Great. Yeah. Why? Why did they? Sorry. You never know. Sorry. Okay. But that's the reason. That's exactly the reason. Doesn't it change your life? Anybody knows the fact that their lives are radically changed? I'm sorry for you to untape. You didn't hear why your life can be radically changed. But I think the reality is just that, isn't it? And that is that, you know, you look at the church today. Why aren't we accused of having orgies? That's ridiculous. That would be the last thing anybody would ever accuse us of being too intimate with each other? That's right. Too intimate with each other. That's our problem, right? Too dependent on each other, right? I think the reality is that we identify ourselves many of us more with our jobs and more with the world around us, sometimes even our neighborhoods than we do with our church. It's really remarkable how that's true. You know, there's a reason why the Bible says the word brothers, when it talks about fellow Christians, is because it's using the metaphor of family. We are family. Now, unfortunately, we have sort of lost a sense of even what that is, evidently. Do any of you ever go to family reunions anymore? I have two of you. Three, four, five, six, what about the rest of you? Don't you have families? Some of you say, yeah, I've got families. It's just, we just don't have time. Or we're just not all that interested. I remember my generation. I was a child. We had family reunions every year. I mean, people would come from hundreds of miles and you know, models to use and things like that, okay? Not that old. But they would come. You know, they drive for days. They'd all sleep on the floor in the living room with a house and things like that. These great big family reunions, why? Because family was important. Well, family extended families just not all that important to us. Most of us anymore. And I think that's where the way it is with the church, too. We really have reduced our lives down to us as individuals and at best our nuclear family. And that, of course, is not what Jesus is talking about. It's not what has a chai was concerned with either. We cannot live the truth without living the truth with each other. Now, I think that there is this sort of natural tension that we've got to realize between being committed, firmly committed as an individual to what you believe the Bible teaches and living our truth with each other. If these are the two stones that we need together and following the truth, how can you hold them together? Remember the wall around the house? Had mortar that held the stones together? Well, has the chai had a mortar that held the stones together? He did. He had something that enabled him to have his own personal commitment through the Word of God to his faith. And at the same time, live that with a rising and a valuing of the community of believers, the church. How do you hold this two things together? Because usually we don't. Usually they're there, seeing as opposites. Well, let me tell you some of the ingredients in his mortar. The first ingredient that made it possible for his chai to have his personal life with God and love the people of God, the first ingredient that meant mortar was patience. Oh, boy. Remember the story? Remember how it goes? The fellows from the north could not come down soon enough to have the Passover when they were supposed to celebrate it in the first month. We just read it. So what did chai had to do? Do you remember? He said it back a month. You see, he was being very patient with those Yankees. That's all there was to it. I mean, you know, as he looked at the situation, he said, well, you know, we're going to be patient with these guys. And so he was. I really do believe that one of the things we have got to start having with each other that will allow us to be able to prize living with each other, prize being involved in church, prize and value our community with each other, living the truth together, is learning how to be patient with each other. Sometimes I shock myself at how impatient I am. I mean, I've been doing this professional religious thing, you know, for about 25 years now, okay, like full-time theology all the time. I've jammed in my brain, never got to my heart much, but jammed in my brain for 25 years, okay? And so, you know, here I am next week. I started teaching this year and this fall. And, oh, I'll look at the students. You know, they're green behind the years. You know, they don't know anything. Don't forget it. And I've given three weeks to catch up with me. I'll give them three weeks to come to the convictions that I've come to. If they don't, then I'll just move on to the next group. I don't care. Now, it's not quite that bad, but it's not too far from the truth. So, I can become very impatient with them. And I forget this. I've taken me 25 years to get to where I am. I expect them to do it in a couple of weeks. And I don't think I'm the only impatient person around. And impatience is one of the key things that destroys our valuing our community. Impatience. It doesn't just destroy the community. It destroys you valuing it because, you know, they irritate you. The people around you, they're just not doing the right thing. They irritate you. And because you don't have patience as a part of who you are, well, it destroys the pricing of the community. There is a big difference between patience and compromise, by the way. I'm really convinced of this. The compromise just says, basically, truth doesn't really matter all that much. Patience means truth is important, but we're going to get there when we get there. And we'll get there in God's timing. And I can hang in here with this. And let me tell you what often happens is, this really blows me away sometimes how true this is. With tour Christians, we would call them a tour, most of us, are usually the ones of the most impatient. And you get this long list of things you believe. And you just sort of wonder what's wrong with everybody else that they're not doing like they're supposed to be doing. So visitors come to your church, and maybe, you know, they dress funny, or maybe they don't know when to stand up. They don't know the difference. You don't use himml in your church, I know. But if you have a himml, lots of people go to church these days and look at the himml, they wonder why the people are skipping lines. And why do you skip the line when you do this himml thing? That's how unchurched they are. They don't have a clue. They don't have this kind of cuss word and a good word. But they don't. Their kids run around like maniacs, because they don't know any different than this. And what you find is that the tour Christians, the leaders of the Christian church, are often the ones of the most impatient with that kind of behavior. We expect them to be patient with our idiosyncrasies rather than us being patient with them. But I really am convinced that if you can begin to realize the value of patience, you can begin to realize the value of being with other people. Have you noticed, if you've been married for more than a week, you've noticed this, how you have to be patient with your spouse? If you don't, you're just at each other's throws all the time. And that's no fun. Certainly don't value your relationship much when that's the way you have to be. So patience is one of the things that Hezekiah used to be able to hold a commitment to his own convictions and living those convictions in community with others. Patience is one of the pieces or the part ingredient in the mortar that he had holding those together. But that wasn't the only ingredient. That's another one I love in this passage too. And it's priorities. Priorities. Hezekiah knew some things were more important than others. And that was so much a part of him that he was able then to value the people around him and being with them and working with them and living out his face with them together. It's really amazing. And you think about this. Have you ever noticed Christians that, ever known a Christian that, you know, believes in the resurrection of Jesus? Very strongly. And just as strongly, those exactly how many earrings a young man can have. Just as strongly. And they know that just as firmly as in it, Jesus resurrected from the dead. Or if you've ever noticed somebody who, you know, believes the Bible is the Word of God and people should not have tattoos. It's amazing. The people are really like that. That they don't make distinctions between things that are important and things that aren't so important. Let me tell you what happened in the church I was in. And I will not even if you torture me tell you which church is left. Okay? It wasn't yours. I was up on the stage on Sunday morning getting ready to preach. I've never been in this church and never been back. Thank goodness. And I was on the stage with the minister and the minister's family and maybe an elder's family was in the sanctuary. And all the other people were in the back. And the naratex had this big plate glass. So you can see all these people in the back kind of milling about in the hallway. And the prelude was about to be over, you know, because it was getting louder and louder. And so I leaned over to the minister and said, well, when are those people coming in? I thought maybe there was going to be some big, you know, processional or something. And any lean back in me, he said, they can't. I said, what? Yeah, they can't come in. I said, what do you mean? He said, well, we've been having trouble with people coming in late. So the older society was going to lock the doors at 11 o'clock. So they did. You can imagine the whole hour, there are people out in the, you know, in the naratex, leaning up against the window like, there's listening, what do you say? What's that now? You know that kind of thing. Now that's mixed up priority. Did you ask? Yeah. More worried about people coming on time than they are people coming. And that's, yeah, right. And burning the building down, right? But that's the kind of thing that that, that's the kind of thing that has a kind of face right here. It was either half, you would have anybody in this church? Yeah, I believe it. It was either half Passover or have it at the right time. Priorities. I want you to notice something here that I think is extremely important to see. Remember, this is the king, okay? And the king could do what the king wanted to do. If he interpreted the Bible in a particular way, that was it, okay? But notice what he does. I want you to see how important it was for him to live out his, his religious life with others. Look at verse four. The plan, that's the plan to postpone a month. The plan seemed right both to the king and to whom? The whole assembly. Look at verse two, the king and his officials and the whole assembly in Jerusalem decided to celebrate the Passover.
You see, even a king, a wise king did not make decisions on his own. He made him living out his faith with others. Priorities is something we've got to have if we're going to be able to value our community. And let me tell you something. It's one of the biggest problems we have in the PCA. I'm going to tell you this. I don't know, if you're not a Presbyterian, a true blue Presbyterian like I am, then just sort of stick things in the ears. If you're really committed, not a Presbyterian by choice, that means I'm a real Presbyterian. So if you're a real Presbyterian like me, then just sort of understand this is the case. Sometimes we really do believe that principle is more important than people. What I'm trying to tell you is that if you can prioritize your principles, you can have the importance of principles and people at the same time. That's what I'm telling you. People are important. They were important to Jesus and they should be important to us. Because we don't live our faith as individuals. We live it together. And sometimes that means we're going to get together and we're going to work these things out, even disagree with each other. But finding in that not something that bothers us but a great joy and a great pleasure because it's helped us to prioritize things. Patience is one thing. Priorities is another. But there was a third thing that has a guy had in his mortar that made him able to hold his own personal commitments and his relationship with the church or with the people, with believers together. Let me tell you what happens in this story. Basically, the people all get together. They have this great celebration because he was patient and he had priorities, right? And these Yankees, they're really bad. They ate the Passover without going through the ritual washing. They have forgotten how to do it. They forgot that the knife goes on the right side of the fort, goes on the left side. They have forgotten this. They've been so separated from the ways of faith, the ways of truth. Now, what started happening was these people from the north began to become sick. They were ruining the celebration. This is ruining it because these people are getting sick and throwing up all over the place in Jerusalem. They're eating unclean in a way that was not the way the Bible said to do it. Now, the question was, what did he have a guy had to do? Now, if we didn't have a guy, you know we would have done. The church discipline, get these people out of here, please. Purity of the church. We've got to safeguard everything. Get them out. Get them out. Put them on the train. Put them on a plane. Then I'm back to Yankeeland. But it's not what has a guy had to do. I want you to see what he did because if we can get this, this may make a difference to us. Look at verse 18. It says there in verse 18, although most of the many people who came from Ephraim, Anasa, Issaqar, and Zebel. And you remember what that is? New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Bangor, Maine. Although they had not purified themselves yet, they ate the Passover. Contrary to what was written. So you get the picture? But Hezekiah threw them out. No. But Hezekiah prayed for them saying, may the Lord, who is good, pardon everyone who sets his heart on seeking God, the Lord, the God of his fathers, even if he is not clean according to the rules of sanctuary. And the Lord heard Hezekiah, and He healed the people. Can you see what the third ingredient was that made it possible for Hezekiah to prize His church? Yeah. Training for forgiveness for these people. That's right. You see, I guess what I'm really concerned with is that, you know, impatience is very terrible in the way that it destroys our valuing others. The failure to be able to make priorities also destroys our ability to value other people in our lives. But there's something else that does as well. And that is resentment for the ways that messing up our lives. I mean, have you ever noticed how people just don't do the right thing, and how they just, you know, they're messing with our lives? I had struggles just today with hospital people just going to discharge my father in things. And it was bizarre. I mean, it was just really weird. How much resentment I had to these people. Now you've got to get the picture here. My father almost died last week, three times. And the doctors basically did. Basically they did. They saved his life. At least three times last week. And here I am talking on the phone with representatives of their office. Talking on the phone with the doctors to save my father's life. And because they're not doing something the way I want them to, I'm resenting them. Isn't that exactly what we do in the church all the time? We begin to resent people whom we should adore. We resent people whom we should appreciate. We resent people who are our family. To whom we belong. With whom we live our faith before God. You see, if this has been a church, what I should have done is what has a kind of do. And that is to begin to pray for these people. And to seek their good. And to seek their forgiveness. And I think you know as well as I do how hard it is to fight with your wife if you've been praying with your wife. This is a hard thing to do. Of course it works the other way too, doesn't. It's been fighting with her. It's hard to pray with her. But the fact is that in a community like this church, that if you have the attitude of forgiveness, and prayer, and concern, rather than allowing the things that come up between us to cause resentment, then what you can do is you can not only hold on your own convictions, but you can also hold on to the value of the church around you. That these can work together. If we have patience, if we have priorities, and if we have the kind of prayer that we need to have with each other. In the beginning, God looked at Adam, and he said, it's not good for the man to be alone. And we often take that to mean, well, we've got a wife, that's great. But that wasn't the only thing that God had in mind there, because what God wanted this man and the woman to do was to fill the earth with people. Yes? That's what the church is. The church is the sort of foretaste of what we're going to have one day when the world is filled up with the people of God. In the new world, the new heavens and the new earth. Part of why God made us was so that we would have this kind of association with each other. So the church or life with each other, living our faith out with each other, is not something that's way down the list of priorities. It's right up there living for Jesus as your Lord. So my encouragement to you is don't ever buy into the idea that as Jesus first, family second, church third or fourth, and job third or fourth, if they're sixth, whatever it may be. Don't think that way. It's just not all that helpful. In fact, what it ends up doing is destroying the whole picture. Instead, realize that yes, your personal faith and commitment is very important. But alongside with that is your life with other people and in the church. If you can have those two together with patience and priorities and prayer, so you can hold them together and build a strong kingdom like as it kind is. Okay, let's take 10 minutes and talk about it for a minute. Do you find it hard to give the right kind of commitment to church life versus your individual life? Do you find this kind of thing to be a struggle at times or the family life? Do you find the model that I put on the board is the very beginning to be something that you've tried to follow but first trading as you try to follow it? How about you Rick Harper? We had discovered this earlier. Sometimes for me, this is what I do. You know, when you talk about resenting people, and that's what I have to watch out for because I can sit there and look at people with church and think about, well, he's not doing certain things. He's not, you know, the program here. And it's easy for me to start getting a life control. Obviously, I have a priority track. I'm not doing this other thing. I'm not praying for that person. So, you know, I have to watch it in a different way because of my position. You get paid to, you get paid to in some respects value of church life. But isn't it funny how in doing that, you can actually destroy it because when you resent somebody for not doing what they're doing, what they're supposed to do in the church really doesn't help the church life, doesn't it? What about you? Do you have problems? Do you have normal problems with balancing the schedule and trying to figure out whether you should go to church or go to the football game? Just on your model at first, you know, I sort of had to react to what you expected. Because it almost seems like it's playing to our American philosophy. It's almost crowded how many places you can have lag about it. At the same time, trying to get able to feel sorry for thinking about how many places you can have. That's a good job. That's really good, that's what it's good. First thing you brought that up was, I don't know if it sounds like an American ever was getting pushed on the theology. It's like Ecclesiastes, there's a time to hug and a time not to hug, there's a time to kiss and not to kiss, a time to walk and not to walk and sleep and stand up and eat and not drink and not drink. As a matter of timing, I think it's in respect. More than it is getting it straight, permanent in some permanent fashion. Before you do this, trying to figure out what the hierarchy is. Yeah. I'm just committed to this. It's my turn. And I get my time really late. No hierarchy. Never mind doing like that. I know that. So leave me alone. Because I try to switch. What if I go for this study over here? I'm going to do a lot of work involved now. Prioritize my life. That's right, it feels safe. It really does feel safe. One of my favorite quotes from Emerson was another early American philosopher. He said, a man sits as many risks as he runs. A man sits as many risks as he runs. It's a great line. What it means is not to go from one play to the other. It's just that there was one play. It's just as risky as running to the other play. Or in other words, you know, it's just as risky for you to sit still and do nothing as it is to do something. A man sits as many risks as he runs. And it would be like, you know, reassessing this, reassess or asking the question, you know, what do I need to do? All right, my children are teenagers now. Let's just say my children are teenagers. What priorities does that mean to my life that I didn't have when they were toddlers? I hope it changes the way you live life. I hope it changes what you do at church. I hope it changes all kinds of things when you reassess that. Because if you don't, you're risking just as much by not reassessing. Does that make sense? Yep. And what you do during the summer should be different than what you do in the fall. This is just the reality of life. And I think that that's the way of wisdom and the way of Christ, frankly. And this tension between you living your life as an individual Christian versus being in community with your people and that sort of stuff. This is the thing that I'm asked to talk about primarily, but it relates to other things as well. I mean, it just relates to the whole gamut of life. If your ability to be able to do that, you're going to be able to keep up with your personal relationship with Christ. And not living out of touch with you on a regular basis. Yeah, and many respects. Yes. Do we have that there? Because here's going to be the flip side of it. There's going to be a flip side. You don't have much personal relationship with Christ if you're not having personal relationship with others. That's the problem, say. You can hear the flip side of this. In other words, we normally think you've got to have your personal relationship with Christ fixed. Get it right. Get it good. Get it strong. Be consistent. And then it will kind of trickle down theory. You know, reinomics and religion. Trickle down to your relationship with other people. Okay. That's true enough. That's true. What's the problem with it, though? It's the flip. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. The flip is that your relationship with God is enhanced or is hurt by how well you relate to the brothers and sisters. You don't believe that. You don't believe that. You remember what John says. You remember what John says about this? He says, don't even talk to me about loving God if you don't love your brothers. That's a great going to talk to me. That's not what he puts it. Yeah. A man cannot love God whom he doesn't see if he doesn't love his brother whom he does see. It's just not possible. And so when you ask the question, where should my priority be? Should it be on loving God or relating to him, having good relationship with him, good communion with him, or should it be on having good communion with people? The answer is, well, yes. Both. Figure out where you're weak and concentrate on it until you're not weak on that anymore and the other plate starts to wobble. Then move over to the other one. See, the problem with, I think many times in our circles is that we think that what we've got to do is work from this kind of inside out thing where you're working from my relationship with God, which will have a spillover effect with others, which is true enough. But that's the only way that you do it. That's the only way you think about it. Basically what gets ignored. Number one, number two, number three. That's what's still out. It's still over. And you can see that in people's lives all the time. And it's one of the bad things about our tradition. And that is that we just don't value people. We don't value people. Which translates into, we don't value the church. Which translates into, we don't value the body of Christ. Which translates into, we don't value the temple of the Holy Spirit. So now we're asking a question. Then now are you valuing Holy Spirit? Or in other words, are you valuing God? If you're not valuing people, does that make sense? I mean, if the friends that you have here are not important to you, if the family connection you have here is just not all that important to you, it says something, not just about your relationship with these people. It says something about your relationship with God. Well, what about mercy? I guess it's barely seven. It means late 60. Everything is mean you don't kind of bother. The mean generation, you know. How in the world could you love God if you don't love this creation? Yes. Certainly it's true. What the Bible does. It's just for me, I think one of the things that I think we often do is sort of lay a layer of tiety over it. The individualism will say, well, it's my personal relationship with God. But that's just sort of like an M&M, sugar coated, making it okay to ignore or to not place much priority on people or valuing of other people. It would be like the children who would say, daddy, you know, you talk about loving Jesus, but I don't see you loving me. What's this that make? Or take it bigger than that, the body of Christ. We should be in love with the body of Christ. It should be home. That's how much we should value the things that happen at church. Shouldn't be an obstacle all the time anyway. Sometimes it will be an obstacle, but it shouldn't all the time be that. One of my faiths would be in love. I could be, because you remember when one place standing the other play doesn't. You can get to the point that you just sort of fade into the community and don't deal with Jesus himself anymore. Always doing it through other peoples. It would be sort of like I become very active in the church. And I work really hard in the church. Well, I'm serving Christ. I'm in the body of Christ doing the Christ thing. Also in Jesus' disappearance of your life. From your life he's gone. Why? Because I've been so active in the community. I'm so active with my brothers and sisters. I forgot the Lord who I'm serving. And so there's the tent that's the problem. That's why one plate than the other plate. One plate than the other plate. One plate than the other plate. And I think you know this already. Probably from the complaints of your wife. Okay, that you're either ignoring the children or ignoring her. Or ignoring them. When you're doing other things. The reality is you just have to do it all. But you can't do it all all the time. That's probably our biggest weakness. We try to have these plates spinning. And we see whatever it is now. You can see them all running from one to the other. But we're all always doing it on our own. Instead of relying, you know. I'll be right now and tell you how you talk. Five plates I have spinning. But I'm trying all my own. Keep all five plates spinning. And I'm afraid to go to a brother. Someone in the church and say, you know, just play it over here. I can't keep going on my own. I need your help. Yeah. Because I'll never keep all five plates spinning on my own. Good. As a man. Yeah. That's wonderful. We're not willing to go to other men and say I need help in this area. Yeah. Where does. Where do we get the power? One place is what you're talking about. A relationship with Christ. But there's another place you get power to do what we've got to do. And that's what you're talking about. It's a relationship with people. You know, trust somebody and say I just can't do it anymore. I've had it. I can't do it anymore. Help me out here. And that is a hard thing for us to do. I don't do it unless I absolutely have to. I'm about you. You think that plays in the first mountain in the season. It's like I'm very extroverted. And so when I go to people, I'm going to jump out of that. A lot. And I have to make sure that. So sometimes I've got to get in and jump. That's good. Sure. Good. That's good. So to people who are introverted, like my life is introverted. And things will work the other way around. But like that. So that's a check. She writes a motion and gets in one time. People in the other show. A leg. But. And like that. I'm sure there's a lot of truth in that. A lot of it has to do with the personalities or gifts and callings. You know, the things that each individual person brings to it. And what a person has to do is sort of assess who they are. And to know what valuing these things would mean for them as an individual. It won't look like everybody goes to the same meetings. Everybody does exactly the same thing. But to have the priorities or have a valuing can still be going on. Even though it doesn't look exactly the same on every person, with every person. Yeah. I mean, you know, we're all supposed to be loving our wives as Christ loved the church. But that doesn't mean we're all supposed to be doing the same thing. Well, I can relate to what he said. Being an extrovert. Me or not an extrovert. I got a new view. Not you. Yeah, but anyhow, I was then before I was going to move you. I can relate to what he said. Because I love to be in front of the people. I love to be with people all the time. I mean, my occupation alone, face down. I used to be a bus operator. I used to be a street operator. In my retirement, I was still operating the street. Then here I am with the worst disease. There it is. It involves people. You can tell me that I'm an introvert. Of course, I'm joking with you. Yeah. And not everybody you see has to be. What's your name? My Ted. Exactly like Ted. Everybody. That's right. Okay. Who's the other mic? Do you know the street car driver? I don't know. That's great. I can guarantee that some of his occupation is dealt with a lot of people. Yeah. And so the idea is not everybody has to be like them. But still, the pricing of these things is important, valuing of them. Why do you think that most people who are attracted to our kinds of church, like this church here, like our kinds of churches, what do you think they tend to do? What do you think they tend to be? Do you think they tend to be people who really are into other people? Or do you think they tend to be people in their faith? They tend to be more concerned with the truth than committed to the truth and things like that. Which of those two would you say most of us tend to be? No, and our kinds of churches, PCA. All right, doctoral. What would you say about this church? That's good. That's why you're weird, isn't it? No. And I like one thing that didn't need to come up. I'm not sure where it is. Inform now. That's right. That's opening their heart to you. You don't find that everywhere. No. Sorry. You really don't. Yeah. If it has to be, it's the exception to the rule. Good churches. A lot. Yeah. Yeah. This church has unique characteristics along these lines. And I'm, you know, it's the kind of thing that makes me very happy for you. So you can be receptive to this idea then that you don't have to choose between these two. That they're both very important. And I hope that you can do that. I know for me personally this is the kind of thing that I like to emphasize in my life because I think that many times we don't. It's not just community. It's the value of other people. Okay. It's just, you know, what do you think that people around you are anyway? And our culture doesn't value other people, and we need to do it. And as we do, we'll find ourselves more in line with what Hezekiah was doing in his day. Okay. It's time to go. Thank you very much for coming tonight. And I hope that there can be some practical benefit from what we've been saying. And maybe you've had a chance just to think about these things from a slightly different angle. And certainly from the book in the Bible, you don't usually read. Okay. Let's pray together. Or Jesus, you are good to us and you're kind to us. And we remember that when you came to this earth, you established the church. You established the body. And we're a part of it and we're grateful for that. And what we're asking for now is the kind of vision that Hezekiah had in his day. To see not only the importance of truth and personal commitment to truth, but commitment to other people, commitment to the body, commitment to living the truth with others. And if you'll do that, we'll see that. And if you'll do that, Lord, we promise you this. If you'll change us in these ways and help us in these ways, we promise you this that we will give you the praise and the adoration that you deserve for it. Thank you, everybody.