King Josiah // 2 Kings 22-23

Join us as we wrap up our arrows series!

Chapters

• 1:02 A Summer Of Drift And Numbness
• 2:23 From Camp High To Confession
• 4:02 Josiah And The Worst Of Kings
• 7:15 Finding The Book And Feeling Conviction
• 10:43 The Power Of Scripture In History
• 13:51 How To Read And Love The Bible
• 16:39 Covenant Renewal And Whole-Hearted Loyalty
• 20:36 Modern Idols And Spiritual Warfare
• 24:46 From Heart To Hands: Josiah’s Purge
• 28:18 Don’t Play Fetch With A Crocodile
• 31:44 CPR: Confess Pray Repent
• 35:16 Grace First: Freedom In Christ

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:31

Well, the summer between my sophomore and junior year, uh, I had a little bit of like an existential crisis. Sophomore year was a little rough. It was it was just up and down, had some injuries, things didn't go how I wanted it to. Uh, I had just gotten out of a relationship that didn't really honor the Lord, and it kind of pulled me away from the church and from the youth group. And I was working over that summer, I was working just slinging orange chicken at the Panda Express like all day, every day, uh, making a whopping$11 an hour, which was actually good when I was in high school, which is really unfortunate. And then I go home and and I play video games till 2 a.m. just to wake up and do it all over again. Uh and I just really started to realize like I had just gotten in this place where I was lazy, I was purposeless, I was living in hidden sin. Uh, I had addictions and things that I was just keeping from people because I didn't know what they would think of me. Uh and if I was honest, I didn't really want to deal with them. I'd lost connection with my student ministry. And one day I just woke up and I realized, hey, something has to change. I looked at my life and I looked at my relationship with God, and I realized I don't like where I'm at or who I am. I I needed uh this personal revival because I realized I had drifted from God and I wasn't sure how to get back. Well, why am I telling you that this uh why am I telling you that story tonight? Is because many of you walked in here tonight feeling the same way. Uh you think back to D now or you think back to camp and you think back to that that camp high, that that church high moment where everything was great. I'm never gonna sin again, never gonna date anybody ever again. I'm gonna be missionary to Hawaii, like 100% all in for the Lord. And then you look at yourself right now and and you've said one more time, one last time a whole lot in the last few weeks, or you said, Well, it's not really that big of a deal. At least it's not this, or you know, it it's you know, God will forgive me. And you just look at your relationship with you with the Lord and you're like, What happened? And we've been walking through a series called Arrows, where we've talked about, hey, there's this hunger, and God is moving in this next generation. Uh, and there's some really cool things that we're seeing God do. And we've talked about the big picture ideas of uh with week one with Mary just offering surrender, and we talked about Joseph of this process, but we talk about a lot of big picture revival stuff, right? Like the crazy moments, like that video we watched at Passion or whatever. But a lot of times we miss the idea that big revival, like on a countrywide scale or a statewide scale or a generation-wide scale, always starts with personal transformation, right? That it always starts with God moving in the heart and lives of a lot of times young people. And so for a lot of you who look around and you realize, like, hey, I'm not where I want to be with the Lord, the question is, how do I get back? Right? And so we're gonna see with a story in the Bible, one of the most incredible stories of revival, right? One man's discovery that God transformed him and God used him to change an entire generation. And we're gonna look at the things that happen that God uses to bring him to that transformation. And we're gonna see three things. These are kind of the format or the um outline for the season or for the season, for the uh message tonight. And it's one that there's conviction from the word of God, there's a recommitment of the heart, and there's a repentance with the hands. So conviction from the word, recommitment of the heart, and repentance with the hands. And we're gonna explain all of that. But where we find ourselves is in 2 Kings chapter 22, and we're gonna start in verse 8. As you flip there, where we're at in Israel's history, this is the Old Testament, so it'll be more towards the beginning of your Bible, is the period of the kings. Uh, Israel wanted a king, God said you don't need a king, they said we really want one. And he's like, it's not gonna go well, but here's your king. And so you get King Saul, uh, who's not a good king, and then you get King David, who's a good king, uh, but makes some mistakes at the end of his life. And then you get King Solomon, and each king progressively gets worse and worse and worse. And there's a few good kings here and there, but eventually we get to this king called Manasseh. And Manasseh is just the worst. Like this dude uh is literally called the worst king in all of Israel's history. Uh in verse 21, 9, it says that Manasseh led them, talking about the Israelites, to do more evil than the nations had done, whom the Lord destroyed. And so he's calling back to, hey, you remember those people that were super, super wicked that God drove out of the promised land? It's come full circle, and the Israelites are now worse than they were. Right? It also says in 2 Kings 21, 16, that Manasseh shed very much innocent blood till he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another. And we get some details about some of the wicked things that Manasseh had done. He had started all of this idol worship, worshiping false gods, uh, with all sorts of things that I cannot stay, say from stage here. Uh, really, the breaking point is that he actually instituted worship of a god named Molech. Uh, and how you worshiped the god Molech is you would take your infant child and you would burn them alive. And that's what the people of Israel were doing at this time in history. And that was the final straw. You see, God actually says, Hey, uh, when we made a promise way back in Abraham, that promise was that I will uh bless you, I will use you to bless the ends of the world. Like I'm gonna work through you, people, this family, right? Abraham's family ultimately becomes the nation of Israel, uh, and I'm gonna use you to bless the world around you. Uh, and if you obey me, things will go well. But if you turn from your side of the covenant, you will face discipline, you will face consequences, yet I will still hold up my end of the bargain. Right? And basically, the entire history since then uh had just been them breaking their end of the deal. So that's where we pick up in 2 Kings, King Josiah comes into power because his granddad Manasseh was awful, uh, and then King Josiah's dad, Amon, was next, who was actually so bad that his own people killed him two years into his reign. And now we get to the part of the story where Josiah begins to reign. Uh Josiah was actually uh probably around 16, I think. Did I write this down somewhere? Yeah, so he was probably around 16 when he started to reign, and he was around 20 when he started to do all the stuff we're gonna read today. So he's a young person, right? So we're gonna read chapter 22, starting verse eight. So Josiah begins to repair the temple, and as they're repairing this temple, they find the book, the book of the law, which we believe is Deuteronomy, and so that's what's happening in verse eight. 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 Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan, and he read it. 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. And then Shaphan told the secretary, or Shaphan the secretary told the king, that Hilkiah the priest has given me a book, and Shaphet read it before the king. He read it to Josiah. And when Josiah the king heard the words of the book of the law, he tore his clothes. And the king commanded Hilkiah the priest, and Achaim the son of Shaphan, and Akbor the son of Meccah, and Shaphan the secretary, and Isaiah the king's servant. Uh, verse 13, go inquire of the Lord for me and for the people, and for all Judah, concerning the words of this book that has been found. For great is the wrath of the Lord that is kindled against us, because our fathers have not obeyed the words of this book, to do according to all that is written concerning us. And so, I know that's a lot. Let me break it down for you. They're repairing the temple. The temple is where people of Israel will go to worship God, to offer sacrifices. It was the heartbeat of the spiritual life in Israel. And things had gotten so whack with Manasseh that it's literally just run down. It's broken down. Uh there's all these other temples to other gods, uh, and it's just messed up. Right? And so then as they're repairing that temple, they find what we believe is the book of Deuteronomy. And you ask, like, what do you mean they found the book of Deuteronomy? Like, like, I thought this was God's word. You know, they they're supposed to hold on to this. How does it just get lost? But that's how bad things had gotten. One generation was enough for an entire nation to forget the one true God and turn to all sorts of idolatry and wickedness. And that's something that we ought to remember. That just took one generation. But the opposite's true as well, and that's what happens with Josiah because he reads this book, he reads the scripture, uh, and it says that he tore his clothes, which sounds a little strange. Can you imagine if like I'm just like reading some scripture for a message and like uh who's who's up here? Uh somebody like Nate just stands up and like tears his clothes and just like starts crying. Like it'd be odd, right? I mean, Nate, I could see it, but like other people maybe a little bit. No, I'm just kidding. I love everybody. Um so that's actually a sign of mourning. Like that's that's what would happen when uh these people would be sad or be upset, or when a tragedy would happen. Like it was what they did to mourn. It was a sign. And so, because as he listened to scripture, the reason he's so moved is because Josiah realizes just how far they've fallen from God. Uh, that's why he says, Great is the wrath of the Lord against us, because we've not obeyed the words of this book. It's what we would call conviction, right? Many of us have felt this before when we read the word of God uh and and we feel a sting of I see what God asks of me, and I realize that I don't measure up. And I want you to see that that is the power of Scripture to convict, to change, to encourage. Uh, that the book, if you have your paper Bible in your hands right now, that book is not a storybook, it's not a textbook, it's not a self-help guide. It is the inspired word of God, of the God of the universe, right? That it shows us who God is, who we are, the meaning of the world around us, right? How life is to be lived. It tells us the story of how even though we ran from God, we said, God, we don't want you, we don't want your rules, we don't want the life that you offer us. We want to try to do it on our own and it led it to led us to death. The Bible is a story of how God chased after us because he loves us. And through the book of the Word of God, through the Bible that you hold in your hands, right, or you have on your phone, God has changed countless lives, hearts, millions have been saved, and he's changed the world time and time again. If you don't believe me, there's a whole just record I can run through, right? Between the first and the third centuries, God's word led Christians to rescue babies. In the Roman culture, it was very common if you didn't want a kid, you just left them on the side of the road. And that's one of the ways that Christianity exploded so much in the Roman world is because Christians were the only ones who actually cared. In the fourth century, God's word led to the banning of the gladiator games, where humans were used as entertainment to kill each other. Later, God's word led to the creation of hospitals and for people to actually like organize and care for the sick. In the 1500s, it led to education. People could read God's word for themselves, they could actually learn things. It led to the abolition of the British slave trade. It led to the outlaw of widow burning in India. It led to prison reform, child labor laws, it led to the civil rights movement. God's word has been behind almost all of these movements that we look back on, it's like, hey, that's when history actually got it right. Like something good happened. It's because God moved through his word in the hearts of people. And you're like, well, that's all political stuff. That's history. I don't care. I didn't come here. Uh A-Push was earlier today. Well, ask your leaders, right? I would be willing to bet that God's word has changed every single one of their lives. I know that it's changed mine. God's word transformed me from an anxious, depressed, child of divorce teenager into someone who could actually be a husband and a father and the pastor I am today. It was because of God through his word. And the truth is only the word of God, through the power of the Holy Spirit, can change cultures and hearts and change eternities. And so the question is: do you treat it that way? Right? Do you treat the word of God like it's the word of God or do you treat it like a textbook? It's just a bunch of stuff to memorize, things I need to do to pass a test one day. Or is it a self-help guide? I'm gonna skim and I'm gonna pick and choose like the parts I want or the parts that I don't want. Or it's just a storybook. It's some fun stories, you know, for me to know and to think about and whatnot. But see, if the Bible is really the book that God has revealed himself to us through, right? 66 different authors or 66 different books written over thousands of years, like God's revelation of himself to us, then then we have to treat it that way. We have to build our life on it. And number one, that means you just gotta read it, right? And by reading it, let me say, I'm not trying to shame anybody, like start where you're at, but I don't mean just like one verse a day, like out of context. Like again, start where you need to start, that's fine. But the goal is to actually like be a student of the Bible. Learn your Bible, uh, learn who each book is written to, why it's written, what it actually says, right? And so I'm actually gonna, if you have your notes, get out your pencil, whatnot, I'm gonna just list off a few tools, right? If you open your Bible and you're like, I have no idea how to read it, I have no idea how to understand it, here's some great tools that you can use to help you on that path. One is a thing called Bible recap. It's a yearly plan where you read about three to five chapters of scripture a day, and it's followed by a short video explanation of what you just read. And so if you ever open your Bible and read something, you're like, I have no clue. Well, great, here's a tool where you can, in a year, right, you can move through the entire scripture, right? I'm going through it with a group of our leaders right now. I did it last year, and it was incredible, right? Even after going to school for all this stuff, I learned so much just actually reading the parts of the Bible that I normally never would. So, Bible recap, it's on your Bible app, uh, it's on an audio Bible app called Dwell. You can buy a physical copy of the book. Uh, there's another thing called Bible Project. Bible Project is a website where they have overview videos of every book of the Bible. And so if you're in your small group and you're about to start reading through Philippians, you can go and watch a video where they illustrate, right? So for those of us who like picture books, there's lots of pretty pictures, uh, and it guides you through and it helps you pay attention. All right, this is what's happening here. This is the argument he's making here. Because a lot of times when we misunderstand the Bible or it seems weird or hard to like, like it this sounds like it contradicts itself. It's usually because we don't actually know what it's talking about. We need to read it as a whole. These are these are written as letters or as books to be consumed all at once, not necessarily just like verse by verse. And of course we break it down, but you have to understand the context. Another one, this one's a little bit of a longer name. It's called Enduring Word Bible Commentary. Basically, what that is, is it's a verse-by-verse option. As you're reading your scripture and you read a verse, you're like, hey, I have no idea what this thing means, you can get online and look that up and it'll give you a trusted explanation of, hey, this is what this is saying, this is how it fits. Um, there's also another one called Blue Letter Bible online that gives you access to a bunch of different commentaries and whatnot. Um, and so there's all sorts of tools. You have more tools at your disposal than ever. And that's a whole nother sermon when it comes to like how to read your Bible. And if you're curious, come find me. There'll be a breakout at D now, hopefully, where we get to talk about that. Um, but don't just learn it, right? Knowledge alone has never transformed anybody. You can know the Bible from front to back, but if you've just memorized it like head knowledge, uh nothing's gonna change, right? We actually have to meditate on God's word. When you read it, think about it, pray about it, right? Do it with a community. Um I could go on and on and on, but but the point here is that if this book is really God's word, are you putting it that place in your life? Or is it just gathering dust? And because I promise you, this is not some like homework textbook that you need to do to gain God's approval. Like this is his gift to us. Like God's word is good. It is for you, it is a blessing. Uh, and I know sometimes it can be hard to wrap our heads around it, but just start where you're at, little by little. And I promise you, not only will you learn to love it, but you will be transformed. And that's what we see as Josiah's story continues. So let's jump back in 2 Kings chapter 23, verse 1. Says, then the king sent, and all the elders of the Judah and Jerusalem were gathered to him, 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 and 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. So he read this to everybody. And 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 were written in the book, and all the people joined in the covenant. And so, Josiah discovers the word of God, and he's moved and he's convicted. Right? And conviction is more than just a feeling, though. Uh, it's not meant to just stop there. It actually led to action. It's not like he just feels bad and then moves on with his day. Uh, he actually does something, which is what we're all called to do. And his first step is he gathers everybody together and he has this ceremony where he renews the covenant. And the word covenant probably doesn't, it's not one that you've used a lot. You might not know what it means, but it's a commitment. It was very common, but it's more than just like a contract, it's like a binding relationship. Think kind of like when we say our vows, right? How many of you have been to a wedding before? Right? So uh what we believe as Christians is that what makes you married, yes, legally in the eyes of the state, is that paper you get. It's a wet marriage license, all that sort of stuff. But what we believe is what really makes you married is that you stand before God and before others, and you enter a covenant with that person. You say, I am going to love you for better, for poorer, for richness, and uh for you get it, right? I'm just gonna butcher them. Uh, we need to polish that before chasing Bailey's wedding in the spring because I don't want to mess that up. But you say these things, I'm gonna take care of you, even if you get hit by a bus tomorrow, uh, even if you fall into a vat of acid and are horribly deformed, right? Like I'm gonna care for you and I'm gonna hold up my end of the deal. And that's what a covenant is. It's it's saying I'm gonna commit myself to you even when it costs me. And it's a commitment based on loyalty, love, and responsibility. You are not just saying, hey, I'm gonna pinky promise. You're saying I am going to do this for you no matter what. It's a binding thing. And it's important because God made a covenant with these people way back in Genesis 12. It's a whole nother story for a whole nother day, but he basically said, I'm choosing you as this family, and I'm gonna bless you, and through you, I'm gonna bless the entire world. And as the rest of the Bible unfolds, we realize, hey, Jesus is gonna come from this family, the one who dies for our sins so that we can spend eternity with God. That's the blessing that was promised. And it takes a while for that to be realized. But all these people had done since then was not keep up their end of the deal. They've disobeyed God, they've uh worshipped idols, they they had done all these sorts of things. And the biggest one was worshiping other gods, which, if you know your Ten Commandments, the first one is you shall have no other gods before me. And here's why that's so important, because if you're truly in a relationship with God, uh you can't be in a relationship with little g gods. You can't be in a relationship with his enemies. Let me illustrate it this way. This is an illustration that uh Louis Giglio came up first, I think. And uh I've heard it a little bit since then. Basically, he he gets a bunch of Valentine's Day cards, right? And he goes to this room of kids, and these three cards, the first one uh is just horrible, right? Like terrible clip art, uh, like it was just printed off. It's got like a super groony, just just gross poem, like roses are red, violets are blue, I like to dance, you have nice shoes. Like it's just awful. Like it doesn't make sense. And he asked everybody, like, hey, if a guy were to give you this card, would you want it? And everybody's like, nah, that's trash, that's garbage, get it out of here. He clearly didn't try. And then he moves to the second card. And the second card is a store-bought card, right? So it's it's not this person's word, it's got some nice art on it, uh, you know, it's got a nice little poem in it, um, but but it's store-bought. And he asked, like, all right, if a guy gave you this card, uh, would you want it? And it was like, yeah, you know, it's it's all good, it's it's great, right? Uh and then he moved to the third card. And the third card is clearly handmade. It's not perfect, but uh, you can tell, like glue stick, like cut out things, put it on there. Like, this guy put effort into that card, right? Ladies, if if a guy gave you this card, how would you feel about it? It's not a rhetorical question. You feel great, right? If he put in effort, like homie, like tried hard to make this card, you'd be like, Yeah, that's great. And everybody's like, Yeah, that's so sweet, he's so romantic. The ass, okay, so like what if what if he's just not artistic, right? Like what if he just can't like he can't make that card? Like, like scissors and glue sticks scare him, right? Like he ends up eating the crayon, he got confused, he doesn't know how it happened. What if he gave you the store-bought card? Like, like, is that okay? And everybody's like, Yeah, yeah, you know, we'll accept it, we'll accept it. It's like, okay, let me ask you this. Would you want this store-bought card if you knew he was giving this handmade card to five different girls? Ugh, yeah, yeah, you don't want that card all of a sudden, right? Like, I don't want this junk you bought from Dollar Tree when this is just an afterthought, right? And they're like this room of kids is like ready to riot, like pitchforks and torches. They're like, get this guy out of here. And we hear that and we're like, yeah, that guy is horrible. But the reality is, so often, guys, we do the same thing with God. Right? We give them a cheap store-bought card that on the surface looks nice, but it didn't take a lot of time, didn't take a lot of effort. It's not really from us. It's just kind of to check the box. And the reality is we're we're giving our best to other gods. And you say, well, well, Garrett, I don't know about you, but I don't worship idols, right? I don't have a statue of Molech or Buddha or Peppa the Pig or whatever in my room. That's good, right? I hope that's true. If you have a bluey statue in your room, like find me after this, we probably need to talk. Um but but the reality is, even in scripture in the Old Testament, idolatry is much more than just worshiping statues. These statues were thought to be the image of a spiritual being. Uh, and there's a lot of debate in scholars and all sorts of things, and you can get down a theological rabbit hole. But the reality is, people, a lot of times now when we think about idolatry, you're like, that's so dumb, they were just worshiping like a block of wood. Uh, but a lot of people, especially in that time and even now, believe, like, hey, there's an actual uh spiritual being behind that idol, and it's not God. Uh, and it's not uh it's not good and it's not kind, right? And so you'll, I truly believe that behind these idols were actual real spiritual created beings, what we might think of today as a demon. Uh, and that's why you see, even in the Bible, like you have pharaohs, magicians can do stuff. How can they do stuff? If if God is the only one true God and He's all powerful, yes, He is the creator God, but He created other spiritual beings that live in the spiritual realm. And they do have power and it's limited, they're created, they're not God as we think of God, and we talked about this last uh semester. Uh, but the reality is there are other spiritual beings at play. And so statue worship might not be what we see in the U.S. today, but I sure do see a lot of people worshiping money or popularity or comfort, control, success, lust, sports, money, body image. The list goes on and on, but but the point I'm trying to make here is that I do believe there's a spiritual force behind these new idols. Right? You see how the love of money can just take a person and just twist them into something evil, right? Who does terrible things. You see, I don't know if you guys uh look in the news, but but you see uh things going on in the Middle East right now. They believe that close to 20,000 people were killed in about two days for protesting, right? And you ask about how does someone get to the point where they can go out and turn a gun on some innocent civilian in the street that they live next to, that they bought milk from last week? And you think there's something broken in them where they've worshipped power or comfort so much that there's a spiritual force at play that just took them and drugged them to the pits of hell. Right? And so there's a real spiritual element behind these idols. And so you have to ask yourself, do I have other gods in my heart?

unknown: 24:20

Right?

SPEAKER_00: 24:21

Does my heart really belong to God or does it belong to comfort, control, success, whatever? And if you realize that, confess, repent. Right? And that's probably not a ceremony, but reorganize your life, right? Praise be to God. On this side of Jesus, we have forgiveness, right? You are not too far gone. But if you look at your life and hey, you're if you're honest, like, hey, I worship at the altar of sports, right? Varsity football is my idol, or a TikTok follower account is my idol, or a GPA is my idol. What needs to change? How do I need to reorganize my life? How do I need to set up things differently? What needs to go? Is it a relationship? Right? Do you need to make a call when you leave here tonight? Is it a responsibility? Do you need to quit something? It might be a good thing, but if it becomes a God thing, it's bad. Is it a habit? Whatever it is, you gotta get rid of it if it's standing between you and God. And that's exactly what Josiah does. And so I'm gonna skim this because there's a lot here. But after the ceremony, Josiah just goes ham. Like Bro goes on a rampage. Uh, he he storms the temple, he drives out everything tied to the god Baal, which was one false god that they worshiped, demon, right? Uh, the asherah and the stars, he burns it in a valley, and then he takes the ashes and he dumps it at Bethel. He fires a bunch of corrupt priests, he tears down their worship sites, and then he takes their idols and he grinds them into dust. He rips out an ashera pole, which is another thing people would use to worship. He demolishes these rooms of temple prostitutes, he he uh desecrates Tophith where the child sacrifices were, he tears that down, grinds it to dust. Uh, he he just destroys everything and he burns it when he's done. And then he just goes back to Jerusalem. And so what I want you to see here is that Josiah started with being convicted by the word of God, and then he recommits his heart to the Lord, right? And and that term recommittal is a weird thing, and we sometimes think of like, well, I gotta recommit. Like we believe in once saved, always saved. When you place your faith in Jesus, if you were truly saved, you were sealed by the Holy Spirit, nothing can separate you from the love of God. But there is this act of, I'm turning my heart back towards him. Repentance is a change direction. If I'm going this way, right? Josiah was going this way with everybody else. He said, I'm gonna stop, I'm gonna turn around. And then you see the repentance with the hands. It's actually followed up by action. The revival that God brought in Josiah's life started in his heart, but it moved to his hands. And that's true of all revival. It has to go from the heart to the hands, right? If you experience revival, right, you you have this uh moment where you're like, everything's changed, but but like nothing actually changes. It was just hype. Uh and we live in church culture that just changes hype. And look, I I love moments and experience. I think that's an important part of following God, right? Moments like camp, moments like D now, but I'm far less concerned about what happens at D now or at Cairo than the weeks afterward. Right? I'm not saying that you need to be perfect, but do you just move on like nothing happened? Or do you press in to God? And for Josiah, he recommits to God. He goes on a rampage, he tears down everything and everyone that could cause Israel to fall back into that false worship because he knew the words of the Puritan John Owen, who wrote a book in the 1700s, and he said this: He said, Be killing sin, or sin will be killing you. A good story about this. A while back, there was a story on the news about the Hansen family. And the Hansen family had this little dog named Pippa. It was like a little like rat, terrier, like barking beanie baby, like one of those dogs, right? Like you could punt it easily if you needed to. Like, like you get a little nervous when you see a big bird circling because the homie could just be like that type of dog. But what would happen is they lived in Australia, which everything that's alive in Australia that's not human can kill you. That's just how Australia works. The spiders, the birds, the mice. It's it's all fatal. And so this dog would go and there was a crocodile on the back of this property, and this dog would go and would bark at this crocodile, and this crocodile would slide back into the water. And everybody thought it was hilarious, right? And this is a true story. Like a news crew would show up and they would film this dog, and they'd think, oh, it's so funny. Like this dog, this little dog scares this crocodile. Uh, but one day, yeah, you see where this is going. Uh the guests came, the cameras is on, uh, and like this legitimately happened and was on video. Um, Pippa ran towards the crocodile like always. Uh, but this time the crocodile didn't back up. Because, hear me, uh, crocodile does not stop being a crocodile just because it has not yet done crocodile things. And that day, that crocodile did crocodile things to poor little Pippa, uh, and Pippa ceased to exist. Uh Pippa was gone. And in one moment, the thing that they treated like entertainment showed itself to be what it always was, it was dangerous, it was deadly. And here's the point, right? That's what sin does. At first, it feels small, it feels controllable, it's not a big deal, it's fun, it doesn't really hurt anybody. You might think to yourself, well, I got this, it's I know when to stop. It doesn't hurt anybody, like, and so you let it hang around and you joke about it, you get comfortable with it, you start to kind of celebrate it, and you convince yourself that you have it under control until one day you look up and realize, hey, it's got me under control. That you can't stop pulling up that hidden browser, that you can't bring yourself to throw away that vape, that you can't stop responding to those late-night snaps and requests, or maybe it's more internal, you're consumed by pride or comparison or greed or whatever. And whatever it is that you at first thought was freedom, you realize, hey, that was actually slavery. I thought I was free to do whatever I want, but in reality, now I can't stop. And just like you don't play fetch with a crocodile, you don't play around with sin.

unknown: 30:18

Right?

SPEAKER_00: 30:18

Christine has an uncle in Louisiana. Uh, and you know what they do when they see a crocodile on their property or an alligator, because it's America? They kill it. They grab a gun, they go out to the pond, and they shoot it. And you're like, well, that's cruel. Like PETA, save the animals. My uncle's got 10 kids. Right? And those kids like to run around and they like to play. And when you understand that that thing wants to eat my child, it's a non-starter. And here's the thing, guys, your sin wants to destroy your family that you don't even have yet. It wants to ruin your marriage that you don't even have yet. It wants to make your kids that you don't have hate you. That's what sin does. And I know it sounds like I'm being extreme and I'm not trying to camp out and be hellfire and brimstone, but I wish I had someone tell me this when I was a student. Because it's true. And the most loving thing I can do is to warn you about it. And so you ask yourself how, right? A quick acronym, we use this before, and we're coming to a close here in a few minutes, is CPR, right? You can write that down. If you're right, hey, how do I kill my sin? I want to start moving on from this addiction, moving on from this struggle, whatever it is, how do I do it? Right? CPR. The C stands for confess, right? Find community. Find a group of guys or a group of girls who you trust. They don't have to be the people that you would normally click with. They don't have to be the people you think of popular as in your friend group. Find people who love Jesus and are willing to love you and meet together, right? And talk to each other. I do this with you guys. Some of the students in here are in groups like this with me. I do this with adult guys that we meet together and we answer three questions. Have you fed your spirit? So how are you growing in your walk with the Lord? What God's teaching you? Have you fed others? Who are you praying for? Who are you sharing the gospel with? Who are you inviting to church? And then here's the one for us today is how have you fed your flesh? Is there sin that you need to confess in your life? Are there secrets that you're keeping? And it's not like a gotcha game of like we want to just beat up on each other. We want to pray for one another. We want to help each other set up boundaries and guardrails, and we'll get to more of that in a minute. But we want to encourage one another. And I tell you, it's both the hardest and best part of my week every single week. Because it's hard to drag something into the light. That sin that you hate, that one that's embarrassing, the one that you should be over by now. But then to receive love on the other side of confessing that, to hear someone look you in the face and say, hey, you're forgiven. I'm going to pray for you. It's a freedom that you couldn't imagine. And confess it clearly, confess it proactively, right? Like confess at the thought level. Think about it like a snowball rolling down a hill. I want to stop that snowball before it gets to the bottom and it picks up speed. So instead of uh confessing like when I want, like when I'm about to go and access that thing I know I shouldn't, confess it when the first thought pops into your mind. Right? And then the second letter, P is for pray. Have people pray for you. When you're tempted, ask, reach out, have a group chat. Say, hey, will you guys pray for me? I'm struggling with this. Hey, I'm having these thoughts, I'm really anxious, I'm really uh like I'm wanting to do this that I know I shouldn't do, or I'm really wanting to lie because it's gonna make it easier. And say, Will y'all pray for me? Will y'all check in on me? And you pray to God. Say, God, will you change my heart, change my desires? Cause me to hate this sin. Cause me to love what you love. And then the R is repent. Set up boundaries. And this is honestly when I counsel people, this is how I can almost always tell whether someone's gonna get better or not. Are they willing to set up boundaries? Are they willing to remove access? Most people, when you talk to them, you realize they haven't even started a fight. All the time I'll counsel people and like I'm just really struggling with this. I'm you know, I'll use the example of of lust. I'm struggling with lust. I'm struggling with pornography, whatever it is. I'll say, okay, well, you know, have you gotten rid of your smartphone? Like, no. Well, have you like set up screen time? No, not really. Do you have like an accountability partner? And they're like, no. It's like we haven't even started to fight. We're not struggling with it, we're just living in it. And I don't say that to shame you, I say that to give you hope that many a times we feel so hopeless, but we realize, hey, I haven't even started because I've just kept this in the dark. You need to set up boundaries, whatever it is. It might be screen time, brick, covenant eyes, throw away your scale, quit your sport, block a number, stop hanging out with that person, break up, throw your smartphone into a lake. I don't care what it is, just make it hard to sin. And I'm not trying to be legalistic here. I'm just saying what Jesus said, right? In the Sermon on the Mount, he says, if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off. If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out. He's not literally calling you to amputate your hand, he's calling you to take sin seriously because it wants to kill you. And look, I can't give you a black and white list of what you should or shouldn't do. That would be legalism, other than what the Bible calls as sin. But the question is, are you willing to kill your sin even if it costs you something? It might cost you your PlayStation, it might cost you a really uncomfortable conversation, it might cost you reputation, it might cost you trust with your parents, it might cost you a relationship. But I'm telling you that choosing not to fight your sin will cost you everything. Because you can't put a true price on freedom. And so as I close, I want to end on this. We've talked a lot about doing this sermon. Hey, hey, you know, discover the word, read your Bible, repent, and that's all fine and dandy, and that's a good discussion to have. But what I don't want you to hear this sermon is that you can work yourself into personal revival. That Garrett told me to clean myself up because I need to get my act together. That's not the message of this sermon. Because you can't. The reality is that you're dead in your sin. That God created the world, everything in it, He made it good, He placed Adam and Eve in a garden and said, I've given you everything, but as your act of worship to me, don't eat of this one tree.

unknown: 35:58

Right?

SPEAKER_00: 35:58

That's your symbol of worshiping me. Right? I'm your source of life. Eat from this tree. And they say, Hey, we don't want to do that, God, we're gonna do it our own way. And they disconnected themselves from the source of life. And in that moment, something broke. And ever since then, there's been something broken, every single one of us. Scripture says, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And we serve a just God. God punishes evil and we want that, but but the problem is we're the evil ones. We're the problem. We all have sin. We deserve separation from him in a place called hell. And God doesn't want that to be the case. And so he sent his son Jesus, who lived a perfect life. Not only never did anything wrong, but did everything he was supposed to do. The new Adam. Where Adam sinned in a garden, Jesus perfectly obeyed. And where it led to Adam's death, it led to Jesus' death on the behalf of others. And on the cross, Jesus became our sin. And so all the punishment we earned for every Friday night that we'd like to forget, for every lie we've told, for every time we've cheated on a test, we've used ChatGPT to write a paper, whatever it is, on that cross, God the Father poured it onto Jesus. So that God's not sweeping your sin under the rug, he's looking at it and he's saying, I'm gonna pay for it. And Jesus went into death, and death had a claim on all of us because we chose death. We chose to separate from the source of life. But death didn't have a claim on Jesus, and so he punched a hole on the other side, and now he has risen from the dead. He is alive, he got out of that borrowed grave, and he offers us a passage to the other side, that we don't have to die eternally, that we might experience physical death, but that's not the end. And Scripture says that if you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that Jesus is Lord, you will be saved. And being saved is much more than just not going to hell one day. Being saved is receiving God's presence inside of you. It's being turned into a new creation. In the moment that you get saved, you are free. So think about that right now. If you're in here and you've got some sin struggle that you've tried to quit a million times, you've got some persisting anxiety or depression that you just don't know what to do with. If you're a believer, right now you are free from that thing. Positionally, you have been set free from the bondage to sin and death because of what Jesus did for you. He took your death. Now you say, well, Garrett, it doesn't feel like it. That's right. You've been in a prison cell your entire life, and somebody unlocked the door and threw it up and now you got to learn how to get up and walk out. And that's what the rest of the Christian life is is I'm experiencing the freedom that I got in that moment from what Jesus did for me. And that's done in community, and that's the process that we talked about tonight. But I don't want you to put the cart before the horse. You need to understand that it all starts with grace, accepting the free gift of salvation. That the God who knows everything about you, everything you'd like to forget, everything you hate about yourself, he looks at you and says, I love you dearly more than you could ever imagine. So much that I go to a cross to die for you so that you can become my child once again, even though you're the one who decided not to be my child. That's how much I love you. And you gotta get that right first.