they say, “Thank you, daddy.” Isn’t that better than me saying, “What do you say?” and trying to pry out of their mouths their gratitude for the gift. This is a stark difference. The tithes were given to the Levites out of duty, they had to or else the Levites would come and get it. Because of Abraham’s gratefulness for Melchizedek, Abraham gives freely to him.
This is how we should view our giving to the Lord. Do you think that God needs your money? He doesn’t, but there is a sacrifice that He desires from us to show our gratitude. Because He is so gracious and merciful to me, can I withhold all that He has given to me for myself? When Abel gives the Lord the first fruits or best of his crop, it is pleasing to the Lord and it is a message that says, “I trust that every blessing I receive is from you and that you will supply my every need.” God is so much greater than we are, to give is to also humble ourselves in front of Him.
6 But this man (Melchizedek) who does not have his descent from them (the Levites) received tithes from Abraham and blessed him who had the promises. 7 It is beyond dispute that the inferior is blessed by the superior.
Is this how you feel about the Lord? Abraham knew his rank. He knew that he fell short of the righteousness of Melchizedek and though he may not have even fully understood what was happening, he knew that he must give something to this great king. The text doesn’t say that Melchizedek needed anything. If he was the king of Jerusalem, he was probably wealthy, but Abraham gave back what he could.
This is a great lesson for us. I have had conversations with people about God and I remember a distinct time when the person was not a believer and my friend said something to the effect of, “I’m a good guy, I do all the right things and if I die and go to hell, thats on Him.” He was ultimately saying that God owes him. Do you think that God owes you something? It is beyond dispute that the inferior is blessed by the superior. What can the ant do for me? What could it give me that would bless my life? Maybe not bite me. The ant has nothing to give me.
We are moved to sacrifice and give to a High Priest that is so much higher than us not because He needs our money as the Levitical priests did, but it is our offering to show how grateful we are. His love is greater than money, food and drink. He is the giver of all good things, but how these Hebrews were living was very much a deeds based religion. “The Levites take 10% of what I make and I’m good.” That is quite a different heart than someone freely giving of the money they have recieved from the Lord.
8 In the one case tithes are received by mortal men, but in the other case, by one of whom it is testified that he lives.
The author is showing the stark difference between the mortal and the immortal. These Levites can’t save you. That system couldn’t save anyone. You can never do enough good works or give enough money to pay your way into the Kingdom of God. Our God is not kept alive by our tithes and offerings, but we are kept alive by His very word.
9 One might even say that Levi himself, who receives tithes, paid tithes through Abraham, 10 for he was still in the loins of his ancestor when Melchizedek met him.
When we give, we are returning to God a portion of what He has given to us. Church, there is no amount of money that you have that you did not receive from the Lord. There is not one member of your family that was not placed their by the Lord and there is not one job that you have ever had that God did not place you in. He has given you a mind and a body to use for His glory. It all belongs to Him.
This entire passage can be summed up in verse 7 of this passage.
It is beyond dispute that the inferior is blessed by the superior.
Melchizedek was a far superior King than the world had ever known and the Father of our faith realized that and paid respect to him in giving him an offering. Jesus, our King, is so much higher than we are that we must acknowledge and accept that we are the inferior and the only way that we can even begin to breath is because we have been blessed by the superior.
One of my favorite stories in the bible is in John 3. John the Baptist has come before Jesus preaching that the kingdom is coming. Thousands of people came out to him to hear the message. In Mark is says that all of the country of Judea and all Jerusalem came out and were baptized by him. He had quite the following and he could have held to the title, “I am John the Baptist. These people are here to see me.”
Jesus comes and is baptized and John knows because he sees the Spirit descending like a dove on Jesus that He is superior. So, when the religious elites come and ask John why Jesus and his disciples are baptizing people, John says my favorite line, “He must increase, but I must decrease.”
When you realize that you are in the presence of that level of righteousness and holiness, you have to worship. That is why we meet on Sundays. That is why we pray that is why we give. That is why we turn our entire lives over to Him, because He deserves the glory. He deserves the praise.
In order to get to this place, we must first realize that He is superior and we are inferior. He must increase and we must decrease until we get to that place that when people see us they see Jesus. We are to give away all that separates us from Christ until Christ is all that remains.