FEB 20 2022 | Genesis: Behind the Curtain S1E5 | Abraham

Sea Change Church · Genesis: Behind the Curtain · "Abraham" Pastor Adam Stadtmiller · February 20, 2022
Genesis 27:30–38
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

Good morning, church. Isn't it wonderful what God is doing here? So blessed to be a part of this church. My name is Kimberly Davis. I'm in the ministry of Jesus Christ. That's what I said the first service because I do whatever he needs when he needs it. And this week I'm hosting the Women's Anchored event. So I hope all you ladies will come out and attend and have fun with us. We're going to have such a great time, as Drea said, and Bonnie and Chris are leading.

And we'll have praise and we'll have a word from the Lord and we'll have a good time. So please come. Please register so I have enough food and goodies for all of you. Today's scripture reading is from Genesis 14, 17 through 24. After Abram returned from defeating Kedlorimer, the kings allied with him. The king of Sodom came out to meet him in the valley of Savé. That is the valley of the kings. When Melchizedek, the king of Salem, brought out bread and wine, he was priest of God most high. And he blessed Abram, saying, Blessed be Abram by God most high, creator of heaven and earth. And praise be to God most high, who delivered your enemies into his hand.

Into your hand, excuse me. Then Abraham gave him a tenth of everything. The king of Sodom said to Abram, Give me the people and keep the goods for yourself. But Abram said to the king of Sodom, With raised hand I have sworn an oath to the Lord, the God most high, creator of heaven and earth, that I will accept nothing belonging to you, not even a thread or the strap of a sandal, so that you will never be able to say, I made Abram rich. I will accept nothing but what my men have eaten and the share that belongs to the men who went with me, to Anur, Eskel, and Mamre.

Let them have their share. The word of the Lord. In the name of me, is my friend. You are the one I have from the Lord. We are the one I have of the need. The word of the Lord. It is the one I have of the same. The word of the Lord. The word of the Lord. The word of the Lord. The word of the Lord. The word of the Lord. The word of the Lord. The word of the Lord. The word of the Lord. The word of the Lord. The word of the Lord.

The word of the Lord. The word of the Lord. The word of the Lord. The word of the Lord. The word of the Lord. The word of the Lord. The word of the Lord. The word of the Lord. The word of the Lord. The word of the Lord. Thank you. If you were a child of the 90s, you remember that song and what accompanies it. You go, Michael! Oh, come on. Where are you guys at? Okay. So that's the, oh, thank you so much. That was the opening where Michael Jordan came out.

Thanks to Jeff for that. Just when I saw that he was doing that song, I just wanted you to know, I ended up getting myself a pair of Nike kicks just for that. So you guys aren't impressed. First service really liked that. So when your pastor is theming his wardrobe according to the scripture for the week, come on, guys. That's next level. Thank you. Check out the Instagrams, Pastors in Sneakers. And it's a fun Instagram to follow.

All right. Let me just pray. Get us going. Lord Jesus, thank you for your goodness and your grace. God, we love you. As you speak to us, Lord, about all the things that you want to do in our lives and how you want to bless us, we just give you praise in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Let me start with a statement. You won't ever taste a victory or the blessing of victory if you're not willing to go to battle. Let me just say that again.

It's pretty basic. You will never taste the blessing of victory if you're never willing, if you're not willing to go to battle. So the question for you is, is there any battlefield in your life that you're fighting for? Now, maybe the enemy is within. Maybe there's an issue that you've been having a lot of compromise, a lot of rationalization in your life. I find that holiness never needs to be rationalized. And if you have a sentence after what you think is right, I tend to find that that moves to rationalization.

Maybe the battle is within. Hopefully, we get to a place where we're conquering the battles within and we're able to pick a few fights, so to speak, for the poor or for the brokenhearted or for your family or for whatever thing it is or for like we saw with Jeff, for the blind. And to use it, he used the term battle, not a war, but he's going to battle against blindness. If we're not even at a place in our lives where we have fought the inner conflict and won, it's very hard to move to the next level to take any spiritual dominion or territory outside of your own individuality.

In the scripture here, we see that Abram is beginning to move from a place of fear. Remember, he went into a town before and he lied about his wife because he was afraid he was going to get maybe murdered or killed. He has been moving and his backbone of faith is getting stronger and stronger. And this time, he goes and he picks a fight with four kings who have come against other cities and that are in his region. And they have actually taken his nephew, Lot, captive.

Now, if you, we skipped over that. It's a chapter behind. We're not going into that story. But let me just tell you where we are in the piece. That Abraham has, and Lot have separated. Lot, the scripture says, was a righteous man, but he kept putting himself in unrighteous places. So he's living in Sodom, which if you read the scripture, doesn't have an incredible, historical, religious, righteous lineage. And he goes and he decides, I'm going to live in that city.

He goes down and he ends up in the city. That city is taken over through a battle and then he is taken hostage. Now, when Abram finds this out, Abram, no longer worrying about himself, takes 350 men and he goes and he attacks four kings. And he also does it to rescue his cousin, his nephew, Lot. So this is where we are in the story. Now, after that victory, there's an incredible blessing that happens in Abraham. This priest, this king named Melchizedek comes and blesses him.

But he doesn't come alone. He comes with another king named Barah, who is the king of Sodom, who just got routed by these other four kings. And when, remember, Lot was living in Sodom. So when Sodom lost and it said that it was such a bad route, that the people who were fighting for Sodom ran away through the tar pits and fell into the tar pits and died. That's how much confusion there was. So at the end of this, Abram is going home with the spoils.

He takes the spoils of four kingdoms and he's on his way home. And he gets home and two kings visit him. The king of Salem, which is Melchizedek we'll talk about, and the king who is Barah, the king of Sodom. And there's two different ways that he can approach this. We're going to dig in to the offers and what happened in those. But the first thing I want to challenge you with is, are you willing to step up, even when it's a risk, to fight for what is right and to fight for what is righteous?

We see that Abraham now in this passage is no longer afraid for his own well-being. And he attacks four nations in order to save his nephew Lot. So first thing we're going to look is this. One, where are you picking a battle? You won't ever taste a victory if you're not willing to go to battle. Where are you going to battle? And maybe it's time to battle someone else besides yourself. Maybe get some victory in your own life.

So you can say, I'm going to go battle for the poor. You pick that place. This is the battlefield that I'm going to go to. For me personally, the battlefield, so to use that word if I may, the thing I want to fight for is the lives of young people. And so I've been investing my life personally in working where my kids are. So when they were in horseback riding, I would go to the horseback riding. When they were in elementary school, I was a playground dad.

Now my daughter likes basketball. I'm basketball dad. Like I told you, I wear the Viking hat. I do the whole thing. That is a place where I want to battle for the souls and the lives of young people. That's super important for me. And it's also nice to do something besides just, you know, ministry where I'm actually professionally involved in ministry to have ministry out of that. Where is your battle? And are you willing to do that?

Now in that, after the battle is won, what do we do? And that's what we're going to talk about today is after a battle is won, how do we sustain the blessing of that battle? How do you sustain blessing? Does blessing need to be sustained or does blessing just keep coming on its own? And how do we rebuke a curse? Because as you see in the story, Barah comes and offers him Abram a deal and he rebukes Barah, but he receives the blessing from Melchizedek and then he gives a blessing back to Melchizedek.

So you see him sustaining a blessing from Melchizedek, but he's rebuking what Barah is offering to him. So if you're going to win a battle, it's going to cost you something. You can't sustain the freedom of your soul, freedom from addiction, freedom of relationships, freedom that Christ has for freedom you've been set free without a battle. Thomas Paine says this. Thomas Paine has about our own personal freedom. It says those who expect to reap the blessing of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it.

Let me read that again. Those who expect to reap the blessing of freedom, and freedom has blessings, must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it. If you're going to live free, if you're going to help get other people free, it's going to cost you something. Freedom isn't free. And I'm not just talking about political freedom. That's really big in our society today. It's a big discussion. You can't have outside freedom unless you get freedom on the inside.

So where are you drawing up that battle, and are you willing to face it? Pastor Harry has a great story. When Pastor Harry was a freshman, I don't know if you know, he was an MMA fighter. I would not challenge him to a fight. I have seen this guy. I'm just saying, he's got a lot going on, and I wouldn't challenge him. So he gets a phone call. He's a freshman. This girl calls him and says, hey, I'm at Rigoberto's right down the street.

Now this story is in the La Jolla High School lore. I mean, this is like amazing. He gets a story. He gets a call, and she says, hey, this guy's hassling me. And Harry's right around the corner. So Harry, as a freshman, and his friend go down to Rigoberto's, and there's this 25-year-old drunk guy who's hassling the girl. And so Harry's friend walks up and says, hey, bro, like, mellow out. Why don't you bail? And the guy gets in his face and pushes Harry's friend.

Bad call, because within just a couple years of this, Harry would be the gold medal champion of Taekwondo, but he was ready. And so Harry sees this happen, and the guy's like this, pushing his friend. And Harry said he snuck around him, and then he monkey-treated him. You know what that means? It's like you're a monkey and you climb a tree. And he monkey-treated him, and then he put him in a sleeper and choked the guy out on the floor at the Rigoberto's.

And the guy, 25-year-old guy, he takes a nap, and Harry and his friends leave. Harry's a freshman when that happened. I love that story. I love that story. And I love that he's like my muscle. You know what I'm saying? So, like, it's like, you know, Sopranos. I got him there. He's like my Jimmy from the Sopranos. He's just there taking care of me. He picked a fight for a right cause. I want to say, I'm not talking about picking physical fights.

He was actually doing that. But Abraham picked a fight to rescue individuals and to rescue people. But Abraham had been picking fights with his own faith, with his own internal battles for a while. I guess the thing to ask is, what are you picking a fight with? Are you picking a fight, and are you willing to do what it takes to sustain that battle within, and then to take it to the next level so you're not constantly just fighting yourself?

We want to get to the place where we have enough internal victory, where we can make a difference in the world. If your fight for the last 15 years as a believer is a constantly inward fight, let me suggest that there's a little bit more territory for you to take, if we're willing to do it. We've got to tell two kingdoms here, and so this is a question you have to ask yourself. What kingdom am I living in? If you go to the notes, it says there's the kingdom of God versus the kingdom of darkness.

Be assured in the scripture, there's no third kingdom. There isn't like the kingdom of darkness, the kingdom of God, and the kingdom of just getting by. There is no kingdom of just getting by that God is super cool with. There is the kingdom of righteousness, and the things of righteousness, and the blessings of righteousness, and then there is the kingdom of darkness. The Bible speaks so much about this. If you want to go to DuckDuckGo and put it in the search browser, something like kingdom of God verses or verses on the kingdom of God, I found 100 verses on the kingdom of God.

There's a lot to talk about. Let me just show two, and remember this, to this scripture, Abram is faced with a choice. Make a deal with Barah, who is an archetype of the devil, or sustain the blessing by making an offering to Melchizedek. So here's the first one. Let me just show these two scriptures. Here's just two. Romans 14, 7. For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking. That means it's not part of your stomach.

It doesn't start from the flesh and work itself back into the blessing. It's not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. A lot of people try to start with the flesh and expect to walk their way back into a blessing. The kingdom of God doesn't work that way. The kingdom of God works from the inside out, starts with righteous decision, righteous actions. And then oftentimes, God blesses the flesh and the decisions of the flesh because they're made in righteousness.

You can't start with gratifying the flesh and expect to get the blessing of the righteous. It just doesn't work that way. And we see Abraham moving in this pattern where he's no longer willing to accept things or to make compromises. So that's the first thing in Romans. Colossians also says that Jesus has rescued us from what? The dominion of darkness. There's a dominion of darkness around us. And brought us into the kingdom, who?

Of the son that he loves. Let's get to this deal. If you would, go to verse 12. Verse, excuse me, 18. Melchizedek shows up after the battle. Melchizedek, the king of Salem, brought out bread and wine. He was priest of God most high. And he blessed Abram saying, blessed be Abram by God most high, creator of heaven and earth. And praise be to the God most high, who delivered your enemies into your hand. Let's stop right there.

A couple of things I just want to say is when it comes to victory, one, this blessing that Melchizedek brings to him happens after he was willing to go into the battle. You see, the blessing follows the willingness to go into the battle. Then it also says, in verse 20 right there, it's on the screen, praise be, this is what Melchizedek says, praise be to the God most high, not praise be to Abraham, because you're such a good fighter, who delivered you, God the most high, delivered your enemies into your hand.

You see, here's one thing we've got to realize. Our willingness to fight, to fight like Jeff has, to go into the battle, whatever it would cost, and then God makes the victory, and then you take the victory. You see, there's a difference when we try to make the victory on our own. You see, God made the victory, God delivered the enemies into their hands. I want to tell you what, if you're never on the field of battle, if you never pick a fight with your own internal desires, or you pick a fight for the lives of others, or for the poor, the kind of fights that I'm talking about, justice in the world, or things of that nature, you are never going to have any enemies delivered into your hands.

When was the last time you won a battle? If you don't have a memory of the history of the battles in your life that you have won, it's probably because you're not picking enough battles, or you're not standing up when you're being attacked. You see, there is a spiritual battle that is going on. Abraham knew this, and so it says that he blessed, go to verse 20, praise be to God, verse 21, excuse me, verse 20, and praise be to the God most high, who delivered your enemies into your hand.

Then Abraham gave him a tenth of everything. Just quickly, if you go to verse 18, do you see the meal that Malchizedek brought him? What did he bring him? Brought him bread and wine. Does that sound familiar? Yeah, that's communion. And so there was an identification here, as we'll see with Malchizedek, with Jesus Christ himself. And it is really a lot of conjecture about who this Malchizedek actually is. A little homework for the week.

If you want to go read Hebrews 7, the entire chapter of Hebrews 7 is dedicated to Malchizedek. There is more written about Malchizedek than most Old Testament figures. And it's really interesting on who he is. We'll just look at that in a second. But he is seen as a person of righteousness. Now, if you go to verse 21, then the king of Sodom, that's Barah, says to Abraham, tries to make a deal with him, give me the people, and you can keep the goods for yourself.

So Abraham went, he beats four kingdoms, who had looted and plundered all of four other kingdoms. So now Abraham has the wealth of eight kingdoms. He, eight, four kingdoms were beat. The ones that beat them took all their stuff. So now those four kingdoms have the wealth of the other four kingdoms. Now you have eight kingdoms. Abraham goes with 350 men and takes all the plunder of eight kingdoms. Eight kings. That's a pretty solid plunder, right?

Barah comes up to him. I don't know why Barah thinks he can even make this deal. But Barah comes up to him, who is an archetype of the devil, as we'll see in a moment, and basically tries to make a deal with him. He says, you can keep the plunder, just give me the people. The devil is not after plunder. Never is. He's always after people. He is always after people, and he will offer you anything he can in order to affect and to take people into captivity, yourself included.

And the question is, like Abram, are you going to make a deal, so to speak, with the devil for a compromise of one kind? We'll look at that in just a second. So let's just look at, first of all, let's start with King Barah. Who is he? First of all, he's a rebellious king. He started a rebellion. He goes out with his four kings, four other kings, three other kings, I think, to go start a battle, and then these other four kings come against him, and he gets totally routed.

He's a rebellious king, so he is a son of rebellion. He's rebelling. So when you look at Ezekiel, and you look at, or excuse me, in the scripture, if you were to put in verses about Sodom and Gomorrah, the city of Sodom is mentioned probably more, I didn't do the exact numbers, but probably more than any other city besides Jerusalem in the Bible. There's Jericho, and you could, I might be wrong with some of these numbers, you know, some other cities, but I was surprised.

Let me just say this. I put up verses about Sodom in the Bible. I just put verses about Sodom, and it was voluminous. I don't remember how many there were, but there was tens upon tens and dozens of verses about Sodom, and I'm like, why is this such an important city? Jesus even speaks about Sodom. The reason is because Sodom is seen as the primary metaphor of the type of city that you don't want to be like. Jesus talks about this, and there was all types of things.

As a matter of fact, it's mentioned in Ezekiel, so in the Old Testament. This is just one. It says in Ezekiel 16, 49, Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom. She and her daughters had pride, excesses of food, prosperous ease, but did not aid with the poor and the needy. So there's a few things that are going on in this city that you don't want. One, it's prideful. Just tons of pride, and I think pride is the ultimate sin.

It is why Satan himself, Phil. So it was a city full of pride. Next, there was an excess of food and a prosperous ease. Now, that's not the problem with prosperous ease. What the problem is is when you cannot sustain the blessing by stewarding your blessing. Now, what happened when, a little bit later in the Scripture, when Abram gets all the prosperous ease? What does he do with it? He gives a tithe back to Melchizedek.

He takes his blessing, and he gives his blessing away. In Ezekiel, it talks about Sodom that has this incredible blessing, but it just hoards the blessing, constantly hoarding the blessing. This was the sin. It is a sin when we begin, when we, from God, when we do not care for others, and God does not bless us so that we can, you know, like, you know, Scrooge, take all of our blessing and just hold it up. We are meant to give our blessing away, and as you'll see in a moment, this is one of the ways that we sustain blessing.

In 2 Peter, even in the New Testament, Sodom is mentioned in the New Testament, so it's mentioned by Jesus. Now it's being mentioned by Peter. It means that we need to take a look at what was happening in that city and realize that it's not the kind of nation we want to be. It's not the kind of people that we want to be. It says in 2 Peter 2.6, If by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes, he condemned them to extinction, he made them example of what is going to happen to the ungodly.

This is a metaphor in the book of Peter that is basically referring to an existence in eternity separated from God. And it's definitely a reason why people have a problem with Christianity and the Bible, because Christianity and the Bible, and Jesus in particular, has some limiting principles, meaning you can go this far, but the buck stops with this truth. The buck stops with this action. It stops here. And if you step over to that and you celebrate actions beyond this line, then you are walking in ungodliness and the ungodly cannot spend eternity with a perfect God.

And so this is why you have a problem. 2 Peter 6 says that that city is a representation of everything that was evil, but mostly pride. So Barra then is an archetype of Satan. He is this, he's not Satan himself, but he wants people, he wants hearts, so to speak. He wants to make a deal. He wants to have a compromise. He wants to offer all the riches. Remember, Jesus was offered all these riches. I guess the question is this.

What have you been offered? And what are you willing to compromise with? Is something been offering, perhaps it's ease, or perhaps there's a, you have a loneliness, you have an issue, and so you're going to make a compromise because maybe it's poverty and you need to make a compromise because, or whatever that reason is, what are you being offered and are you willing to rebuke what has been offered? So we see that he is an archetype of Satan that is offering something.

He says, all the riches, all the kingdoms, just give me the people. We'll see what that answer was. Now what about Melchizedek? As I spoke a moment ago, Melchizedek means king of righteousness. Who is also called king of righteousness? Jesus himself. Now, there's a lot of people in the Bible, but there are not many, I think this is the only other one, besides Jesus himself, who is called the king of righteousness. If you look in Hebrews, let me just, well, let me just read Hebrews for you.

This is some pretty high praise. The Bible doesn't even speak about Moses this way. So, is it Jesus? Some people say, well, this is actually Jesus who was on earth visiting because you know later in the story that Abraham is visited by perhaps the Trinity. Three travelers come and visit him and could it be the Holy Spirit, the Son, and the Father? So, there's all this like supernatural, like, goodness that is happening around the life of the righteous.

And so, who is this Melchizedek? Well, let me just read about him. It says, for this Melchizedek in Hebrews 7, 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 appointed a tenth of everything. He, that's Melchizedek, he is first by translation of the name the king of righteousness and then also the king of Salem. That is the king of peace.

Now, this is where it gets really unique. He's without father or mother or genealogy. Having neither beginning days nor end of life, but resembling the Son of God, he continues to be a priest forever. Wow. That's some pretty high praise. So, we spent a lot of time in seminary talking about who this Melchizedek is. Let me just say who we can be assured who he is and what would be interesting. So, the first thing we can say is that he is going to be a, he is a king of righteousness.

We know that he's a king. He's a king over, over Salem. What is that? Is that an alarm? Is that an alarm? Whoa. Skills. Are you, is that recorded? Because that was, that was so, that's pretty funny. King Melchizedek, okay. I don't even know where I am. That was pretty funny. Go to this church. This Melchizedek ends up being this archetype of Christ. And this is what we do know about him. We can say this for sure. He was a king.

He was a righteous king. And it's somebody who Abraham wanted to, to follow and be like. It could have been Jesus. It might not have been Jesus. I don't want to get into all the minutia of that. We just know that God has sent somebody and Abraham wants to follow righteousness. That is the key point. That's the key takeaway. We can talk about a lot of other things of that. Now, there's two things that happen after a victory.

One of the things that happens after a victory is oftentimes there's temptation. Have you ever had a victory and then all of a sudden it's like you're tempted to like go celebrate the victory with God with a great failure? I mean, I was totally that way the first five years of my life. Like I could just celebrate the best victories of God with an awesome failure. You know what I mean? Like I just, I deserve it. That's some of the talk, right?

You just, you deserve it. You've been doing so good. I'm just alive from the pit. It says that, that the one thing that Abraham does is he, he, he blesses the offering and he sustains the blessing. So two things that we're going to finish. One is how do you sustain a blessing after a victory? And two, how do you rebuke a curse? How do you rebuke the temptation? How do you sustain a blessing after a victory? And how do you rebuke the curse?

Now, what is interesting with this is you will never even be in this situation if you never go to battle to have a victory. What are you fighting for? And maybe you're not fighting. So we see this, King Melchizedek offers a blessing and Abraham responds with a free will offering. See the difference here? He offers him, Melchizedek gives a blessing and Abraham responds with a free will offering. Barah offers a deal and Abraham responds with a rebuke.

There's two ways to live. When God blesses you, you take that blessing unlike Sodom. You take that blessing and you give that blessing back away. You sustain a blessing by leaning into the blessing and giving blessing away. And you get away from the curse by rebuking the curse. When there is a curse, there is a temptation, you rebuke that curse. You lean into it. I want to say that blessing is not like skiing downhill.

I was at Mammoth this week. There's a picture of me with Wooly. Here's me. It was gorgeous. There was no wind. Where's my picture of Wooly? You got it there, Neva? There we are. That's me with Wooly. I saw Wooly. I had to get the pic with Wooly. And then after that, I went up to Cornice. So there's the next picture you're going to see. That's called Cornice. Now, I can ski Cornice. It's not a problem. But I have a fear of Cornice.

Now let me tell you why. Because when I was 14 years old, my first trip there, my friends wanted me to go there. They took me up to the top. The thing about Cornice is when you get to the top of Cornice, you can't see over the edge, okay, most of the time. Because it's a Cornice, like this. So they call it Cornice. And so I was up there, and I don't have a problem skiing Cornice. I'm good enough to ski Cornice, but I can't see over the edge, okay?

So I went up there, and I got to the top, and I started like freaking. And I'm like, oh, I'm not going to do it again, but I can totally ski it. And then I saw these six-year-olds going, literally there was like a four-year-old going over, and I was like, ah. So this is me after I got to the bottom of Cornice. I picked a fight with Cornice. What I learned is when I'm going downhill, I don't need to sustain my momentum when I'm going down a hill.

Blessing is not like skiing down a hill. Blessing is like riding a bike. With a bike, you have to pump at the, you know, the pedals, and in order to bring momentum. But what happens if you start, stop pushing? You get some slide for a while, some glide, and then what happens? How we sustain blessing. If you want to sustain blessing in your life, blessing doesn't sustain itself. Blessing comes from works of righteousness.

That when we follow God, now you're under the blessing of Christ, which is free, because you're in Christ and you know Jesus. But there are blessings that come with righteous actions. And that is what Abraham is doing here. What happens? He comes, not only has he just won this incredible battle, he has all this plunder. Then Malchizedek comes, brings out the wine and the bread, and gives him a blessing and says, I'm going to give you more blessing.

Instead of going, yeah, that's right, you know. He takes that blessing and he says, I'm going to give it back unto you. And he gives an offering. This is the first time you see an offering like this, a 10% ever in the scripture. And this is where the basis of that 10% offering gives. Now the next thing that happens, so he leans into it. Are you expecting your blessing just to show up and be there? Or do you expect blessing to come when we lean into the blessing?

When you give your blessings away, it says those that refresh others will themselves be refreshed. Now let's just finish. Final part is this, is Abraham rebukes a curse. Abraham, it says, comes in, if you go to the end right there with verse 22, Abraham said to the king of Sodom, with a raised hand, I have sworn an oath to the God most high, creator of heaven and earth, that I will accept nothing belonging to you, not even a thread of the strap of a sandal.

Not even a thread or the strap of a sandal. So you will never be able to say to me, I made Abraham rich. I guess when it comes to the compromises that we all make, and what I have found out is most believers I meet with have one to three compromises. They have about one to three compromises that circle around their life. A little compromise here, they know what they are. It's either one big giant one or about three, and sometimes this will lead to more, but it's about one to three compromises, and you could probably think what they are.

Abraham finally gets to a place where he can make a compromise. We know he's compromised in the past, but his backbone of faith is getting stronger, where he looks at the thing that is tempting him, and he actually says to it, I rebuke you. I will not make a compromise with you. I draw the line to the sand. No more compromises. I will not take even a thread or a strap of a sandal. You know what? I love that strap of a sandal.

I don't know why, but I just tend to be, have been in the past, a person, but just, it's just a strap. I don't want all, I don't want the whole Gucci sandal. Just a strap, because a strap's not that big deal, because I can rationalize myself into partial holiness every day of the week. Here's three things, and you're done. Three things to do this week. First, get a pad of paper this week. Here's your practical. Get a pad of paper.

Go get a hot bowl of pho, or you can go get a coffee, or whatever you like, and sit there with your pad of paper, and ask yourself the question, where am I fighting a battle? If you don't know where your battles are, you're never going to have victory. You're just going to be plundered. Where am I fighting a battle? Write your battles, your interior battles, and where you want to pick a fight with the enemy outside on the terra firma of your life.

Number two, ask yourself, how do I sustain blessing? I want blessing. It comes by righteous actions. What am I willing to do to sustain blessing? That means giving blessing away and making righteous actions. Sustain your blessing through righteousness. And number three, where are you rebuking the curse? The devil's going to make a deal with you. You know, you're lonely. You know, you're lonely. Make this decision relationally.

Oh, you know, you don't have the money. You're afraid you're not going to have that money. Just cheat. You know, you've worked so hard. On and on. Where are you going to say, no more, draw a line in the sand, and say, I rebuke that. I rebuke, no more straps to the sandal. Amen. We do not want to be a people of the strap of a sandal. That's not who we want to be. We want to follow the feet of righteousness, which is Jesus Christ.

Amen? Let's stand if we would. Let me bless you. If you need prayer after the service, our prayer team will be up here at the front. If you want to find out about following Jesus, knowing more about our church, you can go to the next steps table in the back and find out more about that. The Bible says that whoever you bless Abraham, I will bless. And so, I want to bless you today. In a world full of curses, I want to bless these people today, Lord Jesus.

Bless them, God, with the ability to sustain their blessing. I pray that you would bless them, that you would just pour out your favor, open doors, unity and favor and peace, God. I pray, Jesus, that you would show them where the battles are to be fought, that you would give them the ability, God, to come against those things in their lives that they need to rebuke and lean into the blessing, lean into the righteousness.

We send you out now as emissaries of God's love, peace, and favor. In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Love you guys. We'll see you soon this week. Lots of events. Bye-bye.