Worship Preparation Guide for Sunday, August 14

Worship Preparation Guide for Sunday, August 14

Sermon Text:  Isaiah 37

Parallel Text:  2 Kings 19 & 2 Chronicles 32

One of my favorite old hymns includes these encouraging words:

What a friend we have in Jesus, 

all our sins and griefs to bear!

What a privilege to carry 

everything to God in prayer!

O what peace we often forfeit, 

O what needless pain we bear,

all because we do not carry 

everything to God in prayer!

In Isaiah 36 and 37 we find King Hezekiah and Judah in big trouble.  This trouble has come largely because of their sin (and the sins of their fathers) of looking to themselves and others for what they should have been seeking from God.  But a spiritual revival was taking place in Judah and in King Hezekiah’s life (2 Chronicles 29-31).  Hezekiah was taking very seriously his spiritual responsibilities as king of God’s people and God was working to grow their faith and strengthen their belief in God.  When the threat of Assyria arrived at the gates of Jerusalem King Hezekiah’s first response (finally!) was to “carry everything to God in prayer”.  

This is what we see in this week’s passage in Isaiah 37. 

Hezekiah was a man of faith, but as is the case for all of us, it was often a frail and faulty faith.  But as Alec Moyter writes, “The kneeling king may be wholly unworthy, but the King on the Throne is full of power, grace and sufficiency.” (Isaiah by the Day, p 178)   

We know Hezekiah knows this by the way he addresses God in prayer:

“O LORD of hosts, God of Israel, 

enthroned above the cherubim,

you are the God, you alone, 

of all the kingdoms of the earth;

you have made heaven and earth. (Isaiah 37:16)

The summary of all we see and hear in Isaiah 37 is found in these final words of Hezekiah’s prayer:

So now, O Lord our God, save us from his hand, 

that all the kingdoms of the earth

may know that you alone are the Lord.” (Isaiah 37:20)

We can see that Hezekiah’s life, God accepts his prayer and answers in power because it is all for the glory of God – that all may know that God saves and that He is worthy!  Hezekiah is not praying and worshipping to control God or see what he can get from God in return.  Hezekiah understands the meaning of life.  He understands that his life and the lives of his people are a stage upon which God desires to show His grace and power to the ends of the world. 

All that God does he does “to the praise of His glorious grace”, “to the praise of His glory” (Eph 1: 6,12,14)

This is the God we come to worship as we gather this Sunday.  This Sunday we will sing Approach My Soul the Mercy Seat, by John Newton.  Newton never got over the fact that he was a blasphemous sinner saved by amazing grace.  In many of his hymns you hear deep humility over abiding sins; you hear a great realization that the Holy God cannot abide this sin; and you always hear the joyous reality that in Christ we are saved from our sin, accepted by God into his presence, and heard by God when we pray. 

Approach, my soul, the mercy seat, 

Where Jesus answers prayer;

There humbly fall before His feet, 

For none can perish there.

Thy promise is my only plea, 

With this I venture nigh;

Thou callest burdened souls to Thee, 

And such, O Lord, am I.

Bowed down beneath a load of sin,
 

By Satan sorely pressed,


By war without and fears within,
 

I come to Thee for rest.

Be Thou my Shield and hiding Place, 

That, sheltered by Thy side,

I may my fierce accuser face, 

And tell him Thou hast died!

O wondrous love! to bleed and die, 

To bear the cross and shame,

That guilty sinners, such as I, 

Might plead Thy gracious Name.