Message:
Can you remember a time when you went to the fridge and reached for the milk only to discover that it was past its expiration date?
At that moment in time you had two choices to make - I can pour this milk on my cereal and take my chances that it just might be O.K. After all these expiration dates are just a guideline - aren’t they? Or you could say - oh my the milk has gone bad - and without even smelling it or tasting it to see if it has gone bad you can pour it down the drain and consider it all lost.
Today’s scripture passage is an example of how God reaches out to us when we are at our expiration date and how God’s grace keeps us from becoming spoiled milk.
We will look at the lives of a Father and a Son who exemplify that spiritual dilemma. On the one hand we have a King who rights a wrong that his father had made by bringing the people of Judah back to worshiping the living God. Then in contrast we have the Kings son who grew up watching how his Father turned the people back to the Lord but decide it's not the spiritual path for him as he leads the nation astray as never before.
How and why does this happen. It happened to a God fearing King and it still happens today that our children who grow up in Christian homes can fail to follow the example of their Christian parents and go off to be so far from the Lord that we wonder if they will ever find their way back.
King Hezekiah was at that point in his life when he had reached his expiration date. The prophet of God - Isaiah had visited him and had given him the grim news. All this while the King was under attack and the city of Jerusalem was about to fall.
It is then that the King turns to God and pleads for mercy. The King then begins to list all the wonderful things he has done in service for the Lord and weeps bitterly. The Lord is moved with compassion and let's King Hezekiah know that he will be granted fifteen more years of life. King Hezekiah did not ask for it but God is pouring out His grace on the King as a gift.
Also 180,000 of the enemy’s soldiers are killed by the hand of God at the gates of Jerusalem and the city is saved and the King is looked on as a hero.
Hezekiah see's all of this as an affirmation that his good works have bought him some valuable time.
2 Chronicles 32:24-25 tells us:
24 In those days Hezekiah became ill and was at the point of death. He prayed to the LORD, who answered him and gave him a miraculous sign. 25 But Hezekiah's heart was proud and he did not respond to the kindness shown him; therefore the LORD's wrath was on him and on Judah and Jerusalem.
Friend has there been a time in your life when you realized that your expiration date was past due?
Maybe it was a medical emergency like King Hezekiah here or maybe it was some other pivotal event in your life? Was there a time for you where the rubber met the road and you realized that your only hope rested in the Grace of God?
What did you do?
Did you call out like King Hezekiah and plead for mercy based on what you had done for the Lord?
Did you attempt to bargain for your soul in that dark hour?
Maybe it was this singular event that finally brought you to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ?
Whatever your spiritual standing at that time you realized that you became the recipient of God's Great Grace as your expiration date was extended.
It was not a reward for anything you had done.
It does not matter how our Christian resumes read - pastor - elder-deacon - moderator - or Sunday school teacher all our so called Christian achievements can not buy us the Great Grace of God.
It is not purchased by our acts of repentance no matter how dramatic or sincere or sensational - it is the gift of God so that no one can boast. Hezekiah failed to realize that fact and he became a proud servant of the Living God.
That pride was seen by his young son Manasseh who was watching his Father in order to learn how a King should act, how a King should live before God and the subjects of the kingdom.
Friends are there some among us who are guilty of this same pride in our Christian lives? Have we forgotten that we are sinners deserving of the full wrath of God? I think we see this attitude all across our land of churches and saints. We seem to have forgotten that it is God who makes Saints and who calls churches.
We have not earned God's Grace.
We are not deserving of it in any way, shape or form but because - John 3:16 "God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” We who know Jesus as our Savior know the Grace of God.
It is not a grace gene that we have or hold by tradition or legacy through the church. We are not its custodians. It is God’s Grace.
Have our children witnessed God’s Grace in our homes? Have they seen us behave like King Hezekiah taking the Grace of God for granted? Have our children witnessed a proud or haughty spirit as we go about our Christian service or have they seen true humility and thankfulness for the saving power of Jesus Christ in our lives?
Children can read their parents like a book and often times recite chapter and verse back to their parents. We should not be surprised that our children are watching us for they look to us to be an example. Manasseh was watching his father Hezekiah and was not impressed. Hezekiah got busy for those fifteen years building up the house of God as an institution and building all kinds of other things but Hezekiah neglected to build up his own son in the Lord.
Children inherit physical traits and even personality traits from their parents. But the one thing that they can not inherit is Salvation that alone comes from Jesus Christ.
For it is by grace that you have been saved through faith-and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God- 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. Ephesians 2:8-9 NIV
This biblical truth is for us an anchor that we who know Christ are held by. But it can also be a weight upon the heart of a parent who knows that a decision for Christ is personal and as far as our children go it is theirs to make for themselves we can not make it for them.
We raise our children in the church and do our best to expose them to the things of God. We try to live a godly example in front of them everyday but despite all that we do we can not make them Christians because of our gene pool.
There is no such thing as the Grace gene in us but praise God there is one in Jesus the Son of God.
Hezekiah's pride was so great that he let his enemies into his house to see all that God had blessed him with he held nothing back boasting in what he possessed. But you see he did not own any of it he was only meant to be the steward of these things on behalf of the nation.
Do we like Hezekiah delude ourselves in the same way as we consider our church and all that it is and has become over the years? Do we think that our church is something that we have built or made by our own hands or by our own good works? Do we suffer the same blind arrogance and sit back inviting the enemy to come into our church and taunt him as he attempts to steal that which is most precious to us – our children?
Manasseh’s soul should have been treated as the most precious thing to Hezekiah. Instead the treasure of the nation even though it was very great became the most precious thing. Manasseh’s spiritual care had been assumed and was addressed by his genetic blood line instead of introducing him to God’s Grace. Hezekiah failed to realize that his son needed to encounter the Grace of God for himself just as he had fifteen years ago while on what should have been his death bed.
Friends our children can only be won for Christ by Christ and for that to happen we have to introduce them to Jesus before their expiration date.
Many of you have done that in your homes and here at church through our Sunday school program. But we need to do more than that. We need to encourage our children and young adults to grow in Christ and to develop a mature faith. We can encourage this by seeing that they move from the Sunday school and into the Sanctuary.
Today our children are serving us breakfast but what more are they capable of contributing to the Body of Christ?
We can encourage their growth by praying with them and talking to them about our personal relationship with Jesus. We can introduce them to the Lord at the Lord’s Table and share with them the significance of that sacrament.
They also need to feed on the word of God just as we do even if it is a little hard to digest sometimes.
We need to let God build our church and our young men and young women into professing Christians who know Christ and His salvation. We must leave room for the Holy Spirit to open their hearts and minds.
When we bring them to the service with us and treat them as the young adults that they are they will respect us for it.
Amen.
