Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – Reformation Covenant Church

Judges chapter 5, the Song of Deborah. We won’t read the whole thing, but we’ll read the first few verses of the actual song that start in verse 12. So, Judges 5 verse 12 through verse 16. Please stand for the reading of God’s word.

“Oh. Awake, awake, Deborah. Awake, awake. Sing a song. Arise, Barak, and lead your captives away, oh son of Abinoam. Then the survivors came down, the people against the nobles. The Lord came down for me against the mighty. From Ephraim were those whose roots were in Amalek. After you, Benjamin with your peoples. From Machir rulers came down. And from Zebulun those who bear the recruiter’s staff. And the princes of Issachar were with Deborah. As Issachar, so was Barak, sent into the valley under his command. Among the division of Reuben, there were great resolves of heart. Why did you sit among the sheepfolds to hear the pipings for the flocks? The divisions of Reuben have great searchings of heart.”

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for this year that opens up in front of us. We thank you for the marvelous gospel that you have fulfilled, your covenant through the Lord Jesus Christ to save this world, to bring light out of darkness once more. We thank you for this great gospel that we’ve celebrated for the last two weeks. And we pray now that you would help us to respond to it with a resolve, a great resolve, a commitment to follow the Lord Jesus Christ and all that we do and say this year. In his name we ask it. Amen.

Please be seated.

My subject today is resolve. While I know there are at least a few of you who are interested to hear about circumcised fruit trees, that will have to wait till next week. I decided instead to preach the first sermon of the year on the subject of resolve and to encourage us all to act with resolve in the new year. This is the time of year for resolutions that come from resolving to do particular things and committing to them. And so that seemed like a good place to begin the year in our worship of God. A proper response to the great gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is this resolve.

We saw in the text that we read a movement from great resolves to searchings of heart. I know it was difficult to follow, but if you know the Song of Deborah begins by lauding the great efforts of the tribes that came out willingly to fight God’s enemies that had invaded the land. But then it moves to a consideration in the last verse that we read of those tribes that failed to come out.

There’s always a battle in front of us, the church of Jesus Christ. And there are always those who come out willingly and dedicate themselves to the battle and to the combat with great resolve. And then there are those who may at first have great resolves of heart, but that resolve gutters away into great searchings of heart. That’s what happened to Reuben. Reuben was predicted to be unstable as water in the prophecy of that tribe. And Reuben proved to be like that in today’s text.

God’s record contains records of people with great resolve of action and it also records those who have beginning great resolve but who rather transform into searchings of heart in a failure of action. This is the beginning of the new year when we make resolutions when we resolve properly to different aspects of our sanctification. May the Lord God grant us individually and as a congregation that the resolve that we enter into at the beginning of this year be carried through to the end. That we not be like faithless Reuben whose great resolve turned into great searchings of heart, doubt, inaction.

I like to start the year, I have in other sermons gone by with a poem by Edgar Guest. “Lord, make a regular man out of me. This for the new year, my hope and my plea, my prayer and my plea” and other verses. “Lord, make a regular man out of me. To begin with such a prayer is good. To begin with a resolve to commit to be a regular man. It’s an old expression. It means the right guy who’s kind and gentle and yet just, who’s wise, willing to help other people. A regular man used to be the Christian man. And to begin the year with a resolve to do that, with a prayer to do that is good, but even better with that prayer to resolve to do it.

I call on each and every one of you here and honor us as a congregation as we move toward our officer advance and planning and resolve session at the end of this month up at Schemania Lodge. I call on each one of us and us corporately to make resolutions to resolve certain things this year. And what I want to do today is look at various texts from the scriptures about what sort of things we’re supposed to resolve to do. A simple New Year’s resolution list, I suppose you could say this is but the big thing is that we resolve to follow through in the providence of God.

I was watching I didn’t watch much TV this week, but I did watch an interview show. It’s been on I don’t know how long. It’s called “Spectacle with Elvis Costello,” and he interviews various band members. So, he had on Bono and the Edge and he was talking to Bono and the Edge about their benevolence work, their work with countries to try to help people both to bring justice to people and food and benevolence work that’s primarily I guess been more focused by the guitarist known as the Edge and Bono.

In response to the question from Elvis Costello about this, Bono paraphrased a quote by Friedrich Nietzsche—not someone you’d necessarily think to be quoted by a Christian—but Bono is, but in all probability Bono had been reading and I guess he’s known to have done this.

There’s a book by Eugene Peterson written in 1980 on the Psalms and this book on the Psalms is entitled “A Long Obedience in the Same Direction.” Peterson’s the one that was responsible for the translation or paraphrase of the Bible called the Message and a lot of people have used this translation. So Peterson wrote this book on the Psalms and Bono apparently has been reading it again and the title of it is part of this quotation from Friedrich Nietzsche—”a long obedience in the same direction.”

I thought that’s a nice kind of novel way to talk about what resolve is. And Bono said that great things happen as a result not of big spectacular actions in the moment usually but because of long obedience in the same direction. I think he’s right. And he said that the Edge had long obedience in the same direction as a Christian. He saw the imperatives in the scriptures to help the poor and to bring justice to the world. And so he’s engaged himself in a long obedience in the same direction.

We may disagree with the channels he’s taken, but we shouldn’t disagree with the resolve, the long obedience in the same direction that produced it. Now, if long obedience is in the wrong direction, then you can end up with horrific things in the world like Adolf Hitler. He had great resolve. So, it’s got to be in the godly direction toward a godly goal. But godly work is accomplished by a long obedience, not by short-term commitments and flare ups and die downs.

Resolution, resolve, what we would call perseverance, faithfulness, right, in the scriptures to keep on keeping on is the way that some people used to talk about it to begin well and to keep going well to follow through. This is what long obedience in the same direction.

The full quote by Nietzsche is this. Nietzsche said that there should be long obedience in the same direction, thereby results—I’m sorry I started the quote in the wrong place. The beginning of the quote is this: “The essential thing in heaven and in earth is that there should be long obedience in the same direction. Thereby results and has always resulted in the long run something which has made life worth living.”

And you know Nietzsche isn’t right about a lot of things but I think he was right about that and we would say that there are evidences in the scripture text that we’ll look at that call on us to act resolutely to have resolve is part of that. So you know, you hear this calls to faithfulness perseverance and I think this word resolve is a good one to kind of cement in our minds as we enter into this new year with an attempt to actually have resolve in our hearts as Christian men and women, Christian boys and girls to make decision and to follow through with long obedience in the direction of that godly decision.

I think this is a good thing. This is a good way, a good commitment, a good resolve that we can start the new year with.

So Reuben is the example of beginning with great resolve but then ending with searchings of heart. To begin well is, you know, to begin well is to begin in a good direction is a big part of accomplishing a task. Well begun is half done. But it’s only half done. And whether the verse about Reuben is ridicule—oh there was great resolve in Reuben. All they could do is sit around and try to make a decision about whether they should go to war against God’s enemies that had attacked God’s bride or not—ridicule or whether it actually began with resolve that dissipated into great searchings of heart. Either way, it’s a counter example to us of what we’re not supposed to be like. We’re to have great resolve that has long obedience, not short-term obedience.

Now, the first thing I want to say about resolve based on the scripture and then my looking at the scripture in terms of resolve is that this is a characteristic of God. In Hebrews 6:17 we read, “In the same way, when God desired to show even more clearly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, the unchangeable character of his resolve, we could say he guaranteed it by an oath.”

God is a God who has resolve. He has an unchangeableness of purpose. He purposed in the covenant to affect the salvation not just of human souls for heaven, but he purposed rather he resolved to affect the salvation of the world and to re-equip man to transform man to carry out this task of saving the whole world. God had that. And what we celebrate at Christmas time is 4,000 years of long obedience to God in a particular direction to affect the single purpose for which he had set himself and resolved himself to do.

God is a God of resolve. Now sometimes that resolve should be scary to us. In Isaiah 10:23 we read, “The Lord God of hosts shall make a consumption even determined in the midst of all the land. The prophets declare the death of Israel first and then Judah.” God had resolved it. He had resolved judgment during that particular period of history to both north and south, the northern kingdom, the southern kingdom, Israel and Judah, that he had determined to bring judgment. So God’s resolve should be a scary thing to us.

In Ezekiel 20:8 it says, “They rebelled against me.” God is recording their history. “Would not listen to me. Not one of them cast away the detestable things their eyes feasted on. Nor did they forsake the idols of Egypt. Then I thought, and that word is resolved. It doesn’t mean just he thought about it. He resolved. I would pour out his wrath upon them and spend my anger against them in the midst of the land of Egypt.”

God resolved because of idolatry because we don’t resolve to put away the idols of our eyes and the things that we do that are detestable to God. He resolves to bring judgment. A few verses later in Ezekiel 20:13, and this is repeated in Ezekiel 20:21, he says it again with a little different emphasis. “But the house of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness. They did not observe my statutes, but rejected my ordinance, by whose observance everyone shall live, and my Sabbaths they greatly profane. Then I resolved I would pour out my wrath upon them in the wilderness to make an end of them.”

And he says that twice. He says it again a few verses later. God resolves to bring judgments against people who haven’t resolved to cast away idols and who haven’t resolved to obey his laws and particularly his laws relative to Sabbath observances, we would say the Lord’s day. If we reject God’s law and we reject God’s Lord’s day, God will resolve then to bring judgment upon us.

God’s resolve is a good thing in terms of the fulfillment of his covenant. But it’s a scary thing to an unresolved, a dissipated people whose resolve is turned into great searchings of heart. Talk about Reuben again. So God is a God of resolve and it is a scary thing to us.

Now it’s also a good thing here. The two resolves of God are put next to each other in Zechariah 8:14. “For thus says the Lord of hosts, just as I resolved or purposed to bring disaster upon you when your ancestors provoked me to wrath and I did not relent, says the Lord of hosts.” He had long obedience in the same direction against that people. He resolved to judge them and he didn’t relent. So in verse 15, he says, “So again, I have purposed in these days to do good to Jerusalem and to the house of Judah. Do not be afraid.”

So God’s resolution is fearful thing when we’re in sin, but it is a comforting an assuring fact. Don’t be afraid when God resolves to do good to a people whose resolve is in the direction of his resolve as well. So God’s resolution is what we’re talking about. That’s where resolve comes from the person and character of God. And as those who bear his name, third commandment, this fits right in. As those who bear the name of Jesus Christ, we don’t want to do it emptily without resolve or with resolve in the wrong direction. We want to be like God. We want to have long obedience in the same direction. And lo and behold, as Nietzsche even observed, this creates great things in the world. This creates a life full of meaning and purpose.

This is the beginning of a new year. Your lives up to now have been a certain way and you can resolve this morning to move in the direction to have long obedience in the direction of God’s will. God says that in as we do that his resolve is to bring blessing and glory to us.

It’s interesting in 2 Thessalonians 1:11. I didn’t study this in detail. I’m not quite sure. I know the way it’s normally taken, but it says this. “To this end we always pray for you that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power.” Some people think the resolve there is the resolve of God to bring about this in his people. But it’s somewhat ambiguous to me. It seems to me it could be talking about God fulfills our resolve for good and every good work of faith by his power for the purpose of his glory. And whether the verse—you know, I think that’s what the verse says—but certainly it’s true that as we resolve to do things properly, do good works to follow the Lord Jesus Christ, God will fulfill those purposes, the resolves of our heart.

So, you know, we’re not saying doing something without the spirit. It’s the spirit of God who enables us to carry through on the resolves, the resolutions we make. Okay? So, God is one, a God of resolve. Secondly, we’re going to need that kind of help, that support of the Holy Spirit, the fulfillment of God of our resolves because our enemies, and there are always enemies in the Bible, our enemies are resolved against us. And our enemies are actually specifically committed to breaking down our resolve.

That’s what it says. It says in Esther 13:15, speaking of the enemies of God’s people, “He says that they desire, they resolve to destroy the inheritance that has been yours from the beginning.” And that the word there really means not just hope for it, but it means their resolve to destroy the inheritance. And then in Ezra 4:5, it says that “They bribe counselors against them to frustrate their purpose, their resolve.”

So, you know what’s going on? It’s a time of reconstruction, a commitment, rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem, reinstituting godly worship, reinvigorating the laws as it applies to the family and to the church, all that stuff that Nehemiah at the end of the book talks about. And Ezra says here that there are enemies to Nehemiah. And we know that, but I don’t think we normally think of it this way that their enemies are to frustrate our resolve. They set up enemies to the rebuilders of God’s kingdom in the time of Nehemiah and the enemy’s particular purpose according to Ezra 4:5 is to frustrate the resolve the purpose—but I don’t think it means the ultimate fulfillment of things it doesn’t mean the wall. It means the resolve of the people to build that wall.

So as we go about today trying to reconstruct to transform to rebuild our lives our churches and eventually a Christian culture we can be assured that we’re going to have to have resolve because we have enemies who are trying to frustrate that resolve. So when your resolve is you know becomes weak understand there are forces of darkness forces of spiritual opposition that the Lord God and his providence allows to come along and test your resolve. Their intent is to weaken it and you know we have this continual weakening of the resolve of God’s people and it comes in interesting ways comes in interesting ways.

What I what I what I’m saying is that a lack of resolution is tied in our text from Judges 5. If they’re successful in despairing, causing us to despair, to lose resolve, it means we’re not successful then in pressing the crown rights of Jesus Christ in the proper way.

This is what happens in Deuteronomy 20 when the army is mustered. We’re kind of used to this verse. We’ve talked about a lot over the years at RCC, but you know, they were supposed to go through the troops there. The officials will address the troops and they say, “If anyone’s afraid or disheartened, he should go back to his house.” And that word disheartened means not being resolved, having lack of resolution. If their resolve has become searchings of heart, if they’ve lost their resolve, if the enemy has successfully made them frightened and lack resolve, now they’re useless for the army. They got to go on back home, just wait for the whole thing to be over.

God wants us, the army of the Lord Jesus Christ, to be people of resolve. He wants us to understand that as a reflection of the character of who he is. He is a god of resolution of resolve. He wants us to be like that. And he wants us to know that the enemy before defeating you in the field will first try to defeat you in your mind by sapping your resolve.

This is one of the great ways that Babylon would—unlike the Assyrians, the Assyrians would break your resolve through terror. They would pile heads at the gates of the city, that sort of stuff. The Babylonians were a little smarter and a lot more successful. They’d break your resolve through indebtedness. They’d create a vassal state through debt, through cheap loans, then they’d raise the rates and stuff. And they knew that an indebted people were essentially a people not having resolution or resolve. They were a disheartened people. And so, you know, part of what happens before you get to the battlefield is the enemy wants you to not to have resolve.

And God says, “No, no, it’s very important that you begin your year by resolving certain things. And I want you to resolve today to be an extremist. Okay? I want you to resolve today to be an extremist.

One of the ways that resolution or resolve on the part of God’s people is being attacked by the forces of opposition is to refer not to terrorists but to extremists. And when they say a terrorist is somebody who throws bombs and blows people up and tries to create terror. He’s not an extremist. He’s a terrorist. He’s trying to create terror. It’s extreme devotion to God doesn’t lead us to blow things up or kill people. God wants us to be sold out for the Lord Jesus Christ, right? You bet. He wants us to be 100 percent. He wants us to have resolve, long obedience in the same direction of serving the Lord Jesus Christ. And he wants us to be extreme about it.

So when our public officials attack extremism, it’s an art—maybe not. It’s a—it’s an attempt maybe not on their part as individuals. I can’t talk for them, but I think it’s part of the scheme of the opposition to sap your resolve and to make you just sort of like, well, we’re kind of Christians and we’re kind of Americans, we’re kind of secularists, we’re sort of part of this world and to sap the resolve.

Barry Goldwater lost the election because of this. But he was right. In 1963, when he got nominated to be the presidential contender for the Republican party, he made a statement that is astonishing. It’s astonishing because it’s so obviously true. And it’s astonishing that then it was used to show him not as an extremist, but as a terrorist, as somebody who would bring nuclear warfare. There was the famous atom bomb ad with the girl in the daisy and stuff.

It is what Barry Goldwater said. “I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”

Now that’s a great quote. And I would apply that to what I’m saying today. Extremism and a resolution to serve the Lord Jesus Christ in everything that you do and say this year. And we’ll talk about specifics in a couple of minutes. Extremism in that is resolve and moderation in your commitment to serve Jesus Christ. This isn’t a good thing. That is vice. That’s not good. That’s bad. And it’s what’s killing the Christian church.

You got all kinds of people going to church in Oregon City today and tomorrow our kids are going back to public school because they don’t want to be extremists, because they want to be moderate Christians. And it’s destroying the church of Jesus Christ and it’s removing and sapping the resolve of God’s people to do particular things in the context of the culture.

I want you today to be an extremist. I want you to be 100 percent. I remember seeing that famous interview. Every year at Christmas time they used to show the interview of Malcolm Muggeridge by William F. Buckley and Muggeridge talked about how you know it’s difficult because people will label you as a Christ extremist. He said you know he’d go to parties and he’d talk about Jesus because that’s what he believed after his conversion. But he became known as a Christist, an extremist, a 100 percent Christian for Jesus. But Muggeridge says, “Well, it’s just what it’s going to be, you know. I mean, you know, you’re not obnoxious about it. That’d be bad. But you’re resolved to, you know, to—well, I’ll just read you the verses here. What are we supposed to be resolved to do?”

Well, the scriptures say that we’re supposed to be resolved to do particular things.

**We’re to resolve to do his will.** If anyone resolves wills to do his will he shall know concerning the doctrine whether it’s true it’s from God or not. So number one on our list of resolutions is this general resolution to resolve to do the will of God not part of the time not in moderation but with extremes. We’re to resolve to do the will of God. And there’s blessings that come from that. We understand the will of God if we’re ready to do it. If you’re not resolved to do the will of God, the implication of that text is well sure the Bible’s going to be confusing to you. Guess what? It starts with resolve to do his will.

Acts 11:23 says, “He came and he saw the grace of God. He rejoiced and he exhorted them to remain faithful to act with resolve to the Lord Jesus Christ with steadfast devotion with resolve to be faithful to Christ with steadfast resolve.”

That’s the first of the great resolutions today I want to talk about. It is the great resolution that to resolve to be an extremist in doing the will of Jesus Christ and to do be a disciple of Christ in everything that you do. In 1 Corinthians 2:2, Paul says, “I decided, to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.” When it says decided, that’s our word resolve. Paul’s resolve was when he was with the Corinthians to know nothing among them except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

Now, the context tells us what that means. He didn’t have great soaring rhetoric. He wasn’t known for his great speeches, his voice or anything. I don’t know if he squeaked or what it was, but you know, that wasn’t a deterrent to his resolve to speak the truth of Christ, to know Christ, because Christ’s weakness, his crucifixion was Christ’s great strength. The other end of that was the victory. And so Paul says that he as an example to us, he has the resolve of God to know Jesus Christ and him crucified. That’s it. That’s the first and great resolution.

And I know we accept it as sort of the background, you know, of who we are. But I think it’s good at the beginning of the year to look back and say, was I that extreme disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ or not? Or have I kind of twittered away? Has my resolve, great resolve of heart that I had at some point in the past, has it become more searchings of heart and moderation and you’ve given way to the act on your resolve.

This year must begin with each and every one of us having a great resolve of heart to serve Jesus. You young people pretty ordinary for young people when they’re in their teens to all of a sudden get a hold of this to all of a sudden realize, no, it isn’t just my parents’ faith. No, it’s not just what I ended up being raised in. All of a sudden, you realize I’m committed to Jesus. I don’t want to know anything but Christ and him crucified and his weakness. I’m with him. Everything I’m going to do I’m going to resolve to do the will of Jesus. And they think they become Christians.

So that’s not it really. There is kind of a quickening that happens. It’s the result of being raised in the faith. But it is there. And young people here, boys and girls, teenagers, young adults, may the Lord God grant you as you enter into this new year a resolve to be an extremist for the Lord Jesus Christ. This is no vice. It is the salvation of this world that’s dependent upon the work of Jesus, the work of Jesus through a people who are resolved to simply know him and nothing else to interpret everything in the context of the gospel of Jesus Christ and what the scriptures tell us to be extreme about it to be extreme in our understanding of the world interpretation based on that.

So Paul says that we begin with a resolve to know Jesus. That’s the great first thing. And now I want to talk about some more specific things. Paul also talked about his resolve in terms of mission.

Now listen to this. Acts 19:21: “After these events, Paul resolved in the spirit to pass through Macedonia and Achaia and go to Jerusalem, saying, ‘After I have been there, I must also see Rome.’” So, you know, well, okay, so we’re supposed to resolve our travel plans in the spirit. Well, that’s not exactly what’s going on here. That’s part of it. But what Paul did was he resolved in the spirit. In other words, in connection to through the spirit of God who speaks through the word and through his people.

So Paul had counselors. Paul had the word of God. Paul had the spirit dwelling inside of him to lead him. And Paul resolved in the spirit a course of ministry over the course of his life. He tracked it out. He resolved to end up at Rome. And that’s where he ends up. And the record of Acts is God’s moving Paul through his great resolve of heart to affect ministry in Jerusalem and then on to Rome and to see the beginning of the conversion of the Roman Empire that would fully develop in the next century or two.

So Paul had great resolve in terms of laying out a sequence of time and specific actions about that time. So we have a life. I’ve got I don’t know 20 years, 10 years. I don’t know how much time I have left. And it’s good to resolve to seek the Holy Spirit to resolve a course of ministry, what you think you should be doing with your life. And I know a lot of you have done this and you’re doing it. You know, you’re continuing in that long obedience in the same direction of ministry.

So God’s resolve resolver. We’re to resolve to follow Jesus and we’re to resolve to follow him in specific ways. The resolution works it out into specific details. He names specific cities that he had resolved in the in the spirit to go to and to fulfill his ministry.

**Secondly, the law of God.** Psalm 119:112 says, “I resolve my heart, I incline my heart to perform your statutes forever to the end.” This has to be on your list of New Year’s resolutions to know and obey the law of God. And the church has replaced law with grace. They’ve seen a dichotomy between law and grace. And so, one of the great things we’re to resolve to do to know God’s word, his law, his commandments to us, we don’t do it. We’re in the third commandment section still. Another couple weeks, we get to the fourth commandment. This year, we’re going to finish up the ten commandments. May it be a resolve of ours to know and not just to know, but to incline our heart to perform God’s statutes.

So, we’re to resolve specific actions of ministry. Secondly, we’re to resolve to obey the law of God, to know and obey it.

**Third, prayer.** 2 Chronicles 20:3: “Jehoshaphat was afraid. He set himself to seek the Lord and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah.” I probably should have just talked about this text because it’s a great text, great story to read in the history that God’s given us in 2 Chronicles 18, 19, 20. It’s you know, a long and interesting tale.

This Jehoshaphat guy. He came long after his father Asa had died. He was the king and he was a good king and he personally started to worship more in a more proper way and he sent out teachers throughout. He’s a king in Judah, southern Israel and so he sent out teachers to go teach people how to live and how to worship. God blessed him. He got to be a great king but then he did a really stupid thing.

He was living. When he was king in the south Ahab the wicked king was king in the north and you know Jehoshaphat, you know, as happens to men when they’re blessed by God, they got the big head or something. And he ended up trying to create an alliance with marriage with Ahab. And so he ends up working together with Ahab. And Ahab says, “Well, I’m going to fight these guys.” And Jehoshaphat says, “My people are your people. We’ll send troops along, too, and I’ll come with you and fight.”

You know, but the fight wasn’t a good one. It was, it was one that God had told him not to engage in. Long story. Ahab—this is the fight that Ahab, you know, disguises himself because the enemy army really all they want to do is kill Ahab. In the providence of God. Well, in the middle of that fight, Jehoshaphat is in there too in his chariot. And they think that’s Ahab. And so they chase after Jehoshaphat. He looks like a king. He was a king thinking it’s Ahab. And Jehoshaphat cries out to God in the midst of that battle. And God delivers him. The people say, “It’s not Ahab.” And they go kill Ahab.

Now, actually, he didn’t kill him directly. It was that deal with the Arab you know, that shot at random that obeys the will of God and pierces Ahab’s heart and kills him. So that’s who Jehoshaphat is. So he sort of, you know, had done a bad thing, but God gets his attention. And when God got his attention in battle, he utters a very fast, no doubt prayer to God. He was afraid and he prayed.

And here he’s afraid again and he prays again. Why? Well, now what’s happened is he’s gone back. He was rebuked by a guy saying, “You’re not sending out teachers of the law of God anymore. And so he says, “You’re right.” And he sends out more teachers and he starts to do good things again in Judah. And he’s blessed again. But then some enemies, some bad nations or people groups around him want to attack him. And they’re mighty and numerous. And there’s no way that Jehoshaphat is going to win this battle, this war. And that’s the context for this is Jehoshaphat then is fearful. And he resolves to pray.

It’s a great prayer. Let me read it to you. His prayer is recorded in verse 5 and following of that chapter.

“Jehoshaphat stood in the assembly of Judah and Jerusalem in the Lord’s temple before the new courtyard. He said, ‘We ought to pray this prayer at least in some form at different times when things happen. Lord God of our ancestors, are you not the God who is in heaven? Do you not rule over all the kingdoms of the nations? Power and might are in your hand, and no one can stand against you. Are you not our God who drove out the inhabitants of the land before your people Israel and who gave it forever to the descendants of Abraham your friend. They have lived in the land and have built you a sanctuary in it for your name and have said, “If disaster comes on us, sword or judgment, pestilence or famine, we will stand before this temple and before you for your name is in this temple. We will cry out to you because of our distress and you will hear and deliver. Now, here are the Ammonites, Moabites, and the inhabitants of Mount Seir. You did not let Israel invade them when Israel came out of the land of Egypt, but Israel turned away from them and did not destroy them. Look now, or look how they repay us by coming to drive us out of your possession that you gave to us as an inheritance. Our God, will you not judge them? For we are powerless before this vast multitude that comes to fight against us. We do not know what to do, but we look to you.’”

End of prayer. Jehoshaphat says, “Well, the only way we’re going to win is prayer.” And God answers that prayer of Jehoshaphat. He says, “That’s okay. Get ready. Go out and battle against them, but you’re not going to have to do it. I’m going to do it.” And God does it. They praise God. And so often this happens in the scriptures.

Another one of those instances where the worship of God, they’re giving thanks to God, praising God’s name. And while that’s going on. The Lord God defeats their enemies in response to prayer.

May the Lord God help us to remember the battle that we’re in the world. And may we see that the strength that we have for that battle comes from a resolve to pray in this new year. Yeah, let’s resolve to be extremists. Yeah, let’s resolve to be proper image bearers by being people of resolution. Yes, let’s be extremists and serve the Lord Jesus in everything that we do and say, but then very specifically make we resolve in particular details to fulfill the mission as Paul said that he was doing.

May we resolve to know the word of God and to obey it. And then third, may we resolve to pray in response to the difficulties that God has put upon us. So Jehoshaphat, that’s a great example because first, he’s got this great formal prayer in the temple, right? But remember, this wasn’t the first time he prayed and God answered. He was in his chariot and there were guys coming after him and going to kill him and he’s God. Help me, Lord. That was the first prayer.

We do our work. Things happen. All of a sudden, we’re in bad places and we don’t have to wait and write out some long formal prayer the way that Jehoshaphat did here. We can be like him in resolving ourselves to pray quick prayers for God’s deliverance in the context of our lives and then in more, you know, in more formal ways in worship as well.

So, in our context of our daily life in the context of formal Lord’s day worship we should be a people who resolve to pray who resolve to pray not who say yeah I think I’m going to try to pray more this year—not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about resolve. I will pray this year. I will do this half an hour a week. I will bug Pastor Tuuri till he starts that Wednesday night prayer time up again or some other time that’s more convenient for people. I will resolve this year to pray more individually and I will resolve to be part of the mechanism where this church prays more as a church specifically as well.

That’s the sort of resolution I’m talking about. The Lord God will lay that on some of your hearts. I’m sure he will. And you may do that today as you come forward to offer yourselves to God response to the preached word. Maybe that’s the resolution that’s the top of your list to pray because you know you’re a prayerless person. You know that at the end of the day the power of God in the context of prayer that we see so often—we hear see here—is the example in Jehoshaphat’s life both in the everyday stuff and in the formal liturgical stuff that you’re not like that you’re not 100 percent in terms of a commitment to pray. So maybe that’s the resolution.

**Another specific resolution would be money,** of course beginning of the year that’s what we do. We resolve to live within our means. And as Flynn mentioned last week the beginning of that is tithing. Here I got a negative example in Judah. The apocryphal book of Judith. So this isn’t scripture, but this is the apocryphal book. Judith 11:13 says, “They decided to consume the first fruits of the grain and the tithes of the wine and oil which they had consecrated and set aside for the priests.”

So here we have people who resolve that the word decide is stronger than that. It means they’re going to engage in long obedience in the same direction. But the direction is wrong. The direction is to use the tithe for themselves personally and to consume it rather than to use it for the purpose of God’s kingdom.

Money is important. Another example of resolve involving money is found in Luke 16:4. The servant who has his master owes his master a bunch of money and his master is going to come after him and stuff. He resolves then what to do. And when I’m removed from management, people may receive me into their home. So when my master cans me, he saw the writing on the wall. He resolved to forgive the debts that other people owed his master and he was the like the guy coordinating all that stuff. So he made a resolution relative to money and the forgiveness of debts that would put people in that—would put them in his debt and they take care of him when he got canned by his boss.

So the point is that there are these resolutions about money and we should decide we should resolve at the beginning of the year a proper thing to live within our means and the first step in that is to recognize that 10 percent of what we have is not ours, it’s God’s.

Now, most of you folks are very faithful about this. You’re faithful folks. You’re great congregation. I praise God for my being part of you. So, most of you are doing this. Some of you aren’t. Some of you really do need at the beginning of this year to resolve to get your finances in order first and foremost by tithing. Not resolving not to tithe, making excuses for it, but rather to tithe.

So, money, prayer, money, the word of God, law, **our mouth.** Psalm 17:3 says, “You’ve tested my heart. You have visited me in the night. You have tried me and have found nothing. I have purposed, resolved, I have resolved, I made it a New Year’s resolution that my mouth shall not transgress.” Some of us need that resolution at the beginning of this year. Problem may not be your money. You’re doing good with that, but you don’t have long strong obedience with the control of your tongue.

Whether it’s gossip and slander, whether it’s foul speech, whatever it is, this can be a real important beginning of your year to make a resolution. I didn’t make these up. I just did sort of a word search and these were the references to resolve that I found in the whole Bible. Went through the whole Bible looking for this stuff and this was one of them. We’re to resolve that we shouldn’t transgress with our mouth.

So, May the Lord God lay that on the hearts of some of you who need to repent for improper speech coming out of your mouth that doesn’t honor God. And may you resolve to engage in long obedience in the same direction of using your mouth properly as controlled by the Holy Spirit.

**The last specific example**, you know, in terms of we’ve gone through the general stuff, but then we’ve talked about some specific things in terms of tongue, obedience to the word of God, money, we’ve talked about some of these specific areas, and the last one is probably the most difficult one to actually do, but it was one that came up on the list when I did my study, so I have to bring it up. Daniel 1:8 says, “Daniel resolved that he would not defile himself with the king’s food.”

See, resolve. So what I’m saying here is you know yeah it’s important to be faithful and have perseverance as a general quality to be great etc. But perseverance is a general character quality is not what I’m talking about today. What I’m talking about today are individual decisions to resolve to do particular things. I’m talking about an exertion of your will that commits you to long obedience in a particular direction.

Some we talk about the general character qualities. Yeah I’m going to try to be more faithful more persevering this year and it’s just sort of general. And what I’m saying is it’s perfectly proper to take this time of year to say, well, there’s some things that God’s people resolved to do in the Bible. They made an action. They decided, they exercised their will in response to the great news of what God had done for them. They responded in a particular form of commitment.

Daniel, he responded, he resolved to live in the empire properly. That’s one way to put it. Without getting into the details of why he chose that particular thing, I’m not sure anybody really knows in the detail why he chose that particular thing—food. But and there’s good theories around. But what we do know is that he resolved to accept certain benefits from Nebuchadnezzar and to reject others. Daniel was making a statement of how to live in a time of empire. Non-Christian empire properly and the statement wasn’t rebellion against it, you know, and the statement was and the statement also warned against compromising with it.

I’ve been writing Isaiah curriculum lessons and for the teens and up in chapter 7 and 8 of Isaiah, Isaiah goes to Ahaz and he tells Ahaz, don’t be afraid this conspiracy in the northern, you know, between Syria and Israel, the north to fight you and to kill you and to put in place some guy that will join their rebellion against Assyria. It’s going to come to nothing. Don’t worry about it. He warns Ahaz to avoid the sin of rebellion against this new empire that God had established that would rule in their land.

God does things and we may not like them, may not have been what we decided to do, but it becomes obvious that this is the context of what’s happening now. And we may wish we had, you know, explicitly Christian laws and a country and an empire and all that stuff. But God does things and we have to recognize the situation in which we’re living. And Ahaz was warned against engaging in rebellion against that, trying to throw it off.

How we’re going to get out of unchristian empire is long obedience in the same direction. It’s not revolution and insurrection. Daniel engaged in long obedience in the same direction of conquering the empire and it led to the conversion of Nebuchadnezzar and eventually it led to Cyrus who’s going to come and bring the people back and establish the kingdom all over again.

So Daniel knew that one thing he had to avoid was rebellion. No, I’m not going to your school. No, I’m not doing nothing. No, I’m not going with you. I’m just going to sit here and rebel and I’ll try to get a conspiracy of my guys here to kill Nebuchadnezzar. Oh, what’s going to happen? Well, another guy worse is going to come along, right? And Nebuchadnezzar. No, he knew that was to be astute. But he also knew—as Ahaz didn’t know—that there’s another ditch in the road.

If you read the historical accounts of Ahaz in Kings and Chronicles, you find out that not only did he not join in rebellion against Tiglath-Pileser, but when they came against him, the troops that were rebelling and tried to get him to join their rebellion—when so they waged war against him, the Syro-Ephraimite wars—he actually didn’t look to God for help. He looked to Tiglath-Pileser. He said to him for help. And this is looked at negatively in the kings. And in chronicles, we find out that he had perverted worship, built foreign altars, yada yada.

So Ahaz was urged by Isaiah. The Isaiah account, we don’t hear of any of that. We just hear the urging him not to be a rebel. But then we found out that he fell into the other ditch of being a compromiser with the emperor, looking to the emperor, Tiglath-Pileser, for his protection, and looking to pagan sources and to be part of the worship of Yahweh.

Those are the two paths that lie before us. You know, we can either be revolutionaries in terms of an increasingly non-Christian country or world and just try to engage in military might and throw the thing off. That would be a mistake. Or much more likely for most people, we end up compromising. We’re not 100 percent anymore. We’re not Christists anymore. We’re Christians. It’s public school. Everybody’s doing it. It’s how you blend in. Maybe we can affect people, you know, and how the economy works, it’s really irrelevant. We just do whatever everybody else does in terms of our money and you know, you lose your witness that way.

Daniel had it right. He resolved in his heart. And may the Lord God grant us resolution as we face an increasing loss of political freedom in our country and Christian perspective. May he grant us wisdom to resolve to on the one hand not engaging in rebellion, but on the other hand not engage also in compromise to make sure that the powers that be in our land know we’re those who are resolved to know nothing but the Lord Jesus Christ and him crucified. We’re those who resolved to do the will of God in everything that we do to make sure they know that, you know, not in a your-face kind of way.

Daniel chose his resolve carefully and he was a great servant to Nebuchadnezzar in so many things. But when the time came—here and then later with the attempt to close off his prayer—Daniel knew that he had resolved to live as an open witness of Yahweh in the context of empire of people that didn’t believe in Yahweh for a long time. He resolved to engage in long obedience of being a disciple of Yahweh, an open disciple of Yahweh, in the long obedience in the same direction and the Lord God blessed that with a great thing eventually—the conversion of Nebuchadnezzar, the conversion probably of Belshazzar and the coming in of a godly ruler of Babylon, Cyrus, who would restore the people of God.

Those results don’t happen overnight. Those great things that our lives are about are the result of small acts of following through on resolves, on our resolve to do things in the context of what God has called us to resolve to do.

In Psalm 112:8, we read, “Their hearts are steady. They will not be afraid. In the end, they will look in triumph over their foes. Their hearts are resolute. They’ve resolved.” The psalm says, “And as a result of that resolve, not in the short term, but in the and they will look on triumph in victory on the faces of their enemies.

The way to victory is the way of the Christian. God doesn’t want us to, you know, suffer and die here and lose the war to take one in the chest for Jesus in a losing cause. He wants us to have victory. He’s planned that for us. But the way it happens is through a simple thing that our country does every year anyway, making New Year’s resolutions. But with us, there’s God’s resolution. Those resolutions. They reflect the character of God, his resolve, his way of doing things.

There’s a great song we use, we’ve sung at times and it says:

“Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide
In the strife of truth with falsehood for the good or evil side.
Some great cause, some great decision, offering each the bloom or blight.
And the choice goes by forever ‘twixt that darkness and that light.

Then to side with truth is noble when we share their wretched crust.
Heir her cause bring fame and profit and is prosperous to be just.
Then it is the brave man chooses while the coward stands aside
Till the multitude make virtue of the faith they had denied.

By the light of burning martyrs, Christ thy bleeding feet we track.
Toiling up new Calvaries ever with the cross that turns not back.
New occasions teach new duties, time makes ancient good uncouth.
They must upward still and onward, who would keep abreast of truth.

Though the cause of evil prosper, yet the truth alone is strong.
Though her problem, though her portion be the scaffold and upon the throne be wrong,
Yet that scaffold sways the future. And behind the dim unknown
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.
Keeping watch above those who resolve to do his will, who resolve to cry out to him in difficult times, who resolve to live properly as a Christian, as a 100 percent Christian, or an extremist for Jesus in the midst of empire.

To those God stands apparently in the shadows. And he tells us that kind of resolve in the end produces victory over his and our enemies.

Let’s pray. Father, we do pray that you would make us men and women, boys and…