Josiah’s Reforms

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

Good morning. This summer, we have been studying what we would call hidden figures in the Old Testament. So these are people that we are likely to gloss over. These are people that we are typically not going to spend a lot of time on in a typical church. I didn't hear a lot about Jeroboam growing up in church, and I didn't hear about it much as an adult. So we've been studying those kinds of people, right? So last week with Jeroboam, we also have been studying people like us, and people like Jonathan and his armor bearer, just really obscure people. These are small players, but they are caught up in a big story. And the small players in that big story, they really help us understand our own role. We are also small players in a big story that there's something going on around us that the Lord calls us to be a part of. But by and large, we're not steering that ship.

We're just kind of along for the ride. We're very small players in this big story. And we have these stories to inform our real life. So we hear, we read about Jeroboam. We read about all these different people. And today we're gonna be reading about Josiah, who's in 2 Kings 22. We're going to start in 2 Kings 22 today. We read about these people, and it helps us understand, it helps give us perspective. It helps give us kind of a window. These are also people that were caught up in a big story. What did they do? How can we learn from that? As you turn into 2 Kings 22, we can talk about King Josiah. He was a king of the southern part.

And we just finished discussing kings back to back, two kings early, early in Israel's history. This is really late or a lot later in Israel's history. This is roughly 250 years later or one America later. And that's kind of where we're at right now with King Josiah. When we pick up his story, We pick it up in his 18th year, which makes him around 26. He was a very young king. And in his 18th year, he had ordered the temple of the Lord to be cleaned out. Now, that's not, you know, a weekend warrior project. That's a big deal. Okay. And so to clean all of that out, it was a big deal. cost a lot of money, but Josiah knew that there was some money actually in the Lord's temple so that they could kind of get it. So he set a priest named Hilkiah over that project. And whenever Hilkiah is cleaning it all out, he makes a discovery. And we see this in 2 Kings 22, verse 8.

And it'll be up here also. And Hilkiah the high priest said to Shaphan the secretary, I have found the book of the law in the house of the Lord. And He'll Kiah gave the book to Shaphan and he read it. Now, it might sound odd to you and me to say, hey, I found a Bible in a church. Fantastic. But this seems to be news. So let's keep reading. What's happening here? Next two verses, verses nine and 10 of 2 Kings 22. And Shaphan the secretary came to the king and reported to the king, your servants have emptied out the money that was found in the house and have delivered it into the hand of the workmen who have the oversight of the house of the Lord." Verse 10, then Shaphan the secretary told the king, "'Hilkiah the priest has given me a book.'" And Shaphan read it before the king. Okay, we need to read between the lines just a little bit here to understand what's going on, because in verse 9, the report he gives,

Shaphan gives a report to the king, King Josiah. The report he gives doesn't say anything about a book. It's actually not about the book they found. The actual report he gives to the king is that, hey, the work is done. So whenever you were giving that kind of report, you're putting the important thing first, okay? So it's not about the book. So we took the money, we found, we paid the workmen, done. Verse 10, oh, and by the way, we found a book.

Now, this is not just any book we know. We know this is the book of the law. This is the most sacred book these people had, period. I mean, this wasn't the kind of thing where it's just like, you can go down to the corner store and pick up a couple of copies. This was it. This was the book of the law. And they were surprised for two reasons. They were surprised because, well, they weren't surprised. They were surprised because they weren't looking for it and they found something, we're surprised that when they found it, they didn't freak out. We're surprised that when they found it, they didn't know what it was. When Shaphan found it,

and he reported to the king what they found, he describes it as a book. Now he might have thought, oh hey, maybe it's important, but he didn't know. The king didn't know. The people didn't know. Hilkiah the priest seems to know something of its importance, but that's it. Hilkiah the priest is calling it the book of the law. He's saying this is a big deal. Shaping to the king, it's just, I mean, we found a book. It's like a, you know, it's a spy novel or something. I mean, it's just this nothing book.

What we come to understand, even in these three first verses that we've read, is that the people of God have forgotten about God almost entirely. There's a temple that they're cleaning out, and so there's kind of something they know they should respect. They know kind of God is out there, but they don't really know who He is. They don't know there's a book of the law. They don't understand the things of God. The people of God have forgotten, basically forgotten God. And this is difficult for us to understand because in our 21st century American society, We have all kinds of remnants of a Christian heritage, right? So in other words, you could knock on most doors in Burleson and say, tell me who Jesus is, and you'll get some kind of orthodox answer. You'll get an answer. Oh, Jesus, Son of God, die for my sins on the cross. That's what you're gonna get, trust me.

I've knocked on doors, I've asked the question, I've heard their answers. It's what they'll say. And honestly, it's what you'll hear in a lot of places in America. We don't understand the lack, the complete absence of Christian heritage that they were dealing with there. But we can't get close because I don't know if you've ever been reminded of something that just completely caught you off guard. Like have you ever thought, have you ever gone through most of a day thinking it's the wrong day? Yeah, yeah, I have to. And it's such a beat because you're thinking, why is my son taking the trash out to the street today? You have all these little things that just feel off. Like, hey, why weren't you at the meeting that we said? And then you get the news, like it's Friday. And you're going, I thought today was Thursday. And as soon as that moment hits you, you start rewinding through all of the day.

And you're going, how many other things did I miss? Because I thought today was Thursday and it was Friday. I completely messed up. And you're starting to think about what else did you miss? You take that feeling and you kind of multiply it times a million, and that's what Josiah and his court are feeling. It was way more horrible than forgetting what day it was. They'd forgotten their heritage. And what does Josiah do? Verse 11. What does Josiah do? He says, when the king heard the words of the book of the law, he tore his clothes. Now we don't tear our clothes and our culture today, but this means that Josiah was feeling some severe emotion. Okay, that's kind of enough to understand what's going on. He just kind of ripped his shirt a little. You know, he's just, he's upset. He experiences deep, cutting conviction. He is undone. He doesn't hear the book of the law.

He doesn't hear those words and rejoice. But he realizes, like it says in verse 13, he realizes our fathers have not obeyed the words in this book. And I and all of my people are at odds with my creator. What a sinking, horrible feeling. But this is exactly what Josiah is feeling when he reads the words of this book. He realizes not just that I'm not doing anything, but generations have gone by and no one has told me about this. Being reminded of God's word can do that to us. It's a little unsettling. Once upon a time, I was a young pastor and I was on staff at a church and there were lots of other young pastors. And so there was this meeting, there were about eight of us at a meeting, and we're talking about God's word. And he's a good friend of mine, and he was on staff there, he's another pastor, and he starts referring to God's word as a sword. And I called him out.

I said, I don't know, man, I don't know if you want to call it a sword. It's kind of, you know, like offensive, you know, like that's, are you sure you want to call it a sword? Then he gently reminded me with both barrels that Ephesians 6, 17 describes the Bible as a sword, the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. So I was completely laid out. The other six guys are laughing uncontrollably, and I want to crawl under the table, okay? It was not my best moment. He was gentle about it, but it's still stung, right? It's still stung.

Here's how Josiah reacts after he tears his clothes when he's reminded of God's word, 2 Kings 23, verse two. So you kind of skip to the next chapter. Here's how King Josiah responds, says, And the king went up to the house of the Lord, and with him all the men of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and the priests and the prophets, all the people, both small and great, and he read in their hearing all the words of the book of the covenant that had been found in the house of the Lord. Notice it is no longer a book, it is the book, and what the king does is he gathers everybody, and he shares the word of God with them. And as they are hearing it for the first time, All these things, think about it, all these things in their history now are starting to make sense. Think about what's clicking for them. They didn't know the book of the law, but they are Jews.

This is their whole heritage. This explains why they are where they are. This gives them, I mean, more than just context, I mean, it gives them a place in the world. It gives them a national heritage and identity. So many things are now making sense. I have a friend named Sean Swarthman. He grew up in a traditional Jewish family, Jewish guy, but he became a Christian in high school. And what he said to me was one time he said, when I met Jesus, it all started clicking for me, right? Everything started making sense. All my heritage, it was all pointing toward Jesus as the Messiah. The Seder meal, the prayers we prayed, even the games we play would all point to Jesus as the Messiah. When we read Scripture, when you and I read Scripture, it resonates with us. It makes sense to us. And it doesn't really in two different ways. First, it resonates with us as created people.

So like as humanity, in other words, everybody knows however much they want to crowd it down, however much they want to push it away or explain it differently, everybody knows that there's a God who has done something for us. Everybody can look at creation and understand there is a heaven and an earth and that we got here somehow. All our great advances in knowledge, in our culture, nobody is giving some good alternate explanation for how we all got here. Even the hardest evolutionist, you're going to ask him, how do we get here? They're going to go on record and say, maybe aliens. But they're not going to say God. not going to say a moral being to whom we answer, even though they know. As a created being, as a creature of the Creator, we read Scripture and it resonates with our humanity. We know, everybody knows that we need salvation and that pleasing this God is the only way

forward. You can pick up somebody, I mean, with barely any exposure to Christianity at all, and they're going to know these things intrinsically. They might not be able to articulate them like that. That's not what I mean. But they're going to understand that they're not the God of the universe, and there is one, and they have to answer to him in some capacity. So it resonates with this as creative people. It also resonates with us personally. In other words, our own stories, our own histories begin to make sense in a different way. It begins to click. We begin to see it in a new light. King Josiah and all the people are reading, and it is resonating deeply within them. It is resonating with them as creation and as people with specific histories.

Let's keep reading. 2 Kings 23 verse 3 says, the king stood by the pillar and made a covenant before the Lord to walk after the Lord and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes with all his heart and all his soul to perform the words of this covenant that written in this book and all the people join in the covenant. So King Josiah and all the people, they're all responding with a promise. Reading scripture has a way of convicting us, it has a way of resonating with us, but it also has a way of calling us out to do something about it. King Josiah, when he first hears, he tears his clothes, but then after he sits for a while, he realizes he He needs to respond with a promise.

This is a powerful thing that God's word speaks directly to our hearts, that Jesus says, follow me, find life in me. For King Josiah and his people, they get to work on that promise, promptly, verse four. Verse four, second Kings 23, verse four. And the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest and the priest of the second order and the keepers of the threshold to bring out of the temple of the Lord all the vessels made for Baal and for Asherah and for all the hosts of heaven. So Baal and Asherah were idols, were false gods, right? So he burned them, Josiah burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron and carried their ashes to Bethel. And this is just the beginning. So Josiah, the first thing he does, he's like, okay, made a covenant. Let's go into the Lord's temple. Let's rid it of all the idol worship, but he doesn't stop there. And really, this is all 2 Kings chapter 23 is.

It's what Josiah does to take down a whole superstructure of idolatry. So he starts by taking down the worshiping, the idols of Baal and Shura. in God's temple, but he also moves on from there, and I got a list up here. He moves on from there, and he goes to nationwide cultic prostitution. There was nationwide cultic prostitution going on under King Josiah's reign.

There were child sacrifices happening to the god Molech under Josiah's reign. There were memorial stables that were built to worship the Son. There were national places of worship that were set up all over the nation of Judah to worship idols. This is not a small-time endeavor. This is long. This is difficult work. This is not Idol Awareness Month, okay? We're not wearing ribbons and figuring out how we're going to stop worshiping idols, okay? This is not that. This is a systematic tearing down of a superstructure that is ingrained in every part of the national society, every part of the culture. And there really is no modern equivalent to this. The only thing I can think of it would be like trying to take down the NFL. Not that the NFL is like some idol factory, that's not what I mean, but it would be just as difficult. The difficulty of taking all of that out

would be like trying to dismantle the NFL. Because you're not just shutting down a league, you're also removing stadiums. And you're removing all of the connected systems. You're dealing with players, you're dealing with teams, you're dealing with owners, all of which are very powerful and influential people and system. You're dealing with the gambling industry. You're dealing with TV rights. You are dealing with something that is ingrained into the subculture of America. I mean, all of the southeastern United States are going to need new hobbies. All of them. The entire state of Alabama is going to need another hobby. Bless them. I mean, think about it. I mean, I'm kidding a little bit. Think about it. I mean, kids are going to need new dreams, right? If the NFL is gone and getting rid of that is not some... It doesn't happen in a month. It takes time, intentionality.

It's extremely difficult. And I would bet you money that everybody in Judah, if you would say to them, I would bet you money if you'd say to them, hey, how do you think we're going to take down idolatry? All of them would be like, oh, man, I don't know. I mean, that's a pretty big deal. What else do you want to do? You want to make every street a brick of gold? You want to somehow make all of society's cures just appear in a moment? What else do you want to do? Like, that sounds crazy to them, but that's exactly what God's Word did.

This is what God does through His Word. God's Word has the power to take down anything. the most entrenched ideological superstructure, the most systemic, societal sin. There is nothing that God's Word cannot undo, cannot dismantle, cannot destroy and reverse, cannot wipe off the face of the earth. God's Word is more powerful than you or I can even imagine. And for us to just read 2 Kings 23 without really understanding all that it took to uproot all of that, to get that all out of their culture, we're missing it if we don't really understand. And the good news is if God can do that through His word, if He can take all that down, think of what God's word can do in your own life. Just think about that. our problems, we wouldn't call it a superstructure, but it does feel just as complicated. Our problems feel deeply rooted, ingrained, that we cycle through sin and forgiveness and sin

and forgiveness, and we consider our sin habits a part of our personality, a part of our family heritage. How can we uproot that? How can we change that? How can that be undone? And we think to ourselves in a weak moment, man, God must be getting tired of this because I sure am. So tired of committing the same sin over and over and over and over and over and over and over. It's exhausting. But what does Scripture say about the Word of God, Hebrews 4:12, it says that the Word of God is living in active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And that means that God's Word is ready to untangle and expose the most deep seated sin that you have. God's word can melt the hardest heart out there. That God's word can forgive the vilest practice

that God's word can free the most enslaved sinner. And that is good news. But how? How does that work? How does the sword of the spirit cut through our sin cycles? And I believe this is why we have the story of Josiah, finding God's word and watching the power that proceeded from it. Because we need this. We need to see that God works on us through his word. We need to see. We need to understand that the surgery that God wants to do isn't just gonna happen like through a dream or through encouragement from somebody. It's not just going to happen. The primary avenue for the surgery that needs to be done in your life is going to be happened through the Word of God. That is the avenue. So I want to give you four encouragement, four things to do with God's Word. And as we do, I want to give you one example, kind of a running example as we go through it. The first thing we need to do with God's words, we need to open it.

I know this. I know this from Scripture. I know this from experience. Through his word, God is going to do what he is going to do. God is not going to ask my permission. God's not going to check with me to make sure it's okay. He's just going to do it. He has purposes that I don't get to I don't get to have a say in he he just goes out and does what he wants to do and we've seen this in Josiah's life he found the Word of God and he read it our encouragement my encouragement to you make time to read your Bibles I know man that is so simple but it's so forgotten make the time to read your Bible I don't care if you're eight years old or if you're 108 make the time to read your Bible. If you have the whole thing memorized and you don't, let's just be fair, but even if you did, the Lord still wants to speak to you through it as you read. That's how it works. Not listening to Christian radio, not watching your favorite Christian TV show.

That's not, those are fine. Those are great. They're not bad to do, but it's not a substitute for reading the word of God. It's not, it's not the same, it's not the same thing. So the example I wanna just kind of build for you, and we're just gonna keep coming back to it, is that you're working through a really banged up, messed up relationship. I mean, things are bad, you've got baggage, they've got baggage.

And you know, you start to maybe understand that you need to kind of do something about that, but you don't really know where to go. Instead of scrolling Instagram, Instead of listening to your favorite preacher, which I'm sure is me, I want you to open the word of God. I do, I want you to open the word of God. Look, when I'm preaching right now, my hope is that I'm showing you the word of God. I don't think that I have words in my back pocket that are gonna somehow spiritually unlock whatever's going on with you. I believe that the word of God is something that the Lord wants to speak to you through and do that surgery. I don't have the scalpel. I'm just a guy. I'm just here trying to be obedient the best I can. The Lord is the surgeon. The Lord is the physician. The Lord wants to do those things. I don't do those things. I can't. If I'm your savior, you need a better savior.

I'm not that great. I mean, ask my wife, I'm okay, right? Most days, but I'm definitely not saving material. I'm just not. And neither are you. And neither is any person. It's the Lord. How you're gonna listen to the Lord, you gotta open up the word. And we do this, we open up the word to hear from the Lord. We do that personally, we do that collectively. So when we gather every Sunday and we're preaching from the word, I hope this is efficacious. I hope this is a good thing, right? I hope that you are listening to the word, letting the word wash over you as we study it, as we look at it, but also personally, right? That you are reading the word on your own. Please, if you are not being transformed on a continual basis by the word of God, just stay quiet. Just wait, open up the word of God, and just listen, just listen. In our life groups, one of our big questions,

we had three big questions, you know, how have you heard from God? How are you listening to God? We regularly open ourselves to God's word, to the direction of the Holy Spirit. We must open it. Second thing, we must let it turn our hearts. You have to let it turn your heart. The word of God is not just something that you open and then close, you have to let it turn your heart. Again, we saw this with Josiah. The story says that Josiah was condoning child sacrifices, among many other things, which is a really horrid practice. I mean, I don't want to pile on here. I'm sure I've done some pretty horrible things, but I got to say, it's a notch below child sacrifices. OK? Like, I'm not quite there. This king was condoning really horrid things. It's no wonder he tore his clothes. The story said that he was condoning those things, then he repented. The gospel of Jesus Christ is not that you are a good person

and that God needs to give you a leg up. The gospel of Jesus Christ shows us that there is power in the turning. Josiah was not perfect, but he kept turning to the Lord. Our Christian lives are not about getting it right. Our Christian lives are not about getting it right. Let me say it another time. Our Christian lives, it's not like learning a musical instrument, it's not like a school subject, it's not something that you can kind of master, it's not about that, it's not about getting it right. It's about turning. What's the difference between Nicodemus and the rich young ruler? One turn. The end. That's it. What's the difference between Peter and Judas? Both betray Jesus. One turn, that's it, one turn. That's the story of the gospel of Jesus Christ, that there is power in the turning.

And they didn't just turn once, they kept turning. If you're working through it, and I'll just go back to the example, if you're working through this busted up relationship, you got baggage, they got baggage, your consistent temptation is going to be to fix them consistently, that will be your temptation. But when you open God's word, you will find things that you need to turn from. And you'll be tempted even in that moment to place conditions. Well, I'll turn if they turn. No, that's not how that works. You turn. If all you want is for other people to shape up, then you need to let God's word shape your perspective. It is warped.

There's power in the turning. We open God's word and we let it turn our hearts. The third thing we do with God's word, if we're going to cut through our sin cycle, is that we commit to God through it. We saw King Josiah make a commitment. And if you are, going back to that example, if you are working through that mess up relationship, God will show you that you need to repent and that process of changing your behavior will require a commitment from you to the Lord. Period. It's going to require that. If you think you're always gonna feel like doing whatever the Lord's calling you to do? I mean, no. It will require a commitment. It will require you to walk through a slow change in behavior. And this makes us really uneasy. We don't like talking about commitments because we say, well, you know, I might not keep that commitment very well. You know, why make the bed if you're just going to

mess it up? Which is what I always say to my wife whenever she wants to make the bed. like, why make the bed if we're just... Why not? Why keep the commitment if we're just gonna mess it up? Why do that? And I say this a lot in gospel course, but I wanna say this again, and I wanna say it a lot, a commitment is not a promise to be perfect. It's a promise to talk about it when we're not. A commitment is not a promise to be perfect, it's a promise to talk about it when we are not perfect.

Let me just let you go on a secret. God's not super impressed with your commitments. He's not, he's like, oh man, okay, well, you know, man, that guy made a commitment to me and now he's gonna be perfect. And if he's not perfect, well, you know, I'm gonna smite him. That's not how those commitments work. God is not somehow wondering how you keep messing up on your commitment. And yet, and yet it is the necessary part of living the Christian life. Let me just read Ephesians 5, 1 through 3. It has commands in here. It says, therefore be imitators of God as beloved children and walk in love as Christ loved and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. Verse 3, but sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not be named among you as is proper among the saints. These are commands. The commands are be imitators of God, walk in love just like Jesus did,

and don't be sexually immoral. Who's keeping that? Not me. I fail at imitating God all the time. So what's the point of these commands? The point is that you need to realize you can't actually measure up to these commands. You can't actually perform these commands, and yet wrestling through those commitments is the method by which you and I are made like Him. Wrestling through those commitments. And that means you don't stop turning. The commitment that you're making is not to be perfect. The commitment that you're making is just, I'm going to I keep turning whenever I'm not perfect.

So you say like, oh, I'm, so even something like a simple commitment, like I'm never gonna eat sugar again. Okay, all right. Great, you're never gonna eat sugar again. I know, it's a pretty easy target. You're never gonna eat sugar again. Okay, well what happens when you eat sugar? Well, the truth is many of us just fold like a chair. I mean, we just, okay, we're done. Well, I eat sugar. I'm tainted, my commitment's in the trash. Might as well just devour an entire cake now. You know, it's all just spoiled. You know why?

Because we love our commitments more than we love why we're making the commitment. We love to build our own little righteousness tower, right? Look how many days in a row I've run, you know, a mile or something, you know, like, Look how many times, look how many days I haven't eaten sugar, you know, just all of those things, right? Like we love building this righteousness towers. It's so fun for us, but it's not fun when it gets toppled over because then we're just in a hole. Emotionally, spiritually, we think we're worthless. All these things, all these messages start flooding in and just like, why did you make the promise in the first place? Why did you do that? Why are you so dumb? All those things from the enemy are just coming at us a million miles an hour. Why'd you even make the commitment? You knew you were going to mess it up. Look, you're just done.

You don't want to mount to anything. There's nothing you can do. And what the Lord is saying is that commitment, the ebb and the flow, the ways that you ride high and you ride low, I'm there in both. I'm at the crest. I'm at the trough. I'm there. That commitment that you're making is to me. shows me that you love me, the Lord said, that shows me that you want to follow me.

I mean, I've already talked about, you know, even a marriage ceremony, right? Like, I've made commitments to my wife to have and to hold, to cherish, to honor, and all those things. Let me tell you, I've never like cheated on my wife, okay? But I have broken those vows. I have not held her in the highest esteem possible at every given moment. I have not protected her every opportunity I have. I'm not perfect. Neither are you. If you're married, you have broken your marriage vows. Oh gosh, oh so hard to say, so hard to hear, but it's true. You have, you have, because you're not perfect. So why make the vows in the first place? Fidelity. You make the vows because you trust that the Lord is doing something in that partnership. changing you in that process. Through the process of making commitments to the Lord, He changes us. It's not about being perfect, it's about sticking with it. It's

about continuing to turn when you turn away. The reason that my wife and I are so married is that whenever I turn, whenever I, when I sin, when I put myself before my wife, that the Lord God in heaven is saying, hey, and I turn. And I say, you know what baby, I'm sorry. I need to put you ahead of me and I didn't do that and I don't wanna live that way. I wanna be different. I wanna different marriage. I wanna do that consistently. That's what that commitment's about. It's about permission to talk about it. When you make a commitment to God, you watch Him help you keep it.

When you make a commitment to God, You watch Him help you keep it. You watch Him convict you to turn. You watch Him say, hey, remember this commitment? Listen, you got to turn. You got to walk with me. Lastly, we're going to make a commitment to God through it where you have to continue in it. And this is the end of King Josiah's story, and it's a beautiful ending. Pick it up in verse 21. It says, and the King commanded all the people, keep the Passover to the Lord your God as it's written in the book of the covenant. All through Scripture, God gives his people ways to remember. In fact, tonight, I want to encourage you to come to the Lord's Supper. Tonight, we're going to engage in Lord's Supper together as a church body. You are more than welcome to come if you are not quite a member yet or even if you're just checking us out, you're more than invited to come.

You can't vote at the meeting, but you're more than invited to come to Lord's Supper because it is a way for us to remember, to continue in the knowledge that God is loving and powerful. And when you think about the Passover, which is what they're celebrating here, what's the story of the Passover? The story of the Passover is that God's Word through Moses tore down the superstructure of slavery in Egypt. It's the same story. What do God's people remember In the Passover, they remember the story of redemption. In the Passover, God sends a substitute for sin. That substitute willingly dies and takes the burden of the sin and the people are free.

We need to remember that. We need to continue in that knowledge. Let us be like King Josiah and Judah every Sunday. Let's remember what Jesus has done for us. Let's remember our sin being taken from us and being set free. I want to end with 2 Kings 23, 22 and 23. Right after it says that they celebrated the Passover, here's an astounding thing. For no such Passover had been kept since the days of the judges. just for perspective, the days of the judges were before King David, 300 plus years before this moment in time. For three centuries, for longer than America's been around, they did not celebrate the Passover. Okay. Notice that Passover has been kept since the days of the judges who judge Israel or during all the days of the kings of Israel or the kings of Judah but in the 18th year of King Josiah this Passover was kept to the Lord in Jerusalem. God's Word is ready to break

through, tear down your sin cycle, cut through all that and set you free to celebrate the Passover. God's Word is ready to work in you in a new way in a way that you likely do not expect. During our time invitation, I want to call up Dan and Sadie, and we're going to sing. And what I want you to consider is what work is the Lord doing in your life through His word? What structure, what sin cycle is He tearing down in your life? Have you had a problem with the ebb and flow of commitment?

Do you not think that the Lord actually wants to build something in you that is good? How can you let God's word turn your heart? How can you let God's word allow you to make some kind of commitment to Him? This is why we have our time of response. So as we have this time, I want you to, I want you to stand. want you to sing but I also want you to consider what the Lord is doing through his word in you. Let's stand as we sing.

and free. And turn your eyes upon Jesus, Look fully in his wonderful face. And the things of earth will grow strangely dim, In the life of his glory and great, Through death into life everlasting He passed and we follow Him there Over us Him no more hath domain More than it conquers we are So turn your eyes upon Jesus, Look full in his wonderful face And the things of earth will go strangely dead In the light of his glory and grace His word shall not fail you, he promised, believe him and all will be well. Then go to a world that is dying, his perfect salvation to tell. And turn your eyes upon Jesus, Look full in his wonderful face. And the things of earth will grow strangely, Dear, In the light of his glory and grace. And the things of earth will be strange, they eat Him, In the light of His glory and grace. A benediction, please stay standing. Isaiah 55.

Seek the Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake His way and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on Him. on Him and our God, for He will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways, higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth. It shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sinned. Amen and Amen.