Fixing the Breaches of the House of the Lord

2 Kings 22:3-7 Fixing the Breaches of the House of the Lord

Introduction:

Back in February of this year, a interesting news article by NPR was published. A man in California called a local exterminator to come out to his home. He was having some pest problems. But the man got more than he bargained for, when the exterminator found in the walls of the man’s home 700lbs of acorns. It turned out that some woodpeckers had made a hole in the man’s house and were dropping their stash into it.

Imagine having something like that in our house. We look out and all around us are homes. And one thing that all of these homes are meant to do, is to keep the unwanted out. We put up a roof to keep the rain from falling on us, but what do we do when we find a leak in our roof or a gap around the window, or a crack under the door? We fix it.

Our homes are important to us. And when we leave gaps and openings into our homes, we are inviting more problems. Now I share that with you, because one of the things that often gets neglected in care is the house of the Lord. The physical house and the spiritual house.

If we would just do an inspection, we would find that there are many breaches in the walls. Now friend I want you to know that the devil is looking for weaknesses. And if there is a crack in your life, the devil is going to exploit it. He is looking for chinks in your armor.

Now the passage we are about to read illustrates this. Listen to what the scripture is sharing with us today.

(Read Scripture)

Now we read this scripture, and we see that the house of the Lord was in disrepair. The people had neglected the care of the house and cracks and gaps were found. Now we look right over there and we see that building that we call the house of the Lord. And we need to take care of it, but friend, if you are a Christian, you are the house of the Lord as well.

Now is your life solid? Are you keeping the enemy out, or is he able to come up to your life and peek right in. You see the Devil knows your weaknesses and he is seeing your faults. Friends what we need to do today, if we are going to live in the light of Christ, is fix the breaches in the house of the Lord.

I’m sure most of us don’t care for snakes. Would you like a snake to slither its way into your house? If the breaches are not fixed, I will tell you the devil will slither his way right into your life. Well how do we fix the holes? Well, we find it in this passage.

Fixing the Breaches of the House of the Lord by

Point 1 – Recognize

· Friends, if we are going to have our lives repaired, we first have to recognize that there is a problem.

· Let me ask you, which scenario is better? Finding a hole in your roof on a sunny day or finding a hole in your roof on a rainy day?

· The problem is there, regardless of what day it is. What is important is that we recognize that there is a problem.

· Now in this passage, King Josiah recognized that there were problems with the Lord’s house. Most likely he had visited the house and saw the cracks and disrepair.

· Here was a man that looked and recognized that there was a problem.

· Now, we can’t close our eyes off to the breaches. Yet, this is the mentality of many. Just don’t worry about it. Friend if we don’t recognize the problems what may seem small right now will turn into something big!

· Have you looked at your life, do you recognize that something is not right? Friend I will tell you, the devil has seen it. And that rat will get in if you don’t do something about it.

· We need to recognize the breaches in our life.

Point 2 – Recruit

· Now we must first recognize, then we must recruit. Look at verse 6.

· King Josiah recognized that there were problems with the house of the Lord, so he sent his scribe to the high priest, and what were they to do about it? They were to recruit people that could help them with their problems.

· You know, in our lives there are situations that are too big for us to handle. And God knows that. And what does the Lord do? He puts people in our lives to help us with those problems.

· Think of it this way, you have a water pump go out at your home, but you don’t know anything about fixing it, what do you do? You call a plumber. A person who specializes in that repair.

· But you know where we get ourselves in trouble? When we try to fix it ourselves and we don’t know how.

· Now who do we know that can fix the problems in our life? Jesus.

· Jesus is the specialist. He is the one you need to fix any situation your faced with.

· Now we are reluctant to get outside help, because we are afraid of what it might cost, but listen, Jesus is the one who comes and says “no charge, its on me”

· Friend, today, you need to quit trying to fix your life with your own strength and instead let Christ come in and do it for you.

Point 3 – Repair

· Now we recognize, recruit, and then the third thing “repair.

· Friends, if we don’t allow the breach to be fixed, nothing is going to change.

· I mean, if your roof was leaking and you recognized that it was leaking, and you lined up a roofer to come to your home, and there he is, he has come out to your home, do you stop him from doing the work?

· No, we wouldn’t have him come out just to look at it and do nothing about it. We want it repaired.

· Nor, would we go while he is fixing the problem and make it worse. I mean, here he is fixing the hole, are we up there with a hammer putting more holes in the roof? No!

· But you know, that is how we treat Jesus. We have all these cracks, gaps, and problems in our life. We ask Jesus to come and fix it, and what do we do when he is working on our life? We are there making more problems.

· Friends, what we need to do is take a step back and allow Christ to work. We don’t need to stop him from fixing these problems.

· But that is exactly what we do so often, we ask Jesus to come and fix our lives, but then we stop him from fixing anything. Because we lack faith.

· Now Jesus can fix anything. I mean what is the breach in your life? What is it that is your problem? Do you know if you place it in the hands of Christ he can fix it.

· You struggle to love, Jesus can fix that. You struggle with addictions, Jesus can fix that. You struggle just with life, Jesus can fix that. You struggle with the hereafter, Jesus can fix that. Jesus can fix it all!

Point 4 – Recompense

· Now here is the fourth thing we find if we are going to fix the breaches of our life. And that is recompense.

· Look at verse 7, the people who helped fix the house of the Lord, they were paid for their services.

· Now wait a minute preacher, I thought you said that Jesus would come and fix my life for free? I have to pay him?

· Well, let me ask you this, have you ever went and helped someone out of the goodness of your heart. And when the job is done, they tried to pay you? What did you do, well likely you told them, I can’t accept your money, its free.

· But they insist, what do you do? Do you take the money or do you offer some alternative?

· Maybe we say, you don’t have to pay me, but if you want to make me something to eat, we will call it even.

· Now what happen is that person showed their appreciation for what you did. And friends if Jesus has repaired our lives, we should want to show our appreciation as well.

· I mean if Jesus healed your life, wouldn’t you want to give something to him in return?

· I was listening on the radio this past week, about manners throughout the US. As you may guess, the south has the best manners, especially when someone does something for us.

· But that is not the case in other places, I mean if we went out west, we might be shocked when we did something nice for someone and they didn’t even acknowledge it.

· I mean, a simple thank you would be nice.

· Well, how often do we fail to thank Jesus for what he has done for us. We just get up and go about our day, and the love of God is being poured out on us, and we just fail to say thanks.

· Listen, we need to give unto Jesus what he deserves. And he deserves our love, he deserves our service, he deserves our attention. He deserves our life.

Point 5 – Repent

· Now we have seen how we are to recognize, recruit, repair, and recompense, but friend there is one more and that is repent.

· Sometimes the holes in our life are brought on by our own mistakes.

· We are like the little child who is throwing a baseball and it breaks a window. Sometimes the things that have happened to our lives are from our bad decisions.

· Well, Christ will come and fix those mistakes and mishaps, but here is what we must learn from it, not to do it again.

· I mean if we know that throwing a baseball towards the house is likely going to break another window, we don’t do it again.

· Friend, the house of the Lord is under attack, and the enemy is not who you think it is. The enemy is us, when we refuse to repent and turn from our wicked ways.

· Friends don’t we want our church to look beautiful, we would give what ever we could to make it as pretty as possible.

· Then why is the spiritual house of the Lord is such disrepair? Don’t you want your life to look its best for Christ.

· Well, it can if you would turn away from those things that are destroying it.

· Listen Jesus loves you, and he will fix you, but don’t continue to trash the Lord’s work in your life.

Conclusion (Would you bow your heads)

· Now you may be here today, and you see the breaches in your life. Listen, they can be fixed, if you would call on Jesus.

· The enemy has been infesting your life long enough, he can be stopped. If you would just recognize how he has been getting through.

· Tell Jesus right now, I need you. Allow him to work in your life, and pay him back with your love.

· Your life can be beautiful once more, if you would turn away from sin and turn to Jesus.