Life Lessons of Judah’s Kings – Part 6 (Pastor Jeff Shipley)

Now I want you to pay attention. It wasn't anything in Israel. It wasn't their military size.

It wasn't the type of people they were going to have. We're finishing up, and this will be abbreviated, but we're finishing up the

Kings of Judah. This is part six of what's turned out to be six. And we're talking about a guy named

Josiah. Not that Josiah. This is a greater pastor.

Much greater pastor. He was a good man. Good man. And what's really cool about this one, especially for you agnostics, is it is such a time stamp in world history.

If you want to get the flavor of this, you can look up, on a later date and time, the

Battle of Carchemish in 605 BC. That is what Josiah was involved in.

It changed world history. It changed from the Assyrians being the dominant world power to the

Babylonians. In other words, it changed from the Iranians and Assyrians to the

Iraqis. And it changed world history in a lot of ways. In fact, we are still living in that world history or the effects of it today.

But unfortunately, that is for a later time when we study eschatology.

I guess the main thing I would leave you for today is non -Christians in the room, quit playing church.

Quit relying on your morals because they are both going to send you to hell. For you believers in here that keep messing up, there is hope.

If you look at all five of the kings that we have talked about, each one of them said, and he did what was right in the eyes of God all the days of his life.

But yet we look and we see these guys messed up profoundly.

Some of them even consistently. Yet because of that imputed righteousness, because of that sweet grace, we have been counted righteous and rendered innocent.

And we can stand before God not based on our own works, or not based on our own faith, but that which through regeneration was given to us.

2 Kings 22. And this is a contrast with the book of Chronicles that we have been reading.

Remember, the book of Chronicles was written 300 years after the events that are depicted when they were in Babylonian captivity.

And they said, how did we get here? And so, Ezra, we think, wrote the book of Chronicles and said,

Hey dummies, this is how we got here. This is how we messed up. This is why we're in the position we're in.

Whereas 1 and 2 Kings were written in a contemporary fashion. 2

Kings 22. I want you to check this out. Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign.

And he reigned 31 years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Jedidah, the daughter of Adorah and Bozkath.

They got picked on a lot in school. And he did what was right in the eyes of the

Lord, and walked in all of the way of David his father, and he did not turn aside to the right or the left.

For those of you, you remember when you were first converted? For you old

Baptists, that's when you got saved? When were you saved, chronologically?

Before the world, before the foundation of the world. You were converted, in other words, that in which

God's sovereignty was complete, in by grace and by love, you recognized it in conversion, at whatever date that was.

You remember when you were first there, when you first believed? Remember what it was?

I don't know about you, but I know about me, man. And I'm just telling you about me.

This doesn't mean this is what you had to think and feel, but I remember a 500 -pound weight being lifted off my chest.

That's what it felt like to me. I remember walking around just like, wow, this is the best high

I've ever had. Wow, this is awesome. I remember feeling pure and clean.

I remember feeling accepted. I remember feeling peace for the first time in my life.

I wish I could say that feeling stayed with me. It didn't. About a year later, my mind had gotten distracted.

I don't know about you, but that still happens to me today. Have you ever been praying, and then you're thinking about Texas being in the playoffs and Tennessee not?

I know, man. It's sad. They cheated. We got our rear ends handed to us.

Shut up, Mike. Can you say that you have walked in the sight of God and done what was right all the days of your life?

Here's the cool part. You can't, but God can. When God sees me,

He doesn't see my failures. He sees the imputed blood of Christ. When God sees me,

He doesn't see what I woulda, coulda, shoulda. He sees His sovereign, immutable will completed in my life.

When God sees me, He sees His Son adopted, set apart, sanctified, justified, and one day, praise

God, glorified. And if you're in here today, and you are your own worst critic, you in this room, you're always looking at how you fail.

Let me encourage you this week. Maybe take the perception of you off of you, and maybe you look at Christ and what you could be, and let

God look at you at what you are. Because if you're always looking at your failures, you're going to constantly be in the fetal position on the floor saying,

I woulda, coulda, shoulda. And that is a miserable way for a Christian to live. I understand conviction.

And I praise God, I do, for conviction. For it is in that conviction that I know my destiny is secure, not by the act of conviction, but by the act of conviction only on those who

He calls His children. Remember, ladies and gentlemen, we are not all

God's children. We are all God's creation. Only through the adoption, by the atoning blood of Christ, can you hope to be a child of God.

Verse 8. Jerusalem at this time is under peril.

They've lost a lot of their political power. Remember, Judah is the only two southern tribes that are left.

In 722 B .C., the Assyrians had done take the ten northern tribes of Israel away into captivity, never to be seen again.

Chortle, chortle, chortle for all of you post -millennialists in here. But the two southern tribes,

Judah and Benjamin, are still around. They just aren't as strong as they used to be.

But man, something changes. Something changes. A country literally is reborn again.

It says in verse 8, in Hikayah, the high priest said to Shapan the secretary, I have found the book of the law in the house of the

Lord. And Hikayah gave the book to Shapan and he read it. And Shapan 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 oversight of the house of the

Lord. See, even back then they had general contractors. And notice they had to empty the house of the money to pay off them general contractors too.

By the way, this sermon is brought to you by A &R Contracting. A &R Contracting for all of your general contracting needs.

Hey, y 'all hired me. Guys, what is today for then for those of you that are believers that curled up in that fetal position?

Is it really Merry Christmas? I mean, really? No, man.

It's a time for you to have that second, third, 835 ,000th second chance.

And here's how you do it. You just got to clean it up a little bit. Here's why

I hate Christmas time. I'll tell you why I hate Christmas time. I love this.

There ain't no other place I'd rather be in the whole world than right here with you people. That's why I love Christmas time.

Why I hate Christmas time is because my wife feels that unless she has 337 little

Christmas trees all piled up on what used to be a clean, neat, squared away, obsessive, compulsive, wonderful, nice, clean area, it ain't

Christmas. Unless there's garlands and lights and just everywhere. It's just like, oh, how much more?

I don't like it. I like everything clean and neat. I like everything white and right back where it was.

White as in white walls, not this white. My favorite time is the day after Christmas because we get to put all that stuff back away and everything's back to normal.

Are there any OCD people in here besides me? Can you feel what I'm saying? I mean, my gosh.

I love that kind of house cleaning. That's what Judah had to do.

You see, let me explain this to you. They were so busy going to a church building they forgot to be the church.

And they let clutter and money and politics and religion and theology pile up.

They were living by a set of rules that had started with the Word of God, but people added to them over and over and over again until they didn't even know what the

Word of God had originally said. My gosh. Oh, how time repeats itself.

I'll never forget Christmas time in my church in Nashville when I was a pastor there.

A lot of old school folk there. And I remember saying one time in a sermon that me and the kids and the wife had been playing

Monopoly. And this little old lady, you know, one of them old religious hags, came to me after the sermon and said,

Pastor, you played Monopoly with your family? And I was like, see,

I didn't grow up in church, right? Yeah? You rolled dice?

Yeah? I never had heard this before. You ain't supposed to roll dice, Pastor.

That's gambling. Woman, what kind of crack are you smoking? Are you serious?

You see, we do it in our own lives too. God gives us the Word of God and it sets us free from the law of sin and death.

But because we need to feel holiness and look holiness because we're chasing after a peace that can only be found in submission to God and His Word, we try to use religion to make us feel better.

We try to use morals to bring us closer to God and yet we always fail because God told us from the

Word, Go, you will not be able to obey this law. This law will condemn you.

Oh foolish Galatians, who have bewitched you? Have you begun in grace, now made perfect by the law?

It will never be. And that's part of the reason why you constantly woulda, coulda, shouldas.

Because you're always trying to obey a law or a set of rules when

Christ has set you free. And instead of living in that grace, you constantly go back to the trough of moral or religious understanding.

And you get upright. You get strong for about 24 hours.

And then you right back into pig slop again. And then you'll say, why bother? Why try again?

I'm just gonna fail. Welcome to the Christian life. You see, the grace of God bids you come.

And it never stops bidding you. The grace of God is like Alina or Ava.

Oh my gosh, Ava is insane. Where is Ava? She's somewhere around here.

Little Ava Shipley. I was riding in the car with Pastor Josiah. And I love doing this to Pastor Josiah.

I'll go, Josiah, why is the sky blue? And then

I just wait. And Ava, I can see the little wheels turning. Dad, why is the sky blue? And for like 15 minutes, she will not shut up and just go on and on and on and on.

And I love Pastor Josiah because he will patiently answer each question for a little while.

And then I go, payback's rough, ain't it, boy?

The grace of God. Yeah, it comes through conviction sometimes. But the stronger pull of the conviction of the

Holy Spirit is the grace in which He bestows in place of that conviction under repentance.

You see, God's grace is not just a feeling. It is a state of being.

If you're in this room today and you have failed multiplicity of times,

I mean, they can't even be counted. I want you to obey God's grace just one more time.

And just one more after that. And one more until God calls you home to glory. They found the book of the law.

Now here's where folks get messy. They want to repent. My marriage is in trouble.

I need to get back into church. I've fallen off the wagon again. I need to get back into group.

And accountability in both those places is great. But remember this, accountability without standing in grace is always going to lead you back to the failure you started with.

But when you stand in the power of God's grace, when you try to get sober on your own, it doesn't really work too good.

I can tell you how many times I sat there and said, as I was puking into the toilet,

I'll never do this again. And I was doing it again.

But that day, I was telling them young men back there, young kid back there said, man,

I don't believe you don't smoke weed anymore because you look like a dude who smoked weed. Yes sir,

I did. A bunch. A bunch bunch. But I can tell you in 34 years,

I've been dead cold sober. I'm dead serious. I'm not joking. And I can't say praise

Jeff because man, you can put an eight ball on that table right there, I'd bust every bit of it. You put a pack of Marlboro Reds on that table,

I'd chain smoke in a box. It has to be in a box. I'd bust every one of them.

But by the grace of God, I stand. You see, sometimes we got to go back and find the Word of God again.

What they found in that church building, what they found in that temple was the book of Deuteronomy.

And they took time to read it and they saw what God said and they saw what they were doing and it didn't match up.

That's some of us in this room today. You know what you should be doing because God's Word says it but you're not doing it.

Watch what they did. Verse 13. It says this. Josiah and the priest said, this is what we need to do.

Inquire of the Lord for me and for the people and for all of 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 within.

Guys, if a church accepts you, whoop -de -doo. If you're in good stead in a religion, it ain't going to do you no good.

But if you're doing everything that's written according to here within, you're going to know the peace that you're searching for.

I promise you that. Your whole life will change. And dads, moms, if your kids are in abject rebellion, if your life and your marriage is in absolute shambles,

I promise you, you can go talk to a pastor, you can go whatever you've got to do, but at the end of the day, talk to a friend, pastor, whatever, but if they're not pointing you back to the foundation of God's Word, they ain't doing you no good.

They ain't doing you no good. That's why religion is so stupid, y 'all. Because it points to itself rather than pointing to Christ.

Guys, if you want to be set free, quit trying to be obedient to man's rules and be set free in the freedom of God's grace.

I'm almost done. I want you to look at verse 19.

Well, pastor, I've done this before. I've walked down the aisle and accepted

Jesus as my heart and Savior. I know some of y 'all get tired when I say it like that. I'm going to keep doing it.

Because there's so many people going to split the gates of hell wide open because they relied on a prayer in a

Baptist church rather than the grace of God that set them free. There ain't no aisle in the

Word of God. There ain't no sinner's prayer in the Word of God. There ain't none of that in the

Word of God. That's man's invention. See? That's the religion I'm talking about. And some of y 'all have trusted in that.

I'm not fussing at you. I'm just telling you, come on over here to the grace side. Man, the cookies are so much better.

So much better. Look at this. This is what God said to Josiah. Verse 19.

Because your heart was penitent... I always think Raiders of the Lost Ark when

I say that word. Don't you? It's just like penitent, penitent. Anyways, that's the word repentance.

Because your heart was repentance and you humbled yourself.

Hey, marriage problems. Drug problems. Attitude problems.

Life problems. I'm telling you, listen to me. Or don't listen.

I don't care. But I'm telling you, humility will change your life. It will. I'm telling you it will change your life.

You a drunk? Okay. Yeah? Life stinks. I know. I just got to say this.

War people, y 'all back me up. If I'm wrong, correct me. A guy said, yeah, I drink every day, but I can control it.

That's all the drunks laughing at you and your stupidity. Yeah, you an idiot. You an idiot.

Oh, and if that offends you, you're an idiot too. But guys, watch this. It says, because your heart was penitent and you humbled yourself before the pastor and the

Southern Baptist Convention. Oh, I'm sorry. You humbled yourself before the

Lord. Yahweh. When you heard how I spoke against this place and against its inhabitants that they should become a desolation and a curse and you have torn your clothes and wept before Me, I also have heard you, declares the

Lord. Pastor, I don't feel like my prayers get further than the ceiling.

They don't. Pastor, I feel like me and God are this far apart. Okay. What are you asking me?

Because I ain't the failing doctor. Oh, you want to get right. Repent and humble yourself before the

Lord. Pastor, how do I do that? The word repentance simply means this.

Simply means this. Watch this. I'm walking towards the piano. I am walking towards the big screen.

I can't do both at once. You see, repentance is by one default turning away from sin, but in the absence and the vacuum of that, it's turning back towards God.

Here's what some people do. I need to quit drinking and turn to the Lord.

I need to get right in my marriage and turn to the Lord. I need to do this.

I need to do that. I need to do this. Okay. And turn to the Lord. You cannot do one without the other if you want to be healed.

And I know some of you grew up in church. I'm looking at this demographic right now.

Except for a couple of you old people. And you grew up in church. This almost makes me want to vomit when

I hear this. You were wounded in church. Okay. Okay.

I got you. Let me go in the kitchen, get a little butter, and put it on that wound for you. Okay? Let me bandage it.

That's old school. Let me bandage it up for you. And I'm sorry that happened to you.

But you are going to ruin your life living in unforgiveness and hatred expecting the other person or people to hurt.

Guys, that's no way to live. Be set free. Some of you say, well, my parents were hypocrites.

Well, okay. At some point, you're going to have to quit blaming them, take responsibility, humble yourself, and repent.

You can't go through life coming up with excuses of why you're disobeying God. Because at the end of the day, it's your choice.

Last thing. Josiah in chapter 23.

I'll close with this verse. Verse 27. And the Lord said, I will remove

Judah out of my sight as I have removed Israel, and I will cast off this city that I have chosen,

Jerusalem, and the house of which I said my name shall be there. Now, this is for you agnostics in here.

And if you answer this question, I will rip up my Bible and I will never preach God's Word again.

You explain to me how a nation, a city, a culture, a language, and a people vanished from any historical reference or map for over 2 ,000 years.

And now they're back. In 1949, Israel became a nation again.

That has never happened in the history of the world. There ain't no

Roman citizens. There's Italians. There's no

Louis XIV citizens. There's no Phoenicians. None of that stuff exists.

Guys, God said here, I'm going to wipe them out just like I did

Israel. Here's the cool part. When God punishes you as His child, your condition might change, but your position as His child does not.

Man, I go to sleep every night thinking about that because I'm a big, fat, stupid loser.

But every night I'm assured of this. He who loves me will never leave me nor forsake me.

My prayers sometimes I feel don't get further than the ceiling, but God hears me because of grace.

I feel sometimes like I'm this far apart from God, but I'm not.

Because in God's sovereignty, no matter how much I fail, He promised me through the grace of His name, through the grace of His Word, and through the blood of Jesus Christ, that everyone who comes to me

I will in no wise cast out. It's Christmas time. Forget religion.

Forget church. Forget all that stuff. Just put it over here.

And ask yourself, where do I stand before God? Where do I stand?