How It’s Been Isn’t How It Will Be

Intro:

Welcome to our new series, Anxious For Nothing: How Prayer Lifts Our Weary Soul. Over the next several weeks we are going to focus on a story of how a man who turned to prayer in the midst of his most anxious moments and we will learn how God will lift our weary souls through prayer, just like He did for this man. Before we begin, let’s pray. Brief prayer to quiet our mind, still our soul, and focus on the LORD.  

Please open to 2 Kings 18 and meet King Hezekiah.

Meet Hezekiah: 2 Kings 18:1-6

2 Kings 18:1–6 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. 6 He held fast to the Lord and did not stop following him; he kept the commands the Lord had given Moses.

The book of the Bible we are in, 2 Kings, is part of the historical record of the people of Israel. This record starts in 1 Kings with the death of the King David and then it continues with his son, Solomon. After Solomon, his son, Rehoboam isn’t a good king and Israel becomes divided. The ten northern tribes call themselves Israel with their capital in Samaria and the two southern tribes call themselves Judah and their capital is Jerusalem. 1 & 2 Kings recounts hundreds of years of history from David to the destruction of both Samaria and eventually Jerusalem and the people of God being carried off into exile. Throughout these stories, the common theme is bad leadership. I don’t just mean incompetent, although some were, I mean bad spiritually speaking. Most of these leaders don’t trust God. All the kings of the norther tribes are bad and many of the kings of Judah are either all bad or somewhat bad, just a few are good. Hezekiah was one of the good ones, maybe the best one. But the first lesson we learn is from Hezekiah is that just because he followed God, didn’t mean his life was easy. He was faithful despite enormous pressures, incredible hardships, and many anxiety producing problems. His story iis one of showing us how we can live well with and for God amid challenges, pressures and hardships.

It would be easy to hear that Hezekiah was good and did what was right and assume he must have had a lot of support. We might be tempted to think, “Well, if I grew up like that, if I had access to that kind of wealth and power, if I was king, then I’d be good too.” But when we understand Hezekiah’s upbringing and the challenges he faced, we’ll begin to see how similar Hezekiah’s troubles are to our own. The first thing we need to know about Hezekiah is he had a bad dad.

A Bad Dad

Hezekiah’s dad was also a king of Judah, his name was Ahaz and he was a bad king. Ahaz didn’t follow God, he led poorly, his decisions were wrong, his policies caused harm, he was a mess. If you think you had a tough parent, listen to this.

Ahaz didn’t trust the God of the Bible. During his day the Assyrian Empire was growing increasingly powerful and all the neighboring nations, Israel, Egypt, Aram were banning together to try and stand up to the growing Assyrian Empire. They invited Judah to join the Assyrian resistance, but Ahaz refused. This upsets Israel and Aram and they decide they will invade Judah, kill Ahaz and take over Judah. Ahaz hears about this and he gets worried. God tells Ahaz that no harm will come to him and to trust Him. Ahaz decides he’d rather trust Assyria than God. So, he pays off Assyria to help him. Now, this was like paying off the mafia so you don’t have to pay your property taxes. You might same some initial money, but you are going to own them. God warned Ahaz not to do this, but Ahaz did it anyway and it cost Judah dearly. Assyria took a lot of money from Judah, creating an economic hardship for the people and then Assyria threatened to invade Judah anyway. If you grew up in a home where your parents or family made unwise decisions, got into gambling, loaded up on debt, struggled with addiction, couldn’t keep a job, or made otherwise unwise decisions, you can relate with Hezekiah. The chaos facing the Nation of Judah created chaos at home.

But Ahaz made the chaos worse. Instead of looking to God to help him sort out his mess, he turned to other gods and got into pagan idolatry. This wasn’t like he’d sit in on a few pagan worship festivals. He went all in on idolatry. One of the worst types of pagan worship in that day was making human sacrifices. This still happens in parts of the world today, especially in places of deep witchcraft, but the human sacrifice of certain gods in the Ancient Near East was sacrificing your own child. They would do this through burning. It was referred to as passing your children through the fire. When horrific acts are done, we often dress up the language to not make it sound more humane. But make no mistake, this was pure evil. They would make a fire and place their own child into the flames and stand there as they burned to death, screaming in pain. That was Hezekiah’s dad.

On top of all this, Ahaz closed the Temple of God, preventing anyone in Jerusalem from worshiping God and then he set-up pagan worship sites all over the city. If you grew up with parents who refused to let you go to church or prevented you from reading the Bible, you understand Hezekiah’s household.

With this upbringing, it is amazing how Hezekiah turned into this wonderful king, great leader and faithful man of God. The question is, how did he do it?

The first thing for us to realize is a difficult start to life doesn’t mean we are doomed. It is true that our upbringing marks us and impacts us. In fact, this is the way God intended life to be. This is why God calls on parents to take great care in raising their children to know Him and His truth. If you are a parent or grandparent, God has entrusted another life to you and here is what He says to us:

5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. -Deuteronomy 6:5-7 NIV

Or this from Proverbs: Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it. -Proverbs 22:6 NIV

However, many people don’t receive the gift of this type of upbringing. But that doesn’t mean you are doomed to follow the destructive path of your family or origin. You can go a new way. If you are like Hezekiah, and you had a family that didn’t teach you the ways of God and if you had a destructive parent or were exposed to unimaginable hardships, it is likely that much of the anxiety and weight your carry with you today has roots in your past and upbringing. But that doesn’t mean that your anxiety has to continue into your future.

Here is what we learn from Hezekiah’s life: How it’s been isn’t how it will be.

With God, there is always the hope of a new day start. This promise gives us all great hope. If your family of origin is full of destructive patterns, it doesn’t mean you have to follow that path. Maybe your mom struggled with anger, or your dad cheated on your mom, or your grandfather was addicted, it doesn’t mean that will be you.

This extends to other aspects of our lives. Maybe you had a bad start to your career, you made poor decisions, had bad bosses, had a poor attitude, that doesn’t mean you have to carry those mistakes in your next job. Maybe you haven’t been committed or serious about your relationship with God. It doesn’t mean you will always be so lukewarm in your faith. If you haven’t been an intentional parent to your kids doesn’t mean you have to continue to be unintentional. How it’s been doesn’t have to be how it will be. Today can be the day you go in a new direction!

If you have been riddled with anxiety, stuck in fear, paralyzed with a deep sense of being overwhelmed, confused, frustrated and worn out. That doesn’t mean it has to be this way in the future. There is hope of a new day and a future free from that terrible sense of an anxious life.

The question is how. How did this happen for Hezekiah and how can it happen for us?

When Hezekiah took the throne, his bad dad had just died, the people buried his father but didn’t honor him in his burial. The people were suffering, angry, and confused. If Hezekiah didn’t improve the situation, they may try to assassinate him. What should he do first? The king of Assyria was threatening, his dad had raided the Temple of God and given all the things of value to Assyria, there were idols to false gods all over the streets. The economy needed to improve, foreign relations needed to improve, national defense needed to improve, the people needed help and direction, and he came to power as king at the age of 25. Do you remember being 25? Were you ready to run a nation at 25? Are you 25 now? If this was you, what would you do first? What do you wear on your first day of being king? Are you 15 now? Can you imagine that in 10 years you’d be a leader of a nation and would stand face to face against the king of the Assyrian Empire? Is your US History class preparing you for that job? How anxious would you be if you were Hezekiah? On day one of being king of Judah he is faced with a mess, it isn’t his fault, but it is his problem. What do you do first?

First Things First: 2 Chronicles 29:3-11

2 Chronicles 29:3–11 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. 4 He brought in the priests and the Levites, assembled them in the square on the east side 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. 7 They also shut the doors of the portico and put out the lamps. They did not burn incense or present any burnt offerings at the sanctuary to the God of Israel. 8 Therefore, the anger of the Lord has fallen on Judah and Jerusalem; he has made them an object of dread and horror and scorn, as you can see with your own eyes. 9 This is why our fathers have fallen by the sword and why our sons and daughters and our wives are in captivity. 10 Now I intend to make a covenant with the Lord, the God of Israel, so that his fierce anger will turn away from us. 11 My sons, do not be negligent now, for the Lord has chosen you to stand before him and serve him, to minister before him and to burn incense

What we do first reveals our priority. If you walk into your bathroom and the pipe to the sink is leaking and flooding the bathroom, you don’t clean the toilet first. You stop the leak. You do the most important thing first. The first think Hezekiah did was to restore the proper worship of God. Hezekiah worshiped God first. Before he made a plan to deal with Assyria, before he sorted out the defense of the nation, before he evaluated the economic situation, before he established his court and advisors, before anything else, Hezekiah worshiped first. This is incredibly instructive for us.

Worship First

Have you just been promoted to a big new job? Worship first. Have you just started school? Worship first. Is this the first week of your new diet focusing on getting healthy and fit? Worship first. Are you facing an incredible health challenge that is threatening your life? Worship first. Are you overwhelmed by anxious thoughts and feelings? Worship first. Have you been struggling with an area of sin and you are worried you will never experience freedom? Worship first. Is it the start of a New Year and you want to get the year off to the right start? Worship first.

But what does that mean? It means we prioritize the worship of God in our lives. There is so much we have to learn from Hezekiah about how to pray through our most anxious moments of life and as we continue in this series we will see, practically, how we can pray in our most anxious moments. But the first thing we learn from Hezekiah is to prioritize the worship of God above all. It is putting first things first.

What this means for us is we are to make the worship of God a priority. Let me give us two specific ways to do this.

First, we can personally prioritize worship daily. I believe the first thing you should do each morning is to personally worship God. This is best done by honoring Him by prayer and reading His Word, the Bible. This will be a hot take, but I don’t think you should do this on your phone. I know the Bible App has the helpful verse of the day, but I don’t think you should do that first thing. The reason is because OF your phone. It is a massive distraction. As you navigate to the verse of the day, you see your notifications, the weather, the news, that work email that you can just take care of super quick so then you can focus on God…and your mind is suddenly elsewhere, and you start your day anxious and overstimulated. But when you crack open the Bible and flip open to these ancient, true and living words in a physical Bible, you are giving honor to God. He gets your first focus of your day, and it sets your mind on God from the start. Now you view that work situation through God’s point of view, not yours. Then, when you pray, praise Him first! Don’t start with a list of needs, first worship Him. Praise Him for who He is. When Jesus taught us to pray, He started: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.

Second, we start our week with corporate worship. What you value you prioritize. We schedule our priorities. A few weeks ago, I ran into a family in the lobby after our first service who are normally second service people. They told me, “We came to first service this morning because we have a basketball tournament but we weren’t going to miss church.” Now, I have no idea what kind of basketball player those kids are and if they are going to go D1 or not, but here is what I can tell you. Those kids are incredibly fortunate because their mom, and dad value corporate worship. Those kids are being taught that God matters more than they do and He comes first, not us. Those kids are going to be less entitled, more grounded, and, most importantly, they have a much better chance of knowing God personally and putting Him first in their life. Which will make their life significantly less anxious because they are worshiping first.

Worship reorients us to what is most true. To what is good and right and pleasing and trustworthy. Worship focuses us vertically and reminds us God is in charge, He is on the throne, He is good, He is present, He knows and He is with us. Worship calms us.

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