Our Eyes Are Upon You

I hope the main message today will be an encouraging one to us. If you would like to write down a title, the title I've given today's main message is, Our Eyes Are Upon You. Our eyes are upon you. You may know where that verse comes from. I won't keep you in too long of suspense, and I invite you to open your Bibles. And let's turn to 2 Chronicles chapter 20. 2 Chronicles chapter 20. We're going to begin reading verses 1 through 12 to set the foundation of our main message today. This is where that phrase comes from, and we come to 2 Chronicles 20, beginning in verse 1. And unfortunately, we come to a very difficult moment in Scripture. As the ruler Jehoshaphat, leader of God's people in Judah, he and the people that he leads now are in desperate straits. As not only one nation, but a collection of nations have now gathered together to come up against and destroy Jehoshaphat and his people. And this is where we're going to pick up in this story. Again, the enemy nations are now approaching quickly. 2 Corinthians 2 Chronicles 20, beginning in verse 1. It happened after this that the people of Moab with the people of Ammon and others with them besides the Ammonites, they all came to battle against Jehoshaphat. Then some came and told Jehoshaphat, saying, a great multitude is coming against you from beyond the sea from Syria. And they are in Hazazan, Tamar, which is in Gedi. And in hearing this news, and Jehoshaphat feared and set himself to seek the Lord and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah. So Judah gathered together to ask help from the Lord. And from all the cities of Judah, they came to seek the Lord. Verse 5, Then Jehoshaphat stood in the assembly of Judah and Jerusalem in the house of the Lord before the new court and said, so here are his words, this king, this leader, and it's a series of questions you'll notice. Verse 6, he asked and said, O Lord God of our fathers, are you not God in heaven? And do you not rule over the kingdoms of the nations? And in your hand, is there not power and might so that no one is able to withstand you? Are you not our God who drove out the inhabitants of this land before your people in Israel and gave it to the descendants of Abraham, your friend forever? And they dwell in it, and they have built you a sanctuary in it for your name, saying, If disaster comes upon us, sword, judgment, pestilence, famine, we will stand in this temple and in your presence, for your name, God, is in this temple, and cry out to you in our affliction, and you will hear and save. And now, here are the people of Ammon, Moab and Mount Seir, whom you would not let Israel invade when they came out of the land of Egypt, and they turned from them and did not destroy them. Well, here they are, rewarding us by coming to throw us out of your possession, which you have given us to inherit. Oh, our God, will you not judge them? For we have no power against this great multitude that's coming against us, nor do we know what to do.

It's almost as if he takes a deep breath here and says now, but our eyes are upon you.

Now, the chronicle summarizes here, now all Judah, with their little ones, their wives, and their children, stood before the Lord. Let's stop there. Fascinating, isn't it? Intense! This is an intense moment here, and whenever I read this story, I think I've shared this before. There's a personal moment that always comes to mind in these kind of occurrences, like we're seeing here, that Jehoshaphat and his people are facing. I don't know if you've ever experienced the spectacle of a middle school football game, or maybe a high school football game. I played one year, and there's a reason I only played one year in middle school. I was about half the size I am now, and half the weight, but once again, it was a game in which we were being trounced, absolutely destroyed, and that wasn't too unusual. I don't even remember the end score. I don't even remember the team that we were playing, perhaps to protect my pride there. But one thing I do remember in this particular occurrence was the cheerleaders. I remember not specifically the cheerleaders, but I actually remember their chant. The chant that kept coming from the sidelines was you can do it, you can do it, you can, you can, you can do it, you can do it, you can, you can. These were our cheerleaders encouraging us in that way. But see, the problem was it was so obvious we couldn't. The more that chant came, the more just incongruent it became, and it was just so blatantly obvious that we couldn't. But of course, it didn't prevent these well-meaning girls declaring the fact that apparently victory was just around the corner.

I think in our circles with our brethren, the men and women, we can receive this kind of refrain, I think, when we're going through difficulties where well-meaning spiritual brothers and sisters will urge us to that kind of encouragement.

As they survey the challenging circumstances before us, they may urge us, you know, you can do this, you can do this, you can overcome these things. But despite their good intentions, it is true that that refrain will typically wear thin very quickly. Sometimes the last thing we want to hear in those moments are well-meaning individuals to tell us what we know so patently isn't true. And certainly Jehosaphat here, he wouldn't have fallen foul to this whole notion. And he was actually very prepared to survey the land and to acknowledge in an honest way what was before him. And in exercising his role as leader of Judah, he was prepared to acknowledge what was not common for leadership, namely that they hadn't a clue what to do. And even if they had a clue, they certainly didn't have the power to execute anything successful in these circumstances. Again, if you allow your eyes to go down to verse 12, here at the end of his prayer, again, he says, Lord, I might as well acknowledge exactly how things are. Here, representing your people, we are powerless. We have no power, and we're clueless. We didn't have no idea what to do. This is where Jehosaphat was here.

This is where we can be in striving for God and facing the challenges that are before us.

And if you've come today, and you've been on a threshold of challenges, difficulties, and areas, and you're painfully aware that these challenges are so daunting, and you find yourself recoiling from it all, and you're growing weary of the refrain that we can do it, I hope that you'll find some encouragement in this story that's before us.

Because you're not alone, Jehosaphat was certainly with you in that, facing that at this exact circumstance. The background to this, let me give you a little background. 2 Chronicles 20, fairly straightforward. If you read the preceding chapters leading up to this, you will find that Judah was in a time of Reformation. You will find that Jehosaphat was a good leader, a wise leader.

He had made various changes throughout, urging the people to return to the law of God. And what you find in the chapters leading up to this is that one of the first things that he did was to place the right people in the right spot.

And he appointed judges, he appointed various leaders to different responsibilities. Along the way, he urged each of them to be faithful to God, to serve God wholeheartedly, and to face all the challenges before them with courage. Courage is good exhortation from a good leader.

And so often the case, what we find ourselves urging others to do, we quickly find ourselves needing to heed our own counsel. So in urging others, these leaders he was putting in place to lead with courage in short order, he was now going to have to do the same thing as he faced this vast army here. They're all here. The Moabites, the Ammonites, the parasites, they had all come. They had all come to make war with Jehoshaphat here and his people.

Great multitude here. Look at verse 2. You see these words here, great multitude. So the chronicler is putting forth what they're up against. You see that same phrase in verse 12 and 15. Great multitude here. So Jehoshaphat's response of despair was completely understandable. Unquantifiable. You couldn't count the swarms that were coming against them here. So how would he respond? How do we respond when that which is up against us seems insurmountable? This is what we're looking at today. And we want to notice really just simply two ways in which Jehoshaphat responded, which led him to victory in the end as he confronted this overwhelming moment.

And again, I hope it will be encouragement to us, and I hope we take his response into our experience today. First of all, we want to notice, number one, in facing the insurmountable difficulty, number one, he acknowledged his weakness. All right, that's number one. His weakness was acknowledged. So when responding to the insurmountable battles, a key initial response is to acknowledge our own weakness in it.

Again, there in verse 12, the leader of this nation, verse 12, we have no power against this great multitude that's coming against us, nor do we know what to do, he says. So he surveys the issue, and he says we're powerless and clueless.

This is absolutely counterintuitive, and it's absolutely countercultural. You will not pick up a business. You can do it from the bookstore that will contain this number one response in any of its pages. Nowhere will you find this kind of admonishment except in Scripture. And if you try to bring this into the business world, you're going to quickly find out you're going to run into troubles.

Let's just say you were hired by your boss, and you're brought in to correct the company, get it on the right path. There you are. Your boss has gathered together the hundred in the business, in the company. You did a good thing. You got coffee and donuts. Everything's going well. They're looking to you expectantly, and you stand up as their new boss, and you say, well, I'd like a team just to acknowledge a few things before us of these challenges that we face.

And frankly, I'm clueless. And not only that, I'm powerless. We have no power to change what's before us here.

Certainly, the boss that hired you would quickly call a pause to the meeting and pull you to the side and say, this is not what I hired you to do. Where are your pom-poms? Where are the, we can do this, we can do this, we can, we can. You know. How is this going to be effective? Did you see Jehoshaphat? He takes a different route here. We don't know what to do. We're clueless. But, but God, our eyes are upon you and all of Judah. Man, this, if I was a, if I, if I could paint, I would paint this picture here in verse 13. All of Judah with the wives and the children, they just simply stood before the Lord. It's a wonderful picture here, you know.

Now, there would have been those instigators that came on the outside of the group saying, what are we doing here? What's going on? Why is everybody standing? You know, well, we're standing. I can see that. Why are you standing? Shouldn't you be doing something? We are doing something. We're standing, you know. You mean there's significance in the standing here? Well, yes. We're all standing still until we discover how and where we should move. All right, I'll repeat that. I'll repeat that. We're standing still until we discover how and where we should move. And we're standing together, acknowledging the awareness of the fact that we're powerless and clueless to the circumstances that are before us. We're standing still at the behest of the leader, who's humble enough to say, I don't know what to do, and we're powerless to do anything, but I invite you to stand with me as we seek God. I'm not sure what business model this fits in. That by standard would have said, you know, shouldn't we have a strategy?

Shouldn't we have a strategy? Not seeing that this is the strategy, you see. This is the strategy. This is the model that we see throughout all of the Bible. We could spend an hour going through all of the examples that paints this very picture here. Paul, the mighty apostle Paul, stands before the Philippian brethren upon his arrival, and he stands before them and says, I come before you in weakness and fear and much trembling, he says. He stands before the Corinthians, puts forth this exact strategy. In fact, if you want to put your marker here, let's turn over and just see this punctuated in the New Testament. It's all throughout Scripture. We'll come back to this, but I'd like to turn over just for a moment to 1 Corinthians 1. 1 Corinthians 1, and we'll read verses 26 through 31 here.

1 Corinthians 1, verses 26 through 31. This is what we're called to do. We're called to acknowledge our weakness before the circumstances before us. Here it is. 1 Corinthians 1, verse 26.

The mighty apostle Paul says, For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise, according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are caused. There are some. There are some that are myths. Not many, he says. Continuing. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty, and the base things of the world, and the things which are despised, God has chosen, and the things which are not to bring to nothing the things that are. Why? Verse 29. That no flesh should glory in his presence, but of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption, that as it is written, he who glories, let him glory in the Lord. Stop there. So not many wise, you know, are called in this way, but God has chosen you, put you in this position with the expectation, with the hope, that as victories come, you will then not turn to yourself, but you'll turn to him, and give him the glory. You see.

There was a book that was written in the past. I haven't read it. I don't recommend it. I only read certain quotes from it, but it was a book called Good to Great, and as a result of five years of analyzing companies that went from good to great, despite their expectations, they discovered the companies that were most successful from going from good to great were not led by leaders who immediately knew exactly what to do. All right? Those companies that went from good to great were not led by leaders who immediately put forth the strategic plan, the dynamic strategy, to go forward. Rather, those companies were led by leaders who, first and foremost, put the right people in the right positions. The right people sitting in the right seats, and then we will proceed, you see. Until we get the right people with the right perspective, the right attitude, we are not going to go forward with anything. It's fascinating insight, and that is what God's doing. That is what God's doing. If you want to be part of that group, you need to become the right person for God so that He can put you in the right place to move forward. It's fascinating insight, and so there would have been people that said, come on, Jehoshaphat, look, what are we doing here?

Shouldn't we be doing something? Then we have a strategy against these advancing forces. Is this the best you can do? We don't know what to do, and we're powerless here. But rather, Jehoshaphat had put forth the hard work preparing for this enemy assault, and now he stands. Now he stands. It's a reminder to us that what we discover in the Bible is that so often effective Christian leadership is not found in strong, rugged, ruthless leaders, but what we discover is that the men and women that God picks and puts in place are often marked with hesitancy. They're often marked with timidity. They're often marked with caution. They're often marked with uneasiness. They're often fully aware of their own inadequacy.

And in that way, the most unlikely people you would put in these areas. Again, it's the story of the Bible. God goes to Gideon. He says, I'm the least in the least clan. God goes to Jeremiah. I don't know how to speak. I'm only a child. That's right. You're my prophet. Paul goes to before Timothy and just says to the congregation, if there's any way, if you could just put him at ease when he comes, you know, see that he has nothing to fear. And just so we see how antithetical this is to contemporary models here, but it's the story of the Bible. The story of the Bible is the supremacy of the enemy and the inadequacy of the people. That's the story of the Bible. Supremacy of the enemy, inadequacy of the people.

It's because of this perspective that God brings us into our lives. God wants us to limp through life. Did you know that? Now, he's going to bless us. He's going to give us a joy in our heart through it all, but it's not a joy of current strength. It's a joy of a future salvation. It's a joy of future salvation. But today, to make it to that future joy of salvation, he often asks us to limp through life. He often will place a strategic thorn in our flesh. Often, God's people will have an anxiety of heart. Often, God's people will be restless. If there's one thing about our group that marks us, we are a group of men and women who don't sleep at night. I can say that with confidence, because I talk with many of you. We are a group of people. I don't recommend putting your phone next to your bed, but if you do, you do check it. There it is. 3 a.m. There it is. 3.30 a.m. There it is. 4 a.m. Is it too early to get up? It's just this purposeful, quiet sense of desperation. Why? It is so we will know we're absolutely powerless, and it's so that we will know we have no idea how to go forward. But again, the temptation is to go to the bookstore, find that book that says you can do it, and I'll tell you that might be a bad book. It's a bad book for us. Unhelpful book, because it's in our very powerlessness, in our cluelessness, that moves us to God to say, I don't know what to do, but my eyes are upon you.

If the enemy armies that we face, if they drive us to God in the awareness of our helplessness, they are good, and we can actually rejoice in them. That is a higher level of righteousness that God is calling us to, where you're faced with a diagnosis or a family trial or a loss of job, and you hit your knees, and the first words out of your mouth are Thank you, Father, for this. I don't thank you for the situation. I thank you for the opportunity that I know lies in this difficulty, and it's an opportunity for me to move to you in my helplessness, and it's an opportunity for me to fix my eyes, and to fix my eyes, more firmly, on you. And then you pray, take this from me, be merciful. Of course, let God know your desires, but not until maybe you rejoice in it with this understanding, this understanding. God, I call upon you for all the adequacy that you provide. And perhaps we may only fail individually and as a group if we think we can do it. You see.

But the best thing we can do sometimes is to stand still and place our eyes upon God. So that's number one, acknowledge weakness. Continuing with Jehoshaphat here, let's notice just our second and last straightforward principle in our story here. First, the expression of inadequacy. The second one is just as simple. Number two, after we've acknowledged our own weakness, number two, acknowledge God's strength. Simple yet profound. So acknowledge our own weakness, but then in turn acknowledge God's strength. Set the circumstances firmly in the context of who you know God is. Set the circumstances firmly in the context of who you know God is to be. Listen to, this is what Jehoshaphat does here, listen to this. Even though he's praying for the people here, I think he's reminding himself who he's praying to and in turn reminding the people who they're praying to. And this is 2 Chronicles 20 verse 6 and 7 again. Oh Lord God, our Father's. 2 Chronicles 20 verse 6. Let's remind ourselves of something here. Are you not God in heaven? Do you not rule over the kingdoms of these nations? And in your hand, is there not power and might so that no one is able to withstand you?

Are you not the God who drove out the inhabitants of this land before Israel? And you made this promise to the one you loved, Abraham, that Abraham, your friend forever?

So in your prayer, if you're facing an insurmountable army, ask these questions, remind yourself of these things. Go out in the quiet of the night by yourself, sit in a comfortable chair. If you're able, lay out a blanket and just lay and look up at the stars and ask some of these questions. Ask these questions. Remind yourself who God is here. You see how important these questions are, how important these words are. Didn't you make this promise to Abraham? Go back to your baptism. Didn't you make this covenant with me, Father? And now I'm up against it.

So apply this personally, and I'll tell you, just like those that would have been on the outskirts of this group standing and putting their eyes upon God, the evil one will come and he'll begin to make these insinuations. You're a complete disaster. You're worthless. You're not very much.

And answer those words with saying, correct, I am a complete disaster and I am powerless. But I'm looking to the God who made all these lights in the sky, you know, and what I know about him, what he began in me, he will bring it to completion. So I feel very much like we're losing this battle, but your word says that you're going to preserve me and you are preserving me. So the feelings are real, but I'm going to place those feelings under the understanding that he is the God in Heavens and he is the God who rules over kingdoms and he is the God who drives out enemies. In light of all of this, will you stand in his presence here, weakness admitted, but strength acknowledged in God?

And God answers. Look at this. Verse 15. God answers. Verse 15, and he said, Listen, all of you of Judah and you inhabitants of Jerusalem and you, King Jehoshaphat, thus says the Lord to you, Do not be afraid, nor dismayed, because of this great multitude. Listen to these words, For the battle is not yours, but God's. That's a good one. We could all just close up and leave them on that phrase right there. Write that phrase on a sticky note if you need it on your bathroom mirror. The battle is not yours, it's God's. Put your faith in him. Here, stand firm. Don't let your faith be shaken, but acknowledge against this great multitude, the battle is not yours, it's God's. So hard for so many of us, but start to bring your thoughts back to what you know. And then verse 16 and 17, the answer comes here.

Tomorrow, go down against them. So they stood and they listened and here's the word. They will surely come upon, they will surely come up by the ascent of Ziz, and you will find them there at the end of the brook, but for the wilderness of Jerul. So they'll come and meet you, as often our problems do. You will not need to fight in this battle, verse 17. But position yourselves, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord who is with you. O Judah and Jerusalem, do not fear or be dismayed. Tomorrow, go out against them. For the Lord is with you.

Lord, repeat those words to you. Go out. Face what's up against you. Do so with confidence, without fear. The Lord is with you. Again, this is the story of the Bible. We won't take the time to do it today, but you know, there was the Red Sea before them, the hooves and the wheels of the chariots were just coming up against them on the other end. And the word there was stand firm, and you will see the salvation that God provides. And this is what God will provide to us today. I hope you believe that if you stay faithful to the One, He will have the power to fight these battles for us. What's the remarkable end of the story? Let's read it in all of its glory.

We'll notice the technique that's actually used to defeat this army, and it's praise to God. It's praise to God. Verses 20 through 30. So they rose early. By the way, rise up early and face your troubles. That helps rise up early with God. So they rose up early in the morning, went out into the wilderness of T and they went out and Jehoshaphat stood and said, Hear me, O Judah, and you inhabitants of Jerusalem, believe in the Lord your God, and you shall be established. Believe in his prophets, and you shall prosper. And when he had consulted with the people, he appointed those who should sing to the Lord and who should praise the beauty of holiness as they went out before the army and were saying, Praise the Lord for his mercy endures forever. Now, when they began to sing and to praise, the Lord sent ambushes against the people of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, who had come out against Judah, and they were defeated. For the people of Ammon and Moab, they stood up against the inhabitants of Mount Seir to utterly kill and destroy them. And when they had made an end to the inhabitants of Seir, they, Ammon and Moab, helped to destroy one another. So when Judah came to the place overlooking the wilderness, they looked toward the multitude, and there were their dead bodies falling on the earth, and no one had escaped. Verse 25, when Jehoshaphat and his people came to take their spoil, they found among them an abundance of values on the dead bodies, precious jewelry which they stripped off for themselves, more than they could carry away, and they were there three days gathering the spoil because there was so much. And on the fourth day, they assembled in the valley of Baraka, for there they blessed the Lord. Therefore, the name of that place was called the Valley of Baraka until this day. Then they returned every man of Judah in Jerusalem with Jehoshaphat in front of them to go back to Jerusalem with joy, for the Lord had made them rejoice over their enemies. So they came to Jerusalem with stringed instruments, harps, and trumpets to the house of the Lord, and the fear of God was on all the kingdoms of those countries when they heard that the Lord had fought against the enemies of Israel. Then the realm of Jehoshaphat was quiet, for his God gave him rest all around. Whoo! So the strategy here, you'll notice, was to sing praises to God. In the midst of an enormous trial, the strategy was to gather together and sing praises to him. And I'll tell you, it's our strategy as well. It's our strategy as well. The odds are so heavily stacked against God's people, and our response is to bow in our weakness to the one that will help us get through it, the only one who will fight the battles for us. Would you sing continual praises through it all to the end?

And you'll notice in the end, God's people are given this wonderful, blessed rest. Did you notice that? And I think, and I'm speaking to my own heart, I need some of this today so that I can start sleeping through the night, just to find that blessed rest until the final rest, right? The millennial rest to come and will be with God the Father and Jesus Christ forever. Well, it ends with the story here that they won a battle they never fought, and it ends with quiet and rest for his people. Ah, may we pray when the noise of our fear and restlessness and inadequacies come upon us. Pray in that moment and turn to the one who will give us quiet in that time. May we pray together, always saying to God, our eyes are upon you.