The Trait that Gets God s Attention I Kings 21:25 29; II Chronicles 33 Rev. Phil Reddick May 25, 2014 Evening Sermon

Transcription

1 The Trait that Gets God s Attention I Kings 21:25 29; II Chronicles 33 Rev. Phil Reddick May 25, 2014 Evening Sermon This study is the trait that God notices. What do you think that is? Before I answer this question let me ask you another question. Who would you say are some of the most sinister, evil characters in Scripture? Some may say Jezebel and you have great evidence for her because not many people name their children Jezebel. You would think of Judas Iscariot, Satan but Ahab and Jezebel rank right up there. This trait that God notices is humility and God notices this in what seems to be one of the most evil kings in Israel and I believe the most evil king of Judah. His name is Manasseh. The setting here in I Kings 21 is that Naboth has a vineyard. It was kind of adjacent to the palace. Ahab wanted it. David did the same thing yet it was with another man s wife. Naboth told Ahab he wasn t going to sell it for it had been in his family for years. So Ahab goes home downcast and Jezebel his wife says, What s the matter? He said I want this vineyard but Naboth won t sell. Jezebel said I ll handle it. You ll get your vineyard. She devises a scheme and Naboth ends up getting killed. Elijah comes on the scene to confront Ahab. That s where we pick up in the passage. I Kings 21:20 29 says [20] Ahab said to Elijah, Have you found me, O my enemy? He answered, I have found you, because you have sold yourself to do what is evil in the sight of the LORD. [21] Behold, I will bring disaster upon you. I will utterly burn you up, and will cut off from Ahab every male, bond or free, in Israel. [22] And I will make your house like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha the son of Ahijah, for the anger to which you have provoked me, and because you have made Israel to sin. [23] And of Jezebel the LORD also said, The dogs shall eat Jezebel within the walls of Jezreel. [24] Anyone belonging to Ahab who dies in the city the dogs shall eat, and anyone of his who dies in the open country the birds of the heavens shall eat. [25] (There was none who sold himself to do what was evil in the sight of the LORD like Ahab, whom Jezebel his wife incited. [26] He acted very abominably in going after idols, as the Amorites had done, whom the LORD cast out before the people of Israel.) [27] And when Ahab heard those words, he tore his clothes and put sackcloth on his flesh and fasted and lay in sackcloth and went about dejectedly. [28] And the word of the LORD came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying, [29] Have you seen how Ahab has humbled himself before me? Because he has humbled himself before me, I will not bring the disaster in his days; but in his son's days I will bring the disaster upon his house. There was never a more wicked man than Ahab according to the Scriptures and yet when he humbled himself, even though it had to do with the upcoming disaster, God noticed enough that He called it to Elijah s attention. Elijah was a prophet of God. Now I d like to look at II Chronicles 33. Ahab was a king of Israel. There were no good kings in Israel for they all followed after Jeroboam. They started off on the wrong foot and never got off on the right foot but in Judah, in the southern tribe, there were eight good kings and just before Manasseh was one of the best kings. His name was Hezekiah. Hezekiah is mentioned in the Kings, the Chronicles and Isaiah and that s pretty significant that he is mentioned three different times in the Scripture. Yet somehow it didn t get passed on through his son Manasseh. It didn t get through to the coming generation, our theme for this year.

2 II Chronicles 33:1 6, 9 13 says [1] Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign, and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem. [2] And he did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, according to the abominations of the nations whom the LORD drove out before the people of Israel. [3] For he rebuilt the high places that his father Hezekiah had broken down, and he erected altars to the Baals, and made Asheroth, and worshiped all the host of heaven and served them. [4] And he built altars in the house of the LORD, of which the LORD had said, In Jerusalem shall my name be forever. [5] And he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the LORD. [6] And he burned his sons as an offering in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, and used fortune-telling and omens and sorcery, and dealt with mediums and with necromancers. He did much evil in the sight of the LORD, provoking him to anger. [9] Manasseh led Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem astray, to do more evil than the nations whom the LORD destroyed before the people of Israel. [10] The LORD spoke to Manasseh and to his people, but they paid no attention. [11] Therefore the LORD brought upon them the commanders of the army of the king of Assyria, who captured Manasseh with hooks and bound him with chains of bronze and brought him to Babylon. [12] And when he was in distress, he entreated the favor of the LORD his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers. [13] He prayed to him, and God was moved by his entreaty and heard his plea and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the LORD was God. Prayer: Father, as we approach Your Word in this study and talk about this characteristic that You want us all to have, which was modeled in Christ, help us to apply it to our lives, in Jesus Name, Amen. What is the Scriptural mandate? Philippians 2 is where I would go to where it says that Jesus is our example. Jesus humbled Himself and became obedient even to the point of death on the cross. He was the example of perfect humility. In Isaiah 57 we find that who the Lord dwells with is those are contrite in heart. In Numbers 12 you find that Moses was more humble than any man on earth. Another translation says he was the meekest man. We have all these Scriptural references to this idea of humility. Zephaniah 2:3 says [3] Seek the LORD, all you humble of the land, who do his just commands; seek righteousness; seek humility; perhaps you may be hidden on the day of the anger of the LORD. I Peter 5:5 7 says [5] Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. [6] Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, [7] casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. As I read all through the Scriptures this characteristic of humility keeps coming up. David says in Psalm 51:17, [17] The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. Humbling ourselves before the Lord doesn t necessarily mean thinking less of ourselves because we are to love our neighbors as ourselves. It doesn t mean we go around saying I m a nobody. That is contrary to Scripture because you are somebody. You are of infinite worth that Jesus Christ would die for you. He gave His life for you but at the same time we are no better than anyone else. The definition of humility in Webster s is the quality or state of not thinking you re better than other people, not proud and not arrogant. Does it work practically? I work with businessmen and so many times there seems to be a disconnect with what we talk about at church and does it work every day of the week, whether

3 you re a working mom, a stay at home mom, leading Bible studies or a number of employees under you. Does this humility work? One of the best business books I ve read is titled Good to Great by Jim Collins. This book came about after Jim had written this book titled Built to Last which was about all these great companies, like GE and AT&T. He was sitting around with a group of leaders one day as he was travelling across the country giving talks about his book so that people would buy his book. These leaders said to him, Jim, these companies that you wrote about seem to always be good companies. Are there some companies that were good companies that became great companies? Jim Collins said That is a great question. I ll get back with you on that one. He took forty researchers and five years and he came up with eleven companies that had a transition point and then followed them for fifteen years and they outperformed the stock market 6.9 times just with the comparison companies. To give you an idea of this performance, if you had invest a dollar in these companies in 1965, by the year 2000 you would have had $471 for every dollar you invested in these companies that went from good to great. He set these researchers to find out what the qualities were in these companies that made them from good to great and he also told the researchers not to come back to him and tell him that it was the leader of the company. He didn t want to hear that. He wanted them to find out the other attributes that were in these companies. These researchers came back and argued with Jim saying We found lots of attributes (of which the book is written about) but the number one attribute is the level five leader. What is a level five leader? A level five leader demonstrated humility. These are the qualities they came up with. Level five refers to a five level hierarchy of executive capabilities with level five at the top. Level five leaders embody a paradoxical mix of personal humility and professional will. They are ambitiously sure but ambitious first and foremost for the company, not themselves. We have a substitute there and it s for the Kingdom, not themselves. Level five leaders set up their successors for even greater success in the next generation, whereas egocentric level four leaders often setup their successors for failure. Level five leaders displayed a compelling modesty. They are self-effacing and understated. In contrast two thirds of the comparison companies had leaders with gargantuan personal egos that contributed to the demise or continued mediocrity of the company. Level five leaders display a workman like diligence like a plow horse rather than a show horse. Collins went on to say that these level five leaders took the blame on themselves when things weren t going well and when things were going great they attributed it to their people, to good fortune, where we would say the providence of God and other factors other than themselves. In another business book titled Leadership on the Line written by two men. One works at the Harvard Business School in the JFK Center for Leadership and the other one is a consultant. They got together and wrote this book. One of the things they said in the book was that the Roman Emperors had a slave that was assigned to ride with the emperor whose sole job was to tell him you re mortal. They went on to say that anyone who is a leader in our society need people around them that can remind them they are a mortal man and not everything he does is right. It needs to be someone not in direct succession and so it does work practically in business and whatever we do. What do others say about humility? Don t just take my word for it or business books but obviously we have the Scriptures. Jay Oswald Sanders in his book Spiritual Leadership says In the humility of a leader, his spirituality should be an ever growing quality. He cites the Apostle Paul who started out by saying I m the least of all these Apostles and I am the least of all the

4 saints and toward the end of his life he said I m the chief of all sinners. It is a progression as we grow in grace that we recognize humility. Here is another quote. The spiritual leader today in all probability is one who yesterday expressed his humility by working gladly and faithfully in second place. Robert Morison of China wrote The great fault in our missions is that no one likes to be second. Perhaps the advantage is predominate but I have yet to see them. No one wants to play second fiddle. Everybody wants to be in leadership. C.S. Lewis said He will not be thinking about humility for he will not be thinking about himself at all. If anyone would like to acquire humility again tell him the first step and the first step is to realize that one is proud. I also love in C.S. Lewis The Screwtape Letters where he is talking to Wormwood and he telling him how to tempt us and trip us up. The enemy is referring to God and this is what Screwtape says about God, The enemy (God) wants to bring the man to a state of mind in which he could design the best cathedral in the world and know it to be the best and rejoice in the fact without being any more or less otherwise glad at having done it than he would be if it had been done by another, but it is his long term policy I fear to restore them to a new kind of self-love, a charity, a gratitude for all selves, including their own. When they have really learned to love their neighbor as themselves they will be allowed to love themselves as their neighbors. Think of Moses leading two million plus people. He was a strong leader and yet they said he was humble before the Lord. What are some examples of humility? I can think of two of them. One has gone on to be with the Lord and that is Dr. Bill Bright and the other who I served under for many years and that is Dr. Frank Barker. Some of you know that I was with Campus Crusade for ten years. Dr. Bright was quite a man. I remember when I joined Campus Crusade and I was at staff training at Colorado State University (CSU). There were 600 plus who had joined staff that year in 1974 and I was walking out of Moby Gym and for some reason I was walking out late. There was no one around and I run into Bill and Vonette Bright. I said to them My name is Phil Reddick and I just joined staff and just received my assignment to Florida State. Dr. Bright looked at me and said We are so glad that you have chosen to join staff at Campus Crusade. We are thrilled that you have come on our team. It made me feel like I was the most important person on staff. I remember people here as well who work with college and high school students and you never know what they re going to say. I heard about something that happened at a Christmas conference and that was a new Christian had come up to Dr. Bright and said You sure are spiritual for being such a short knocker. Dr. Bright wasn t very tall. Dr. Bright graciously said, Thank you. Frank Barker is also an example to me of humility. Those who have been here a long time know this about Frank. Two incidents I can remember very vividly. One is when John Stott came to speak here at Briarwood years ago. Samford University was having a special luncheon with John Stott and many of us from Briarwood went to hear him speak at this luncheon. We were all finding our table and Frank shuffled up to us and said Can I sit with you guys? We said Yes, you can sit with us! Frank was about to sit with us and a man from the front says Dr. Barker, you re supposed to be up there sitting with John Stott. So Frank had to excuse himself to sit up toward the front. He didn t know or just didn t care that he was on the head table. I also remember years ago when they decided to have this pastoral prayer summit. As pastors we were going to have this conference where we were going to get together and pray. So we were having this meeting to figure out how we were going to do this and pray for

5 Birmingham. It was going to be held at Briarwood and I thought We ll be lucky if twenty guys show up to this thing from all over the city. I was very skeptical about this so I needed to show up and because this was Briarwood and we need to be the leaders of this. The first meeting we had was in the choir room and as I walk in the room it is filled with pastors. Over 100 pastors were there. I couldn t figure it out. I started talking with some of the men and I said Why are you here? He said Frank asked me to come. Why are you here? Frank sent me a letter. Why are you here? I have admired Frank and I need to be a part of this. There were almost 125 pastors there because Frank asked them to come. This is an example of humility. What about pride? It says that God opposes the proud. Isaiah 2:11 says [11] The haughty looks of man shall be brought low, and the lofty pride of men shall be humbled, and the LORD alone will be exalted in that day. Proverbs 16:5 says [5] Everyone who is arrogant in heart is an abomination to the LORD; be assured, he will not go unpunished. Proverbs 16:18 says [18] Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall. There are all these verses on pride. I m just starting to read St. Augustine s confessions and this is what it says in Book 1 and the first paragraph. Augustine says Thou dost oppose the proud. So we have this contrast between being prideful and being humble. How do we apply this trait? There are many ways we could apply this but I ll give you some of my thoughts on this. First of all, I would say share your weaknesses. Most people probably know your strengths, but do they know your weaknesses? I tell the men that I work with that if people are teaching or preaching and it seems like they always have the right answer or always seem to do the right thing, maybe they are not living in the same atmosphere I am or maybe they re lying. Share your weaknesses for we are a body. We are a building and we don t have all the gifts. God has made each one of unique. I have a different delivery and approach than Pastor Reeder. Dr. Barker has a different delivery than both of us. We are unique in how we are made. Sharing your weaknesses will disarm people to want to be around you because they have weaknesses as well and they know it. Two, manage expectations. Our job is not to produce a particular outcome. Our job is to be faithful to what God has called us to do. Pastor Reeder says it s not a growing church but a healthy church and if we re healthy we will grow. So be faithful to your call. Richard Foster said We tend to overestimate what God would do in one year but we tend to underestimate what God would do in ten years. You have to be more of a plow horse than a show horse. Keep turning the wheel and being faithful and the increase will come. Thirdly, have good friends. Isn t it a blessing to have good friends? Here is my best definition of friendship. A friend is someone who accepts you the way you are but doesn t allow you to stay the way you are. A friend will help you and say You re doing great in these areas but there are a couple of areas you need to work on. Have good friends for they will help you. Have a good mate. They will help you in terms of humility. Fourthly, have a grateful heart. I don t think anything could be more significant than for us to be grateful every day. A friend of mine just gave me something that he tries to do every morning and every night and a part of that prayer or acknowledgement is to thank God in the morning for one particular thing and then at night reflect on one thing that God has done. It is a grateful heart. Share your weaknesses, fulfil your call, have good friends and a grateful heart. Remember how far you have come and remember how far you have yet to go. All of us have seen changes in our life, changes that God has done and that we re very grateful for but there is a long way to go. Thankfully the Spirit doesn t reveal them all at once. Be thankful where you come from and remember how far you re going to go.

6 Here is a good one. Teach on humility. If you want to be humble then do a study on it and try and teach on it. I can give you firsthand knowledge here. Take up a hobby. I love golf but it beats me up. No matter what is good that day there is something that is always wrong. It s the same in anything that you try to perfect. There will be days you think that you have it conquered and then the wheels come off. Teach a long term Bible study. I have been with some men for over 30 years and they are some of my greatest friends but I ve left that study some days saying they have got it and other days I say what have we been doing for 25 years? If you work with people you will be disappointed and that s why this is my last one. The last one is look to Jesus. That is how we began this study. Yes, Ahab, Jezebel and Manasseh but the attitude we have to have, has to be in Christ Jesus. Look to Jesus. Meditate on Jesus. Immerse yourself in Jesus for that is how we will practice this trait. Our confession has something to say about this. In chapter five of providence it says The most wise, righteous and gracious God does oftentimes leave for a season His own children to manifold temptations and the corruption of their own hearts, to chastise them for their former sins, or to discover unto them the hidden strength of corruption and deceitfulness of their hearts, that they may be humbled; and to raise them to a more close and constant dependence for their support upon Himself, and to make them more watchful against all future occasions of sin, and for various other just and holy ends. Micah 6:8 says [8] He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? Humility, if you finally get it and you get a button for it, don t wear it. It is something we constantly strive for and it s something that God has to continually work in us and on us and that s one reason we come to the Table. One this Memorial Day weekend we look at people who have sacrificed their lives for us to worship in a free country but we look to an even greater example of the One who gave His life for us and that s why we come to this Table. Remembering Him, feasting on Him. We partake of the element of grace that He gives us, the means of grace on this Table as we come before Him this day.