Warrior, King, Priest

Introduction

So we are continuing to look at Genesis, particularly the story of Abraham.

We saw so far that Abraham used to be a nobody, but God chose him and committed himself to blessing Abraham: he promised a great nation, lots of children, land, and blessing.

And we saw the faithful response of Abraham who lived by faith despite everything his sight told him. Lot on the other hand, lived by sight, the evidence he could see.

And then we come to today’s story. We are not going to read the whole chapter, because it is a long chapter. But to summarise it for you, we get a story of warring kingdoms.

You guys know this movie? Avatar the last airbender.

Well, similar to that, in today’s passage we get two groups of kings battling it out. And as they battle it out, do you remember Lot? Lot was Abraham’s nephew, and last week we saw that Abraham and Lot could no longer stay in the same land, so Abraham gave a choice to Lot about which land he wanted. And Lot chose the land towards Sodom and Gomorrah, and Abraham went the other way. Well, what happened is that as these kings were battling, they captured Lot and everything he had.

So when Abraham heard this news, he took his best fighting men, and in the middle of the night defeated the kings, and rescued Lot and all his people, and all his belongings. And after he comes back from battle, he meets a mysterious king named Melchizedek, and this is the passage we are going to read together today. And from this passage we learn two things about God: that he is a warrior-king, and that he is a priest.

Let’s read Genesis 14:17-24.

1. Jesus is a warrior king

So we see from this passage, Abraham meets this mysterious king named Melchizedek, and what does Melchizedek say to Abraham?

Read Genesis 14:19–20 “19 And he blessed him and said, “Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth; 20 and blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand!” And Abram gave him a tenth of everything.”

Melchizedek blesses Abraham, saying ‘Blessed be Abram, by God Most High’ - this is El Elyon, the almighty powerful God. And he says this name twice. And what does this mighty El Elyon do? He has delivered the enemies into Abraham’s hand.

It seemed as though Abraham was the one that went out at night and defeated the kings. But what Melchizedek reveals is that although Abraham was fighting, the one who was really in control and fighting for Abraham was God himself. It was God that determined and made sure Abraham found victory in his battle. Our God is a mighty warrior who fights for us.

We are used to a God of love, mercy, sacrifice, grace. And those descriptions of God are all very true. But that’s just one aspect of God. God is also a warrior. In so many places in the OT, God fights for his people. Even in the NT, we see Jesus is like a warrior, which is a side of Jesus that we don’t hear about often. But it’s in so many places if you read the NT:

If you read Luke 12:49 it says, “I came to cast fire on the earth, and would that it were already kindled!”. Jesus didn’t come just to love and save, but he also came to fight and judge.

Another example is Mark 3:27 “27 But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. Then indeed he may plunder his house.” - Jesus is the strongman who binds up Satan and plunders his goods. Jesus came to fight.

Another example is Mark 4:39 “39 And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.” Jesus even fights against the rebellion of nature, restraining the violent powers of nature.

So we can see that our God is a warrior God who fights for us. And that means that our life has battles. The Christian life is not just an easy life, of just love and peace. There is a real battle that takes place in our lives. In the OT, God commanded the Israelites to go to war and fight physical battles. But in the NT, it is different - we now fight a spiritual battle. If you read Ephesians chapter 6, we read about the armour of God: the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shoes of the gospel of peace, shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit. We now fight a spiritual battle against sin, temptation, and also Satan. There truly is a spiritual reality, Satan and his army working to deceive us, draw us away from God, draw us away from the church, draw us away from truthful and righteous ways. But we are so often blind, numb, or indifferent to this spiritual battle - even that is part of Satan’s deception.

We need to wake up! And we realise that fighting this spiritual battle is not by our strength, but ultimately it is by God’s strength - remember God is a mighty warrior, El Elyon, God almighty, who fights and finds victory for us.

2. Jesus is a priest

But God, Jesus is not just a warrior king. We see that Jesus is a priest. Why is that?

We see Melchizedek appear here in this passage. Let’s read Genesis 14:18 “18 And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. (He was priest of God Most High.)”

Melchizedek is really interesting because he is a king, but it also says he is a priest - he is a priest-king.

And his name is interesting as well:

‘Melchizedek’ means righteous king

And he is king of Salem - the king of peace

And after Melchizedek appears here in Genesis 14, he doesn’t appear again in Genesis. He just disappears. Until we read about him in Psalm 110:4 “4 The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, “You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.”” And based on this Psalm, the book of Hebrews talks about Jesus, being this priest in the order of Melchizedek - Read Hebrews 5:9–10 “9 And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, 10 being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek.”

What these verses are saying Jesus is the perfect ultimate priest. There were priests in the OT, like Aaron, and the priests from the tribe of Levi. But these passages are saying that Jesus as the priest after the order of Melchizedek, the righteous king-priest, the king of peace - Jesus is the ultimate priest. There is no other greater priest than Jesus.

Why is that important for us? Because the role of a priest is that the priest represents us. We cannot come to God directly because of our sins, so priests represent us and bring us to God. But Jesus as the perfect, ultimate high priest, made the ultimate sacrifice once and for all on the cross. And now we can come to God to this throne boldly with confidence, knowing that Jesus is our perfect high priest. And this is so important for us in so many ways:

Because Jesus is the perfect high priest, our salvation is perfect. It is secure. After God saves us, we cannot lose our salvation because Jesus as the high priest gave us the perfect salvation.

That means our salvation is not dependent on how good we are. We don’t have to perform or earn it.

And we can be confident that God is with us, and that when we pray God hears us. God is not only always available for us, but He is always with us, because Jesus as the perfect high priest has brought us to God, and God to us. We are secure in Him.

Conclusion

So this passage is so precious to us because it teaches us about God. Christianity is not just about ethics, about how to live as a good person. It is first and foremost about who God is, and the more we know about God, the more we can glorify Him and enjoy Him. Living God-centred lives, living a life that glorifies and focuses on God, not ourselves, is the most enriching, joyful, fulfilling life you can live.

And today we see God is a warrior-king. He fights. And he wins. That means we also fight in our lives, but we can be confident that God also fights for us.

We also see that Jesus is the perfect high priest. And that means we can come to God with confidence. Even if we feel unworthy because of things we have done, or we feel like we don’t have enough faith, it doesn’t matter. Jesus as the perfect high priest has brought us to God once and for all. We can come to God and pray to Him with boldness, knowing that he accepts us as his children.

Question:

Because God is a mighty-warrior, it means that our lives as well is also a spiritual battle. From the passage today, we can see that part of this spiritual battle is actually staying away from temptation and evil. We saw the dangerous consequences of living in worldly ways in Lot, who chose the well watered land of Sodom and Gomorrah, which were actually cities full of sinful and unrighteous people, and Lot ends up being captured by other kings. But Abraham is different - he accepts and builds relationship with the righeous king Melchizedek, but he completely disconnects himself from the king of Sodom, knowing he is evil. Abraham stays away from evil in his life. Our spiritual battle is the same. We live in this world, faced with many temptations, many choices, different kinds of friends, different career paths. And although we live in this world, we must not live by the evil ways of this world. Just like Abraham, we must distance ourselves from evil ways, practices, and people. It is only as holy people, set apart, that God can bless the people around us. So although we associate with unbelievers at school and at work to spread the gospel, we do not participate in their evil activities and thoughts.

What are some evil activites, thoughts, behaviours that you can identify in non-Christians around you?

What can we do to distance ourselves from those things?