2 Chronicles 29:1-36

More than 350 years ago, the ‘Pilgrim Fathers’ landed on the east coast of North America, and in the first year they established a town site. The next year they elected a government, and in the third year the government planned a road five miles west into the wilderness.

In the fourth year the people tried to impeach their town government for wasting public funds building a road to nowhere. “Who needs to go there, anyway?” they said.

Here were people with the vision and determination to cross 5000 kilometres of treacherous ocean, but in just a few years they could not see even five miles out of town. They lost their pioneering vision.

The same happened to Israel. The purpose for which God had called them, and their responsibility to the nations, gradually lost their attraction until there was no difference between Israel and the rest of the world.

Following the ignominious end of Israel in the Babylonian captivity, questions arose about Judah: Will God judge us also? Will we survive? Will we as a nation turn to God?

At the age of 26, Hezekiah found himself at the helm of a small, weak and declining nation. The northern kingdom had been annihilated by Babylon seven years before, and already Sennacherib of Assyria (the Saddam Hussein of 8th century BC) menaced Judah’s borders.

Hezekiah was a man uniquely gifted for the hour: a man with considerable leadership and administrative skills, but above all a godly man who wanted to see his people return to the Lord. In 2 Chr 29-32 we find the story of Hezekiah’s remarkable reforms.

As I read the last few chapters of Chronicles, it is clear that the crisis facing Judah at that time was turned around by four principles: spiritual vision, personal revival, generous giving and faithful prayer.

I have already talked about prayer [see E132]. Today I want to talk about the first of these principles: spiritual vision. As a family we love walking in the Blue Mountains. We have done several trips in the last couple of months. One Friday night early in June we told the two older boys our plans, and they were almost overcome with excitement and anticipation.

They woke on Saturday morning – long before we did – and immediately started talking about the trip. For Michael (aged five) the idea of the Blue Mountains was a concrete reality; for Samuel (aged two) it was probably more a vague ideal. But they knew what we had envisioned.

Getting there took a lot of planning, and a lot of driving, but we had a fantastic time scaling the cliffs of the King’s Headland at Wentworth Falls and then climbing down to the Three Sisters at Katoomba. Even Zachary (then aged three months) made it down to the closest lookout with mum.

As we drove into the mountains, I thought of those three great nineteenth century Australian explorers – Blaxland, Wentworth and Lawson – who opened up this whole region of Australia. Our vision was a small and mediocre one; theirs was expansive and expensive. But a particular vision led to the results in both cases.

How is your vision? Are you moving forward, working toward something worthwhile and lasting? Are you seeing good results from the resources you invest? Are you fulfilling God’s will for your life? How is your spiritual vision?

When I look at New Testament history, I notice the presence and power of a huge vision – a huge picture of a desirable future that produced a huge passion in those first followers of Jesus to change their world.

It’s hard to miss it as you read Acts and the letters of Paul and the others. And they turned the world upside down – and we are here this morning because they had a vision and brought it to reality under God’s blessing.

Through its stormy history the church has been blessed with visionary leaders like Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Wesley, and William Carey. In the twentieth century I think of John Mott, Mother Theresa, Billy Graham, Bill Bright, Bill Hybels, Rick Warren, Gordon Moyes, Phil Pringle. Who knows what twenty-first century names will be viewed as significant in another hundred years?

In their own unique ways, each has cast a spiritual vision for the church, a vision for their time, a vision for their world. And it has come to pass. What about Hezekiah? Why do I call him a visionary leader?

Less than a month after he became king, Hezekiah visited the temple, officially the touchstone of the people’s reverence and love for God. Finding it in a shocking state of neglect, he opened the doors and repaired them, reorganised the priests and Levites for temple service (29:3-5). It took 16 days for all the idols to be removed from the temple, and for the temple to be purified and prepared for the worship of God (29:15-17).

Hezekiah understood his responsibility before God as Israel’s leader. He knew what he had to do, he made definite plans, and he carried them out.

But at a deeper level, his perception of the state of his people’s hearts, and his reversal of his father’s evil practices, suggest that he had cultivated a spiritual depth and maturity long before his coronation.

It all started with his own heart and soul. There was plenty of vision-sapping energy around him, but I suspect he had learned godly wisdom and developed spiritual disciplines in private that shaped him into the great public leader we find in Scripture.

What can we learn from Hezekiah? How can we use the principles he discovered and applied? What difference would it make in our churches? It is really very simple, but not easy. Four principles:

First, cultivate a spiritual depth and maturity that enables you to discern what the real issues are, and to act decisively. Become a man or woman of God. Maintain practical holiness and godliness as part of your worship of God. Sacrifice your integrity and your reputation for nothing and no one.

Second, communicate your vision clearly and comprehensively. When Hezekiah shared his vision with the priests and Levites, they understood and obeyed (29:5, 11, 15).

It takes time, patience and plain hard work to encourage people to believe that significant change is good for them. But that is what Hezekiah was able to do. We all need change. We all need inspiration. We all need vision. Someone has said, “If your line of vision is even with the floor, you can starve to death in a supermarket.”

Third, concentrate on the basics. Hezekiah identified the foundations of his faith in God, and determined how to bring that faith to life, refusing to be held back by petty issues and unspiritual attitudes and hostile people. You and I need to do the same.

Finally, create a desire for excellence. Hezekiah invested a lot of time and money in communicating the vision, providing what was lacking, and encouraging people to excel.

It may not have been a reflection of the glory of Solomon’s day, but it was their best, and it generated a change of hearts, a unity of purpose, and great rejoicing (29:35b-36).

At my graduation ceremony in Brisbane in 1999, Paul Windsor, the Principal of Carey Baptist College in Auckland, preached a great sermon considering the unknown possibilities and potential of those of us who were graduating and contemplating a career in Christian ministry that night.

He spoke of vision as “a picture of the future that produces a passion in you.” But then he added, “Vision is not just a time word – a picture of the future that produces a passion in you. It is also a space word – a picture of the ‘out there’ that produces a compassion in you.”

I agree: a great passion for growth needs to be accompanied by a great compassion for the people you will meet and influence. Ministry is not about building personal empires. Mission is not about counting ‘scalps.’ Church growth is not about carving a legacy so we will be remembered.

Vision and passion are necessary elements in a healthy Christian and a healthy church, but without genuine, Christlike compassion for people, they are nothing but “wood, hay and straw” (1 Cor 3:12). With that challenge in mind, I urge you to prayerfully consider what the power of a spiritual vision for your church might create in your community, and I close with the words of African American poet Langston Hughes:

Hold fast to dreams,

For if dreams die

Life is a broken-winged bird

That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams,

For if dreams go

Life is a frozen field

Covered with snow.

Dreams birth vision. Vision creates inspiration and enthusiasm. Inspiration provides momentum, and releases us to achieve extraordinary things. When it’s a God-created dream and vision, you end up doing extraordinary things with God. And that gives huge meaning to your life.

It is my prayer that together we will hold fast to God’s dream for our church, and grow in unity and spiritual passion, and that we will allow God to heal us, and warm our hearts, and launch us into something new, and something extraordinary, that will bless our community and bring eternal glory to our Lord Jesus Christ.

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E138 Copyright (c) 2003 Rod Benson. Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible: New International Version (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1980). To talk with Rod about this message, email or write to P.O. Box 1790, MACQUARIE CENTRE 2113 AUSTRALIA. To subscribe, email with “subscribe-river” in the subject. To unsubscribe, type “unsubscribe-river” in the subject.