Righteous Joy | Rediscovering Joy - 2 Kings 23:1-23 | Ben Schoening

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:25

Here this morning. Amen. I love the words of that song. I will build my life on Jesus. I will make him the center of all that I am and all that I do. It's why we named the street Centerstone. Right? So there was this reality of when we pull in here, we're making Jesus the center of all who we are. Man, it's great to be back with you. My name is Ben Schoning. I serve on the team here at Silverdale Apison, and uh I've been gone for a couple weeks. And so I've missed you. I had the opportunity, the privilege to be with one of our sons at um at a campus. I'm grateful for that time, and it is so grateful to be back here with you all. We're gonna be back in the Old Testament in 2 Kings today. We're gonna be in 2 Kings chapter 23. And so you can open up your Bibles to 2 Kings chapter 23 there in the Old Testament. Um worship God when you walked in, um, you can follow along with me. So here's kind of the backstory. I'm gonna I'm gonna refer to this a little bit. Um, and again, we're gonna be in chapter three. We're gonna cover the vast majority of that chapter. I'm gonna bounce a little bit in 21 and 22. But where we're at, kind of in in history as it relates to the Israelites right now, we're we're in the kingdom of Judah. Right? We're in the southern kingdom of Judah, and and God's people, they they've literally lost the book of the covenant or the book of the law. And and and which for them it would have been the entirety of the Bible. And not only have they lost it, but they seemingly haven't really cared that they've lost it. So Josiah is the king that we're reading about here in 23. We we learned last week in chapter 22 that Josiah was eight years old when he became king. And and as he does become king, he he wants to reestablish, he wants to rebuild the temple that his grandfather Manasseh, I'll refer to him a couple times this morning, his grandfather Manasseh before him had basically closed up, had shut down, had locked the temple, and just abandoned it, and then walked away from it. And so we read that here in Josiah's reign, he sends his Levitical priest, Hilkiah, to go back and open up the temple. Here's what it says happens. This is in chapter 22, this is verse 8. It says, Hilkiah the high priest said to Shapim the secretary, I have found the book of the law in the temple of the Lord. All right, imagine that. The word of God is found in the temple of God. And what Josiah does, right, once he learns that the that the book of the law, that the book of covenant has been found, let's read what King Josiah does. It says this in verse 1 and 2. It says, Then the king called together all the elders of Judah in Jerusalem. He went up to the temple of the Lord with the people of Judah, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the priests and the prophets, all the people from the least to the greatest. And he read in their hearing all the words of the book of the covenant which have been found in the temple of the Lord. So Josiah, he gathers all the people together, and notice what it says, he reads the word. He reads God's word to him. He doesn't ask the priest to read it, he doesn't ask his royal official to read it, he doesn't like gather the you know, like the town order or the the you know the best dramatic speaker, best actor to read it. No, he is going to read God's word. He is going to cleanse God's people through the reading of God's word over. Josiah is insistent that God's people return to being holy and being set apart. And I want us to think about this question. Can you honestly say with conviction, I want to be holy? Right? That is to say that I want to be set apart for the purpose of Jesus Christ in living my life in such a way that advances his message. Can you say with conviction, that's your desire? And my hope is this morning, as we we look at this passage, my hope is this morning that our desire to be purified through righteousness increases. You know, the the process of purification is really it's two simple steps, right? There's a rinsing and a washing. When you get in the shower, you're rinsing the dirt off and you're washing with with soap. You know, I know that after the days of yard work, I'm I'm dirty, I'm filthy. I uh if I want to get in the shower, I want to clean off. Right? And that's a good feeling. It's a good feeling when you're clean, when you're purified. I I think all of us at one time in our life have kind of like, man, I need to shower. Right? We've all had that moment where we realize I'm dirty, I'm filthy, I need to take a shower. I I mean, I would say it's a good thing to know when you're dirty. I mean, I would even say it like this it's a good thing to know when you stink. I mean, imagine if you walked in here today, okay? You you haven't changed your clothes since Thursday, and you've been doing yard work all day, Friday and Saturday. It's the middle of summer here in the South. So you have swept through your clothes multiple times over. Additionally, your diet for the last week has has consisted of anything that has a ton of garlic in it. Okay, so you you haven't you haven't picked up bar soap, but you've picked up garlic cloves, you've rubbed them in your hands. Okay, and and and then you've been drinking a lot of onion juice for whatever reason. You just had a you just had a hankering for onion juice. So you you haven't showered, you haven't changed your clothes since Thursday, you haven't brushed your teeth. Maybe if you're a young kid, you've like grabbed a can of axe body spray and did like one spray before you walked in. And you came in here and you sat down. How do you think you'd smell? Probably pretty bad, right? Now, here's the kicker, here'd be more something more problematic. Imagine you had no idea how bad you smelled. Imagine you walked in, you sat down, no clue how how how bad you reek, how offensive and repulsive the odor that is that is oozing out of you is. You you just assume you're just like everyone else. Okay? This is what it must be like. This is what our sin must be like to a holiness and right, holy and righteous God. Right? When we just sit in our sin, when we walk in our sin, when we roll around in our sin, it makes us feel that we have we have no idea just how repulsive that that must be to a holy and a righteous God. This is where we're going to find God's people. We're about 15 generations removed from the first king of Israel. So Saul was the first king, he's the first man king of Israel. The kingdom was taken from Saul, it was given to David, and then King David had a son Solomon, and then after Solomon, the nation splits.

unknown 7:06

Right?

SPEAKER_00 7:06

Solomon's son Rehoboam, who was in line to be king, he was supposed to be king, but then Solomon's high official, his royal official Jeroboam, decides to rebel against the kingdom. And so half of the kingdom goes with Jeroboam in the north, and that's Israel, and then half of the kingdom follows Rehoboam in the south, and that's the kingdom of Judah. Only two generations removed from King David, and already the people are in such sin that the nation of Israel splits. So here we are, 15 generations removed from King David, right? We're in the same line of King David, the man after God's own heart, and we are finding God's people so far from the heart of God that they are their nose, I mean they're forehead deep into sin. I mean, there's all kinds of blatant idols, there's foreign deities, they worship stars and constellations. I mean, there were these egregious occult practices in which they were sacrificing their own children to this God Molech. I mean, and here's what we must realize. These weren't like outside people, these were God's people. They weren't like the outside paganers that wouldn't have known better. These were God's people that were doing all of this. And where do we find this stuff happening? Look what it says in verse 4. It says, the king ordered Hilkiah, the high priest, the priest next in rank, and the doorkeepers to remove from the temple of the Lord all the articles made for Baal and Asher and all the starry hosts. So where was this stuff happening? It was happening in the temple of God. It was happening in church. Imagine if you would have drove up this morning, parked your car, you walked out, and as you're walking in, you saw this gold statue that we had erected of some like local hero here. I don't know, Peyton Manning, right? And so when you walked in, you had to bow to that gold statue. And then when you walked in, we handed you this like 3D printed idol that anytime music was played, you had to kiss and then bow down to. And then in the center of the room, we cleared it out and we put this pole here, and every week you had to bring gifts and lay it at the feet of the pole so that you could have kids and that your children would be blessed. How many of you would come back next week? Good. My hope is that none of you would come back next week. And yet, this is what we find happening here with God's people. How in the world would so many of God's people gone along with this? How in the world would so many of God's people followed along with this? And what we must realize, before we kind of press into the text a little bit more, we must realize not only what sin is, we know that sin is anything that goes against the law and the nature of God, but what does sin do to us? And let's make it personal, right? What does sin do to me? Well, first of all, sin defiles me. Sin defiles me. Sin makes me filthy. Sin makes me wretched. Sin makes me stink. Our sin is not a behavioral condition before it's a heart condition. And the problem with sin is the filthy roots that embed and weave into our own hearts. Our sin stains our hearts. I mean, if you get a little bit of dirt on your hands, it's not a big deal. You get some water, you rinse it off, you get some soap, you wash it off, and dirt's gone. But if you get like, if you get permanent ink or dye on your hands and you try to rinse it off, it doesn't come off as easily. And and when the book of the law, which would have been the entirety of the Old Testament, was found, Josiah recognizes how filthy he is. We read this last week in chapter 22. It says when the king Josiah heard the words of the book of the law, he tore his clothes. I mean, he was he was sickened, he was disgusted. He recognized how filthy people were. For a couple summers when I was young, about 13 or 14 years old, I worked with a couple older guys, and we would lay the slurry coat on asphalt, right? That top coat of asphalt. But we didn't have a fancy machine to do it. We had 55-gallon drums that that like hot tarry substance was in, and then I would take a five-gallon bucket and dip it in there and then dump it on the ground. These guys with long squeegees would spread it. Now, these these guys were smart. They were older, they were smart. They would wear jeans and like long muck boots, right? But I was the kid, and of course I'm the one dipping the bucket into the 55-gallon drum. But I'd get hot, so I'd wear shorts and tennis shoes. Problem is that hot, tarry substance, it gets on your legs, it doesn't come off so easily. In fact, a lot of days I'd have to grab a rag and like soak it in gasoline and then scrub my leg in order to thin it out, right? Just to scrub it off. This is what sin does to our life. It makes us filthy, it defiles us. I mean, I I I've known people who have walked so long and so far into their sin, they become unrecognizable. I think of one guy, he was a friend of mine, who, man, when he was walking with the Lord, he was a joy to be around. He was a lot of fun, he was lighthearted, he was really easygoing. But then when he had an affair and he left his wife and his kids, he became this mean and hateful jerk. Right? Sin makes us filthy, sin defiles us, but also sin deceives me. Sin lies to me. Sin tricks me. And the lies that we believe when we give way to sin are unbelievable. I mean, let's go back, let's go back, a little bit of history here. Josiah is this young king. Again, his grandfather Manasseh, the wickedest king in Judah's history. And then even Josiah's own father, Amon, he wasn't all that great either. But Josiah's great-grandfather is Hezekiah. Hezekiah is one of the most righteous kings. And so you had people, you had Israelites, you had God's people that were serving, that were following under King Hezekiah. King Hezekiah dies, his son Manasseh takes over, and almost immediately Manasseh convinces God's people to walk away from righteousness and start pursuing all of the pagan traditions that had happened before. I mean, let's read. In chapter 21, 2 Kings 21, verse 2, it says this: Manasseh did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, following the detestable practices of the pagan nations that the Lord had driven from the land ahead of the Israelites. So, how could people who were under King Hezekiah, who were following the righteous ways of God, how could they so quickly abandon that, do this in about face, and start following Manasseh in these evil, evil, wicked ways? How? Lies. That's how. They started believing lies. Listen, I hate to give the enemy credit, but he's been at this for a really long time. So he's really good at being really bad. In fact, I'll say it like this the enemy is the best at being the worst. John 8 refers to him as the father of lies. And I mean he he lied after lie after lie. And there's a lot of lies that even as Christians we fall prey to. Five common lies that many Christians fall prey to. Lie number one, I'm not enough. I'm not enough. Right? This feeds off of comparison. And in our in our social media-driven culture and society, we are constantly comparing ourselves to others. And we can so easily fall prey to this lie of I'm not enough. Man, I'm not successful. I can't keep up with their with their vacation pictures. I mean, you see their feet, they're perfectly tan, glistening in the sun. I can't, my feet don't look like that. Right? I'm just not enough. Lie number two, I'll never change. I'll never change. And listen, more often than not, at least for me, when I hear this, it's not in like this downcast kind of sullen tone. It's this very arrogant bravado of I'm not gonna change. Right? I mean I'm just I'm just a really blunt person. I just tell people the way that things are and they just have to accept it. I mean, hear the arrogance and the pride in that? Right? That hey, listen, my opinions, my thoughts are always 100% valid and they're never erroneous at all. So you better heed every word I have to say, because I'm just a blunt person. Right? That's just who I am. I don't have to change. That's a lie that many people fall prey to. Lie number three, I'm all alone. I'm all alone. No, no nobody, nobody understands me. Nobody, nobody walks in my shoes, nobody cares. And this lie keeps us isolated. This lie keeps us from having meaningful and real connections and friendships and relationships. Lie number four, what I do doesn't matter. Right? What I mean, my my my title, my stat, it's so inconsequential. It has no impact on anyone. Or maybe, maybe, you know, yeah, yes, I do have a I do have a high title, I do have a high status, but it's not directly related to kingdom work. And so in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't really matter. And then line number five is it's too late for me. It's just too late for me. I mean, I was I was young at one time, but man, I've just I'm too old now. God, God can't, he can't use me. I had had had I had I done what I should have done when I was younger, man, God could have really done something cool with me, but it's just it's just too late for me now. I mean, these these are these are lies that oftentimes Christians fall prey to. I I think if we're honest, maybe there's a lie or two that we have fallen prey to. Well, let's just let's just take one of these lies and let's let's extrapolate it a little bit and apply it to Josiah's life. Let's just pretend that Josiah, for a second, would have believed the lie of I'm not enough. I mean, he was eight years old. So of course Josiah could have easily been like, I'm I'm eight. Who in the world's gonna listen to an eight-year-old? If if I brought in an eight-year-old and stood him up here and I said, hey, from now on, this eight-year-old's running the church. How many of you would be very confident in the direction of this church? Right? And no jokes about like, well, more confident than the guy running it now, right? Josiah, Josiah doesn't do that. Right? Or what if what if Josiah would have thought, you know what, yes, I want to make these changes, but man, I've seen this play out from generations before me. I know that we're just gonna revert back, we're gonna regress back, we're gonna fall back into our sin. And so, I mean, what I do can't be enough to sustain long-term change. Josiah doesn't believe that lie. Right? Again, these sin will deceive us, sin will deceive me, sin will defile me, sin will deceive me, and then ultimately, sin will destroy me. Sin will will absolutely and utterly destroy me. And we know what the results of sin is. It says in Romans 6, the wages of sin is what? It's death. Sin will utterly destroy me. Again, I want us to imagine, I want us to imagine that we're we're we're back in King Hezekiah's time, now Josiah's great grandfather. We're back in that time, we're we're all serving under King Hezekiah. We like King Hezekiah, he's a good king, he's a righteous king. But now King Hezekiah dies, his son Manasseh takes over. And and very quickly, Manasseh changes. He stops pursuing righteousness and he and he starts pursuing sin. I mean, just consider for a moment. I'm gonna read, I'm gonna read five verses out of 2 Kings 21. And I just want us to imagine us now following Manasseh in this direction. It says he, meaning Manasseh, built pagan altars in the temple of the Lord, the place where the Lord had said, My name will remain in Jerusalem forever. He built these altars for all the powers of the heavens in both courtyards of the Lord's temple. Manasseh also sacrificed his own son in the fire. He practiced sorcery and divination, he consulted with mediums and psychics. He did much that was evil in the Lord's sight, arousing his anger. Manasseh even made a carved image of Asherah and set it up in the temple, the very place where the Lord God had told David and his son Solomon, My name will be honored forever in this temple and in Jerusalem, the city I have chosen from among all the tribes of Israel. If the Israelites will be careful to obey my commands, all the laws my servant Moses gave them, I will not send them into exile from this land that I gave their ancestors. But the people refused to listen. Manasseh led them to do even more evil than the pagan nations that the Lord had destroyed when the people of Israel had entered the land. When we let a little sin into our life, it causes us to be susceptible for infection. One of the young men, the boys I worked with when we first moved here, he was a 14-year-old. He lived down the Chatsworth Dalton area. It was just he and his mom, and his mom had some pretty significant mental health issues. They lived in this old kind of dilapidated trailer. And I'll say that that hygiene was not one of their top priorities. And this this young man, this 14-year-old, he had he had gotten a cut, a relatively small cut on his leg, but it wasn't taken care of. It became infectious, it became more problematic for him. He wasn't able to walk, he battled constant health issues, and eventually he developed MRSA. Right? And this and this this infection, I mean this wound that really could have probably been treated with like soap and water and maybe a band-aid, eventually became so infectious that sadly it took this young man's life. This little bit of sin, this little this little wound opened up this great infection. This is what sin does to us. I mean, it wasn't too long ago that I did a funeral for a man who started drinking a little bit in high school and then he smoked a little weed and then turned into a methodiction and ultimately ended in fentanyl poisoning. I I mean we see with with families all the time where where you know a man thinks, I can I can I can message this old friend. And then eventually they decide we should we should meet up, even though they're both married. And and sadly, that lust-filled, selfish message ends up in the the destruction of two families. When we let a little bit of sin into our life, it will it will defile us, it'll make us filthy, it will lie to us, ultimately it's gonna destroy us. But now what we're gonna see with King Josiah, he he's going to stop pursuing this sin. He's gonna run after righteousness. He has seen the results of what sin does, and he's gonna pursue righteousness. And so let's consider now what righteousness will do to me. Righteousness, first of all, will cleanse me. Righteousness cleanses me. And listen, I don't want, I don't want any of you to hear me saying anything anything to the effect that Jesus' blood is not enough. It's only through the work of Jesus Christ on the cross that I have any hope of salvation. It is not my works that I have been saved. It is through grace and grace alone in Jesus. Righteousness, my righteous acts do not save me, but my righteous acts they cleanse me. When I purge sin for my life and I walk in righteousness, it cleanses me. Look what it says in verse 2 and 3. It says, He, meaning Josiah, read in their hearing all the words of the book of the covenant that had been found in the house of the Lord, and the king stood by the pillar and he made a covenant before the Lord. King Josiah, he he is again, he's resolute, he's adamant. That we are going to walk in righteousness. You know, a couple thousand years later, Paul will write these words in Romans hate what is evil and cling to what is good. Right? Get rid of this evil in your life, purge it from your life, and hold on to righteousness. And so I want us to be mindful. I'm going to read several verses here. I want us to be mindful of the efforts that King Josiah made to purge this sin from the kingdom of Judah there. I'm going to read these, they're abbreviated a little bit, but I think it's important that we grasp this, that we read this. I'm going to start in verse 4. I'm going to read through verse 15. It says, Then the King Josiah removed from the Lord's temple all the articles that were used to worship Baal, Asherah, and all the powers of the heavens. He had all these things burned outside Jerusalem on the terraces of the Kidron Valley. He did away with the idolatrous priests, for they had offered sacrifices at the pagan shrines throughout Judah, and he also offered sacr and also offered sacrifices to Baal, to the sun, the moon, and the constellations. The king removed the Asherah pole from the Lord's temple, took it outside Jerusalem to the Kidron Valley, where he burned it. Then he ground the ashes of the pole to dust. He threw the dust over the graves of the people. He also tore down the living quarters of the male and female shrine prostitutes that were inside the temple of the Lord, where the women wove coverings for the Asherah pole. He defiled the pagan shrines all the way from Giba to Bersheba. He destroyed the shrines at the entrance of the gate of Joshua. He defiled the altar of Topheth in the valley of Ben-Hinnam, so no one could ever again use it to sacrifice a son or a daughter in the fire as an offering to Molech. He removed from the entrance of the Lord's temple the horse statues that the former kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun. He then burned the chariots dedicated to the sun. Josiah tore down the altars that the kings of Judah had built on the palace roof. The king destroyed the altars that Manasseh had built in the two courtyards of the Lord's temple. He smashed them to bits. He scattered the pieces in the Kidron Valley. He desecrated the pagan shrines east of Jerusalem to the south of the Mount of Corruption, where King Solomon of Israel had built shrines for Ashtarith. He smashed the sacred pillars and cut down the asherapoles. Then he desecrated these places by scattering human bones over them. He tore down the altar at Bethel, he burned down the shrine and ground it to dust, and he burned the asherapole. You can't for one second tell me that Josiah did not find all of this purging and destruction of sin extremely therapeutic and beneficial in his life. I mean, he didn't have to do this, by the way, in order for the Lord to be pleased with his heart. The Lord knew that Josiah was pursuing him in the right way. But as Josiah looked around and he was so convicted by the reading of God's word, he had this deeper conviction to purge this evil from his life. I mean, he looked around and all he saw was idolatry and addiction and immorality. He despised it. It had to go, so he hopped on his bulldozer, he grabbed his blowtorch, and he just went into full obliteration mode. Some of us need to do this in our lives. Some of us need to go into kind of an obliteration mode in our life. Some of you need to go home today and clean out some cabinets in your kitchen. Some of you need to go home today and get rid of some apps on your phone. Some of you need to purge some people from your life. Right? Some of us need to get rid of some habits, some addiction. Look, I don't care if we're talking about drug and alcohol or if we're talking about slander and gossip. They're just as wicked, they're just as evil as the idols and the poles that we're talking about here. Righteousness cleans pursuing righteousness cleanses me. I need to pursue righteousness. It cleanses me, but also righteousness will guide me. Righteousness will lead me. Righteousness gives me the path, the direction that I'm supposed to be on. It says this. And the king stood by the pillar, made a covenant before the Lord to walk after the Lord, to keep his commandments and his testimonies, his statutes with all his heart, all his soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book, and all the people joined the covenant. Have you noticed how like the social, the moral laws, the kind of the cultural laws, they seem to be moving targets?

unknown 26:53

Right?

SPEAKER_00 26:54

I mean, these moral laws keep changing. It wasn't too many years ago, it wasn't too long ago. I mean, you you can find video clips of some of these like pulp culture people in the media, not too many years ago, where they would be mocking this notion that gender is fluid. I mean, they would just say that that's just some radical, ridiculous notion. Now, those same people who just a few years ago mocked that as being hyperbole are now saying, no, that's always been true. Gender fluidity has always been a thing. Well, what happened? How in the world did you change? Well, the moral laws changed. But this happens even within the church. Nearly 60% of Christians report that cohabitation is just fine among non-married couples. Right? Marriage rate's down, cohabitation rate is up. 60% of Christians say, ah, it's okay. It's okay if, you know, boyfriends and girlfriends live together, sleep together, play house. Even though the Bible is crystal clear, Hebrews 13 says, marriage should be honored by all, the marriage bed be kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and sexually immoral. Ephesians 5 says, Among you there must not even be a hint of sexual immorality or any kind of impurity or of greed because they're improper for God's holy people. But what's happened? Well, compromises happened.

unknown 28:09

Right?

SPEAKER_00 28:09

We haven't allowed righteousness to guide us, we've just let the moral laws guide us. Those constantly change. But but God's word has never changed. His laws, his commands, his plans for righteousness, they've never changed and they never will. Have you ever been hiking and you've seen one of these signs pop up where it says stay on the designated path, stand path, right? Don't veer off. They have to put these signs off because somewhere along the line, people have tried to veer off and look for a shortcut. And they end up, you know, they end up damaging the area or causing harm to themselves. But Proverbs 3 says, Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. Or in Psalm 119, it's my favorite chapter in the Bible. Psalm 119, verse 105 says, Your word is a lamp to my feet, it's a light to my path. Righteousness will guide me. Righteousness cleanses me. Righteousness guides me. But then finally, righteousness restores me. Righteousness restores me. It says this in verse 21. The king Josiah commanded, all the people keep the Passover to the Lord your God as it is written in the book of the covenant. I mean, the Passover celebration, this was God's great reminder to his people that they were his people. That was the Passover celebration. I mean, this would have been the one thing that God's people should have been looking forward to more than anything else. I mean, it was their, it was everything for them. Passover was their Christmas, it was Easter, it was their 4th of July, it was everything to them. And yet somehow they've abandoned the Passover celebration. They've lost sight of who they are. Because it says in verse 22, it says there had not been a Passover celebration like that since the time when the judges ruled in Israel, nor throughout all the years of the kings of Israel and Judah. I mean, you what they're telling us is that people stopped celebrating the Passover. I mean, can you imagine if if you walked in here and you told me we're gonna stop celebrating Christmas? I'd laugh at you and I'd go in like full Walt Grizzle mode and just be obnoxious about it. And yet, this is what's happening here. God's people had seemingly forgotten that they were God's people and they stopped celebrating it. They allow sin to so defile them, sin to so deceive them, and now sin to ultimately destroy their identity. They forgot the best part of who they were. They were gods. They forgot to celebrate that. Let me just say it simply put like this. You ever wonder why it feels right to do right? When you're about to sin, you're about to steal something. I mean, you can you kind of look around, you get this, you get this like pit in the gut of your stomach, right? Saying you probably shouldn't do that. Well, you don't have that same feeling when you're about to be generous. When you're about to express gratitude or thanks. You don't have like your conscious telling you, oh, you shouldn't do that, that's wrong. No, we we of course we don't. It says this in Isaiah 54. It says, in righteousness you shall be established. You shall be far from oppression, you shall not fear, from terror, it shall not come near you. We're supposed to be established and grounded and rooted in righteousness. I mean, Ephesians 4, it kind of says the same thing. It says, to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. When we act in righteousness, it's almost as if acting in righteousness restores us not to our factory settings, but to our heavenly settings. Remember, our factory settings are sin. We are inherently evil. But when we pursue righteousness, when we walk in righteousness, that we realize this is always the direction I was supposed to go in. I was always supposed to be walking in righteousness. When we as Christians call ourselves, when we confess ourselves as Christians, when we profess ourselves as Christians, we are saying, I don't want you to see me anymore. I want you to see Christ in me. This is in so many ways the significance, the incredible gift and the power of communion. It's quote what we're saying when we when we eat the bread, when we drink the juice, we're saying, no, his, I want my flesh to be his flesh. I want I want my blood to be his blood. And that's how we're gonna close out today. We're gonna we're gonna share in communion together. My hope is that you you grab one of these when you walked in. If not, we can have a couple deacons that we'll just kind of walk the aisles, you can signal them if you need communion. But this is this is the joy of communion, the beauty of communion is that we are in Christ. That that our life is hidden in Christ. His flesh becomes my flesh. The blood that that flows through my vein, we need to think of it as this is Christ's life working in me. But in 1 Corinthians, it does say this. It says that before we take communion, we ought we are to examine ourselves. We are to we are to identify if there is unrepentant sin in our life, we need to give that up. We need to confess that. So we need to take a moment right now and examine our life. If there's sin that we haven't dealt with, we need to confess that before the Lord. So let's do that for a moment right now together. Your mercy, for your grace. Ultimately, Jesus, I want my life, I want my hands to be your hands, I want my feet to be your feet, I want my eyes to be your eyes, I want my mouth to be your mouth, I want my mind to be your mind. And ultimately, when you when you sat at that last supper with your disciples and you grabbed the bread, and it says you you you took it, you gave thanks for it, and then you broke it. You said, This is my body broken for you. So now, Jesus says, we we consider this bread. May that be true of us. The one we're saying thank you, but we're saying we we want our lives to replicate, to mirror your life, Jesus. So that what we do, what we think all comes from you. We thank you for your body in Jesus' name. Let's take this together. You said this is this is the blood of the new covenant. You were establishing a new covenant, a paid and full covenant. A covenant, Jesus, that only you, only you could establish, only you could fulfill. And you demonstrated this love by pouring out your blood, but by by also allowing us to identify as you and saying now it's it's your blood that courses through our veins. So God, the reason that we have life and hope of life, Jesus, is because of you. And we drink this and we say thank you in Jesus' name. Let's drink this together. Let's respond now. Let's stand together. Let's worship our King. Let's consider the covenant that we want to be reminded of this morning. That we will pursue righteousness as we identify in Christ, we are going to pursue righteousness with our whole life. And if there's any way that we can pray with you or pray over you, let us do that this morning. I can be available. Our prayer team will be forward for prayer. Let's respond. Let's worship our king together.