1. Title: The Lord is With You When You Are With Him
2. Text: II Chronicles 14-16, esp 13; I Kings 15:9-24
3. Audience: Villa Heights Christian Church, AM crowd, May 28, 2006, 2nd in the series “The Kings and I”
4. Objectives:
-for the people to understand better how to apply OT stories to their lives; what it means to be “with the Lord” and to have Him “with you”
-for the people to feel emboldened by the presence of God in their lives; a desire to make sure that their lives are being lived in a constant pursuit of God
-for the people to test themselves, consider if they are “with God,” and to courageously step forward to do what God wants done
5. When I finish my sermon I want my audience to be emboldened in the knowledge that the Lord will go with them and enable them to do His desires
6. Type: biography / textual
7. Dominant Thought: God honors the life that is courageously given over to Him
8. Outline:
Intro – If you read magazines, you’ve seen them. There’s this little picture of a dog or something. “Take our art test. Draw Spunky,” it says, “Send it into us. You may have the talent to become a syndicated artist.”
Then there’s the test to find out if you and your spouse are communicating well.
There’s a test to check the strength of your vocabulary.
Or there’s the test to see if you’re a candidate for a heart attack based on the number of stress factors in your life in one year.
Or there’s the I.Q. test to see if you might unknowingly be a genius and a potential member of MENSA.
And when you sit down to eat at Cracker Barrel, there are those little triangular pieces of wood with golf tees in them. You jump the tees over each other, and that’s supposed to test your intelligence.
Those are all fine. Testing is good. Testing is what helps make sure drivers are qualified to drive. It makes sure our coronary arteries aren’t clogged. It’s good to know our limits, and testing helps us set goals and measure progress. I suppose it’s nice to know if I’m a poor communicator, an undiscovered artist, a heart attack candidate, or a hidden genius – all from a copy of Reader’s Digest or lunch at Cracker Barrel!
But there’s another aspect to our lives – a spiritual aspect that lasts forever. That’s an area of life where I need more than a peg game on the table to tell me how I’m doing. Someone once asked himself why it seemed like older people spent more time reading the Bible, and then he says he realized: They’re cramming for finals!
I don’t think heaven will have an entrance exam – or it if does, it will pretty much be one question: Were you in Christ or not? Are you ready for that test? Why wait? Why not take the pre-test? Why not make sure now? Paul told the Corinthians:
2 Corinthians 13:5
Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you--unless, of course, you fail the test?
Every crowd you sit in is full of people who would admit to you that they aren’t sure if they’re headed for heaven or not. Right here this morning, if I asked every person here if they are sure that, if they were to die right now, they would go to heaven, there would be a bunch who aren’t completely sure.
What is the test? How can you be sure? Or, can you be sure at all?
This morning, I want us to look at king Asa of Judah and see some pre-test questions that we can ask to make sure we’re ready for finals.
There are some challenges here, because you can’t just take these OT stories and go straight to application. Unless you’ve been attacked by the Cushites and you’re needing help in battle, or you’re the king and you’ve got a bunch of people with sacred stones and Asherah poles around your kingdom, you can’t go straight to application.
1 Corinthians 10:11 These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come.
What happened in the OT is written down as an example for us – not a blueprint, so we have to do some homework to use it right. We have to look for the universal principles we need to learn from it. We have to see how the principles line up with the rest of Scripture. We have to understand that we live under a different covenant now. We have to remember that much of it is written to specific people and a specific time. Most of us aren’t tempted to go home and set up an Asherah pole on the nearest hill or sacrifice our children to Molech. On the other hand, most Americans are tempted to construct other objects that receive our devotion, and we are tempted to sacrifice our children’s spiritual life to the gods of popularity or pride or convenience.
So, this morning, we’re looking at the 3 chapters in II Chron. that tell us about king Asa – father of king Jehoshaphat. Asa was a good king. He was devoted to God. But right away one of the lessons I can learn from his life is that even good people, whose overall life is very good, still mess up too. And Asa did. He made a bad judgment, got rebuked for it, got angry, and took it out on others. Still, the summary of his life is clear:
II Chronicles 14:2
Asa did what was good and right in the eyes of the LORD his God.
II Chronicles 15:17b
…Asa’s heart was fully committed to the LORD all his life.
What that means is, I can look into Asa’s life and see some good examples, some godliness, that I should plug into my own life. Let’s start with
2 Chronicles 15:1-4
The Spirit of God came upon Azariah son of Oded. He went out to meet Asa and said to him, "Listen to me, Asa and all Judah and Benjamin. The LORD is with you when you are with him. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will forsake you. For a long time Israel was without the true God, without a priest to teach and without the law. But in their distress they turned to the LORD, the God of Israel, and sought him, and he was found by them.
The Lord is with you when you are with Him. Seek the Lord, and He will be found by you. Now, those are some principles we can grasp – principles that we can apply to us here and now. You be “with the Lord,” and He’ll be “with you.” Asa took that to heart. In fact, he seems to have done real well with that bit of advice.
Am I “With The Lord”? Here are some questions, taken from Asa’s life, that will help you answer that…
1. Does My Life Show Sacrificial Devotion to Him?
II Chronicles 14:2-5
Asa did what was good and right in the eyes of the LORD his God. He removed the foreign altars and the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles. He commanded Judah to seek the LORD, the God of their fathers, and to obey his laws and commands. He removed the high places and incense altars in every town in Judah, and the kingdom was at peace under him.
1 Kings 15:11-13
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 fathers had made. He even deposed his grandmother Maacah from her position as queen mother, because she had made a repulsive Asherah pole. Asa cut the pole down and burned it in the Kidron Valley.
This is the story of a man in a position of influence who used his position of influence to get rid of things that shouldn’t have been in his nation. Anyone looking into the life of Asa would see that he was serious about his devotion to God. When he ordered the smashing and cutting down and getting rid of all the idols around Judah, it meant that he was undoing the work that others had done. Did he step on some toes? Sure. Did that stop him? No. He was devoted to the Lord first.
Looking in on that life, you might conclude this is someone who is “with the Lord.” And the result was that the Lord was with him. Why? Because his life showed a sacrificial devotion to God.
Now, look into your own life. In your spheres of influence, can you or others point to the evidences of your devotion to God? What would they say about you? What about your life is different just because you’re a follower of Jesus – not because it’s how you were brought up, or it’s just your personality, but because you have sold out to Jesus Christ and you’re serious about your service to Him?
If the answer is “nothing,” then it’s time to take some steps to make it different. Maybe Larry Crabb is right. Maybe the core problem is not that we are too passionate about bad things, but that we are not passionate enough about good things.
I challenge you to find some place where you can not only serve, but where it’s not easy to do, and take some steps to serve Jesus – the kind of thing where you’ll find yourself looking in the mirror the next morning saying, “Yeah, I did that, didn’t I?”
OK, here’s the next question:
2. Am I Emboldened To Do What Needs To Be Done?
Tim Hansel in an article in Christianity Today - We don’t need "fasten your seat belt" signs in our pews because we no longer fly. We’re like a group of geese attending meetings every Sunday where we talk passionately about flying and then get up and walk home.
That describes too many congregations. Whether it’s contentment, or fear, or apathy, we let other things keep us from seeing what needs to be done and getting to it.
Nova Scotia. The manager of an insurance agency group told the salesmen under him that they weren’t being assertive enough. They weren’t showing a willingness to do whatever it takes to get their job done. One agent wanted to change that right away. Outside the window, on the 17th floor, were some workmen on a scaffold. He wrote them a note, asking them if they’d be interested in life, accident, or disability insurance, and he held the note up to the window. They said they’d talk to him if he’d come out onto the scaffold with them. And he did, with the help of a cable from the roof, and he sold one of them fifty thousand dollars worth of life insurance.
At some point in Asa’s reign, I think at a time when he needed to be encouraged, Azariah, a prophet from God, came with a word from God.
II Chronicles 15:8
When Asa heard these words and the prophecy of Azariah son of Oded the prophet, he took courage. He removed the detestable idols from the whole land of Judah and Benjamin and from the towns he had captured in the hills of Ephraim. He repaired the altar of the LORD that was in front of the portico of the Lord’s temple.
Notice what happened here:
1. Asa listened to what God was saying. It took a word from God to encourage him. And once he heard it, it emboldened him. No one ever got real excited and did what God wanted without first hearing what God says He wants. It starts with listening. V.8 also says…
2. He took courage. There’s something about a word from God that ought to send us out. I guess it’s the reassurance that we’re going out to do the right thing. We’ll be able to say to anyone, “We’re doing what God told us to do.”
Acts 4:13
When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.
And sure enough, look what they said:
Acts 4:18-20
Then they called them in again and commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John replied, "Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God’s sight to obey you rather than God. For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard."
Look around you. Do you see anything that needs to be done? What has your relationship with Jesus emboldened you to do? Where have you gone, where you otherwise wouldn’t have? What fear have you weighed and acted against because you love Jesus? What word have you spoken? What action have you taken when you saw that there was a job to be done and no one else was stepping forward?
Listen to what God has said, and take courage. There’s a great job to be done, and the Lord is getting it done at the hands of people who love Him wholeheartedly.
A 3rd question to use to test yourself is…
3. Are The People Around Me Attracted To Follow Him?
II Chronicles 15:9-11
Then he assembled all Judah and Benjamin and the people from Ephraim, Manasseh and Simeon who had settled among them, for large numbers had come over to him from Israel when they saw that the LORD his God was with him. They assembled at Jerusalem in the third month of the fifteenth year of Asa’s reign. At that time they sacrificed to the LORD seven hundred head of cattle and seven thousand sheep and goats from the plunder they had brought back.
(remember, 10 tribes to the north became Israel; Judah and Benjamin became “Judah.”)
And here we are reading that large numbers of people from the enemy tribes had come and settled in Judah. Why? They saw the Lord was with Asa. Asa launched a mid-reign revival in Judah, and at that time, they had a huge sacrifice to God.
Take a look at your spheres of influence, and apply this question as part of the test: are the people around you attracted to Jesus? Is what they see in you painting an attractive picture of Jesus? You and I are representatives of Jesus. With Jesus in heaven, it’s up to us to “re-present” Jesus to the world. So, when they look at you, how is Jesus being presented?
In II Co. 2, Paul says we are the aroma of Christ in the world – the fragrance of life. Would your friends agree, or would they just say that Jesus stinks? Is the Jesus they see the Savior they need, or is He an angry, exclusive, exacting slave-master Who keeps His followers in check with guilt and worry?
When Asa launched his great revival, people joined in with him. They knew he was sincere, and they knew he was right, and it was the right thing to do. Someone has said if you want to figure out if you’re a leader, just look over your shoulder. If no one is following, you’re not a leader.
I would suggest to you, if you want to know if you’re with the Lord and ready to spend eternity with Him, look over your shoulder. Who’s attracted to Jesus because of the life you’ve been living in front of them? If they answer is “no one,” I can assure you that the problem isn’t with Jesus or His message. It’s time to make some changes if you don’t pass this part of the test.
Time for one last pre-test:
4. Do I Willingly Engage In Commitments To Stay Strong?
II Chronicles 15:12-15
They entered into a covenant to seek the LORD, the God of their fathers, with all their heart and soul. All who would not seek the LORD, the God of Israel, were to be put to death, whether small or great, man or woman. They took an oath to the LORD with loud acclamation, with shouting and with trumpets and horns. All Judah rejoiced about the oath because they had sworn it wholeheartedly. They sought God eagerly, and he was found by them. So the LORD gave them rest on every side.
It wasn’t enough to this good king and to the people of Judah to just have an experience, and a swell of emotions that erupted. They knew that they would need more. “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it; prone to leave the God I love. Here’s my heart, Oh, take and seal it, seal it for Thy courts above.” So these people entered into a covenant to seek the Lord. They made an oath – they swore to it. Now, that meant more than a casual intention to keep it up. They knew that, when times got tough and they were tempted to let their relationship with God slide, they would look back to that day and remember what they had promised. They would hold each other accountable.
But Asa, near the end of his reign, acted differently than he did at this time, then he blew his stack about it too. God wasn’t pleased, and the years of peace Asa had known changed to years at war again, and then his personal health failed him too. Here’s a word to older Christians especially: finish well. Don’t let your years end with a note of sadness about how you messed it up right at the end. Finish strong. Your good example has meant so much up to this point in your life. Don’t blow it now. There’s no retiring from being the Lord’s servant, and there are a lot of younger Christians who really need to see you shine as examples of wise maturity.
How willing are you to make a commitment that will help you stay close to God? If you’re avoiding it, you need to ask yourself why. What’s keeping you from such a commitment? A young lady who has been dating a guy for a long time might be eager for him to make the big commitment we call marriage. If he keeps putting it off, she’ll start to wonder – “Does he really love me or not? If he does, wouldn’t he make a commitment to me?”
Conclusion:
I’ve got to be asking the same question this morning.
I’ve been trying to give all of us a way to measure whether or not we’re “in the Lord.” Do you pass the test? Especially this last part.
Some here this morning have never committed their lives to Jesus Christ. That’s the last indicator of your closeness to God. Have you made a commitment to Him? Have you promised Him your life, your faithfulness, and your energies? It’s time to make some decisions…
The Lord is with you when you are with Him.
