Latest / Cumberland Trace Church of Christ (Formerly Lehman Ave Church of Christ) / "How to Make Your Life Count" by Hiram Kemp

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"How to Make Your Life Count" by Hiram Kemp · Cumberland Trace Church of Christ (Formerly Lehman Ave Church of Christ)

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And really, the summary statement of his life is found in 2 Chronicles 29 and verse 2,
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what Corbin just read for us.
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And he did right in the eyes of the Lord according to all the ways of his father David.
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You find another statement of similar summary in 2 Kings 18, 5 and 6,
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where it says,
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He trusted in the Lord with all his heart.
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There was no king like him before him or after him.
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He held fast to the commands of the Lord according to all that God commanded Moses.
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And you look at Hezekiah's life and he stands out.
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When you think about all of the kings of ancient Israel and Judah,
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even if you have a vague familiarity with the Old Testament and the kings,
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one thing you know is that king after king in the Old Testament
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is characterized as an idol worshiper, rebellious, a spiritual compromiser.
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So what about Hezekiah's life made him stand out in such a way
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that even heaven had to look on his life
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and the Holy Spirit commends his life when talking about it in summary?
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If you have your Bible in 2 Chronicles 29, chapter 29 through 32,
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those chapters summarize the life of Hezekiah
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and they make him a unique king among all the others
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because of the various things that he did.
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He came to the throne when he was 25 years old.
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He reigned for 29 years in Jerusalem.
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He followed in all the ways of the Lord.
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He restored worship in Israel as he rebuilt the doors
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that his father Ahaz had previously removed in 2 Chronicles 29 and verse 3.
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He restored temple worship and set the priests and the Levites
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in the right places according to the command of David
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in 2 Chronicles 29 and verse 25.
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He engaged in extravagant and elaborate worship
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through all the bull offerings and the lambs and the sheep
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in 2 Chronicles 29, verses 31 down through 35.
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And then in verse 36 of 2 Chronicles 29, it says,
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all of this came about suddenly.
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Hezekiah saw worship hadn't been what it should have been
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and he was on a rampage to change that and to put things back right,
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but that wasn't enough.
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In chapter 30, he says,
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we haven't kept the Passover, this feast of remembrance
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and our deliverance from Egypt, for centuries.
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And as a result of that, in 2 Chronicles 30, verses 1 through 12,
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Hezekiah goes to great depths and lengths to restore the temple worship
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and to make sure that they observe the Passover.
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The writer of the book of 2 Chronicles says,
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this was the first Passover that had been scripturally observed
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since the days of Solomon, David's son, the king in Israel.
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But his life wasn't without his hardships.
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The king of Assyria, Zennacherib, during the reign of Hezekiah,
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wanted to subdue Jerusalem, force them to pay taxes
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and bring them under his seduction.
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And as a result of that, Hezekiah prays to the Lord,
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takes this letter that he receives from Assyria,
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opens it up before the Lord and offers up prayer
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in 2 Chronicles 32, verses 20 through 23.
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He's delivered and an angel in one night destroyed 185,000 soldiers
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from the Assyrian army.
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And almost right after that success and after that deliverance,
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at about 39 years old, King Hezekiah is struck with a terminal illness.
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He's told in 2 Kings 20, verses 1 and 2,
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Hezekiah, set your house in order, for you will die and you won't live.
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Hezekiah did what he always does.
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He turned to God in prayer.
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And God, through Isaiah, sends Hezekiah a message that you're going to live.
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Not only is he going to live, but God's going to extend his life
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by some 15 years and allow him to remain as king in Israel.
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Maybe as this national news spreads around the ancient world
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that King Hezekiah of Jerusalem has had his life spared and extended by 15 years,
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the various nations get together and they talk.
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And Babylon sends these messengers, these envoys,
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to see about Hezekiah and the things that he's done.
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And in his arrogance or in his excitement,
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he shows them all of the treasures, all of the jewels, and all of the gold
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in Israel's temple.
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Isaiah rebukes him and says,
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What have you shown them? What have they seen in your house?
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And he said, I showed them everything.
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And Isaiah reminds him that your descendants and all of the gold,
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all the treasures that you showed him,
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will one day be taken away into Babylonian captivity.
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Hezekiah wasn't perfect, but he was holy and he was righteous.
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And as you think about his life
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and you think about the books that he's mentioned in,
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books like 2 Kings, verses 18-20,
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and you think about what's said about him in 2 Chronicles 29-32,
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and Isaiah 36-39,
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he's mixed in these passages with all of these other kings
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that just have their lives basically mashed together.
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And as you read this section of Scripture,
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you're almost lulled to sleep by what sounds like
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the very same life lived over and over again by different people.
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This king did evil in the eyes of the Lord.
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This person was wicked and corrupt.
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And then there's Hezekiah.
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He's almost this rainbow in the cloud from God to us to say,
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here's what life is ultimately all about,
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and here's how you're supposed to live it.
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These books are ultimately about the nation of God's people
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and how they lived and how they failed,
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but Hezekiah is a blueprint for us.
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In our world where we're urging and just aching to be seen,
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to be noticed, to go viral, to have our 15 minutes of fame,
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Hezekiah says, here's how you can live your life in such a way
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that you won't have momentary success
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where you're noticed for a moment,
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but you can have a lasting faithfulness
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that God won't forget for a lifetime.
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What made Hezekiah stand out and what made his life count
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is the same thing that can make ours count.
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And this morning, let's just notice five of the things
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that Hezekiah did throughout his life as the king of Judah
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that made his life special and significant
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and the very same five things would be true
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if we do them in our lives as well.
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Here's number one.
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Hezekiah made his life count by refusing to be bound to his past.
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In 2 Kings 16, 1 through 4, we read about his dad.
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His dad was named King Ahaz.
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He's in 2 Chronicles 28, verses 1 through 4.
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He was king before Hezekiah.
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He did evil in the eyes of the Lord.
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He built shrines to false gods and to various idols.
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He walked in the ways of the kings of Israel
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and multiplied in his sin and his transgression.
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That was Hezekiah's example.
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That's who was out in front of him.
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And so it's startling to read what you find in 2 Chronicles 29, verses 1 and 2.
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Hezekiah became king when he was 25 years old.
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He reigned for 29 years in Judah.
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His mother was Abijah, the son of Zechariah.
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He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord
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according to all that his father David had done.
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He had this example in his father that was treacherous and idolatrous and corrupt.
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And he decided, I'm going to do something different.
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I'm going to go in a different way.
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It's amazing that there's 11 kings in 250 years
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that separate Hezekiah from David
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and Hezekiah decided to reach all the way back there to David's life
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and say, that's the way I want to live my life,
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skip right past his fathers and all of the wicked kings that preceded him
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and said, I want to find a good example.
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Philippians 3 and verse 17, Paul says in the New Testament,
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mark those which so walk as you have us for an example
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and follow in their footsteps.
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You want to make your life count.
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Refuse to be bound by the past.
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It's what Hezekiah did.
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Hezekiah basically said to himself,
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my dad was an idol worshiper, but I don't have to be.
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Proverbs 4, 14 and 15, avoid the evil way,
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don't pass on it, go in the opposite direction.
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My dad built shrines to the wrong gods.
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1 John 5, 21 says, keep yourselves from idols.
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And Hezekiah says, I don't have to do that.
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My dad refused to walk in the ways of the Lord.
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It's what Hezekiah had to have known and had to be thinking.
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But in the spirit of David, in Psalm 116 and verse 9,
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I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living.
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And that's exactly what he did.
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Hezekiah refused to be bound by his past.
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He refused to have this mindset that said,
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here's how my dad behaved.
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And so I have no choice but to follow in his footsteps.
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He went in a different direction.
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John Calvin's a famous Presbyterian preacher
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and theologian.
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He preached in the 1500s.
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What he's most known for is he basically popularized
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the doctrine of total hereditary depravity,
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which is a fancy way of describing
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the doctrine of original sin.
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Calvin believed that every person comes into the world
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stained with Adam's sin and that of their parents.
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And there's nothing we can do.
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Righteous, we can't choose to do the right thing,
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even if we wanted to.
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We're guilty of sin from birth, no matter who we are
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and what we decide to do.
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And of course, the Bible says this is patently false.
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In places like Deuteronomy 24 and verse 16,
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the father's not guilty of the children's sins.
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Neither are the children guilty of their father's sins.
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But it's not just Calvin.
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Even in sociology and psychologists,
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they use different terminology, but they've
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picked up on this very same idea.
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When you hear terminology like biological determinism,
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it's a special way of basically saying
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you are the makeup of your atmosphere,
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of your genes, of your social surroundings,
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and those are the things that primarily determine
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the kind of person you're going to be.
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And it's true that we are made up of our experiences
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and our atmosphere and our family has a bearing
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on the kind of person we're going to be.
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But according to Scripture, the greatest determiner
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of the kind of person you and I are going to be
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is not our genes, it's our God.
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Ezekiel 36 and verse 26, God says,
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I'll give you a new heart and a new spirit.
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I'll remove that heart of stone from your flesh
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and give you a heart of flesh in its place.
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If any man be in Christ, he's a new creature.
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Old things are passed away.
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Behold, all things have become new, 2 Corinthians 5, 17.
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I'm crucified with Christ.
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Nevertheless, I live.
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Yet not I, but Christ lives in me.
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In the life that I now live in the flesh,
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I live by faith in the Son of God, Paul says,
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who loved me and who gave himself for me.
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And Hezekiah made his life count
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because he refused to be bound by his past.
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And the good news for us
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is we can refuse to do the same as well.
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Ezekiel headed this off in Ezekiel 18
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as he engaged with people that had this mindset.
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Spiritually speaking, our parents ate the candy
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and we, the children, suffer with the cavities.
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We're suffering because of what our parents
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have done before us.
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And Ezekiel says in Ezekiel 18, 20 through 21,
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you're no longer going to use this proverb in Israel.
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The soul that sins will die.
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He says the father won't bear the iniquity of the son
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nor the son for the children.
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The righteousness of the righteous will be upon himself
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and the wickedness of the wicked will be upon himself.
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Ezekiel says we borrow neither wickedness
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nor righteousness from our parents.
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We make our own decisions.
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And that's good news.
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That means you and I will stand accountable
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for the way that we've lived and nobody else.
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Proverbs 14 and verse 12.
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Romans 14 and verse 12.
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Second Corinthians 5 and verse 10.
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It's going to be based on the way we lived.
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If you want to make your life count,
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you refuse to be bound by your past.
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That means your bad attitude.
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It's not your mom's fault.
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It was your decision and your choice.
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It means that maybe our struggle with our speech,
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it's not regional and based on where we're from,
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but it's our reckless abandonment
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and our refusal to control ourselves.
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James 1 and verse 26.
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The pessimism and the fear that may grip us
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is not simply because of the environment
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in which we've been raised.
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We just made it our mantra and our life motto.
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But the good news is we can break free from it.
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Hezekiah chose to do this and he's a reminder
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we can do the very same thing.
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Jim Carrey's life and his hardship
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has been well documented.
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Jim Carrey has often talked about the fact
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that at one point during his teen years,
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his family was homeless
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and they slept in a Volkswagen van.
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On another occasion, he and his brother were in a tent
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and they slept together on Lake Ontario.
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Carrey says, but I eventually turned
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all of those things around for our own good fortune
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and I changed the way that I lived.
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He decided to say, you know what?
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My past has an effect on me as a person.
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Your past may explain you.
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Hey, here's why I'm the way I am
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and think the way I think on some things,
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but your past doesn't excuse you.
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It's not just the case that you can get over these things.
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You and I were built to do so.
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First Corinthians 16 and verse 11.
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Paul says, I want you to behave like men,
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be strong and overcome.
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First Corinthians 10, 13.
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Paul says, there's no temptation that's overtaking you
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but that which is common to man.
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But God is faithful.
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He'll make a way of escape so that you can endure it.
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You don't have to succumb to your past.
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You can overcome it just like Hezekiah did.
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Evidently, Hezekiah looked at his life
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and he wanted something different.
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He said, my dad has always worshipped idols.
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He went in the wrong direction.
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He built shrines to the wrong God.
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But Hezekiah decided, you know what?
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I'm going to do something completely different with my life
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and that's why he stood out.
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Maybe you hear this and you say to yourself, Hiram,
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nobody in my family, I didn't grow up in one of these families
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where I saw people sitting around reading the Bible.
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I just didn't have that example.
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That wasn't true about me and my family.
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You start something different in yours.
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2 Timothy 2 and verse 15 says,
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study to show yourself approved unto God,
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a worker that doesn't need to be ashamed,
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somebody rightly divided in the word of truth.
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You can decide to do that yourself.
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You don't have to be bound to your past.
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You might say in our family, we just don't prioritize marriage.
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In our family, we just haven't seen marriages go the distance.
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That's just not something we're used to.
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Just doesn't happen in our family.
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Start with yours.
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Hebrews 13 and verse 4 says,
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marriage is to be held in honor in the bed undefiled
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by whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.
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Maybe you didn't grow up.
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Maybe you grew up in this Ahaz environment,
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no family devotionals,
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nobody really serious about righteousness and holiness
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and you might start thinking to yourself,
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maybe this biological determinism,
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maybe this is just the way I'm set to go,
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but we can be like Joshua and say,
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as for me and my house, we'll serve the Lord.
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Joshua 24 15.
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It's what made Hezekiah completely different
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because he says I'm not going to let my past define me.
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It influences me,
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but I'm not a servant or a slave to my past.
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You know how many people in the world are bound by this idea.
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They just can't get over their childhood
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and what they received or what they didn't receive,
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what their parents either did for them or didn't do,
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but Hezekiah is in scripture shouting out to us saying,
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look at my dad Ahaz,
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look at the terrible way in which he lived his life
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and one day he just got up and said,
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you know what?
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I'm just not doing that.
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I see these idol shrines.
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I'm tearing them down.
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Second Kings 18 and verse 4.
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I see the corruption and wicked living.
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I'm going in a different direction
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and God's message to you
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and me through scripture is we can do the very same thing.
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Here's number two.
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Make pleasing God your primary aim.
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You can make your life count.
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If you make pleasing God the main aim
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and focus of your life,
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the thing that's said about Hezekiah,
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Holy Holy,
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the Holy Spirit through scripture gives this more mileage
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in his life than anything else
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and it's the religious reforms he made in
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and around Jerusalem to change the direction
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that the entire nation was going in.
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In 2nd Chronicles 29,
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look at verse 3.
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He brings back in these doors
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and these gates that his father had previously removed
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and he puts those things in the place.
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So God's temple will look like it was always designed to look.
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In 2nd Chronicles 29, 4 through 10,
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he offers this long explanation to the people
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where he says this is the reason why we're in bondage
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and in captivity.
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It's because of our rebellion
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and our disobedience to God.
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In 2nd Chronicles 29, 25 through 30,
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he tells these folks we need to get back to authorized worship.
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Just like God commanded through David
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and through Nathan the prophet,
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let's get ourselves back on the right track
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and though nobody in ancient Jerusalem
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had kept the Passover for 200 years,
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2nd Chronicles 30 says that's exactly what he did in verse 26.
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He puts in more priests and more Levites in chapter 31
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and the summary of his life is found in the passage on the screen.
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2nd Chronicles 31, 20 through 21,
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he did what was good, holy, and upright in the eyes of the Lord.
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He prospered in all that he did
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and he committed himself to pleasing God.
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If you want to make your life count,
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make pleasing God your aim, your goal, your focus in life.
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I think as you read Hezekiah's life,
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one of the verses that's easy and tempting to skip over
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is the last verse in chapter 29.
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In chapter 29 and verse 36, it says,
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now all of this came about suddenly.
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What does that mean?
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It means this wasn't planned.
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It means as Hezekiah was studying the Bible,
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studying the Old Testament,
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when he saw that things were out of whack,
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you know what he did?
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He just started obeying immediately.
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This came about suddenly.
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It wasn't slow, but as soon as Hezekiah saw,
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hey, we're worshiping the wrong way,
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we're doing the wrong thing,
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he just pivoted and did the right thing.
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He reminds you of people in Scripture like Paul
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who said, this one thing I do, Philippians 3 and verse 13,
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of David who says, this one thing if I desire,
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this one thing will I seek after,
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that I might dwell in the presence of the Lord,
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gaze upon the beauty of the Lord,
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and inquire in his temple, Psalm 27 and verse 4.
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It's what Jesus commands us to do.
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Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness,
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and all these things will be added unto you,
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Matthew 6 and verse 33.
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Hezekiah says, my life is gonna count
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because the thing that matters the most to me in life
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is ultimately pleasing God.
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And maybe you think, well, this is ancient,
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this is Bible times.
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Of course, people are supposed to do these kinds of things,
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but just move it over into contemporary times,
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see the parallels, and I promise you,
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your respect for a man like Hezekiah
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will immediately increase.
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How many people do you know right now
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who have the courage to completely change
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everything about their religious beliefs,
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their doctrines, and their practices,
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no matter what anybody else is doing
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just because they know it's the right thing to do?
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That's exactly what Hezekiah did.
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I've got a friend right now who knows
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that he needs to be baptized to become a Christian,
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but he's struggling because as he's walking
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through the process of doing this,
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he knows what it's gonna cost him
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in relation to relationships and people
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and what everybody else is gonna think.
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When Hezekiah found out that this was the right thing to do,
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he didn't hesitate, he didn't wait.
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He ran full speed in the direction of God.
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It's what Jesus means in Luke 14, 25 through 33
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when he says, if any man comes after me,
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he's gotta be willing to hate his father and mother
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and wife and children and even his own life
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to be my disciple, be willing to count the cost
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and go the distance.
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Whosoever of you that doesn't forsake all that he has
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can't be my disciple.
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And then you read about a man like Hezekiah
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doing that very thing.
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The most important thing in his life
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was not being approved by the masses,
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but ultimately being approved and recognized by his God.
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In 1 Samuel 12, 24, Samuel says to the people,
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fear the Lord, submit to him and do his will
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because God's been good to you.
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And when Hezekiah looked at his life,
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his motivation, his primary aim and his goal was,
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I wanna make God smile.
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How much of what you do in life every day
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is because of what other people think
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and you wanna please other people?
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And how much of what you do every day in life
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is ultimately because, you know what?
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I don't care what people think, I wanna please God.
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Don't answer that too quickly.
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You might think you know the answer to that question,
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but the reality is we pick out our clothes,
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our houses, our shoes, sometimes our cars, our glasses,
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all based on what other people
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are ultimately gonna think about us.
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Some people right now,
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the greatest fear in their life is to be cringed.
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They'd hate to do anything
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that would look bad to other people.
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They'd hate to be embarrassing to other people.
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The greatest concern in Hezekiah's life was,
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I really don't wanna disappoint God.
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I really don't wanna let God down.
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And it really doesn't matter what my dad did before me.
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I don't care what other people in Israel think about me.
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This is how worship ought to be.
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If you would have bumped into Hezekiah
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in the eighth century BC and just run up to Hezekiah
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and say, hey, why are you worshiping like this?
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Nobody's done this in a real long time.
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Hezekiah would say, this is what God commands.
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This is what God wants, Sean 423.
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He's seeking for people to worship him
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in spirit and in truth.
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If you were to ask him,
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hey, why are you reinstituting all of these priests
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and reinstituting biblical worship?
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Hezekiah would say, this is what God wants.
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This is what God commands.
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And I'm not gonna change his word, Deuteronomy 4 in verse 2.
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If you were to say Hezekiah,
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why every first month of the year on the 14th day,
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are you ensuring that everybody in Israel keep the Passover?
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Nobody's done that around here for 250 years.
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Hezekiah would say, this is what God wants.
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This is what he commands, Exodus 12, 1 through 5.
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And I want to give it to him.
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And if our lives are going to count for anything,
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we've got to get to this same point where we study our Bibles,
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then we lift our heads and we say,
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I'm going to do what God wants me to do
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and I don't care what other people think.
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I grew up in Hollywood, Florida,
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and we played Little League football all our lives.
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The way football worked, or at least Little League football,
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where I grew up, is the teams were bracketed by age,
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but also by weight.
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And there was a weight limit for each age group.
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And if you weight too much to play on this age group,
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you either would have to bump up and play with an older age group
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or you couldn't play at all.
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And there were always people playing certain positions
20:17
that were struggling to make weight.
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They didn't want to bump up
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and they also didn't want to be told they couldn't play.
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And it was inevitable. At Washington Park,
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normally on a Thursday or Friday,
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as the Saturday game was approaching,
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if you were riding down Pembroke Road,
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you could just look into the park
20:29
and you were almost certain to find various kids
20:32
from various age groups in their full pads of uniform
20:35
and also covered with a garbage bag
20:37
where they simply cut out the head,
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put it over their uniform and run laps around the park.
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And maybe you'd be riding past that down the street
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and thinking to yourself,
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what are they doing? This is pretty strange.
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Or maybe you'd be thinking to yourself,
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this is pretty extreme.
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But for the kids that were engaged in it,
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this is what their minds were thinking.
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I really want to play on Saturday.
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This looks absurd.
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This looks crazy to people that are on the outside.
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They don't know that I want to shed five pounds,
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10 pounds so that I can play in this game.
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Might be extreme to them, might not make sense to them,
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but I'm really not concerned about what they see.
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My eyes are on Saturday and I want to play in the game.
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And if you're going to be God's person,
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there'll be countless people throughout life
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that see you doing things that don't make any,
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I'm sure Hezekiah seems strange and foreign to his contemporaries,
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but he was concerned with higher eyes than theirs.
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2 Corinthians 5 and verse 9, Paul says,
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we make it our aim to please Him.
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And much of what we do as God's people,
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it won't make sense to the masses.
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But if we're doing God's will,
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we're aiming to please higher eyes than theirs.
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That means things in your life that needs to be cut,
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just cut them, Matthew 5, 29 through 30.
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It means things that need to be arranged and moved around,
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just move them.
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If you want to make your life count,
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make pleasing God your aim above people.
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Here's number three, capitalize on the privilege of prayer.
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It's almost hard to pick just one of these from the life of Hezekiah
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because he prayed about literally everything.
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When the Assyrians through Sennacherib and his men
22:00
sent word to Hezekiah, he prayed.
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2 Chronicles 32, 20 through 23.
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When he's given a death sentence and told,
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set your house in order, Hezekiah, because you'll die and not live,
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he prayed, 2 Chronicles 32 and verse 24.
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And when Isaiah comes to him at the Girt Report and says,
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as a matter of fact, you'll live 15 more years,
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Isaiah 38, 9 through 20.
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Even there, he offers up this prayer of thanksgiving to God.
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His whole life was marked by 1 Thessalonians 5, 17,
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which says, pray constantly or pray without ceasing.
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And if you want your life to count, be a person that's marked with prayer.
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You read through 1 and 2 Kings and 1 and 2 Chronicles
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and you're asking yourself, why does Hezekiah stand out?
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Why does God give so much ink and attention to his life?
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And this just makes sense from Genesis to Revelation.
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God loves talking about people who love talking to him.
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If you're a person whose life is marked with prayer,
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God will make sure your life's going to count.
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My voice will you hear in the morning, I'll direct my prayer to you
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and look up, Psalm 5 and verse 3.
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David says, evening and morning and at noon will I pray and cry aloud
23:06
and you'll hear my voice, Psalm 55 and verse 17.
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Hezekiah left a legacy of prayer behind him.
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And if you want to make your life count,
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capitalize on the privilege of prayer.
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When you receive good news, before you call your spouse,
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before you call anybody that you love and admire, talk to God first.
23:25
If you really believe God runs everything in the world,
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when you're faced with difficult decisions, before you search Google,
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before you search AI, before you get the authorized or educated opinion
23:35
of anybody else, talk to God first.
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Be a person that builds their life on Psalm 62 and verse 8.
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We trust in God and we pour out our hearts before Him
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because God is a refuge for us.
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That's what Hezekiah did and it radically changed his life as a result.
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You might be aware of this, but landlines are making a comeback,
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especially among people that have small children.
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CNN ran a report and one of the women that was interviewed in this article,
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she says it's been great for her small children.
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She doesn't want to get them a smartphone.
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She has various reasons and she says the landline phone does something.
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It's not just nostalgic.
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It's not just designed to cut down on screen time,
24:13
but it teaches some things that she says they just simply can't learn
24:16
with the smartphone.
24:17
She says when you don't know who's calling you,
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you've got to answer every phone call respectfully.
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You've got to learn how to communicate and talk to people and use your voice
24:24
and you're not distracted by all the things that a smartphone
24:27
or a tablet may do as you engage and talk to people.
24:30
Researchers are saying it's improving our communication skills
24:33
and getting us back to some of the very basic things
24:36
that humans need to strengthen and build relationships.
24:39
Go to any bookstore and when you get there,
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go to the devotional section and just look at people scurrying throughout all
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of that, all they can in church history
24:47
and all spiritual literature to find ways for us to connect to God
24:51
and we need all the ways that the Bible affords,
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but you know, people are emphasizing a lot of things,
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but scripture reminds us of this.
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This is simple.
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It's not fancy,
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but the spiritual landline of prayer from Earth to God
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in heaven can never be improved upon
25:04
and our lives are going to be blessed and benefited
25:07
when we engage in that very simple discipline regularly
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and repeatedly just like Hezekiah did.
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Peter says in 1 Peter 5 and verse 7,
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cast all your anxieties on God because he cares about you.
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Jesus says if you ask anything according in my name,
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according to my will, you'll be heard and your joy will be full.
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John 16 and verse 24 Hezekiah's entire life was encapsulated by this idea.
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I don't do anything without first talking to God about it in prayer
25:35
and maybe you're thinking in a sermon on how to make my life count
25:38
that it would be mostly about things that we're supposed to do
25:41
and maybe not prayer and communicating with God,
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but here's where Hezekiah is different.
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He realized that he controlled very little in his life
25:47
and as a result of that, he took everything in prayer to God.
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Maybe the night after the 185,000 Assyrians were dead outside of Jerusalem
25:55
and God says they won't shoot an arrow in this place,
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many of the Jews woke up that next morning
25:59
and realized their lives have been spared
26:02
simply because Hezekiah was a man of prayer.
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Whose life is going to be changed?
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Whose eternal destiny is going to be altered?
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Because you are a person of prayer.
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And if and when that happens, your life would have counted.
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Here's number four. Use your time wisely.
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Hezekiah is told that he's going to die and not live
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and then in 2 Kings 20, 12 and 13, the envoys come from Babylon.
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He shows them everything.
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He says, set your house in order, you'll die and not live.
26:31
But as a result, he prays and God grants him 15 more years of life.
26:36
I don't know where this myth originated.
26:37
They say it originated from various cultures and backgrounds
26:40
and maybe just because cats have this survival instinct to live
26:44
no matter what happens, but this idea that cats have nine lives.
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Well, the reality is they have about as many as you and I have.
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They only have one.
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And what Scripture's saying to you and me through a man like Hezekiah
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is whatever time you have left, be sure to use it wisely.
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Hebrews 9 and verse 27, it's appointed unto man once to die
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and after this, the judgment.
27:03
If your life is going to count, use the time wisely that you have left.
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God says to Hezekiah, I'll give you 15 additional years.
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I wonder what Hezekiah was thinking when he got to year 15.
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I mean, it's one thing to know one of these days I'm going to die,
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but it's a different thing entirely to know my time's up right now.
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Just think about your life.
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If you knew today is my last day on earth, what would you do?
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If you only had 24 hours left to live, how would you use it?
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And maybe you could think of a lot of things you'd do.
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I'd share the gospel.
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I'd spend time with my family.
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But the reality is, as good as all of those answers may sound,
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you really have no idea.
27:39
And there's a great chance that when that time comes for you
27:41
and when it comes for me, we'll receive no notice.
27:45
The gospel of John doesn't just tell us about Jesus' life,
27:47
it also tells us about his death.
27:49
And Jesus is one of the few people in the world who,
27:51
when his last day was coming, he knew it.
27:54
And it's impressive what Jesus did on his last day.
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He ate with friends.
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He prayed to God.
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He washed their feet.
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He served others.
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He poured out his life.
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And he said, for this hour, I'm not ashamed.
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I've come to God for this very hour to offer up my life.
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And this is why I've come here, John 12, 26, and 27.
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If you want to live well and if you want your life to count,
28:14
make sure whatever you do, you use your time wisely.
28:18
This woman, Bronnie Ware, wrote this book,
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The Five Regrets of the Dying.
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She wrote it in response to the decades she served in palliative care.
28:25
And she says, I've talked to many people who are on the verge of dying
28:28
and they always have regrets.
28:29
And among the regrets that they have is, she says, you know what?
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Many of the people that I've talked to that are dying,
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they wish they would have had the courage to be their true selves.
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She says, in the end, what you'll find out is nobody was watching
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and you always have permission to be exactly who God created you to be.
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Proverbs 29 and verse 25, the fear of man lays a snare,
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but those who trust in the Lord will dwell in safety.
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She says, a second regret people have as they're coming to the end
28:55
is they say to themselves, I wish I wouldn't have worked so hard.
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I poured all my life into work
28:59
when I should have been spending more time in relationships.
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Proverbs 23, 4 and 5 says, labor not to be rich.
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Cease from your own wisdom.
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Don't set your hopes on riches that have wings and fly toward the heavens.
29:12
A third thing she says is, I wish I would have created time
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to make more time for deep and real friendships.
29:17
I got separated from friends, people move far away,
29:20
but at the end of their life, they said,
29:22
I wish I would have prioritized those friendships
29:23
because those things made a great deal to me.
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Proverbs 18, 24, there's a friend that sticks closer than a brother.
29:31
She said, people also at the end of their lives always regret it
29:33
and wish they gave themselves more permission to simply enjoy their lives.
29:38
A happy heart does good like a medicine, Proverbs 17 and verse 22,
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but a broken spirit, it dries the bones.
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What Hezekiah shows us is this,
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God grants everybody in this room time and opportunity.
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Don't waste it. Don't say to yourself,
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hey, I'm just going to blow the teen years
29:55
and I really plan to get serious in my 20s.
29:57
If you're in your 20s, don't say, you know what, right now,
30:00
I'm just sowing my wild oats and then in my 30s and 40s,
30:02
I'm really going to lock in and get serious about the things that matter
30:05
and your 30s and 40s don't live like, you know,
30:08
the 50s and 60s are guaranteed
30:10
or that you'll still have the same measure of health that you have right now.
30:13
The only time anybody has is right now.
30:16
God speaks directly to Hezekiah and says, set your house in order
30:19
because you'll die and not live.
30:21
But that statement echoes down through the hallways of time.
30:24
All of humanity, set your house in order.
30:26
You'll die. You won't live forever.
30:29
And what are you going to do with the time that God's blessed you with?
30:32
Here's the last thing.
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If you want to make your life count, stay humble and blessing.
30:38
I wish we could say Hezekiah always did everything right,
30:41
but he didn't. After the great years
30:45
and after the 15 years of extended life,
30:47
these messengers come from Babylon
30:50
and he shows them everything that's in his house.
30:51
2 Chronicles 32 and verse 31 says that God did this to test him
30:56
and to see what was in his heart.
30:57
God blessed Hezekiah immeasurably,
31:00
but in his pride, he was lifted up
31:02
and as a result of that, suffered a major downfall.
31:04
Even when Isaiah rebukes him and says,
31:06
hey, one day these Babylonians are going to take everything away
31:09
into captivity, even your descendants.
31:12
Hezekiah is righteous as a man he was.
31:14
He just sort of shoulder shrugged and said to himself,
31:16
at least there'll be peace in my days.
31:19
And prosperity isn't wicked, but it is revealing.
31:22
What happens to Hezekiah for the most part in human history
31:24
is sadly the way it goes for most people.
31:27
Most people struggle when they're blessed
31:29
and when they're exalted
31:31
and God would have us to remember to stay humble.
31:33
God would have us to remember that he's the one
31:35
that ultimately exalts us
31:37
and as a result of that, we should serve him with great humility.
31:40
Someone has said, I wish we all lived our lives
31:43
just like people that are given acceptance speeches.
31:47
You notice when people give acceptance speeches,
31:48
there are normally two things that are a reality for those individuals.
31:52
Number one, they're overwhelmed with gratitude.
31:55
And number two, they always realize they're running out of time.
31:59
Get up to give an acceptance speech
32:01
and you're overwhelmed with this gratitude and this thanksgiving
32:03
and at the same time you realize, I'm running out of time.
32:06
And as a result of that, we should be individuals that stay humble.
32:10
Hezekiah's son becomes the most wicked king in all of Judah.
32:13
Manasseh, he reigned for 55 years.
32:15
He couldn't do just about anything right
32:17
as he worshiped idols and reverted right back to the behavior of his grandfather.
32:21
Who knows if Hezekiah's thanksfulness and gratitude and righteous life
32:25
would have steered his son in the right direction
32:27
and who knows what your life will do
32:29
for somebody else who does the very same thing.
32:31
Hezekiah shows us no matter what happens,
32:33
your life will count if you live humble in the face of blessing.
32:38
Just think about this.
32:39
If all people in the world, Hezekiah should have known
32:41
this extravagance, this blessing in Jerusalem,
32:44
it doesn't belong to me. It ultimately came from God.
32:46
I had 15 additional years given to me
32:48
because God is just kind and gracious enough to see that I have it.
32:52
And that should be true about every one of us.
32:55
How much of your story is God involved in?
32:58
Your response would be, God's involved in all of it.
33:01
And do the people that know you know that as well?
33:05
Peter says, humble yourself in the sight of the Lord
33:06
and God will exalt you at the right time, 1 Peter 5 and verse 6.
33:10
Your life is going to count if when you're exalted
33:12
and when you're blessed by God, you remain humble
33:15
even in the face of blessing.
33:16
Hezekiah was lifted up, and the last note on his life is
33:20
pride ultimately led to his downfall
33:22
and the downfall of succeeding generations to follow.
33:27
In our world, people are aching to go viral,
33:29
aching to be popular, yearning to be seen.
33:33
And Hezekiah, in these short chapters where we find him
33:35
in Kings and Chronicles and in Isaiah, his life's an example.
33:39
Here's how you can make your life count.
33:41
He's stuck between all of these other kings in Israel.
33:44
And here's what the Bible says about him in summary.
33:46
He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord
33:48
and walked in the ways of David, his father.
33:50
And if we use his life as a blueprint and follow in the same steps,
33:53
a similar thing will be said about us.
33:55
They did what was right in the eyes of the Lord
33:58
and they walked in the ways of the greatest descendant of David,
34:01
which is Jesus Christ.
34:03
Jesus is the new and better Hezekiah, is he not?
34:06
He's the one that ultimately doesn't follow in the line
34:09
of all of his sinful descendants,
34:11
but he lives a perfectly sinless life.
34:13
He communicates with God in prayer and he humbles himself
34:16
even to the death on the cross.
34:18
He doesn't enjoy 15 minutes of fame,
34:20
but because of his righteous submission, he's forever glorified.
34:23
And he invites every one of us to enjoy that same glory with him.
34:27
Phil's going to lead us in a song to encourage us.
34:29
If you need to submit your life to Jesus Christ in faithful obedience,
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that's where it starts to actually make your life begin to count.
34:36
Turn from sin, put your faith in Jesus,
34:38
confess Him as the Son of God before this audience
34:41
and allow your body to be immersed in water for the forgiveness of sins.
34:43
Acts 2 and verse 38.
34:45
You don't have to be bound by your past,
34:47
of your ancestors or of yourself and your own shortcomings.
34:50
God can and He will forgive.
34:53
If you've already done that in the past and you need the prayers of the church,
34:56
we'd be happy to intercede on your behalf.
34:58
If you need to respond, come now as together we stand and as we sing.