The Life of Faith: God Provides
Three Key Takeaways
Generosity flows from knowing God provides. Abraham could be incredibly generous with Lot because he knew God had his back. It's much easier to be generous when you trust that God is promising to provide for you richly. True generosity comes from confidence in God's provision.
Integrity in how we earn matters as much as how we spend. When Abraham rescued Lot, the king of Sodom offered him all the spoils of war. Abraham refused, saying he wouldn't take even a thread or sandal strap from the king. God-centred integrity applies to how we earn money, not just how we give it.
Giving is a response to meeting God, not a mechanical duty. When Abraham met Melchizedek—the King of Peace, the King of Righteousness—and gave him a tenth of everything, he wasn't thinking about what he'd lost. He was thinking, "I've just met God." Our giving should flow from the privilege of encountering Christ, not obligation.
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God Provides
Last week we started a series on the life of Abraham. God spoke to him and said, "I'm going to bless you so much that all the nations of the world are going to end up being blessed through your descendants." It's a remarkable moment that God chose this guy. There wasn't anything remarkable about him before. There was something remarkable about him after God had spoken to him and chosen him and blessed him.
Over the next six weeks, we're following his journey—his life of faith. God has wisdom for us about how we live our lives of faith that we can learn from him. Today we're looking particularly at provision and finances, material blessings and our own generosity that comes out of that.
Money: A Constant Challenge
After reading the story about Abraham being blessed, one of the first things you read about is how he handles resources. In our life of faith, often that's one of the first and biggest challenges we face. Either we don't have anything and we're thinking, "Lord, I need you to provide for me," or we do have some stuff and we're faced with the challenge: "What do I do with it? How much should I give? Should I be saving? Should I give this to this person or this thing? Should I keep it?"
For all of us, we're constantly faced with that challenge—trying to live faithfully and full of faith with whatever resources God gives us, whether it feels like a little or whether it feels like a lot. Both have challenges. What does faith look like in both instances?
Story One: Generosity With Lot
Genesis 13:2-18 tells us that Abraham was very rich in livestock, in silver and in gold. Abraham and his nephew Lot both had flocks and herds and tents, so many that the land could not support both of them dwelling together. Their possessions were so great that they could not dwell together. There was strife between the herdsmen of Abraham's livestock and the herdsmen of Lot's livestock.
Abraham said to Lot, "Let there be no strife between you and me, and between your herdsmen and my herdsmen, for we're kinsmen—we're brothers. Isn't the whole land before you? Separate yourself from me. If you take the left hand, then I will go to the right. Or if you take the right hand, then I'll go to the left."
Lot lifted up his eyes and saw that the Jordan Valley was well-watered everywhere, like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt. So Lot chose for himself all the Jordan Valley and journeyed east. Thus they separated from each other. Abraham settled in the land of Canaan, whilst Lot settled amongst the cities of the valley and moved his tent as far as Sodom.
The Lord said to Abraham after Lot had separated from him, "Lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are—northward and southward and eastward and westward. For all the land that you see, I will give to you and to your offspring forever. I will make your offspring as the dust of the earth, so that if one can count the dust of the earth, your offspring also can be counted. Arise, walk through the length and the breadth of the land, for I will give it to you."
So Abraham moved his tent and came and settled by the oaks of Mamre, which are at Hebron, and there he built an altar to the Lord.
You immediately see Abraham's generosity. He basically says to Lot, "You pick. You can pick where you want to go, and I'll go in the opposite direction. You can have first choice." Lot says, "Well, it looks really good this way," so he picks the land over there.
Then God comes back to Abraham and says, "Everything you can see, I'm going to give it to you. And by the way, you're going to have so many descendants it's like counting atoms—all the dust, all the particles of the earth. If you could count them, then you'd be able to count the number of descendants you're going to have."
You see this dynamic. Abraham is incredibly generous. He's not looking after himself. He's letting others go first. It's much easier to be generous if you know that God is also promising to provide for you richly and generously. If you know the next thing that's going to happen is God's going to keep promising you and giving you more things, it's much easier. You think, "God's got my back, so I'm going to be fine." You just see this incredible generosity flowing out of Abraham.
Story Two: Integrity With the King of Sodom
The second story is a bit different. Abraham as farmer becomes Abraham as warrior. Genesis 14 tells us that when Abraham heard that his kinsman had been taken captive—some of his family had been taken captive in war, and Lot was one of them—he led forth his trained men born in his house. Abraham is at least 75 at this point—318 of them. He went in pursuit as far as Dan. 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.
After his return from the defeat of these kings, the king of Sodom went out to meet him. 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.
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.' I will take nothing but what the young men have eaten, and the share of the men who went with me."
Two Encounters, Two Responses
Abraham has just defeated these armies and rescued all these people. He's coming back from this victory, and he meets two people. He meets Melchizedek, king of Salem, who brings out bread and wine. And he meets the king of Sodom, who offers him all the spoils of war—"Take the goods for yourself."
Meeting Melchizedek
Melchizedek blesses Abraham: "Blessed be Abram by God Most High, possessor of heaven and earth." And Abraham gives him a tenth of everything.
This is a remarkable moment. Melchizedek means "king of righteousness." Salem means peace—he's the king of peace. He's described as priest of God Most High, and later in Hebrews, we're told he's "without beginning or end."
This is a deeply mysterious figure who seems to point beyond himself to someone greater. He brings bread and wine. He blesses Abraham in the name of God Most High, possessor of heaven and earth. And Abraham gives him a tenth of everything.
Abraham doesn't go to sleep that night thinking, "Man, how am I going to make that 10% up?" He goes to bed thinking, "I think I just met someone like I've never met before. I met the King of Peace. I met the King of Righteousness. I met the priest without beginning or without end. I think I just somehow touched God. I don't even understand it fully, but something just happened there that was maybe the most profound moment of my life."
He's not thinking, "Oh man, that 10%. The holidays we could have taken, me and Sarah." He's thinking, "I've just met God. I don't mind if I'm 10% poorer. I don't mind if I gave 100% away because I've just met God."
Sometimes teaching on giving and tithing in churches gets so mechanical and misses this fundamental thing. It's like, "I've just met God. I don't mind if I'm 10% poorer. I don't mind if I give some money away. I'm happy to give to the poor because I've just met God. If I know that God, who looks after the lilies and the birds in the air, is going to provide for me, I'm happy to give money away because I've just met God. My life is richer, not poorer, when I give away because I've met God."
Rejecting the King of Sodom
Then there's the king of Sodom. He offers Abraham all the spoils of war. Abraham refuses: "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.'"
Abraham is saying, "I'm not going to let you take credit for my wealth. I'm not going to let you say you made me rich. God Most High, possessor of heaven and earth, is the one who provides for me."
This is about integrity in how we earn money, not just how we spend it. Abraham could have taken the spoils—he'd won them in battle. But he refuses because he doesn't want his provision to come from a source that would compromise his testimony about who God is.
Three Visions for Handling Provision
The Bible gives us three visions for thinking about provision, wealth, blessing, and what we do with it:
Generosity Flowing From God's Promise
When we know God promises to provide for us, we can be generous with others. Abraham could let Lot choose first because he trusted God's promise. Our generosity doesn't deplete us when we trust God's provision.
God-Centred Integrity in How We Earn
It's not just about what we do with money, but how we get it. Abraham refused the king of Sodom's offer because he wanted his wealth to come from God alone. Our integrity in earning matters as much as our generosity in giving.
Giving First to the Lord as a Response to Meeting Christ
Abraham gave a tenth to Melchizedek as a response to the privilege of meeting this mysterious figure who pointed to God. When we meet Jesus—the true King of Peace, King of Righteousness, the eternal priest—our giving flows from that encounter, not from obligation.
At Redemption
At Redemption, we only exist because of giving. We encourage people who are part of the church to give. Whether that means you can give £1 or £10 or £100 or £1,000 or £10,000, there's a massive spectrum. The total is not the primary thing. The heartbeat is this freely rising generosity because we realise this is what God has done. Everything we have has come from Him. When we meet Jesus, we're happy to give stuff away. We're happy to end up financially poorer because we know we've just received true riches.
For anyone who feels it's hard to be confident about finance because they don't have much provision, may you look to God and trust Him for provision. May He keep meeting your needs, and may you know Him as your provider.
For anyone who has more than they need, may God lead you on an adventure of faith regarding what you do with what He's given you. May you be very free, very generous, very responsive to God, very God-centred with all that He provides.
