Keeping It Going

The transcript below has been slightly edited to make it easier for reading.

Father, we thank You for Your persevering strength that You give us so that we can face the crisis in our hearts, in our lives, and in our society. In the midst of all these things, we find that You are at work to mold us and increase our faith. Father, we pray now that You might use Your Word to once again anchor us in the truth about who You are, so that the storms of life will not shake us and will not lead us astray. Bless these next few moments as we reflect on Your Word. May You bring us into a deeper knowledge of Yourself. We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.

2 Kings 20 is our final passage in the life of Hezekiah that we'll be studying. We've been looking at it over the past few weeks of how God has done great things, amazing things, through His servant Hezekiah. Since David, there wasn't another king like Hezekiah. But Hezekiah wasn't the perfect king. In fact, we read in this story what Hezekiah was like. 2 Kings 20:1-11:

​​

In those days Hezekiah became sick and was at the point of death. And Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came to him and said to him, “Thus says the Lord, ‘Set your house in order, for you shall die; you shall not recover.’” Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord, saying, “Now, O Lord, please remember how I have walked before you in faithfulness and with a whole heart, and have done what is good in your sight.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly. And before Isaiah had gone out of the middle court, the word of the Lord came to him: “Turn back, and say to Hezekiah the leader of my people, Thus says the Lord, the God of David your father: I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears. Behold, I will heal you. On the third day you shall go up to the house of the Lord, and I will add fifteen years to your life. I will deliver you and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria, and I will defend this city for my own sake and for my servant David's sake.” And Isaiah said, “Bring a cake of figs. And let them take and lay it on the boil, that he may recover.”

And Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “What shall be the sign that the Lord will heal me, and that I shall go up to the house of the Lord on the third day?” And Isaiah said, “This shall be the sign to you from the Lord, that the Lord will do the thing that he has promised: shall the shadow go forward ten steps, or go back ten steps?” And Hezekiah answered, “It is an easy thing for the shadow to lengthen ten steps. Rather let the shadow go back ten steps.” And Isaiah the prophet called to the Lord, and he brought the shadow back ten steps, by which it had gone down on the steps of Ahaz.

We see here an incredible story in the life of Hezekiah, how the Lord answers his prayer in an amazing way and causes the shadow to go back ten steps. However, the situation leading up to this event reminds us of some of the struggles going on in Hezekiah's life. As we've studied the life of king Hezekiah, we see that he was an amazing king, but a flawed king.

In our passage today and what we will study in our small groups during this week, we will see the pride in Hezekiah's heart and how it kept him from being the kind of king that the Lord had wanted him to be. But as I've reflected throughout this study on the life of Hezekiah, there's a couple of verses that, in my mind, summarize for us the life of Hezekiah. We read this in 2 Chronicles 31:20-21, where it says:

Thus Hezekiah did throughout all Judah, and he did what was good and right and faithful before the Lord his God. And every work that he undertook in the service of the house of God and in accordance with the law and the commandments, seeking his God, he did with all his heart, and prospered.

In this verse, I see the four messages that we've given on the life of Hezekiah. I see our theme of Getting It Going, how to establish momentum. Hezekiah appears on the scene, and the very first thing he does is he did what was good, right, and faithful before the Lord his God. He cleansed the temple, he set it correct so that worship could be established, and once he got it going, we saw that he poured his life into this Gospel message.

Our second message was Going For It, how Hezekiah understood grace and applied the principle of grace in all situations. That's why we see in this verse that says:

And every work that he undertook in the service of the house of God and in accordance with the law and the commandments,

He understood the purpose of the law. He understood that it was a picture of grace and how grace needed to be extended to one another. If we were saved by grace, so too we give grace to those who are around us.

Last week, we saw one of the most amazing stories in our sermon entitled, When the Going Gets Tough. The war machine of Assyria has descended on the city of Jerusalem and has surrounded them. They're blaspheming the name of the Lord and all things seem hopeless. What did Hezekiah do? He turned to the Lord in prayer. He went into the Temple and he prayed because he was a man of faith. We see that in this passage where it says that he was, "seeking his God." But this verse ends saying that he did it with all his heart and he prospered. Throughout his realm, throughout his life, he served God with a whole heart and he prospered in his way.

This leads me to a theme today of, "Keeping It Going." How is it that you and I can start out with some momentum, face the challenges that are before us, and keep it up? How do we keep it going? How do we live like Hezekiah where it says, "with his whole heart he served the Lord and sought after God, and as a result the Lord prospered him?" What we read in today's passage, and what you'll read in your small groups, is that Hezekiah was a king who struggled. 

​

Momentum Can Come and Go

Our question today is: how can you and I sustain our momentum? Momentum comes and momentum goes. We want to build on it. We want to see progress made. That's what Hezekiah did when he came to the throne. He initiated a new movement of turning this apostate nation back to the Lord - and that's a major movement and undertaking. To take a country, a nation like Israel who had worshipped false idols and gods for generations and to cleanse the Temple, restore worship, and put God back in the proper place - that was no minor undertaking. But he did what was pleasing and what was right.

That was the very first act that he did in his reign as king over Israel. That's amazing to me because every so often, you and I start out anew. A new king comes to the throne and brings in a new program. A new pastor comes to the church and comes in with a new agenda, what he wants to do. A new year comes and you and I decide that this year will be different than last year. We pour ourselves into our New Year's Resolution, "I'm going to lose 4 kilos. I'm going to read my Bible every day. I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that." We set our minds to do something for God or for ourselves. But statistically 80% of those who start out with a New Year's Resolution, by the second week of February (after 5 weeks) have abandoned that commitment.

​

Building momentum is easy. It's easy to start things. Perhaps as we've gone through this series, some of you have felt, "I'm going to start anew. I'm going to pick myself up, I'm going to get myself out of this lull, and I'm going to get back to work on my career, my life, and my service to the Lord." You've committed yourselves to that. The question is, can you keep it up?

An important issue to address is: how do we sustain this momentum? How do we keep it moving forward? Sustaining momentum is a day-by-day task that you have to do. You can't let up, you can't take your foot off the gas, and you have to keep pushing on the gas. It means celebrating all your little things: your little victories and progress that you've made towards your goals. It means celebrating that which the Lord is doing in your life day-by-day, step-by-step. It means saying, "I am going to keep my eyes focused on the goal. I'm going to keep moving forward in spite of the obstacles that come."

Hezekiah is amazing. He starts out right. He starts out doing the first things first. He gets his kingdom in line with worship to the Lord, puts the number one priority in the number one place, and then what happens is, you saw last week, towards the end of his reign, his city is surrounded. The only thing keeping him from total annihilation is the walls of his city. Yet, at that very moment, Hezekiah sees the Lord work. There is nothing that Hezekiah can do, but the angel of the Lord killed the 185,000 enemy soldiers in a single night. It's amazing!

Sometimes, we think we need to have the weapons in our hands. But sustaining momentum isn't about you being able to do what you want. Sustaining your momentum means that you continue to go deep into Christ because that is where the source of victory lies.

But how did Hezekiah go from 2 Kings 18:5 that says that there is no other king in Israel like him, to seeing the great victory with 185,000 enemies soldiers from the greatest army in the Middle East destroyed? The process is what we read here in 2 Kings 20. The process is that God had to work in the life of Hezekiah to bring him to the point where he could see the victory of Hezekiah.

2 Kings 20, the two stories in this passage that we'll study this week, are flashbacks going 15 years back into the reign of Hezekiah. These stories are there for a purpose, so that you and I can identify that God used Hezekiah and gave the kind of faith to Hezekiah that could persevere in the face of the greatest challenge he could ever face, because God first worked in the heart of Hezekiah to remove the idols, false worship, and his pain to make him the kind of person that God wanted on the throne.

So how do you and I regain our momentum? It's done by looking in. As we look up and see the Lord, He's going to reveal to us things through our life experiences so that you and I will strip away the protective layers and say, "God, here I am. Make me into the person You need for this day and age. Make me into the kind of child of God that can represent You in a fallen and broken world. Strip away the things I'm relying on." 

The fact is, you and I face this need for momentum thinking, "I can do it. I'm going to do it. It's all in my power. I just need to put my mind right. I need to set my direction correct. If I do all these things, God's going to do a great work in me." God says, "That's not the way it works. It works by Me stripping away the layers in your life that you're reliant on, and instead replacing them with a deeper faith and trust in the promises of God alone."

That's our challenge in life as we face this series of "Regaining Our Momentum." The big question for us today as we look at this passage is: where are you resting your hope and confidence? On what does your faith stand today? Does it stand on yourself or does it stand on God and His Word? Does it stand on your abilities or does it stand on the promises of the covenant that God is made with us?

​

Confronting Roadblocks

Let us look at this story of what's happened here with Hezekiah. First, we see that Hezekiah had to confront these roadblocks. Hezekiah was facing some difficulties. As he faced these difficulties, he needed to go forward and face the problems in his life. The problem he's facing here is that he received bad news for a good king. The best king that Israel's had come along since David who's done everything right - prioritized God and worship - now finds himself at this time and moment struggling with news of his impending death.

Isaiah has come before the king and says, "I've got a message for you from the Lord: put your house in order now." Imagine, these are days in which Hezekiah sees that the Assyrian army is on the horizon coming towards Jerusalem. In the midst of this external threat of people coming and destroying Hezekiah's city and nation, now he gets news from Isaiah saying, "Put your house in order. It's all coming to an end."

During this pandemic crisis, I have had lots of opportunity to do pastoral visits. People whose family members are suffering from a medical emergency due to the virus. Losing members of the church, friends, and coworkers. Seeing lives filled with depression and anxiety because of the change of lifestyle. As we've served and ministered through this, I've never once done a pastoral house call like Isaiah.

The king is sick, so he calls the number one spiritual leader in the country to come. The prophet Isaiah comes to the king with a message from the Lord. This is it: "Put your house in order because you're dying." No word of encouragement. No hope. Not even a prayer for the sick for healing. Everything that Hezekiah hoped he would receive from a visit of Isaiah didn't come to fruition. It was the worst possible news that he could have received.

In this news, we see several attitudes or several things come out of the heart of of Hezekiah. The first is that we see Hezekiah asked the question that many people ask when they confront an emergency or crisis in their life. The question is: why is this happening to me? Why? 

Our passage gives us no indication why Hezekiah is suffering this disease, knowing that the nation needs him at this time to lead the them against the Assyrians. It's very possible that this is God's judgment on Hezekiah, for Hezekiah did all these things to try to make himself able to withstand the Assyrian attack by turning to Egypt or fortifying his country, instead of turning to the Lord. Perhaps his illness was part of that. Because he fell ill, God was judging him for his lack of faith or processing him so that he would be aware of what was going on.

When we find ourselves in a crisis, a loss of a job, a broken heart, a longing that's not fulfilled, perhaps you and I at that moment turn to God like Hezekiah, "Why? It's not fair! I'm the best king that's showed up on the scene! Why is this happening to me? Why is it that there is no hope in this situation? There's so much more I want do, God. There's so many more hopes in my heart. Why are you ending my life like this? Why is this happening to me?"

We also see Hezekiah's response as one of a broken heart. It says he turns to the wall and weeps bitterly. His heart is so broken, he can't stand to even look at others. He just turns away from everything in this world, stares at the wall before his face, and weeps.

How many times in our life have have you and I felt like that? Our lives have been destroyed, everything we had wanted taken from us, and all we're left with is our bitter tears. The question that that comes to our minds and hearts is, how do I maintain my faith? How do you face the consequences of a crisis? How do you face the consequences of multiple crises? Hezekiah just wasn't facing one crisis, he had to deal with the Assyrian army and a death sentence. A death sentence outside and a death sentence from his own physical being.

How do you become like Job who faced his life being torn away from him - his family taken, his children, his business, his livestock - everything ripped from him over and over again? How do you and I see Jesus as He's tempted not once, not twice, but three times by Satan in the wilderness? How do you and I withstand multiple waves?

The crisis that Hezekiah faced revealed Hezekiah's heart to himself. What did you see in the life of Job when he suffered? You see him turn to the Lord. He says, "The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord." What do you see in Hezekiah? You see him turn to the wall. You see him weep bitterly. You see him sulk and filled with self pity.

As you face the crises in your life, do you respond out of selfishness and self pity? Do you sulk and mourn the loss of your dreams being taken from you? Are you like Hezekiah? Or would you say like Job, "The Lord gives, the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord?" It doesn't deny the reality and the depths of the pain and difficulties, but it's a faith that turns to God in the midst of everything and says, "God has a plan."

Hezekiah was different. His heart was broken and he says,"God, why are you punishing me?" Here it says that he's good. He prays to the Lord in the midst of it. He says in verse three:

"Now, O Lord, please remember how I have walked before you in faithfulness and with a whole heart, and have done what is good in your sight."

Hezekiah turns to God in prayer and he says, "I don't get it! I sought you with my whole heart my whole life. It's not fair what's happening! Why are you punishing me?" Everything in Hezekiah's prayer at this point is about himself. He is not praying the Lord's prayer, "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." He's praying, "God, look at my works. Look at all the good things I've done. Do you want to go back to Ahaz? I'm the best thing that's come along since David! Look at what I've done for You."

How many people have turned to the Lord, the first one in their families, put their faith in Christ, and immediately things begin to go wrong in their hearts or in their lives? Their family turns to them and says, "See, you say you follow God but look what's it getting you. Deny Christ, return to your old ways." What Hezekiah's undergoing is a test to reveal his heart and open up that which becomes the reliance of Hezekiah's life.

We also see Hezekiah having this attitude that it's not fair. He says, "Look, You owe it to me because I've done it for You." It's a quid pro quo relationship. "God, I've done everything You requested, so You have to do everything I request." Now we in the church don't talk like this, do we? You and I say, "I served the Lord with my whole heart. I do whatever I can for Him. I've tried to serve without desiring anything back from the Lord." But that's not the reality, is it? When we do things, we do it because we expect something in return.

How many of us treat God in the same way? "God, if You give me this, I will do this for You. If You give me what I want, I will serve You, I will give money to the church, I will do all these things for You." Some of us might feel we're smarter than God. We say, "God, if You do this, then You give me this." People think, "Oh well that's not the way it should work." So we give to God first, and then we turn around and we say to God, "Come on, I've already paid up for You. You owe me." 

That's exactly what Hezekiah is praying. He's praying to God, "Look at all my faithfulness! Look at all the things I have done! God, did You forget? God, were You too busy keeping Mars and Venus spinning? Those rings around Saturn, they're really pretty. You've got to keep those moving. Perhaps You're too busy, God, making a new supernova to remember little old Hezekiah over here. Let me remind You of some things You owe me."

But the reality of it all is that it comes down to this: when you peer into your heart, you see something you don't like. So you say, "God, I don't like myself. I don't like what I'm seeing." When God brings times of testing in your life, He's testing you to reveal the things in your heart which are far from Him.

Hezekiah has run around Israel tearing down the idols. He took the idols out of the Temple, he took the idols off the mountaintops, and he took the bronze serpent that Moses had made in the wilderness that the people were worshipping and destroyed it. He tore down all the idols all around Israel, except the idols in his very heart. It's easy for you and I to see the splinter in someone else's life and miss the log in your own eye. It's easy for us to see the false worship all around in society and miss the very idols in our own heart. 

How does God prepare Hezekiah for the siege of the Assyrian army and the great work that God is going to do? He prepares him by stripping down the things that Hezekiah relies on, so that Hezekiah will remove the idols from his heart. What idols are in your heart today? What is it that you bring in your prayers before God? What is it that you're relying on today, to think that God owes you something because of the good things that you have done for Him? Idols of self-reliance, idols of pride, idols of covetousness.

​

I remember as a young missionary first arriving in Indonesia, I was pretty successful by the time I was 25 years old. Straight A student, honor roll in high school and college, given full scholarship to go to college because I won the the science fair where the first prize was a four year full tuition ride to go to college, and went on to work and had four patents for the things I've invented. 

I walked away from all of that achievement and came to Indonesia to serve the Lord. When I arrived in Indonesia, I thought, "Well, I've been successful my whole life. Here I am and I'm ready to do something." I come to Indonesia, and I'm, "Ape kabeh... Hello... I little, little I can lah speak Indonesian..." I had to learn to function from zero once again. I had no network, no people, no name, and nothing to rely on.

So I started to come to church here. As I came to church, I was blessed, I met Pak Tong, and I began to get caught up in the reformed evangelical movement and the work that was being done here. I saw the kindred spirits here, but I still hadn't no status. What can I do here in order to present myself to the world around me, to this country, so that they would ascribe this status I used to have in America to me now? If I don't have status, I can't get anything done.

Then Pak Tong had this 25 year anniversary of ministry with Pak Petrus Octavianus at the Hilton Hotel. All the who's who in the church and outside the church was invited. I had set my heart on getting an invitation to that dinner, and I did. The minute I showed up and walked in the door, the conviction of the Lord fell upon me. "How much pride is in your heart?" the Lord said to me. "Why is it so important for you to show up and to show off at this thing?" I had an idol of pride that said I wasn't satisfied in my status before Christ, needed to have a bigger status than being child of God, and that if I wanted doors to open and opportunities to happen, it had to be because I worked the system. The Lord convicted me and removed and tore out the idol that was based in my heart. That's what He's doing for Hezekiah here. He's saying, "Hezekiah, that idol's got to go. Give it to Me. Let Me take it."

But not only is there bad news for a good king, but then the situation changes and suddenly there's good news in this bad situation. Isaiah is just leaving. When he gets into the middle court, the Lord speaks to him and says, "Go back and tell him that in three days he will be healed." In this I see four important principles for you and I as we face the trials of our lives, when God is purifying our motives and removing the idols from our heart.

It starts by the very fact that is good news that God hears those who are downcast. Everything about Hezekiah's prayer is wrong, except to whom he prays. The entire basis is not the basis of prayer which God wants from us. However, he starts out the prayer, "Our father who art in heaven." He prays to the one true God. He knows that his situation is hopeless and only God can help. 

That's where our hope stands. God hears. God is not deaf, God is not dead, God is not impersonal, and God is not far away. God has bound Himself to you and I in an everlasting covenant based on love. He promises, "When you cry to Me, I will hear you." Are you downcast today? Are you wrestling with the reality of the idols in your heart? Lift up your imperfect prayers to the Lord. Cry out to Him like you've never cried out before. Plea to Him, for He knows your heart. He knows who you are and He cares and loves deeply for you. There has never been a tear that was shed in prayer that the Lord has not seen. God sees, He hears, and He responds to the weeping of His children. What are you crying for today? Do you have faith and trust that God is hearing?

Secondly, we see that God heals the hurting. It says that Isaiah turned to the king's representatives and he says, "I want you to go and make a cake of figs and place it on the skin." Apparently, Hezekiah had some skin disease that either was internal and now manifesting itself out on the skin, or his skin disease was infecting him. But Hezekiah had no hope from this.

Scholars tell us that making a cake of figs was the common medical remedy. I guarantee that people had already tried this. The doctors would have done the normal procedures to care for Hezekiah, but they weren't working. Isaiah now returns with a word from the Lord and he says, "Make a cake of figs and put it on. God's going to work." Things that previously we thought were useless, God works through those.

It's like Naaman who came to Israel and the prophet Elisha said to him, "Go and dip in the river Jordan." Naaman says, "Why? I've bathed in all sorts of rivers and my leprosy doesn't go away." Elisha says, "Do it, because when you do what the Lord commands, He will work."

God heals the hurting. God comes along those who are in pain through the trials, meets you in those trials, heals you physically, emotionally, and spiritually. The question is, if God was intent on healing Hezekiah all along, why does He say to Isaiah, "Tell Hezekiah he's about to die?" And then why is it when Isaiah is leaving the palace, God speaks to him, "No, no, no, go back and tell Hezekiah he's going to live now." Why is it that God allows Hezekiah to hurt and then turns around and heals him, if healing was the intention all along?

​

Why is it that God is allowing your business to be crushed or your relationships to fall apart? Why is it that God is stretching you financially, relationally, or emotionally? Why? Because God knows that the only way to uproot that idol in your heart, the only way that God can be enthroned supreme in your heart, is through this process of testing. If Isaiah hadn't given the bad news to Hezekiah, "You are going to die. Put your house in order. It's final," Hezekiah never would have prayed the way he prayed. Hezekiah never would have been faced with the reality that his prayer and relationship to God was based on performance, not the Gospel.

It's very easy for you and I to fall in that trap as well. You and I come before God not based on our performance, but based on Christ's performance. You and I hope not that God will recognize our good works and that the scale will tip in our favor, but you and I come before God because Christ's work was sufficient for us. God heals the hurting.

We also see that God heartens the weak. The most amazing story then takes place. Isaiah says, "In three days, you will be able to go back into the Temple and worship." Hezekiah still doesn't have faith. He just heard that Isaiah said, "You're going to die." He knows the end is near. "How is it in three days I'm gonna do a 180, and my life's going be put back together again? It's impossible!" Let me tell you, if Hezekiah doesn't believe that this is possible, he's never going to believe that in one night God can do a 180 for the situation of Israel when they're surrounded by the Assyrian army.

Hezekiah says, "How is this possible? Give me a sign." Isaiah says, "Okay, you want a sign. See the steps of Ahaz outside? Which would you like do? Do you want the shadow to go up 10 steps or you do you want it to go back 10 steps?" Hezekiah in his delirium, in his illness, in his bitter weeping, he's still thinking pretty sanely. He says to Isaiah, "That's pretty easy. The sun always shines this direction, and the shadow always goes up the steps. Make it go backwards."

We don't know exactly what happened, but the God who created the sun, moon, stars, and the universe created all those things to do His bidding. Perhaps it was an eclipse. Perhaps it was a meteor that suddenly shined through the sky a brighter light than what you had from the sun, causing the shadow to shift. I doubt God made the earth rotate the other direction, because if the earth was to suddenly rotate the other direction, all the thousands of km/h that we're spinning out one way would suddenly have to come to a rest and spin around the other way. There would be tidal waves, you and I would fall flat on our faces, and things would collapse. So I doubt it was that the world just went backwards 10 degrees. 

God did something. He caused the natural elements to change, so that the shadow would go backwards. This wasn't the first time He did this as well. When Joshua was fighting the Amalekites and was having such a great day of of victory, he wanted to bring it to a complete conclusion. He said to the Lord, "Make the sun stand still. Make the day go on longer." What happened? We read in Joshua chapter 10:

There has been no day like it before or since, when the Lord heeded the voice of a man, for the Lord fought for Israel.

Joshua made time stop by his prayer. Hezekiah chose for time to go backwards. What's happening is, God answers prayers with real solutions in real time. You might be sitting here today thinking it's hopeless. God says, "Don't despair. Take heart." Even though you are weak in your faith today, God will do real things in real time to solve your real problems. He sees, works, and glorifies His name. If the sun, moon, and stars obey the name and voice of our Lord and do His commands, you and I can have complete confidence before the throne of God. Hezekiah's faith was weak. It needed to be strengthened. It needed confirmation, and the Lord gave it to him.

Fourthly we see that God honors His promises. It's very possible that Hezekiah was so distraught because he knew of the promises of God - that He would give an eternal throne to David. We find that this point, God is going to extend Hezekiah's life 15 years. But interestingly, we find 15 years later when Hezekiah dies it says that his son Manasseh rose to the throne at age 12. That means that at the time he was told he would die, Hezekiah had no son to ascend to the throne of David. He would not have a descendant to sit on the throne for another three years from this point. Hezekiah not only was weeping for his own situation, but he was weeping bitterly because he knew that his death was the end of David's line and all of God's promises for Israel - no Messiah, no Gospel, no Lamb of God who comes to take away the sins of the world; empty, over, and finished forever.

But God honors His promises. God healed Hezekiah. He said that, "In three days, you will come into the Temple." Interestingly, the Old Testament doesn't give us any prophecies about Christ resurrecting on the third day. But what we do find is often in Scripture there are promises about a third day - the third day that Christ will come out of the tomb alive again, which reveals to us the great news for a broken world. All of God's promises in Christ are "yes."

We see patterns or pictures of the third day promise. Abraham taking his son Isaac to Mount Moriah to be sacrificed, and after a three day journey they get to the place of sacrifice and God says, "I've got a replacement for you." Three days Jonah was in the belly of a big fish or a whale. After three days, he appears again from the belly of the fish. Judah is under attack by the Assyrians and Hosea 6:2 says that on the third day, salvation will come for them.

So too we know the greatest news is that God will fulfill His promise to you and I. On the third day, Christ rose. Our debt of sin has been paid. God has given the greatest news to our broken world and it's that Jesus has defeated our greatest enemies. He's there to come to meet you and minister to you in the midst of your struggles. What idols are in your heart today that's keeping you from worshiping God? What is it that you have latched on to in your life to the point where you cannot give it to God?

Let me read for you a poem from the book Seasons of Uncertainty by Douglas McCauley. It says this:

In the midst of whatever follows, O Lord, 

let me meet Your mercies anew,

and anew, and anew.

In the midst of dismay, fix my eyes again

and again upon Your eternal promises.

How this ends - that is up to You.

If the next news is favorable, I will

praise You for the ongoing gift of life.

If tomorrow's tidings are worse, still

will I proclaim Your goodness,

my heart anchored ever more firmly in the

eternal joys You have set before me.

And when, whether days or decades from

now, You finally bid me rise and follow You

across the last valley, I will rejoice

in Your faithfulness even there.

Especially there -

praying Thy will be done,

and trusting by faith that it will be done.

That it is being done, even now.

Even in this disquiet.

I am utterly Yours, O Christ,

In the midst of this uncertainty,

I abandon myself again to You, the Author

and the Object of all my truest hopes.

Amen.

Is that the prayer that you bring to the Lord today? That you will trust yourself anew and anew and anew to the Lord, abandon yourself to the heart of the Lord, put yourself in His hands? Our loving Father takes us where we're at with our pride, selfishness, and covetousness into His loving hands and He matures and brings us into a new depth of relationship with Him.

That's what we celebrate today as we come to the table. We come to the Lord's table knowing that this table is to remind us of the great gift the Lord has given us - the great news for a bad world, for a broken and destroyed world. 

Hezekiah was the king, but he had a heart that had an idol. Hezekiah was faithful and did the work of the Lord, but he wasn't the kind of king that Israel needed. You have the cleansing of the Temple, then the victory over the Assyrians, and after that the flashback to go back to the life of Hezekiah. The reason the story of Hezekiah doesn't end with the great victory, but ends with the pride and failure of Hezekiah is to remind us that Hezekiah is not the king that Israel needed. Hezekiah, also like you and I, was a broken man. 

But God had another king - a king who would come and fulfill the covenant promises. In doing so, He would take upon Himself the covenant curses. This king would solve once and for all our greatest problem with God. Let us come now to the table and celebrate this king who took on Himself our sins and bore our pains on the cross so that you and I might have the promises of God restored to us.

​​

Father, we come before You and we ask that at this time You would work in our midst to remind us of the great blessings of the Lord - that all the covenant promises are "yes" and true in Christ. Father, may You do a great work in our hearts today, that we would rely fully on Christ and Christ alone. Reveal to us that which is displeasing in our hearts, the idols that need to be taken away, and bring us into a deeper understanding of the great work of Christ on our behalf. We pray in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.