1st Kings chapter 15 beginning in verse 1, this is God's word, eternally true. In the 18th year of the reign of Jerobo and Son of Nabat, Abysha became King of Judah, and he reigned in Jerusalem three years. His mother's name was Maaka, daughter of Abishalom. He committed all the sins his father had done before him. His heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of David, his forefather had been. Nevertheless, for David's sake, the Lord his God gave him a lamp in Jerusalem by raising up a son to succeed him and by making Jerusalem strong. For David had done what was right in the eyes of the Lord, and had not failed to keep any of the Lord's commands all the days of his life, except in the case of Euryah, the Hittites. There was war between Reha-Bom and Jeroboam throughout Abysha's lifetime. As for the other events of Bysha's reign and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the annals of the Kings of Judah? There was war between Abysha and Jeroboam, and Abysha rested with his fathers, and was buried in the city of David, and Asa, his son, succeeded him as King. Now look down to verse 13. He, that is Asa, even deposed his grandmother, Maaka, from her position as Queen Mother, because she had made a repulsive asher a pole. Asa cut the pole down and burned it in the Kedron Valley. Hearings are reading. You have a response of thankfulness printed for you in your bulletin and up here on the screen. The Word of the Lord. Thanks indeed. Let's pray. When I was in Sinai, I remember when we approached the book of Chronicles, the professor I had for that was Richard Pratt, and that was his PhD work in Chronicles. He did a PhD on the prayers in 1st and 2nd Chronicles. And so he looked out as Richard usually did, and he kind of challenged us by saying something he knew what was probably true for us, and we were supposed to say, no, that's not true. But he said, I know none of you read Chronicles. He said because you read 1st and 2nd Samuel and 1st and 2nd Kings, and it's got all the content of it in there, and you get the Chronicles, and you got 10 chapters of genealogies, and then the rest is repeating the stuff that's in 1st and 2nd Samuel and 1st and 2nd Kings. And so you quit and go on to something else. He said, none of you have read Chronicles, right? Or you don't like that, do you? And actually he said, I like Chronicles. And he looked at me like I was a weird person, and he said, well, why do you like it? And I said, because of this, it speaks of believers as an emphasis Chronicles of having a heart fully devoted to the Lord. And so I've left it at that we're in class. But that was always refreshing to me. I liked 1st and 2nd Chronicles because that's a refrain in Chronicles, and you see that here a little bit in 1st and 2nd Kings in this passage, the importance of having a heart fully devoted to the Lord or having been wholehearted toward the Lord. And that's your, if you'd like to fill up blanks in an outline, you're welcome to do that now. So that introduction is, in the Bible, wholehearted devotion to God is a huge thing. That's a very sophisticated way of saying it, right? It's a huge thing. But where to see that, even here in Kings, and just so if you're interested in discerning one book of the Bible from another, Kings is basically saying to the exiles, this is your fault that you're an exile. Chronicles is written when the people return from exile, and it's saying, here's how to get the kingdom back in order. And so Chronicles has a huge emphasis on, here's how you get the kingdom back in order, have a heart fully devoted to the Lord. And in Kings, it's like, here's why you're an exile because you didn't have hearts fully devoted to the Lord. And in fact, let me show you how greatly you sinned over all these years despite my patience. That's what Kings is about. God justifying his sinning his people into exile is essential at first and second Kings is about. That was free. But first God says to us from this passage here, he wants you to note, the unfaithful, that the unfaithful affect as with an a, a, f, f, e, c, t. The unfaithful affect their close relatives in a negative way. The unfaithful, nonbelievers, or believers who are unfaithful affect their relatives in a negative way. So the exhortation for you prioritize prioritize faithfulness to Christ in your family prioritize faithfulness to Christ in your family. We had seen kind of a version of this before as we talked about Abyssal's father, Rehobom, in the first couple of weeks of July, how severely that affected Rehobom. We had talked about with Solomon how having unfaithful family members, i.e. his many wives and concubines who weren't of the faith, how that drastically affected his life, how it caused the kingdom of God to split into two. So there was a northern kingdom known as Israel and a southern kingdom known as Judah, so the 12 tribes were split 10 and 2. But this emphasizes this in a different, a different way, but it wants us to know, God wants you to know that the unfaithful, the unfaithful affect their family in significant ways and it's a negative way. So you have to consciously prioritize faithfulness in your family. First of all, don't create family that will be bad for you. In other words, as we've spoken of the first two weeks of July, to start don't marry an unbeliever. So don't marry an unbeliever. We talked about that a bunch with Rehobom. Don't marry an unbeliever or a not fully devoted to Christ's believer. Don't marry an unbeliever, but don't marry a believer who's not fully devoted to Christ either. We can see in verse 3, there you look there in your Bibles, devotion to God was the heart of the problem for Abysia. It was the central issue with the blessing that God's people experienced under David. David's heart was fully devoted to the Lord and so the people had blessing because of that, but the problem of Abysia is brought here in the negative way. It says Abysia was not like David who was fully devoted to the Lord. Instead he did the sins that his father, Rehobom, had done. It was true for his father, Rehobom, that his father was not devoted to the Lord and it was true for his mother as well. We read in verse 13 that Abysia's mother, Maaka, she was worshiping other gods as well. She set up a growth asher pole in the land and so actually her grandson deposes her from her role as Queen Mother or Queen Grandmother. You see these negative influences. Abysia goes into his life, he's got a father who hasn't been faithful, Rehobom, and he has a mother who hasn't been faithful. In fact the mother who's worshiping other gods, setting up an asher pole which is a pagan symbol for worship. So don't connect yourself, don't create unbelieving family. Don't create family that is believing but not fully devoted to the Lord. If you're unmarried that's what you want to be looking for. Somebody who's fully devoted to the Lord. Be, recognize the powerful, recognize the powerful effect an unfaithful family member can have on you and your family and be on guard to be faithful. So all of us, probably none of us have if you include your extended family, probably very few of us have people in our families who are, let me put that in another way, probably all of us have unbelievers, either in our family or extended family, family we grew up with or have family members who have been in the church but they're not really devoted. And realize that these people can have a powerful effect on you and your family so you have to be on guard, like Jesus saying, be on guard, be watchful. And just don't let your guard down so to speak. So verse three here, what's the effect on Abyssa? He committed all the sins, his unfaithful father committed. That's a powerful effect there. Here are the things you can look back to chapter 14 verses 22 to 24. Here are all the sins of Rahabom, his father, that Abyssa also committed following in his father's footsteps. Verse 22, chapter 14, judited evil in the eyes of the Lord, by the sins they committed, they stirred up his jealous anger more than their fathers had done. They also set up for themselves high places, sacred stones, and ashra poles on every high hill and under every spreading tree. There were even male shrine prostitutes in the land, the people engaged in all the detestable practices of the nations, the Lord had driven out before the Israelites. So this is not just Rahabom doing this, but abide your walks in these ways as well. He's doing these things, setting up pagan worship sites, worship to other gods, a gross thing sexually going on in combination with that pagan god worship. But this was not only by reason of his Ammonite grandmother, Naama, we see in 1421 and 31, it was also by the influence of his mother, Maaka, those are two names, Naama Maaka. That'd be tough if your daughters were named that. But she promotes the worship of Ashtras, the goddess of the Sidonians. The Sidonians were up north and on the Mediterranean Sea as you look at the promised land. And so what's the result of this? Well, if you understand kingship in Israel and you see that what we read in 2nd Samuel 7, the Davidic covenant where God speaks of David and his enduring kingdom, that the kingdom would last forever. And that's true because Jesus is the son of David, right? And he'll forever be our king. Son of David will always be our king. He will not have, there will be no succession. Jesus will never be an ex-king or a king emeritus. He's always our king. But individual kings could be disciplined by God. We saw in verse 14 of chapter 7 and 2nd Samuel that if a particular son of David was evil, God would discipline him with the rods of men. And so typically a king who was evil, who was the son of David, would have a short reign. This wasn't always the case. But when there was a short reign, it was pretty much a sign that this king was up to no good. And so we see here, Abysia is only given three years. That was a three years is telling us this is this is curse. Another curse that comes upon Abysia for his wickedness, the powerful effect on Abysia having unbelief in his family around him is that he has wars throughout his reign. You can see this in verse 6 and this is part of the covenant curse as well. Deuteronomy 28, when you look at curses that come upon God's people, it's that enemies come into the land and bring chaos. Or if you look at that covenant with David in 2nd Samuel 7, you see that part of the blessing of a faithful David king, the son of David, was that they would have rest in their lands. They would no longer have opponents come in and give them unrest in the land. And so when we see an statement about a king that they had wars throughout their lives, like we saw that was a sign that they were under God's curse rather than his blessing. And so you see the result here, God emphasizes here the lineage and what Abysia was dealing with, he had an unfaithful daddy who did the sins of his father. His mother was also unfaithful and eventually his son dethroned his mother. And so all this stuff is family, it's affecting Abysia and bringing this powerful negative effect in his life. And so that's a warning for us. As far as it is in our power, as an individual believer in Jesus, we don't bring that into our lives. Now you've been born with unbelieving parents or you may have an unbelieving sister or brother or a son or a daughter who doesn't believe, nothing you can do about that. But you don't want to create that. But if there are those, nothing I can do about people in my life, like you have unbelieving parents, you need to be on guard. The on guard Abysia wasn't on guard against his father and mother who were unfaithful to the Lord. And so he runs in all the sins of his father and he only reigns three years and looks like he's about 43 when he dies. It doesn't say here or in Chronicles, how Abysia dies, that's a little bit odd that it doesn't say how a king dies, but it doesn't say how he dies. And so if we just figure out how bone was 20, when Abysia was born, then that puts Abysia at about 41 to 43 years old when he dies. That's young, even in Old Testament ages there. There are some kings, Menace arranged for 55 years and Abysia's dead at 41 or 43. Now to lead into something that we just talked about, see, see, what if you have unbelieving parents or parents who are in the church but they're not faithful, they're not fully devoted to the Lord, what do you do then? Let's see, honor your parents, honor your parents, that's Exodus 2012, doesn't matter who your parents are, what they've done, you need to honor them. So honor your parents, but in their unfaithfulness, don't agree with them, in their unfaithfulness, don't agree with them or say their sinful viewpoints or practices are okay. Now you don't have to be obnoxious because if you're obnoxious to your parents, you're probably not honoring them, but don't join in, don't justify your parents unrighteousness yet honor them. And when they're unrighteous and when they're doing other things or spewing atheism or in some other religion or doing things that are clearly against God's law or saying that things clearly against God's law are okay. When they're saying those things, don't say, well I think it's okay to justify your parents' position or justify your parents' actions. You, we need to be faithful to the Lord first but with your parents, be honoring them, be compassionate, be patient, pray for them but don't be a jerk to your mom and to your dad. Love them and care for them even though they're representing things that are not of faithfulness to the Lord. So honor your parents, but wherein they step outside of God's law, don't support that and don't say that that's okay. Mind yourself and your own faithfulness. And we see this in 1513, that last verse that we've singly read. Aisha gets this right, we'll learn more about Aisha, Aisha is one of the great kings in Judah, but Aisha gets this right. He says, you're my grandmother, but you set off that, what's it called, repulsive asherapol. And so I'm deposing you from your position as Queen Mother, so to speak, there. And he cuts the pole down, and he burns it in the kitchen valley. The kitchen valley was the valley to the east, there's the east hill of Jerusalem. It's the hill Jesus went up on a donkey on as he entered Jerusalem. So if you're looking, if you're looking from the, you guys are on the south, they're sorry I have to do this. Okay, you guys are on the south, so Jerusalem's on a hill, and then this is the Mount of Olives right here. If you do these talks here, and then he rises down here, and then up into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, Solomon does the same thing, writes a David's mule off. This is the kitchen valley, right in there. So it's obvious. Aisha doesn't do this in a corner. He declares as he should, for all the people, worship of asherapol, the God of the Sidonians, is not okay in the land. Okay, but it doesn't kill his mother, but he removes her from this position of influence, because he's in charge of the people's faithfulness, that's part of the job of a king. And so he does this publicly, because somebody in that kind of position can have an enormous impact on the land, just as you recognize that someone in your family who is unbelieving, maybe your favorite uncle or something, is unbelieving. He says, oh, don't worry about that. He's talking about some item of obedience for you. Oh, don't worry about that. You got to stick with the Lord, and not please your uncle. Okay, all right, two, two. Note this, God wants us to know, a heart fully devoted to the Lord brings blessing to you and to your family. This is why this is so important, one of the reasons why this is so important. A heart fully devoted to the Lord brings blessing to you and to your family, so be devoted fully to Jesus. Not partially, not putting in your, you know, what's that, the time card. Yeah, not just, you know, checking in your time card here, or phoning it in in your face. You don't want to phoning your face, you don't just want to show up on Sundays, first of all, show up on Sundays, but you don't just want to show up on Sundays. You don't want to say, oh yeah, I'm a Christian, I believe that stuff, I think that's good. So this is, you know, as I say, Clayton High School all in, all in. This is who you are, this is who you want to be, this is where you are growing to be more like Jesus. Your heart fully devoted to the Lord. This is the source of blessing. This is when God says, yes, I'm going to bless this person because he's into being fully devoted to me. We see this in David versus three through five. Look at what it says here. So David's the great grandfather here. And he's still being brought up. And the reason he gets brought up over and over, and he's always at the checkpoint for whether a king is good or bad. And when a king's good, he's compared to David. And when he's bad, he's compared to David. And the reason he's compared, reason David is the comparison point, one, Jesus isn't around yet. But he's the comparison point until Jesus comes. But he's the comparison point because his heart is fully devoted to the Lord because he's wholeheartedly devoted to the Lord. Look at verse three, his heart was fully devoted to the Lord. And verse five, he obeyed the Lord's commands all the days of his life. Verse four. We see here howl then. We said here in our point here, be devoted fully to Jesus. That's verses three and five. But we say here in verse, sorry, point two as well. The reason it brings blessing to you and to your family. Your whole hearted devotion to the Lord brings blessing to your family. Look at verse four. So a biser walks in all the wicked ways of his father, Rahabboon. And we read those wicked ways, chapter 14 verses 22 through 24, really bad stuff, male shrine prostitutes, right? That's about as bad as you can get. By the way, in Israel, those who came to worship absolutely had to be at worship were the men. You know, sometimes women had children, you know, and so they were allowed to stay at home when a worship festival came. And so, male shrine prostitutes is talking about homosexual stuff. Okay, so this isn't really bad stuff. When God wants to emphasize how bad sin is, that's what he reveals there that's being done. But nevertheless, verse four, even though a biser is this wicked, David's whole hearted faithfulness to the Lord does this. Nevertheless, for David's sake, the Lord God gave him a biser, a lamp in Jerusalem, by raising up a sun to succeed him, that is Asa. And by making Jerusalem strong. So why aren't things, why isn't Jerusalem getting run over in a biser's day? Why isn't the kingdom of Judah just completely demolished in the kinship ceases to be? Because of the whole hearted devotion of David. David's whole hearted devotion is affecting three generations down. Do you get that? You want to have kids who care about the Lord? You want to have grandkids who care about the Lord? You want to have great-grandkids who care about the Lord? Here's a recipe. My mom and dad, when they got married, they didn't believe. But my dad's parents did. Great. Their lives were about belief in the Lord. And my sister and I came to faith before my dad and mom did. And it's this. It's God honoring the faith of, you know, Mayford and Milford. West Virginia growing up in north of Dayton, Ohio, and tip city. Poor dairy farmer. God wants us to understand this. Your faith is not just about you getting blessed. Now you will experience blessing by being wholeheartedly loving and devoted to the Lord. So do it for that reason. And it's okay to do it for that reason. But realize what a gift you can give to your family. Even three generations down we see this with David. God's made a point here in this text that a biser's awful. But the kingdom goes on to Jerusalem is fortified. God raises up a faithful son. And the kingdom survives because the whole hearted devotion of David. So parents keep at it. Grandparents keep at it. Kids set yourself for this so that you leave Godly all spring as God talks about in Malachi. And David's being fully devoted to Lord Barth blessings and preserved God's people living. Even these three generations after him. So A, A there in your outline. When you parent, put Christ and faithfulness to him. When you parent, put Christ and faithfulness to him above all else in the family. We saw this in jitter on me six verses one through nine. The first passage Jim read four says morning. God says when you go into the promised land parents talk about me all the time. That's what God says. Talk about me all the time when you lie down, when you get up, when you're sitting at the table eating dinner, when you're out in the field working, when you walk through your house. Put my commands on your doorposts all the time. He says in every aspect of your life all through your day, talk about the Lord with your kids. Talk about me with your kids, the Lord says. And love me with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. Jesus didn't invent that in the gospels. He invented it back with Moses there. David's faithfulness had carry over blessing even to his great-grandson Abyssa. And your faithfulness can have great carry over to your kids and grandkids and great-grandkids too. This is why we have jitter on me six. What's so important. So our call to worship, look at that. If you're new to the church, know that pretty much call the worship and the declaration gospel. They always relate to almost always relate to the sermon. Call to worship Psalm 112, one and two. Praise the Lord, get us good, that's call to worship. Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who finds great delight in his commands. The light in his commands, it's being wholeheartedly devoted to the Lord. What's the result for your kids? If you're one who finds delight in his commands, who fears the Lord, the result is this, the conditional response verse two of Psalm 112. His children will be mighty in the land. The generation of the upright will be blessed. So the kids of the upright person will be blessed. It's a principle that we see in scripture over and over again. Parents wise, it's so important for you to be faithful because it affects your kids. It affects your kids. Proverbs 27 says, the righteous man leads a blameless life. Blessed are his children after him. Psalm 1131 as well. The faithful wholeheartedly devoted to the Lord, wife. Her children rise up and call her blessed. So that's a wonderful thing. When you're parents, put Christ and faithfulness above all things. Put it above your kids liking you. Be a parent, not a friend. Be a parent, not a buddy. Tell your kids what to do because you love them. Your kids don't know what to do. They're not experts in life. You are. You've lived it. So tell your kids what to do and put faithfulness to Christ above all else. Be an addition of parents blessing their kids by their faithfulness. Kids can bless their parents with theirs. So be your faithfulness can bless your parents too. And this goes for any of you who have living parents now. You're 50 years old and have living parents now. This is true. Your faithfulness can bless your parents too. Proverbs 10 verse 1. Proverbs of Solomon, a wise son, brings joy to his father. If you're a wise son and Solomon defines wisdom as knowing the commands of God and doing them. So a son, a daughter, who knows God's commands, who finds out what God's commands are, and does those commands, brings joy to his father. Proverbs 23-24. The father of a righteous man has great joy. If you're righteous, if you're faithful, if you're wholeheartedly obedient and loving and devoted to the Lord, you bring your father great joy. He who has a wise son, the lights in hand. You'll make your parents the light in you. Then, verse 25 of Proverbs 23, may your father and mother be glad, may she who gave you birth rejoice. Your whole hearted devotion to the Lord will make your mother and father rejoice. If you've been around a while, you know that one of the things I loved about sports was if I could do the sports well, I brought honor to my parents. They could come to those games and say, that's my boy there. I loved that about sports. If I could play well, I brought honor. They could be there and someone would say, oh, who's your kid? And they could say, you know, number two, or number four, number 15, whatever had lots of numbers. They didn't have a million dollar contract either, so I couldn't keep my number. But realize that even if you're older now and you've got very much older mother and father, you bring joy to your mother and father by your whole hearted devotion to the Lord. Now see, see, in this, as you seek to be wholeheartedly devoted to the Lord, you're following the example of Jesus. You're following the example of Jesus whose whole hearted devotion to the Lord brought blessings to all who are God's children through faith and Him. So Jesus was wholeheartedly devoted to his father. You remember in the Garden of Guest, Semini? Contemplates his coming death and says, father, if you're willing, please take this cup, which was his death on the cross. Please take this cup from me, but not my will be done, but yours. He was devoted to his father and doing his father's will. First Peter 2.22, he committed no sin. Jesus committed no sin, nor was agency found in his mouth. He was utterly devoted to doing the will of his father and this brings us blessing. If you look at your declaration in the gospel, you can look at that on your front page there too. Jesus is 100% righteous. He fulfills all the covenant obligations, all which is all the laws of Moses, all that stuff, and look what it does for us, second Corinthians 521. God made him, God the Father made Jesus, who had no sin, that is Jesus wholeheartedly devotion. His I'm not sinning even once, devotion to the Lord. God made him who knew no sin to be sinned for us, so he placed our sin upon Jesus. But Jesus didn't have any sin of his own. He was completely wholeheartedly devoted to the Lord, why? So that in Christ, through faith in Christ, we might become the righteousness of God. Because Jesus was wholeheartedly devoted to the Lord, we are credited with righteousness. And we're to see that we can in a smaller way have that effect on the people around us, especially our family members. Our whole hearted devotion to the Lord can bring righteousness to somebody else, not that our righteousness is imputed to them, but maybe through us, our words, our actions, our example, they come to faith in Christ and are imputed with his righteousness. And so we can have that effect on the people around us. D. Now, rejoice that your eternal blessing, rejoice that your eternal blessing and well-being is not based on your perfection and you can write in there my perfection and faithfulness. Nor is it based on the faithfulness of your elders, but it's based on the perfection and faithfulness of your king, Jesus. So I want you to realize something here, verse 4. God, people who are blessed are cursed based on the faithfulness or the unfaithfulness of their king. And it's the same for us. And that's the good news of the gospel. We are not blessed because of our faithfulness. We are blessed because Jesus faithfulness and that that faithfulness was imputed to us. Eternally, we will be with the Lord not because we have been faithful, but because our king, the son of David, Jesus, was and is faithful. That's good news because we are not faithful. We are not wholeheartedly obedient and faithful and devoted to the Lord, but Jesus was and that wholehearted obedience to the Lord, that wholehearted faithfulness to the Lord of Jesus was imputed to us or given to us as a gift as we talked about in Sunday school this morning. So rejoice over this. This is the good news of the gospel. Your eternal salvation is not based on your righteousness, but on the righteousness of your king. And God's people, even in a bishops day, could experience God's blessing, affordified Jerusalem, the extension of the kingship over them because of David's faithfulness. And David wasn't utterly faithful. We have that note here that he wasn't faithful in regard to Euraya, the Hittite, who was fast Shiva's husband. He murdered Euraya, the Hittite, after he came into adultery with his wife. But Jesus is utterly faithful. And that utter faithfulness and righteousness is credited to us. So rejoice in that. That's why Jesus says in Luke 10-20, rejoice that your names are written in heaven. E. So like Rajuda Heights in the days of Abhazha, who were blessed by the residual blessings that came because of the faithfulness and wholehearted devotion of David, so you can write in their eye, so you are blessed today in part and blessed after this life in full by the faithfulness and wholehearted devotion of the Son of David. So the same principle involved here. Just as God's people were not just wiped out at this time because of the sinfulness of Rehoboam and Abhazha. They were experiencing God's blessing because of the faithfulness, the wholehearted devotion of David. This one verse four talks to us about, for the sake of David, who was wholeheartedly devoted to the Lord. God blessed the people anyway. And so that's the case for you. Even though you're not wholeheartedly obedient to the Lord and faithful to him and devoted to him, you are blessed because Jesus your king was. Now number three, number three. This leads into this, your life will not be perfection. Your life will not be a perfection in your keeping the moral law of God. We see that in verse five. David didn't have perfection in that. But your life should be a steady aiming at that. A steady aiming at the keeping of the moral law. And here's what that means to work that out some A. What does this mean? It's constant aiming at a wholehearted devotion. Your life should be a constant aiming at a wholehearted devotion to the Lord with Jesus as your example. David, verse three, fully devoted to the Lord. B, next your life should be a steady aiming at doing what is right. Doing what is right in the eyes of the Lord as defined by his commandments. So your life should be a constant aiming. You won't be perfect. This won't be perfection. But you should always see that you're aiming toward that. Aiming toward doing what was right in the eyes of the Lord. Doing what's right. Who defines it? The Lord. Doing what's right in the eyes of the Lord as defined by his commandments. And so verse five, for David had done what was right in the eyes of the Lord. And that's defined by God's commandments. Do you know what I mean? 1228 says, be careful to obey all the regulations I am giving you so that it may always go well with you and your children after you because you will be doing what is good and right in the eyes of the Lord. So we should always be aiming at this. We should never be the kind of Christian who says, well, all my sins are forgiven. I'm just going to live whatever way I want to live. No, we should always be aiming at doing what is right and good in the eyes of the Lord. See, next your life should be a steady aiming to have a heart that is quick to repent and return to walking in the Lord's ways or the Lord's directive. Again, verse five, that tag on the end, look at verse five there. You know, David always did, it says, David did what was right in the eyes of the Lord in every way, right? But there's that little tag there, verse five, except in the case of Euryah, the Hittite. So Euryah was married to Bathsheba. David commits adultery with Bathsheba and then he says, uh-oh. And then he orders Euryah, the Hittite, one of his fighting men to go up and be right up against the wall in a battle, a city wall in a battle. So that Euryah gets killed and Nathan the prophet comes to David and says, you killed Euryah because you committed adultery with Bathsheba. But the wonderful thing we see, and this is 2 Samuel 12 which is listed for you there, David Repents. And this is why David's called a man after God's own heart. It's not that he doesn't sin. It's that when he does, he's just, he's aimed back at the Lord. And he repents quickly and he doesn't care what other people think of him. He doesn't, you know, he gets smelly and he won't eat and won't shower and won't bathe for a while and he's truly repentant. And then his son from Bathsheba dies and then he cleans up, gets some food and goes to the temple. And worships the Lord. David was quick to repent. He was aimed at following the Lord and all the Lord's directives. And when it was pointed out to him, boy, you majorly failed here. Commandment 6 and Commandment 7. Those are big ones. And you directly not in spirit, but physically. You disobeyed both of those David Repents. And that should be our design because we won't perfectly follow the Lord. But when we don't, we should be quickly saying, yep, I sinned there. Lord, you saw that and I sinned and get back on the path of walking in the Lord's directives. Instead of walking further away. Now, D. Next, your life should be a steady aiming at. Not only a whole hearted devotion. Not only doing what's right now, it's the Lord. Not only having to heart this quick to repent by David. But at living in a constant recognition, living in a constant recognition or awareness. That all you do, that you do all things with the Lord's eyes upon you. Now, I can't say those words without thinking of Walker, Texas Ranger. In the eyes of a stranger. In the eyes of a ranger, the unsuspecting stranger had better know the truth of wrong from right. For the eyes of the ranger are upon you. And every wrong you do, he's going to see. So, when you're in Texas, look behind you. For that's where the rangers are going to be. And now, all those years of walking, walking, the Walker Texas rangers have paid off. But the issue is here that we realize the difference between Walker, Texas Ranger being behind us. And somehow, Texas being connected up with Taekwondo is that or whatever check did Karate. I don't know what especially was. But is that the Lord's eyes are upon us in a good way. Psalm 139, David rejoiced with the Lord's eyes. We're always upon him. And he said, where can I go from your spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you're there. If I make my bed in the depths, you're there. If I rise with the dawn. That's over in the east. If I sit on the far side of the sea, that was to the west, you're there. Your hand is always upon me and will guide me. David rejoiced in this. He was in a cave hiding from Saul when he wrote this Psalm most likely. There was no... The darkness couldn't hide him. That's what he goes into next in Psalm 139, 12. Nothing could hide. No matter where David went, he knew the Lord was watching him. And that was good because the Lord was watching over him in love. And that should be our lives. That's our mindset that we live our lives before the Lord. Under his loving gaze. And so live in a constant recognition that you do all things with the Lord's eyes upon you. Verse 5, David did what was right in the eyes of the Lord. We have this one, my favorite verses in scripture and choices too. I think 2 Chronicles 69. For the eyes of the Lord, move to and fro throughout the earth. That he may strongly support those whose heart is completely his. The Lord is looking for people whose hearts are completely his. That he may strongly support them. And that's great. But the Lord sees all things. Luke 817, Jesus says, for nothing is hidden that will not be disclosed. And nothing is concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open. The Lord sees all things. So a couple of things from this. One, you should be knowing that you can't fool him by merely external appearances. So one of the things we're drawing out here is that we're not talking about external appearance of being a good Christian. You know, come to church each week or most weeks and you don't do any major sin. You're a good family man. We're not talking about external appearances. We're talking about your heart, which is open and laid bare before the Lord. You know, it's all your thoughts. This is, you know, I've never thinkin' this as a little kid. God knows every thought I'm thinking. As soon as I think it, he heard it. You know, my mom didn't hear it. My brother didn't hear it. The Lord knows what I just thought. This is why I'm in the gospel came to me in eighth grade. I was like, yes. Because I knew the Lord knew what I had been thinking all my life. And so I was almost 14 years old at that time. And everything's open and laid bare before the Lord. And we can't fool him. Here's how I put it a couple of times in scripture. Jeremiah 16, 17. My eyes, God says, are on all their ways. They are not hidden from me nor is their sin concealed from my eyes. Or first Corinthians four, five, Paul puts it this way. When the Lord comes, he will bring to light what is hidden in darkness. So all the sins that we've done, we've lots of, all of us have lots of sins that nobody saw. That only we know about. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness. And we'll expose the motives of men's hearts. Not just the actions, not just the words that spoke about the motives we had. So even things we were appraised for because we did something good where we had a bad motive for doing it. Maybe for the praise of others or whatever. He will expose the motives of men's hearts at that time. Each will receive his praise from God. So don't do things. You can't fool God. Don't do things for just don't live on the level of external experiences. External appearances there. I got that right. External appearances. Live on the heart level. Is my heart right before the Lord? Am I doing this rightly before the Lord? And then number two. Number two. As we live in a constant recognition of that all the things we do, the Lord's eyes are upon us. And they see our motives and our heart during this things. Number two. But live with a clean heart and a clean conscience. Live with a clean heart and clean conscience under God's loving, protecting, and watchful eye. Live with a clean conscience before God's loving, protective, and watchful eye. So Acts 24-16. Paul says, so I strive to always keep my conscience clear before God in men. You always do things toward other people so they can say, you know, you just did that because of this. You want to do things for a good motive so you can say, honestly, no. I didn't do it for that reason. And they're assigning a bad reason to you. You want to have that be your goal. You want to be praying for your enemies like Jesus and Paul told us to. So then when they accuse us of they're doing toward them, we can say, honestly, I've been praying for you. And so we want to have this lived before the Lord with a clear conscience. And that's not denying that we've sinned, but that's saying, you know what? I've really tried to do what's right towards you. And I'm sure that's fallen short. But in my conscience, the reason I was doing this was for your benefit. And so Paul tells us to Timothy because there were some in the church in Ephesus who's writing to Timothy and first Timothy that weren't a clean conscience. And they wanted to be officers in the church and they wanted to be officers in the church not out of a clean conscience, not out of good motives, not out of luck for the sheep if because they enjoyed the prominence of it. And so he says, but not you Timothy. And it goes on in the next verse. They didn't have Jim Rita because it has really hard names like Jaime Neas and somebody else in Paul says, because these two men, they didn't have a clean conscience before the Lord. And here's where it led to them. They're not even in the church anymore. They've denied the faith. And so we want to be people who are always going to go to worship because God I want to worship you this morning. Read your Bible not because you want to be a good Christian, but because you want to learn about the Lord. Lord, you're awesome and I want to learn more about you. Lord, I know if I understand you better, then I can act like out of your character and my life will be better. I know that your commands bring blessing to me if I just do them. And so I'm going to read your scriptures now. Sometimes in the morning I have to rebuke myself over this because I say, oh man, I hope this is quick this morning. My Bible reading. And I have to rebuke myself because that's not a good sign. It's the wrong reason for reading. If that's your motive, read anyway. Because God will use the scriptures you read to bring you to repentance over that attitude you have. You say, okay, there's something good in here for me. But you want to strive, as Paul says, to have your conscience cleared before God and men. As Paul said, hold on to your faith and a good conscience. Some have rejected these and have shipped wrecked your faith. It's really important to have a good conscience before the Lord. If your conscience is clean, then if things you're hiding, then if things you're guilty about before the Lord because you've had bad motives. Again, you're not going to have perfection in this. But you want to be aiming to do the right things in the right way with the right motive. Of course, Jesus did this. He did all the right things with the right motive. Out of love for his father, he did all the right things. And so if you live in this way with a clean conscience before the Lord, you can be like David who writes in Psalm 139 and rejoices. You know, I've been looking at Psalm 139 a lot lately and I've been saying, okay, David's saying here, where can I go? Where can I go from your spirit? It's verse 7. Where can I go from your spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? Is he asking the question so he can get away? It kind of sounds like that, the way it's phrased. But he's not. As you read the Psalm, you say, this is so wonderful. No matter where I am hiding from Saul who's seeking my life, no matter where I am, you're present with me. And when I wake, verse 18, I'm still with you because you're here with me. It doesn't disappear when I wake up. It's not just a dream that I had. No matter where I go from out in the Mediterranean, from over in Babylon. You know, you're with me. And if you have a clean conscience, you're glad about that. And you don't want to live your life saying, man, I hope God doesn't see me doing this. You want to be that person. And I just find it very helpful to consider yourself, Job, to realize God is looking down upon you. And he sees all your things. And you be that guy, you be that woman who says, who God can say, have you considered my servant, you know, Bridget or Anna? Have you considered her? I can take everything from her and she will be faithful. We want to be those people because the Lord sees all things. And he's with us to strongly support those whose hearts are completely his. So summary, three things that this text is about. Three things that this text is about. One, be grateful that eternal blessing comes to you because of Jesus' wholehearted devotion to the Lord. That's the gospel. Jesus' wholeheartedly devoted to the Lord. And because of that, he went to the cross. And your eternal blessing, you're being with him when you die, you're being in the new heavens and your earth. When Jesus comes back, that's what it's based on. So be grateful and rejoice over that. It's not based on your imperfect record. If it were based on your imperfect record, you wouldn't make it. So rejoice that it's based on his wholehearted devotion to his father during his time on the source when he lived in our shoes. Second thing, be on guard, be on guard about family members who are not devoted to the Lord. Be on guard about family members who are not devoted to the Lord. Don't let them love them. If their parents are them, be compassionate for them, be patient for them. But don't be influenced by them in those ways in which they are evil or misguided. Or walking in ways that are not the ways of the Lord. And recognize that, that it's especially impactful for us if it's a family member. So if you have a son or a daughter who's gone wayward, don't justify their life for their lifestyle. Love them and say the Lord's way is right. Now pray for them to come back to the Lord's way. God, your right, my son is wrong. God, your right, my daughter is wrong. God, your right, my mom is wrong or my dad is wrong. But you, Lord, are right. But God, would you be compassionate on this one who's a family member of mine who's an error right now? And don't go the other way. Don't justify your family and call the Lord wrong. Call the Lord right. Justify him. Say he's right and have compassion on your family. And be on guard, be on guard about family that way. And then the third thing, for the well-being of your family, for the well-being of your family, whether that's your kids or your parents or your siblings, for the well-being of your family, your heart should be fully devoted. Your heart should be fully devoted to the Lord by doing what is right in his eyes. Be fully devoted to the Lord by doing what is right in his eyes. You can have an impact on people around you. Realize you need to be fully devoted to the Lord for the sake of the people you love. They'll be positive when impacted by your devotion to the Lord. So be devoted to the Lord by doing what is right in his eyes for their sake, T-H-E-I-R, for their sake. That's the lesson of this text. You can be a great blessing to your family or they can lead you astray. If you go astray, then you can be a great curse to your family. But the Lord wants the bless you. And so walk in whole-hearted devotion to him. So I can bless you well and so that your family is blessed and rises to call you blessed and says, Thank God she's my mother. Thank God he was my father. Thank God I have a son or a daughter like this. Let's pray.