Mending Our Relationship with God

Introduction

When we are in high school and college this is when we are faced with a really big choice. We are faced with the choice of if we are going to be like our parents or not.

I had to make this choice just like each and everyone in here. Even though my parents did a lot of things right (like raising me to love the Lord) there is still a lot of things that I can learn from them in order to do better.

Example - Someone here in america might have distance themselves from their family because of their actions that they partake in

But this is what we are going to be talking about today. We are going to talk about how we can sanctify and purify our generation more than our parents.

in this time the temple was a place where God dwelt but can anyone tell me what happened to the temple when Jesus died? What did this symbolize?

We are going to talk about this with the story of two kings of Judah.

Context

Saul, David, Solomon

splint nation

then 11 kings of Judah (5 bad 6 good) then we get Ahaz

there were 4 good kings before Ahaz

Body

Ahaz - The Past Generation

The Sins of Ahaz

2 Chronicles 28:1–4 NIV

1 Ahaz was twenty years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem sixteen years. Unlike David his father, he did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord. 2 He followed the ways of the kings of Israel and also made idols for worshiping the Baals. 3 He burned sacrifices in the Valley of Ben Hinnom and sacrificed his children in the fire, engaging in the detestable practices of the nations the Lord had driven out before the Israelites. 4 He offered sacrifices and burned incense at the high places, on the hilltops and under every spreading tree.

2 Chronicles 28:21 NIV

21 Ahaz took some of the things from the temple of the Lord and from the royal palace and from the officials and presented them to the king of Assyria, but that did not help him.

Ahaz was in such a desperate and dark place

Ahaz Did Not Follow The Wake Up Call

2 Chronicles 28:5 NIV

5 Therefore the Lord his God delivered him into the hands of the king of Aram. The Arameans defeated him and took many of his people as prisoners and brought them to Damascus. He was also given into the hands of the king of Israel, who inflicted heavy casualties on him.

2 Chronicles 28:23 NIV

23 He offered sacrifices to the gods of Damascus, who had defeated him; for he thought, “Since the gods of the kings of Aram have helped them, I will sacrifice to them so they will help me.” But they were his downfall and the downfall of all Israel.

we see here that Ahaz didn’t follow the wake up call that God had sent.

Hezekiah Purifies The Temple

Hezekiah Rejects His Father’s Ways of Life

2 Chronicles 29:1–2 NIV

1 Hezekiah was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem twenty-nine years. His mother’s name was Abijah daughter of Zechariah. 2 He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, just as his father David had done.

2 Kings 18:1–5 NIV

1 In the third year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, Hezekiah son of Ahaz king of Judah began to reign. 2 He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem twenty-nine years. His mother’s name was Abijah daughter of Zechariah. 3 He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, just as his father David had done. 4 He removed the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles. He broke into pieces the bronze snake Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites had been burning incense to it. (It was called Nehushtan.) 5 Hezekiah trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel. There was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before him or after him.

we see here that Hezekiah was left with this choice that we talked about a minute ago.

He had to chose weather to purify or to continue to defile the temple, judah, and himself.

But Hezekiah chose to follow the Lord and do what is right. He chose to turn from the ways of what his father had done.

We have to do this same thing in order to purify the generations that we are in and the future.

We have to chose to be different than what our father and mothers did and to become more purified than they might have been.

We don’t just fall into purity. We don’t just naturally become more pure than our ancestors. We have to be intentional in order to do this.

Example - My dad did not always speak to my mother or treat her the best. He could be very mean and not supportive at times.

Hezekiah Opens The Doors of The Temple

2 Chronicles 29:3 NIV

3 In the first month of the first year of his reign, he opened the doors of the temple of the Lord and repaired them.

We see that this was the first thing Hezekiah did.

They would have also shut these door in Ahaz’s time because they would have tried to hide what was really going on.

He didn’t clean the temple first we will talk about in a little bit that a couple verses later they brought out everything that was unclean.

But this was not the first thing that they did. They first fixed the door and opened it. He opened these door so the people could have community with God again that they could come into the the temple courts.

I feel when we want to become more pure we get this backwards all the time.

We think that we have to become pure then we can be with God. But this doesn’t work. We cannot become sanctified on our own.

We do not become sanctified in order to come to God. We come to God in order to be sanctified.

example - it is just like when a kid hides something that they did rather than coming to their parents to confessing

Jesus welcomes the prostitute

Hezekiah Recognizes The Importance of Leaders

2 Chronicles 29:5–6 NIV

5 and said: “Listen to me, Levites! Consecrate yourselves now and consecrate the temple of the Lord, the God of your ancestors. Remove all defilement from the sanctuary. 6 Our parents were unfaithful; they did evil in the eyes of the Lord our God and forsook him. They turned their faces away from the Lord’s dwelling place and turned their backs on him.

So after he opened the temple Hezekiah addressed the Levites which would have been the priests.

I think Hezekiah realized something important

2 Chronicles 28:19 NIV

19 The Lord had humbled Judah because of Ahaz king of Israel, for he had promoted wickedness in Judah and had been most unfaithful to the Lord.

Hezekiah realized the important of the leaders in Judah. That they would drive the nation either towards or away from God.

This is the same for us. This is why we prayed so earnestly for the election that we had this year.

This is also why its important that we make sure the leaders in our churches are following the Lord and are seeking to be sanctified.

We have seen in the united Methodist movement out leaders have come in and allowed sin to spread.

But this goes for our homes as well. Fathers and mother, husbands and wives, you will either lead your home towards or away from God.

This why it is important that we set an example for our kids of what Godly living looks like to the best of our ability. We seek to show Christ to them everyday.

We seek to purify our home.

Matthew 20:25–28 “25 Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. 26 Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 27 and whoever wants to be first must be your slave—28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.””

The Levites Cleansed The Temple

2 Chronicles 29:16 NIV

16 The priests went into the sanctuary of the Lord to purify it. They brought out to the courtyard of the Lord’s temple everything unclean that they found in the temple of the Lord. The Levites took it and carried it out to the Kidron Valley.

Now Hezekiah finally takes the detestable things out of the temple.

This would have been alter that kids would have been sacrificed on

idols and may other things

But this shows us that we have to do this as well. Because we are the temple of the Lord.

And in the temple of our heart even though we have come to the Lord, we still might detestable things set up.

We might have idols in our lives

Weather this be lust, greed, anxiety, anger,

Galatians 5:19–21 “19 The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.”

So like I said before in order to come to God we don’t have to have everything together. But once we have come to God this we need to

The Temple Had To Be Purified By Blood

2 Chronicles 29:21–24 NIV

21 They brought seven bulls, seven rams, seven male lambs and seven male goats as a sin offering for the kingdom, for the sanctuary and for Judah. The king commanded the priests, the descendants of Aaron, to offer these on the altar of the Lord. 22 So they slaughtered the bulls, and the priests took the blood and splashed it against the altar; next they slaughtered the rams and splashed their blood against the altar; then they slaughtered the lambs and splashed their blood against the altar. 23 The goats for the sin offering were brought before the king and the assembly, and they laid their hands on them. 24 The priests then slaughtered the goats and presented their blood on the altar for a sin offering to atone for all Israel, because the king had ordered the burnt offering and the sin offering for all Israel.

Hebrews 9:19–28 “19 When Moses had proclaimed every command of the law to all the people, he took the blood of calves, together with water, scarlet wool and branches of hyssop, and sprinkled the scroll and all the people. 20 He said, “This is the blood of the covenant, which God has commanded you to keep.” 21 In the same way, he sprinkled with the blood both the tabernacle and everything used in its ceremonies. 22 In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. 23 It was necessary, then, for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these sacrifices, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. 24 For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made with human hands that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God’s presence. 25 Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with …”

Conclusion

Hezekiah Rejects His Father’s Ways

Hezekiah Opens The Doors of The Temple

Hezekiah Recognizes The Importance of Leaders

The Levites Cleaned The Temple

The Temple Had To Be Purified By Blood