Port City Faith Church
Sunday Morning - November 1st, 2026
  • Praise
  • Battle Belongs
  • Send Me
  • At The Cross (Love Ran Red)

      • 1 Corinthians 11:23–26ESV

  • We Are starting a new Series this week
    Last week we finished a 7 part Series on the Kingdom of Heaven, and one of the themes we discussed is that we the Church are part of the Kingdom of Heaven today,
    And one of the ways we knew this was because of 1 Peter 2:9-10 When Peter gives us, the church, titles that once only belonged to God’s chosen people Israel.
    1 Peter 2:9–10 ESV
    But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
    A Chosen Race, a holy Nation, a People who are his Treasured possession
    We discussed these things just a few weeks ago.
    And Look right there at the beginning,
    A Royal Priesthood.
    We, the Church, are a royal priesthood.
    But what on earth does that mean?
    That is the question i wish to answer over the next 4 weeks.
    and we are going to start near the beginning. with the very first person that the Bible calls a Priest.
    Melchizedek.
    Now before we continue some quick backstory.
    Abram - who will become Abraham - was called by God to go an live in the promised land, and God would give it to his descendants Israel
    and Abram listened to God and went.
    And he took with him his nephew Lot,
    Well God blessed them, to the point where they had so much stuff, that the land couldn’t sustain the belongings of Abram and Lot,
    So they split up, and Lot eventually started Living in Sodom
    The same Sodom that would be destroyed years later.
    And the King of Sodom stopped baying tribute to the Babylonian empire, and so the king of Babylon rounded up a bunch of other kings to attack Sodom and take everyone prisoner, including lot.
    Genesis 14:8–12 ESV
    Then the king of Sodom, the king of Gomorrah, the king of Admah, the king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela (that is, Zoar) went out, and they joined battle in the Valley of Siddim with Chedorlaomer king of Elam, Tidal king of Goiim, Amraphel king of Shinar, and Arioch king of Ellasar, four kings against five. Now the Valley of Siddim was full of bitumen pits, and as the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, some fell into them, and the rest fled to the hill country. So the enemy took all the possessions of Sodom and Gomorrah, and all their provisions, and went their way. They also took Lot, the son of Abram’s brother, who was dwelling in Sodom, and his possessions, and went their way.
    9 kings, 5 leaders of various city states, and 4 kings of empires meet in battle,
    The kings of the cities are forced to flee, because they are getting stuck in the tar pits around the dead sea,
    The people of the cities are taken captive.
    Genesis 14:14–16 ESV
    When Abram heard that his kinsman had been taken captive, he led forth his trained men, born in his house, 318 of them, and went in pursuit as far as Dan. And he divided his forces against them by night, he and his servants, and defeated them and pursued them to Hobah, north of Damascus. Then he brought back all the possessions, and also brought back his kinsman Lot with his possessions, and the women and the people.
    And when Abram hears that Lot was kidnapped he rallies his servants all 318 of them and hunts down the Babylonian army and defeats them, and brings all the captives home, with the plunder to return it to the king of Sodom.
    A Crazy victory, as Abraham did not have nearly the same number of men as 4 imperial kings.
    Genesis 14:17–20 ESV
    After his return from the defeat of Chedorlaomer and the kings who were with him, the king of Sodom went out to meet him at the Valley of Shaveh (that is, the King’s Valley). And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. (He was priest of God Most High.) And he blessed him and said, “Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth; and blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand!” And Abram gave him a tenth of everything.
    And it says that the King of Sodom came to Meet Abram
    and this word “meet” here sometimes suggests, meeting for battle.
    he is preparing to fight against Abram,
    And Right in the Middle of all of this there are 3 verses where some other king, a tenth king, who was not part of the battle, just shows up out of nowhere, to bless Abram for his victory.
    Now, traditionally, the definition of a priest is the one who stands between God’s Glory, and mankind’s imperfection, and bridges the gap between God and man, allowing mankind to follow the will of God
    What is interesting is that Abraham didn’t need a priest to stand between him and God, Abraham heard the voice of God and listened and obeyed and Trusted.
    This is the only time where Abraham has a priest standing between him and God.
    And the priest does three things,
    He brings food and drink,
    Specifically bread and wine
    Which now we immediately see as a precursor to communion - which we read and partook of earlier
    He holds a feast for Abraham and the freed Captives, and the King of Sodom.
    He Blesses Abram, and shows that God has put his blessing on Abram,
    And Abram gives him 1/10th of the spoil.
    This is the basis for tithing throughout the Old testament. it starts here.
    The Idea being that when God gives you success you owe God at least 1 tenth of what he gave to you.
    And this becomes even crazier when you see what happens in the next couple of verses:
    Genesis 14:21–23 ESV
    And the king of Sodom said to Abram, “Give me the persons, but take the goods for yourself.” But Abram said to the king of Sodom, “I have lifted my hand to the Lord, God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth, that I would not take a thread or a sandal strap or anything that is yours, lest you should say, ‘I have made Abram rich.’
    So once Abram and the King of Sodom had broke bread together, had communion together, the King of Sodom says, okay - give me back my citizens and keep the plunder
    And Abram says “no” - I will not take anything that isn’t mine, so that you cannot say that you made me rich.”
    I wont take anything,
    even though he just gave away 10% of it to Melchizedek,
    So Melchizedek the king of Salem and priest of God Most High got more of the plunder than Abraham did.
    And then he’s gone, we do not hear about him again except once in psalms, until we get to the book of Hebrews.
    And Hebrews really tries to dig into who Melchizedek was,
    Hebrews 7:1–3 ESV
    For this Melchizedek, 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 apportioned a tenth part of everything. He is first, by translation of his name, king of righteousness, and then he is also king of Salem, that is, king of peace. He is without father or mother or genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but resembling the Son of God he continues a priest forever.
    the Author of Hebrews quotes Genesis, and then digs in the way all of us Bible nerds do, translating his names and titles.
    His name: Melchi - Zedek, King of Righteousness,
    His Title - King of Salem - King of Peace
    These both sound very much more than just human names.
    These are titles that should belong to God
    Even Jesus in not called the king of Peace, but the prince of peace.
    Then the Author of Hebrews points out something very interesting,
    Compared to every other important person in the book of Genesis, Melchizedek doesn’t have a genealogy, or parents, or kids.
    over 15% of the Book of Genesis is genealogies, there are entire chapters that simply say, this person was this person’s father, then he was this person’s father.
    Melchizedek has none of that.
    So the Author of Hebrews says that he is like the Son of God, existing as a priest forever.
    And so there are many theories as to who Melchizedek actually was:
    One theory is that he Is a pre-incarnate Jesus.
    The titles fit,
    the Role fits
    He has bread and wine like at communion.
    There is a problem with this theory though,
    Usually when we see a Pre-incarnate jesus in the Old testament he goes by a different title, the Angel of the Lord.
    He appears as an angel not as a man.
    And Salem is a real place
    it is Jerusalem.
    So Melchizedek was king of Jerusalem, before it was Jerusalem.
    So if he’s not Jesus then maybe he was just an important man, and the fact that he doesn’t have a genealogy doesn’t mean much,
    the King of Sodom doesn’t have a genealogy either - but we don’t compare him with Jesus.
    He could just be someone who Worships God in Jerusalem.
    Or he could be a different Biblical character going by another name,
    according to rabbinic traditions - which should always be taken with a hefty grain of salt - Melchizedek could be Shem, the Son of Noah.
    But wait! Wasn’t Shem like hundreds of years before Abraham?
    If you look at the genealogies of Genesis like I - a proper bible nerd - do, and do the math, you will see that Shem was still alive at the time of Abraham according to the Bible.
    And Noah himself specifically said that Shem worshipped the one true God,
    In Genesis 9:26 He says “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem”
    And so you have one of the oldest people on earth, the one who saw God’s promise to never flood the earth again, blessing his Great-great-great- great -something - grandson for worshiping and listening to that same God.
    It’s a neat idea, but that theory flies in the face of what Hebrews says about Melchizedek not having a genealogy.
    And so we are just left with a mystery. So the Author of Hebrews then continues with his explanation of why Melchizedek is important,
    Hebrews 7:4–10 ESV
    See how great this man was to whom Abraham the patriarch gave a tenth of the spoils! And those descendants of Levi who receive the priestly office have a commandment in the law to take tithes from the people, that is, from their brothers, though these also are descended from Abraham. But this man who does not have his descent from them received tithes from Abraham and blessed him who had the promises. It is beyond dispute that the inferior is blessed by the superior. In the one case tithes are received by mortal men, but in the other case, by one of whom it is testified that he lives. One might even say that Levi himself, who receives tithes, paid tithes through Abraham, for he was still in the loins of his ancestor when Melchizedek met him.
    Now the Author of Hebrews is making a very specific point here, and we will explore it more in the coming weeks,
    But his main point is that the priestly order of Melchizedek is better than the Priestly order of Levi and Aaron that was set up in the book of Exodus and Leviticus during the time of Moses.
    We will look much deeper into the roles of the Levitical priesthood next week.
    But Melchizedek, the first priest was even greater,
    Becuase the greater priest receives the tithes.
    And Levi and Aaron, through their ancestor Abraham paid tithes to Melchizedek.
    Why is this important?
    Becuase Jesus is called a priest after the Order of Melchizedek.
    Psalm 110:4 ESV
    The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, “You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.”
    This psalm was written by King David, pointing towards Jesus, as so many of David’s psalms did.
    This is part of how we are able to call Jesus our high priest, because as far as we know, he was not from the line of Levi, he was not from the line of priests, he was from the line of David
    So how can he be our High Priest? because he is of the Order of Melchizedek.
    So what does a Priest in the order of Melchizedek do?
    Well Melchizedek broke bread and shared wine, he gave communion,
    He blessed those who the Lord was blessing.
    He was a King of righteousness, who made sure things were justly done
    He was a king of Peace, who brokered peace between Abraham and the King of Sodom
    He collected a tithe,
    And then he was gone, vanished, only to appear in one verse in the psalms, and then in the book of Hebrews.
    Where we see that all along he was pointing to Jesus.
    Church this week we did the things that Melchizedek did, We had communion, we recieved God’s blessing, and word,
    Let us go from here seeking to live righteous lives, seeking to make peace with others the way God made peace with us.
    For if we are a royal priesthood, then we ought to follow the example of the Priest who guided Abraham.

      • 1 Peter 2:9–10ESV

      • Genesis 14:8–12ESV

      • Genesis 14:14–16ESV

      • Genesis 14:17–20ESV

      • Genesis 14:21–23ESV

      • Hebrews 7:1–3ESV

      • Hebrews 7:4–10ESV

      • Psalm 110:4ESV

  • Crown Him With Many Crowns (Diademata)
Port City Faith Church
portcityfaith@gmail.com
(315)-342-5333
http://portcityfaith.com
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