August 10, 2008

The shooting that took place two weeks ago in that church in Tennessee is a terrible tragedy and we should continue to remember the families of the two people who were killed.  Let me be clear.  There is no correlation between this event and the next point I am about to make.  I was a little taken aback by something else the reporter said on the evening news that night.  That was about what was going on at the church during that Sunday morning worship.  Instead of listening to a sermon, the people were watching a children's production of Annie.  Now Annie is a wonderful musical and our Beaver Dam Children's Theatre, including our own Julia Wedel and Rachel Gramlow, did a super job performing it.  My family and I saw it and we thoroughly enjoyed it.  Yet, it struck me as strange that a children's performance of a secular musical play would replace the Sunday sermon.  I admit that one might find it more entertaining than one of my sermons.   But, is secular play really a good substitute for God's people hearing his Word proclaimed?  My wife told me about a church that she had attended in Buffalo, New York.   At that service, instead there being a sermon, a professor gave a lecture that had nothing to do with the Word of God.  The sad truth is that in some churches in our country lectures, plays, political speeches have replaced preaching from God's Word, the only word that can bring true comfort and salvation.

A similar situation existed in the northern 10 tribes of Israel under King Jeroboam.  In order keep people from worshipping at the temple in Jerusalem, King Jeroboam set up two golden calves, one in Dan in the northern part of his kingdom and one in Bethel in the south.  He then told the people in his nation that they must worship God there.  The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God who rescued them from Egypt was depicted by the golden calves and the people were to worship him at the feet of that image.  To fit his own political agenda Jeroboam transformed the worship of the one true God into an idolatry.  Something similar happens in this country when politics or some social agenda takes over the pulpit.  God's Word is twisted or even ignored and the congregation of worships a god of their own making. The Apostle Paul warned about such a time in 2 Timothy 4: 13

For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. ⁴They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.

That, however, was not the problem in Judah, under King Rehoboam.  In Judah the people still worshipped the one true God at the temple in Jerusalem in the way proscribed in the Law of Moses.  Because of that chapter 11, verse 13 tells us

The priests and Levites from all their districts throughout Israel sided with [Rehoboam].   ¹⁴The Levites even abandoned their pasturelands and property, and came to Judah and Jerusalem because Jeroboam and his sons had rejected them as priests of the LORD.

In Judah the worship of the true God continued, just as it does in most churches in our country.  Yet, something about their worship was not the same.  Look again at verses 9- 11,

When Shishak king of Egypt attacked Jerusalem, he carried off the treasures of the temple of the LORD and the treasures of the royal palace. He took everything, including the gold shields Solomon had made. ¹⁰So King Rehoboam made bronze shields to replace them and assigned these to the commanders of the guard on duty at the entrance to the royal palace. ¹¹Whenever the king went to the LORD'S temple, the guards went with him, bearing the shields, and afterward they returned them to the guardroom.

We find in 2 Chronicles 9 that King Solomon had originally made these golden shields. Every time the king would go to the temple, soldiers bearing these shields would surround the him, probably not so much to protect him, but as a way showing the magnificence and splendor of his rule.  In a sense, it was similar to why a band often plays Hail to the Chief to introduce our President.  It's not so much to honor that man, as it is his office and the country the office represents. Did anyone here see the opening ceremony for the Olympics in Beijing?  It was spectacular.  Why was there all that beautiful pageantry.  China was showing its pride as a people and nation.  The gold shields were similar.  They were part of the pride of Israel and they showed how God had blessed them as a nation. 

But now some of that national pride was gone. The king of Egypt had pillaged the palace and the temple and took the gold shields  So Rehoboam made cheaper bronze shields to replace them.  The captain of the guard was so embarrassed by these bronze shields that he no longer put on them on display but stored them in guard room.  The king and the nation were humbled. 

Why?  Listen again to the words of the prophet Shemaiah,

"This is what the LORD says, ‘You have abandoned me; therefore, I now abandon you to Shishak.'

The king and the people had abandoned the Lord, but not so much in their worship.  As far as their worship was concerned, unlike Jeroboam, they followed the law that the Lord had given to Moses.  But, outside the Temple Rehoboam and the people of Judah abandoned the law of God. The problem was not with their worship.  It was with what people did after they left temple worship.  Specifically, what were their sins? 1 Kings 14: 22- 24 tells us.

²²Judah did evil in the eyes of the LORD. By the sins they committed they stirred up his jealous anger more than their fathers had done. ²³They also set up for themselves high places, sacred stones and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every spreading tree. ²⁴There 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

The writer of Chronicles, however, doesn't so much concentrate on the specific sins as the underlying reasons for those sins.  In our text God's Spirit inspired the writer of this Chronicle to summarize all the idolatry and evil of Rehoboam's Judah with these words,

"He did evil because he had not set his heart on seeking the LORD."

Seeking the Lord is opposite of abandoning him.  To seek the Lord is to acknowledge him in every part of our lives.  In a real sense we can't abandon God.  As Psalmist points out in Psalm 139,

                         ⁷    Where can I go from your Spirit?

    Where can I flee from your presence?

⁸    If I go up to the heavens, you are there;

    if I make my bed in the depths,^£ you are there.

⁹    If I rise on the wings of the dawn,

    if I settle on the far side of the sea,

¹⁰    even there your hand will guide me,

    your right hand will hold me fast.

God is always there.  Our sin and unbelief blind us to his presence.  So, seeking the Lord is to acknowledge his presence by faith and obedience. 

What do I mean by that?  Let me explain by two examples.  We are traveling down the highway.  The flow of traffic, which has been going at least 15 miles an hour over the speed limit suddenly slows.   What might you expect to find ahead on the shoulder of the road or in median?  More than likely we will find a police officer sitting in a squad car.  Similarly, seeking the Lord is to train ourselves to realize that he is always there and to live a life that acknowledges that. When we cuss, God is there.  When we party God is there.  When we lose our temper with our spouse, God is there.  When we spread gossip or say something cruel, God is there.  He always is.  When we seek him, we merely are trying to open our eyes to his presence.

Similarly, I remember that one of my daughters would become very afraid at night- so afraid that she wouldn't let us leave the room when we put her to bed.  We had to stay there until she fell asleep and then we would quietly sneak away.  Think about this.  The room was the same whether we were there or not.  But, she couldn't sleep knowing we were not there.  Seeking the Lord is to be able to rest because we know that he is there. 

As Romans 1: 19- 24  tells us, not seeing God  leads to all kinds of evil.

since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities-his eternal power and divine nature-have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

²¹For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. ²²Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools ²³and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

²⁴Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 

Why did Israel turn to idolatry?  The answer is clear: because they no longer by faith saw that God was there with them.  And they turned to sexual sins for the very same reason.  They no longer saw God.  What about us?

Yet, our text is not just a statement that tells us that Rehoboam and Israel did not seek the Lord; it gives us the reason why they didn't.  And why was that?  Listen again

He did evil because he had not set his heart on seeking the LORD.

The Hebrew word that our Bible translates "set" is the word  kun,  which also means to establish or direct.  The heart is center of our being-our core- the rudder that guides our lives.  Rehoboam did not seek because at the core of his being he did not establish the priority of seeking the Lord.  God was not number one in his life. 

Now there can be a lot of reason why we have not made the Lord number one in our lives and I don't time this morning to discuss them all.  But one important reason is was given by the wise writer of Proverbs, who said,

give me neither poverty nor riches,

    but give me only my daily bread.

We might understand why he didn't want poverty, but why not riches?  Listen to the next verse.

Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, ‘Who is the LORD?'

We've had a difficult year economically, but the truth is that we live pretty well, don't we?  How many of us really worry that much about where the next meal is coming from?  How many of us worry about starvation?  Some of the things we complain about are really ridiculous, aren't they?  I remember on our vacation a couple weeks ago, we just had a marvelous time.  The weather was great.  Everything was just perfect.  Well, it was not quite perfect.  I remember that we decided to take a ride on a ferry to see the Apostle Islands.  We had never been there before, so we called the day before and arrived at the boat about 15 minutes before it was to leave.  It was already packed with people.  We couldn't even sit together as a family.  We sat in aisle seats needing to look over others in order to view the islands out the window.  It was not what we had expected.  I was a little bitter inside.  But, then suddenly the Lord touched my conscience and I realized all he given us, including this beautiful vacation, and I felt ashamed.  Only then, when I focus on him, could I see the magnificence of the Creator in the beauty around me.  In my prosperity I had become a spoiled brat, not even realizing the blessing of God and the beauty of his creation.  And it wasn't the first time.

How easy it is to forget God.  It doesn't take much.   How important it is make a conscious effort moment by moment to acknowledge his presence-to seek him.  How important it is to realize that in all of life he is Lord.

But, God is gracious.  Look at verses 7- 8,

2 Chronicles 12:7 - 8 (NIV) ⁷When the LORD saw that they humbled themselves, this word of the LORD came to Shemaiah: "Since they have humbled themselves, I will not destroy them but will soon give them deliverance. My wrath will not be poured out on Jerusalem through Shishak.  ⁸They will, however, become subject to him, so that they may learn the difference between serving me and serving the kings of other lands."

Sometimes, the Lord humbles us.  Sometime we must struggle the results of our sins.  Maybe that is the case for some of us here this morning.  We partied too much and now we struggle with alcoholism; we indulged our sexual passions and now we struggle with sexual addiction; we gave in to our anger and now we are estranged from one we love; we gave into our drive for success and now we barely know our own children.  The list could go on.  And we may well have to bear the consequences of our failure the rest of our lives.  But, we don't bear those consequences without hope. 

On a hillside overlooking the harbor of Macao in southern China,  Portuguese settlers once built a huge cathedral, which was later destroyed in a hurricane. It was destroyed that it, except for the front wall. High on the top of that jutting wall is a great bronze cross..

Sir John Bowering was an up and coming political leader in early 19^th century England.  Yet, throughout much of his career he forgot about God.  Once in a while he attended a very liberal church.  But for the most part he lived as if God was not there.  In 1825 he was shipwrecked right off the coast of Macao- ironically symbolic of the mess he made of his life without God.  Clinging to the wreckage of his ship, at long last he caught sight of that great cross, which showed him where he could find safety on the shore. This dramatic rescue moved him to write:

           In the cross of Christ I glory,
           Towering o'er the wrecks of time;
           All the light of sacred story,
            Gathers round its head sublime.

That's one important reason why we are here in God's house today.  We are here, so that we can look up at the cross and remember what God's Son did for us there, and know that there is forgiveness.  We are here to seek the one who died there and know that he gives us hope. Yet, as we look at that cross, we hear his voice.

¹⁰For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost."

And suddenly we realize that all along he has been seeking us.  We seek him because he never stops searching for us.  Let us reach out to the one who has been reaching out to us. 

O Lord, once again we come humbled before you.  We come wearing bronze not gold.  Too often in the business of our lives we have forgotten you. Like prodigal son, we stand before you Father, knowing we have sinned.  But today your Spirit has drawn us to the foot of your cross, O Jesus.  We pray us forgiveness.  And we pray that the same Spirit who led us here before your cross will guide us this week to seek you in all we do and say.  Amen