We're reflecting as we have undergone a new study this fall on the life of Abraham. This is a story that's 4,000 years old and it goes back to the very book of beginnings, the book of Genesis. And this morning I'm going to be reading a story about the life of Abraham from Genesis chapter 14. Now I've got the entire story printed for you, but actually I'm going to begin reading this morning at verse 11. You'll find that text inside your bulletin if you want to follow along, or maybe there's a Bible near by you from someone if you'd like to follow along. But I'm going to begin reading in verse 11, and before I read I'd like to pray. Let us pray. Oh Lord, we are, we are odd and delighted that the universe, though mysterious, is somewhat demystified because the personality of the center of it has shown himself to be a God who lives. It's self to be a God who loves us and who speaks to us. Thank you for giving us over these many millennia your word. May we now be able to hear it for what it is, the unchanging word of God, and to respond to it as we ought to with faith and understanding. With obedient hearts we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Let me set this up for you because I've skipped a number of unpronounceable ancient Mesopotamian names on purpose because I don't want to embarrass myself in front of you. But the situation is basically this. Abraham and his family have been caught in the crossfire of a great war where two alliances of kings have gone to war over the thing most people usually, you know, money and land and that sort of thing. And in verse 11 we begin to see how these two alliances and the war that begins to happen around them, how that impacts Abraham and his family. Now the four kings, this is one of the alliances, seized all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah, their food and they went away. They also carried off Abraham's nephew, Lot, and his possession since he was living in Sodom. One who had escaped came and reported this to Abraham the Hebrew. Now Abraham was living near the great trees of memory, the Amorite, a brother of Eschol and Annar, all of them were allied with Abraham. When Abraham heard that his relative had been taken captive, he called out the 318 trained men born in the household and went and pursued as far as Dan. During the night Abraham divided his men to attack them and he routed them, pursuing them as far as Hoba, north of Damascus. He recovered all the goods and brought back his relative Lot and his possessions together with the women and the other people. After Abraham returned from defeating Kedolioomer and the kings allied with him, the king of Sodom came out to meet him in the valley of Shaveh, that is the king's valley. Then, now Kizadek, 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 blessed be God Most High who delivered your enemies into your hand. Then Abram gave him a tenth of everything. Then 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, I have raised my hand the Lord God Most High, creator of heaven and earth, and have taken an earth that I will accept nothing belonging to you, not even a thread or the thong of a sample 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 unair, actual, and mammary. Let them have their share. This is the word of the Lord. Now, we're looking at this story of Abraham with this idea that this story of this man, 4,000 years old, contained at the very beginning of the Old Testament is an important, a significant, a powerful, in fact, a clear glimpse into the promises of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus himself taught this that these teachings and these stories were one of the powerful ways that God said, look for my son, Jesus. And so these stories show us that promise, and as we get to know Abram, as if you follow along in these stories, even to realize that there are times when Abram responds very positively to God's promises. He shows faith and he shows faithfulness, and then there are times when he fails miserably. And today, I guess the best way to put it is that today's story that we're looking at, Abram is on a roll, but stick around because he's going to roll off, we'll give it a few weeks, and you'll see that there are times when he's faithful and there are times when he's faithful. But I say that because today I want to talk to us about that question of, what does the gospel of Jesus have to say to us when you're on a roll? When your life is one of faithfulness, or when your life is one of success, when things are going great, faith plus success, now again, if you're having a bad day, a bad week, or God forbid, a bad life. Please come back, I promise, there's plenty in here for you. There's plenty of great stories, and great teachings in the Bible that address us at any phase or stage of life, or experience we find ourselves in. But this, frankly, is one of those stories that really gets at, what do you do when everything's going your way? When everything's as high as an elephant's eye and what a beautiful morning. What does it say to us then? When things are going great, because there are some of you who, honestly, there are things you can point to in your life, and you're just amazed at how great it's going. I've defaulted on some of this delayed broadcast Olympics this past week, and it was interesting to see how faith affected the way people saw things. There was one woman who ran a race, and I don't remember any names. I'm literally kind of not that great of an interest in mine, but you know, you catch it in the background, and I couldn't help but notice one woman who lost a race that she was sure was going to be hers, and they asked her, you know, NBC, and they're great tech. How do you feel? You know, she's still panting from the ranks, and she said, well, you know, I don't think it was my father's will, my father in heaven's will, that I win today, and so I accept that. I thought it was very powerful. Another time there was an American girl diving, and she won the competition. She won the gold, and they said, you know, how do you feel? And her response was, she just overflowed with faith, and she said, I can do all things through Christ to give me strength. And an interesting application of that verse, diving is a unique perspective, I suppose, for that text, but the point was faith took her to a place to understand herself when things were going great. Now let's look at this story in that light. Now what's taken place is, if you read the first part of this chapter, you read something that reads like a lot of ancient Near Eastern documents. A retelling of a great war saga, with great kings doing great things. This follows all those patterns, if you look at it, and in this particular panel you have the equivalent of a Mesopotamian world war one. A alliances of kings over the known world finally deciding to duke it out. And when they begin to come together, when the battle begins to ensue, it radically changes Abrams life. Because one of the kings is the king of the lowlands, the king of Sodom, where, if you've been following this story, if you've been here for a while, you know, this is the area where Abrams only living relative locked has decided to go. And Lot and his family and a lot of people of Sodom wind up getting raided and carried off as booty, as part of loot of the battle. Now, Abrams an interesting place here, because his nephew Lot, though he is in covenant, though he is part of God's people, God has chosen Abraham, called a family, literally, to himself, Lot who is part of that family nonetheless is living an extremely compromised life. He decides, for example, when given the choice, he basically decides to leave the land that God has promised to Abrams descendants to go and live in the land of Sodom outside the land of promise, and it's because of this. He's got himself into trouble, and yet Abrams still decides to go after him. And there's good reason. There's a threat to the promise. You see, the promise is for Abrams and his family to possess this land. Now, Lot shouldn't be over where he is to begin with. The particularly if his life is threatened, the promise is threatened because Abrams doesn't have any other family at this point, and he's getting old. So, Abrams knows that it's his duty to go and rescue Lot, but not only is there, you see this great issue of the promise, there's also tremendous issue of red. What Abrams does takes incredible courage, because he is going up against the most powerful alliance in the ancient world. One of the names that we read, that long list of unpronounceable names, was a king known as Amraffel. Amraffel was the king of Shinar, which is one of the older words for Babylon. By deciding to take this little group and make war on this raiding party, he was making war on the most powerful king in the world. And yet Abram acted in faith, and the great part of the story is that his mission was success. He recovered the people, everybody. You know, in those days, you know, that's kind of rare. You sort of expect to see them on a spit when you get there, but he doesn't. He gets there, everybody's fine. He gets all the people, he gets all the stuff, he gets all the people. It is an amazing success story. Therein comes part two of the story, which we read. Abram not only has success in battle, but then, you know, there's the end of the movie where everybody hugs and the good stuff happens, right? And so we read the end of the movie, part of the story, and we come to the end of the story, there are two kings that Abram deals with. That's what I want to focus on this one, the two kings. Now, take them in reverse order, the king of Sodom. Now, this is Sodom, by the way, as in Sodom and Gomorrah, terrible, terrible culture, terrible people, violent, wicked, depraved. It's just sort of a worst-case scenario of where a human civilization can go. So much so that God eventually is going to destroy it. So here's the representative, and if you know the story, you know, as soon as he pops up, you know, that, you know, there's, you can hear the dog, you know, the cello's doo, doo, doo, doo. You know, he's the bad guy coming on the scene, and the king of Sodom steps onto the scene, and he says something that when we first read it, sounds like pretty good deal. He says, Abram, say what? Just let me have the people, and you can have all the spoils, because you know why? You deserve credit for the victory. Your name deserves to be great. You deserve to be enriched in this land. All of it should be yours. I recognize your victory. And Abram does something very strange. He says, no, no, I don't want it. In fact, I've taken a vow to God to never accept anything from you. Now as Abram just, you know, as he's not using his manners today, no. You see, Abram knows that the promise God has given him for him to flourish in his land is something that God himself will provide in his way. And that making an alliance, which he's been forbidden to do, with this evil man, is frankly a shortcut to blessing. It would be very similar to someone who may be asked God for success and business, and could consistently pray that, but at the same time felt like cutting corners or cheating on taxes was okay. Or someone who was praying for a spouse, and was thrilled when they met the right person, but decided that sex before marriage would be a great way to go ahead and experience the blessing. You see, go ahead and bend God's design as a way to get to what God promises. And Abram absolutely, flatly refuses to do it. What he's saying is a man who is really diving a tent. I mean, he's getting off. He's, what do they say? He's sticking it, you know, he's going in without any splash. In other words, he does well at the battle, and he does well at the end of the movie consistently all the way through. Abram, the man who has blown it in major ways already early in the story, is doing beautifully. There's this other guy, this other king, and this is where I really wanted to focus our attention today because of what happens with him, the first king, because this mysterious figure, his name is Melchizedek. This king, Melchizedek, comes to Abram, and the text presents him as a towering figure. Someone who is greater than Abraham, and I'm going to show you how it does that, which, frankly, makes no sense in everything we've read. What have we read? There's been a great plan. Humanity has fallen, and God is working through Abram to bring his blessing, the seed of Jesus, the Messiah back into the world. It's the great plan, Abram is going to be blessed. We're told he's going to be given a great name. We're told that he's going to inherit the land. We're told that those who bless him will be blessed, those who curse him will be cursed. He will be the blessing of the nations, right? And then all of a sudden, boom, without any editing special music, boom, out walks this bizarre figure, this greater than Abraham. And what's frustrating and weird, if I may say this, is we really don't know much about him at all. Still don't. If you're getting wondering if I'm going to tell you much, sorry, there's not a lot to say. His name, Melchizedek, means king of righteousness. And he is the priest of Salem. Now Salem, that would be the Hebrew word Shalom. He is the king of Shalom. He is the king of peace. Jerusalem is the city of peace. In our likelihood, this is the king priest of the city of Jerusalem. But, mind you, this is a thousand years before King David takes over Jerusalem from the Jedi side. This man is a Canaanite. Now everything we've seen in Canaan is birds of a feather. I mean, everything we've seen in this land as I've been saying before is these are not your typical Peace Corps volunteers. You know, this is a violent degenerate culture. It's a dangerous place to be. Abraham's there and then boom, one of their kings comes out and he's greater than Abraham.
The Bible usually, when you read about a great character, if you've been reading the Old Testament, particularly the Book of Genesis, there are some things that always take place. For example, you always hear the story of their lineage, who their family is, where they came from. They were beguided by somebody, right? And then they lived really a long time, and then they're dead. Right? Not a. Nothing about my cousin. We don't hear anything. What do we know about him? He's a Canaanite. He comes out and he uses a strange Hebrew phrase. He blesses him in the name of L. L. Yon. God must high. Not a word or a name that the Jews would have used. And yet Abram turns around and when he talks about his oath to the king of Sodom, he says, I have sworn an oath in the name of Yave, that is the name of God, that he knows Yave, L. L. Yon. That is, I have sworn an oath in the air where he's saying, no kiss of the ex-God is my God. They are the one in the same reveal the God. I have sworn an oath in that God's name, not to receive anything from you, but look how he responds to Melchizedek, and this is strange. First of all, the text shows us that Melchizedek blesses Abram. Now, blessing is the power for life to experience and get its fullness as things ought to be. And in the Old Testament, that always happens from a superior to an inferior. It's very much ancient and very strict culture. You know, the great patriarch will pass the blessing on to the first born son, that sort of thing. But when they meet, there's no doubt about it. It is Melchizedek who blesses Abram. Now, what Abram's supposed to mean, Mr. Blessing, the great source and channel blessing for the whole universe. Melchizedek blesses Abram. And it gets even stranger. Abram then turns and looks at all the loodies taken in and he pays a tie if he gives an entire tent of it to Melchizedek. Again, in ancient Near Eastern cultures, this is not a nice gesture. It's not a nice way of handing somebody a buck and going there and going to work. No, it is a recognition of obligation. It is Abram acknowledging that Melchizedek is his superior. It is a formal obligation. Abram is saying, I am your subordinate. Who's subordinate? Who is Melchizedek? Well, I've already said we're not told anything about where he's from, what he does, what he's like, or what becomes of him. And frankly, if you know the Bible at all, that silence is haunting. John Calvin commenting on this said, the Holy Spirit has used this silence to elevate him above the common herd of men. A thousand years later, King David, another King priest of Jerusalem writes in Psalm 110 and he sings in that Psalm about the Messiah who is to come and the image that the controlling image, if you will, of what the Messiah would be, the King we truly need, the one who could truly be the priest between us and God in a way that David looking at his own life and his own failure and his own inadequacy says, could never be me. He says in Psalm 110 verse 4, Yahweh has sworn and will not change his mind and then singing about Messiah. Looking forward to Messiah, David says, you are a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek. Not the line of error, not the priest that David knew in his temple, but a holy different order of priest that what would be required to truly make us right with God, to make a life what it was supposed to be, would require someone, a mediator, a priest of a holy different order. Melchizedek, not that we can say anything about him historically, but simply by the way the Holy Spirit has given us the text, the strangeness of it, it already begins to heart David, it's a type, it's a foreshadowing that says, don't you see there has to be something more than us, something more than you to make things right. One of the commentators on this Philip Edgecombe Hughes said that Melchizedek is sort of a primeval John the Baptist, towering us about the Christ who is to come. And this is how you begin to see Jesus in this text, frankly. You see Melchizedek has no beginning of days. And what the New Testament tells us about Jesus is the one who would be greater than Abram. The one who would be greater than anything the Bible is yet to produce. Let's face it, the one who could really be a priest for the world is somebody who, like Melchizedek, has no recorded beginning of days. Now in Jesus' case, why is that? Well, it's because he has no beginning of days. We just don't know Melchizedek's birthday. With Jesus, which honestly say, there is no beginning, there's a birth, but he's eternal son of God. In fact, this gets reiterated in the Gospel of John. There's, frankly, a fairly funny story. Where Jesus Christ is squaring off with his enemies, the Pharisees. And he's talking about Abram. And he says, you know, Abraham longed to see my day. He was waiting for me. He was looking for me. And the Pharisees noticed that he's young and they said, come on. You're 30 years old. How is it you're going to talk to us about Abraham? And in John chapter 8, Jesus says, truly, truly excited you. The poor Abraham was. And by the way, you remember that from the story of Moses when God reveals his name and he says, tell them, I am, has sent you. You can imagine, boy, they got it and they started ripping their clothes off and pulling their hair out and saying, stout him. Because Jesus was saying, God, I am eternal. I have no beginning. And not only that, Jesus alone, Melchizedek is rumbling. He's an alarm going off that says, don't you see what you really need? What it's going to take to make things right for you to flourish, but the world to flourish. There has to be one who's not only is no beginning of days, but one who has no ending of days. And of course, the story of Jesus is that he came and died on the cross, but that he rose again. The early Christians, a lot to sing about Melchizedek. I don't know if this is the name, a lot of us have never even heard of or thought about, but they love to sing about him. They love to talk about him. In the book of Hebrews chapter 7, you read a wonderful praise of Jesus Christ where their author says, Jesus has become a priest in the order of Melchizedek by the power of an indestructible life. He is the only one who, of whom it could be said, he is eternal. And not only that, his victory over this world and all the things that has to throw at us is literally indestructible. That's what the resurrection of Jesus means. All right, I'm trying to lay out the doctor for you. What is this text? It's a story of Abram, and it shows us the heart of someone who truly sees the truest index of their situation with God on a good day. At his most righteous moment, he comes and the king of Sodom says to him, what, you've earned it, take it, you've earned it, you've done well enough, you've done good enough, you've justified yourself, take it. And Abram says, no, and he looks to one greater than himself for the status that he needs, for the hope he has in the promise of God. Are you beginning to see what's happening here? You see, Abram isn't simply someone who knows he's a sinner and that he should turn from his sin and turn to God to forgive him, but Abram is someone who knows that not only does he need to turn away from his sin, he doesn't even trust in his own righteousness. In his own performance, he literally repents of his righteousness and looks to Melchizedek as his priest and they have that priestly meal of bread and wine. That's what I want to talk to you about for a few minutes. Repenting, doing like Abraham, but in our case, an encounter with Jesus Christ means to truly know the Messiah and your own life means not just beginning to realize I've got guilt that needs covering, I'm a failure I need help. But it also means my best will not do. And if I stand on it, I will surely fall. There is one who's come into the world not only to die the death you owe, but to live the life you owe. This is one of the favorite topics at the time of the Protestant Reformation. Martin Luther talked a lot about this. This may not be a coin that you know, but if in Presbyterian churches it's something or Lutheran churches people should really talk about a lot. Repenting of your righteousness, not just of your sins. It was made very popular by a great evangelist, an Anglican evangelist in America in the 18th century named George Whitfield. Whitfield was a fascinating character. He had the measles when he was a child, and it made him mysteriously cross-eyed. And when he would communicate with people, people would come out by the tens of thousands, and he was bewitching because he was incredibly dramatic and exciting, but he also had these spooky eyes that nobody ever knew where he was looking. But one of the things that Whitfield preached that went like wildfire through early America was this idea that one of our greatest problems, when things are going great, you see. It's resting in the good things, resting in our righteousness, resting in our achievement, if you will, resting in your karma rather than saying the need to repent of your righteousness and look to Christ. What are we talking about? Well, I'm going to make two points and then I'm done. This idea of repenting of your righteousness means it shows you the essence of your sin, and secondly it shows you the essence of what the gospel of Christ is. It shows you the essence of sin and the essence of the gospel. Whitfield put it this way. He said, you know, you hear the message of Jesus, you know, you need to turn away from your sins. So you hear about Jesus and you say, I need to save you or I need forgiveness. And then what you do is you become like Adam and Eve. And you begin to think, now, for God not to reject me, for God to accept me, what I must do is do good works, not just as a response to His mercy, you see, which is what you should do, but there's a way to gain a standing with God. And Whitfield's great analogy is like Adam and Eve, we start sowing the fig leaves with our repentance and with our good deeds, which we start sowing the fig leaves to say, here, look at me now, bless me now, accept me now. I know I need to cover for my sin, but please look at my fig leaf. Let me show you what I can bring you now. Whitfield said, that idle, the idle of your own righteousness and its worth is the last idle of the human heart to go. You see, here's the essence of sin. The essence of sin is not breaking rules. That's a great mistake. The idea that sin is fundamentally just this bad habit we have of doing wrong things. It's much deeper than that. That is a symptom. All right, rule of breaking is a symptom of what our problem of sin is, but the problem goes much deeper than that. The disease is our need, our desire to place something or someone other than Jesus Christ at the center of our life and to make it our savior. That is the essence of sin, to make something or someone other than Jesus Christ, to look to that for your salvation. The default of the human heart is self-salvation. Let me tell you something. When you start doing well, get your act cleaned up or when things start going well, that self-salvation literally goes into overdrive. It does. You begin to really think, I can find my worth. I can find my significance. I can find meaning in the good things I can do and in the good things that are happening to me. I think this is extremely relevant for this reason alone. We actually live in an age of very good people. We also live in an age of, right now, at least in North America, up some pretty good things happening. Good people, good things. I talk to people all the time and they don't feel the remoteness for salvation because they're good people. Let's face it. In New York, we had this phrase we refer to guys as snags, sensitive new age guys. They cared about the environment. They didn't want to be too consumer oriented. They were kind and tolerant and they would be generous. They were just great people. And there are people everywhere around us who, frankly, may be nicer than some of you and certainly nicer than me. But Jesus Christ saved his biggest guns for the good people. He saved his biggest guns for the self-righteous. Don't just think sleazy, smarmy, stuck up people when you think of self-righteous. But people who simply think they're okay. Because you are the one who has the hardest time acknowledging the need for repentance. And frankly, when good times are happening, when good things are happening in your life, that's the hardest time to realize your need for God. When you get on a roll, either personally or your life gets on a roll, you begin to trust in those good things you see in your life and you begin to trust in those good things you see happening. And those roots go down into it, you begin to feel it and it fills you and that's where you find your sense of worth, your sense of significance, it's where you look for your salvation. You know, you want to fall in love and finally, Mrs. Wright comes along and you fall in love and you sink your roots into that and what do you begin to do when things are going well? You say, see there, I am loved or your career takes off. I mean, it really, you know, you're the youngest partner in the firm ever had, things begin to take off and what do you say? You begin to say, see there, I matter, they need me or your kids get into the best schools. They perform, you sit in church, yours behave, your neighbors, the elders kids, they don't. And so what do you say? I am a good parent and because I'm a good parent, because I have applied consistently the principles, you see, I bask, I find my worth and what I've done. Don't you see a crack addict over here who said, you know what, all I need is a struggle and I find my sense of salvation. And a well-disciplined mom who clips coupons, who stays home, who keeps the household immaculate and who gets her kids to school on time every day and is never late with any deadline, there's basically no difference between you because you both have bound a salvation outside of Jesus Christ. Do you see it? The essence of sin is to try to find it somewhere else. Let me ask you something, parents, and this is a broken question. Have you ever looked down your nose at another parent? You ever just felt joy in the way you raised your kids and the way they're turning out and just, you know, you don't see it, but you just deal it. You see, at some level, the gospel's not penetrating our hearts like it should. You see, to repent of your righteousness means, first of all, you see the essence of sin is at every turn I try to be my own Savior. But not only that, it shows us the goodness and the essence of the gospel. You see the gospel rejects this idea that good deeds will bring you a good life. How? How does Jesus challenge that? A good life will bring, you know, good deeds will bring you a good life, right? Create good karma, right? Explain to me the life of Jesus. The greatest man who ever lived, the most pure and holy man who ever lived. I'm sorry, you may be great, but you're not even close to what God requires. And you're nowhere close to what he lived. And what did it get him? Did his 401k double? Did his career soar? No. He was strapped down and he was despised. You see, he took what he did not deserve. So that you could receive what you did not deserve. And that is why the gospel you see has to change the way we see the ways of the world at all times. Is there anything in your life right now, any good thing, any gift, any grace, any fruit of character that you can honestly look at and say, this is here for any reason outside of the sheer grace of God. It's a great test of what are you beginning to hear the gospel or not. And by the way, Christians have a disease of not being able to understand this. Paul writing in 1 Corinthians, one of the most indicted passages I know of writes and says this to them, what makes you different than anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you didn't? Do you hear it? Do you hear the penetration of what you say there? Is there anything in your life, any blessing, any goodness that has come to you for any reason author than the sheer grace of God? Now let me close by saying this, there is freedom when you begin to repent of your righteousness and look and trust, live your life as though it's been paid for. That's what it means to be a Christian. When you begin to live your life not as someone who's got to earn something, but as someone who knows, hey, my life is paid for. Okay, what do you do when things begin to go great, when the 401k doubles, when you actually spend your life in miracle of miracles, you actually prayed and read your Bible more this week, then you watch television. Wow, the earth is shaking. It happens. What do you do when the great things happen? You're humble. You say, you know, the reason these good things are coming to me, the reason there's any change in my character is simply because of the mercy and grace of God. And I am humbled and thankful that because Jesus took what I deserved, I now receive things I don't deserve because God loves me. And I'm not proud and I'm not anxious waiting for it to be taken away because I know it's a gift. What do you do when things go badly? I get to say there would be something. What do you do when things are falling apart? What do you do when you're suffering? You see, the gospel still has power then because you can look and say, you know what? Yes, I'm suffering, but I will never taste what Jesus tastes for me because he took the suffering that really the only suffering that matters, ultimate suffering. That of being cast off from God, rejected, given the judgment and wrath that I know my failings and my sins deserve. He took it in my place. And even though there may be difficulties in this life, I will never know what it is to be punished for my sins. I will never know what it is to be held in arms linked from him because Jesus has done that in my place. And so even when you're suffering, not only are you humble, but you're thankful. Repent of your sins, yes. Repent of your righteousness. Look at the good things and be thankful, but don't draw your life from them. Look to the one who is greater who comes to bring you bread and wine. Let us pray. Oh Lord, we come to you as those who regularly try to find our joy, our worth and our meaning, as the prophet Jeremiah said, we try to drink it from sisters that just don't all water. We try to find it in our self and in our performance. This is, those of us who are not yet Christians and Lord, you know our hearts, you know that this is something we who are Christians consistently do. We forget this gospel every day and we need to hear it every day. And my prayer is that we would hear it that we would know how as Abram encountered not to visit it, that we would know how to regularly see our lives as an encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ, our great priest who has died and risen for us, who has no beginning of days, who has an indestructible life for us, who offers us forgiveness of our sins. And a perfect right to stand with God. Lord, may the beauty of the promise that our lives can be hidden with Christ in God, may that be the thing that enthralls us, may that be the many embraces that we sang about earlier, that we take our greatest delight in, we pray and I ask this in Jesus name. Amen.