Well, I didn't do any of it, but I used to do these kind of things. And you know why we do it? We do it because we want to pass down a legacy of faith. And you think, well, that seems a little overboard. No, it's not.

When you think about the future of the lives of our kids and our grandkids, it's very much more than worth it. And what's going to take place in this room, as Fred mentioned, I don't know if you mentioned this, I had to go take care of something during your time up here on the stage, but we have over 370 kids pre registered to come to Bible school next week. Now, that in and of itself is a praise, but what we're looking for is the quality over the quantity, the engagement that's going to happen, the leaders that are going to build relationships. And if you want something for which you can pray this week, pray this. That God would save kids and that we would be able to connect with their families so that we can have ongoing influence in their life.

You see, because each one of you sitting here today, you're the product of a legacy. For some of you, that legacy is good. And for some of you, that legacy is bad. You are the product of the environments in which you grew up and the lineage under which you grew up. And the truth is, each one of you are leaving a legacy for someone else to follow, whether that's your kids, your grandkids, your family, your friends.

But in this room, you are leaving a legacy. And we should stop and think about what kind of legacy that we're leaving. Because as you are living the legacy that you're a product of, you are leaving a legacy. And you want that to be done in such a way where you can lead it. You want to lead your legacy to a good spiritual place.

How do I know? How do I know if, like right now, in the life that I'm living and the faith that I'm living, is it leaving a good mark? Some of you, you get in your car and you look at your dashboard and you go, like, I don't know half of what's on my dashboard. I don't like modern dashboards. I like seeing the voltometer on my car.

Y' all know what a voltometer is? If you don't know what a voltmeter is, raise your hand. I'm not gonna shame you. Okay? It checks the voltage of your alternator.

Now, your Battery is a 12 volt system. And you've got to have more than 12 volts to charge your battery. Wait a minute. How many of you know that your battery doesn't run while your car is running?

Some of y' all are looking like, what? Once your engine is running, it's a power plant. The gas is producing the electricity. Your battery exists to start your car. But when that voltmeter is not hitting about 14, something's wrong.

Maybe you're more familiar with your temperature gauge. And you look down at your temperature gauge and it might be up in the red line. What do you do? My girls aren't here this morning. I've trained them well.

If it's in the red, you shut it off.

Maybe you go to the doctor and, you know, they take your temperature and they take your blood and they do all sorts of things. And these are measurements to see if there's something wrong. And just like with your car or whether you go to the doctor, when there's some symptoms, it may be an indicator of something even worse. I remember years ago, we were working on our house, and we noticed around the trim of our window, I was pushing in and it was a little bit soft. It was painted, so we couldn't see anything wrong.

But what we didn't know is that there was a crack and water was getting in and it had seeped down below our window, and the boards and all were rotten. We had to have all of that replaced. It was a symptom of something bigger. And when you think about your spiritual life, wouldn't it be nice if we had some gauges? You know, the little tool that you plug into your dash when there's an engine light on to tell you what sensor is going off in your spiritual life, there are indicators indicating something a little bit more serious.

That when we are not walking in our spiritual lives the way that God has called us to, it's not good. It's not good in our present and in our life, but it's not good in the legacy that we're leaving for the people following behind us. Little eyes are always, always watching. And you're sitting here today, and maybe when I said that you are a product of your legacy, maybe you've already placed a value on the influence that you've experienced in your own individual life. Can I tell you something?

You do not have to be bound by your past.

You are not your past. You don't have to let it shackle you. You don't have to let it determine your course. Whether that's family or whether that's friends or. Or whatever it may Be your past is not your Lord.

And today, sitting here, I want to ask you, if you could take the gauges, the spiritual gauges in your life, where would you be? Maybe you are fading. Maybe you're fading in your spiritual life. You've noticed. Well, you know, I've stopped going to church as much as I used to.

Not really reading my Bible. My prayer life is kind of just blah. And so you've kind of stopped doing that. There's these gauges that are bottoming out because there's something wrong in your spiritual life. Or maybe.

Maybe you're a little bit stagnant. You've kind of plateaued. You're just kind of like, well, I'm just kind of here. I mean, there's nothing really challenging you to push you in a trajectory to go up. Both those ideas of fading and being stagnant are negative.

But. But there's one that I want to propose to you. I don't believe in spiritual life. We're intended to be flat. I believe we're either going downward or we're going upward.

Every one of you in this room that is Christian, every one of you that has accepted Jesus Christ. Can I tell you something that you are. You're a leader. You're going, oh, wait a minute. No, no, no, no.

I didn't sign up to be a leader. Well, the Bible says Jesus himself said, you are a light. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Who would take a lamp and light it and put it under a cover? Jesus said, let your light shine before all men.

Did he make any distinguishing qualities about who was a light and who wasn't a light? No, he didn't. Every one of you sitting in this room are a light. And therefore you are leading someone else, either for the good or for the bad. And you can choose.

Today, John Maxwell said that leadership is influence, nothing more and nothing less. Therefore, every one of us are leading and influencing someone else as we live out our faith and our spirituality.

But I need a checkup. I wish that there was some way we could look into the spiritual realm and see the voltometers and the tachometers and the temperature gauges. I wish that there was, spiritually speaking, a blood test or something where we could see. How am I? Well, I think there's some indicators.

And the story that I want to look at in Scripture today is found in 2nd Kings 22. 2nd Kings 22. This story is also found in 2nd Chronicles 34 and 35. It's a parallel text. And I would challenge you.

My son caught me the other night. I was in my room with my notebook and for three hours I was working on the parallels between these two stories. I got lost in it. It's a beautiful story because Chronicles gives some information that Kings doesn't and it just brings all of this to fruition. But this is the story of King Josiah.

We're pretty far in. We're in the around the 600 BC mark and throughout the Kings, the Book of Kings and Chronicles, the kings were labeled one of two ways. They were either good or they were either bad.

Josiah's great great or, excuse me, great grandfather was Hezekiah. We hear some of his story in the book of Isaiah. Hezekiah was one of the last good kings before Josiah comes along.

But then Manasseh, his grandfather and his dad Ammon, they were horrible. So much to the degree that under Manasseh's rule a prophet came and told Manasseh that the kingdom would cease as the Babylonians would come in soon, in less than a hundred years and take the Jews off into captivity. Under Manasseh's rule, they brought idolatrous worship into the temple of God, the worship of Asherah and baal. In fact, one verse seems to indicate that they were practicing temple prostitution in the temple of God. God there were the high places that were set up.

And if you, if you want to really study something interesting, go in the Old Testament and study the idea of high places. Because high places were these areas after the kingdom split where they were practicing Judaism, but they weren't bringing it to the temple. Can I tell you something? I'm just going to go ahead and forewarn you. I'm going to step on your toes today.

This is why you don't worship at home alone. That's a high place.

And when high places get erected, you get outside of the construct of what God intended. You become rogue and you will fall away. Because those high places then turned into places where they were worshiping BAAL and Asherah and all these other gods. He worshiped everything. It says in there that Manasseh worshiped everything under the sun except Yahweh.

Everything. And because of that, God said, I will take the kingdom away. In fact, that same prophet said that since you left Egypt, you have brought me nothing but trouble.

Sometimes in our self righteousness, we think we're so much better off. And I'm going to tell you what we're not. The only difference between us and them is the grace of Jesus Christ. None of us are perfect. In this room, none of us get it right.

But if I'm sitting here in this here and now, and I'm thinking about my spiritual life, wouldn't I want to assess myself and know, Lord, am I walking the way that you want me to walk? Wouldn't you want to know that? I want to know that. So I want to ask you to stand with me. I'm going to read two short verses and it's out of context, but I'm going to go back up and we're going to walk up to this verse.

So if you read the. When I read the verse, you go like, wait, where are we going with this? Just kind of. Hold on. This is kind of like reading the last chapter before we read the book.

In verse 18, he says, but to the king of Judah. This is. The prophet is speaking to Josiah. After a moment of revelation, he says, thus says the Lord, regarding the words which you have heard, because your heart was tender and you humbled yourself before the Lord when you heard what I spoke against this place and against its inhabitants, that they should become a desolation and a curse. And you have torn your clothes and you have wept before me.

I have truly heard you.

Father, I pray that we might have a moment in our life just like Josiah. And what we're going to learn where the driving factor in our heart would be full obedience and focus on you. Lord, we love you. But Lord, we know that love's not enough. Let that love be obedience so that we can leave the kind of legacy to the generations following that will seek after you any Jesus name.

Amen. So, as I said, this King Josiah, you can find the parallel to this in 2nd Chronicles 34, 35, should be at the top of your notes. If it's not just kind of scratch that in. But let me just kind of reiterate these points. His grandfather and his father were both wicked kings.

In fact, when you. Ammon's story literally is just a few verses. He becomes king after. After Manasseh dies and the servants of the house murder him, he rules two years. And so Josiah becomes king at the age of eight.

Think about that. He becomes the king at the age of 8 years old. What were you doing when you were 8 years old? How many of you can remember what it was like when you were 8 years old? Some of us can.

He becomes king. But here's the truth. By all rights, Josiah would have been justified to continue living in the legacy that came before him. He would have been justified to have kept the idol worship that was already established in the temple. He would have been fine with leaving the high places and all the different things that had been established.

But he had an experience that changed his life. When you read in 2nd Chronicles 34, 2, 3, it says, for in the eighth year of his reign, when he was sixteen, while he was still a youth, he began to seek the God of his father David. And in the 12th year, he began to purge Jerusalem and Judah of all the high places, the Asherim and the carved images and the molten images. So by the time he's 20 years old now, how many remember what you're doing when you're 20? He was eradicating idolatry that had come to exist in Jerusalem.

When you think about the covenant of God, the first commandments said, do not. Do not set up idols. Do not create graven images. And it's the very thing that they're doing. And I would argue, probably for selfish reasons, they had allowed the culture around them to infiltrate and to distort and create an absolute abomination.

But for some reason, he had this moment and he allowed God to rewrite his story. That's why I'm saying to you, don't let your past legacy, what, what you have been living in that vein, be shackles to you. You can choose today to live a new story, but you've got to choose to do it. No one can force you to do it. It's not just going to, poof, happen automatically.

We need to look inside and try to analyze what's going on in our own life, spiritually speaking. And the seven points that I've laid out here, I hope can serve as a gauge today. As Paul wrote in 2nd Corinthians 13, you need to analyze and test yourself. He wasn't saying whether you're saved or not. He was talking about sanctification.

Is God at work in your life? And if he is, there ought to be some fruit in that. There ought to be some displays of that. And we're going to dig into those two things. But let me stop, make two bold statements.

Number one, you do not have to let that bad legacy determine a bad future for you. Now, listen, I understand some of you may be in a family vein that's not too good.

I am sorry, but you don't have to let that determine your future outcome. You can choose, and it's not easy. I remember when I became a Christian, I was 20, so I can identify with Josiah here a little bit. But when I became a Christian because I lost friends, I lost dear Friends. But I can tell you it was worth it.

Do I love those people that I used to hang out with? I love them. I want them to find Jesus. But because I had found Jesus and they had not found Jesus, we had a problem and I chose Jesus. What about you?

And the second thing I want you to know is this. Some of you have neglected your spiritual lives for so long, you can't even see the rotten wood that's on the inside. We're going to find out about Josiah. One of the catalysts in his life is he went into the temple and he started noticing things were falling apart. In fact, Hezekiah, when Hezekiah was king, the Assyrians came in and threatened them.

And so they gave them the money out of the treasury and also took the gold off the side of the temple and gave it to them. So now what do you have? You have exposed wood carpenters. What happens when wood is exposed? You get termites, you get rot.

And just like that windowsill at my old house, we had to tear it out and replace it. And so at the beginning of chapter 22, that's exactly what Josiah sets out to do, is he wants to replace it. But like you and like me, sometimes we don't see that rot until we dig deeper. And there are indicators, and we can't ignore them. And these seven points I'm going to give you today, I hope can serve as gauges in your life to go, you know what?

I need to work on my spiritual life, I need to work on that which is drawing me closer to the Lord. And so pick up with me in verse number three of 22, it says now, in the 18th year of King Josiah, this is four years later than when he had this experience and began tearing things down. The king sent Shaphan the son of Azaliah, the son of Meshullam, the scribe, to the house of the Lord. Go home today and read that five times. Read really fast.

Go up to Hilkiah, the high priest, that he may count the money brought into the house of the Lord which the doorkeepers have gathered from the people. Let them deliver it into the hands of the workmen who have the oversight of the Lord, and let them give it to the workmen who are in the house of the Lord to repair the damages to the house.

Point number one. This is the most primary. The other points kind of fit under this one point. You and I need to be laser focused on spiritual disciplines.

We need to be laser focused. Why? Because spiritual disciplines are the ways that we connect back to the Lord and operate in obedience. And they're called disciplines. Why?

Because they're not easy. In fact, when you think about these disciplines, let me preface it by saying this. If you look at the things you do in the name of Christianity, are those about God preserving your life or about glorifying the God of the universe? When you pray, is it about giving that list to God, Say, make my life more comfortable, or God take my life and use me? Are you following?

In fact, I left you a little bit of blank space there so that you could fill in some of the disciplines that I want to share with you. But it's not an exhaustive list. In fact, if you want a couple of books to read, Dallas Willard's book, the Spirit of the Disciplines and others are great books to expose us to a variety of disciplines. But here's the truth. You can read about the disciplines, but if you're not laser focused about doing the disciplines, they're no good.

I don't want you to raise your hands, but how many of you in this room have ever fasted? Do you think Jesus taught on fasting? Some of you have tried fasting, but some of you have not. Now, if you don't fast, does that mean you're in disobedience? No.

But I'm telling you, if you've ever tried fasting with prayer, it changes your life because you're taking and pushing away sustenance so that God can feed your spiritual side. The last time I went through an extended fast was a couple of years ago at Concord. And we went five days, and it was a juice fast. I'd get up in the morning and I'd put apple juice and some. I think it was spinach and something else apple, and I'd blend that into pulp, about that much in a cup.

And I drank that. And that's all I had for the rest of the day, for five days. Now, I wasn't seeing bubbles and spots by day five. But I'm telling you, when that hunger pain hit, what we did was we dropped to our knees. As the stomach would growl, it would remind us to crave the connection with the Lord and so be laser focused on our disciplines.

Why? So that we can rebuild the house. Where is the temple now? Let me say it like this. If some of you came in here right now and you looked at these beautiful wood beams that were in this.

In this church, and you began to see that there was some rot on it, I can tell you exactly what you do. You'd come to me after service and say, I'm so disgusted that there's rot in that wood.

You are the temple, and I'm afraid that you've packed on the gold over rotten wood so that you can forget the wood is rotten. Be disciplined, spiritually speaking. In fact, I love this quote that I found by J. Vernon McGee. When he was talking about the Prodigal son of Luke 15 and compared him to a Christian who's not pursuing spiritual life, he said this.

The prodigal son lost a great deal by going to a far country. And any Christian who lives a careless life rather than a godly life will find that even in eternity, he will pay for it. Are you as anxious about godliness as you are about physical exercise or even athletic events?

If you look down again and you see where he talks about the repair of this temple, guys, this is why we need to be able to assess ourselves. How is my temple? I'm not talking about the outside. All of us can come in here and look like we got our stuff together. I'm talking about on the inside.

How is your soul? Is it well with your soul? And I'm not saying, are you happy? I'm saying, is it well with your soul? And I think the neglect of spiritual disciplines is a good indicator that you may be fading or stagnant.

Let me give you. Let me give you six. The first one is prayer. Have you just simply stopped praying?

It's a discipline. In fact, we were reading. We've been reading with Christ in the school of prayer. In the 21st lesson, it was convicting because he said, listen, Jesus said, if you abide in me and I in you, ask what you will and it will be given. But what's the priority of that verse?

It's not the praying. It's the abiding. How can I expect God to answer my prayer if I'm not abiding in him? He's not a cosmic Santa Claus that I go visit on December 25th. Abiding means you are inhabiting it day by day by day.

What about your Bible study? When's the last time you read the Bible? When's the last time you memorized a verse? When's the last time you went to a group? Maybe that's an indicator.

You're like, well, you know, I just. I just stopped going to group. That's going to come with a cost. Or, what about worship? What about worship?

Let me couch it this way. Maybe you just get where you. I'll just go when I feel like it. Now I'll just stay at home and I could watch anybody online. But you don't get this.

You don't get the physical interaction in the body of Christ. In fact, let me say this. When you think about legacy, what you model to your kids is what they will either mimic or go back from. So if you spend two thirds of your time in recreation on Sundays and a third in church, when your kids grow up and they stop going to church, don't be too confused, because what you modeled was. The other things are more important.

I didn't expect to get too many amens out of it, because in our culture and time, we've made church attendance convenient. And it's costing us. It's costing us spiritually. It's a gauge in our car. Yeah, our car may not be overheating yet, but it's coming.

That thermostat is going to stick and your car is going to overheat. And you'll be like, how in the world did this happen? Because you neglected simple things. What about serving and ministry? God created us to serve.

But when I don't give of myself and all I am is a recipient of service, Jesus said, I did not come to be served, but to serve. And we are to model our life after him. Well, what about stewardship? What about stewardship? The way that I take the things that God has given me and use them for his glory.

Specifically, one of the ways we do this is when we just stop giving. And I'll unpack that one a little bit more later on down in this message. But when I say, well, you know what? That's just not me. The Bible is clear about the call of God for us to be generous.

And we're going to see how generous King Josiah was. Donald Whitney said in his book the Spirit of Disciplines, talking about those who are looking at their spiritual gauges and going, you know, I want to be walking with Christ and I want to be sure in my spiritual life. He said, but this is an age for spiritual heroes. That's the kind that leave a spiritual legacy. A time for men and women to be heroic in faith and spiritual and character and power.

You know, that's where your power comes from, right? Your power doesn't come from how loud you can sing a song. It comes from that expression of the disciplines in our life that is taking root and letting God have his way with me. He said, the greatest danger to the Christian church today is that of pitching its message too low. Because some of you will sit in this room today, say, you know what I just can't do that.

Why can't you? Anytime you use the word, well, I can or I won't or I should just remember that the universe is God's tapestry. And when we say I can't or I won't or I don't know if I can, then we're selling it short. Can I be honest with you guys? The reason America is in the shape it is in today, yeah, it's because of sin, but it's also because the church has set the bar way too low.

You want to see change in our culture, we need to live this way. We need to live laser focused in our disciplines. But here's the second thing we need to do. We need to forsake sin completely, not partially. See, a lot of the reason the people outside look in the church and call us hypocrites is because we really didn't repent from all the sin.

I knew that would go over like a lead balloon. You see, a lot of us as Christians, if this is the line of where sin is, we want to know exactly how close I can get to it without crossing over.

Because I want to keep living. Like, I want to be cool and I want to enjoy life. And so I'm going to get as close to that line as I can rather than getting as far away from it as possible.

Why would we not? Why would we want to keep going? And listen, we're all guilty, but I don't want to be guilty. We're all guilty of going right back to the same sin that Jesus died on the cross for. How can we look at Jesus and his blood soaked body and, and not feel a little bit of a tinge of conviction that it was my sin that shed his blood, but yet I'm just going to keep going back in it and playing it.

It's kind of like when you get ready for church and your little five year old, you're like, listen, don't go outside. You got your church clothes on. Things get quiet, you wait a few minutes and then he comes in and he's muddy from head to toe. Well, I chased the dog, but what was the issue? He didn't obey.

He didn't obey. And sin is disobedience, is it not? Look down at second kings 22, 24, 25. I want you to hear the way he's described again. He says that he removed the mediums and the spiritists and the teraphim and the idols and all the abomination that were in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, that he might confirm the words of the law which were written in the book that Hilkiah the priest found in the house of the Lord.

We're going to back up and talk about that one in a minute. But before him there was no king like him, who turned to the Lord with all his heart and his soul and his might, according to the law of Moses. Nor did any like him or arise after.

I honestly do not want to sin. And then I realize how easy it is. And without the grace of God, I would have no hope and you would have no hope. But you know what? The grace of God also moves in me, that I don't want to sin.

And when I choose to continue putting myself in the place, making it easy to do, then I shouldn't be shocked when it pulls me over the line, forsaking sin completely. But then the other thing is this, because this one's big, this one's huge. Let Scripture move you. I'm not necessarily talking about the emotional part of it, but although there's some emotion expressed in this. In verse 8, it says, Hilkiah the priest said to Shaphan the the scribe, I have found the book of the law in the house of the Lord.

When he went to get the money, and Hilkiah gave it to Shaphan to read it. And so he read it, and he came to the king and brought word to him and said, you servants have emptied out the money that was found in the house, delivered it into the hand of workmen who oversee the house of the Lord. Moreover, Shaphan said the scribe, said, the king, Hilkiah has given me a book. The scribe didn't even know what the book was. More than likely, Manasseh had wiped out as many copies as he could to make room for all the gods and goddesses that were arrayed in the temple.

In verse 11, listen. When the king heard the word of the book, he tore his clothes.

When was the last time you were so moved over your sin that you dropped to your face in shame and said, lord, I'm a worm, have mercy on me?

But when we neglect the Scripture, when we neglect the Word, when we make ourself our own prophet, our own priest, we drift away and we fade. And his response in verse 13, he said, Co, find me a prophet. I'll paraphrase it for you, because I want to see what God has to say about this. Kind of wonderful. As you read through the Pentateuch and you get to Deuteronomy at the end of Deuteronomy there's this scene where the covenant is being made and he splits the people and he looks at one side and says, you know what?

If you keep my covenant, you're going to get all these blessings. So he starts out in the positive, but then for almost two chapters he said, but if you don't, these are the curses that are going to come upon you. And you know what Josiah realized at that moment? We're under the curse. Which means we broke the covenant.

And it broke his heart and it moved him. When was the last time you were so moved that you couldn't wait to act? Let Scripture move you. Faith doesn't come by good ideas. Faith comes by what?

Hearing and hearing by the word of God. When was the last time it moved you? It moved you to action. The last one goes with the next one goes with that. Seek God with humility.

We've already read and we'll see it again, that God speaks back to him and basically says, because you humbled yourself, you tore your clothes, you wept over this, that was humility. In fact, Steve Payson sent me a clip this week about a man who was ministering to a former pastor who had a moral failure. He was in prison and he went to talk to him, and I'm paraphrasing this, but the man was talking with him, and it's just about a book that he had written. And he said, you know, I want you to know I love Jesus. And a lot of us in this room, we love Jesus, don't we?

We love the benefits. We love the benefits, don't we? He said, but the problem is I didn't fear him. Humility is love and fear together. Proverbs 1:7 says, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.

Fools despise wisdom and destruction. Why? Because fools don't fear God.

How does that sit in your heart this morning? Because if it doesn't sit well, that may be your gauge going off. That may be the spirit moving on your life to say, you know what? You've forsaken the word of God. You're still kind of pursuing sin.

It's not moving in your life. Maybe you need to make a course direction so you can get to this place. Humility, verse 19 that we read said, because your heart was tender and you humbled yourself before the Lord when you heard the words.

How does it move in your life? Are you making yourself palpable to receive from His Word in such a way that changes and transforms you? I'm telling you, if I could talk to if we had all of our seasoned retired pastors sitting up here right now, I can tell you that if you treat this the way you should, when you get into your older years, you'll realize you don't know as much as you think you do.

This is our path and our guide, and I should crave it in such a way that whatever it says, I'll say, lord, whatever you say, that I will do. Jeremiah 29:13, a verse you probably are very familiar with, said, you will find me when you seek with me, seek after me with your whole heart, not half your heart, not some of your heart, not when it's convenient, but with your whole heart. And your whole heart means you put everything into it. Does that describe your spiritual life, or has it waned a little bit? Maybe you're the kind of Christian that the only time this matters is when crisis comes.

Can I tell you, I'm glad God loves us when crisis comes, and he will always step in and help us. But how much more, when there's peace, can we learn if we lean on him in those times? You see, one of the things you can do is renew your faith every day. Not just in seasons of time, not just during Bible school or summer camps or revivals or whatever it is. Renew every single day.

Look at chapter 23, verse 1. It says, Then the king sent, gathered all the elders with, went up to the house of the Lord with all the peoples both great and small, and brought the prophets in that were hiding because they were scared to death of Manasseh and Ammon, and hearing all of the words of the book of the covenant that was found in the house of the Lord. This is what Josiah did, and it should be what we do. The king stood by the pillar and made a covenant before the Lord to walk after the Lord. Keep his commandments, his testimonies, his statutes, with all of his heart and his soul and his life was defined that he never went to the right or to the left.

If you could be written into Scripture, what would that verse say about your spiritual life right now?

What would it say? What do the gauges indicate? That you're kind of lukewarm, you're kind of stagnant. Well, in Revelation 3, God was very clear to to Laodicea that because you're lukewarm, I'm about to spew you out of my mouth. You're good for nothing.

Do you want that kind of spirituality or you want the kind of spirituality that is seeking and pursuing after God to honor him and glorify him. Psalm 61:8 says, so I will sing praise to your name forever that I may pay my vows day by day. 2nd Corinthians 4:16. We don't lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. You know, the picture that paints your Sheetrock may be faded, but your studs are good.

It's not rotten. But why? Because he's being renewed. How many times? Day by day?

By day, every day. When we get up, we need to say, lord, I don't have the strength to do what you need me to do. Give me the strength, I don't have the knowledge to do what you need me to do today. Give me knowledge, Lord. I don't have wisdom.

He said, ask and I will give it to you freely as you abide in me. And you know an outflow of that. I don't know what number it is. Now give generously back to the Lord. Like when you realize how good God has been to you and that everything you have comes from the Lord.

It's a no brainer that we would want to give back to him. If you look down at verse 6 of 2nd Chronicles 35 and you don't have to turn there, just listen to what it says. After this reform began. He's fixing the temple, he finds the word, he reads the word, they rededicate themselves to God. Then they celebrate the Passover, the very thing, the hinge pin of the nation of Israel was their deliverance from Egypt.

And they had the biggest party ever. It says in verse 7, Josiah contributed, Listen to this, to the lay people, to all who were present, flocks of lambs and young goats for the Passover offering numbering 30,000 plus 3,000 bulls, all from the king's possession. What does that tell us? Tells us two things. Number one, he tapped into generosity.

But you know what else he tapped into? He wanted other people to succeed in their worship. When you and I come in this room, when we come to this room, and our hearts are not prepared for worship, it may not just be me that it's costing. You know, I had a family member recently say this to me. I challenged him about his drug and alcohol addiction.

And I told him, I said, you love your drugs and alcohol more than you love your family. And you know what he said back to me? He said, yes, and I'm gonna keep on doing it. And he would argue and say that, well, what I do in my own personal life and behind my closed doors is my business. I'm Telling you it's not true, what you do behind closed doors does affect other people.

Don't buy into that lie. Because when it's affecting your spiritual life and then we come into this room exalting Jesus Christ, not knit together as one, it affects the ministry of the gospel. When you and I get on our knees before God, God, make my heart ready today to receive your word, to receive from you. And I don't know that the person standing next to me or sitting next to me may be going through a crisis. And I might have the word they need or I might have the support they need.

But if all I'm thinking about is me and I can't experience that ministry, I'm begging us today that if we look at our life and all our life is just about me, that is the temperature gau on our dash and it is in the red.

Man. I could preach for four more hours. Excel in sacrificial service.

Honestly, if we're giving because God has given everything to us and we're giving, listen, let me meddle.

Giving of our resources is not giving of our time and our talent.

That's not Scriptural. Giving our resources is giving of our resources. Growing up, I wasn't taught to tithe.

But you know why I tithe? Because the Bible said, give a tenth of what I have. But I can't replace that with my time and my talent. Because how many of you are spending 2.4 hours a day reading your Bible, serving in the church and ministering? You're not.

So don't try to make your time and your talent your tithe. That's not true. I told you I was going to meddle. But what it is is a statement to the Lord. To say, lord, I'm going to give back to you this much because I know you can do more than just replace it.

It's an act of faith. And I think sometimes we cut ourselves off from a spiritual blessing because we rationalize it. Does that make sense? Because that is rationalizing. You're rationalizing and wrestling through that.

Because what we want to be is excellent in our service. In verse 18 of 2 Chronicles 35, it says that they had a party like had never been thrown before. It was the best Passover ever. How do you have the best Passover when you're eating a dead lamb?

Because it brought them together. When we excel in sacrificial service, it'll bring us together like never before. Whatever you do, as Paul said, in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord. Jesus Christ, giving thanks to God the Father. Those seven things laser focused on spiritual discipline, forsaking sin, moving with scripture, being humble, renewing faith daily, giving generously, and excelling in sacrificial service.

There are so many other disciplines, but I'm telling you, when we get laser focused on it, when we begin to delve into it, I'm telling you, there's a spiritual blessing that you cannot fathom. I would love. I've joked with Laura before and told her that on my tombstone, just right, he was good, but not good enough.

I would love for somebody to be able to say he never turned from the left or the right about me. But then I look at my life and I realize, no, I. I don't think that's totally true. I'd love for it to be said. But you know what?

I do love that God loves me enough, that even in my mistakes, in my shortcomings, he can still use me, brokenness and all. What about you? What are the spiritual gauges telling you? Last two points. Let me give you those because I love to make sure you got all the blanks filled in.

And I gave you a lot of blanks this week. Thank you for letting me go a little bit long. I knew this message was going to be long.

Your future is not captive to your past. You are a new creature in Christ. The old is gone and new things have come.

But you can choose to keep putting your old clothes on, you can choose to keep wearing those old raggedy nasty rags, or you can put on the new stuff that Jesus gave you. What do you want to choose? Because when you see revelation, which is information God has given to us, not something we've come up with our own, when we see revelation for what it is, it should lead to a right response. How is God at work in your life? What are the spiritual gauges telling you today?

So close up your Bible. Close it up. I want you to bow your heads and I just want you to reflect with me for a few moments. What are you. Would you say that you're fading?

Would you say that your spiritual life is stagnant? Or would you say, no, I'm leading. I recognize that in my spiritual life I've taken control and I'm striving not just to sense and see God at work in my life now, but we're what I can leave for the next generation. Where are you in that? If you be honest, in your heart, say it to the Lord.

Say, you know what, Lord, I'm struggling, I'm fading. I've given up on this. I've stopped doing this. But what would it look like if today you said, you know what, Lord, I'm going to get back into it. I'm going to get back in that group.

I'm going to start. I'm going to get the Bible app and read the verse of the day, something to get you back on that trajectory.

Because your engine light may be blinking and if you let it go on too long, the damage could be irreparable. Do you see the call of God for us to leave a legacy that matters? You're living in a legacy, but you don't have to be trapped to it. But what kind of legacy are you seeking to leave that will lead others to know Christ more? Father, as we come to this time of prayer and decision, Lord, I pray that you would speak to us in Jesus name.

So here's what we're going to do. While Caleb strums for a moment, before you stand up, I just want you to bow your head and I want you to think about all the faces. You know, this room sits about 500 something people. As we've shared, there's at least 370 kids going to be in this room tomorrow. It's going to be a full room.

Some of those kids know Jesus and some of them don't. Would you pray with me right now for those kids and pray for their families, that we can make a connection. And after I say amen, this altar is going to be open. Maybe you need to come down here and say, you know what, Lord, I'm broken. My spiritual gauges are off the chart and I need you to help me get back in line.

So pray with me, Father, as we pray for this week and we pray for the kids that are coming, God, I ask that the gospel would be clear, that their hearts would be prepared and open. And that, Lord, that they would come to know you through the gospel and be saved. But in addition to that, Lord, we would love the humble opportunity that we might be able to connect with those families and be able to pour into them, to disciple them, to lead them. Not so that we can say how good we are, that we've got everything figured out so that, Lord, maybe we can leave in them the legacy of faith that has been passed down to us and that we can hopefully pass down to the next generation. Why?

Because you called us to do it, to take the gospel to the ends of the earth. So, Lord, I pray that you'd speak to our hearts. And if somebody here today says Look, I'm broken. Let them come to this altar and leave it here. And let them get up refreshed and renewed, making a new commitment, recommitting to spiritual discipline, forsaking sin, whatever it is they need to choose to do today.

God speak to their hearts and their lives. In Jesus name, amen.