So, are you here because your wives are here, is that what's up? I can tell you that Betty Morgan would be a whole lot more exciting than me, that's for sure. So, if you want to hear a good speaker, I'd go downstairs, that's what I would do. Is that why we're here? We're hoping that they leave something. You know what Wayne and Rick have asked me to do is to talk tonight a little bit with you. We're not going to spend 10 hours doing this, just a little bit about the church and why the church should be important in the Christian life. And when you think about the church, how in the world do you ever talk about it with any kind of meaningfulness and a couple an hour and a half? It's just such a huge thing to talk about. But I think that there is an angle that we can take on this as we think about it tonight that I believe is important to us as men that may not be quite as important to talk to the women about. And that's just because of what men are like and all those kinds of things. And so that's sort of where we're going to go with this at this point. I think in some respects, you've probably heard this before where you hear people talk about, if you think about the important things in life, you're trying to lay out, where are my priorities in life? People start talking about, well, the first priority of life of course is your personal relationship with God. So they always say, you know, that's the most important thing in life. You're going to go, OK, yeah, OK, I got that. I'm saying you're safe, everybody's safe. OK. The next level that most people talk about being really important, do you know what they say next? Yeah, they usually say you're married and you're family, OK? So they'll say you're family. And you'll all sort of go, well, OK, I mean that's sort of, I don't... I haven't been to a promise keeper's thing, but it wouldn't shock me if the promise keeper say that, OK? That next to your personal relationship with God, the most important thing in life is your family. And then what would you say, usually number three? Wow, that's really amazing. That's good. Well, I always had a work and we had work and church and related friendships and things like that will get down here. Let's just put them on this sort of catch all here, OK? Everything else. Actually what I was expecting to say was church next, OK? That's really kind of what I was expecting because if you... I mean, that's what preachers like to talk about a lot, OK? I mean, for some reason preachers feel guilty about saying that the church should be first in your life, OK? But they want it to be way up there, otherwise their job security's down the tube, right? So it's got to be really important. And I can tell you this, it has nothing to do with my job security. You can never kind of church again the rest of your life. I wouldn't bother my job, I'd be just fine. And so what I'm about to say really doesn't have to do anything with what I think is important in terms of some motivation that I might have in terms of my own security. But this I think is kind of a, you know, it's so common that people think this way, that you've got to think that some things is more important than other things, is more important than other things, is more important than other things. It's so common that it's hard to disagree with it, but I think we need to. How about that? It's so common to think this way, and that if you will just live this way, then life will be good, that it's hard to disagree with it, but I think we have to. And the reason I think that what I want to suggest to you is that rather than thinking in terms of my personal relationship with God is the most important, my family comes second, then my church comes third and whatever else work comes forth or whatever. I guess there are times in life when you have to say that's true. In other words, you're trying to make a decision and you have to make some choices, hard choices, and Abraham had that choice at one point in his life. Remember God said, which is it going to be your son or me? Basically what he's saying there is what's going to be near your family. So it's not that it's a wrong way to think. It's just that it may not be the best way to think all the time. The difference there. And that's something that I think I'm going to try to convince you of a little bit tonight and maybe even sparks some discussion about this as to what it might mean, because I think it may be more helpful to think of your relationship with God, God in you, your personal relationship with God as something that's important for you to have, but not really be most important thing necessarily to give a moment in life. And I'm not going to say that the church is important, but it may not be the most important thing for you at a given moment in life. And your family is very important and your marriage is very important, but it may not be the most important thing in life at any given moment. Because what I want to suggest to you is that life probably is a little more like this, if we can put God in Christ, the Lordship of God, the Lordship of Christ, the Lordship of the Holy Spirit. What I tend to think is probably a better picture of what the Bible gives us is, is that you've got all kinds of things in life. I mean, just name them and like a bazillion things that go on in life, and that they're all to be related to the Lordship of the Trinity, Father, Son, Holy Spirit. And that at different times in life, let's say church is here, let's say family's here, let's say my personal religious life is here, let's say my work is here. And at a moment in life, at a time in life, a period of your life, it might be that this really is the most important thing and must take precedent over other things in your life. But you know, a year from then, or six months from then, it might be that this is, and six months from then, it might be that that is, or that is, or that is. And I can give you an example here that I think might make some sense, a sort of a secular example. Some of you may work jobs, or know people who work jobs, that occasionally take them away from family. Okay, if you've ever been to the Navy, anybody in here in the Navy, on Shippen Navy, okay, all right, good. You know what happens, you know, you go off shore, and you go out, what do they call it, go on duty out, you know, whatever it is, out in the water. Was it called, say it again, deployment, okay, you're out in the water, okay, and you go out there, and you go out there for weeks and sometimes months at a time. And you know that this sort of God, family, work, church, that kind of model would have to say to you, you can't do that. Because if you're out there for three months on an aircraft carrier, or two months on a submarine, then what you're doing is putting your work before what? Your poor children back there who don't have a daddy for three months, what's wrong with you, you pagan. You follow them saying? And that's kind of a sort of a practical example of the kind of thing I'm talking about here. Now, I think we would all agree on the other hand, that if a person had a job that kept him away from his family almost all the time to the point that he saw his family was breaking apart because of this job, we have to say, well, back up a little bit here. Because now you're really missing things up because it's not that you're out of balance in terms of where these things are, but that you're actually denying the Lordship of Christ over your life now because you don't care about your family anymore. So what I'm trying to say to you is that in some respects, life is like the old Ed Sullivan show, okay. Do you remember the guys who used to spend the place on the Ed Sullivan? How many of you old men remember Ed Sullivan? Okay, thank you, please. Well, they're looking at me like, what are we talking about Ed Sullivan? I don't even know what it is. But I've seen the hall never had this, okay. And I don't think Johnny Carson ever had it either. But you know, it's where they had the guys that would spend the place on a stick, okay. And the stick would, I guess, sit in some kind of hole in the floor and you start spinning in the plate with spin. All right, and you go, wow, that's really nice. I think I'll try that, okay. And you can do one, at least many people can do one, but he would do two. And you kind of go, wow, that's really amazing. Then you do three. You say, wow, he's actually gone to a point like a juggler, you know, doing more than two at a time. And I guess two hands, so he's got to move from one to the other to the other to the other. But it's not that big of a deal because it's only three. But by the time he gets 15 or 16, you know, the dramatic point where the place about to wobble right off, and he goes and grabs it like that and then spins that one to another and starts to wobble. And so it runs over there and gets that one. I think life is a whole lot more like that than it is the kind of one, two, three, get your things in order and everything will be fine. The reality is that certain things need attention at certain times. And that if you'll run over and spin that plate, there's just a reality. There's another flip side of the reality. That is that if you're spinning one plate, what's happening to the others? That's right, they're not being spun. Yep. I always tell my students that I tell them this all the time, they say, if you're a good student, you can't be a good father. It's just all there is to it. Don't I tell you that? That's right. That's why he's not a good student today. I say, you're telling me that during final exam weeks, you can be the kind of daddy you always dreamed of being? Of course not. And I think that's more the model that I want to suggest to you when it comes to, where is church in your life? And it's not that we get this sort of abstract notion that, okay now, every day of my life, what I've got to do is I've got to think, I've got to do what's good for my family first. Then I've got to do what's good for my church second, or second and third, isn't word to think, hey, you're lying, line them up. The reason for this is because if you're always paying attention to one plate spinning, you know what's going to happen to the others, they're going to crash. So let's just say you're all the time thinking about your family, okay? Well, I've got to do what's good for my family. So spin, spin, spin, spin, family, family, family, family, family. You know what's going to happen, don't you? The show's going to be ruined. Why's it going to be ruined? Because the church plate falls to the floor and the show's over. And you know the result is, of course, is that there was no use in spinning the family plate anymore. That's the point, to get it. In other words, is not that you ignore your family in a bad sense to deal with church and give it the right place or you don't ignore your job or you don't ignore church for your job in order to give it a good place in a detrimental way, but rather in order to, so that all of them can enhance each other. That's where we're going on this. That's the sort of basic model I want to suggest to you. And that is that if you don't give occasional at the right time with wisdom attention to all the different things in your life, what tends to happen is your life as a whole deteriorates. So you can imagine yourself, let me just give you a simple example. We're going to talk about the Bible in just a minute, okay? Let me give you a simple example of somebody who is so concerned about that his son does well in school, okay? Let's say you've got a son and you want him to be a genius or something and so you're really concerned about this. So every day what you do is you come home and you do the homework with them and you work with them and you teach them and you try to get into being some kind of computer genius, okay? She did this all the time. Well, you know the natural tendency of her person has the one, two, three model is to say, well, he's a good father. Why? He's doing his family first, okay? Or second, at least. But the reality is that that kid, that son of yours, doesn't just need you to do that kind of paying attention to him. He needs you to do this sort of indirect paying attention to him, which is to go to church also and to drop the math lesson. Forget the computer science lesson for the day and go to church also. And so I think that's sort of the model that I'm coming at this with. And so the reason I bring that up at the beginning of this is because I fear that you may hear me do the normal preacher thing. And that is to say what I'm talking about tonight is the most important thing for you to remember all of your life every moment, every nanosecond. And that's not what I'm suggesting. What I'm suggesting is that the passage we're going to look at that does talk about the importance of church or the importance of community, the importance of relating to each other and as a part of the package of what it means to be faithful to Christ, that that's something that you need to deal with at the right time and in the right way. I'm not saying that it's number one all the time, but sometimes it really has to be number one. I know that model may sound a little bit different than what you're used to, at least it's different from what I've heard other people say, because we try to give people principles to live by them, to go and adjust with circumstances, but the reality is like does change. I can give you an example that's just happening to me right this minute. My father and mother have been visiting us, and he became very ill and has nearly died three times in the last week and a half. And you can imagine, can you not, that I'm spending every night within the hospital for the last week and a half, helping you when he throws up, helping you when this happens, helping you when that happens. We can imagine that there was another person in my life who felt very ignored for the last week and a half, my wife. She felt very ignored, but she didn't feel like I was doing something wrong. Does that make sense? In fact, we just got off the front. She just said, this is what we've got to do now. Now, if I were doing this every day for the next six years, she might have a different opinion, right? And that's kind of what I'm talking about when we talk about this. Okay. Of course, you know, this is the Old Testament night, right? This job security for me. So let's go there. To your favorite book in the Bible, I'm sure. Isn't it Chronicles? Isn't that your favorite book in the Bible? You know, Leviticus is the second favorite book in the Bible. Let's get the proper order here. But the first and most important book in the Bible is Second Chronicles. Second Chronicles. And what I want to do is to read this passage and try to look at an example of a person that's being exalted as a model, okay? Exalted as a real man, a manly man, okay? A leader among leaders and all those kinds of things. And to see what value he placed in certain things in life. And of course, again, the thing that I've been asked to talk about is the church, the community of believers. And how did he value this in his life? What did he do that demonstrates this in a way that's exemplary or can teach us in our day? And if we look at Second Chronicles 30, what I want to do is read maybe the first five verses or so. But before we do, I need to tell you what's happening here in the story. Because we're stepping right into the middle of some of the most obscure stuff in the Bible, right? I know this is your favorite book, but when was the last time you read this book? What happens, of course, is when you've promised to read through the Bible in a year, you get to Chronicles and you go, wow, this is really good to get a whole month off. I've already read this, I read this in Samuel and Kings, right? But you didn't read it, by the way. This is different from Samuel and Kings. In fact, this chapter is not even in Samuel and Kings, so this may be one you've never heard of before. The Second Chronicles 30. What's happening here is that the people of God are divided between the North and the South, and the King of the South is Hezekiah. You've heard that book, you know, the Book of Hezekiah, right? That joke, okay. This is that guy, the Book of Hezekiah guy. And what he does here is he, as the King of the South, is seeking to establish the Kingdom of God in his day, to build the church in his day. And in the way he does this, he shows certain values or certain things that he prizes very dearly. So let's take a look. Verse 1. Hezekiah sent word to all Israel and Judah, and also wrote letters to Ephraim and the Massa, inviting them to come to the Temple of the Lord in Jerusalem and celebrate the Passover to the Lord the God of Israel. The King and his officials and the whole assembly in Jerusalem decided to celebrate the Passover in the second month. They had not been able to celebrate it at their regular time because not enough priests had consecrated themselves and the people had not assembled in Jerusalem. The plan seemed right, both to the King and to the whole assembly. They decided to send a proclamation throughout Israel, from their Sheba to Dan, calling the people to come to Jerusalem and celebrate the Passover to the Lord the God of Israel. It had not been celebrated in large numbers, according to what was written. Now, in many respects in this passage, I think what we're going to see as we look at it, is that Hezekiah was deeply concerned with building the people of God and building the Kingdom of God. But to do that, he has certain things that he prized or treasured or saw as absolutely essential for building the Kingdom of God. And that theme of building the Kingdom is important because in many ways that's what we're all doing. If you're a follower of Christ, that's what you're doing. You're building the Kingdom of God. And you're doing that in your personal life, you're doing that in your family life, you're doing it in the church, you're doing it. Every way you can possibly imagine that's our role in life is to build the Kingdom of God. And that's what Hezekiah is doing here. But the thing about Hezekiah is that he shows just absolutely remarkable wisdom and commitment to the right kinds of things in life. And that's what I want us to take a look at. I remember one time I was walking through the woods with a friend up in New England. And as we were looking at the trees, it was autumn, you know, and New England, the trees are beautiful. So we're out this Sunday afternoon, we're looking up at the trees, and all of a sudden I fall flat on my face, I mean, all the way to the ground. And I'm clumsy, but I'm usually not that clumsy, so I had to have an excuse. So I looked for an excuse, and I found it. There was a big stone right in the middle of the path. And I get up and I say, well, put this stone here, there's a path, what are you doing this for? You know, that kind of thing. And my friend was one of these know-it-all guys, you know, the kind of guys that know everything. Like, he was telling me why one tree was red, and why one tree was yellow, and things like that, like I care. But, you know, he knew all the chemicals, and why it happened, and all that sort of stuff. And he looked at this stone, and he said, take another look. I said, okay. So I looked again, he said, you know what this is, don't you? And I said, no, what is it? See, I'm expecting him to tell me what kind of rock it is, or something, the minerals, or something. He said, this is an old wall, and he was right, because you could tell that that rock was not alone. And that, to the left and to the right of the path, was a line of stones. And one or two, three, sometimes on top of each other, we had come across a colonial wall. And if you know anything about New England, you know you can't dig more than about six inches in the ground. You're running into stones, or into big rocks, okay. And what the colonialists would do, is they would take those stones, and just throw them to the edge of the field. And they would make nice walls, or keep the wildlife out, and divide crops, and things like that. And apparently we would come across one of those, and he said, let's go explore, so we did. We started exploring, and just followed this wall through the woods, is what we did. And as we followed this wall again, you know, sometimes three stones, two stones on top of each other. We finally came to this clearing, and often the distance there was a farmhouse. And you could tell by looking at the wall around the farmhouse, and the wall that we had been following, that at one point those were probably connected, because they lined up just right, okay. But, you know, through the years of the centuries, in fact the wall between the house and the woods had gone away. And then my friend, the know-it-all friend said, you know the difference between the wall around the house and the wall out in the field, and I said, no, what. And the fact was there was the obvious difference, it was two meters high, at least around the house, okay. And he said, well, the reason that it stands to tall around the house is because they would always pick just the right stones for the house wall, and they would always hold those stones together with mortar, okay. And out in the fields, they wouldn't do that. They would just sort of pile them on top of each other as they came. And so, when the wind came, and the storms came, and the seasons came, and the trees grew, and all those kinds of things, the stones out in the field were just knocked over. But the wall around the house, I'm sure it had been repaired to the years, but the wall around the house stood strong. I guess, in some respects, that's the way I look at this passage, because what I think Hezekiah does in this passage is he shows that you can build the kingdom with God strong if you have the right stones, and if you have the right mortar to hold those stones together. And what we're going to see is that the stones he used, the stones that he used in this wall, are sometimes very hard for us to keep together as we build the kingdom of God. But they're extremely important to keep together, and they involve our lives with each other as Christians, the church. So, what I'd like to do is to start off with the first stone that Hezekiah used. And the first stone, I think we could say that Hezekiah used was his own personal commitment to the word of God, his own personal commitment to the word of God. You can put that in a number of ways. Basically, what I mean by this is Hezekiah knew that bottom line for him was that he had to do what God commanded him to do as an individual man. There was his role and his responsibility to look into the book, figure out what God said, and do it. And you can tell that, look at verse 5, at the end of verse 5, it tells us that the reason he wanted to celebrate Passover was because it had not been celebrated in large numbers according to what was written as an Old Testament way of saying according to the Bible. So this lets us know what his main concern was as he started initiating this strange event called the Passover. Now, we've got to think, we've got to back up a little bit and think about this for a minute. Here's Hezekiah getting ready to build a kingdom. And any reasonable person that's going to build a kingdom, the first thing you do, of course, would be to get an army. And the next thing you do is to try to secure the economy, to suppose. And the sorts of things that Hezekiah does in this chapter are way down the line of those sorts of things that you would normally do. It's like saying, well, let's make America strong. How are you going to do that? Well, how are we going to defend ourselves against our enemies? How are we going to be a nation that continues on and on and on? Well, let's have the Lord suffer, everybody. That's what Hezekiah did. He invited everybody to come to Jerusalem to have Passover. And that was going to start picking them off. That was going to secure it. That was going to make it strong. Why would Hezekiah think such a weird thing as that? It was because of His concern as the writer here points out that He was to do things according to what was written. I know that this church is committed to doing that as a whole. And I know that you wouldn't be here on a Friday night unless your wife just absolutely forced you. Unless you brought a Bible, unless you were committed to the Bible. I know that that's basically true. And that's why I'm not going to talk about it very much tonight because I believe that to be true to you already. But I want to make this point. And that is very easy for us to talk about being committed to the Bible. And at the same time, substitute plastic stones in the wall rather than really being willing to put our lives on the line, even to the point of doing foolish things because we believe the Bible teaches them. What Hezekiah was doing was absolutely foolish. You know, there's a tendency among everyone. I don't care who you are, I don't care what you do, I don't care how good a Christian you are, or even if you're not a Christian. There's this as natural tendency. And that is to do what the Bible says, to believe what the Bible says, so long as it makes sense. And if it doesn't make sense, depending on how committed you are, you start backing off of that commitment. You think about it. Think of the most liberal, godless, god forsaken, liberal you can possibly imagine. Think of just the most liberal Christian you can possibly imagine. It just barely believes anything. They'll believe things like the golden rule. Why? Well, because that makes sense, that's why. They'll believe things like, you know, there's a god. Why would they believe things like that that the Bible teaches well because it makes sense? And one of the things that they don't like about you is that you believe in bizarre things like the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Why? Because it doesn't make sense.
I really do believe that this is a piece of the wall. This is a stone in the wall of your life and my life, that we've got to have if we're going to build the kingdom of God strong. And that is that we're ready to do what we believe the Bible teaches no matter what we think it teaches. And I don't know how to say this to you any other way than to say is just really hard to do. It's easy to come to church and a Bible believing church is easy to get a few lessons here and there and to feel like, okay, I'm a really holy and good person because, you know, I read my Bible this week once or twice. And never to really take the risk that has a kayak took here of you as an individual person standing up and saying, I'm going to have to do now what I think the Bible teaches. And it doesn't matter what the consequences are. I'm going to have to stand on this principle or I'm going to have to do this thing. I'm going to have to believe this thing that the Bible teaches. Instead, what we tend to do is to substitute other kinds of things in. I'll just do what I've always done. That's a nice and nice substitute. You know, I've been doing what I've been doing for 30 years now. And enough, up to this point, why should I ever reconsider or to just sort of do whatever you think might be exciting or fun or somehow refresh your life, something like that. These are not the kinds of motivations that has a kayak as he built the kingdom of God. It was a commitment to doing what the Bible said even when it's radical. Now, do you know what that means? I know this is going to sound strange, but this is where the tension of this story starts coming out. This means that sometimes you will stick out like a sore thumb.
Has the kayak stuck out like a sore thumb? Did you see the Passover had not been celebrated in large numbers for generations? He stuck out like a sore thumb. Why? Because he knew that he had to be committed to the Bible that much. And so what I'm about to say later on in our talk tonight has to be balanced by what I'm saying right now. And that is that you are responsible as an individual person for your authentic Christian life before your God. Even if it means that you stick out like a sore thumb. No matter what we say about church, it doesn't mean that you simply get in line and conform and fade into the church. It's got to be you looking at the Holy Word of God and doing what you believe the Holy Word of God says even when at times nobody in the whole world is saying it. Except you. Okay, so that's one side of this picture and that's that commitment to doing what the Bible says.
That's very strange thing about Hezekiah though is that that wasn't his only commitment. It wasn't the only stoning had in his wall and this is where the tension starts coming for us. That this is true that you and I as individuals have to look at the Bible and work hard to live before Christ's individuals but there's another thing that happens here. Hezekiah was not just committed to following the truth no matter where it took and even when it was unreasonable even when everybody would look at him very strangely. But he was also committed to something else and that was to living the truth in community, living the truth with others, living the truth in church. You know, when you say church, sometimes people think of a building, sometimes people think just of worship services. When we're talking about church tonight, what I want to talk about is this thing called the family of God, this thing called the people of God, this thing called your Christian community, your fellowship, your group as it were. And what I wanted to see is that Hezekiah was not just committed to the Bible but Hezekiah was committed to the group. Hezekiah was not just committed to doing what was right, Hezekiah was committed to the people of God and doing what was right with them. How can we see this in this passage? Well, take a look at the very first verse. Look at what it says. Hezekiah sent word to all Israel and Judah and also wrote letters to Ephraim and Manasta inviting them to come to the temple of the Lord and Jerusalem and celebrate the Passover to the Lord the God of Israel. You see, up to this point, what I said is you might think that the conclusion of this passage would be something like this. Well, what hezekiah did was he read his Bible, he saw that it needed to have Passover so he wouldn't have his own Passover. That's not what he did. What he did was he invited everybody to come to Passover with him. And we're going to see just how strong that commitment was in just a minute. But let's get the geography for a minute so we can make sure we're all together and what's happening here. Hezekiah is living in Jerusalem. You can think of that as like Atlanta. And what he does is he invites people to come to the Passover who are living in places called Ephraim and Manasta and Nestle and Zebulin. That's like Bangar main, New York City and Philadelphia, Boston. That's what we're talking about here. That kind of cultural difference even. So much to the point that hezekiah knew as this passage tells us that most of those Yankees would laugh at him for even inviting them to come. Hezekiah is down in Jerusalem saying, y'all come. And they're up there in Boston saying, you guys are crazy if you think we're coming all the way down there. We can have our own Passover up here. Thank you.
I mean, you think about this way. If you have an apartment at your house, do you invite people that you know will laugh at the thought of coming to your house? Is that what you do? Of course not. You invite your friends, you invite your cronies, you invite your buddies, the ones that will come that already like you, you're sure they'll come. And what this shows is hezekiah's commitment. It shows that his high level of commitment, not to living his faith as an individual, not to living his faith as an individual, but living his faith out, living the truth out in association with others. And how many others as many as he possibly could, even those that would not like him. It would be kind of like this. I'm sure this is true even tonight, but especially be true Sunday morning. There's probably somebody in this room that doesn't like you all that much. Probably, you know, they think you're weird. You've had some argument or something or your wives have had an argument. You get in the middle of the argument between two women in the church and you're like, what am I supposed to do now? You got to hate them or they'll hate you. So you got this kind of problem set up for you. So here's hezekiah's commitment. What hezekiah did was he decided instead of hanging out after the meeting was over with his buddies, he went straight to the person that he knew didn't like him and made sure he spent the evening with him. This is exactly what he did. Be like tomorrow by Sunday morning when we're together after church for you to look out and find some teenager with about six or seven ear rings and go talk to that person the whole time after church rather than the people that look just like you. That's the kind of commitment he had to doing his faith with other people. You know, America is a very strange country in many ways. It's a wonderful place to be. I'm glad that I was born in this country and I think it's a great place to be and I've been to lots of others and so I've got some things to compare with. But I want to tell you one of the worst things about our country is some respects is our greatest strength but it's also our worst enemy, our greatest weakness. And that is the emphasis that we have in our country on individualism. Real men stand alone. There's all there is to it. Daniel Boone was a man. He was a real man. Why? Because he left family and friends and went out and went to the wilderness and made a new life. He was a real man. Real men are entrepreneurial. Real men take risks and they walk out alone. They're strong. They don't need anybody else. They're individuals. I like some of our early American philosophers. You know, you probably heard that Thomas Jefferson said that government is best which governs leases. You probably heard that line before. Well, he got that from Thoreau actually or vice versa. I'm sorry. Thoreau said something a little stronger than that. He said that government is best which does not govern at all. As far as early American philosophers were concerned, individualism was it. And you only worked with other people as you had to. It wasn't something prized. It wasn't something that you loved. It wasn't something you were committed to. It was something you had to do. I'm going to go and say it. Just a couple of years ago, a very famous woman in this country wrote a book about the importance of community and raising children. Remember this book? It takes a village. And every one of you in this room have laughed about that with Russell and Bob Lisa a dozen times. It takes a village. You take the village. You give me that liberal stuff. Well, I hate to tell you this, but there's some truth in what she said there. And that is that God didn't make us to live alone. He made us to live with others. And Hezekiah knew that. And let's just make it simple. And Hezekiah's day was just as plain as day. He could not have a strong kingdom all alone. Why? Because if he lived alone, trying to raise his own family alone, trying to work out his life alone, trying to work his own economy out alone, trying to take care of himself physically alone, he wouldn't be able to do it. It was that simple. The same thing is true in our modern day on a secular level, but it's also true in this thing called the church. This is where the problem comes with this one, two, three priority thing. That if you think it's just you and Jesus first and you and your family, you and your church, if you all the time are saying that to yourself, if you're constantly trying to say, that's the way it's supposed to be, that's the way it's supposed to be. What's the problem with always thinking about in that line? Well, the problem is like with everything, you never get to number three. That's the problem. Number three, never has the significant role in your life. If you're constantly reminding yourself, well, I'm really bad because I'm not putting a family first. I'm really bad because I don't have my personal religion right. And the fact is, is that has a tie in you that you had to live out personal religion, personal faith in connection with other people. And he was committed to doing it to the point of doing it with people that didn't even like it. I believe personally one of the greatest satanic tricks, one of the greatest satanic tricks on the church today, and on men especially, is that he gets us to choose. I don't know how he does this is weird, but he sort of tricks us into choosing between a personal religion, a personal faith, a commitment, and zeal for certain things as individuals, and living in association and in connection, and harmony with other people. It's like these two are opposites of each other. Now I can show you how this is true. Now I've been around to a lot of churches, and 90% of the time I can tell you this. You go to a church where they talk a lot about the Bible, they talk about a lot about truth, they talk a lot about how you've got to believe this, and you've got to do this, and you've got to be responsible to be this way, and this way, and this way, and this way. They start laying those things out personal responsibilities, 90% of the time in those kinds of churches, they're the kinds of churches that will split at the drop of a hand. Show me a church that talks a lot about doctrine and about individual responsibility, however they cloak that, and 90% of the time they'll split at the drop of a hand. Why? Because they don't value the unity of the people of God. They don't value the community. They don't value the relationships, they don't value the associations, they don't value the strength that comes. Now show me a church that talks a lot about brotherly love and sisterly love, and you know we are the world, you know we are the children, those kinds of churches, okay. Show me a church that's like that, and 90% of the time I'll show you a church that doesn't care much about the Bible, doesn't talk much about personal responsibility, doesn't talk much about truth, standing for the truth, standing for the truth, have convictions, that's out the window. And that's the great satanic trick. The great satanic trick is that in our faith we seem to be pressed into choosing between one or the other. Either it's me standing with God, and for God, or it's me standing with other people. And the fact is that Hezekiah didn't make that choice. He believed in both, because he knew both were absolutely essential. You know in John chapter 17, Jesus said something very similar to this, let me tell you what he says in John 17, it's a great passage, you know that high priestly prayer that Jesus offered. One of the things he said, you know this verse is John 17, 17, he says sanctify them by the truth, your word is truth. And in some respects that's touching the theme that we've seen here in Hezekiah, that need to be committed to the truth, standing on the truth, you can't be holy unless you're committed to the truth. But practically in the same breath in John 17, Jesus said something that is unheard of in circles where they emphasize the truth. Once you read, you have it there in John 17, once you read around verse 22. I mean I did not ask, in the half of these alone, for those who believe in the truth, they're worth it. He'd go in. If they may all be gone, if you follow the R&B and I am and you, but they also may be enough. And the one who believes that you think something. You see, in the very same prayer where Jesus says, let them be committed to truth. He also prays, let them be one like you and I are one. Now I have to tell you this, but you can't be one with each other without being with each other, without knowing each other, without depending on each other, without meeting each other, without working with each other, without identifying with each other, without living your face out together. I love that passage because of what Jesus said. Did you hear what he said? He said, when the world sees that we are one, what does he say will happen? That they may be truly friends. Yeah, but when verse 21, I think it is, what does he say? When the world sees that we are one, what does he say will happen? That all of them may be one Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us. There. This is when I went so that. Go ahead, you got it. So that. So that they also be in us. I keep going, I'm sorry, I wouldn't have said that. I was looking forward to that. There it is, there it is. So that the world they believe that you have said. Yeah, the great testimony to the world that will cause them to believe in Jesus, that the Father has sent Jesus. I mean, I cannot imagine a PCA minister ever saying this. What is it that he says will win the world for Jesus? Great preaching. No, I'm sorry. This is not true. It's not what he says. Now, I believe preaching is important, but that's not what Jesus says here. Is it their buildings? Nope. Is it their great doctrinal commitments? It is when the world looks at the church and sees that we are one as the Father and the Son are one. Then they will know that the Father sent the Son. It's no wonder they don't believe. They look at us. Not only are we divided, but we don't even care that we're divided. So they just look at us and they don't care about him. One of the early Christian apologists, Justin Martyr, you may have heard of him before. One of the things that he had to defend the Christian community against was the accusation that they were immoral. And then do you know why they were accused of being immoral, having orgies and things like that if they're meeting?