I. Introduction

A. Illustration - John Fischer wrote, When we praise we aare merely — and in some cases finally — fitting into things as they really are. We are not adding anything to our life or to God when we praise as much as we are aligning ourselves correctly with the universe and our place in it. That in itself is a pretty big a deal! We praise God not for what we get out of it, or even what God gets out of it (because we don’t know anything about that), but we praise God simply because it is right and reasonable to do so. So let’s worship Him, but let’s not blow any horns over it, or draw attention to ourselves in the process. Let’s worship Him, but let’s not presume to ever be giving Him anything more than what He is due. And He is due everything! (from the Purpose Driven Daily Devotional, May 17, 2005)

B. This morning we’re looking at a spiritual discipline that tends to be a bit tough for us as American Christians – the discipline of celebration. Why is it tough? Because culturally we’re taught to restrain ourselves from many forms of PDAs – public displays of affection, not personal digital assistants. We want to be reverent and respectful with God and so we’re afraid to cut loose a little bit and celebrate the truth that God is our God and He loves us and takes care of us. Let’s look at 2 Chronicles 29:25-36 and see how Hezekiah led the people in celebration after decades of neglect.

C. 2 Chronicles 29:25-36 from The Message – The king ordered the Levites to take their places in The Temple of God with their musical instruments – cymbals, harps, zithers – following the original instructions of David, Gad the king’s seer, and Nathan the prophet; this was God’s command conveyed by the prophets. The Levites formed the orchestra of David, while the priests took up the trumpets. Then Hezekiah gave the signal to begin: The Whole-Burnt-Offering was offered on the Altar; at the same time the sacred choir began singing, backed up by the trumpets and the David orchestra while the entire congregation worshiped. The singers sang and the trumpeters played all during the sacrifice of the Whole-Burnt-Offering. When the offering of the sacrifice was completed, the king and everyone there knelt to the ground and worshiped. Then Hezekiah the king and the leaders told the Levites to finish things off with anthems of praise to God using lyrics by David and Asaph the seer. They sang their praises with joy and reverence, kneeling in worship. 31 Hezekiah then made this response: “The dedication is complete – you’re consecrated to God. Now you’re ready: Come forward and bring your sacrifices and Thank-Offerings to The Temple of God.” And come they did. Everyone in the congregation brought sacrifices and Thank-Offerings and some, overflowing with generosity, even brought Whole-Burnt-Offerings, a generosity expressed in seventy bulls, a hundred rams, and two hundred lambs – all for Whole-Burnt-Offerings for God! The total number of animals consecrated for sacrifice that day amounted to 600 bulls and 3,000 sheep. They ran out of priests qualified to slaughter all the Whole-Burnt-Offerings so their brother Levites stepped in and helped out while other priests consecrated themselves for the work. It turned out that the Levites had been more responsible in making sure they were properly consecrated than the priests had been. Besides the overflow of Whole-Burnt-Offerings there were also choice pieces for the Peace-Offerings and lavish libations that went with the Whole-Burnt-Offerings. The worship in The Temple of God was on firm footing again! (NEW SLIDE) Hezekiah and the congregation celebrated: God had established a firm foundation for the lives of the people – and so quickly!

II. Celebrating Comes from Obedience

A. There is something that really stands out in this passage about their worship and celebration. They didn’t go about it halfway. They celebrated extravagantly! They didn’t hold anything back – they gave way over and above what the Law required. They gave all that they were and that they had to God in celebration of Who He was and what He had done. That’s definitely a model we’ve got to choose to follow. But we’ve got to dig a little bit deeper to find out what’s really going on.

B. You see, the people of Judah weren’t celebrating because everything had been going great and they’d been free from troubles and trials. Far from it. Ahaz, Hezekiah’s father, was a wicked king. He brought corruption and idolatry to new heights throughout the country, and Judah paid for it. The Arameans and Israelites invaded, killed 120,000 soldiers in one day, ransacked Judah and Jerusalem, and carried off most of the country’s wealth. The Edomites and Philistines and Assyrians also plundered the country. The people were just beginning to recover from sixteen years of evil rule by Ahaz when Hezekiah made repairs to the Temple and ordered the celebration we read about.

C. Why go through all this history? There’s an important lesson we’ve got to learn here. (NEW SLIDE) Celebration doesn’t depend on our circumstances – celebration is a choice. I’ve got to tell you that I really struggled with this sermon. As a matter of fact, Tuesday morning when I was working on it I just had to stop and pray and weep and ask God how I could preach on celebrating when I really didn’t feel it. The past twelve months or so have been very difficult in many areas of my life, and the stuff with Dad has seemed kind of like the straw that broke the camel’s back. As I sat and wept and prayed, God spoke that simple yet profound truth to my heart. He said, (NEW SLIDE) “Celebration is a choice. What are you going to do about it?” The people of Judah celebrated even though they didn’t have much of what we think is necessary to celebrate. They didn’t celebrate their riches or the ease of their life, because they didn’t have either. They celebrated God. He’s calling us as a congregation to celebrate Him too. And the only way we can celebrate is if we walk in obedience to Him.

D. Illustration – Richard Foster writes, In the spiritual life only one thing will produce genuine joy, and that is obedience… (NEW SLIDE) Joy comes through obedience to Christ, and joy results from obedience to Christ. Without obedience joy is hollow and artificial (pg. 192). We’re all pretty good at faking it, you know, acting like everything is great even though we’re dying inside. Part of our desire to fake it comes from that old nemesis, pride. But another part comes from an unhealthy church culture that evolved over the years in American churches that said that, if you have problems or issues, there must be something wrong with you. We forget the truth that something is very wrong with life, and that something is sin. Sin has corrupted or destroyed much of what God intended life to be when He created the world. (NEW SLIDE) True joy comes in spite of life – it’s centered in a love relationship with God through Jesus Christ that is built on obedience. We aren’t made right with God because of what we do, but what we do demonstrates whether or not we truly love Him. Obedience is the key to celebration. Foster writes, Joy is the end result of the Spiritual Disciplines’ functioning in our lives. God brings about the transformation of our lives through the Disciplines, and we will not know genuine joy until there is a transforming work within us… Celebration comes when the common ventures of life are redeemed (pg. 193).

E.I like that statement. (NEW SLIDE) Celebration comes when God redeems the common and ordinary events of life – when His presence invades and permeates our everyday living. Then it doesn’t matter so much when life gets really, really tough. Because our cause for celebration is God!

III. Celebrate Wholeheartedly!

A. The people of Israel had many occasions for celebration during Old Testament times. In fact, there were eight festivals when the whole country would gather to celebrate. One was a more solemn occasion – the Day of Atonement. It was a day of fasting and repentance and prayer. But the others were exuberant celebration. The month of Abib or Nisan, corresponding with parts of March and April on our calendar, featured the Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and the Festival of Firstfruits. Sivan, parts of May and June, celebrated the Festival of Weeks, also known as Pentecost. Ethanim, parts of September and October, featured the Festival of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement, and the Feast of Tabernacles or Booths. Kislev, parts of November and December, included Hanukkah, also known as the Feast of Dedication. And Adar, parts of February and March, featured the Festival of Purim. In addition, there were New Moon and other festivals. Lots of celebrating. Lots of remembering Who God is. Lots of acknowledging dependence on Him.

B. And there are other occasions when all Israel celebrated. One that stands out is found in 2 Samuel 6 where David brought the Ark of the Covenant, otherwise known as the Chest of God, to Jerusalem. The Message says that he brought it celebrating extravagantly all the way, with frequent sacrifices of choice bulls. David, ceremonially dressed in priest’s linen, danced with great abandon before God. The whole country was with him as he accompanied the Chest of God with shouts and trumpet blasts. David was so caught up in celebration that he gave everything he was to it. Don’t worry, I’ll spare you by not dancing, but I don’t think it would hurt us to learn to celebrate like David did. After all, the only one God punish during that occasion was the lone party pooper, Michal, David’s wife and daughter of Saul. When she saw King David leaping and dancing before God, her heart filled with scorn… David returned home to bless his family. Michal, Saul’s daughter, came out to greet him: “How wonderfully the king has distinguished himself today – exposing himself to the eyes of servants’ maids like some burlesque street dancer!” David replied to Michal, “In God’s presence I’ll dance all I want!… Oh, yes, I’ll dance to God’s glory – more recklessly even than this. And as far as I’m concerned…I’ll gladly look like a fool”… Michal, Saul’s daughter, was barren the rest of her life.

C. I think we’ve all known folks who’ve accused us of being undignified or unprofessional or immature when we’ve laughed and celebrated in God’s presence in the church. I don’t think I’ll ever dance around like David – you have to be coordinated to do that! – but I’ll gladly give any other expression of praise and worship and celebration that He calls me to. Because the only one who refused to celebrate God on that occasion received the greatest disgrace possible for a woman during Bible times – childlessness. Now granted, we don’t have that kind of stigma now, but I firmly believe that God will discipline us in other ways if we refuse to celebrate Him wherever and whenever we can. St. Augustine wrote, (NEW SLIDE) The Christian should be an alleluia from head to foot! (as cited by Richard Foster in Celebration of Discipline, pg. 190) Augustine is right. We’ve got to be celebrating as much as we can as often as we can with everything we have because God is God!

D. So how do we celebrate in a way that God approves? (NEW SLIDE) First, celebrate exuberantly! Celebrate with everything you are and have. As I said before, we tend to let pride keep us from possibly embarrassing ourselves, so we try to keep our emotions under tight control. (NEW SLIDE) When we’re walking closely and obediently with the Lord, there is a certain passion and sense of abandon to us that enables us to cut loose. We care a lot less about what others think and a lot more about Who God is and how much we want to celebrate Him. Celebrate exuberantly! Get excited and let it show!

E.(NEW SLIDE) Second, celebrate extravagantly! We as American Christians tend to hold back on throwing our resources into celebrating for a couple of reasons. We want to look like we’re being good stewards of God’s resources, and we’re not too sure where celebration fits into this use of resources. We also don’t want to look like other Americans who party hardy! If you read through the Old Testament you’ll notice that celebrations took lots and lots of resources, and that many of those celebrations involved the participants getting a share of the sacrifice to eat while celebrating. (NEW SLIDE) God expects us to put some effort and resources into celebrating Who He is and what He’s doing. We put bucks into celebrating Christmas and Easter, so why not develop our own regular celebrations as a Body that show our appreciation for our God?! Celebrate extravagantly! Cut loose with the resources!

F. (NEW SLIDE) Third, celebrate extraneously! Celebrate regardless of circumstances! I remember a while back when we were going to celebrate our fifth anniversary in this building. I had some folks come up to me individually and tell me that they didn’t feel like celebrating because a lot of it had been a tough time in the life of the church. I understand, because I’ve been guilty many times in my life of not celebrating because of circumstances. But remember what happened in Hezekiah’s time? Those folks had come close to being cleaned out, and yet they celebrated with all they had – they celebrated sacrificially. (NEW SLIDE) Circumstances don’t determine whether or not we’re to celebrate; celebration depends on Who God is and what He does. Since that never changes we can celebrate any time whether we feel like it or not.

G. (NEW SLIDE) Fourth, celebrate extraordinarily! Be creative in how you celebrate! Since celebration is a corporate discipline, meaning it involves the whole Body, and since there are many very creative individuals in this Body, we should have no problem coming up with occasions and ways to celebrate exuberantly, extravagantly, and extraneously. One of my prayers is that, when we get our portable baptistery, we’ll celebrate getting it and celebrate any time someone is baptized. Baptism is a time of worship and praise and celebration, and it’s important that we have the ability to make it a regular part of our worship service. That’s why a portable baptistery is so important. It will help focus us on the truth that we’ve got much to celebrate and we’ve got much to share. I’m looking forward to those celebrations. I’m also looking forward to all the other celebrations God is placing on our hearts to rejoice in Who He is and what He’s doing. Celebrate extraordinarily! Celebrate creatively!

H. Illustration – Philip Yancey wrote, (NEW SLIDE) Like a victorious locker room, church is a place to exult, to give thanks, to celebrate the great news that all is forgiven, that God is love, that victory is certain (as cited on PreachingToday.com).

IV. Conclusion

A. We’re going to close a little differently today. On your bulletin insert, there are blanks for you to fill in three things we can do to celebrate that we haven’t been doing. (NEW SLIDE) Take a few moments right now to write down three things we can do as a church to celebrate Who God is and what He’s doing exuberantly, extravagantly, extraneously and extraordinarily.

B. Did you write down three things? Now comes the fun part – since God laid those three things on your heart, it’s your job to share them with others and to work to put them into practice. Don’t settle for simply writing them down. Let’s act on them and truly celebrate our God. Let’s pray.