Active Faith

Becoming a Pastor

In the year 2012, I was working as an engineer, in a secure, well-paying job that I both enjoyed and had plenty of potential to keep moving up in the world.

But it was also the culmination of a five year journey that I had been on, wrestling with a call that God had placed on my heart to step out and become a pastor.

And so, it all came to a head. I had a huge decision to make.

On the one hand I had a good secure job. On the other, I felt a strong call that God wanted me elsewhere.

From a worldly perspective, it was a no-brainer. Go with the money. Go with the security. Go with what you know and what is comfortable.

The alternative was scary. The alternative felt a bit like stepping off a cliff with absolutely no idea how far I would fall.

I felt God calling me to be a pastor, but there wasn’t even a church for me. In fact, in 2012, I wasn’t even able to get accepted into the Baptist accreditation system - yet this call remained.

Do I go with what I strongly felt God calling me to? Or do I go with what feels safe?

Well, I strongly felt that call, and so I felt I could do nothing other than step out - and so late in 2012, I approached my boss and handed my resignation in.

Now I would love to say that as I stepped out, everything went really smoothly - but that wouldn’t quite be true.

But what did happen, was that God provided my every need.

While I might have taken a pay cut - financially, God has provided.

While I might have been able to progress my career quicker - I have experienced God in ways I had not before.

When we follow God - what seems improbable, or even impossible, can suddenly become real.

The key is following God’s leading, because when we do this, truly anything can happen.

I’ve listened to others who have stepped out in faith and many of their stories are even more amazing.

I’ve heard of missionaries who through no fault of their own, suddenly need visas approved in a matter of days, when the system normally takes weeks or months - and God has provided!

I’ve heard people take bibles into China, even though they weren’t allowed, and when the authorities searched their cars in which the bibles were being carried, God closed their eyes to them.

I heard evangelists tell of when they’ve spoken to the most hardened atheists, and God suddenly opens their eyes, and we see the most unlikely thing happen.

These stories don’t happen because of their cleverness or special skills. They happen because people listen to God and as they follow, God provides, sometimes in the most miraculous ways.

The question we each need to ask ourselves is: do we still expect big things from God?

Abram’s Faith

This morning we’re continuing our journey through Abram’s life and we’re going to see how in faith, Abram saw something truly remarkable happen.

Context

Before we get into the battle itself, it’s worth looking at what happened in the previous chapter that we have now just skipped over.

For those who were here last week, we looked at when Abram stumbled as a man of faith, and allowed his fear to affect his decisions as he went down to Egypt. He tried to take matters into his own hand, rather than relying on God for his protection, and the result was a big mess. But despite the mess, God remained faithful and they returned to the land promised to them by God.

In chapter 13 however, while back in the land, Abram manages to find himself in conflict with Lot - and it wasn’t long before they realised that they would need to move away from each other.

Abram is very gracious and allows Lot, his nephew, the first pick of land. Lot chooses the best looking land, which just so happened to be Sodom - a town that will become very infamous in the not too distant future.

Surrounding nations

And so we get to chapter 14 and the main story I want to look at today.

Now I suspect for most of you, like me, you read this passage and just gloss over the names because they mean nothing to you, and as a result, we don’t really grasp what is happening. You see, we hear that Abram is able to defeat this other army with just his servants, therefore the other army probably wasn’t much - at least that was my unspoken assumption before I looked into this with a bit more detail.

So let’s dig a little deeper to try to get a handle on what is going on.

First four kings

Well, the first verse introduces us to four kings. Now being this far back in history it’s hard to be too precise about who’s who, but the experts tend to agree that we’re talking about some sort of coalition formed from nations in the area around what will later become Babylon.

Now there are a few interesting points about this. Firstly, this is actually the homeland of where Abram came from. If you remember right back when we first met Abram, he was from Ur of the Chaldeans. I mentioned at the time that this was down in the place that will later become Babylon.

And so there is this sense that God has brought Abram up out of this region, but now the world wants to lay claim to what God has just given. There is almost a sense of irony as the powers of this world are unable to get what God offers freely.

But the other point I want to make about this coalition is that the evidence points to the fact that they formed a powerful army.

If you jump down to verse 5, we read of their other most recent conquests - again with names that most likely mean nothing to us.

But the bible itself provides a little bit of commentary on who they are. If you were to jump over to , Moses is reflecting on their journey back to the Promised Land (this is of course after Israel had spent 400 odd years in Egypt). He described some of the people that lived in the land, describing them as strong, numerous and tall. Just like the Anakites that scared off Israel from taking the promised land earlier.

Well, these giants nations, they are the very same ones that we see back in as being defeated by this powerful coalition. Keeping that in mind, that will add some perspective when we look at Abram’s victory in a little while.

Second Five Kings

So that powerful coalition I was just describing are those in verse 1. Verse 2 then, lists for us five kings that come up against them. You might at least recognise two of the city names, namely Sodom and Gomorrah.

This time we’re not talking super powerful countries. Rather we are talking of a coalition of cities that exist around the dead sea.

Now, outside the Bible, no reference to the name of these kings have been found, but an interesting observation has been made about the names of the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah.

First I need to teach you two words in Hebrew. The Hebrew for ‘evil’ is ‘ra’ and the Hebrew for ‘wicked’ is ‘rasha’.

Add a ‘B’ to the start of them and you get “Bera” and “Birsha”, the names of the rulers from Sodom and Gomorrah.

The conflict

Well, it quickly becomes evident that this coalition from around the Dead Sea, is no match for the far more powerful coalition from the East. Verse 4 in fact say that for 12 years they had been subject to them and it was only in the 13th that they decided to rebel, and try to make a contest of it.

And so it is in verse 8 that we see the battle lines being drawn.

The battle itself is in the Valley of Siddim - an area that the Dead Sea Coalition probably thought was an advantage to them.

You see, the Dead Sea is actually about 400 or so metres below sea level. Basically, it’s in the bottom of a deep valley.

Now the Dead Sea is essentially divided into two halves, with a land mass, only slightly higher than the water level running East-West roughly in the middle of the sea. It is this land that was known as the Valley of Siddim, Invaders were usually put off from going to this valley because, being in the middle of this valley, it was relatively inaccessible.

But unfortunately, on this occasion, with a much stronger army, it proved no barrier - in fact, we’re told in verse 10 that as the men fled, some of the men fell into the tar pits that were present in the valley.

They then took the spoils - including Lot’s nephew Lot and all his possessions.

And so, it would have been a complete wipe-out for these people, and the powerful coalition would have succeeded in their expansion - at least it would have been had Abram not been informed.

Abram’s intervention

Now it would appear Abram wasn’t completely aware of what was going on until a report came to him. I’m pretty confident he would have been aware of the presence of the powerful coalition of four armies, after all, this area had been subject to them for the last 14 or so years.

Well, when Abram heard that his nephew was caught up in the whole affair, it is as if the whole thing suddenly became very personal.

Now in verse 14, Abram calls up the men who are now part of his household - and I don’t know about you, but I find his little group quite surprising.

As it turns out, he has 318 trained men, all born in his household - in other words, not just the men he has acquired along the way, but the generation after that.

And while it doesn’t elaborate on how or why they were trained, my suspicion is that because of the growing tension in the area, maybe he thought a bit of training would come in handy.

Now, while 318 trained men is pretty impressive from a household - the reality is, it really isn’t much compared with a powerful coalition of four kings that have a impressive haul of recent big victories.

But yet, this is where we get to the point that it isn’t about earthly power.

You see, Abram has obviously made some good choices - after all, his men have been trained. But, there needs to be more. It is just not wise to put those 318 men, trained as they are, up against the might of this other army.

Last week we looked at a time when Abram cowered in fear. This time however, it would seem he has learnt his lesson.

This time, Abram remembers the promise that God gave him.

In fact, what we’re about to see is a number of the elements of that initial promise come to the fore.

Promise of land

The most obvious one is the promise of land.

You see, this foreign coalition is now taking the land promised to Abram’s descendants. This directly goes against God’s promise.

While Abram feared in Egypt, now he is ready to claim that promise.

And so in faith he sends his trained men after this army.

By the end of verse 14, his pursuit takes him to Dan, which is in the northern part of the land promised to him.

In verse 15, he divides his men up, keeping the pursuit up to Hobah, north of Damascus.

By the power of God, Abram is victorious.

Now I don’t know about you, but once you’ve understood the background and realised how improbable this victory was, I’m left wanting more details. I want to know how this small group of trained men could take out a far more powerful army.

But I feel that there is a sense in which the author just recognised the inevitability of it all. God promised he would have the land, so God would deliver.

In faith, Abram just gave what he had, and God took care of the rest. The means is almost irrelevant.

It’s the same for us. When we are claiming God’s promises, we just need to offer what God has given us, and he will do the rest. How God will do it is in one sense irrelevant, in that when we focus on the means, we start to put the trust in ourselves, but when we focus on God, we just let him work out however he feels is best.

Abram has the most improbable victory because in faith, he trusted God would come through for him, and he knew that God is always faithful!

Cycle of blessing

So part of the promise was about the land, but if you recall the promise we looked at at the beginning of , you might recall that it also included being a blessing to those who bless him and a curse to those who curse him.

Well, at the end of this chapter, we start to see this element being played out.

Melchizedek

To see this cycle of blessing, we need to look at Melchizedek.

But first we should perhaps ask - who in the world is Melchizedek?

Well, the truth is, we actually don’t know much about him at all. In fact, the three verses in this chapter are the only ones about in him in all of the Old Testament narratives.

He does get a mention in one of the Psalms, but that then is it for the entire Old Testament.

That might surprise you if you read which almost devotes a whole chapter to him.

Well, in some ways, and it’s not entirely straight forward, the lack of details actually helps serve the purpose of when he is being discussed in . You see, highlights the lack of any genealogy, and so it uses him as almost a symbol of timelessness.

But also talks about his name which helps to place this real, but also symbolic character.

Firstly, the name Melchizedek means king of righteousness, and his title, ‘king of Salem’, means ‘king of peace’.

And so, Melchizedek comes to symbolise this timeless, righteous and peace seeking king.

Some have postured whether Melchizedek is in fact an early incarnation of Jesus. Personally, I don’t see sufficient evidence, but certainly he does symbolize what Jesus stands for.

And so it is with this character that we see a cycle of blessing taking place.

You see, God has set up this blessing, that as Melchizedek blesses Abram, God’s blessing will flow through Abram and onto Melchizedek.

Verse 19 has Melchizedek’s blessing of Abram, which follows Abram giving a tenth of everything to him.

Now in some ways it seems all a bit strange. But I’d suggest not getting too caught up in the specifics of the blessings, rather to focus on this cycle of blessing.

Because in this cycle, we too can see how we can be involved in a cycle of blessing.

God’s blessing can flow through us as we see blessings passed on to others, and then blessings back to us.

King of Sodom

We then see this example of Melchizedek contrasted with the King of Sodom.

Whereas Melchizedek blesses Abram, the king of Sodom shows no respect. His sharp retort being as good as a curse.

He tells Abram to give him the people but he can keep the goods.

Maybe that might not sound like much of a curse. But, by rights, the victor has first claim of the plunder, so offering him the goods is actually not very generous.

While Melchizedek symbolises all that is good, the King of Sodom symbolises all that is evil (I mentioned before that the name given to him is a play on the word “evil”).

But pay attention to how Abram responds - he wants nothing to do with him.

I spoke before about God’s promise to bless the people who bless, and curse the people who are cursed.

What’s important to note is that those blessings and curses aren’t ours to give, but God’s. And so it is not Abram who will curse Sodom, but if we skip ahead a few chapters, you’ll see God’s judgement fall on Sodom along with Gomorrah.

Application

What I love about the last section of the account with Abram and his victory over the powerful army, is that as we step out in faith and claim the promises that God has given us - others too can get caught up in the blessings as well.

Just think about it.

Firstly from the perspective of this church.

Now when we talk about specific promises that God gives us we have to be a little careful. But there are some general promises that I believe apply to all God’s churches. For instance, I will God promises that his church will be able to make an impact on those that they serve.

And so from this perspective, when we step out in faith, I believe we can make a difference right here on the Tilligerry Peninsula.

In this way, for the people who are happy to accept it, they can know the blessing of our faithfulness.

As individuals it’s the same. God wants us to be his hands and feet wherever we are. When we step out in faith and do that, those around us can be blessed.

Some will accept the blessing, others won’t.

Our job, is not to choose who does and who doesn’t receive the blessing, rather in faith we just step out and do what God would have us do, and leave the rest for God.

As we’ve seen in this example of Abram, when we do leave the rest up to God, the result is often far more than we realise is even possible.

Conclusion

This really is the exciting thing.

With God, nothing is impossible. We are just to claim that in faith.

Sometimes we think somethings are just not worth it because it seems too improbable.

We don’t bother telling our atheist friend about God, because he is too hardened against him.

We don’t move into a new ministry, because it just wouldn’t work.

We don’t take risks because the likelihood is that it will all come back to bite us.

But this fails to recognise something. It fails to recognise that in God, all things are possible.

And as we claim that in faith, we can see the blessings flow on to others.

Let me pray...