The Battle Before the Battle: What This Changes Between Us

The foyer still has two versions of the same seeking. Last month this church said the battle is not yours after a named crisis went public between a household and a quieter chair. One person received that sentence as cover. The chairs around them received a quieter version by Tuesday: leave the assembly unused, because nobody has to watch it together.

A neighbor two seats over is deciding whether this church can sit together without keeping an unofficial I-will-seek-alone sentence between them, or whether leftover private alarm writes the public life the rest of you have to live under.

This is a sermon about what 2 Chronicles 20 changes between you. If you preach it as a map of anyone's private panic, you will lie. If you preach it as Jehoshaphat of Judah under a real multitude, with a real Jahaziel and a real wilderness of Tekoa, you give this church a God who will not let leftover private seeking write the last sentence the chairs around that household have to live under.

Text

Hear the report as Holy Scripture tells it, from the World English Bible: "After this, the children of Moab, the children of Ammon, and with them some of the Meunites, came against Jehoshaphat to battle. Then some came who told Jehoshaphat, saying, “A great multitude is coming against you from beyond the sea from Syria. Behold, they are in Hazazon Tamar” (that is, En Gedi).

Jehoshaphat was alarmed, and set himself to seek Yahweh. He proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah. Judah gathered themselves together to seek help from Yahweh. They came out of all the cities of Judah to seek Yahweh. Jehoshaphat stood in the assembly of Judah and Jerusalem, in Yahweh’s house, before the new court; and he said, “Yahweh, the God of our fathers, aren’t you God in heaven? Aren’t you ruler over all the kingdoms of the nations? Power and might are in your hand, so that no one is able to withstand you.