In this sermon, Pastor Babij examines the spiritual renewal led by King Hezekiah in Judah recorded in the book of 2 Chronicles. Pastor Babij explains that the process of renewal Judah underwent at that time is the same process all Christians need to undergo as they look forward to a new year of life before God; like Judah, Christians need to consecrate themselves, seek cleansing, and then worship God, especially through willing and joyful service.
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alright so this morning I decided before I go back into the gospel of mark well I’ll be picking up chapter 8 of Mark I wanted to kind of end this year with a kind of a challenge on on spiritual renewal what is that and we find it all over the Word of God and believe it or not in a book you probably haven’t read many times if you have read even at once is the book of 2nd chronicles you find in this book a really a pattern of spiritual renewal now I want to give you a kind of a background of the books I mean introduction to the book just to set you up and put in your mind a structure on how its laid out alright chronicles 2nd chronicles is the longest of the twelve historical books it is composed of 36 chapters and it’s broken up into two sections the first section from chapter 1 29 is the account of King Solomon’s reign the second section from chapter 10 tu veux chapter 36 are an account of the rest of Judas kings that’s the southern kingdom for 350 years before the nation is conquered by Babylon and deported 20 Kings in all are covered in this book whether they did right and the side of the Lord whether they didn’t do right on the side of the Lord whether they started out doing right in the side of Lord and they didn’t end up doing right in the side so you have all that kind of language going back and forth alright and remember all these are the descendants or the of or actually the those who are going to be the heirs of King David alright so you can see how quickly things can go wrong spiritually now there are two basic reasons why the book is written first one is to give a reason why the exile happened why would God exile his people into another nation all right why would that happen and then secondly the secondary is to give people a guide for how to restart and rebuild how to get spiritual renewal now I want you to keep in mind that the northern tribes are not mentioned in second chronicles alright the book is specifically focused on the southern tribes alright and it is focused on the temple alright remember the temple is the place where God dwells amongst his people right it’s the place where people come and bring their sacrifices to make sure their sins are atoned for all right so the temple is a very important place in chronicles 2nd chronicles and then of course another thing that’s highlighted is the sin of idolatry all right now just to give you a sense of this first section and the second section let’s turn our Bibles to second chronicles chapter 7 let’s go back to chapter 7 and I want you to notice verse 11 to 22 alright this is remember this first section is where the Lord is giving account of King Solomon’s reign King Solomon has built the temple it’s a glorious temple alright and now what is he doing he is giving us a sense of what’s going to go on after the temples build notice in verse number 11 and down to verse number 22 of chapter 7 2 2nd chronicles it says thus Solomon finished the house of the Lord and the king’s palace and successfully completed all that he had planned on doing in the house of the Lord and in his palace then the Lord appeared to Solomon at night and said to him I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for myself as a house of sacrifice if I if I shut up the heaven so that there is no rain or if I command the locusts to devour the land or if i send pestilence among my people and here’s that famous passage of Scripture and my people who are called by my name humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways then I will hear from heaven will forgive their sins and will heal their land now my eyes will be open to and my ears attentive to the prayer offered in this place for 16 for now i have chosen and consecrated this house that my name may be there forever and my eyes and my heart will be there perpetually for 17 as for you if you walk before me as your father David walked even to do according to all that I have commanded you and will keep my statutes and my ordinances then i will establish your royal throne as I’ve covenant it with your father David saying you shall not lack a man to be ruler in Israel verse 19 but if you turn away and forsake my statutes and my commandments which I set before you and go and serve other gods and worship them alright this is why God exiles as people then I will uproot you from my land which I have given you and this house which I have consecrated for my name I will cast out of my sight and it will make it a proverb in a byword among all peoples as for this house which was exalted everyone will pass by it and buy it it will be astonished and say why has the Lord done thus to this land and this house and they will say because they forsook the Lord the god of their fathers who brought them from the land of Egypt and they adopted other gods and worship them and served them therefore he has brought all this adversary of adversity on them alright so there’s the sense of the first section alright God lays it out he’s going to be there with the people but if the people turned from him and worship other gods gods going to uproot them and exile them to another land alright that’s why it’s going to do it now that’s what the Lord tell Solomon right so what happens do the people actually obey the commands of the Lord or do they do they just leave them and forsake them well get the answer to that turn to the last chapter of second chronicles chapter 36 and look at it verse 15 through 20 and you really have something very sad going on here very sad alright and if you notice it as your eyes gaze upon your own Bible or your iPad or your iPhone or whatever you’re looking at I hope you’re looking at the Word of God so you can see it all right and then notice in the second section 2nd chronicles chapter 36 verse 15 through 20 it says the Lord was 15 the lord the god of their fathers sent word to them again and again by his messengers because he had compassion on his people and hunt is on his dwelling place but they continually mocked the messengers of God despise his words and scoffed at his prophets until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people on Terra until there was no remedy that’s a sad sad place when there’s no remedy that’s very sad verse 17 therefore he brought up against them the king of the Chaldeans who slew their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary and had no compassion on young men or virgin old men or infirm he gave them all into his hand verse 18 all the articles of the house of God great and small the treasures of the house of the Lord the treasures of the king and his officers he brought them all to Babylon then they burned the house of God and broke down the wall of Jerusalem and burned all its fortified buildings with fire and destroyed all its valuable articles those who had escaped from the sword he carried a way to Babylon and they were servants to him and to his sons until the rule of the kingdom of Persia so there’s the second section where we see very clearly that the people fall away from God but in the midst of this book there is this formula not formula I don’t want to say it like that but this this way that we can get right with God this way where there is a we can restart we can rebuild we can be renewed and that becomes a very important part of this book and that’s applicable for us to today because repentance is still part of how we renewed with God today now there’s four things about the book that it’s laid out and the first thing is that the book starts out giving us an understanding of God’s character that that means the glory of God God always sets himself up where we put himself before the people so they understand him right and and so the Bible I mean the Bible and second chronicles gives us a sense of God’s character in his greatness and the book lays it out is his do unique character of God the the sovereign character of God and that God ultimately is the one who deserves worship and then of course the character of God’s goodness God is a great God but he is a good god he’s a god far away but he’s a guy who is near and so therefore he shows the people his faithfulness he shows the people his justice he shows the people his kindness and so that’s placed up against the people sin and that’s the great problem how is the holy character of God placed up against the sin of people if God is just yes wholly responsible right so the people sin and how do people sin in this book well they they sinned by rebelling against God right a rebelling against would God told him to do all right and how do they rebel they rebelled with bad ruling all right all of these King all of King David’s descendants when we start off with REO boom he listens to arrogant young counselors and begins to oppresses people the kingdom is divided in the Northlands of Israel and Judea are divided now into two kings and instead of one because of that decision and then we see that Jeroboam weakens his nation by expelling the real Pete priest and creating false ones and then of course Joe Ram kills his brother Jehoshaphat generally a good king but hurts the nation by picking bat allies people who should they should not make treaties with maybe we should take their advice today all right and not make treaties with nations who are actually saying that we want to kill you and destroy you all right so the thing is that we could take their advice here bad leadership or a bad ruling the rouille element in the country can really devastate a whole nation and that’s what happens here and then use aya and Hezekiah generally again good Kings they start out good they do it right but then what happens because of how God exalted them they become prideful all right and so that’s sense and then we get a has which Duane read about today a had sins by leading the people into perverted idolatry extreme ideology he actually becomes worse amid trials and drives the people away from God he looks to the other pagan nations around him and concludes that their gods seem to be working well with for them so you know I’m gonna try them out I’m gonna try their guard gods out and that’s what he does and so well however a has never considers that it was his own sins that led the nation to defeat and not the false gods yet he doesn’t consider that and then of course we rebel against God by idolatry and of course a has sins by leading his people into perverted idolatry in fact in verse number chapter let’s turn back in chapter 28 and if you notice in verse number three it says they’re chapter 28 verse 3 says moreover he burned incense in the value of been hidden and burned his sons in fire according to the abominations of the nation’s whom the Lord had driven out before the sons of Israel so he caused the people to reflect the pagan idolatry surrounding the nation or the land of Judah and the people of Judah and therefore they no longer the people of God no longer reflected God’s character to the other nations but became like them right and that is a devastating thing to happen to God’s people and of course one of the reasons ways that people rebel is they they love what is not God as if it was God that’s what they do all right and what does God do in this case he has to bring judgment all right and what is his judgment he just he disciplines his people through war through war through war and then he disciplines his people through exile he approached them from their land and he exiles them away from everything they know and it is is familiar to them and that’s what he does alright so the resolution after God’s judgment because remember the dilemma posed by God’s righteous anger and our sin has to be solved and the only way to resolve that and solve that is simple God’s people repent of their sins and God delivers them remember in second chronicles chapter seven what it says my ear and my I are going to be in this place and when you pray towards this place I will hear and every time you hear one of the people like Jeroboam he cries out to the Lord after he does some wicked things and God hears them and restores him and then MIT Manasseh all right he’s another one that does some wicked things again he cries out to the Lord and what does the lord do you hear something and he heals them all right so that is the sense of the book and so that brings me to where I’m going today because every one of us as we come to the end of the year need to really look over our lives and really to see how we’re doing spiritually right and that’s that’s a very important because there’s going to be and there has been and there will be low times in our spiritual lives all right and so these low times in our spiritual lives can harm us spiritually they can even you know they can harm our families they can harm our ministries they can harm our relationship with the Lord it depends on how we respond to them so I want to look at the history here in this book when the people are at a low time and being harmed by it and see how they gain spiritual renewal let’s look at that this morning chapter 28 verses 3 and 4 I want to look at that first and and so this is what we see here that the southern kingdom is in a lowest of time experiencing the harmful consequences of disobedience to god that’s what their experience so the first thing we see is that King Ahaz has led the nation into idolatrous worship and that’s what’s going on here and so look at verse number three it says a verse number one it says a has chapter 28 verse 1 was 20 years old when teen years in Jerusalem and notice what it says and he did not do right in the sight of the Lord as David his father had done what did he do verse 2 but he walked in the ways of the kings of on the hills and under every Green Tree all right so this is what he does he leads he’s the king he leads the whole nation into this idolatrous worship God warned already if that happens this is what I’m going to do all right if so God’s already put that if you do this this is what i’m going to do so they go into idolatrous worship worship and as a result God has allowed the other nations to punish them in verse number 5 of chapter 28 it says wherefore the Lord his God delivered him into the hand of the king of ram and they defeated him and carried away from him a great number of captives and brought them to Damascus and he was also delivered into the hand of the king of Israel and inflicted him with heavy casualties so that is what happens to a has and to the people they’re carried away just like God said would happen and then I want you to notice in verse 13 of this same chapter it says and said to them you must not bring the captives in here for you are proposing to bring upon us guilt against the Lord adding to our sins and our guilt for our guilt is great so that his burning anger is against Israel and then down to verse 9 19 for the Lord humble Judah because of a has king of Israel for he had brought about a lack of restraint in Judah and was very unfaithful to the Lord so till Gath policer king of Assyria came against him and afflicted him instead of strengthening him although a has took a portion out of the house of the Lord and out of the palace of the king of the princes and gave it to the king of Assyria it did not help him in other words he bribed them with wealth but it did not help them the reason why it didn’t help is because God was against them God was raising up this nation against them because of what they turned away from God and then verse 22 now in the times of distress this same King Ahaz became more yet more unfaithful to the Lord so even when the pressure came on and this trial came upon him because of his sin he didn’t turn to the Lord detained he turned away from the Lord and he became more unfaithful and that could happen to us to a trial can actually bring us closer to the Lord or drive us further away from the Lord those two things are always an option in our own lives and we have to be careful about that all right but I want you to notice in verse number 23 it says for he sacrificed to the gods of Damascus which had defeated him and said because the gods of the king of the ram helped them I will sacrifice to them that they may help me but they became the downfall of him and all israel verse 24 moreover when a has gathered together the utensils of the house of the Lord he cut the utensils of the house of God in pieces and he closed the doors to the house of the Lord and made altars for himself in every corner of Jerusalem and verse 25 and in every city of Judah he made high places to burn incest to other gods and provoked the Lord the god of his father’s to anger if there’s one person you don’t want to make angry is God and he did and he brought his whole nation down because of it in fact if you look at verse number 26 of 2nd chronicles 28 it says now the rest of the acts of all his ways from first to last behold they are written in the books of the kings of Judah and Israel so a has slept with his father’s and they buried him in the city in Jerusalem for they did not bring him into the tombs of the kings of Israel and Hezekiah his son reigned in his place so in the end it was not a pleasant ending for this particular king he thought he looked around at the world he looked around at the other nations and he says you know what they look like they’re doing better than us they look like the gods that they worship answered their prayers and answer their their incantations and their methods and so therefore it looks like the God of Israel is not really doing that and so he ends up looking to the world for support and does he get it no what does he end up becoming more and faithful and dragging a whole group of people into exile into another country because of that now so so that is a low time is not is not an out low time would you say that’s not a good time in their history it’s not is it and his Israel and had a lot of low times but in low times we actually can gain spiritual renewal through two things consecration and worship those are the two things presented in the book now this brings me to chapter 29 of this particular book and so in this low time there’s something that they should do that was already told them in Chapter seven that if you pray to me and if you confess your sins I will listen to you God doesn’t say if you pray to me I’ll turn a deaf ear he says I will listen to you and I will pay attention to what you’re saying so it is all about when we come to a point where we have a a low time and we’ve fallen into yes sin and we in a sense or maybe just going through the motions how do we get back well we get back the same way these people got back we’re just like them right they have their flesh and blood they got blood running through their veins they deal with the same things we deal with right we’re bombarded with the world every single day we’re bombarded with things that are not pure and not helpful not profitable for spiritual health and growth we’re bombarded with that so it could be that we’ve gotten to the place where we’re in a low place spiritually and we need to be renewed we need revival that’s what we need we need revival and so how does that come well we we gain spiritual renewal through first consecration right first consecration and so we see this in verse number three through 19 of chapter 29 now I’m not going to read all the verses but I’m going to read some particular verses that identify this particular condition or this way of getting right with the Lord it’s through Hezekiah the nation gains spiritual renewal by consecrating themselves to God now consecrating could mean simply just cleansing looking at your life and cleansing it get stuff out of your life that shouldn’t be there remove the obstacles look at what you’re believing you know take heat to yourself and your doctrine look at how you’re thinking look at what you allow to influence you look at the people that influence you look at the things that you’re reading and and see all those things you can consecrate yourself set yourself apart from those things so you can be renewed again look at verse number five we see here the cleansing of the priests and the temple it says then he said to them listen to me old Levites consecrate yourself yourselves now and consecrate the house of the Lord the god of your fathers and carry away the uncleanness out of the holy place verse 6 for our fathers have been unfaithful and have done evil in the sight of the Lord our God and has forsaken him and turned their faces away from do what the dwelling place of the Lord and have turned their backs and then looking down to verse number 11 my sons do not be negligent now for the Lord has chosen you to stand before him to minister to him and to be his ministers and burn in so he’s calling you back the levites to get back though of course the teaching and yet the temple get the temple back in order remember what a has did he closed the doors of the temple right he cut up all the instruments of it so everything has to be restored back to the original for the people who to be cleansed now there’s a recon recon secretion of the temple and we find that in verse 15 look at verse 15 second chronicles chapter 29 they assembled their brothers consecrated themselves first and went in to cleanse the house of the Lord according to the commandment of the king by the words of the Lord verse 16 so the priest went into the inner part of the house of the Lord to cleanse it now that that’s a rare event in scripture where they went into the inner court and cleansed it and the Lord allowed it because it had to be done and then it says notice and every unclean thing which they found in the temple of the Lord they brought out to the court of the house of the Lord then the Levites received it to carry out to the Kidron Valley and verse 18 then they went into King Hezekiah and said we have cleansed the whole house of the Lord the altar of burnt offering with all its utensils and the table of showbread with all its utensils so see this is what they did it was the cleansing process the consecration process in which they consecrated themselves before the Lord and then they went back and restored the temple remembering the temple the place where God dwells the place where God listens to prayer the place where sacrifices brought for the atonement of sin they got that back in order so they can have a good relationship with God now thank the Lord we don’t have to do all those things alright and why don’t we have to do all all those things because we gain spiritual renewal by consecration consecrating ourselves to God and the reason why is that the cleansing of our temple is important for now let me just mention this in the Old Testament the meeting place between God and man was a place but in the New Testament the meaning place between God and man is a person now if the presence of God comes into a man or a woman’s body that person becomes the place where God is or to put another way that person becomes a living temple that’s exactly what the Word of God says in the Bible in the New Testament alright the New Testament is the Christian believer is the temple for it says and remember what it says in first Corinthians 6 19 don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who lives in you and was given to you by guy that’s a question don’t you realize that right that your temple what you’re walking around with your body when you become a Christian becomes the temple where God dwells or the Holy Spirit of God dwells all right and then it says there of course at the end you do not belong to yourself you are now in the possession and you are God is now your owner he owns you and so therefore he has a right over your life and so think about that for a moment because you know when it comes to revival when it comes to being renew as a believer it just takes one person it just takes one event to prevent revival to pull us away from the Lord to ruin our worship it depends on how we actually respond to it so in other words stop doing anything that will defile your temple what’s going into your mind what’s going into your and affecting your emotions and affecting your will so you have to you have to sweep clean the recesses of your own heart right God’s given us enough understand about ourselves ones become believers to look into our heart and say how we doing are you are you have you grumbled and complained all the time you know do you in your heart is their anger towards people you know are you grieving God’s Spirit by being angry by being someone who just is selfish and self-centered see all those things have to be looked at we have to probe our thoughts you know i was i was reading a little blurb and this blurb said that um psychologists tell us that 10,000 thoughts go through the human mind in one day well that’s 3,500,000 a year remember only one percent from 20 years ago you would have to come up with 35,000 thoughts in other words you think a lot don’t you a lot of things pass through your mind constantly what is passing through your mind what are your imaginations what do you think a lot about if you want to look for your sin look there because your thoughts are going to tell you how clean your temple is what’s going on there you know what are you thinking about what are you doing on what do you what do you desire to for your eyes to see what do you desire for your ears to hear are you probing your thoughts that way so you can literally consecrate yourself and clean your temple up all right and and make yourself ready for God for we rent and pleasing to the Lord you think God doesn’t know your thoughts you think he doesn’t know your desires and your longings he knows all those things how are they are they honoring to god if I have to if I were to drop the screen right here and put your thoughts on the screen how would that look to everybody you wouldn’t want that to happen that wouldn’t you but you know of the Lord knows your thoughts he knows what’s going on in your heart he knows what you do he knows where you go he knows all those things see if he knows them then and you want to please the Lord you’ve got to examine yourself so your thoughts and your attitudes and your relationships are what please God see that becomes what happens when a person consecrates themselves they examine what their eyes have been looking at they examine what their ears have been listening to so what they want to do is they want to sweep clean the temple of God why for you know ry for two reasons and the New Testament gives us those reasons right the reason is that the Holy Spirit will be grieved if you don’t clean your temple and if he’s grieved you’ve just lost your power to live your Christian life and then also of course the Holy Spirit of God in Thessalonians can be quenched by not rejoicing by not praying by not being thankful but not being discerning the whole list giving there in Thessalonians goes on but you know what consecration comes when in first John 19 we confess our sin to him and he’s faithful in jesse’s listening to us he’s waiting for our repentance he wants to renew us he doesn’t want us to just go through the motions he wants real living worshippers that’s what God wants you know and I think that this new year as we look at it this is the time right now to look at yourself and to look into your heart and to re consecrate your temple to God that’s what you need to do that’s what I need to do alright so when we come to Romans chapter 12 and it says what give yourself over as a living sacrifice right why because of God’s mercy towards you that’s why I do that’s my motivation God’s been merciful to me he’s been kind to me he’s been good to me so I want to give myself over to you Lord to live for you to be a sacrifice for you a living one so I and that’s my reasonable worship right that’s what I want to do that’s what you want to do in fact if you look at verse number 12 verse number 20 in our chapter of chapter 29 well look at verse number 23 let me cut to the chase it says then they brought the male goats of the sin offering before the king and the assembly and they laid their hands on them now why is that remember when the priests lay the hands on the goat on the sacrifice it was to transfer the sin to the substitute right they’re sent to the substitute and then the the substitute a one one was sent out into the wilderness and one was sacrificed and what happened to the sacrifice that blood was shed so the people’s sins can be covered right look it says in verse 24 and the priests slaughter them and purrs the altar with their blood to atone for all Israel for the for the king ordered the burnt offering and the sin offering for all Israel so see here’s the king is moving things along because he wants the people to be renewed and the way to do that is through the blood sacrifice and of course who’s our blood sacrifice Jesus Christ right so see when we come and confess we come and confess to Jesus because he’s the one who died in our place for our sin and he’s the one who shed his blood to cover our sins so seeing that the point is this after consecration and cleansing you’re prepared for worship you are not prepared for worship until then cleansing and consecration equal true worship and you know what else it equals joy equals joy now let’s look back at our text for a minute how does it equal joy well we when we gain spiritual new renewal we not only gain it through consecration we gained through worship but you can’t put worship before consecration consecration must come for right and then comes real worship right but I want you to notice the kind of worship God likes this is the kind of worship God delights in now let’s look for Israel when they worship together verse number 26 it says the Levites stood notice with the musical instruments of David you know that means those instruments have been played for a while they hung those instruments like Psalm 137 says on the Willows and the reason why it has been played is because you know why when we’re not consecrated there’s real no real no joy and worship we don’t even know we’re doing sometimes when work when we’re involved with sin but look what again believe I’d stood with the musical instruments of David and the priests with the trumpets verse 27 then Hezekiah gave the order to offer the burnt offering on the altar when the burnt offering began the song of the Lord also began with the trumpets accompanied by the instruments of David king of Israel verse 28 while the whole assembly worship the singers also sang and the trumpeter sounded all the offerings the king and all who were present with them they bowed down and what they did would they do and worshiped in verse 30 moreover King Hezekiah and the officials order the Levites to sing praises to the Lord with the words of David and asaph the sphere the seer so they sang praises with what with joy they sang praises with joy and bowed down and worshiped that’s the kind of worship that God loves and it comes when were cleansed it we cleanse ourselves and consecrate ourselves to God that’s when worship comes and that worship before God needs to be worshipped that’s filled with joy and we see here it’s filled with music it’s filled with this excitement about God and what he’s doing and how God could definitely restore us and then I want to notice in the personal worship of Israel verse 31 then Hezekiah said now that you have consecrated yourselves to the Lord come near and bring sacrifices and thank offerings to the house of the Lord and the assembly brought sacrifices and thank offerings and all those who were willing brought burnt offerings willing worshipers not reluctant worshippers willing that’s what gives joy to the Lord you know a pastor once asked me well actually I asked him how was how’s it going in your church and he answered me in a most unexpected way he said to me when I walk into into the hallway I see those two stains on the carpet I said you know what I know exactly what do you mean nobody notice he means this that those two stains were there somebody didn’t care somebody didn’t care about that place when there’s something that needs to be done and everybody walks past it like it’s not my problem this is not my church this is not my family this is not reflecting the glory of god they’re not thinking like that see and so we have to ask ourselves where are the stains in our carpets every place that shows signs of we don’t care needs to be changed corporately in church right when ministries need to get done and there’s not enough people to do them when everybody’s got an excuse on why they can’t spend one hour doing something for the health of the body for the Advancement of the gospel there’s 168 hours in every week and we’re having a problem with five hours a week for the Lord if that’s really a problem we need renewal that’s the first thing that should be on our list what am I going to do for the Lord this week how am I going to prioritize my life for the Lord you know what what are the things that I see that need to be corrected and reflect the glory of God not only in my own life but in the church in the body not only in the personal ministry that we have towards each other but in the place God’s given us to worship to get get together I mean so we need spiritual renewal we need to give attention to detail to wear before we didn’t we need to say what in my heart and what in this church and what in this congregation does not reflect the glory of God and that needs to change so every place that so shows signs we don’t care is now looked at and examined and someone’s willing there to say I’ll I’ll do this I will serve here I will give my time to that and I want to do it willingly I want to do it with joy God doesn’t want anybody to come alongside you and twist your arm to get something done forget he does that’s not what he wants he wants willing joyful worshipers and if you’re not that then do what you need to do I tell you why you won’t find a renewed worship if you’re going to act like that or have that attitude because everybody and every time in any ministry there’s always we need to pray for the lord of the harvest to supply more laborers right we need help in every ministry and when you say you’re going to do a ministry to do it to be there to be on time to be early to be ready see those are the kind of things that we need to do in fact if you look at our passage look at verse number 32 it says the number of the burnt offerings which the assembly brought was 70 bulls 100 Rams 200 lambs all these were for a burnt offering to the Lord look at verse 33 the consecrated things were 600 bulls in 3000 she verse 34 but the priests were too few so that they were unable to skin all the burnt offerings therefore their brothers the Levites help them until the work was completed and until the other priests had consecrated themselves and then look at verse number 35 there were also many burnt offerings with the fat of the peace offerings and with the libations of the burnt offerings thus the service of the Lord was established again and then notice what it says and then Hezekiah and all the people rejoiced over what God prepared for the people because the thing came about suddenly God doesn’t have to take a long time for revival no house he knew all he needs is a bunch of people who will exam and concentrate them consecrate themselves look at their heart cleansed their temple and say Lord I have sinned in this way I know I know that you’re my offering for sin so I confess my sin and Jesus says I’m faithful and just to forgive you and not only that’s then but all your unrighteousness and get back to the spiritual renewal get back to joyful worship and get back to service where we’re doing things in a way that honors God he does it suddenly I love that God doesn’t have to take years to do anything does he sometimes we think that but he can happen just like that but it takes his people takes his people being serious about how are they doing with the Lord so so are you willing worshipers are you willing to work together are you willing to have a team spirit are you willing to say this is my church and I want to serve there with the people that God gave me as much as my brothers and sisters in Christ and you know what you do you do it you do it and I believe that when that takes place that’s when God enters in for blessing and God may bless that thing very quickly and when you know God’s doing something it’s almost like you’re on a ride and you’re enjoying it because you know I’m just doing this but God’s doing the rest and I want to be part of that I don’t want to be outside of that I want to be in that I want to be part of that see the person of Jesus of Christ is the focal point of all Christian worship so authentic worship is always in response to reveal truth it is always directed towards the Living God it’s always focused around the Lord Jesus Christ and inspired by the Holy Spirit who indwells us so true worship will be fostered when God’s truth is proclaimed where Jesus Christ is exalted and where God’s people give freedom to do the work of the holy spirit in their lives where he we give him the freedom to do that because we are constantly repenting of our sin and desiring to walk with the Lord in a pleasing manner that so therefore in in low times and low spiritual times renewal is gained by consecration that’s the inner consecration the outer reorganization and then by worship worship that is joy filled and worship that is personal and willing before a true and holy God that’s what God bless so I thought at the end of this year this is something I like to leave you because by the end of this week will be the new here and by then all of us would have come before the Lord viewed our thoughts our actions our words and consecrated ourselves and cleanse our self before God confessing our sin and then ask the Lord to restore to us the joy of our salvation right so we can go on and not sit there like a bump on the log we don’t need pew pew warmers we need servers right and we need joyful service and just serve God I know this that in my experience that the the greatest joy I receive is when I serve others when i’m using the gift God give me when when you’re using to gift god that’s the greatest joy there’s no greater joy you know and then to be able to share the gospel with somebody and see someone come to know the Lord and grow oh man it’s like you’re in you’re in you’re in the you know the third heaven that’s like the like I that’s like you know it’s the miracle of God when he saved somebody and he restores them and he cleans up their life and he puts his spirit in them in it and and they bypass you in some ways theological Ian and in way of service that that’s that’s the joy to see God’s people grow and they’re walking in the truth that’s what John says right I love I’m courage when people are walking in the truth I filled with joy when that happens and God is also filled with joy so how we’re going to look at this next year coming right to hunt 2016 let’s make it a year that’s completely opposite of 2015 let’s make it a year renewal of recon secretion of strength and God of service of joyful workshop let’s do that right let’s pray that this week let me close lord thank you this morning for these dear people I pray Lord myself them together Lord will you bind our hearts will you remind us this week about and bring to our attention to things that we need to clean up before you the things that we need to confess the things that have the people or things that have come into our life that have moved us away from you and cost us to be still and cold and not filled with joy I pray Lord that this week would be a week of soul-searching of examination of confession and I prayed Lord you would do the same thing you did with these dear people when they came you did it suddenly so I pray Lord this next year would be a year in which you are working through a group of people who love you who want to serve you who want to lift up your name and the word of God and who want to put into practice the things that they already know that they need to do and I pray Lord that we wouldn’t serve you with zeal and with joy and I pray as we do that your name would be honored help us to do everything in our life that reflects your glory so we can be different in the world so we can shine the light of the gospel so Holy Spirit you can use us to be witnesses to our family our friends our co-workers and our neighbors please Lord do this for the sake of your great name I pray Christ’s name Amen