David Stockton 3/28/21 David Stockton 3/28/21

The King Who Conquered Sin

1 Kings is where we are at. Today we celebrate the day Jesus announced to the world that he was a peaceful King who had conquered a foe. The event is called The Triumphal Entry. The Sunday that commemorates it is called Palm Sunday. Jesus is thirty-three years old. He knows he’s in his final days, so he sets his face toward the big city and enters Jerusalem the same way a king would after conquering a foe.

Series: A Kingdom Divided
March 28, 2021 - David Stockton

So what was the conquered foe Jesus was declaring victory over? He had not conquered the oppressive Rome. He had not overthrown the evil King Herod. He had not really done much damage or changed much of the arrogant structure that the Pharisees and the Sadducees had set up in the religious system and caste system of that day.

So what did he conquer? What was he declaring as he rode into Jerusalem and basically sent people out ahead of him to announce that he was coming, and to have this parade of disciples cheering, “Hosanna! The Savior has come. He’s saved us. He’s the King. Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord. Blessed is the King who comes in the name of David.”

What had he conquered that made him want to go public with being a King for the first time in his life? Well, I think the answer is he had conquered sin.

What’s interesting here is that on the cross we know Jesus conquered a lot. He paid the price for our sin. The resurrection was proof that he had conquered death once and forever. He had become the sacrifice that could take away the sins of the world. But Jesus conquered sin every moment of every day as temptation would come and he would not succumb. He is the only one who has been tempted like humanity is tempted, yet without sin. There was one other who came on the sin who was not sinful, but was tempted, and that was Adam. Yet Adam succumbed and brought great devastation to the world that we’re still living under today.

But Jesus Christ, as he was going around healing people and performing miracles, he was demonstrating to everyone that he had authority to undo all the damage that sin had done. And then, as he was transfigured on the mount of transfiguration, he was glorified. And he was there with Moses and Elijah before the presence of God. Basically that was symbolizing that Jesus had passed the test. He had, at that point, been tempted in every way that you and I are ever tempted, yet without sin.

And in that moment he had a decision to make. He had fulfilled the law of God. He had done what God had asked him to do. And was that enough? Or would he go down that mount of transfiguration and go to the cross? And the only reason that he would go down the mount of transfiguration to the cross is because he had not yet paid the price for you and I. He had fulfilled the law. He had become the sinless King. But we were still guilty of our sin. And because of his great love for us, he walked down that mount of transfiguration and he resolutely set his face toward Jerusalem.

Now he comes into Jerusalem announcing as a King, as a peaceful King — because he rode a donkey, not a horse — as a peaceful King, he was coming to declare that he had conquered sin and was now the King above all kings. The sinless King who was able to provide a sinless sacrifice for the sin debt of humanity.

It’s a day worth celebrating. This Triumphal Entry. That’s why it’s called Triumphal Entry, because he triumphed over the thing that you and I could never and have never been able to triumph over, the foe of sin.

So we spend a moment thinking about that, because, in our series in 1 Kings, we’ve been looking at king after king after king after king after king who, when tempted with sin, succumbed. Not only succumbed, but subtly and in small ways made these little compromises that ultimately led Israel further and further into idolatry and ultimately ruin.

So we look at 1 Kings and we see that, in this time in history, God’s people were becoming numb and blind to idolatry and sin. And we’re doing this because we do not want to become God’s people in our day and age who are becoming blind and numb to idolatry and sin. So we’re taking the word of God and we’re allowing it, like a magnifying glass, to look into our lives. No matter how pretty or how ugly we come out. But we do not want to fall prey to the same things they fell prey to.

It was just a few hundred years between King Saul, King David and King Solomon until Israel was completely destroyed. I do think in our society as Americans — and I don’t say this lightly and I don’t say this judgtngly — but I do think our society is progressing away from the things of God and more into the things of this world, or the things that are incongruent with the lines of God, that he has drawn for our own freedom and flourishing.

Though that is something I see taking place — and I’m praying for a great awakening, because we’ve had awakenings in America before that swept across from sea to shining sea, that turned hearts back to God and his ways. And it’s been beautiful and wonderful. I’m praying for some more of that. Anybody with me? Yeah? I’m not like, Oh, all hope is lost. Down with America. No! Not at all. I’m just trying to say I think I’m seeing these things so I’m praying that I’ll be able to see the opposite happen. And I think we all should be doing that. We should have hope. We should pray. Because God can do it.

At the same time, I’m also trying to give warning to my own soul and to my own household and to us as a church that these things are creeping their way into the household of faith. I’m having conversations with people who are brothers and sisters in Christ and people who have walked with us for a while who are now saying that they don’t think sin is sin, according to what the Bible teaches. It’s creating moments where there’s pressure and it’s causing some divisions.

It’s so important for us to look at God’s word again and say, “Okay, Lord. You get to speak. We’re putting you on the throne to decide what is good and right and wrong. And we’re not going to let our culture be on the throne. We’re not going to let our own desires be on the throne. We’re not going to let our sinful flesh be on the throne. We’re going to watch out for selfishness and we’re going to watch out for the idols of comfort, security and convenience. And we’re going to make sure you are the one on the throne deciding what is right and what is not right.” And it’s been challenging. It’s been tricky. It’s been unpopular. But it’s okay. It’s okay.

We’re looking at 1 Kings because they were going through a lot of similar things. We have Jeremiah, who wrote this book — according to tradition — and he’s writing this to help people wake up from their stupor, wake up to the reality of the decline that’s taking place all around them. And we really did make sure that, even though he’s kind of a weeping prophet and he’s moaning and groaning, he’s not a bullfrog. Jeremiah is not a bullfrog. He was a weeping prophet. We had to clear that u p earlier on in this series.

But he’s basically speaking about how the people of God slowly but surely kind of give in to these things. He’s talking to us about a lot of different things. Just to sum up, I’m going to read some real quick summarizations from Jeremiah about these kings and what they did.

Under Rehoboam, in 1 Kings 14:22-24

Judah did evil in the eyes of the Lord. By the sins they committed they stirred up his jealous anger more than those who were before them had done. They also set up for themselves high places, sacred stones and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every spreading tree. There were even male shrine prostitutes in the land; the people engaged in all the detestable practices of the nations the Lord had driven out before the Israelites.

Israel was a consecrated people, set apart as God’s people. They continued to want to more and more be like the nations around them. It was more and more bringing in their idolatry, more and more bringing in their thoughts, more and more bringing all these things in, until, eventually they were a people that God was angry at. His jealous anger was enraged. It’s true that God is slow to anger, but God is angry at sin and those who are walking in it. That’s the most loving thing he can do at that point, to be angry against the those who were leading people into idolatry and sinfulness and ruin.

And God was angry at them. Right there, this is talking about God’s people. “There were even male shrine prostitutes in the land.” Solomon had set up worship to all these other gods and some of those gods required you to have sex to worship them. And so you would go and it just so happened to have male prostitutes, so if you were male or female, you would go have sex with these people to worship these gods. It was a way that you would honor them. It wasn’t just stupid, but it was that you would get the reward. You would get the blessing of fertility of your land or your family by doing this. This was going on in the nation of God, that God had blessed and led out of captivity, giving them their land.

1 Kings 15:30

Ahab son of Omri did more evil in the eyes of the Lord than any of those before him.He not only considered it trivial to commit the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, but he also married Jezebel daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and began to serve Baal and worship him. He set up an altar for Baal in the temple of Baal that he built in Samaria. Ahab also made an Asherah pole and did more to arouse the anger of the Lord, the God of Israel, than did all the kings of Israel before him.

So he was setting up Baal worship. Baal worship, at this point in Israel, it was like worship of Yahweh. They never really stopped worshipping Yahweh, but at this point in Israel’s history, definitely Baal was the main god of the Israelites, and Yahweh was the “side God,” which was very upsetting to the Lord.

And under Ahaz (2 Kings 16:3-

…he did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord his God. He followed the ways of the kings of Israel and even sacrificed his son in the fire, engaging in the detestable practices of the nations the Lord had driven out before the Israelites. He offered sacrifices and burned incense at the high places, on the hilltops and under every spreading tree.

Now, I don’t know what a spreading tree in this regard, but I’m sure you can look in commentaries and they’ll talk about it for a long, long time — which is fun about commentaries and also so boring sometimes. But anyway…

He’s offering his own son as a sacrifice in the fire, which was a practice of the god Molek, again to get fertility and prosperity. And we look at these things and we think these people are crazy, for them to be so bizarre in their sexual immorality and to be so bizarre in what they’re willing to sacrifice and kill — even of their own families — for these gods. And yet, I think if we’re honest, in our society we see some very similar type things.

That’s the scary thing about sin. The sin that we commit, we don’t get to decide what the consequence is or who suffers the consequence. As we see it in the story of Solomon, Solomon was very sexually immoral. Yet he didn’t suffer the consequence. His son did, and all of the people of Israel, ultimately.

When we choose the idolatry of greed, of money, or we choose the idolatry of sex, power, position, so oftentimes it’s our kids that get sacrificed at those altars. In some ways I bet every one in this room or listening online could tell a story of something that they experienced because of the idolatry of their parents, or maybe something their kids have experienced because of their idolatry and sin. It’s very heavy stuff. These kings were people just like you and me.

But then, just before we get too bummed out, we keep going. There are some other kings. Now I read about three kings who did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord. And then I’m going to read three kings that did what was right in the eyes of the Lord. Don’t for a second think that it was kind of an even spread. Basically, you’ve got about three, maybe five, if you really want to stretch you’ve got about eight out of fifty kings did any good at all. The rest were horrible.

Here’s some good news. Asa. 1 Kings 15:11-14

Asa did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, as his father David had done. He expelled the male shrine prostitutes from the land and got rid of all the idols his ancestors had made. He even deposed his grandmother Maakah from her position as queen mother, because she had made a repulsive image for the worship of Asherah. Asa cut it down and burned it in the Kidron Valley. Although he did not remove the high places, Asa’s heart was fully committed to the Lord all his life.

So here’s good news. It is funny to read in the Bible about a guy getting rid of his grandmother in this way. But it’s not funny what many of us are going through in our own families, as we navigate the differences and the challenges that are presented there when loved ones make decisions that are not in line with the scriptures or the lines that God has given us and we’re trying to uphold those lines, and at the same time love them. It’s tricky. This is where the love of God is so much deeper than the love that we have and the Hallmark channel teaches us about.

Love is patient, love is kind, but it rejoices in the truth at the same time. It is deep and it is rich and it is challenging for people like us . Sometimes we have to draw those lines. Jesus taught us that there are times in our following of him where we’re going to have to hate our brother and hate our sister. He’s not actually saying we should hate them. He’s saying that they’re going to perceive what you’re doing as hate, when really, all you’re doing is try to follow them and love them. And those become very difficult times, good times to pray and good times to sing about a God who chases down people on their prodigal roads. A good time to think about a God who wants to come into our lives and restore our broken lives. A good time to sing about a God who, there’s no mountain he won’t climb, right? There’s no wall he won’t break down. It’s good to think about God in those times and to pray.

The next king. Hezekiah. 2 Kings 18:3-

He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, just as his father David had done. He removed the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles. He broke into pieces the bronze snake Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites had been burning incense to it.

Here’s the story of even something that was done in memory of God and what God had done, they had made an idol of that and were worshiping that instead of the Creator. And then we get on to Josiah. And we’re going to spend a little more time talking about Josiah. I’ve chopped up the full portion of the story about Josiah. You can read it later, if you want, but I’m giving us some little highlights. I’ve been watching a a lot of March Madness highlights and it’s just all highlights. I love highlights. It’s like I don’t have to watch freethrows and all the boring stuff. Jus watching the highlights and Baylor’s still in it, so my bracket’s still alive. Yeah!

2 Kings 22 Josiah…

2…did what was right in the eyes of the Lord and followed completely the ways of his father David, not turning aside to the right or to the left..
11 When the king heard the words of the Book of the Law, he tore his robes. 12 He gave these orders to Hilkiah the priest,… 13 “Go and inquire of the Lord for me and for the people and for all Judah about what is written in this book that has been found. Great is the Lord’s anger that burns against us because those who have gone before us have not obeyed the words of this book; they have not acted in accordance with all that is written there concerning us.

It’s a fascinating moment in the history of Israel, because we’re in 2 Kings now when we get to Josiah. We’ve gone through a lot of kings asa we’re toward the end of the time of the kings before they actually go into exile in Babylon and Judah, before they get taken over by the Assyrians in Israel up north.

Here Josiah becomes king and wants to do what’s right int he eyes of the Lord. So he starts to try and figure out what that is. He knows the high places are evil, so he starts working on those things. But one of the things he wants to do is get the temple of Yahweh back in action. And he starts cleaning it out and doing all these things, and in the process of doing that, a guy finds a scroll and he doesn’t know what the scroll is. So then he takes it to some different people. They finally get to a priest and they’re like, “What is this thing?” And the priest is like, “That’s the Torah! That’s the law of God. That’s the thing that God gave Moses as they were on that Mount Sinai in Egypt. That’s the thing that teaches us God’s ways.”

So he brought it to the king and he says, “King, I want to show you something we found.” They didn’t know where it was. It had been buried. It had been forgotten. It had been totally rendered unimportant for long enough to where now they didn’t even know where it was. And he starts to read it to King Josiah. And Josiah… the reason I’m having trouble is because I’ve been praying for Josiahs to show up in our day.

Josiah gets hit in the face with this stuff. He gets his heart chopped up by the word of God and he repents. He falls on his knees. He tears his clothes and he says, “God, I’m sorry. But thank you so much for your word. Thank you so much for letting it come to the surface. Thank you so much for helping us awake to the reality of what’s going on.”

And he tells his guys, “Go and figure out every single thing in this book that we’re doing wrong, and let’s make it right.” It was such a beautiful, beautiful response. So he finds some things that they’re doing wrong.

2 Kings 23:
4 The king ordered Hilkiah the high priest, the priests next in rank and the doorkeepers to remove from the temple of the Lord all the articles made for Baal and Asherah and all the starry hosts. He burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron Valley and took the ashes to Bethel. 5 He did away with the idolatrous priests appointed by the kings of Judah to burn incense on the high places of the towns of Judah and on those around Jerusalem.… 6 He took the Asherah pole from the temple of the Lord…

We’re talking about this stuff in the temple of the Lord.

… to the Kidron Valley outside Jerusalem and burned it there. He ground it to powder and scattered the dust over the graves of the common people.

Again, common people? What? Where did that come from? He’s fired up.

7 He also tore down the quarters of the male shrine prostitutes that were in the temple of the Lord…

Did you hear what I just said? In the temple of the Lord that Solomon built for Yahweh, there was a portion that was used to house the male shrine prostitutes. Josiah kicked some booty that day. And that was also…

…the quarters where women did weaving for Asherah.

I don’t know what that’s about.

12 He pulled down the altars the kings of Judah had erected on the roof near the upper room of Ahaz, and the altars Manasseh had built in the two courts of the temple of the Lord. He removed them from there, smashed them to pieces and threw the rubble into the Kidron Valley. 13 The king also desecrated the high places that were east of Jerusalem on the south of the Hill of Corruption—the ones Solomon king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the vile goddess of the Sidonians, for Chemosh the vile god of Moab, and for Molek the detestable god of the people of Ammon. 14 Josiah smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles and covered the sites with human bones.

It’s serious. Very serious.

24 Furthermore, Josiah got rid of the mediums and spiritists, the household gods, the idols and all the other detestable things seen in Judah and Jerusalem. This he did to fulfill the requirements of the law written in the book that Hilkiah the priest had discovered in the temple of the Lord. 25 Neither before nor after Josiah was there a king like him who turned to the Lord as he did—with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his strength, in accordance with all the Law of Moses.

Hallelujah. And just in case you think he was a big jerk and didn’t know how to have fun…

21 The king gave this order to all the people: “Celebrate the Passover to the Lord your God, as it is written in this Book of the Covenant.” 22 Neither in the days of the judges who led Israel nor in the days of the kings of Israel and the kings of Judah had any such Passover been observed.

He threw a huge party across the whole land to celebrate what God had done for the Passover. And there was great rejoicing in God’s heart. His anger was stayed as he looked down and he saw Josiah whose heart was a fully his.

But Josiah did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, and he did all of these other things. He was proactive in that. He knew that, as the word of God came to him, he was supposed to respond by doing that boundary maintenance we talked about early on, for not only his own soul, but his household and the institutions that he was a part of. Just so happens he was the king of the whole nation.

The zeal of the Lord consumed him. He was hungry and thirsty for righteousness. And as he walked that out, he was filled. He chose to seek first God’s kingdom and his righteousness above everything else. This is what it looked like for him in his time. And it pleased the Lord. It was a beautiful thing in his eyes.

So what does it look like for us to do this in our day with our own souls and households and institutions? I don’t know. That’s why you’ve got the Spirit of God living inside of you.

But what I love about this is, when the line of God came and basically dissected Josiah and his people, when the line of God came and cut his heart in half, helping him to realize that he was outside the lines of God, he was outside where God needed to be, they were so far off. He did not respond thinking that God doesn’t love him or want him. He actually, by the grace of God, was able to respond to say, “Actually God has helped me see the lines because he loves me that much and doesn’t want me to head off into decay and depravity and destruction. He actually has drawn these lines to help me know, like a roadmap, how to get back in. Also, he’s drawn these lines to help me become aware of how badly I need him.”

Each and every time we’ve been in one of these messes, and each and every time you hear the word of God taught, or you read it for yourselves, and one of those lines that God has drawn is coming to you and making you feel like you are not right, you are incongruent, there is something in your life that is outside the boundaries of God, the devil wants to come in that moment and say, “See? You don’t belong. See? They don’t love you or want you. See? God doesn’t love you or want you.” And that is the devil talking and he is very faithful to do that.

At the same time, when that line hits you, when your heart is pricked as the Bible describes it, like Josiah was, what God wants you to hear is that he loves you and he wants to see you get into the fullness of what he has for you and that he can rescue you and he can heal you and he can make you whole.

That’s the message that Jesus came to bring. That’s the message that Jesus was declaring as he rode that donkey into Jerusalem all those years later. That’s the message that he cried on the cross as he gave up his last breath and said, “It is finished.” And as his blood flowed, basically, what he was saying to you and me was, when you find yourself outside the lines that God has drawn, when you find yourself with your heart pricked, when you find yourself in trouble, outside, alone, apart from God, you’re supposed to look up at that cross and see his arms stretched wide, ready to receive you. You’re supposed to see his blood and know that blood was a sacrifice that can wash you clean. No matter what heinous sin you’ve committed or you’re in right now, his blood is way more powerful. Always has been and always will be.

Then you’re also supposed to see him as that resurrected Lord offering freely his Spirit to empower us, to win our battles against sin. To find victory from time to time over the sin that’s inside of us, that’s lying at the door waiting to devour us. That’s what Jesus came to declare to each one of us.

I’m praying, whether you’re online or in person, if these messages, if the word of God has come and has hit you, or it has cut you, that you would realize that that is what the word is supposed to do. Actually, the New Testament says that the law of God is the schoolmaster that leads us to Christ; basically like that angry, mean teacher that was always telling you when you were doing something wrong, so that you would know you need a rescuer, you need a savior, so that you would come to Christ and you would find out that he’s been there all along, only one step away.

What’s cool is that the Lord has been raising up some Josiahs in our fellowship. We have a guy that I know told me the story of him basically just hearing these words recently and saying, “That’s it.” And he put away all of his sexually immoral paraphernalia that he’d been practicing and playing with and he’s distancing himself — not because of Covid — he’s distancing himself from people that he knows were leading him in the wrong way. What he told me was the result was he’s never been able to hear from the Lord so often.

That’s why Jesus wants us to get in these lines because he wants to talk to us, wants to love us. Out there we can’t hear him.

We had a guy just show up on the lawn out here about a month ago. He just dumped a bunch of cocaine and other drugs on the lawn and said, “I’m sick of it.” And we were like, “Should we call the police?” And the guys who handled him said, “No.” They said, “Let’s go flush this down the toilet.” And they actually got some other people to make sure nobody thought they snuck it out the back door. They flushed it down the toilet. Then we connected that guy with Kurt to try to help him figure out what Jesus is doing. Because he was walking around out there in the darkness and he just got so sick of it. And he looked over and he thought, “Maybe they have some light.”

We’ve got some people that have decided that they weren’t going to worship at the altar of convenience, comfort and security. But instead, they have aging parents and they’ve decided to bring those aging parents back home with them to give them honor and dignity as they finish their days — at great inconvenience to them, for sure.

And another guy actually, he and his wife just moved away from us and everything that they loved and all the goodness they were experiencing to go do the same thing, to make sure his parents were getting loved and cared for.

I’ll tell you what, that’s something that God is really pleased with. I could go on and on. It might just seem little to you, but it’s not little to the Lord. Actually, my wife went to a birthday party yesterday for a kid who’s been quarantined his whole life because of autoimmune diseases. Instead of birthdays, he asked if everybody could donate to the food pantry here. He’s like ten years old! He’s a little Josiah.

So it falls to us. We have a great, great history. Ever since Jesus rode that donkey into Jerusalem declaring that victory over sin, there’s been a long line of parade, a great cloud of witnesses that have been following his lead and gaining victory over sin and doing away with high places and idolatry in their lives and in their families and in the institutions they’re a part of, many different ways. What are we going to do? What is the Lord asking you to do?

I know someone in our fellowship that they have been together for along time as boyfriend and girlfriend and they’ve got kids and all of that. They’re saying, “We’re ready to get married before the Lord.”

There are a lot of things that we can do to follow him. Some people built an underground railroad. Some people built a hiding place. Some missionaries have gone and it’s cost them their life, but then their family went to the same people and saw them get saved.

Lots of ways that we can serve the Lord.

Let’s pray:

Wow, Lord. You just keep it coming. Lord, I pray that you really would help us to not fall prey to our desires for sex, money, self, individualism, convenience, security, comfort or even idealogical popular or significance. Instead, Lord, we would just have your word hidden in our hearts, that we might not sin against you. That your word would be a light unto our path and we would walk in it, Lord. I pray that we, as a church, Lord, I pray for the whole church, but I really pray for us, Living Streams, right now in Phoenix in 2021, I pray that we would be the salt and light that you want us to be. Lord, where we’ve lost any salt in this, please forgive us and heal us. We know, Lord, you want us to stand against the decay in our society, but at the same time bring healing. We know. You want us to be a city set on a hill so that those who are walking in darkness and finally get sick of it can look and find someplace to run. Please help us, Lord, to not be like the older brother who rejects people who come home, but instead to be just like you, Father, and receive them and robe them. We thank you, Jesus, that you found us, that we were once lost and blind, but now we’re found and we see. Thank you, Lord.

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Guest User 3/14/21 Guest User 3/14/21

The Convenience of Idolatry

My name is Jeff. I’m so excited to be back here in the Valley. We were here for 11 years. Then we were in California for the last 4 1/2 years and then we’ve now just returned three weeks ago. I’m so glad to be here.

I really love this series that you’ve been in.

Series: A Kingdom Divided
March 14, 2021 - Jeff Gokee

I really love this series that you’ve been in. If you haven’t listened to David, your pastor, his last three sermons, I can’t encourage you enough. I did listen to them. Powerful. So powerful. They’re going to give you an overview of Kings. First and Second Kings was actually one book that they cut in half because they were like, “I don’t know if people can get through the whole thing.” So the divided it into one narrative. And that narrative is really, really important, because it’s really about small amounts of success and massive amounts of failure.

That’s why, a lot of times as we look at the Old Testament, it’s kind of like, “Oh, let’s get to the New Testament, the good stuff.” No, no, no. We’ve got to learn about the failure part. There is success int here, of course, but the failure part helps us understand all the good stuff. It helps us understand why we need Jesus.

I’ve got three kids. One of them is a GCU student, whoo! So, as a father, I’m constantly telling my kids where I’ve made mistakes. The reason I do that is “Don’t do what I did. Don’t repeat those same mistakes.”

The Old Testament is like, “Listen, let me tell you why we need Jesus. Look at all the failure.” And it’s really important as we go through this, that you kind of sit in that a bit. Sit in how you’ve made mistakes. Sit in how you’ve failed. Allow yourself to receive the redemption that Jesus Christ gave to you, the grace you’ve received that you did not earn.

This is why the Old Testament is so helpful for us. It’s helping us bring into the New Testament where Jesus was the fulfillment of it all. You can’t separate these two. This isn’t old and new. This is wholistic way of telling the gospel narrative. It comes in its final moments in Jesus’ death and resurrection and his kingdom come and his will be done in earth as it is in heaven. That’s why it’s so important and that’s why I love this church, that we’re actually diving into the failures of the past to help us see where we need to go, and why we really need Jesus. So, I hope you face yourself today.

Much of what I’ve been doing in this last year has been facing myself, dealing with myself. A year and a half ago, I’ve been going to a counselor for the last three and a half years; and he asked me this question, “How do you care for yourself? How do you self care?” And I was like, “I don’t even know what that means.” And he said, “When’s the last time you went to a doctor.” And I was like, “I don’t know. Like ten years ago.” And he was like, “Yeah, maybe we’ll start there. Maybe go to the doctor. You’re forty-three, so it’s probably time to do that.”

So I walked into the doctor being that guy—you know, the guy who hasn’t been to the doctor in ten years. And they’re like, “Hey, that guy.” So I sit with the doctor and she has me go and do some blood work and she calls me back and says, “Hey, I need you to come back in. We saw some stuff.” So I sit back down with her and she says, “We need to send you to a hematologist.”

Now our family knows blood pretty well in this way. Our son was diagnosed with leukemia when he was eight (so nine years ago). So she sends us to a hematologist for me to sit through. We knew what that meant. So the hematologist says to us, “You have cancer.” Okay. “So, what happens. What’s going on?”

He asked me this question, “How do you feel anxious? How does that come out in your life?”

And I was like, “I don’t even know what you mean.”

And he said, “No, like, how often are you anxious?

And I’m like, “I never feel anxious. I’m that annoying guy that wakes up in the morning at 5:30 going, ‘This is the greatest day ever!’”

Right? I’m like lollipops and sugarplums. I’m like, “I’m so happy to be alive every single day.”

And he said this, “You have been anxious for a very, very, very long time. And this cancer is activated by anxiety.”

What I didn’t realize was I had a place of worship, a high place of worship, a different reality than the throne where God is supposed to sit. I created my own. It was wrapped around insecurity, power, position. I’m a 3 on the Enneagram. I want to get stuff done. And when I get stuff done, I feel successful. I want influence. I didn’t realize that over a period of time it actually triggered something genetically, biologically in me that caused cancer. It’s as if God was saying to me, “I want that place back. You keep filling it with all this other stuff, the approval of man, power, and that’s your reward. That’s all you get. But I want you. I’m a jealous God. I want all of you.”

This last year for me has been about repentance. And I resonate with Paul when he says, “I’m the chief of all sinners.” I stand before you today not as somebody who has it all figured out. I am broken and I am beautiful. Because the King of kings and the Lord of lords has rescued my life and he’s rescued your life.

That’s why it’s so important that we look at both the successes of the past and the failures of what we move forward. And because we look at King David, we go, “Wow, a man after God’s own heart.” Yeah, an adulterer and a murderer. Right?

And we move to Solomon. “Wow. Wisest man who’s ever existed.” Oh, a thousand wives. Idolatrous. He starts to divide the kingdom.

His son Rehoboam takes over for him and decides he wants to prove to Daddy that he’s a somebody. So he starts taxing the people so hard and grinding them down, that God as a result of the failures of Solomon goes to this man Jeroboam and says to Jeroboam, “Jeroboam, I’m going to bless you. You’re going to take these ten tribes. I’m going to bless you. Because of the failures of what’s happening with Solomon and Rehoboam.”

And listen to this in 1 Kings 11:38-39:

38 If you do whatever I command you and walk in obedience to me and do what is right in my eyes by obeying my decrees and commands, as David my servant did, I will be with you.

By the way, that’s the win. “I will be with you. My presence will be with you. My power will be with you. My influence will be with you.”

I will build you a dynasty as enduring as the one I built for David and will give Israel to you. 39 I will humble David’s descendants because of this, but not forever.’”

Here’s what I want to say. How gracious is God? He just lays it all out. Look what God is doing. God is not a cruel God who doesn’t set expectation for us. He goes to Jeroboam, “I want to bless you. I want you to take these ten tribes and I want you to lead them well by the power of God to be a light unto the nations for the world to see that there is a king who is on the throne. And I want to do that through you. But you need to be obedient. You need to follow after my laws. You need to obey in the same way that David did, repent in the same way that David did.”

He’s not cruel. He doesn’t make us guess. As followers of God, he’s not making us guess. He’s making it clear: with obedience and righteousness comes blessing. When we choose to do something different, there is a responsibility to that. He releases us. It’s terrifying. In Romans 1, he releases us to our desires. You want to go do that? Go do that.

What we find in Jeroboam is a significant problem. God has made everything clear. And maybe you find this in yourself. I would imagine you would. But what happens in Jeroboam is an individualism steps in. God has given the promise. God has made clear what he will do and how he will bless. But Jeroboam all of a sudden gets this individualistic urge in him that so many of us have and I want to go after this morning.

I did a lot of research on individualism. And honestly, the best thing I found was the Webster’s Dictionary definition and it is says this, “Individualism is a doctrine that the interests of the individual are or ought to be ethically paramount.”

It’s a doctrine. It’s a doctrine that the interests of me, what I want, what I desire are ethically paramount to anything else God included.

I was driving down the 10 there around University of Phoenix. If you go to the east Valley, you hate that turn, because it’s jam-packed So I’m on this turn this week, which I thought was kind of interesting. I’m on this turn and there’s a billboard for Gila River, and it said this: “Reclaim what’s yours. You do you.”

I was like, “That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. You do you?” Eh? You love money and want to be greedy? You do you. You like to sleep around? You do you. If you want to get ripped every weekend because you think it’s fun, you do you. You like to have affairs? You do you. Right? You don’t like your church? Don’t go! You do you.

This is the cancer that’s killing our culture. What’s more terrifying is it’s made its way into the church. It’s made its way into believers who profess Jesus as Lord and Savior, their King of kings and their Lord of lords. And where the angels lay down and say, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty who was and is and is to come,” and we’re like, “Yeah but that’s kind of inconvenient for me. That doesn’t really fit in my box right now. I just don’t have time for it.”

This is what happens to Jeroboam. All that God has promised him, all that God has laid out to him, all the blessing, Jeroboam is, “But I’ve got a plan. I’ve got a different thing.” And what he does is he creates his own religion of individualism. And I wonder if many of us have done the same thing. In 1 Kings 12:26, I want you to listen to all the personal pronouns here. It’s really important.

26 Jeroboam thought to himself, “The kingdom will now likely revert to the house of David.

So now he’s moved these ten tribes and he’s starting to think to himself. It’s a dangerous thing to go, “What about me?”

27 If these people go up to offer sacrifices at the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem, they will again give their allegiance to their lord, Rehoboam king of Judah. They will kill me and return to King Rehoboam.”

It starts to create this insecurity. “Oh my gosh, what about me? Oh my gosh, what if they leave?”

28 After seeking advice, the king made two golden calves.

This should transport you back to the exodus. This should transport you back to the mountain where Moses is up getting the Ten Commandments, and because the people are impatient, Aaron creates these calves. This should transport you back to that.

He said to the people, “It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Here are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.”

How wrong.

29 One he set up in Bethel, and the other in Dan. 30 And this thing became a sin; the people came to worship the one at Bethel and went as far as Dan to worship the other. 31 Jeroboam built shrines on high places and appointed priests from all sorts of people, even though they were not Levites. 32 He instituted a festival on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, like the festival held in Judah, and offered sacrifices on the altar. This he did in Bethel, sacrificing to the calves he had made. And at Bethel he also installed priests at the high places he had made. 33 On the fifteenth day of the eighth month, a month of his own choosing, he offered sacrifices on the altar he had built at Bethel. So he instituted the festival for the Israelites and went up to the altar to make offerings.

Where is God? He, he, he, me, my. This is the way that Jeroboam is deciding to lead the people of Israel, the people of God rescued out of Egypt for His names’ sake to be a light unto the nations. And what does Jeroboam do? He does what so many of us do. “Well, what about me? Me, me, me, me, my.”

This is a complete and utter rejection of all that God had promised, that all that God has promised us. As I was thinking of it, there are many things that individualism fuel, but in the context of this passage, there are two things that I think are core, that stand out in this passage.

I think number one is fear. Fear. Listen to that first part of that narrative. He’s like, “Oh my gosh. They’re going to go to Jerusalem.” By the way, the place they’re supposed to go to honor God—the system that had been established by God Almighty, carried out from generation to generation, he’s like, “Oh, I don’t want them to go there. Because they might follow that king.”

No, no, no. If they go to Jerusalem, they’ll try to follow God, not a king. “No, no, no. I can’t do that. The might dethrone me. They actually might kill me.” Jeroboam was more worried about the people not following him than following God. I think that’s true so often in our lives. But here’s what I’ve been wrestling with this week. That fear is always in conflict with faith. Always. Fear is always in conflict with faith.

What we fear we follow. I wonder what you follow. Because is about the things unseen, Hebrews tells us. It’s this mysterious moment when we stand on the edge of the boat of whatever situation we find in our lives, and God’s like, “Just trust me. I know physics says this is impossible. I know science says this is not possible. Trust me.”

And this is the movement of faith. We step into the water. But fear says, “You could drown. You could die.” I think in our culture, what I find so interesting that fear is doing, is we are so afraid, we are so fearful that we might offend people, that we are willing to offend God. We’re so worried, “Well, what if we offend somebody.” I’ll just make it easy for you. You will. You’re going to offend people if you follow Jesus.

But so many of us are like, “I can’t live that way. I can’t say that thing. I can’t really, truly abide by all the scripture is saying. I mean, bits and pieces of course. But not all of it, because, if do that, I’ll offend people.” And in that process I’m willing to offend God but I’m not willing to offend others. That is another altar at a high place.

That is the opposite of what God is inviting you into. Because fear is where false gods come from. It’s a false god in your life that you’ve maybe created, because instead of being guided by the Spirit of God who inspired the scriptures of God, we are led by the hand of a fearful culture that we were called to do a transformation over. Right? This is heavy stuff. But we have to face ourselves. We have to deal with ourselves.

This is why Isaiah 53:6 says, “We all, like sheep, have gone astray. Each of us has turned” – what? “To our own way.”

What I want to propose to you is this: Fear God and fear not. Fear God and fear not. Do you know this is a beautiful thing in scripture. This fear not thing is a gift that God gives to us. In fact, he gave it to us in the scriptures 365 times. Do you know why? Because he wants you to wake up every single morning reminding yourself that you were bought with a price. You are a precious son and daughter of the most high God. You carry the commission in your bloodstream, made to go help people come to see Jesus. Fear God and fear not in this world.

We are unstoppable in this world when we live this way. But when we become just like everybody else, because fear has emasculated the gospel, we miss out on the mission and the joy of what it is to join Jesus, his hands and feet in this world reaching. So fear not. Fear God and fear not.

I want this image in your head. Psalm 23. Say this with me. There are enemies all around us. And what are we doing? We’re at a table with the Good Shepherd. You can hear all the voices. “Don’t do that.” “You can’t do this.” “Go this way.” “Do you know that you could get this?” “If you don’t have this…” “If you don’t vote for this…” They’re all around you. You can hear all the voices. And it’s just you and God laughing hysterically and enjoying a meal. Because he makes a banquet table in the midst of our enemies, because he’s a good God, he’s a Good Shepherd and he’s leading his people into the Promised Land. Not just for ourselves, but for the sake of others. But if we’re so fearful, we’re going to miss out on the calling that he gave to us, which is to have life and life to the fullest.

The second thing that I see that individualism breeds, and what we see with Jeroboam, is convenience. He goes, “Don’t go all the way to Jerusalem.” Like it’s so far away. “Let me make it easy for you. Let me make it easy for you.”

You know what I have found that historically the easier things have become, the farther we have moved away from God; because we can get whatever what we want just like that. I can go on an app and I can order whatever I want whenever I want how I want it when I want it. And so I just went like this, “I bet God works the same way. I bet I can do that with my Christian faith. Just make it convenient. Because it is all about me.” And what we’ve done in the process is replaced our theology for me-ology, and made it all about us instead of all about God. Our lives, as Christians, are not about convenience. It’s about crucifixion. “I am crucified with Christ,” Paul says, “Nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me. He’s literally doing the opposite of what Jeroboam did, where it’s like, “I did this. I made it. I happen.” Paul’s going, “I need to die to all that.” And dying is inconvenient.

Ryan brought this up and it triggered in my brain, I realize I really struggle with Good Friday. I’m trying to get past Good Friday as fast as I can to get to Easter Sunday. Because that’s where the party is. He is risen! Everything’s great now, right? But at Good Friday, I get to deal with what I did to Jesus, how I’ve betrayed God. And I don’t want to deal with. Are you with me? I don’t want to deal with my sin, my depravity. I want all the good stuff. I want convenience, happiness, all the good stuff. I don’t want to deal with the fact that my sin put him there. I don’t want to deal with that. So get past Good Friday and go to Easter. That’s easier, more convenient.

And I struggle with that. Maybe you do too. Because convenience will always be in conflict with the cross. Always. And it’s what we’re being invited, not only to die to ourselves, but also commissioned to help other people do the same thing. It crushes our evangelism. It crushes our calling in this life.

So what’s the answer? Matthew 6:33 says this. This is something I write in my journal every single morning because I have to because I might forget. “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you.” Make it all about Jesus. Make it all about his kingdom. Make it all about his power, his joy, his peace, his love.

Then what happens in that mistrial exchange? Everything we’ve been longing for, hoping for, desiring for comes to fruition. But it comes to fruition in the person of Jesus, not in what I want, how I want it, when I get it.

This is where Jeroboam fails. It says in 1 Kings 14:9, because he led the people astray:

9 You have done more evil than all who lived before you. You have made for yourself other gods, idols made of metal; you have aroused my anger and turned your back on me.

May we not do that, church. Because of our individualism, because of the fear that we feel so deep in our soul that Satan keeps sparking day after day, because of the convenience that we desire that’s become a part of our ethos, the way we think, the way we act.

Jeroboam’s legacy, as we talk about it thousands of years later, is that he led a people astray. He had an opportunity to call them to be who God wanted them to be, and instead he created a counter-gospel. He will be ever known as the man who led Israel away into conflict, not blessing, but curse. That’s what happens when we release God’s will and we take up our own.

But here’s the beautiful thing that scripture always does. Scripture is always about redemption. And where Jeroboam failed, come on let’s preach, where Jeroboam failed, Jesus succeeded. Where our sin kept us in the grave, Jesus resurrected from the grave. Our eternity is heaven because Jesus, the King of kings and Lord of lords, loved us enough to lay down his life to come to us. Emmanuel, God with us, gave his life so that we could be set free, which has now commissioned us to be the people of God for the glory of God. This is what we’re being invited into. This is how beautiful, where mankind fails, Jesus wins. We are the people of Jesus, called to live this out in our lives.

I know it’s not easy. I want you to know, I know your pastoral staff here, it is so weighty to be up here. I have to deal with me first. Sometimes a bunch of people think, just because I get up here and speak, that I’ve got this all figured out. And I don’t. I don’t. I’m struggling so deeply to find the grace and mercy that covers a multitude of sins. It’s not easy. I don’t have it all figured out. But I am obediently, to the best of my ability, following after Jesus. And when I fail, I repent.

I would invite you into the same thing, invite you to the same journey that I’m trying to do as a believer in Jesus Christ, to the best of my ability. It’s not easy. And what David’s been talking about the last few weeks—not easy. But so important because this is a turning point for the local church, in my opinion. This is an opportunity for us to regain what it means to be a city on a hill for the world to see that he is the King. He is the King. All the power, all the glory, all the honor belongs to him. But we get to display that and live that in our lives daily.

I told you about my son nine years ago. He was diagnosed with leukemia as an eight year old. Walk into the hospital, and their marketing department must have done a whole rebrand. We walk in and the first thing is “It’s all about you.” That seems appropriate, right? You have a little kid that’s going through cancer. Like, “It’s all about you, buddy. It’s all about you.”

There’s nothing that could be more toxic to an eight-year-old heart, or to your heart or to my heart than to hear, “It’s all about you.” So we feel like we did everything we possibly could do. “Buddy, it’s not about you. It’s not about you.”

It’s not about you. I know it’s painful. I know it’s hard. It’s not about you. It’s about Jesus and entering into his suffering, in selflessly suffering to serve other people. Do what you’re going to do. It’s difficult. It’s not convenient. And it takes a whole lot of faith to go through. It was so painful. But we were doing everything we could to help him not believe it was all about him.

The thousands of children that have come before my son who have died so that he could have life, so he could have the protocol, the treatment, the chemo. Thousands of kids had to die. How dangerous for me to tell my son, “It’s all about you.” How dangerous for you, the carriers of the cross, the good news of Jesus Christ, for you to believe that it’s all about you, that life is all about you, your hopes and your dreams. It is all about Jesus. It will always be about Jesus. That will liberate you. It’s going to liberate you. It’s going to liberate you to live like Jesus.

As I sat in my home hospital room three weeks after getting a diagnosis of cancer, the doctor said, “I don’t use words like this. But you’re healed. It’s gone. As doctors we don’t have a lot of words for this.”

“I do. It’s a miracle.” Because he’s rescued my life. He’s trying to get my attention. “I want that altar. That’s my rightful place. You keep putting other people’s opinions and your lack of identity in that. I want you and I want all of you.”

He wants all of you. He wants all of you. He loves you so much. So I want to slow down and I want to invite you into something, something Joshua did before he dies. He was a father, he fathered these people. And he says this to them. And I want you to slow down. I know I’ve been ramping up. I want you to slow down and I want you to hear these words from Joshua, but I want you to hear them from theLord. I want you to trust the Spirit of God in your life right now that he is speaking to you.

Joshua 24:14-15 (ESV):

14 “Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord

Put away social media, the fear of social media. Put away the fear of whatever the news is trying to tell you. Whatever political system is trying to tell you. Put away those fathers that you serve beyond the rivers and in Egypt.

15 And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites…

…or the gods of Hollywood, the gods of power and wealth in the institutions all across this world that tell you you need to achieve more, you’ve got to do more, you’ve got to be more…

…in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

We will serve the Lord. Choose today who you will serve. You can’t serve both. No man can serve two masters. Today is a day where we receive the gift and the grace that Jesus has given to us through his death and his resurrection. We say amen. We choose today to live in light of that. Don’t abuse it. Choose to live in light of the fact that he paid the price, the ultimate price, for you to be alive. He knit you together in your mother’s womb, not so you could have a good life, but so that you could have a God life. So that you could be his hands and his feet in this world, sharing this good news that will transform people’s lives. When people’s lives transform, cities transforms. And when cities transform, states transform. And when states transform, countries transform. And when countries transform, the world transforms. Right?

Because this is the work that Jesus has been doing, that God has been doing from the beginning of time and he’s inviting you into today. Choose today whom you will serve. But as for this church and the leadership here, we’re going to serve the Lord. May he invite you into that. May you be convicted by the Spirit of God, who today will you serve? Will you serve all the other gods? Or will you serve the King of kings and the Lord of lords for his glory and his honor, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. And God’s church said, Amen.

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David Stockton 3/7/21 David Stockton 3/7/21

A Divided Heart

Series: A Kingdom Divided
March 7, 2021 - David Stockton

Good morning. It’s very, very, very encouraging to see people here after the last two weeks of messages. Uneasy laughter. It makes sense. It’s been a bit dicey the last couple of weeks. We’ve been going through First Kings. We’re getting a heavy dose of something. And I really am thankful that people are coming to hear God’s word. I’m thankful for the people who are encouraging me. Because you know that I’m just kind of trying to do my best. I’m not perfect in any way and don’t have all this stuff figured out. But I’m trying to really dissect what our cultural moment is describing to us as a vision for God’s righteousness; and trying to get into the biblical narrative and find out what is really a vision for God’s righteousness—against what is popular in our culture, and maybe what is against what’s going on in our own souls and minds.

I don’t claim to be good at it or perfect at it in any way. But I’m doing my best. And thankfully, we have the word of God. I have some people that I’m able to process with. I really do feel like the messages that I’ve been preaching really do represent our elder team and our leadership team here, our staff, all of those things. So I feel good about all of that. But I also know that words can go different ways and they can hit people in different ways. So I’m also thankful for all the people who have been engaging in some dialogue with me through email, saying, “I heard you say this. I want to unpack that a little bit and make sure I’m hearing what you’re saying.”

I know there are people who are deciding whether they really want to stick with Living Streams or not. Because we’re really kind of drawing some lines that are not super popular in society today. So some people are deciding to move on. And I don’t blame them, you know, if that’s what they feel; because we’re not going to adjust or budge or try and let the culture dictate what we preach or what the word of God says. We’re going to let the word of God interpret our culture for us. It’s interesting. I do feel a lot of encouragement. The most encouragement I feel is when someone is actually willing to dialogue. So if you’re thinking about leaving or thinking about saying, “I can’t be here anymore,” I totally understand. But I would like to be able to have a conversation before you go, just to make sure we are dividing over what we are actually dividing over, and not just that you heard something strange or weird that I was saying. Because I know I can mess up too.

That being said, thanks for being here. Hopefully we’ll see you next week. We’re still in First Kings. We’re going to be going through First Kings again, we’ve been looking at this super, super ancient, near-eastern document that’s been preserved for all this time. It’s very old. It’s very outdated. It’s a very different cultur. All of these things. And yet, we think it’s the inspired word of God and has a lot to say to us, because people really aren’t that different from the way they’ve always been. We have the same problems and challenges.

We’ve seen lots of connections from First Kings. There are uneasy transfers of power, which is something we’ve experienced in America. There are debates and divisions over taxes. Again, America. There’s lots of division over political issues. They’re building a wall, which is fun. And it’s a time in Israel’s history where there is tons of prosperity. Prominence, prosperity, world power, all of that is going on. And that’s what we’re experiencing.

At the same time this is going on, the writer, who most likely is Jeremiah, is recording for us a lot of the idolatry that was taking place in the midst of the prosperity. So I think we’re experiencing right now in America, that all of our prosperity has led us to some forms of idolatry in our nation, that displeases God.

So this prophet was writing to his people in his day to try to warn them to not fall into these traps. I’m using this book and we’re trying to warn ourselves from the same traps, so we don’t fall into some of those things. There was a continuous redefining God and what worship is to be. We’ve described that in our context, we have a cross up here. In their day, they had the worship of Yahweh, the God that brought them out of Egypt and made them into a nation, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and on and on. So they would worship Yahweh.

But over time they decided that they didn’t just want to worship Yahweh. All the other nations around them had other gods, as well. So they decided, “Maybe if we worship Yahweh and the other gods, we’ll get like double, triple love. We’ll get triple the blessings. We’ll get it all.” So they began to bring in things like Baal worship. They began to bring in things like Asherah poles. They never took down the cross, so to speak. They just started adding other things to their worship.

What they didn’t realize is that the God of the Bible, Yahweh, is a very jealous God. Not in the petty, junior high type jealousy. But in the idea of a woman who’s married to a man and all of a sudden he decides he wants to bring in other women to the relationship. The jealousy that she would feel for her husband would be righteous and right. Saying, “This is not right.” And God himself is the source of that righteous jealousy. God says, “No. I’m not going to stand here and let you add other gods to the worship of Me. You get Me or you get nothing.”

That’s ultimately what happened in Israel’s history. Jeremiah, as he was prophesying, he was called The Weeping Prophet because people kept going, “Eh, you’re annoying.” He kept prophesying and they were like, “Hey, throw him in prison.” He kept prophesy and they’d say, “Hey, put him in a pit. That way we can’t hear him anymore. Just leave him in a pit for a while.”

He was the weeping prophet because he was prophesying as he watched this unfold before his eyes, as people continued to practice idolatry and, ultimately the nation of Israel was completely destroyed, in just a few hundred years.

America, where are you? America, are you willing to listen? We’re coming up on a few hundred years. And where are we going to be?

I don’t know how to change America. I can pray for it, we can reach out, we can do all of those things. But what we really want to do is make sure none of those things show up inside our church, inside our fellowship and our family. So we’re going to preach about it.

Tim Keller wrote a book called Counterfeit Gods, as he was trying to help the church in America understand culturally what the idolatry of today is. Some of the things that he said is:

An idol is something we cannot live without. We must have it, therefore it drives us to break rules we once honored to harm others, even ourselves, in order to get it…

So it’s basically these things we used to hold as true and right, we now want these other things and these things are standing in our way, so we just kind of put those to the side. Maybe something like this right here (bible). It’s happening today. Sorry if that freaked you out super bad. Just trying to make a point. But it came out a little bit abrupt.

…An idol is anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God, anything you seek to give you what only God can give, anything that is so central and essential to your life, that should you lose it, your life would feel hardly worth living.

The first thing that came to my mind was the song “Driver’s License.” Sorry. If you don’t know what that is, good. You’re good.

…If I have that, then I will feel like my life has meaning, then I’ll know I have value, and I’ll feel significant and secure.

The “that,” which he is referring to are the idols in our lives. Some people that I’ve been asking recently, “What are you seeing as the idols of our day,”:

“Comfort, convenience, safety and security.” Tyler Johnson, who’s a pastor here in Phoenix. He says, “Those are the idols of our day.”
Tim Keller, in his book Counterfeit Gods, talks bout “Money, sex and power,” being the idols of our day.
Dan Riccio says, “Self,” (uh-oh, that one gets to the point), “Self is an idol in our day. Sex, money, power, acclaim, security,” are the idols of our day. We want those things even more than we want God.We’re willing to compromise even what God has asked of us in order to get those things.

Then one of the things that I feel has been important for me to bring out, and this is just me, I only came up with one, those other guys had a bunch of items, but our desires. I think that’s the idolatry of America today. But I think that’s the idolatry that’s sneaking into our churches. Somehow we’re allowing our desires to dictate what is right and wrong.

You hear it in society. “You do you.” You know, whatever you want, that’s what you should be, that’s who you should be. But our desires do not belong on the throne of our lives. That’s one of the reasons why we keep this cross up here. Yes, to remind us of what Jesus did for us, the sacrifice that he paid so that we never have to fear God ever again. We never have to fear death ever again. But also as a reminder to us that ninety-nine, (I’ve been saying ninety, I’m going up to ninety-nine now)—ninety-nine percent of following Jesus is denying ourselves, taking up our cross, and following him. Denying ourselves means: Do not give in to disordered desires. We are constantly battling between what is a desire that is within us that is of God, and what is a desire within us that is not of God. And we deny the ones that are disordered. And we live into the ones that are not. This is very hard stuff. It’s very hard stuff. I’m not saying it’s easy. I’m not saying, “Oh, just go do it.” It’s very hard stuff. And that’s why he was a weeping prophet.

So 1 Kings 11. Let’s jump in here:

11 King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women besides Pharaoh’s daughter—Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians and Hittites. 2 They were from nations about which the Lord had told the Israelites, “You must not intermarry with them, because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods.” Nevertheless, Solomon held fast to them in love.
Idolatry. He called it love.
3 He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray. 4 As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father had been. 5 He followed Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and Molek the detestable god of the Ammonites. 6 So Solomon did evil in the eyes of the Lord; he did not follow the Lord completely, as David his father had done.
7 On a hill east of Jerusalem, Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the detestable god of Moab, and for Molek the detestable god of the Ammonites. 8 He did the same for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and offered sacrifices to their gods.

Wow. We’re in a different place here. Last week we were reading 1 Kings 3, where Solomon prays this beautiful prayer. God is asking Solomon, “I’ll give you anything. What do you want?” And instead of asking for all the idolatry-type things, Solomon says, “God, can you give me a heart that listens to you? I don’t want to even have a heart that knows the truth, so to speak, because then I might put myself on the throne and decide what is true and right.” He said, “Could you just give me a heart that listens to you, that can hear you? Because you’re the only one that sees clearly. You’re the only one that should be on the throne.”

Hallelujah! It’s a beautiful, beautiful prayer. We should be praying it every day because we live in a crazy world.

And then we get to see the display of that, where Solomon was able to bring absolute justice, beautiful, righteous justice into a very troubling, street-level justice issue between two prostitutes and one baby. And it was just awesome. And everyone who got to see it was so refreshed that justice and truth could happen in our day. And it was just awesome.

Then, that’s chapter 3. Chapter 3 through 10 you just get to see that Solomon’s bringing out the wisdom. He’s executing justice. He’s ordering Israel in such a way that is causing the most flourishing and freedom for everybody there. The nations around them, instead of warring with them, they send delegations to sit at the feet of Solomon, just to listen to what he might have to say, so that they could experience a little bit of the freedom and flourishing that came through the Judeo ethic.

Solomon builds the temple for the Lord. Solomon builds a palace for himself. Solomon built a wall around Jerusalem. And it starts to describe all of the grain that was brought to Solomon every day because of all the fruitfulness of all the fields. Then it describes all of the flour that was brought in for his table as they made all the food for all the people. Then he talks bout all the gold that was brought in as tribute from other nations, and the wealth and the prominence and the prosperity. It was amazing. Actually, the title of the last chunk of scripture in chapter 10 is “Solomon’s Splendor.” It’s beautiful what the Lord had done, and what Solomon and the people of Israel were experiencing.

And then the weeping prophet, who’s recording for us a little bit of what happened, he says, “However, Solomon loved many foreign women besides Pharaoh’s daughter.” There was a disordered desire within Solomon that was not in line with decrees and statutes and commands of God. And Solomon went for it.

Maybe he thought: I’m doing everything else the Lord is asking me to do. What’s the problem with this one little one? He wasn’t willing to deal with the “little foxes” like we talked about two weeks ago.

And I don’t think that when Solomon married Pharaoh’s daughter, the first one, I don’t think he thought, All right. One down and 999 to go. I don’t think that was the vision that he had. I don’t think he thought, I’ll marry Pharaoh’s daughter and then I’ll marry a whole bunch of others. Just like those who get married don’t come to the altar and profess their vows to each other thinking, Maybe. Even though half of them, so to speak, end in divorce. I don’t think half of them are going, Yeah, we’ll see how this goes.

But little foxes come in and then other little foxes, other little foxes. So Solomon basically made one decision of compromise, sexually. And it led to another and another and another and another and another and another and another. Because sin is never satisfied. Sex is never satisfied. And many of us sitting in this room or listening online can think about the one time we made a compromise and how many more compromises it led to, until, ultimately, you’re in bondage.

Solomon, the wisest person of all—he fell in this way. And he ended up with a thousand wives. Well, seven hundred of royal birth wives, and then three hundred concubines, which are basically illegitimate wives. Because he decided to go for one.

Not only that, but then he decided to keep those wives happy. He started building high places of worship. He built the temple for Yahweh and then he started building temples for all the other gods. Just in case you don’t quite understand historically what it means to build a high place of worship for another god, the gods that were described in here—basically what was happening was Solomon built the correct form of Yahweh and a temple for that. Then he built these other temples.

These other temples, a lot of them had to do with fertility, these gods. It was an agrerian society. So if you wanted your lands to be fertile, if you wanted your family to be fertile, your wives to be fertile, then you would pray to these gods and they would cause your lands to be fertile, which was a really important deal when you’re trying to grow stuff. And your wives to be fertile was really important if you want to survive—have people to work the fields, maybe.

So a lot of these gods had this kind of concept. “If you worship me then you will be prosperous. You’ll be fertile.” But what they required as worship was for you to give up your sexuality, to give up your virginity. Practicing worship for these gods, had oftentimes going and linking yourself with a temple prostitute of some sort. Or giving up your virginity to one of these priests or priestesses. And if you offer that sacrifice, then this god will bless you with fertility. Sex became rampant.

Then, sad to say, others of these gods were gods that actually required human sacrifice. One tradition talks about the god Molek described here as this statue of iron that had a head of an ox of some sort. He would have his arms out and then inside the belly was this hollowed out thing where they would build a fire. That fire would warm up the iron and warm up the hands until it was red hot. Then they would come and lay their babies on his hands and watch their babies burn up as a sacrifice so that they could be fertile.

This is what Solomon produced in Israel. And Israel never recovered until it was destroyed. And if we don’t think we have a sex problem in America, if we don’t think we’ve created an idol out of sex and the compromise and the giving of ourselves in all these different sexual ways, we’re so blind. And, sad to say, what Solomon probably didn’t even know until he saw it was the sexual kind of reality of all this idolatry ultimately led to the killing of babies. If we don’t think we have that problem in our society, we’re blind as well. Our lust, our giving over to sexual desires that are disordered and outside the context of scriptures, has not led to a little, it’s led to a lot of damage for our society. Sad to say, it’s led to a lot of damage for a generation of unborn.

And we get to see it in Solomon’s day and you get to hear the weeping prophet Jeremiah say, “Please wake up.” We get to read the scriptures and there’s so much detail about sex in the Bible. And whenever sex is done outside the context of one man and one woman, it does not lead to anything good. It leads to destruction. And most often it’s not even the destruction of the person, it’s the destruction of the people that come after them.

The scariest thing about sin is you get to choose your sin, but you don’t get to choose the consequence. And even scarier than that is you don’t get to choose who gets the consequence. Most often it’s the ones that go after you. It’s the ones who you love the most that suffer. That’s true in Solomon’s day, as well.

Now you see why I’m thankful that people keep showing up. I’m just saying things and…yeah.

This is our reality. This is us. We read about Solomon and you’re like, “Yeah, that’s me, except for all the rich and smart stuff.” The way Paul describes it in the New Testament, is he actually describes a war going on inside of us. He uses the word war when he describes the battle between our spirit and our flesh. Our ordered desires and our disordered desires. It’s a war. It’s a challenge. It’s a difficulty. It’s something that causes pain and frustration and agony and sleepless nights and prayers and groanings within us.

If we’re honest, we all know that war. We have a nature inside of us that was given to us from Adam that wants to go against the things of God. And those of us who have given our life to Christ, we now have the Spirit inside of us who is compelling us to go toward the things of Christ. But it’s a war. It’s a battle.

Just the other day I was with a family, and one of their daughters who is young, it was so funny because she wanted to say something that was going to be like gossipy. She wanted to say something about what everyone was saying about this person; and the mom was like, “No.” And she was like, “Well, let me just…” “No!” “But, what…” “No!” It was just like, what is happening here? She could not keep it in. It was like she needed to say this juicy morsel of gossip so bad. And her mom was just cutting it off. And I was like, This is so interesting. Then it was funny because she finally stopped and the mom was like, “As soon as we go inside later she’s going to still say it.” Like she can’t help it. It’s the way it is within us. It’s alive in us. It was alive in Solomon.

That is truth. All that we’ve been saying these last few weeks, this is the truth we need to hear. God is setting before us a blessing and a curse. If you walk in this way you will be free. You will flourish in the things of God, and you will be setting up your children and the generations to come for prosperity and goodness in the Lord.

This is true. We have to hear this. We have to know this. But, thanks be to God that there’s more to the story to who our God is. He’s full of truth and he’s full of grace. And as I was reading, I stumbled across something that I want us all to hear. It’s so important. I’m so excited about this.

9 The Lord became angry with Solomon because his heart had turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice. 10 Although he had forbidden Solomon to follow other gods, Solomon did not keep the Lord’s command. 11 So the Lord said to Solomon, “Since this is your attitude and you have not kept my covenant and my decrees, which I commanded you, I will most certainly tear the kingdom away from you and give it to one of your subordinates. 12 Nevertheless, for the sake of David your father, I will not do it during your lifetime. I will tear it out of the hand of your son. 13 Yet I will not tear the whole kingdom from him, but will give him one tribe for the sake of David my servant and for the sake of Jerusalem, which I have chosen.”

So God visited Solomon again, finding him in all of this idolatry, going from a discerning heart to a divided heart, leading his people into all of this disgusting, detestable idolatry, paving the way for pain and agony for his children and the children of Israel. And God comes to him because he hates sin and what it does. He says, “Solomon, I’m going to have to punish you and I’m going to tear the kingdom away from you. Nevertheless, I’m not going to do it in your lifetime, for the sake of David. But I’m going to tear it from your son. Yet, I’m not going to tear it all from him, for the sake of David.”

If God was just all about truth, Solomon would be over. And to be honest, humanity would be over already, as well. But the God of the Bible is very peculiar. The God of the Bible is very scandalous, because there’s this razor’s edge to his character that’s described in Exodus 34. He is for sure not going to leave the guilty unpunished. But he is also abounding in mercy and kindness and faithfulness. And he loves to forgive.

In this chapter we get to see the nature of God. He’s disgusted and heartbroken over the idolatry and what it’s going to produce and what it’s going to cost—not just for Solomon, but for his children. And that stuff does play out. There are consequences to sin every single time. There is pleasure in sin for a season, but then it’s destruction. And sad to say, it’s not just destruction for you. It’s also for the ones you love. But, at the same time, God always is full of grace and mercy.

Here it is in the Old Testament. We see a little bit of a picture of a New Testament principle. When God says, “For the sake of David, Solomon you’re going to escape punishment. For the sake of David, Solomon, the promise that I made that David will always have someone sit on the throne will remain intact. And, sure enough, that promise did remain intact all the way until there was one born of the seed of David, or the line of David. His name was Jesus. He’s become King that reigns forevermore.

What the New Testament picks up right there is kind of bouncing off this. For the sake of David, Solomon escaped punishment and received the promise. And for the sake of Jesus Christ, everyone who believes in him escapes punishment and receives the full promise of God. This is the way Paul says it in Romans 5:

18 Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people. 19 For just as through the disobedience of the one man…

Now, Paul’s talking about Adam, but you could also talk about Solomon—or you could put your own name in there.

For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous. 20 The law was brought in so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, 21 so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Message translation (MSG) says it this way:

18-19 Here it is in a nutshell: Just as one person did it wrong and got us in all this trouble with sin and death, …

That’s you and me and Adam and Solomon.

…another person did it right and got us out of it….

That’s Jesus.

…But more than just getting us out of trouble, he got us into life! One man said no to God and put many people in the wrong; one man said yes to God and put many in the right.
20-21 All that passing laws against sin did was produce more lawbreakers. But sin didn’t, and doesn’t, have a chance in competition with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace. When it’s sin versus grace, grace wins hands down. All sin can do is threaten us with death, and that’s the end of it. Grace, because God is putting everything together again through the Messiah, invites us into life—a life that goes on and on and on, world without end.

For the sake of David, Solomon escaped punishment and the promise stayed intact. And for the sake of Jesus, you and I, who have the same heart as Solomon, you and I who have stories of divorce, you and I who have stories of sexual immorality, you and I who have story after story of compromise, of little foxes, you and I that can think of all the times we blew it, which led to all the times we blew it, you and I who have no right to escape the punishment for our sins, and you and I who have no right to the full promise of God, which is that we are co-heirs with Christ of everything.

The promise of God is that you and I get everything that God wants to give Jesus. You and I get to experience the full realization of the promise of God, which comes in “kingdom come.” You and I get to know the resurrection life that Jesus brought into our world. And you and I also get to know the redemption that God can do, where he even takes our most heinous and disgusting sins and produces something good through them.

This is the scandal. The more you sin, the more God’s grace comes to you. The more you sin, the more God’s forgiveness is for you. In fact, God, in some ways Paul is saying, go ahead and try him if you want. Go ahead and test it if you want. You cannot outdo God’s love, grace and forgiveness. Even the sins you haven’t committed yet God has already provided grace and forgiveness for that. Your unrighteousness, no matter how hard you try, or no matter how badly you fail because you’re trying to do right, will never be more powerful than the righteousness and forgiveness and grace of God.

The very next thing Paul is saying after this is: Should we sin that grace may abound? God forbid! But he has to say that because, basically, he was saying the more you sin the more grace will abound. But he said don’t go that way because you also need to understand that your righteousness can produce life just like your wickedness can produce death. So be about the righteousness.

But when you fall and when you fail, and all of us sitting in this room or sitting at home, we are right now before God sinners. We are right now before God facing the wrath that he has against sin because we’re sinners. Yet, if we link ourselves to Christ, then he will come and, instead of giving us the punishment, he’ll apply it to the cross where Jesus took it. Instead of disqualifying us from the promise, he’ll apply the blood of Jesus to us, which includes us into the promise. This is the scandalous mystery of God’s grace that is for you and me, no matter what we have done, and the truth is, no matter what we’re going to do.

Paul, in 1 Corinthians 6, says, Don’t you know that you are temples of the living God? His Spirit is inside of you. And if you were going to go join yourself to a prostitute, in some sick way you would be joining together God and the prostitute. You need to understand this is what you are doing.

As I was kind of unpacking that in my mind, and as we were singing that song about Egypt today, I just felt the Lord was saying, “David, the ones you’re praying for, the ones you know that are filled with my Spirit and yet they’re kind of going off,” he said, “I want you to know that I’m going with them.” It broke my heart. Not because of what these people are doing in their foolishness or deception, but because of how much God loves them. That he’s willing to even go into the sickness, into the depravity, into the detestable things in order to be one step away from them, so that the minute they turn around like that prodigal, he’s right there with open arms.

Basically, he was saying, “Hey, David, my holiness can handle whatever sin someone might throw at me.” There is a lot more to unpack there and we don’t have the time. But I just want you to know that God is with you, and he will go to the ends of the earth. He will go into whatever you take him into in order to be one step away from your salvation and your redemption, and to get you back into the promise that he so longs to give you and the generations after you.

Let’s pray. It’s always important for us to remember that when we say, “Let’s pray,” at Living Streams we don’t necessarily mean let’s say some more words. Prayer really is more about listening than talking. So I want to create this time of response right now where we can listen to the Spirit of God and see what he’s saying to the church today. His Spirit alone knows how to make correct application in each of our lives. The Spirit alone knows how to bring conviction instead of condemnation into our hearts. So please don’t hear anything I have to say. Just listen to what the Spirit is saying.

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Guest User 8/4/19 Guest User 8/4/19

Keep Chasing Jesus

Good morning, friends! It’s good to be back. I got all my family in a big, white van and we conquered Texas. Drove across the belly of the beast. It was fun. We hung out with some friends. And now we’re back.

We’re going to finish up our Generational Blessing series today. Hope you enjoyed some of my pastor-preacher friends the last couple of weeks. And this is John Youngstrom. He has been our executive director over everything, administration, facilities. Facilities is what he’s one a lot with us.

David Stockton
Series: Generational Blessing

We’re going to finish up our Generational Blessing series today. Hope you enjoyed some of my pastor-preacher friends the last couple of weeks. And this is John Youngstrom. He has been our executive director over everything: administration, facilities. Facilities is what he’s done a lot with us.

As you noticed, we had videos of people sharing what the Lord has done over the seasons of their lives. John is too macho for videos. He doesn’t believe in that stuff. Not really, I’m just making that up.

But he’s going to give us a little taste The Lord is stirring some stuff in his heart. He’s going to share that and what the Lord has done over the generation of his life.

John Youngstrom:

When I was twenty years old, I was newly married to Amy. We were in the Air Force. We both became Christians about a week apart. The thing that really burned in my heart was to know Jesus, to hear his voice. Throughout the whole Bible, we can see the Lord talking to people and directing people. And I’m like, “I want that for me.”
We’re no different than anybody in the Bible. Jesus says in John 10:27 that, if we’re his sheep, we’re going to hear his voice. And then we run from him, right? No. It says we will follow him. That’s my heart’s desire.
Being in the military, about every four years or so, we had a decision to make about reenlisting or taking a new assignment. We would always pray about it. There were times when we said “no,” and times when we said, “yes,” and different things like that.
So, after around thirty-three years in the Air Force, we were retiring. We were vacationing here and met with the Buckleys. The Buckleys are the founding pastors. We had gone here in the 1980’s and we had a relationship with them. He said, “Hey, you should come work for us. You should come be our facilities director.”
Our hearts leaped. It was something we were praying about, what we were going to do. And the Lord led us out to Phoenix. We just plunged in. We didn’t put our toes in to see what Living Streams was like. We just did a cannonball in here. And this place has been so gracious to us—you guys and all the people we work with. Just wonderful. And we’ve grown a lot. My wife has blossomed. I’ve blossomed in just all kinds of ministry.
About a year ago, I started getting stirred in my spirit. I’m like, “Lord, what are you doing?” Kind of like in the Old Testament when the cloud would start to lift. You know, there were like a million Israelites. East, west, north and south. And the cloud would start to lift, and they’re like, “We’re moving again. Go through the stuff. We’re going to have to start back.” And they’d take all this time to get everything together. And they’re putting together the poles, put it through the ark, you know.
And the cloud hadn’t left yet. Well, about three weeks ago, we were visiting my parents in Missouri and it became pretty clear to her, then me, that my parents are in their nineties. They need some help. We feel called to go assist them. You know, older people are not like kids. You know one day your kids are going to get potty trained. It goes the other direction. And you’re like, “Mom’s never going to get it back.”
And that’s a big task, but we feel like the Lord’s leading us back there. So that stirring and getting ready, which we didn’t know as I watched the Lord add pieces to Living Streams, raise up people out of the congregation, raise up people that work here to help me do different things. And it’s like there’s a person involved in everything I’m doing. So, it’s not like there’s going to be a big hole. There’s going to be like tug-of-war, you notice when someone’s not pulling, but it’s not going to be a rout or anything. The Lord’s really good.
So, we’re moving to Missouri when we sell our house. So we’re going through our stuff. It’s one of these deals. I say, “Can I throw this away, honey? You don’t need this anymore.” And she says, “Can I go through your tools?” And I said, “Keep it.” That’s where we’re at. And you guys are a real blessing to us.

David Stockton:

All right. Thanks, John. Amy, will you come on up. John and Amy have been awesome in a million different ways. They have really invested, like he said. It’s neat to see what they’ve done. John, on the practical side. He’s obviously cared for the facility—saved us lots and lots of money. Got a lot of systems up to date. And Amy, first service, when I said, “Amy, would you come up here,” she went “gasp.” It’s not her favorite thing. But she has definitely taken up the torch for us in prayer and prayed for us, and sends me emails all the time to encourage and tell me what the Lord’s been saying.

It’s going to be a gap, for sure. But when they were telling me this, and when I was thinking about what God’s trying to cultivate in our hearts through this sermon series is exactly this. Not that everyone is supposed to move—please don’t! But just that they would hear the call of the Lord to something like this and feel like God cares just as much about this as he does, maybe doing some big mission or church plant. There’s all these great things, but I think this is beautiful as well in the economy of heaven, that they are going to go care for John’s parents and be there for them.

We’re going to pray a blessing on them and obviously you can talk to them after the service about any of that stuff.

Lord, Jesus, I thank you so much for these two. I thank you for what they have placed in our hearts. I thank you for this last five years of assignment that they’ve had. And I thank you that you’ve given them a new assignment. I thank you that, in retirement, they’ve received more challenging assignments from you than not in retirement. And I just think that’s beautiful, Lord. And I pray that they would continue to have the strength, the hope and the patience to keep chasing you, to keep chasing your presence, chasing your glory. And I pray that there would be a great, big, generational blessing that is imparted to them and all the people they care about as they go on this task. And I pray that there would be a lot of joy in it. I thank you for them, Lord. And keep changing our hearts into the hearts that please you. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Thank you, guys. I think it’s so honorable what’s going on there.

The Bible is very clear that we’re all going to die someday. And there are a lot of people who don’t believe the Bible tells the truth. But on this one, it’s not that hard to go with the Bible because everybody dies. It’s been going on for a while. And yet, the Bible has a different perspective about death that I think it fits with our Generational Blessing. Psalms says that it’s precious in the eyes of the Lord every time one of his faithful servants dies. Paul said, “To live is Christ and to die is gain.”

We all know this kind of Easter verse that says, “Where, O grave, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” Because Jesus has come to take all of the darkness, danger and sting and pain out of death, when he rose from the dead. And our life here in this context, in this season, in this frame, is very short and small and brief. In James, it says that our lives are just a vapor. There it was. Gone. In light of eternity. In light of the life that God has planned for us after this life—the next life. If that is everlasting, and you compare that to what these seventy, eighty, ninety years are, this is so brief, so small. And death is actually a graduation.

What the Bible also teaches about death is that it is appointed once for a person to die, then after that comes judgment. And the grace of God, and the cross of Christ, hopefully, is permeating enough to where we’re starting to understand that, when God talks about judgment, he’s actually wanting to judge you so he can find the good in you, so that he can reward you. That’s God’s primary reason for judgment. To get you from Kindergarten to first grade, or wherever you might be at. That’s what the judging is. That’s what the testing is. He’s wanting you to bring you to the new next place.

And yet, it is true that God’s judgement does come toward wickedness, rebellion and sin, no doubt about it. And it’s heavy and painful. But if we’re really honest, we actually want God to do that, as well. Just like when I was driving across Texas with my family, and, yeah, I was camping out in the fast lane a little bit. I was going too slow, I wasn’t paying attention. And I was getting passed by one car, and then I got passed by a second car. It was the second car when it dawned on me that I should probably get out of that lane.

They didn’t know I had been driving forever. And the second guy that passed me, he was right to kind of like, “Hey, man, you shouldn’t be in that lane.” I get that. I’ve done the same thing. He was not right to say those things and to show me those fingers and all of the other things he did. I had gotten the message. I didn’t need all the exclamation points.

I was right to not say anything or to do anything with my vehicle. I don’t know if I was right about the things I was thinking inside my mind and heart. But I can tell you that there was a great moment when, all of a sudden, he realized that there was a police car about five cars ahead of us and he slowed down really quick as he got up to them. I’ve never seen this before, but the cop slowed down, more than him, popped right behind him, pulled him right over. And I didn’t say anything or show him anything as I drove by. Which was great. Which was really great.

Again, that is a joke or whatever. But the truth is that we want God to punish wickedness, rebellion and sin. We don’t want him to punish it whenever it’s us. But when there is real evil in this world, which there is, devastating, breath-taking evil, we want God to rise up. We want him to do these things. So the judgment of God is actually something that is a good thing. And it’s something that, if we’re going to have the right perspective for generations of blessing, we’ve got to understand this broader perspective.

In the first message, I kicked it off, I talked about Psalm 90, where it says Moses is teaching and saying, “Lord, help us to number our days so that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” And teaching us to number our days is coming to that humble reality of understanding how finite, how brief our life is. When we’re young, it’s just a joke. You say your life is brief and it makes no sense at all. But everyone you talk to that is in those latter years of life, they consistently tell you, “I don’t know where the years have gone. It makes no sense to me how quickly it has gone.”

It is so brief. And so we’ve got to gain this understanding. We’ve got to find a way to believe what the Scriptures say—hear about life and the way the Scriptures teach it so that we can make sure we’re not missing the blessing in the generation right here and right now.

When I say “generation,” we have to define that word, too. We’ve kind of defined it three different ways. If it’s been confusing, then now you know why. The three ways different ways we define “generation” is like Jim Watkins taught in the first video. Zero to twenty seems to be a generation of our lives that is different from twenty to forty. Twenty seems to bring a big change. And then forty seems to bring a big change.

I was looking at the lines on my forehead as I was driving to church today. I was just like, “Those are deep, man. Oh, no. I’m just going to get more of those all the time? Wow.” Stop staring at them right now. Look over here or over there or something. Don’t stare. But then, sixty, I’ve heard, seems to be a big shift in life. And then eighty a big shift in life.

So we have generations in that. You want to find what is danger and what is the curse and what is the blessing in those seasons that God has planted there.

We’ve also talked about generation as far as your age demographic. There’s the different generations. There’s one of them that we make fun of all the time. What’s that? Millennials. Sounded like millennials were saying that. Come on, we make fun of Millennials. It’s fun to do, for whatever reason.

But we actually make fun of everybody. I mean, the Generation X kind of snuck in there. I think there weren’t as many of them, or they’re just not very loud, so they didn’t get made fun of as much.

But, Baby Boomers? Give me a break. They’re all crazy.

And then you’ve got the Traditionalists, who we don’t make fun of anymore because we want to honor them and they’re old. But they can’t hear you anymore, so feel free. And even if they can hear you, don’t worry. You can just outrun them if they get mad. They’re not going to catch you.

And then there’s the Generation Z that’s coming up and we’ll make fun of them too, once they figure out what’s wrong with them.

But that’s another way to define generations. Each generation has been passed down some sort of idolatry, some sort of problem; but then they also create their own problems. And yet, there’s also a blessing in each one of those. I believe the Millennials are going to be the greatest missionary generation there ever has been. And I’m saying that with truth, but I also can make fun of them in the same way. Because they love to live off of other people’s money, and they don’t want to work for their jobs. No, just kidding. But no, I’m saying that seriously. And see, I can’t tell a joke because it takes away. But I really believe it’s true and I hope our church is totally going to be a part of that belief and we’re hoping to see it happen here.

The third way that we defined generations is your family legacy—hat has come before you and what you’re passing on to those coming after you, whether that be in society or in your actual family tree.

I heard a quote from John Adams last week. He said, “The best time to start raising your children is five generations ago.” That’s a good time to start. And that’s a very biblical perspective. That’s a “teach us to number our days” perspective. That’s what we’re trying to get into our hearts in this fast-paced, youth-worshiping culture that we’re living in, that is so different from the way the Bible teaches.

With that being said, we want to make sure that we are finding the blessing, and the Lord is teaching us how to use our days wisely. With that, I want to go to 2 Kings 18, and then we’re going to go to 1 Kings 15 and 2 Kings 12. The reason I’ve just taken a selection, it’s actually this reoccurring kind of thematic way the Bible talks about the kings of Judah and Israel. I want to read this to give us some perspective and then we’ll run from there.

1 In the third year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, Hezekiah son of Ahaz king of Judah began to reign. 2 He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem twenty-nine years. His mother’s name was Abijah[a] daughter of Zechariah. 3 He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, just as his father David had done. 4 He removed the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles. He broke into pieces the bronze snake Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites had been burning incense to it. (It was called Nehushtan.[b])

5 Hezekiah trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel. There was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before him or after him. 6 He held fast to the Lord and did not stop following him; he kept the commands the Lord had given Moses. 7 And the Lord was with him; he was successful in whatever he undertook. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and did not serve him.

So it’s a description, an accounting, 1 Kings, 2 Kings,1 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles are recounting—they’re telling the story of the kings that came and went in Israel, those who ruled. So they’re talking about Hezekiah, and they’re saying he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, according to his father, David. And then it goes on with a list of how that went. 1 Kings 15:33-34

33 In the third year of Asa king of Judah, Baasha son of Ahijah became king of all Israel in Tirzah, and he reigned twenty-four years. 34 He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, following the ways of Jeroboam and committing the same sin Jeroboam had caused Israel to commit.

So here’s a second one. Hezekiah did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, according to his father, David. Baasha did what was evil in the eyes of the Lord, according to the sins of Jeroboam. He followed in that line. And now, we’ve got this third one. You didn’t think there could be a third category, but there is. 2 Kings 12

12 In the seventh year of Jehu, Joash became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem forty years. His mother’s name was Zibiah; she was from Beersheba. 2 Joash did what was right in the eyes of the Lord all the years Jehoiada the priest instructed him. 3 The high places, however, were not removed; the people continued to offer sacrifices and burn incense there.

So here is another category. Joash did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, however, he didn’t remove the high places, the idolatry of his day. He didn’t follow the Lord as David, his father, a man after God’s own heart.

So there are these three categories, which I think are interesting. As we’re facing judgment and we’re trying to figure out, “Lord, where’s the blessing? How can we be the biggest blessing?” I think this is what we need to understand, that God is wanting us to do what is right in the eyes of the Lord, and to remove idolatry from our lives.

Now this chart—I love this chart—first the kings of Judah and Israel, look at this and get a perspective. We’ll get it bigger in just a second. Saul, David and Solomon are the top three. Those are the kings of all twelve tribes of Israel, when they were all united. Then you have the kings of Judah, which are the southern two tribes, and the kings of Israel, which are the northern ten tribes. Because after Solomon, the nation was divided. Not as a civil war, but just not together anymore. They did fight each other later on, but it was just kind of a sepration that happened.

So we’re going to go through those kings.

This is 1 Kings, 1 Chronicles, 2 Kings, 2 Chronicles all in chart form. So here on this side we have the kings of Judah. I don’t know if you can see it, but there’s a thumbs down, thumbs down, thumbs down, thumbs sideways, thumbs down, thumbs down, thumbs down. I love this chart. This is so good for me.

Up here you have Saul with the thumbs down, David with the thumbs up, Solomon with the black thumbs sideways. Then you have like a white thumbs sideways. Then, on the kings of Israel over here you have thumbs down, straight up, every one of them. Way to go. Awesome

Now pop up the next slide, which is the bottom half.

Over here on the kings of Judah you have thumbs sideways, thumbs sideways, thumbs sideways, thumbs sideways, thumbs up, thumbs down and down bedoop, bedoop…..

Then over here on Israel you have thumbs down.

Now, those thumbs mean something. The key that they did on this chart, and again, I love this chart. Thumbs up means they did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, according to their father, David. Thumbs sideways means they did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, but not as their father, David, had done. They did not completely rid the land of idolatry. And then, thumbs down means they did evil in the eyes of the Lord, which, again, they did not remove the idols from the land.

So there you have it. We just conquered 1 Kings, 1 Chronicles, 2 Kings, 2 Chronicles. That’s it. But we have these three categories. We have these three different ways that we are doing our life. Sad to say, in these stories, the way that the king went was usually the way the people went.

The way that the father went was usually the way that the son went. And they’re using David as this kind of mark because he was not the father of all of these people, but basically, he was the king that all of them followed after when they became king.

And Jeroboam was the king that took over the northern ten tribes and basically, all of them that followed Jeroboam as king of Israel did wicked in the eyes of the Lord. And they say, according to the sins of Jeroboam. They connected to him. It was the generational curse that he passed down.

And there are a couple of different things here. It says they did what was right in the eyes of the Lord. And did they remove the idolatry. I want to unpack those things real quick for us.

Doing what is right in the eyes of the Lord. This is so important to me, that we understand that doing right in the eyes of the Lord is not just staying away from evil. We, as Christians, as the church, have spent way too long saying righteousness is just staying away from bad things. That is exactly what the Pharisees were doing. Jesus said, “Unless you have a righteousness that surpasses the Pharisees, you will not inherit the kingdom of heaven.”

The righteousness that God is trying to produce in your life is not just something that will keep you away from wrong, but it will empower you to go into the places where there is wrong and make it right. That is the righteousness of God, where Christians, where the people of God are righting wrongs. That’s what the righteousness of God is all about. Not separating ourselves so much from anything could potentially be wrong in culture, and being this kind of isolating thing on this side. I’m not saying that we don’t have to remove sin from our lives and watch out for certain things. Definitely. But if it stops there, you haven’t yet found the righteousness of God. You’re on your way but you’re not there. And Jesus had a lot of words for the Pharisees who were in that mode. We have to do the things that God asks us to do.

That’s what I love about John and Amy, and their move right now. They are righteous. The’ve been made righteous by Christ. They’ve been walking a life of purity. They’re in this place, but they know that’s just the beginning. God gave them righteousness so that they can go into the unrighteous situations and—boom—make righteousness. And they’re going into a situation back home where things aren’t quite right, they could be more right. And they’re going there to make right happen. And they’ll do that, not just in their own family, but they’ll do that everywhere they go, as well.

We’ve got to understand that we’ve got to do what is right in the eyes of the Lord. Actually, the way the Bible describes sin is “to him who knows what to do, and doesn’t do it, to him it’s sin.” It’s just such a different way than thinking sin is just don’t do the things that are bad. It’s doing the things that God is asking you to do. That’s what he’s really looking for.

It’s like with my kids. I can’t stop them from doing wrong things. They’re bad kids. And they’re not even meaning to do wrong. They’re just breaking things all the time. I never taught them to do the wrong. They just know how to do it. And they love it. They think it’s so fun.

And what we’re trying to teach them is, “Hey, look. You’re going to do wrong. You’re going to make mistakes. Sometimes on purpose, sometimes not on purpose. But the most important thing is that you learn how to make a wrong right.”

And so we’re trying to do that. Like, “Let's go apologize. And then, if you broke something, let’s try to figure out how you can fix it. Let’s try to make it right. Because you’re never going to win the battle of never doing wrong.”

The other day, my daughter had made my wife mad, real mad. And all I know is I was in my room one time and she had put all these instructions for how to have a really nice peaceful evening, she had bought all these things. She had done all these things for my wife to kind of say, “Mom, I want you to go do all of these things, because I think you’ll love these things.” So, she knew she did wrong. Instead of just saying, “Sorry,” she actually figured out how to make this thing. And my wife went in there and she said, “This is amazing!” And whatever was wrong now didn’t feel so wrong and it was made right.

That’s the goal that God’s trying to get us to do. That’s what these kings were judged on. Did they do what was right in the eyes of the Lord? And it doesn’t matter if you’re seven or seventy, God has an assignment for you. And if you walk in it, not only will you be walking in righteousness, but you will be imparting a blessing to everyone around.

The second thing that they were judged on was whether ornate they tore down the idols of their day, tore down the Asherah poles, remove the high places, cut down a grove. I don’t even know what that is. But basically, they had to go and find the things in their lives that were not of God, or that were set in the same plain as God, and remove those things.

I remember being in Belize, in this town called Gales Point, where things move very slow. And I ran into a guy named Brother Hugh. And he was seventy years old. He was really the only adult male in the village that knew Christ and followed Christ, that we knew of. I remember him sitting me down one time in this very sleepy, slow village, and he said, “I want to tell you some things.”

And I was like, “Okay.” I mean, just being there, I’m already, “Why is everything moving so slow?” And then, when you talk to the seventy-year-olds in the village—whoa! It was like, “Hi…David…I want to tell you…about my life.”

I was just like, “Okay, man. Let’s do this thing.” But, whatever. I had time. And so he started telling me. And it was so interesting. I’ll never forget what he said. He started to talk about how, when he first started following Christ as, like, an eighteen-year-old, he said at that point he thought he was going to follow Christ. And the Lord would keep adding things to his life and building him up, strengthening him.

But he said what he has realized as he looks back, it was almost like he was carrying this wheelbarrow, and as he walked with God with this wheelbarrow, Jesus kept pointing to one thin in the wheelbarrow and saying, “I want to talk to you about that.” And they would talk about it, and eventually, it would be, “Okay.” And he would take it out of his wheelbarrow. And as soon as he did that, Jesus would be like, “Now what’s that thing over there?” And he would be like, “Well, it’s this.” Jesus would talk to him about that.

And he said, what he’s realized now that he’s seventy years old is that, following Christ has been a lot more unloading things than adding things. And he said, “First it was selling drugs. I felt like Jesus told me to stop selling drugs.”

I’m like, “Okay. I’m listening.”

And then he said, “I was supposed to stop gambling. Then I was supposed to stop smoking.” And then he continued on and on, talking about the things that he was supposed to offload, or remove. And I’ve never forgotten it, because I think that is such an accurate picture of walking with Jesus. In two ways.

One is, if you’re not perfect, just keep walking with Jesus. If you’re having struggles, just keep walking with Jesus. You might be in more of a hurry than he is. Now, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t hate sin and he doesn’t want to remove these things. Absolutely. But it’s got to be him or it’s never actually going to happen. You have to really walk with him to find out what he’s wanting to do in your life. Because he’s the one who can actually get anything done. He’s the one that can change the leopard’s spots.

And the second thing is just that God is always going to have something that he wants to remove from you. You’re never going to get to a point where, all of a sudden, “Hey, the wheelbarrow is empty!” That’s when we move on to the next stage of life. Heaven.

I’ve kind of come up with this short, little thing. It might be helpful, or not. It’s not biblical but it’s been in my heart so I want to share it with you. It’s this concept of surrendering. As I’ve tried to put some generational blessing idea to some of these Scriptures, I’ve noticed that it seems like, and this is generalization, that God’s asking us to surrender our plans around twenty. “I wanted to be this, and now I feel like I’m going this way.” Or, “I was going to be this and this injury.” Or, “I was going to be this, but now she’s pregnant and I need to adjust.” Whatever it might be.

And this happens more than just at that time. But that seems to be a real big moment. And I don’t want you to miss what God’s doing there.

And then, when you’re forty, you surrender your power. You have to start realizing that you’re not going to grow in strength anymore. I think this is what midlife crisis is all about. We keep saying, “Oh, yeah, throw that job responsibility on there.” “Oh, yeah, throw that bigger job on there.” “Oh, yeah, throw the car on there.” “Throw the house on there.” “Throw the boat on there. I got it.” “Oh, yeah, throw marriage, throw a kid, why don’t throw another couple ofkids? Why don’t we throw on some foster kids?” “Why don’t we try this?” And we just keep going.

And then, eventually, our strength starts to go down, but our mentality keeps adding it, and then all of a sudden, for a guy or a lady, you’ve got all of this weight and you don’t have the strength to carry it. And you don’t have the humility to unload things one at a time; so you just run. And it all comes crumbling down. That’s not the way of God. There’s no blessing in that.

And then when you’re sixty, you surrender your position. And I’ve been watching some people that I really love and respect go through this. It’s painful to not be seen for what you know you have been and are capable of. Even though God still sees you that way. It’s a humbling thing. And you can fight it, but you’ll probably lose the blessing.

And then, surrendering your possessions, which is interesting. I had to talk to some eighty-year-olds for this. I think you possess physical abilities, and you’re surrendering to those, and having to adjust, come to terms with it. You surrender mental capabilities. Not quite as quick as maybe you were. And there’s blessing in that, if you can surrender. Surrendering whatever possessions you might have—a house, home, finances, clothes, I don’t know.

But there is constantly surrender happening. There is constantly this humility that we need to have as we approach the brevity of life, if we want to find the blessing and pass on the blessing.

I love what the ninety-five pieces that Martin Luther nailed to that church in Wittenburg, the ninety-five things that need to be corrected—ninety-five idolatries that he felt like needed to be removed in the Catholic Church. But the very first line on top of those ninety-five high places that needed to be torn down, he says, “All of life is repentance.” All of life is surrender to the mighty hand of God.

The one idol that I feel that God has brought to mind—obviously money, sex, recreation, that guy you’re with, that girl you’re with, an image that you have of yourself, comfort, possessions, food—we can make an idol out of anything. You can make an idol out of church. It happens all the time. But the idol that I felt God was highlighting and wanted me to say to us is the idol of convenience.

Because, ultimately, that’s what Jeroboam’s sin was all about. Up in the northern ten tribes, Jeroboam didn’t want all of the people to go back to the southern tribes, to Jerusalem where the temple was, because they might want to move down there. So what he did was, he made a temple in the northern ten tribes, and made a system of worship there so there was more convenience for all the people. But the presence of God wasn’t there. And all of the kings that followed him did what was evil in the eyes of the Lord.

We’ve got to watch out for convenience. Convenience looks like this:

Prayers where we say, “God will you bless my plans? I really want to do this job.” Or “I really want to go to this place. God will you bless me there?” That’s not the way he works. He’s not a genie that we can just rub and say, “God, I want this, this and this.” So often, that’s what our prayer life is like. Just a bunch of rubbing on a lamp.

Another way it looks is, we try and make Jesus fit into our schedule. That’s a big joke, because he’s huge. It’s like trying to find the right time to have a baby. When it fits within your schedule and plans. No, that baby comes and—kaboom. All the plans and schedule, everything is gone and you just reorder from there.

We want God to bless us here and now, instead of saying, “God, take me to the Promised Land. Bless us here in Egypt, O God.” And God says, “No, I’m not going to bless you Egypt. I want to lead you to the Promised Land.”

And that’s what I love about John and Amy and what they’re doing, too. They would much rather just have God bless them here and take care of their parents over there. Burt God never asks us to do something that doesn’t require faith. We’ve got to learn those lessons so we don’t miss out on anything in this life.

Let’s pray:

Jesus, we do thank you for teaching us, for caring about our souls even more than we do. For being the author and perfecter of our faith. For being the one who is in charge of our spiritual formation. The one who is leading us from glory to greater glory, in ever increasing measure, as we just take your hand and walk with you. Lord, please, in this moment, as we quiet our hearts before you, show us the idols in our lives right now—the idols in our families. The idol in our age demographic. The idol in this season of our life. Help us to tear those things down.

As you’re listening for the Lord to bring some things to mind, I’m going to read some definitions of idols from Tim Keller:

“What is an idol? It’s anything more important to you than God, anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God, anything you seek to give you what only God can give. A counterfeit God is anything so central and essential to your life, that, should you lose it, your life would feel hardly worth living at all.”

So, Lord, search our hearts. We want to walk in what is pleasing to you. We want to tear down the idols so that the blessing can be passed on. We want to keep chasing you, even if it’s inconvenient. Amen.

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION® NIV®,
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