How Should We Act Towards Non-Christians? | 2 Chronicles 30:1-27

You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a

couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun in

practical ways. Hey, everybody eats the bubble, guys.

Yess what what it's a big day is a big y. Yes,

we're gonna sing a Happy birthday to Chris. What Happy

birthday to Chris? Me?

See there you go, Well, you do the whole thing.

I didn't say. I was saying the whole thing to you.

I said I was going to sing Happy birthday to Chris,

which is what I did.

Oh, be thankful, dude. It's like have you ever seen

the Big Bang Theory? Sheldon? Sheldon would have to have

you complete it? Right? Yeah?

I did. I did complete it. I did everything else

going to say I said I was going to do.

Well, Hey, I thank you, Jeff, didn't I. I just

want to not complain but rather just embrace what you did.

It is your happy, happy birthday. Well technically it's not today,

it's the day that is airs. Yes, yes, April fourth,

nineteen seventy one.

So for the people listening, they're celebrating your birthday today. People, yes, so,

uh do you know the birthday song? This is your

birthday song. No, it isn't very long.

That's it. That's funny.

You know I sang your two birthday songs.

That's awesome, right hey, And that's what the people want.

Yeah, I know the people want sing it. So there's two.

Songs for you. Give the people. There more songs for

you right there. That's so great. So how old are you?

I'm fifty four, which is the age that you will

turn in just a month.

Yes, yes, so much older than me? Yes, yes, So

I looked up some obscure and interesting facts about being

fifty four.

Oh interesting?

Did you know you've lived one billion, seven hundred million seconds.

I actually I did know that. I did the math

while I was in the restroom. Just now.

Yeah, yeah, so, which translates to about twenty eight point

three million minutes. Wow, which translates to four hundred and

seventy two thousand hours.

Wow. Wow.

Isn't that neat? Did you know you're in a rare

presidential club?

Nope?

Abraham Lincoln was elected president at fifty four. He is

the only one. Wow, only one?

Wow?

You and Lincoln? Man, Yes, right there.

I've done just as much as Abraham Lincoln.

Yeah, not since Lincoln so there's a bunch of studies

shown about happiness and you're at the perfect happiness age.

Is that true? This what says?

Studies show that happiness follows a U shaped curve like this, Yeah,

with a dip in midlife, but an increase after fifty

people start getting happier, and at fifty four you're on

the upward climb with more peace, clarity in condemment. Wow,

So on average, people at fifty four are substantially happier

than people at forty four.

Yeah, because they have more money. Generally they're wiser.

Yeah, you've lived more life and you understand things aren't

stressing stress you out as much.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, your heart has beaten over two point two billion

times and.

Mine, mine's probably two point four billion because they have

a high heart rate.

Yeah yeah. And then it says you've moved somewhere around

fifty million gallons of blood through your body, which is

enough to fill seventy five Olympic sized swimming pools. Wow,

the sun has seen you through twenty thousand sunrises.

Interesting?

And then nice, I mean, have you seen uh twenty.

At least at least a couple of dozens? Yeah? Yeah,

So funny. That's so great. Twenty thousand, I caught a

couple of them.

M you sort of share your age with the speed

of light, So light travels fifty four thousand miles in

a quarter of a second, meaning every time you blink,

light has traveled circled to Earth twice.

Yeah. I'm not going to buy that one. That's fifty

four years old. There's nothing to do with that.

Okay, you've spent about eighteen years sleeping. Ooh, I believe

that a sixty five hundred nights of dreaming. This says

you're at your peak brain power. Oh, so you understand

it's not getting any better than this, Chris, this is no.

You had been. You've peaked. You've peaked at this point.

Research suggests that in your early fifties, verbal intelligence, problem solving,

and wisdom air at their highest. So at fifty four,

your brain is sharper than ever, even if you sometimes

forget where your keys are.

That is so funny, amazing, it's great. I'm glad they

added that caveat at the end there. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

well that's really cool.

Fifty four you start experiencing a cognitive shift known as

time perspective, where you start focusing more on meaningful experiences

rather than chasing accomplishments. And that's one of the reasons

why the happiness factor tends to go up. It's because

you shift from trying to accomplish things to enjoying who

you are, what you have, and who you have around you. Yeah,

isn't that nice?

That's great?

Also, And here's then amazing one. You've seen more than

half of modern history. Wow, because you were born in

nineteen seventy one, you've lived over fifty four percent of

US history since seventeen seventy six, meaning you've witnessed more

than half of everything America has been through. Oh look,

could be yeah, which isn't true that that's a false number.

From seventeen seventy six till now. It's just modern history.

That's where it messed up. It's not from seventeen seventy six.

Oh yeah, right, the lawyer right, because the modern part.

Yeah, not seventeen seventy six, but modern times. Right, you've

seen a lot of it there.

Yeah.

So anyways, that's pretty cool.

I thought, thank you.

Yeah, I'm happy for you, Chris, thank.

You, and I'll be happy for you in about six

weeks after this.

Yeah, well, I'm excited. Do you like big birthdays?

I do? I do. Our families are very big on birthdays.

I mean, do you like celebrating your next birthday like

being fifty four? Oh? Good, I'm fifty four?

Oh no, I don't. I'm not sure I've ever been

depressed when I've had a birthday. But I'm not sure

I've ever looked forward to being one year older, other

than you know, before twenty one. After twenty one, I

didn't look forward to.

Don't care about anymore.

Well, I thought it was better to be the younger.

I'm always amazed. I'm always amazed I made it another year. Right, soah,

that's good.

Hey, we haven't even worked into our segment yet. That's

what you were trying to do. That's what you're trying

to do. Well, we got to do it.

Yeah, okay, let's do it all right.

It says happy birthday, Chris, well maybe Friday today it's

also Chris's birthday outfitting. For today's segment, Chris gets to

pick what's variation of what made Chris slash Jeff mad

slash happy this week. We do so, so here's what

I choose, because it's my choice. Okay, I'm gonna choose

what made Jeff mad, and it can't be anything related

to driving, because that's really common for everybody.

Okay, no driving. So what made Jeff mad this week? Yes,

and it has to be universal, well, mad for the world,

mad for the world. I have to be mad for

the world. Okay. What makes me mad is that you're

making me do this instead of celebrating your birthday. Because

it's not about me, Chris, it's about you.

So that's very Jeff specific. I'm not sure that the

world can. The world is too.

The world is too because they'd rather celebrate you. Think

of all the text and emails we get about how

they love our podcast segments. Total, they don't write about

Jeff segments. They read about your restroom.

And I said, think about it, and instead, this is

what I came up with, ask chat GPT.

I did not take them up with a bunch of

already I had already done that before you left the room.

Did you?

Yes?

Okay, all right? So so so what's making you mad

as I'm asking you to do this?

Yeah, that we're wasting time on Jeff when we should

be celebrating Chris. Oh my God, it makes me mad.

It makes me mad when people bring focus to somebody,

to me when it should be on you. That's what

makes me and and our listeners are upset about it.

To the listeners are like, let's talk more about Chris.

That's what I.

Was, all right, you know what? You know what's making

me mad? Your answer to the segment, that's amazing mad.

It's my answer my birthday, and I gave it to you.

I had the right to choose, says Desiree.

I gotta give. What's the guy I gotta give? I

sang to you twice, not once, twice, wow twice, and

then I shared amazingly encouraging things. Some you are on

the upswing unhappiness. Somehow, I'm so you are the everything,

your mental acuity.

It was very nice, but it's I really clerated your

shadow mission. And now I'm trying to agenda.

I'm bringing focus to you and.

It's all about you. Yes, it's it's abording what you

just don't want to do. It is not that's what

it is. You disguised all the nice things to avoid the.

Thing that I'm bringing focus to you, which somehow you

makes me mad. I'm mad it makes me mad when

the focus is supposed to be on me.

I see, I see. So everything's about you. No, it's

not about me.

This what I'm saying. I don't want to be about me.

Everybody tries to make it about me and it's not

That's what I've learned. Trying to make it about me,

and it's not about me. That's what I'm saying.

That's what I've learned.

It's not true.

You try to make it about me to avoid you.

That's about you. Didn't want to It's about you. Okay,

all right, thank you, Jeff, thank you happy birthday and

me happy birthday. And amazing that I did not get

what I really wanted.

Amazing, Okay, all right, okay, don't be thankful all.

Speaking of not getting what you wanted, Hezekaya doesn't get

everything he wants, and neither does a portion of the

population who didn't like what he said.

Which I just don't understands with you, Well, some people care,

some people I don't get it. I don't. I don't

understand this.

Yep.

It's like Hezekaiah can see it, a few of the

key leaders can see it, and the people just don't.

So let's read it in Second Chronicles, chapter thirty. We'll

just read the whole chapter.

I think it just.

Says King haze KaiA Enough sent word to all Israel

and Judah, and he wrote letters of invitation to the

people of Fraim and Manassa, so they are in northern Israel.

So he's sending out to his own kingdom, and then

he's also sending some to northern Israel. He asked everyone

to come to the Temple of the Lord at Jerusalem

to celebrate the passover the Lord, the God of Israel.

The King, his officials, and all the community of Jerusalem

decided to celebrate pass Over a month later than usual.

They were unable to celebrate it at the prescribed time

because not enough priests could be purified by then and

the people had not yet assembled at Jerusalem. His plan

for keeping the passover seemed right to the king and

all the people, so they sent a proclamation throughout all Israel,

from Birsheba in the south to Dan in the north,

inviting everyone to come to Jerusalem to celebrate the passover

of the Lord, the God of Israel. The people had

not been celebrating it in great numbers as required in

the law. At the king's command, runners were sent throughout

Israel and Judah, and they carried letters that said, Oh,

people of Israel, return to the Lord, the God of Abraham,

Isaac and Israel, so that he will return to the

few of us who have survived the conquest of the

Assyrian kings. Do not be like your ancestors and relatives,

who abandoned the Lord, the God of their ancestors, and

became an object of derision. As you yourselves concede. Do

not be stubborn as they were, but submit yourselves to

the Lord. Come to his temple, which he has set

apart as holy forever. Worship the Lord your God, so

that his fierce anger will turn away from you. For

if you return to the Lord, your relatives and your

children will be treated mercifully by their captors, and they

will be able to return to this land. For the

Lord your God is gracious and merciful. If you return

to him, you will not continue to turn his face

from you. The runners went from town to town, through

Ephraim and Manassa, and as far as the territory of Zebulon,

but most of the people just laughed at the runners

and made fun of them. However, some people from asher

Manassa and Zebulun humbled themselves and went to Jerusalem. At

the same time, God's hand was on the people in

the land of Judah, giving them all one heart to

obey the orders of the king and his officials, who

were following the word of the Lord. So a huge

crowd assembled at Jerusalem in mid spring to celebrate the

festival of unleavened Bread. And they set to work and

remove the pagan altars from Jerusalem. And they took away

all the incense and threw them into the Kidron Valley.

On the fourteenth day of the second month, one month

later than usual, the people slaughtered the Passover lamb, and

this shamed the priests and the Levites, so they purified

themselves and brought burnt offerings to the Temple of the Lord.

Then they took their places at the temple as prescribed

in the law of Moses, the Man of God. The

Leevites brought the sacrificial blood to the priests, who then

sprinkled it on the altar. Since many of the people

had not purified themselves, the Levites had to slaughter their

Passover lamb for them to set them apart for the Lord.

Most of those who came from Ephraim, Manassa, and Issachar

and Zebulon had not purified themselves, but the King Hazekiah

prayed for them, and they were allowed to eat the

passover meal anyway, even though this was contrary to the

requirements of the law or. Hezekiah said, may the Lord,

who has good pardon those who decided to follow the Lord,

the God of their ancestors, even though they are not

properly cleansed for the ceremony. The Lord listened to Hezekiah's

prayer and healed the people. So the people of Israel

who were present in Jerusalem joyously celebrated the festival of

unleavened Bread for seven days. Each day, the levites and

priests sang to the Lord accompanied by loud instruments. As

Akai encouraged all the Levites regarding the skill they displayed

as they served the Lord. The celebration continued for seven days.

Peace offerings were sacrificed, and the people gave thanks to

the Lord, the God of their ancestors. The entire assembly

then decided to continue the festival another seven days, so

they celebrated joyfully for another week. King has A KaiA

gave the people a thousand bulls and seven thousand sheeps

and goats for offerings, and the officials donated a thousand

bulls and ten thousand sheep and goats. Meanwhile, many more

priests purified themselves. The entire assembly of Judah rejoiced, including

the priests, the Levites, and all who came from the

land of Israel, the foreigners who came to the festival,

and all those who lived in Judah. There was great

joy in the city, for Jerusalem had not seen a

celebration like this once since the days of Salomon, King

David's son. Then the priests and Levites stood and blessed

the people, and God heard their prayer from his holy

dwelling in heaven. I love that.

That's a lot. That's a lot of passage right there.

I love it. Yeah, me too. And so what stands

out to you Just a bunch of everything, right I mean.

Well, I think the thing that jumps out of me

is he has compassion not only for his own people.

He wants to lead his own people, the people of

Judah and Benjamin to follow the Lord and celebrate and

they seem to be enjoying it. But he also reaches

out to his people to the north. To the north,

these people that have they've chosen another king. They've decided

at times to even fight against the southern or to

ally themselves against you know, Judah and all these things.

And he has compassion. He found the truth and he

wants them to know the truth too, And so he

sends these runners to go and say, hey, if you

would just turn from your sins, God will bless you.

This doesn't have to keep going, just come. And most ridiculed,

even in their sin, even in their judgment, they're being persecuted.

Most of the people have been hauled off to captivity

in Assyria. It's just a few people let in the

land and they mock you. Some they'll respond. And I

think that this is one of those moments where you know,

you share the gospel with everybody, understanding that some are

not going to follow the Lord, and then you move

at the movers. And that's what he did. So the

ones who were willing to do the right thing. He

didn't cancel it. He didn't go, oh, well, we can't

get anybody come. He just did what he could with

the ones he showed up from the north, and then

of course the people in the south. He was a

good leader and they were more inclined to follow the Lord,

and so they did.

Yeah. You know, it's interesting because I, you know, just

preached a message last Sunday and then wrote a message

for this Sunday. And in both of those we talked

about the series that we're currently in is called Silence Killers,

and we talked about gossip and anger. Right, so both

gossip and anger, and in both of those messages there

is an element of having compassion of those who are again, right,

like the gossip people wants to gossip, and then the

ones you know that you're angry against. So both of

those have this element of what you just described, which was,

you know, here he is looking at his uh, you know,

adversaries in the north, like you said, oftentimes pitted against

each other, once a great nation but now very different,

you know, and and oftentimes scoffed at and all these

different things. And and what does he do He has compassion?

Why because you just said it loud, You said he

has the news, he has the answer, the good news,

and he wants them to know it. And uh, there's

something to be said about that, you know, to look

at your enemies, Uh, those perhaps who you not necessarily

you don't necessarily run with, or you like, or you

don't spend time with, and have enough compassion because guess what,

he didn't have to there's no skin off his back,

there's no obligation to do it right, there's no expectation,

there's no anything right. He does it because he's compelled

my compassion and that there's something to be said there

about the heart of Hezekiah. And and by the way,

that is an overflow of Hezekiah's desire to serve God.

Because you know whose heart that really is. It's God's heart. Yeah,

It's God's heart. So the closer you get to God,

the closer that your heart is going to beat and

care for and love the things that God, you know,

loves and cares for, and his heart beats for.

It's it's a really it demonstrates his emotional maturity, it

demonstrates his character. This is a good many right, that

these blessings aren't just for me. And then, by the way,

God's blessings are unlimited. So it's not like if I

give some of these blessings away. I'm not going to

have enough blessing for me, right, right, it's all man,

just come and bathe and all the just the overflow

of God's blessing. Come and enjoy this, right, And some

people get it, others didn't. But he wanted everybody to

be able to be a part of it. And then

it's interesting again it comes there verse seventeen. A lot

of the people hadn't purified themselves yet. But still a

lot of the priests hadn't purified themselves yet, right, And

so even some of the people you would expect to

be on board are they're late joiners, they're joining late.

But then the people had not yet, especially as it mentions,

because you weren't supposed to come, and there was this

whole purification process in order to be able to celebrate

the passover. Now they put the passover a month off

a month. It's they missed it by a month, but

it was because they were getting started late. He was

brand new as a king and they had missed the deadline.

But he wanted to honor God with the concept and

the idea of we're going to pure fi ourselves and

we're going to acknowledge fact that God's the one that

set us free and God's the one that has carried

us through all the difficulties. And so he decided that

that celebration was important, and he wanted to invite everybody

and give them time to come.

And so.

One of the requirements was there was this big purification

process that the family had to go through. But you

got these people from Ephraim and Manassa and Issachar and zebulon.

These are all Northern Kingdom regions, and they came and

they didn't They weren't purified yet. And I think about it,

I wonder why. Probably they didn't know, you know, they

they had God's words, but their people hadn't been following

God for generations, you know. With with Hezekiah, it was

just as his father. But his grandfather was a good man,

right right, was a godly man. But so for Hezekiah

it was just a I remember when grandpa was a

good man, and I'm going to be following God like

my grandpa did. But for the people in the Northern Kingdoms,

it was generations of wicked kings and so they probably

had no concept. So God's not mad at them for

what they don't know. You know, Hezekiah intervenes or interced

on their behalf. He goes, God forgive them, you know,

would you overlook this part? Their heart is they came

all the way from up there in this wicked place,

and their heart is that they came to worship you.

And so the Bible says that God hurt his prayer. Right,

the Lord listened to Hezekiah's prayer, and he healed the people.

Even though they they're coming to worship you God, they

just don't know how. And I think sometimes, you know,

I think this week you mentioned some of the frustrations

of previous generations in church, and one of the things

I think that many of many young people got turned

off by was older generations making demands on their worship

style or on their you know, hey, you shouldn't be

looking like that, or why are we letting sinners come

into our church? Right? And instead of Hezekiah being mad

at them that they didn't know or weren't following the

rules because they I don't think they knew the rules,

instead he interceded on their behalf. He was less concerned

about their perfection of their behavior and more concerned about

their heart was heading towards God, and so he just

saw an opportunity here because God said don't. God had

already said don't do it. You know, you come purified.

Hezekia jumps, says, God, Hey, would you would would would

you overlook this one thing for them? They don't know

what they're doing yet. Now we don't see Hezekia do

this next passover. He does it this one time, right,

so that they can get educated, they can catch up.

I think we just have to be patient with those

young Christians that show up that they surprise us because

they have no knowledge or no understanding what they should do.

Their heart is for the Lord, but they're still learning

how to do the right thing, you know. And that

you see it even here in the context of the

law and not in the context of grace, and God

extends mercy because a godly leader intervened on their behalf. Yeah,

I love it.

So you just mentioned that Hezekiah's grandfather was a good man,

and yet his father was So there's a lot of

verses here that talk about worship too. So I was

somehow my brain connected all those pieces of information about

our church is having worship night this Friday, and so

we have like a thousand people, you know, signed up

to go to this worship event, which is interesting to

see if there's gonna be enough seats, right, depending on

who shows and who doesn't. But then I'm realizing that

our families are going to be somewhere else, right, So

you're you're should not say this. Sure, Yeah, so your

father passed away, right, So he just he just passed away.

And so so this, of course this podcast won't be

released in two weeks from now, but but today or today,

this week, this, this Friday is going to be your

father's funeral. And so I was connecting the pieces about worship.

I thought about Friday, I thought about your dad's funeral.

I thought about going to that, and then you talked

about grandfather of faith, and so my mind just pieced

all of that together, and I thought it'd be cool

for you to maybe perhaps just say, let's think the

listeners don't know your dad, Yeah right, maybe maybe a

few sentences about what a great guy he was in

terms of modeling faith.

Oh yeah, yeah, because yeah, so my dad had grown

up in a Christian home but didn't honor the Lord

as a young man. But my grandmother prayed for him

every day for forty years, and just after his fortieth birthday,

he gave his left to Christ and God changed everything

in him. And he married my mom about that time,

just just a little bit before then, and she was

also not a Christian. They became a Christian about the

same time. And then later on my dad adopted me,

and my name changed, my future changed, everything in my

life changed. I wound up following the Lord. And all

I know is from the day my dad became a Christian,

he was one hundred percent in all in. If the

Word of God said it, he did it right. And

he didn't really view Christianity as kind of an ale

the heart thing. I'm going to do the things I

like and not do the things I don't like. He

just was a man of character. Faced a lot of difficulties,

but faced them with grace and did the best he

could with it. And you know, we had devotions every day.

I spent time in the Word every single day. He

worked hard to teach us God's words. When bad things

would happen, he would remind us, say, we follow God,

we follow Christ, not men. And you know, God's words

can be trusted, and God keeps his promises, and as

we live holy lives, God promises to bless us, and

you know, God's grace is enough. And that was a

life he lived. And so I can remember just a

couple of years ago, we were sitting at Christmas talking

and he said he was in his eighties and he said, man,

it's amazing that I've now lived longer for the Lord

than I did against the Lord. And he found a

lot of joint satisfaction in that. And then towards the end,

you know, we would talk last year or two, and

I remember Christmas ago, so two Christmases ago from here,

we were talking about that. He said, you know, I

don't know how many more Christmases I have And he said,

you know, I think I always thought i'd be sad

about that. He said, I'm not in a hurry to go.

But the devil can't threaten me with heaven. Yeah, and

I've used that phrase a lot. You know, devil can't

threaten me with heaven. That's how he viewed it. And

so now he fell asleep. My mom was holding his

hand and went to heaven. It's not a bad way

to go, right.

It's amazing. Yeah, it's amazing.

So he's more alive today than he's ever been.

That's right.

And you know the four all my my brothers are

all in ministry too, and so we're all coming back celebrating.

We're all going to participate in the funeral together. I'm

sharing the message and yeah.

That's great, that's great. Well, hey, cool, thanks for that,

and uh, it's gonna be it's gonna be a great

time of life celebration. That's that's that's the kind of

funeral you walk away from and you go, wow, right,

what a celebration.

Well, every one of our listeners has the same decision

my dad does. My dad did, and that is you

can changed the direction of future generations. That's what Hezekiah

was trying to do here, right, you can change the

direction the direction that I should have gone versus the

direction I showed up in two totally different things. And

it was because of his all in commitment he didn't

go halfway. Finally, in Hezekiah's generation, you know what it

is say it said there. It was the people that

went out and they tore down a share of polls,

and they cut down the groves and they did all

those things. Finally, after all the other kings never did it.

David didn't get it done, Solomon didn't get it done.

Hezekiah's father didn't get it done. All the other good

kings didn't get it done. But Hezekiah's life when he

went all in in the face of opposition, all the

people went were all into, and they went and finally

cut down all those groves and got rid of all

those idols and stuff. And I think you can do

the same thing in your family. My dad, my dad

didn't get start till he's forty. Well maybe he had

a forty seven year run. That was pretty amazing.

Hey, that's what a great way to end. So that's awesome.

So hopefully we will see you Monday on the Bible guys,