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| > Sermon Archive > Sermons by Author > Dr. Wes Bredenhof > Being a king calls for whole-hearted allegiance to God | Previous Next Print |
| Order Of Worship (Liturgy) Psalm 138:1,2 Hymn 82:3 (after the law of God) Psalm 119:1 Psalm 119:13 Psalm 138:3,4 Scripture reading: 1 Kings 12:25-33 Text: 2 Kings 10:28-31 |
Beloved congregation of Christ,
Imagine for a moment a young man about to get married. Throughout their dating and engagement, this young man was never faithful to the woman he’s about to marry. As he watches her come down the aisle, he’s prepared to be committed to married life with her. But, despite what he says in his marriage vows, he has no intention of being faithful to her. And after they get married, the way he behaved before they got married is the way he continues to behave. I think we can all agree this is a good example of being less than whole-hearted, probably even less than being half-hearted. The young man never gave his bride his whole heart. We’d all agree that this would be despicable behaviour.
God calls us to give him our whole heart. After the Ten Commandments, we sometimes hear the familiar words of Matthew 22:37-40. Jesus summarizes the law of God by saying that it comes down to first of all loving God with our whole heart, mind, soul, and strength. We’re to love God with everything in us. Yet do we? I know I sure don’t. But I can’t be indifferent about that. I can’t just shrug my shoulders. If I’m a Christian, I have to want it to be different.
God’s Word in our passage this morning teaches us about half-heartedness. We have this overview of King Jehu’s accomplishments. He did some good, but he also fell short. And God has something to say to us in this. So I preach to you God’s Word and I’ve summarized the sermon with this theme: Being a king calls for whole-hearted allegiance to God.
We’ll see how:
- King Jehu ultimately failed
- King Jesus ultimately did
- King You and I are ultimately called
In our passage, the Holy Spirit speaks of the good King Jehu did during his reign. He had two great accomplishments. Verse 28 says first that he wiped out Baal worship from Israel. He did that earlier in the chapter when he brought all the Baal worshippers together in one place and then slaughtered them. Verse 30 mentions Jehu’s second great accomplishment. He carried out God’s judgment on the house of Ahab. He first killed King Joram, then King Ahaziah of Judah, then Jezebel, and then everyone else. In doing this, Jehu did what was right in God’s eyes. God acknowledged it.
Somehow God’s Word came to Jehu, probably through a prophet. God told him that because of his faithfulness to the task he’d been given, he would have his sons of the fourth generation sit on the throne of Israel. That’s what happened. The next four kings of Israel were Jehu’s descendants.
Four generations is better than what some of the other Israelite kings received. But it doesn’t compare to what God promised David. God told David that his royal lineage would be eternal. That’s because the line of David would be the line of King Jesus. But Jehu doesn’t come anywhere close to an eternal royal dynasty.
Jehu’s reign had good aspects to it, but ultimately there was failure. Verses 29 and 31 describe that for us. His ultimate failure had to do with “the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which he made Israel to sin.” We have to back up here a few years and go back to the time of Jeroboam to find out what this is all about.
It’s described in what we read from 1 Kings 12. That passage occurs right after the split between the north and the south in Israel. Now there’s a southern kingdom ruled by Rehoboam the son of Solomon, and a northern kingdom ruled by Jeroboam. The south is known as Judah, the north as Israel. And Jerusalem is in Judah. That’s where the temple was. That’s the place where all the Jews were expected to go for their feasts and sacrifices.
Jeroboam saw that as a threat. If the people of his kingdom would go to Jerusalem, perhaps they might be swayed against him. When he thought about how he could keep that from happening, he had a brilliant idea, borrowed from Israelite history. He would make not just one golden calf, but two. One would go in the north in Dan, one would go in the south in Bethel. Wherever you were in Israel, there would be a convenient calf not too far away. And Jeroboam told the people what Aaron told Israel back in the day: here are your gods which delivered you up from Egypt.
Now, it doesn’t appear that Jeroboam was introducing outright paganism. It seems that what he wanted to do was worship Yahweh through the golden calves. But by doing this, he couldn’t help but mix pagan ideas with the worship of God. Pagan worship in the Ancient Near East often involved images of bulls and calves. These animals represented strength and fertility. So by setting up these golden calves in Bethel and Dan, Jeroboam was also setting up the people for syncretism. Syncretism is the mixing of religions. Here it would be the mixing of the true worship of God with the worship of idols.
So if we think about this in terms of the commandments, Jeroboam’s sin was first of all a sin against the second commandment. He was going to worship God in his way, through the golden calves. To make matters worse, Jeroboam then also introduced his own priests and his own feast days. He was reinventing Jewish religion and in doing that he was breaking the second commandment. We’re not to worship God in any other way than what he’s commanded in his Word – and that still applies today. But in Jeroboam’s case, the way he broke the second commandment with these golden calves, he also inevitably led the people to sin against the first commandment as well. There’s no way that people would have been able to separate paganism from these golden calves.
That problem continued for just over a hundred years, the time between Jeroboam and Jehu. And it would continue after Jehu too. No northern king would ever deal with Jeroboam’s sin. It was only after the northern kingdom was exiled into Assyria that King Josiah of Judah came along and finally destroyed the golden calves of Jeroboam.
Now if we look at verse 31 again, we should notice that the root of the problem is identified. It’s because Jehu was not careful to walk in God’s law with all his heart. He had a divided heart. His heart was not wholly set on loving God and following his law. He was zealous, but for some reason his zeal only went so far. Was it not politically smart to get rid of the golden calves? Was he indifferent about them? Was he attached to them somehow? We just don’t know. We just know that Scripture tells us he was less than wholehearted in walking in God’s law on this point.
That had consequences and not only for the prospects of a long dynasty. Both in verse 29 and verse 31, we’re reminded of how Jeroboam’s sin caused Israel to sin. That became a long-standing issue. Every king that refused to address it was also then causing Israel to sin. Jehu was also making Israel to sin by not getting rid of the golden calves.
You see, a lack of wholeheartedness can have consequences for us personally. But it also has consequences for those under our care. Parents who serve God half-heartedly are leading their children to serve God half-heartedly. Office bearers who serve God half-heartedly are leading the congregation to serve God half-heartedly. And whenever we do that, we’re all the more accountable before God. If we’re making other people to sin, that’s increasing our sin before God. Think about what Christ says in Matthew 18:6, “Whoever causes a little one to sin, it would be better for him to have a millstone hung around his neck and then be cast into the sea.” If we have others under our care, being half-hearted about serving God is an even more serious matter.
This is why we can be so thankful for the grace of God in our Lord Jesus Christ. He is the great King who ultimately did what King Jehu and every other earthly king couldn’t do. He was born in the royal line of David and he was anointed with the Holy Spirit to that three-fold office of prophet, priest, and king. As our King, part of what he did was to offer the whole-hearted allegiance to God that we’re incapable of offering.
Since our passage focusses on the second commandment, let’s just think for a moment about how King Jesus gave whole hearted allegiance to God on that. As I mentioned, the second commandment requires that we worship God in his way, the way laid out in his word. We’re not to add or subtract from it. When we look at the picture of King Jesus portrayed in the gospels, we see him impeccably obeying the second commandment. If there was a feast to be attended in Jerusalem, he was there worshipping God. He worshipped God in God’s way, exactly according to God’s law.
But that was just on the outside. When God tells us to worship him in his way, he’s concerned with more than just the externals. He wants our hearts. It’s easy to go through the motions, doing religious stuff as a religious ritual, thinking that’s enough. But when we worship, God wants our undivided, wholehearted attention and allegiance. Our King Jesus gave that all the time, every time. Whether he was in the temple or the synagogue, whenever he worshipped, his heart was all in. He never got distracted, he never lost focus. He never gave in to sinful thoughts while he was worshipping. His heart was entirely given to God. That was true when he was worshipping by himself too. When our King Jesus prayed in private, he was able to maintain a razor-sharp attention on the One to whom he was speaking. During his earthly sojourn, our King Jesus was the perfect worshipper. As such he never caused anyone to sin. Unlike Jeroboam and Jehu and all those other kings, King Jesus led his subjects to worship God in spirit and in truth.
That’s not just a bit of Bible information for you. That should encourage you. The Bible promises that if you look to Jesus and trust in him as your substitute, his obedience is credited to your account before God. The King is rich with obedience and he’s generous and he shares his riches with those who acknowledge him as King. So if you know Jesus to be your King, to be your Saviour, then all of his obedience becomes part of your right standing before God. For everyone who is in Christ, God looks down from heaven and he sees them clothed with the righteousness of King Jesus. That righteousness includes whole-hearted allegiance to God which expresses itself in perfect obedience to the second commandment. What an encouragement! That means that even though you will and you do fall short of the whole-hearted allegiance God calls for us in his word, you have it in Christ. Because of this gospel truth you can be accepted by God.
Being righteous and accepted by God is meant to lead us forward in our own quest for whole-hearted allegiance to God. And this quest takes place in connection with our office as Kings. Our Heidelberg Catechism says in Lord’s Day 12 that we’re called Christians because we share in Christ’s anointing. As part of that, just as Christ was anointed with the Holy Spirit to be king, so Christians have also been anointed with the Holy Spirit to be kings. In Christ and with his Holy Spirit in us, you and I are kings before God.
Loved ones, we have to remember that we don’t share in the anointing of Jehu. You wouldn’t want that anyway. Jehu was less than whole-hearted. But we do share in the anointing of King Jesus. King Jesus was always whole-hearted in his allegiance before God and that give us a good prospect for striving to do the same. Through Christ and through his Holy Spirit living in us, we don’t have to settle for half-hearted allegiance. We can aim for more and we can achieve more. No, we won’t reach the whole-hearted allegiance Christ had in this life, but in him we will see progress. The more we focus on him, the more we rely on his Spirit and power, the more we will advance in this.
Because our text leads us in this direction, let’s think again about the second commandment. Worshipping God in his way is something we have to do together as a church on Sundays. We’d like to think we’re following God’s Word as far as having in place the elements he has commanded. We have the reading of Scripture, preaching, praying, singing, offerings, etc.
But our whole-hearted allegiance is meant to go beyond those externals. God wants our hearts, not just our outward actions. He wants sincerity and genuine love. Not just showing up with our bodies, but bringing our hearts and minds too. Let’s see how that looks with different parts of our worship services.
When we pray in public worship, we’re meant to be praying together. The minister may be speaking the words, but we’re all meant to follow along in our hearts and not be thinking about other things during that prayer time. We’re all supposed to be communicating with God. The same is true when we’re singing. It’s pretty easy to sing robotically without thinking about what you’re saying. But that would be less than whole-hearted.
Or let’s take the sermon. The sermon is part of our worship too. As we listen to it, we’re led to praise God for the gospel of what Jesus has done for us. But what if we’re not listening? Then that’s less than whole-hearted worship, isn’t it? Perhaps some of you have your devices out during the service. You might use it to read the Bible or for singing. But there’s the temptation to have that device distract you, particularly if you don’t shut off the notifications or put it into airplane mode or whatever. Because the moment that device leads you away from the sermon, your heart is no longer with it. And let’s be honest, that can also have consequences for others sitting around you. Striving for whole-hearted allegiance means being careful with how we use our devices during the worship service.
Or we could think about the offertory. That’s often introduced by saying something like, “Let’s now worship God with our offerings.” It’s part of our worship. It’s not a brief intermission from other things. During the time of the offertory, we should be reverent and reflective. We should be thinking on how richly we’ve been blessed both spiritually and materially. We should be prayerful and, as we offer our gifts, we should ask God to bless them for his purposes. If you’ve already given your gift electronically, you can still use that time to ask God to bless your gift. How we use the offertory time is another example of how kings like you and I are to strive for whole-hearted allegiance to God.
Or think about celebrating the Lord’s Supper. It’s too easy to just go about that robotically or ritualistically. It’s easy to take an almost superstitious approach to it, like we’re eating magic bread and drinking magic wine. If we just take the magic stuff, then good stuff happens automatically. But Scripture says we strive for whole-heartedness in our worship by discerning the body and blood of the Lord. That means when we partake in the Lord’s Supper, we’re meant to be engaged with our hearts and minds. We’re to be thinking about what we’re doing. In particular, we’re to be remembering Christ and what he did for us on the cross. We’re to be paying attention to what the sacrament is telling us about that. As surely as you see that bread broken and that cup given to you, so surely did Christ die for your sins on the cross. As surely as you taste that bread and drink that wine and know that it’s real, so surely is Christ your Saviour real, the one who really loved you and gave himself for you. Loved ones, I urge to think those kinds of thoughts. You have the time to do it. As the bread and wine are being distributed, there is silence. There’s time to think and reflect and even pray. After you partake of the bread and the wine, there’s a brief moment of silence again. It’s meant for you to think and reflect and even pray. This is how our faith gets strengthened, but this is also how we show our desire for whole-hearted allegiance to God.
In our worship, I could also mention the reading of the Ten Commandments or the singing of the Apostles’ Creed, but let’s leave those to the side for this morning. Suffice it to say that with these bits of the service, we’re also meant to be whole-hearted in our worship. But let’s finish where we end, with the benediction. You know the benediction. In the AM service, “The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you” and so on. This is another thing we hear every Sunday. You can let it float past you. But you’re not meant to. You’re meant to hear it and believe it in your heart. You’re meant to be saying to yourself things like, “God wants to bless me and keep me – I believe he will. God wants to make his face shine on me – I trust he will do that.” You’re meant to receive the benediction with faith in your heart, engaging with it as a believer. Loved ones, this is another way that we in our worship strive for whole-hearted allegiance to God.
Our Catechism speaks in terms of us as kings fighting against sin and the devil in this life. That’s what we’ve been talking about. Sin happens out there in our daily lives away from this place and away from this gathering. But sin can also happen right here on Sunday morning and Sunday afternoon when we worship. We’re called to fight against it. In Christ and with his Holy Spirit living in us, we have the power to do so. And as we give ourselves to the task, we will grow in it.
If you think of that young man from the beginning of the sermon again, I said his behaviour was despicable. Even non-Christians would call it that. But do we let our half-heartedness in serving God off the hook? Is it less despicable? Can our half-heartedness somehow be excused? No, we shouldn’t do that. It’s a problem and we shouldn’t be okay with it. Instead, because Christ has saved us from our lacklustre allegiance, let’s be committed to more. Let’s have it in our hearts to see them become as wholly committed to God as they can be. And, you know, someday they will be. AMEN.
PRAYER
Merciful God, heavenly Father,
We’re grateful to you for the obedience of our great and faithful King Jesus. Thank you that you credit his righteousness to us. All his whole-heartedness in serving you belongs to us when we trust in him, and we’re so grateful for that. Father, since we share in his anointing as Kings, please help us to fight against sin in our lives, especially the sin of half-heartedness in our service to you. We pray especially for your help as we gather for worship each Sunday. Please help us to give our hearts wholly to you whenever we gather. In every part of our worship service, we want your name to be praised by our reverent devotion to you. For the sake of Christ, Father please forgive us for every time we have been distracted, for every time we have dishonoured you in worship – also today. Wash us in the pure blood of Jesus and please fill us with his Holy Spirit.
* As a matter of courtesy please advise Dr. Wes Bredenhof, if you plan to use this sermon in a worship service. Thank-you.
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