Sermon Tone Analysis

Don’t Let Pride

Steal Your Victory

New Hope B.C.

Feb. 24, 2008 9:30 a.m.

Text:

II Chron.

16:2, 7-9

 

Points:

Misread Challenges - don’t see victories

Misplaced Trust

Mindless of track record

End with Jude

 

Introduction:

 

    I know that you’ve heard the old bromide, “pride can kill you,” right?

It’s really not a bromide.

It is really significant because it is really true.

Pride can kill you.

Pride is a terrible thing and something that can and will come upon you without pre-planning, insight or foresight into the matter.

Pride is somewhat like high blood pressure.

It’s a silent destroyer.

It has so many far-reaching elements, and before you know it, damage has been done to things, to people, and yourself that you had no intention or idea of affecting.

Pride is defined as “an unduly high opinion of oneself.”

Seeing ourselves as we are and not comparing ourselves to others is humility.

Pride and vanity are competitive.

If someone else’s pride really bothers us, then we too have a lot of pride.

Excessive pride, arrogance, and haughtiness are the ingredients of the making of a tragedy.

Pride and vanity refuse the truth about who we really are and substitute illusions for reality.

While vanity is mostly concerned with appearance, pride is based in a real desire to be God, at least in one’s own circle.

It’s kind of like the ole remake movie, “The Nutty Professor” starring Eddie Murphy.

As Sherman Klump, he is a sweet, mild mannered, brainy college professor.

He decides to try his experimental DNA weight control serum on himself and the result is his alter-ego, Mr. Hyde acting, Buddy Love who is a vulgar, sleaze of a bully.

When Klump’s alter-ego comes out, he begins to live a fantasy that under normal conditions he would be afraid to even contemplate.

My point to this is that pride places us in a position where our reality does not necessarily coincide with the real world around us.  Pride will lie to you and you will begin to believe that you are the cause and the reason for pleasant event in your life.

That’s kind of the scenario that we find within our text this morning.

Allow me to set it up for you:    we find the life and times of King Asa.

His name, oddly enough means physician, and healing did come through him.

He brought peace to Judah for ten years; he was good and right in the eyes of the Lord his God.

He removed the foreign altars used to worship the Babylonian gods and cut down the Ashreah poles.

He commanded Judah to worship the Lord, the God of their fathers and to obey his laws and commands.

No one was at war with him, because the Lord gave him rest.

So Asa rebuild the cities and strengthened them.

During this time, he remembered to give credit to God for giving them the land.

But soon, conflict did arise, and it was serious.

Notice that during the time of peace, he built and strengthened the land and the people.

When things seem to be going well in your lives, it is not a time for you to party hardy and let it all hang out.

It’s a time to give honor to God and to strengthen your faith and your resolve because as sure as you live on this earth, conflict, trouble, unrest will come.

Asa’s conflict was serious.

A Cushite king brought a large army towards Judah.

Now, there is really no adequate translation for the size of the army in Hebrew, but it indicates that it was 1000s upon 1000s upon 1000s.

On top of that, this Cushite army was known to have the best war technology of the day; war chariots to provide shielding and mobility.

But Asa does the right thing; he calls out to God and asked for help, and God does just that.

He struck them down.

They actually run home from Asa and his men, leaving behind loot and other rewards.

It sure is comforting to know that numbers don’t scare our God!

No matter how big you think your problem is today, God is bigger.

No matter how high your burdens seem to be stacked, they still don’t reach heaven.

When Asa returns, the prophet Azariah gives him a prophecy that God is with him as long as he walks with God; but if he forsakes God, God would forsake him; and that God would reward his hard work.

As a result, Asa intensified his efforts in the cities and he continued to stand for the Lord and God continued to bless him.

In fact, it had become so obvious that the Lord’s blessings were upon Asa that people from Israel move to Judah just to be in on it.

It’s no different today.

When people see what they perceive to be a good thing going on in your life, they just naturally want to be a part of it.

Look at the Presidential race.

Some in the race were little known a couple of years ago, but  now, as their faces are seen and their intentions heard and their votes rising, more and more people are lining up behind them to be in on the seemingly good thing.

The world puts it this way:  smile and the world smiles with you, cry and you cry alone.

When people see you with joy amidst a bad situation; when they hear your positive faith filled words in spite of overwhelming circumstances, they will want to be a part of our life.

The down fall is that no matter how much we trust God today, no matter how joyous, how faith-filled, how high in the spirit you are on today, Sunday, Monday is coming.

More people from Israel wanted to move to Judah to be a part of the great blessings being poured out their but, the king of Israel, Baasha, tried to keep people from crossing the border.

Well, rather than consult the Lord, Asa made a deal with the Pagan king of Aram and bribed him to attack Iarael.

The worse part of the bribe is where Asa got the money to pay him with.

Part of it came from the silver and gold in the temple.

God will never approve of you aligning yourself with His enemies to accomplish His will.

Let me say that again.

God will *never* approve of you aligning with His enemies to accomplish His will.

There is no need to go to the world to accomplish God’s work for the church.

Praise God New Hope is not selling chicken dinners and pies to complete His work.

You don’t have to sell yourself either.

You don’t have to comprise your faith, your knowledge of God commands in order to accomplish what you need to do.

God is *able*, *all by Himself*, to more than supply *all* of your needs according to *His* riches in glory, in Christ Jesus!

It is from this unfortunate time in Asa’s life that I want to lift our three aspects that seems to have led to his error; three aspects that can help us to avoid the same mistake.

Asa missed his chance for victory over the armies of the king of Aram because he: *Misread* his challenges; *Misplaced* his trust; and he was *Mindless* of God’s track record.

He misread, misplaced and was mindless.

Misread Challenges: 

    When we forget that God is behind all that we do; when we fail to realize that He is the One that causes our enemies to fall before us, we run the risk of misreading our challenge.

Have you ever said or heard the old saying “he bit off more than he could chew?” or “My eyes were bigger than my belly?”

When we get too big for our own good, we don’t see our challenges for what they really are.

When Asa fully trusted the Lord, he saw that the army was too big to count and he knew that he needed a Big God to intervene on his behalf.

It’s something about walking in the Spirit that gives us the ability to see things clearly.

It’s not only that we see our opposition clearly, but we can see ourselves clearly too.

We can see our need and our dependency upon God’s protection better.

When we are being led by the Spirit of God, we will not forfeit our faith and our utter dependence on the only One who is able to help us.

A lady once asked a famed preacher if God would handle her really big problems like He had her little ones.

The preacher replied: “madam, when you consider God, what problem could you possibly have that’s big?”

It’s not the size of the problem or the circumference of the situation that matters.

It’s the size and the Person of our God!

Whatever happens, don’t misread the challenge.

The real challenge is not what the situation presents; it is not the size, it is not your lack; it is not your inability; it is not a bad marriage; it is not a wayward child, it is not a lost job; it is not a lemon car; it is not a leaking roof; it is not lack of money; it is not cancer; it is not disease; it is not high taxes; it is not loneliness; it is not your past; it is not your uncertain future; it is not any of these things.

The real challenge is to see them as opportunities, as a chance to seek the Lord and to put your whole trust in Him alone, not in your abilities.

Asa misread the challenge, but he also misplaced his trust.

Misplaced Trust:    

    Sometimes things can actually go too good for us.

This is not for any pats on my own back, but I never ask God to make me a millionaire.