Wheaton College Alumni Magazine Autumn 2013 | Page 51

People say pride is like bad breath— it’s hard to tell when you have it. But everyone else knows, right? Some of you are arrogant, but you almost don’t know that you are. Thinking back on my own life, I’d like to protect you from such pride and to teach you to humble yourselves so that God gives you grace. Second Chronicles 16:9 says, “The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward him.” This is what we all want —to say God is going to look at me, and he is going to strongly support me. And yet, the context of this passage is the story of King Asa, who hears the word of God and starts changing all of Judah. He calls on the people to repair the altar and destroy all the idols. He gathers the people together to make a covenant to be for God. They start sacrificing to the Lord again. At the end of the chapter it says there was no more war until the 35th year of King Asa’s reign. Then crazy things happen. In the 36th year, the armies of Israel come against him. So what does Asa do? He asks the King of Syria to form an alliance. A prophet comes to King Asa and says, “Don’t you remember the army of Ethiopia? Remember how massive it was? But you still won, right? Why? Because you trusted in the Lord. Now you’ve done a foolish thing by relying on this other king and not on the Lord.” The prophet tells Asa he’s going to lose. This is the context in which God is looking for someone who actually believes and relies on him. That is the person who will have his strong support. King Asa thought if he got that other king lined up, he would win. But that’s not how it happens in this “God opposes the proud. He physically, literally does something to oppose the proud, and yet he gives grace to the humble.” Book, which says, “I want you to dwindle down your army to 300, because I want to show you that this is about me and not about you.” It’s about humbling yourself. Things don’t always work out like we think they will. They just don’t. But some of the best things in life are the things we did not plan. It’s so amazing when you win these wars, when you ask yourself, How in the world did I pull that off? But you know it wasn’t you. And there’s a rush in knowing, God’s with me right now. There’s no way I could have done that. God did that through me. I hope this time at Wheaton has helped you become a new person. You can probably look back and praise God for how you’ve changed. But be careful because as you grow, there may be areas in your life that slip. Reading through my old sermons recently brought me to tears as I looked at the boldness I used to have. I read one sermon where I talked about how even the birth of my son paled when compared with the times I’d had with Jesus. As I read, I started to cry and ask, “What’s happened to me?” Some of the successes and pressures started to take me away from that time where I was like a little kid coming before Jesus. I felt the Lord saying to me from Revelation 3, “Strengthen what remains and is about to die.” The horrible thing about King Asa was that when he was confronted about the lack of reliance on God in his life, he didn’t repent. Instead, he put the prophet in stocks. Then in his 39th year, the Lord put severe disease on his feet. Then he had to repent, right? No, instead he found the best doctors. He didn’t turn to the Lord. He died two years later. I don’t want to go down King Asa’s road of self-pride. I am going back to God. Humbling myself. You guys have persevered and worked hard. If you couple such achievement with total reliance on Jesus, amazing things will happen in your life. I ask you to believe that this prayer I am going to pray over you will do more for you than a diploma. The eyes of the Lord will run to and fro throughout this group looking to support those who believe and rely only on him. Lord, you hear my voice because of the blood of Jesus, because I trust that Jesus died on that cross for all of my sins. It is by grace we’ve been saved, through faith, not by works. So not one here can brag. Lord, I want so badly for a new generation to rise up who really believes your word. I pray your Holy Spirit would fill these students in a unique way. I pray that you would humble the proud, God, so that they will draw close to you. May they live supernatural lives so that everyone who looks at their lives years from now thinks, That could not have happened. We don’t want to live ordinary lives that are explainable apart from you. That’s not life at all. I pray these students would get to experience you, know you, love you, and be empowered by you. In Jesus’ name. Amen. W H E A T O N     59