God's Got This ... If We Go To Him
Lessons from Hezekiah - 2 Kings 18, 2 Chronicles 29, Isaiah 36
Video can’t be displayed
This video is not available.
Sermon Transcript
Auto-generated by YouTube
morning welcome if you're new here among us my name is gene and i serve here at c3 church as your lead pastor and today we're going to do a little bit of review so we're gonna look back a little bit look forward a little bit but first i'm gonna kind of let the new people know what we're all about and then review remind some of you what we're all about c3 christ-centered church christ is the head of our church not pastor gene so how do i know what to do what the word of god says simple as that right so we don't add anything to we don't take anything away so there's not a lot of silly programs here not a lot of fluff not a lot of extra stuff it's just god's word that's what we're all about that's how you get it right that's what the church should be now last week we talked about and we do talk about a lot of very kind of like typical christian teachings modern christianity not biblical christianity right so how we've taken our world and we put it on top of this that's what we do right so we take our government and put it on top of this and we see everything through that lens that's wrong that's how we get it really really wrong so there's all these like christian easy kind of teachings out there and so people struggle reconciling the world with the word when the key to the whole thing is you've got to throw the world out and just pay attention to the word and see everything through this and that's the accurate way to do it this just came on my heart i'm going to go for it probably so there were supreme court rulings over the weekend right and this is difficult for pastors because you have both both blue sheep and red sheep people don't know that right they think all the sheep in the christian church are red that's not true and so when you're seeing it this way it's different so i'm not going to talk about any of the rulings but i heard a person a christian out there praying she said i've been praying for this for years i want you to think about that for a minute in this context looking at things through the lens of the world versus the word what's wrong with that don't answer what's wrong with that is this i've been praying for our government to come in and save us what here's the right prayer jesus changed their hearts that's the right prayer you see so we see it wrong right you might have seen that on tv or whatever but you might thought that's really cool no it's not but we believe that no government is gonna let's not read this to the end read this to the end all the way through so that's that's the topic today that's we're gonna be talking about a lot today i finished this i've read this all the way to there i'm not finished with it trust me i read it all the time but when you read to the end it's jesus who comes and solves everything everything there are no more problems don't worry about it we are citizens of heaven so this stuff yeah it matters but it matters to get people to christ that's it that's our job that's a main thing tell them about jesus if they don't listen see ya that's what it says that's it we're looking forward to heaven so it calms a lot of nerves here's the thing people don't read it all the way through so you get what i like to call thief on the cross christians you ever hear people use this the thief on the cross so if you haven't been in christianity for a while you might not have heard this but if you've been a lifelong christian you've heard this thinking so luke 23 this person has gotten to the third gospel one more chapter to go but they give up they give up right here because they like what they read here's the backdrop jesus is being crucified for our sins not so that we can sin for our sins he has like criminals that just make it easy to understand on either side of him and one of them begins mocking him really you know like you're the messiah get yourself off the cross then and us too by the way while you're at it and the other criminal on the cross is like whoa don't you fear god we're criminals we deserve to be here he doesn't turns to jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom jesus says today you'll be with me in paradise thief on the cross christian that sounds great but there's 27 books of the new testament this person's only on the third one there's a lot of clarification what they do is they use this to say i don't have to do anything i just believe in jesus and just like the thief on the cross i'm with him in paradise but that's not at all as we've seen what the rest of it says so you view it like a commentary each successive book is a commentary on the one that came before it was really important you get places like romans and things like that and then you get to james and it'll clarify a little bit and we got to do both sides of the coin that's what we talked about last week right so faith and work so we're going to talk about that a little bit more they go hand in hand they go together but pastors like me run into a lot of thief on the cross christians right they've closed the book and here's the funny thing like imagine your favorite movie right now think about it right and then someone only watches like one-third of it or they jump i've talked about this before they jump all over the place and they go in and tell you what that movie is all about you're like really you're crazy but christians do this all of the time and so pastors have very difficult conversations it's like they'll come in and try to man this is another discovery i'm having pastoral work modern pastoring is nothing like what jesus did and paul did and everybody we ask like 20 million questions so that you self-discover jesus really didn't do that so we do and so we'll be nice right we'll ask all these questions so we run into this person we start thinking like oh well um have you been baptized because they just i believe in jesus that's it i'm getting it have you been baptized no thief on the cross wasn't baptized are you attending a church steve on the cross didn't go to church there wasn't a church yet anyway but he didn't keep reading right he didn't get to the beginning of acts so you know you keep trying well do you read your bible steve on the cross didn't read the bible and soon a pastor will get to a place where he said you know look and this is where you turn into like more like jesus now or paul or somebody like that you see the difference between the thief on the cross and you is that the thief was dying in his belief but you are dead in yours now here's the thing those of you who have been here for a while might be panicking a little bit because you're like normally he starts with a joke right and so you know like he softens us up and gets us ready and then it gets gradually harder and harder and harder he talks really really fast through all these scriptures and then like you know what i mean and then prays for us so where is it going like what is going to happen now does this mean it gets easier or what is harder than this i don't know or just don't overthink it how about that maybe there's really no plan at all here and i just i don't know whatever so just relax that's the joke right there that was your joke all right so recap we got to do a little review i'll explain a few things to you here as we go along we're in the rest of the story as i said we believe in the word of god and that's just not like the favorite places we believe in the whole thing right it's all equally the word of god it's not like oh well this part of it's more important no it's all the word of god and i'm trying to teach you guys how to see it rightly what's in it what's going on but let's just do a little bit of a technical recap here so if you've never read the bible before and you have to assume that right we can't be like all up here all the time we're going to assume you never read the bible before you probably know about king david right so there's our frame of reference here king david all right you might know he has a son so it's after the whole goliath thing right the son is solomon you might think oh yeah he was really rich and really smart but not so much because solomon ended up breaking every single rule for the kings of israel every rule you see in deuteronomy 17 i believe every single rule and so god paraphrase approaches him he says look you know i should destroy you but for the sake of your father david i won't it'll happen in future generations and then we get rabon he comes along and sure enough immediately bad decision maker you hit the split of the kingdom so just think like a civil war so jeroboam in the north judah and the south so judah solomon or rehoboam at this point and so they're going to begin warring but before they do israel is technically a bit worse all right so they set up the calf idols this is to prevent people from worshiping where the worship should be in jerusalem so they're trying to stop that there's always political stuff going on but their succession begins to happen by murder like so they start murdering one another and this is how the kings go along but david's dynasty continues and that's what we're looking at right here books of the bible we're in second kings now and second chronicles and they largely run in parallel so you have different books of the bible talking about the same accounts the same things but we've seen they give us slightly different details so think of it like maybe second kings is written first chronicles the chronicler comes along and says well let's add this or let's talk about this or you know just differences kind of like the way the gospels work same basic story for gospels that's where we are then on top of it here's why the bible's so confusing is because these prophets happen during that time but in the bible they're all the way over there so they're not even close and so you go what what is going on so i've been trying to put all this stuff back together for you put the prophets kind of where they belong and try not to make it too confusing so what happens in second kings and second chronicles is you have this kind of cut scene like you see in movies so meanwhile in israel that meanwhile in judah and so sometimes they're happening at the same time but they're in the next chapter this is exactly where we find ourselves today so we looked at some prophets micah right we looked at hosea not to be confused with king hoshea right we looked at joel on pentecost because peter what he recites a whole bunch of joel in his sermon on pentecost so we looked at those books but before that that's why we need the recap second kings 16 king ahaz he's really wicked now he ends up closing the temple and we had to go to second chronicles to get that information then it's a whole bunch of meanwhile there's like a whole bunch of prophets that happen there's all this stuff we saw last week king hoshea and israel he's defeated so the northern kingdom now falls to the assyrians they're taken into captivity they're gone now at this point and now everything is going to focus on judah in the south so that is david's family david's line many many generations afterward that's where we are so we're back here in second kings well let's look at second king 16 first so this is the second king 16 and there's the parallel so we can bring that up there you go so there's ahaz so when he died he was buried with his ancestors in the city of david then his son hezekiah became the next king and second chronicles a little shorter but about the same but look he was not buried in the royal cemetery right because he was bad he closed up the temple bad all kinds of vital worship then last week second king 17. so israel now falls now boom here's hezekiah second kings 18 second chronicles 29 running in parallel did i just skip the chart on you robert yeah there you go so there it is some i did not draw that again the biceps would be much bigger if i drew that but anyway just to have some fun that's basically how these things are running in parallel it's basically ish so you can i think we're going to put it on the app probably but you can look at it then so that's to help you understand how these things are going so let's go to second kings 18 now saying 18 1 hezekiah son of ahaz began to rule over judah in the third year of king hoshea's reign in israel so that was the last chapter he was 25 years old when he became king and he reigned in jerusalem 29 years his mother was ebysha the daughter of zechariah he did what was pleasing in the lord's sight just as his ancestor david had done kind of the same but what did he do second chronicles will continue on in the very first month of the first year of his reign hezekiah reopened the doors of the temple of the lord and repaired them so he reverses his father's decision so he's going to do this and so what happens here is if you're following along i'm just going to shorten it and paraphrase through quite a bit just to get to where we're going here today interesting last week listen we saw that the lord wants us to listen he starts telling the levites and the priests listen to me is what we have to do you got to get to work purify yourselves reopen the temple so the reopening of the temple will happen over like 16 days so it takes eight days just to get in there and then another eight days just to kind of like reopen it purify it do all this stuff we're gonna see a big list of levites so they name everybody so this is what slows a lot of people down in the bible right you get this huge genealogy this person begot this or the son of this so i'm just not going to go through all that with you today there's a whole bunch of levites imagine that in priests so if you don't know what these people are priests are like a priest like you would see in a more traditional church not me so you know they offer the sacrifices they're allowed to go into certain parts of the temple the levites are from the same line but they're more like worship helpers like so these could be worship leaders they'll help the priests out in their duties that's really the difference that's it but here it's interesting because it notes that the levites are actually like doing better somehow than the priest they're more pure they've purified themselves better somehow just an interesting note so if we turn the page second chronicles 30 basically to summarize he sends letters out to everybody this is hezekiah and it says come celebrate this passover and if you don't know there are three pilgrimage festivals that the bible outlines it's in the law of moses that all the jewish people have to go to the temple and celebrate it's mandatory passover is one of them it's the real big one very very important pentecost and then booths in the fall those are the three so he sends letters out some mock him but some come and they have this massive passover celebration and it's very hard in our context for us to imagine it like what it might be like literally thousands upon thousands of animals being sacrificed peta went nuts right so it was really but it's hard in our cultural context to imagine that so you either you have a farm or something like that you take the best the first of your flock your animal you have fruits because there's all different kinds of offerings and you're gonna take it there offer it to priests you don't sacrifice it he does he's the only one who can do it right so this is what you must do very very important so it's absolutely massive big huge festival and remember this is a command in the law they should have been doing this the whole time so he's reinstating all this stuff hezekiah is for now doing pretty well if you keep going not only that he's going to reinstitute like all the daily sacrifices they're supposed to be daily sacrifices too so he gets that moving and it's interesting just a little side note he commands everyone to support the priests and levites in this work basically he says you need to ties to them so that they can devote themselves to the work entirely and this should remind us this repeats in acts 6 right so the apostles the teachers they need to be in the word all the time so they get the deacons going and they say you go do all the other stuff so we can be in the word in prayer right so we got to get our sermons ready that's really important so it's an interesting note here devotion they're devoting themselves this is a big thing so right in the early church what did they do tony was talking about that they devoted themselves right to prayer they devoted themselves to the worship to the apostles teaching they devoted themselves to fellowship to being together the lord's supper so devoted and so we talked about that was big last week they didn't just go check right i showed up now i'm gonna go watch the game i don't care right they spent they spent a lot of time with one another so devoted to everything they did so again if you're new here that's what we're about here at c3 church right devoted to the work that's what i do for the majority of my week it's why i know it that's important so whatever we're doing we're devoted to it but if you know me if you've been here for a long time you know i'm devoted to you right so we like that we're family i'm going to be praying for you i want to know everybody's name i want to know what your needs are so devotion it's very very important so here's what we see getting reinstated hezekiah they were not devoted they're like whatever kind of like the church today in a lot of ways but he devotes himself to it so here we go we're going to devote ourselves to the lord now we run into a different situation assyria conquers israel in the north now they're high off that victory they turn around and they're going to go south so they're going to go after judah now after hezekiah so that's the backdrop as to what is happening right now again the chart we run into these three places second chronicles 32 second kings 18 and now isaiah 36 if it wasn't confusing enough they're all the same-ish they have different details but all three of those sections of the bible are about the same they're detailing the same thing a lot of people don't know this they think ah second kings that happens maybe they know second chronicles but they have no idea that the same account is almost the same as second kings is here it's happening here but it's all the way over there in your bible so let me just read this part to you and then i'll go through it paraphrase it again second chronicles 32 1. pay attention to this after after hezekiah had faithfully carried out this work okay so store that sentence in your head after hezekiah had faithfully carried out this work king sennecrab of assyria invaded judah he laid siege to the fortified towns giving orders for his army to break through their walls when hezekiah realized that sennacherib also intended to attack jerusalem that's the capital city down there he consulted with his officials and military advisors and they decided to stop the flow of the springs outside the city they organized a huge work crew to stop the flow of the springs cutting off the brook that ran through the fields for they said why should the kings of assyria come here and find plenty of water we're not going to help them out then hezekiah worked hard at repairing all the broken sections of the wall erecting towers and constructing a second wall outside the first he also reinforced supporting terraces in the city of david jerusalem and manufactured large numbers of weapons and shields he appointed military officers over the people and assembled them before him in the square at the city gate then hezekiah encouraged them by saying be strong and courageous don't be afraid or discouraged because of the king of assyria or his mighty army for there is a power far greater on our side he may have a great army but they're merely men we have the lord our god to help us and to fight our battles for us so here second kings 18 isaiah 36 a little different shorter beginning in the beginning of isaiah but kind of the same ish so here's basically what happens so at first hezekiah is like you know what i've done wrong i'm going to pay you your tribute so not exactly the right thing to do right so he's doing all these things but then all of a sudden he's like no no he's basically going to pay him off 11 tons of silver and one ton of gold to get it he strips the temple basically great hezekiah but this doesn't work because nevertheless the king of assyria goes after him and so we have an exchange they take up a position outside jerusalem and you gotta remember like imagine like these three ambassadors so three people come up and it's kind of like an exchange outside the wall so hezekiah he calls for hezekiah but hezekiah hasn't come out he sends his three guys out to talk to him so you have like maybe a conversation just outside the wall right so they're just just outside there and in these movies you always wonder why aren't people just like shooting the ambassadors but no they have a conversation right out there they're not getting shot at in fact they're quite bold they're very bold so they bring up two points the first one is egypt why egypt well because here we're going to see that sometimes they'll either pay other countries think of it that way off to help them out you know they recruit them and we see that going back and forth so the first thing they say is look you think egypt's going to help you the king of egypt unreliable it gives this weird analogy like it'll be like you're leaning on a broken reed it'll splinter and break your hand kind of thing don't rely on them then they start mocking god they say you think your god's gonna help you no way right what other gods help their people so they go on and on and they're just insulting they say look you're weak in fact we'll give you 2 000 horses if you can find that many people to ride on them even with the egypt's chariots and these horses it's not going to do you any good so they're really going hard in this exchange so hard that people say no you you can speak to us in your language or make probably you could speak to us in your language so the people won't hear we can understand it so they're getting nervous because these people are quite bold the people are hearing it's a bad situation and so they let them know they're like do you think our master sent us only to talk to your master no the people should hear because there's going to be a big siege they're going to starve to death and then the bible does say this they're going to eat their own dung and drink their own urine well it says that in there so it's really bad it's really graphic so they're going on and on and on but the people are pretty obedient they don't listen to it they don't answer back they basically give them an offer like you can come will take you to a better place it'll be nice you know lush pastors but nobody listens they're going to stick it out so they went back to hezekiah they report all this stuff and he does something that we might not understand tears his clothes and he puts on burlap some people say like sackcloth so just imagine it this way you do this when you're mourning or you're grieving so imagine like you really want to like convince everyone that you're really upset about something so you put on like a wool sweater in the middle of the summer there's no way you are going to be able to be happy about anything with that sweater so that's what happens so whenever you see that in the bible that's what they're doing they're ensuring the fact that they're going to be like you know absolutely miserable just however you would look with the wool sweater in 90 degree weather but my daughter does that she wears she's fully adjusted to florida she wears like knit sweaters in the heat i'm like how i don't know anyway you tell us go to isaiah and tell him what's going on so here we have isaiah son of amos he's the prophet go to him tell him what's going on let's see what's going to happen well isaiah basically just gives him good news again listen this is what's going to happen the word listen is in there again he's going to get called out so basically the ethiopians are going to attack him another army is going to attack syria he's going to have to leave but he's going to get killed too so send that back sure enough this is what happens he gets called away not killed just yet before he goes away he sends hezekiah another one of these nasty messages and hezekiah this time he spreads it out the message before the lord in the temple and he begins praying over it really faithfully he's really putting his trust in the lord complains a little bit but then puts his faith now isaiah sends another message and we'll put it up second kings 19 20. then isaiah son of a imam sent this message to hezekiah this is what the lord the god of israel says i've heard your prayer about king senecarab of assyria and the lord has spoken this word against him the virgin daughter of zion despises you and laughs at you the daughter of jerusalem shakes her head in derision as you flee whom have you been defying and ridiculing against whom did you raise your voice at home did you look at with such haughty prideful eyes it was the holy one of israel they're messing with my people second kings 19 if we jump ahead a little 32 and this is what the lord says about the king of assyria his armies will not enter jerusalem they will not even shoot an arrow at it they will not march outside its gates with their shields nor build banks of earth against its walls the king will return to his own country by the same road on which he came he will not enter this city says the lord for my own honor and for the sake of my servant david so there we go this is this line i will defend this city and protect it jump ahead a little more here we go second kings 19 35 that night the angel of the lord went out to the assyrian camp and killed 185 000 assyrian soldiers when the surviving assyrians woke up the next morning they found corpses everywhere then king seneca rip of assyria broke camp and returned to his own land he went home to his capital of nineveh and stayed there one day while he was worshiping the temple of his god nisrak his sons adremelek and charizard killed him with their swords nice kids then they escaped to the land of ararat and another sin esr aiden became the next king of assyria fulfilling the prophecy of isaiah so trying to make this easy to understand so we've been talking about profits weaving through these accounts two prophets are two assyria we're talking about here seneca to assyria specifically and so one of them we already looked at remember jonah we've looked at that one in the past that's the whole deal he doesn't want to prophesy to them he doesn't like them hard to figure out where that one goes you can speculate but whatever there's another one nahum nobody reads it it's three chapters long it's too assyria so it mostly concerns itself with judgments against assyria so let's just take a look nahum 115. now here's the thing i'm dropping it in here for a reason i'll get there so with these judgments he will often give hope to his people so he'll say look you're going through this bad thing now but in the future i got good news coming so look a messenger is coming over the mountains with good news he is bringing a message of peace celebrate your festivals o people of judah and fulfill all your vows for your wicked enemies this is a syria will never invade your land again they don't they will be completely destroyed so that you can put in there too around that time people debate about where he actually goes but i would put it about there so he talked about this in the past there's no such thing as a new testament christian there's a lot of people will not look at all this stuff there are a lot of christians that they no it's all the old testament doesn't count anymore but paul other places they tell us all this stuff exists so that we learn from them that's the purpose of it and paul says that now a lot of people don't know this maybe you'll learn something today i've talked about in the past but it was a while ago the new testament is 30 percent about 33 about a third old testament quotations so think about it you can't be a new testament christian there's no such thing a third of it is old testament quotations so it is all being written with the expectation that you know it think about it you're reading it you don't know the context or what anyone's referring to if you never watched that movie you don't know what they're talking about really and so we're going to kind of get there today so it's very very important so we did this when we looked at joel i think we looked at romans 10 13. we saw for everyone who calls upon the name of the lord will be saved and there's another quote of joel that's what that is a lot of people don't realize that because they're not reading it that's joel they also don't realize what happens if we keep reading this is where it gets really interesting romans 10 14 but how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him and how can they believe in him unless oh sorry if they have never heard about him excuse me and how can they hear about him unless someone tells them and how will anyone go and tell them without being sent this is what the scriptures say what do you think paul is referring to the old testament how beautiful are the feet of the messengers who bring good news and that is a mash-up of nahum 115 that we just read and isaiah 57 2 isn't it interesting how it all comes together how can no here's the thing i don't think feet are beautiful right but that's not exactly what they're telling they're not talking about you know paint your toenails right not that so how beautiful are the feet how wonderful is it that someone will deliver me the gospel how beautiful is that how wonderful are the feet that deliver that good news the shoes of peace if you're familiar with the word how can they believe though if no one preaches to them how can anyone know about this if nobody does anything it's a point to consider you see there is our part in this i've done that you know if you know a lot about art escher the hand drawing the hand god is working with us it's both it's another hard thing for people all right so they get the thief on the cross christian they're like i'm out but that's not what the rest of it says we're not like called to do nothing we're supposed to do we're supposed to have beautiful feet right so we're supposed to get this to people we're supposed to have devotion to this we're saying jesus is lord all right he's i'm going to have he think about what you're saying i'm going to have eternal life in him because he got crucified for me but i'm done with him what i'm done with him that's really what people are saying i'm done i don't want to hear what he has to say to me anymore i'm done and then i'm not even getting to the gratitude part devotion so think about it in context of what we're looking at here hezekiah he did some stuff he was really devoted he devoted himself to restoring the worship hey we gotta worship the lord here come on guys let's get going he devoted himself he did stuff right then the lord moves in amazing ways he reopens the temple he purifies the priests then they have the passover and think about it he fortifies not just one wall two walls the towers the defenses he does his part in this thing he does his part then he still prays he lays out the letter but praying he's doing stuff the whole while then the lord moves then the lord kills 185 000. think about that bam okay you see hezekiah had faith that god would help him but first he put in the work think about it you see god's got this if we go to him god's got this if we obey him that's an important part people don't like we've talked about it in the past faith and works go hand in hand works are a product of our faith so if we're thinking remember i taught you guys the parable the sower beautiful initiation of like the parable ministry that jesus does there so the seed the word of god it gets down into you it gets in there if your heart's right and then what does it do jesus doesn't say nothing right so the seeds of the word of god it gets inside you and really that it just makes you feel really good about everything you're doing doesn't say that it said it grows and when it's in the right soil it produces fruit 30 60 100 times that's a lot it produces a whole lot of fruit so think about it that way remember this your works are the product of your faith they go hand in hand if you're not bearing fruit those of you who've read the bible know what jesus says about those chopped down thrown into the fire it's serious it's serious now here's the thing we're gonna talk about like reading the rest now here's where the thief on the cross christian they made it to john and they made it to chapter six and then they're going to quote this back at me right even though they've never read the rest and they don't understand the context they're going to say well you know the only work is what jesus says to the crowd the only work i need from you is to believe in me the context there is he gives that teaching about eating his flesh and drinking his blood to chase them away because all they want are signs and wonders works that's the point then he turns to the disciples and said you're going to leave too that's the context but if we keep reading you'll see this you might you might get to james is good james 2 jesus jesus's brother by the way knows him kind of well what good is it dear brothers and sisters if you say you have faith but don't show it with your actions can that kind of faith save anyone think about what's being said here think deeply in that kind of faith save anyone suppose you see a brother or sister who has no food or clothing and you say goodbye have a good day stay warm and eat well but then you don't give that person any food or clothing what good does that do so you see faith by itself isn't enough that's the word of god saying it not me that's a major clarification to a lot of bad teachings the word of god tends to do that unless it produces good deeds it is dead and useless now someone may argue so he knows he's going to be lawyered here right some people have faith others have good deeds but i say how can you show me your faith if you don't have good deeds i will show you my faith by my good deeds you say you have faith if you believe that there is one god good for you even the demons believe this and they tremble in terror how foolish can't you see that faith without good deeds is useless that's a major clarification on john 6 isn't it you see we show our faith by our works that means we have to put in the work that's it that's what it says now here's the thing and there are both sides of the coin there are different occasions there is a time when the lord calls us to wait on him yes absolutely not negating that there is a time for that but that's not most of the time and if you look at those people writing that and giving that encouragement like david they do a lot of stuff right so david just doesn't go i'm done right like okay lord we're good no no no he's not just sitting around doing nothing it's very important to realize paul did he do nothing no he put his life on the line constantly to be those beautiful feet everywhere he went constantly shipwrecks beaten crazy life you don't want to go on a mission trip with paul it's dangerous so he does a lot of stuff but here's like what christians do and i'll give you another garden analogy and first of all you've got to know something i have a black thumb like i that that's it you know if you have a garden don't let me in it it's just going to be bad news so but this is kind of like what christians are like to me this is this is what i see so guardian maybe you have like a little plot of land you know in southwest florida you're not gonna get anything to grow anyway because it's all sand but anyway you have this little plot of land and you want to grow a garden it's been a dream of yours but maybe you're like me right so maybe it's me and i know i can't grow it so here's what i'm gonna do i'm gonna pray that the guardian grows by my faith we're gonna give that a try right and it's possible it's totally possible so you know by my faith lord grow the garden so i do this for a day and i'm like well it's gotta rain first so i'll just keep praying next day by my face lord grow this garden in jesus name right that's what jesus wants we know that then all of a sudden you're praying the next day by my faith lord grow the garden doorbell rings like huh so you check your ring cam right who is it you wait from the go away because you don't want to interact with anyone socially you get to the door you open up the package and then you pull out a packet of seeds that's weird we'll put it away by my faith lord grow the garden let me pray that again the next day grow the garden lord in jesus name doorbell rings again another package it's a little bit bigger this time you open it up there's a whole bunch of garden tools in there you're like what's that for whatever i didn't order that all right next day buy my faith lord grow the garden make it grow thing again right it'd be awesome if someone's ring thing went off right then i could have manufactured that now i think about it but by grow the guard doorbell rings you go there and it's a hose i need a hose and order that next day by my faith is not growing buy my faith lord grow the garden again what is it a watering head this goes on day after day after day no garden and then you start asking the lord why right why god why isn't the garden growing because he gave you everything you needed to grow a garden and you did nothing with it that's why the lord doesn't always answer the same exact prayers like we want but he gives us the resources and the tools to get that same job done the seed the garden tools the hose those are all miracles it was answering your prayer just not in a way that you thought happens all the time i see christians do it all the time all the time so paul gives this example which is kind of interesting in first corinthians so the first problem in the corinthian church i've talked about this before pastor worship that's what they're doing they're doing what people do today oh i love so-and-so and i watch all his youtube videos so amazing no god's amazing that person is not amazing at all and that's what paul is saying people are not amazing god is amazing and that's it but they're like oh apollos he's such a good speaker peter that's the lead apostle he's so great paul not so much right so they're starting to worship certain pastors and developing factions in the church well i follow paul i follow apollos and paul gets really mad he goes on a four chapter rant about it i'm glad i baptized none of you except all these other people chris gaius stephanie's household i said he's very mad at them so mad imagine a pastor saying that like like i'd flip it i'm sorry i ever baptized you what and so he's mad he says do you want me to come with a stick can beat you chapter four he says that right or in love like it gives him a choice right which one do you want he's not happy but he gives an illustration that's interesting so if you're in chapter three in the midst of it he gives this illustration i think it's verse six where it's listen i paul i planted the seed apollos get watered but it was god who caused the growth now what's paul's point there we're just workers you know what i mean we're just gardeners and stuff don't look to us like that only look to god like that but you see what he says in the midst of it i planted i did something apollos did something all for the glory of god and so that's how it works first we have to till the soil right then we have to plant the seed then we have to water it then god causes the growth it's important there are times when we do nothing and those are wonderful miracles to see and it's usually when we're not even praying for it it's amazing but too many people calling themselves christians will say that's all we ever need to do the thief on the cross christian that's it but that's not what the word of god says when we obey the lord is faithful that's what it says and that obedience requires faith it's all about setting our eyes because you might say how how do i do this life is so hard right or uh and something came up or this is happening to me or i'm going through this thing here pastor you don't understand that's one of the funniest things people say to me they come in my office and they go you don't understand really you're the only human being who's ever come into my office with a problem i understand i go through stuff too it's hard i have a family i have a wife i have a daughter there's always something happening so how pastor how do i do this well the bible tells us we are to fix our eyes on jesus you're not god i'm not god but god came here like us setting aside some of his divine privileges he's divine he's all god when he's here in the flesh but in a human body and he allowed them to nail him to a cross i don't know if i'd do that just being honest think about that that's how you get over yourself you're not god get over yourself that's what jesus is saying deny yourself pick up your cross follow me there's the formula it's in there trust me that's what we're to do we need to fix our eyes on jesus and if we want hope in something to new heavens the new earth no more tears no more problems no more suffering no more sickness no more pain focus on that this world's terrible that's what the bible says it's not good so as we wrap up i want to do something pretty interesting that i guarantee most people haven't seen maybe tony right because he was a former pastor maybe he knows this but it's really where it gets interesting and it'll tie right in beautifully so we looked at john 3 16 last week and then i showed you john 3 17. maybe some like people get there amazingly but i want to look a little before it and i'll show you something that most people don't talk about it'll tie right into what we learned today beautifully that's what god god's word does so context john 3 jesus is having a conversation with a religious leader named nicodemus and he's explaining to him the concept of being born again nicodemus doesn't get it he's like so what do i do crawl up in my mother's womb and like come back out again like what is this and he's like she's like you can't understand earthly things how are you gonna understand heavenly things right so the son of man he's gonna talk about him descending from heaven the son of man came down from heaven this is a concept then you get to john 3 14 it says this as moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the wilderness so the son of man must be lifted up so that everyone who believes in him will have eternal life then john 3 16. that's what precedes it now a lot of people don't understand what he's taught moses and the what what is he talking about so i'll give you a little context and then it's going to get interesting numbers 21 the people are complaining to moses wandering around the wilderness and they're crabby they're complaining we hate this horrible man of food from heaven like we're sick of that we don't we don't want food from heaven anymore we're done so what god does is he sends poisonous snakes to bite them and some of them are dying it's bad moses intercedes for them that means he prays for the people and so god says you make a bronze sake snake you make it put it up when the people look at it they'll be healed they'll be okay that's what jesus is talking about the lord heals him so no moses does something then the lord heals them now what jesus is saying is that when people look to me they'll be healed forever forever that's what he's saying so he's using yeah moses bron snake they got healed but now the son of man is going to be lifted up and whoever fixes their eyes on him they'll be saved now you know that check this out one more layer and i'll leave you alone second kings 18 3 we go back to hezekiah's reforms hezekiah did was pleasing in the lord's sight just as his ancestor david had done he removed the pagan shrine smashed the sacred pillars and cut down the asheville poles he broke up the bronze serpent that moses had made because the people of israel had been offering sacrifices to it the bronze serpent was called nahushtan and a lot of you didn't know that that's where you get the name of it now how much more depth does john chapter 3 have you got all that going on and what jesus is basically saying like you should know this it's all there it all points to me beautifully think about the depth of this story wow god planned all of that from the beginning it's all about putting our faith in jesus looking to him alone jesus plus nothing looking to him i'm going to pray from the scriptures for you this morning god's word's better than mine hebrews 12 1 therefore since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith let us strip off every weight that slows us down especially the sin that so easily trips us up and let us run with endurance the race god has set before us we do this by keeping our eyes on jesus the champion who initiates and perfects our faith because of the joy awaiting him he endured the cross disregarding its shame now he is seated in the place of honor beside god's throne think of all the hostility he endured from sinful people then you won't become weary and give up i pray for strength for everyone this week we know that this is a fallen world i pray that hearts are changed through the power of your holy spirit all glory and honor to god forever and ever amen so you