Our Gospel lesson text this morning comes from 2 Chronicles. We'll be looking on if you're using the Bibles that are in your seats. That's page 326. 2 Chronicles chapter 29 will begin in verse 1. We move on now from the battle and the aftermath of the battle between the Israelites and the North and the Judah heights and the South and King A has. We move on to King A has his faithful son, a Hezekiah, a son of David who reigns over God's people in Judah, the southern kingdom of God's people in Jerusalem. 2 Chronicles chapter 29 will begin in verse 1 and go through verse 11. This is God's word, eternally true. Hezekiah was 25 years old when he became king and he reigns in Jerusalem 29 years. His mother's name was Abija, daughter of Zechariah. He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord just as his father David had done. In the first month of the first year of his reign he opened the doors of the temple of the Lord and repaired them. He brought in the priests in the Levites, assembled them in the square on the east side and said, listen to me, Levites. Consecrate yourselves now and consecrate the temple of the Lord, the God of your fathers. Remove all the filaments from the sanctuary. Our fathers were unfaithful. They did evil in the eyes of the Lord our God and forsook him. They turned their faces away from the Lord's dwelling place and turned their backs on him. They also shut the doors of the portico and put out the lamps. They did not burn incense or present any burn offerings at the sanctuary to the God of Israel. Therefore the anger of the Lord has fallen on Judah and Jerusalem. He has made them an object of dread and horror and scorn as you can see with your own eyes. This is why our fathers have fallen by the sword and why our sons and daughters and our wives are in captivity. Now I intend to make a covenant with the Lord, the God of Israel, so that his fierce anger will turn away from us. My sons do not be negligent now. For the Lord has chosen you to stand before him and serve him, to minister before him, and to burn incense. Here ends our reading. We have a response printed for us in our bulletins, a response of thankfulness to the Lord for giving us this word. Let us respond in thankfulness, the word of the Lord. Let's pray. Our God and Father, we are grateful to you for all that you have done for us. And among what you have done for us is that you have given us this word. This word is written not just for the original people who received it, but even for us, your people in 2008. So help us by your spirit as we look at this your word to understand it. And changes by it causes us to respond to it not in anger, not stomping away as we see unfaithful people doing. Time and time again in Scripture. But it causes us to respond in repentance and faith. It causes us not only to learn of your ways, but to walk in them. Buy your spirit, produce fruit in us through this, the preaching of your word. Jesus preached to us by your word and spirit. We pray Jesus in your name. Amen. We see in this passage in verse 6 the word evil. And in our society we come up with various definitions of what evil is. There are lots of definitions of evil and you've heard people declare something evil that is going on. I remember maybe the day or the second day after 9-11 in 2001. Somebody coming into my office and kind of trying to impress me, I think. But also declaring what he saw as evil and he said, you know, I've seen a lot of things in my life. But that talking about the world trade centers there, that is just evil. Maybe when we think of the word evil we think of some horrendous crime. Maybe it crime involving a minor. Maybe when we think of evil, we think of what we see on TV. When we see the new generation of horror movies have come out and they've kind of revamped the old early mid-80s horror late 70s horror movie genre. And these movies with gore and horror and there's a resident evil and resident evil 7 and whatever they're up to. Now these movies define evil in terms of these kind of things. Or maybe we think of as I listen as I run along right now, I've got only on my eye, the only thing on my iPod right now is all the Beatles stuff, all the Beatles albums. And I was listening, I guess it was yesterday, Helter Skelter came on, Paul Thong and you know I get to associate with Charles Manson. And maybe because Charles Manson heard that song and he thought that that was God or something like that declaring that he should slaughter these families in the Los Angeles area. That's right where it was. And we think that's evil. But what is evil? How does God define evil? That's the question we want to look at. But beyond this we want to see what is good and what is or is this passage puts it? What is right in the eyes of the Lord? And God gives us both here. He declares one thing evil and he uses that word and he declares one thing as right in the eyes of the Lord. That's what this passage speaks of today. And so we're defining evil. And we'll take a look at the two things in particular. And the first thing we'll look at this week. What is evil? And this thing this week is a little bit not the ultimate thing but it's pretty close. It's pretty close to ultimate. If you want to impress your friends you can say pen ultimate. That means next to ultimate. The second to last thing. But God defines evil here and he defines what is good and what he defines is good here or what is right in the eyes of the Lord is this. And this is your first point here. God says to us, be committed to the church. You can put a capital C there if you want to. Not this church in particular. Now if you're in this church, be committed to this church in particular but be committed to his church. The church that Jesus said, he would build. I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. Jesus says. Be committed to the church because Jesus is committed to the church. And we see this in particular in verses three through seven. This is a message to us today in 2008 that says you as a Christian it is good and right for you to do. It is right in the eyes of the Lord for you to be committed to the church. Now I'm a little hesitant to use the C word here as a C word of committed because I used to be on staff with a church organization, the bottom line of every talk that we did in a large group setting was be more committed. Be more committed to the things we're doing. But this is the right thing to talk about here to be committed to the church and why are we committed to the church? Because our king, Jesus, the son of David is committed to the church. Hezekiah is committed to the temple, isn't he? That's what this passage is about. Hezekiah comes in and he's committed to the temple. What does he do? One, he opens the doors to the temple. Verse three, look there. Ahas's father had closed the doors to the temple. He had disregarded the temple. The temple had gone into disrepair. And Hezekiah, to his great credit, being faithful to the Lord, doesn't do what his dad did. He doesn't stick with the status quo. He doesn't look and see what everyone else is doing. And with all the other parts of the covenant community, Israel or Judah, properly, what they were saying about the importance of the temple. He doesn't go with the flow of what everybody is saying. But rather, he stands out by himself and says, Hey, let's get this going. He opens the doors of the temple. Second thing he does, he repairs the doors of the temple. He gets them functional. Again, verse three there, you can look down. And thirdly, he assembles the priests and the Levites to get the temple in working order. Verse four and five. So this is not going to be an ornamental thing. It's not going to be just a monument to have. They're not just trying to increase the green space, so to speak. He is committed to the temple because the temple has a certain function that is of ultimate importance to God's people. What's the fervency of the king? Young Hezekiah here. And regard to the temple. Well, here's your next blank here, your next line and your your outline. The temple is top priority. The temple is top priority. It is the chief thing that Hezekiah does when he takes his reign. It's the most important next January 20th to however long a hundred days goes out. We're going to see something again and we're going to hear the press talk about something again. That is what the president, the new president, whoever that becomes, whoever that is, what he does in his first what? 100 days. What is top among the priorities of our new president? And we see Hezekiah giving a clear message here. What is in his first 100 days? Well, we read here verse three that Hezekiah gets at the repair of the temple, the functioning of the temple in the first month of the first year of his reign. This is what Hezekiah considers to be the most important thing that he can do as king, as the leader of God's people. How does this relate to Jesus? Well, Jesus is also king. He comes and as king proclaims the kingdom of God is here. The kingdom of God is among you. Written above him on the cross is king of the Jews. Jesus is king and so he speaks about his kingdom over and over again and he tells his parables about his kingdom. And people who come to him and bow before him as king, he applaud and he says, look at this woman or look at this Roman and how they are treating me. They understand who I am. Are you king of the Jews? It is as you say. Jesus says and indeed Jesus rises up and he's not only resurrected from the dead to hang around here for 40 days. But after that 40 days, he rises up. He ascends and that's God's language for ascension to a throne. A king ascends. We call it in this country with a president and an auguration. But in countries with a king, it's an ascension to the throne. The throne is literally upstairs. And when Jesus ascends to heaven, he ascends to a throne. And he sits down on that throne at the right hand of God to rule and reign over his people as the rightful heir, the son of David, the rightful king, the one who rules his people, the church. So Jesus is king. He's son of David and this is true of Hezekiah in this passage. Hezekiah is king and son of David and his actions here for shadow what Jesus would do in the ultimate sense. So we look at what Hezekiah does and what God calls is good and faithful actions and we say this is what Jesus does in a better and grander sense. So Jesus is our king and what's His top priority we ask when He comes to earth 2,000 years ago? What does Jesus do? Really? What's He doing when He comes 2,000 years ago? When He is anointed as king by John the Baptist and the spirit of God comes down upon Him and He's anointed to take this role as Hezekiah had been. What does Jesus take care of? What is His first order of business? Well, He declares it, I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. Or to put in Hezekiah's language, Jesus comes to the earth 2,000 years ago to open the doors of the temple. That's what Jesus is doing. The temple, the church, the people of God were in disrepair. Jesus comes to open the doors of the temple to get it up and running and functional. There's an error if you watch Christian TV or if you listen to Christian radio or if you go into the Christian bookstore, there's an error out there that's very clear to define about what the temple is today. The error is this is that the temple is still in God's eyes, a building in Jerusalem, in Israel and that it needs to be rebuilt and you'll be asked to give money so that this temple in geographical Israel, Jerusalem today can get rebuilt. And God says, how can I be any clearer? The temple is you, you are the temple. First Corinthians 3, 16, the end of Ephesians 2, the end of Ephesians 3. Jesus, I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. God redefines what the temple is, the temple in the Old Testament is just representative of us. And Peter declares in 1 Peter 2 that we are the living stones that make up this temple. And when someone comes to faith in Jesus, they become not a dead stone but a living stone. And as Paul declares, the end of Ephesians 2 and the end of Ephesians 3, that we are these living stones being built up as a holy temple to the Lord in which the Holy Spirit lives. This is what Jesus comes to accomplish, to temple build, to make living stones out of dead stones like you and like me. Jesus is building His church with living stones. He is bringing salvation to people by His Spirit, giving them spiritual life. Jesus came when He dies in the cross. It is to open the doors of the temple. That is what our blank is here. Your next line and your outline, the temple is the church. Clearly, God doesn't leave that open. Jesus says when disciples look back in His last week and they say, look at this temple, Lord. And Jesus says, I would say, I would tell you the truth. The days coming when not one stone will be left upon another. Temple, temple. That is what the Jerusalem temple meant to him. He stepped into the Jerusalem temple and said, it is me. And when I leave this building now, this place is desolate. This place where the Spirit of God is supposed to dwell, the Spirit of God is here now because I am in this place. When I walk out these doors, it is not here. Destroy this temple. And I will rebuild it in three days. The old temple in Jerusalem, which prefigured the new temple, the church, would be begun to be built in three days, beginning with Jesus, the chief cornerstone. God is trying to be clear and He is clear to us as to what the temple is. Jesus is so committed to this temple, the church that He, what does He do? Jesus opens the doors of the temple, makes His functional. How does He do this? He dies. That is how committed Jesus is to the temple of God. As a kind of so committed, He goes against the grain of His whole society. And He calls the priests and Levites together and says, get this thing up and going. But Jesus is so committed to it, He gives His life for it. And Jesus declares in John 10, doesn't He? He says, I am the gate. I am the doors of the temple, and they will be in disrepair for three days. Won't they? But He repairs those doors and He opens those doors so all His sheep can come in. Jesus opens the door of the temple, the church, the gate of the church by spilling His blood. And today the church is receiving members only because of Jesus. And we remember this, if Jesus doesn't come 2,000 years ago, the temple is shut. But the temple is open today. The temple exists, the church exists because Jesus spilled His blood to open the gate so that He could be the way so that people could come to the Father, John 14, 6, through Him. Jesus' wife and death and resurrection is the opening of the temple 2,000 years ago, the opening of the church. This is Jesus' kingly work. He, like Hezekiah, says, let's get this thing up and running. And that's what Jesus does. He gets the church up and running. Now, what is this passage called? Disregard of the church. What is this passage called? Disregard of the church. Here's your next blank. Lack of regard for the church is called here. What's it called in verses 6 and 7? How does God define evil? Gore in a scary movie. Charles Manson, 9-11. Those things all may be, you know, birds, I mean, definitely there's sin involved in all those things. But what does God call evil here? Disregarding the church. Now, the Old Testament is disregarding the temple, but we know that the temple today is the church. Disregard of the church. God calls evil. Do I sound like I'm from Mars or what? Do you hear that in the Christian bookstore? Do you hear that in Christian radio? Do you hear that in Christian TV? Be committed to your local church. Now, occasionally, we will. Be committed to the church, capital C. Do we hear that anywhere? No, we don't. And if we say disregard for the church is evil, people say, well, I wouldn't go that far. And I wouldn't either. But God does. So, well be to me if I don't say it. We'll be to us if we don't pay attention. Now, you folks are great in all this. Committed to the church. But know that you're being committed to the church is something that God is very happy about. It is good and right in the eyes of the Lord to be committed to his church. Lack of regard for the church is called here evil. The church today doesn't say this. The church at most might say, well, being uncommitted to the church is not optimal for your spiritual growth. Because remember, it's all about you, right? It's all about your spiritual growth. And if the church helps you, great. If it doesn't, okay. But that's not what God says. God says commitment to the church is something that God smiles upon and blesses. Let's put it another way. Make it even more heavy from the beginning of verse 6a. And then you're outlined to disregard the church is to, okay, verse 6a, look there, not my words, the Lord's words. What is it to do? If you disregard the church, it is to God says to forsake me. God calls their disregard of the temple forsaking him. To disregard the church is to forsake the Lord. Not my word, the Lord's words here. We say, oh, church is not that important for me to invest, invest myself in or be concerned about. It's a good side feature for me to have my life. It'd be good for me to go to church as much as I could. But Jesus says I begged to differ. I died for the church. You're calling it unimportant. I promised to build my church. You're saying it's not that important to build my church? I'm your king. This is what I'm doing in the first month of the first year of my reign. This is what I come 2,000 years ago. This is what I show up to do. When I'm anointed king, I go to build the church. Jesus gives his life for the church. The church is important, therefore. Jesus says I didn't spill my blood for some little thing. To think little of the temple, to think little of the church is to abandon, to abandon it is not to forsake it. Ultimately, but me, Jesus says. The church was and is top. That's your blank there. Top priority for Jesus. That's good news for us. This means Jesus top priority is us. He said the temple is us. The church is us. And this, when we read about Hezekiah, when we see what Jesus says for the church, this means, wow, my God is that committed to me. I am my God's top priority. He spills his blood for my sake. He did what none of the religious leaders of his day was willing to do. The Pharisees were living for their own sakes. They were using the people for their own prestige and wealth, the Pharisees and the Sadducees. And Jesus uses himself for the wealth of his people. He gives his life and his blood to enrich his people, even if it meant all the people despised him. The exact opposite of what the Pharisees were doing. But the church was and is top priority for Jesus. And so the message for us is that we must align his priority to be, here's your blank, to be ours. We align Jesus top priority, what Jesus does in his first 100 days, so to speak, to be our priority as well. How can we do this? What are some action points that we can have to be committed to the church? How can we be committed to the church? And you've got an A through D here that we're going to talk about. One or A. We can be committed to the church in our or by our affections. This is an old Puritan word that they like to use a lot of affections. It means your heart's desire. You know, we say today in evangelical Christianity, what's on your heart? You know, this is really on my heart. That's what we're talking about. But what's really on our heart, the church? Why? Because the church is the kingdom of Christ. I want the kingdom of Christ to expand and to be blessed and to glorify its king well. So our affections, our hearts, our set on the kingdom of Christ, the church. We ask the question and we look around and our hearts are such that we say, wow, what greater thing could I be a part? If I were a baseball player and was on the team that won the World Series, I would still want to say as a believer in Jesus, you know, my affections could be, it would be off, if I were saying I could be a part of no greater organization than the Cincinnati Reds or the New York Yankees. Or whatever is your team. But even at that point, we would say there is no greater thing of which I could be a part than the kingdom of God. The God of the universe has made me a part of his kingdom. And this is grand and glorious stuff. And we need to set our hearts to that mindset, to that heartfelt intention that we can be a part of no greater thing than the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God, the church. Be how can we do this? How can we have our top priority? Be for the church. Be by our, here's your blank time and effort. That doesn't mean 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You're doing something for the church. No, God says had dominion over the earth. And that means in your vocations, do a good job and do good work in the jobs that you're doing. And you won't be in the church all the hours of the week. But what this means is that when you are able to give your time and effort to the church, give it. That is, we don't say no to helping with things in the church because it takes too much time or too much effort. Some things in the church, we would love to do anyway. Some things in the church are like, oh man, that's going to take some time. Or wow, that's going to be a good effort for us. And so we say, you know what? With other things, if this were co-honus, I may say, oh, that's too much time. Sorry folks, I can't do that. I've got other commitments, that kind of thing. But when it comes to the church, we say, but this is the kingdom of Christ. Would my king have me do this certain thing? So by our time and effort, we can have the church in full regard in our hearts and minds. See, by our money. And we see this over and over in Chronicles, and we see this in what David's doing, that God's people, when it comes time to repair the temple, they bring in their goods so that the repairs can be made. This relates to our affections. Jesus said, where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. If I'm investing heavily in something by time or money or effort, my heart is going to be in it. Jesus just states something that's generally true of life. But Jesus said, especially with money, where your money is, there where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. And money is always kind of a heart issue for us. And you know, we're building up money right now so we can get the stuff for the insides of our church tables and chairs and speakers and all kinds of things that we need for the inside of our church. And we got to, I saw at the end of this week, we got dropped into our bank account, the money from that tax refund thing, the George Bush Congress special economy incentive thing. And that's a heart issue, man. I saw that money come in there, is looking online and saw that that got dropped in on Friday there. And you know, we talked about, you know, that's money, none of us expected. And that's something we can consider giving all our part to the church. Now God doesn't say you must do that. It's nowhere in the Bible that says you have to give any of that to the church. But you know what, that's a heart struggle. You know, it's what could I do with that money? What could the church do with that money? And our hearts are tied into that. Is the church top priority for me? Our building project, you know, just the just raw numbers with the amount of money we have to raise for that and the number of families, that's about $2,000 per family, is what we need to get the stuff we need in that building. Some of you will be able to give much more than that, some much less, and that kind of thing. And again, you know with that that nobody but our treasure is seeing what you give. I never see anybody's giving individually or at the end of the year anything. I've never known what any of you have given to the church. And you don't have to sign a pledge card, and those giving slips over there have no place to put your name on there. And so don't worry about that end. But we look here and we say, how can we before the kingdom of God be like Hezekiah here? Last thing here, how can we have the churches our top priority by our schedules? By prioritizing the church and our schedules. And that's what Hezekiah does. He probably had plenty of things he could have done. Things were in great disarray in the kingdom. And he probably had this tug and his heart and his mind, boy, I need to take care of this. I need to shore up the military here. I need to repair this town or to this city or this other thing. But what does he take care of? First, he takes care of the church, the temple. That's first in his schedule. So we prioritize the church and our schedules by not only having the church thing, primarily the worship service, that's the biggie. We don't want to make worship and church things, make it into our lives if the stars all line up. And that's not what Hezekiah does. The stars had not all lined up before he started being committed to the temple. Everything was in disarray. And so it's not like whether it's a Sunday morning or whatever the church is doing. It's not like, well, the stars all line up this morning and I have nothing else to do. Nothing else, vying for my time, then I'll go. Then I'll be apart. We put it first and we let everything else go to the sign. We're not a high number of events church. Our particular church is intentionally low activity. That drives a few of you crazy, I know, and you're wonderfully patient with this. But that's by intent. It's by intent because we want a major on the major. And we want to give you lots of time to interact with your community. To be soccer coaches and football coaches and PTA-involved people, whatever it is, that you have time to do that so that Christ's light can shine in various aspects of the world. We don't want to take up all your time with Sunday night this and Wednesday night that and choir practice. A lot of other things. From the get-go, we said we're going to be a low activity church. And so what that enables you to do is we set the priority for you. Just a low number of things for us. But when the church is doing something, we all have to ask ourselves a question, how high a priority is this church thing compared to my other priorities? How does it rank? Is it in my first 100 days? Next, we don't drop church when something else comes up. This is the way of A-Has. When other things came up, he dropped the church. He dropped the things of God. But in contrast, the way of Hezekiah is when other things came up, he put those things to the side. And church was his priority. This attitude, this putting God first in our schedules, you know, other things are competing with all of us for our time. And bumping up against things in our schedules and it affects us and we've got pressures around us. And it can affect this putting God first in our schedules. It can affect the specific jobs we take. We used to, I used to hear when I was in Central Florida and our Presbyteria down there, our regional group of churches, a question they used to ask people coming up for ordination to be ministers in the congregation. They would ask about, you know, what if you have somebody who's an NFL football player and he comes into your church and he asks you about what about the Sabbath? Should we remember the Sabbath or is that disregarded? How do we do that? You know, what if I were a good enough golfer to be on the PGA tour? How would that affect me? So it can affect the specific job we take, the career we enter. Some of you are looking for jobs right now and making great decisions on some things here in terms of, you know, I could be in this job, but it would require me to miss worship, you know, every week or every other week and some of you have, have, we're in those kind of jobs and have gotten your job schedules changed around so that you can be here. And that's a, that's a great thing. This can affect the soccer league that you and your kids are part of. I was just looking up the soccer league for one of my daughters recently and the most likely league that she would be in plays its games on Sunday. Sorry, we're going to have to figure something else out. We're not going to go to the soccer game instead of worship. It can affect our vacation schedules. What is my travel day? If the church is open meeting for worship, do I use Sunday morning as my travel day or do I take another day off Monday or come home a day early so that I can worship, either on location somewhere else or back, back here, I know I sound like I'm from Mars here. It can schedule the, it can change and affect the meetings that we have that are extra. I used to work as a campus minister and we have a small group of Bible study, I think I'm Thursday night. I forget what it changed different nights but I remember talking to Matt Brown, not your Matt Brown, but Matt Brown student I had in my Bible study and he had a group meeting and they wanted to meet right opposite what our Bible study was and I told him I said Matt, if you just speak up and say you know what I've got a meeting on that day as that group is deciding when they're going to meet for their group project, the view for their class, I said all you have to do is say I've got something else right then. Nobody will even ask you what that is for. They'll just say okay and they'll go on to the next time. If they do ask you what that's for and you say well I have a Bible study that meets then everybody's going to back off because they want to respect especially on the university campus. They want to respect a person's religious beliefs but when a meeting comes up that's only potential and it interacts with something in the church, speak up and say I've got something then, I can't do it then because our God here says the church is top priority, we'll talk about why that is next week, why the church is top priority because there's something ultimate in the church, something for which the church is it's framework and that is worship. We'll talk about that next week but here's our final blank here. God says here no non-shelence, no casual attitude about the church and we have a society right now, even the church, the believing church in the United States said it's okay to be casual about the church, it's okay to be non-shelence about the church and God says I beg to differ, no, in the first month of my first year this is what I take care of, Jesus says no, this is what I died for the church and so you're blank there, be the opposite of non-shelence for the sake of my go-and-vowsky listening by internet that's N-O-N-N-O-N-C-H-A-L-A-N-T. Be the opposite of non-shelence in regard to the church, there's no greater thing of which you can be a part, it's not the thing that takes up the majority of your time, God wants you to be in your vocations, He wants you to be taken care of your kids and doing your homework or whatever it is that God has put as the work of your hands, but when it comes to win those things from the church comes up, God says don't be non-shelent, to be not, it has was non-shelent about the church and God calls it evil and a forsaken of Him. Jesus died for us His church and so we want to take on His attitude and His love for the entity, the church for whom He died. Let's pray. Our God and Father, we are grateful to you for the fact that you were not non-shelent about saving us, you were not casual about saving us. You did not wait for all the stars to line up and forth to be just the right time for everybody to say just the right thing, for it to work out perfectly for you to come and save us, but you forged your way here, you invaded this space, being incarnated as a baby, living in this world among sinful men in the fallen world, and you said the very things you said which were like violence in your community, which made people very, very upset, which caused people to call you a blasphemer, because you were not non-shelent about saving us. You came in full force and full power and headed toward that cross. So was your commitment to us, your church, and you have vowed to build it, help us to be committed to your church, help us to rejoice in our membership in your kingdom, the church, cause our attitudes to be delightful to you as we delight in your church. We pray Christ in your name. Amen. Let's now continue our worship of God by singing to him, appropriately, number 64. I love that kingdom, Lord. Let's stand as we sing. I love that kingdom, Lord, number 64.
Now, rejoice in the gospel. The Lord has blessed you and now keeps you. Rejoice for the gospel. The Lord has made you rejoice for the gospel. The Lord has turned his face toward you and given you his peace. Go in peace. Please meet and greet those who are around you this morning.