Sunday 12 • 31 • 17

Let's turn our attention now to God's word. We're going to be looking at Second Kings 22 and 23, and before I read the passage, let me just say a couple of things.

First of all, several months ago, Jeff says to me, "Hey, you know, we're going to order CBR journals—Community Bible Reading journals—again this year," and man, it's so great. So many people are learning to study God's word from this, and I think it'd be really great if, you know, the last sermon of the year we encourage people to pick up these CBR journals and jump back in. Some people have kind of fallen off of that. Wouldn't it be great if we could just talk about the beauty of God's word and how excited we are to be studying it together? And I said, "That's great. That's a great idea. You should do that." And he said, "No, I think you should do that because I'll be on vacation." And I said, "Okay, great. That sounds wonderful."

I picked this passage from Second Kings, and I was really excited about it. And then we started preaching Romans, and we got all the way through Romans 7, up to Romans 8. And a couple weeks ago, I realized I traded out the opportunity to preach on Romans 8 in order to preach on Second Kings 22 and 23. For those of you who don't know, for a reformed pastor, Romans 8 is like we just start salivating and stuff. Anyway, I've been telling myself all week: all of God's word is God-breathed and useful for teaching, and I'm excited to be preaching on Second Kings 22 and 23.

Context for the Story

This is a long section. It's a big story, but it's a really great story. I'm only going to read selections because I don't want to be here until next year literally. But I'm going to give you a little bit of context for this story.

In Second Kings—well, Kings in general—it has traced kind of the history of Israel as a nation. It starts out as a unified monarchy under King Saul, and then continues as a unified monarchy under David and a unified monarchy under Solomon. But then after Solomon, the kingdom splits into the Northern Kingdom and the Southern Kingdom. You have Israel in the North and Judah in the South.

Israel, almost all those kings are bad. It's not very long before God basically brings in a foreign nation to carry them off into captivity. The Northern Kingdom is wiped out, and all that's left is the Southern Kingdom—the Southern Kingdom which is in the line of David.

Those kings, some of them are pretty good, and some are really bad. It kind of goes up and down, up and down. There's warnings. God sends prophets to warn them to repent. There's this ebb and flow of good and bad kings, and there's this kind of overarching desire like, "Man, if we could just get a lasting good king." But eventually the Southern Kingdom, in their unfaithfulness, falls away and is carried off into captivity in Babylon. And that's essentially the story of Kings.

This section comes at the very end. What we're going to hear is the story of Judah's last good king: King Josiah.

Reading the Passage

Now let me read this passage. Second Kings 22, starting at verse one:

Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned thirty-one years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Jedidah, the daughter of Adaiah of Bozkath. And he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord and walked in the way of David his father. He did not turn aside to the right or to the left. In the eighteenth year of King Josiah, the king sent Shaphan the son of Azaliah, son of Meshullam, the secretary to the house of the Lord, saying, "Go up to Hilkiah the high priest that he may count the money that has been brought into the house of the Lord, which the keepers of the threshold have collected from the people." — 2 Kings 22:1-4

I'm going to pause there because I'm going to skip a section, and I just want to explain what happens. Josiah has raised money to repair the temple. The temple has been desecrated. It's being used for the worship of false gods. And Josiah wants to repair it, to repair what has fallen into disrepair, and essentially remove the worship of idols. So he hires workmen to do that, and they go about the repairing of the temple and provides money for that.

Skipping down to 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 hands of the workmen who have had the oversight of the house of the Lord." — 2 Kings 22:8-10

Then Shaphan, the secretary, told the king that Hilkiah the high priest had given him a book. And Shaphan read it before the king. When the king heard the words of the book of the law, he tore his clothes.

Now pause again because we're going to skip a section. Josiah responds to the reading of God's word and he's horrified at how far off Israel is, Judah is, from what God's word has set apart for them. And he consults a prophet about what's going on and then he responds.

This is chapter 23, verses 2 and 3:

And the king went up to the house of the Lord and with him all the men of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem and the priests and the prophets, all the people, both small and great. And he read in their hearing all the words of the book of the covenant that had been found in the house of the Lord. 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 the covenant that were written in the book and all the people joined in the covenant. — 2 Kings 23:2-3

And the king commanded Hilkiah, the high priest and the priest of the second order and the keepers of the threshold to bring out of the temple of the Lord all the vessels made for Baal and Asherah and all the host of heaven, he burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron and carried their ashes to Bethel. — 2 Kings 23:4

And pause again because it's a long section where Josiah just rips apart all of the idols all throughout Judah. In the whole book of Kings, there is no single example of a king ripping down more idol worship centers than Josiah. That's this whole section.

And then picking up in verse 21:

And the king commanded all the people, keep the Passover to the Lord your God as is written in this book of this covenant. For no such Passover has been kept since the days of the judges who judged Israel or during all the days of the kings of Israel or of the kings of Judah but in the eighteenth year of King Josiah, this Passover was kept to the Lord in Jerusalem. Before him, there was no king like him who turned to the Lord with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might according to all the law of Moses nor did any like him arise after him. — 2 Kings 23:21-25

This is God's word. Thanks be to God.

Israel Lost God's Word in Plain Sight

You know, I think the striking thing from this passage, the thing that's so amazing, the thing that captivates me about this story, is that you have Israel, you have Judah, you have the kings of Judah in the line of David, a people of God that he has set apart for himself, that he's given them his word and they lost it. But worse, they didn't just lose it. They lost it in plain sight. It was just hanging out in the temple. The workmen find it. Notice it's not Indiana Jones or Laura Croft that go to the temple and they have to find some sort of labyrinth to get down to find the book of the law. No, it's just sitting there in the temple and they lost it.

You kind of feel like, how could Judah, Israel, all these kings have lost this book for hundreds of years? The book that we think they lost is probably the book of Deuteronomy, the book of the covenant. It may be the entire Torah that this section is talking about, but we're sure that it was at least the book of Deuteronomy that they lost for hundreds of years. Lost it in plain sight.

And I think when you read this passage, you're meant to be shocked. This passage is supposed to be shocking to you. How could they do this? But I think if we're honest, we can relate.

A Lost Bible

Let me tell you about the first story that comes to my mind as I think about this passage. About a year ago, I was preaching at another church in North Raleigh and I preached two services, got done with the sermons. We were hanging out with all the people of the church. The kids were out on the playgrounds. I was talking with people out there and it got to be time to go. I was like, these kids are driving me crazy. Let's go home. So I start to pack up and I'm looking and I can't find my Bible. I can't find it anywhere. I'm looking on the playground. I go back into the sanctuary. I'm looking around. I look in the pulpit where I was preaching. It's not there. Can't find it anywhere. I go back out to the minivan where my wife is and I say, Katie, I can't find my Bible. I'm going to go in and look one more time. You go on home.

So she packs up the kids and goes on home. I go back in. I look one more time. I tell the pastors of that church, someday, you're going to find a Bible in here and it's a really important Bible to me. It's a Bible that the church, this church, gave me when I was ordained and so it's really important for me to find it. So I told these guys, look for it. It's black. It's really nice. It's the perfect size.

It's got this nice leather. When you find it, call me and they say, "Okay, sure we will. Don't worry. We'll find it. It'll turn up." And then I get in the car and I drive home and I'm driving down Falls on the Neuse Road and as I'm driving, I see something in the road. There's this book in the road and I drive right over it and I said, some person put a book in the middle of the road. And then it dawns on me. Wait a minute. I must have put the Bible on top of the minivan when Katie drove off. Can't believe it made it all the way down to Falls on the Neuse Road. Took me about two blocks to have this realization but I pulled over. I walked back. I walked into the middle of the road and I picked up my Bible and here it is. There it was. Some pages were bent. It had been run over by countless cars. But it was fine. And I had still my favorite Bible.

You know what the moral of this story is, right?

The grass withers and the flowers fade but the word of the lord shall endure forever. Even if it's run over by cars on Falls on the Neuse Road.

I think of that story because it was like the Bible was right there. It was in plain sight. I couldn't find it. I couldn't see it. And I didn't even realize that it was mine until I had run over it with my car on my way home.

But I think often that's the case with us. So often, God's word ends up hidden in plain sight for us. It's right there and there are just so many different ways in which this happens. Let's talk about how I think it may have happened to Israel and see if you can relate to some of the ways.

I'm speculating here—the passage doesn't say here's how they forgot about the book of the law. But Israel's decline really talks about it kind of beginning in many ways. It goes all the way back but with Solomon. Solomon who was incredibly wise, he was given the gift of wisdom. He was given the gift of wealth. He had this incredible kingdom but towards the end of his reign, he essentially sells out to foreign gods, the gods of his many wives. And I wonder if that wasn't the time that the book of the law started to be neglected.

You know, in Deuteronomy, it actually says that every king was supposed to make a personal copy of the law. They were supposed to get it approved by the priest and make a personal copy of the book of Deuteronomy for their own personal reading. Clearly, that hadn't happened. I wonder if Solomon in all of his wisdom didn't start to think, "You know what? I've mastered that. I don't need to give that any attention. I copied it once. I've studied it. I've learned all I can from that. You know what? There are other gods for me to explore. Other things for me to look at." I wonder if that's what happened to the book of the law in Israel.

You know, I know that happens in my life. In our house, I have this big diploma on the wall and it says, "Master of Divinity." Every now and then, I walk by and I go, "I got a Master's of Divinity" and I get a little excited about that and I probably shouldn't. That's probably really vain and there's probably a lot of hubris that goes with saying, "I have a Master of Divinity. I've mastered the divine." God's probably in heaven going, "I beg your pardon. You have not."

But a lot of times, that's my approach to God's word. I'll start to think, "You know, hey, I need to go and I need to spend some time in God's word. So, I'm going to go read the book of Mark or I'm going to go read the book of Second Kings or the book of Romans. I'm going to spend some time studying it, soaking in it, reading it." And you know what I tell myself? "I've already read it. I've already read it multiple times. I took multiple classes on that book. I've heard sermons preached probably five to ten times on that passage. So, I've mastered the divine. I'm good. I think I'll take a pass. I'll just think about what I already know about the passage." And my Bible becomes hidden in plain sight, lost.

My wife, who's infinitely smarter than I am—you all know that, right? Yes, you do. She's infinitely smarter than I am. She sometimes has the opposite problem. She has Master's degrees in other things and sometimes she starts to read the Bible and she feels like, "I don't understand what's going on here. I'm not sure that I'm really clear on what's happening."

I think that maybe some of you—and I wonder if that didn't happen in Israel as well. As the years went by and this book was neglected, I wonder if some other people turned it up and they started reading it and the language was hundreds of years old. It was talking about all kinds of obscure things that maybe they didn't understand and they thought, "You know, I'm not sure I can understand this" and they left it and the Bible became hidden in plain sight.

I think for some of us, sometimes we think that God's word is unapproachable—like we can't understand parts of it. The daunting task of getting into it and reading it is overwhelming. Instead of thinking that we're too smart for the Bible, we think that we're so alienated from understanding it that God himself can't work through it to impart understanding to us. It's a different kind of arrogance, but it results in the same thing. The Bible winds up hidden in plain sight because we don't essentially believe that God can do anything with it and with us.

I wonder what possibly would happen if they didn't disconnect from what the passage—what the Bible was about. If it was the book of Deuteronomy, right? We're talking about kings that are hundreds of years later, and the book of Deuteronomy is really about the people kind of coming into the land and remembering things like the Passover and God's deliverance of people out of Egypt. That was hundreds of years ago. Did they disconnect from that? Did they discover that and think, "Oh, this is some sort of historical archive. This is some sort of book about the past"?

Don't we sometimes do that with our Bibles? We think about going and reading it, but we feel disconnected from it. We think, "This doesn't have anything to do with me. This is about something that happened thousands of years ago." So we leave it on the shelf and instead go find some sort of devotional literature that's about some current event. We read that instead. Sometimes we feel disconnected from the Bible and then allow ourselves to lose it in plain sight. I think we do.

When I was at Saint David's, we had these constant debates. We had a curriculum, and it was a Christian school, so we wanted the Bible to be a part of the curriculum. But where does the Bible go in the curriculum? Does it go in the history department? Does it go in the English department? The Bible is history. The Bible is also literature—rich literature. Maybe the philosophy department. Yeah, religious studies. Where does the Bible go? A lot of times we wrestle with that because we never wanted the Bible to be relegated to one of those disciplines. It's not something that you study. It's not a discipline that you're meant to master, right? It's something that's meant to master you. But often times, we feel disconnected from it. It feels like this long-ago history—disconnected thing—and it becomes hidden. I wondered if that didn't happen to the Israelites.

Another thing that I wonder is: I think it's pretty clear from the book of Kings in general that the people were wildly distracted by idolatry. Throughout the book of Kings, that is the biggest struggle. The people are always turning to idols. Idol after idol after idol after idol. There's a rhythm to their lives that is totally geared towards worshiping all these different idols. I wonder if that didn't crowd out—in fact, I know it did—crowd out their attention to God's word. I wonder if we allow ourselves to do that.

I was talking with Michael before the service about liturgies of our lives. Sometimes we get into a liturgy of different things—whether it's the news that we read or the entertainment that we consume or the sports that we wildly commit ourselves to. That fills up our lives, and there's no space for God's word. And what happens is that the liturgy of the world starts to frame our understanding of the Bible, and we start to relegate it to one of those categories: "Well, that's an old historic book that has nothing to do with what's going on in the world today."

My wife has this picture. She had it when we got married, and I hated it. I was like, "We are not putting that up in the house." For years we didn't. Then we did an addition and painted our bedroom a different color, and she just kind of put it in there. For some reason, the color of the room just really drew out the beauty of that painting for me for the first time. It's in our bedroom still. How you frame your understanding of the world is important. The liturgy—that's why we have such a rich biblical liturgy here when we worship God—is because we want God's word to frame our understanding of everything. When we allow the liturgy of the world to frame our understanding of it, it radically changes what we perceive. We want to be a people where the word of God frames our reality instead of the other way around.

We can't allow reality to frame God's word because if we do, Satan will use that as one of his many devices to hide God's word in plain sight. I also wonder if some of the challenge that they faced in ancient Israel is that the word had become kind of a legalistic chore. They had this thing in the temple. It was this thing that they were supposed to do and they started to think of it as the way in which they obtained righteousness. Do you ever do that? I think we all do. I think evangelical culture struggles with this a bunch.

In fact, most of you when I started preaching this sermon, you thought in your head, "Okay, here we go. Here comes another guilt trip about how I don't read my Bible enough." Isn't that what you thought? When I was thinking about preparing this sermon, that's what I thought. I'm going to have to give another guilt trip to everybody about how they don't read their Bible enough. And that's what the Bible often comes for us—this sense of shame. I don't read it enough. You might think even that's where the sermon's going. Spoiler alert, it's not.

This source of shame where it's like, "I don't read my Bible enough and therefore I'm not a good enough Christian. Therefore, I must not be good enough for God. He's frowning at me. He hates me." You know what happens when you start thinking about that mindset? Satan uses that and you start to think, "You know what? I'm never going to be good enough. There's just no point in trying," and you're just going to leave that thing on the shelf hidden in plain sight.

Then there's another group of you—a smaller group, probably like three of you. You read your Bible every day and you're doing great. When you heard that I was preaching this sermon, you were like, "Yes. Finally, I'm going to hear about how great I am, right?" And we tend to do that where we read the Bible and we start to feel good about ourselves and we think, "Okay, we got it all together." You know what? The message of the Bible becomes hidden even as you're reading it. It's right in front of your face. You're reading it and it's hidden in plain sight because you think that the activity of what you're doing is saving you instead of what the message of scripture is all about—and that's Jesus Christ.

I wonder if it didn't become a legalistic thing for ancient Israel and it became hidden in plain sight. One way or the other, it certainly was that way when Jesus showed up and the Pharisees were around, wasn't it?

I think another thing that may have happened is that over time the priests and the kings who were responsible for keeping God's word, for bringing it before the people—I think over time they started to think, "You know what, in not reading this, in neglecting it, we're only hurting ourselves." Don't you sometimes think that? Like, you think, "Okay, I'm a Christian, I'm saved by grace. I know that there's great benefit in reading God's word, but not reading it—really, I'm only hurting myself. It's no big deal. Jesus has saved me anyway. So leave it on the shelf, hidden in plain sight."

The problem with that is that God's word is a gift that's not just given to you. It wasn't just given to the kings of Israel. It wasn't just given to the priests. It was given to the people. Your copy of the Bible, your copy of God's word, isn't something that he just gave to you.

I think it's really beautiful that this church gave me this Bible and I use this Bible when I preach to preach God's word to y'all. You know why? It's because God's given this as a gift to all of us. We preach it to each other. We remind each other of God's word. And as you grow in your knowledge and understanding of God's word, as you become steeped in it, as you revel in it, as you rejoice in it, that becomes infectious and that spreads back and forth from me to you.

You share passages that you study this morning. That's why when we do CBR in this church, one of the things that we've started doing is encouraging people to get in text groups where you text each other as you're reading God's word—things that you're finding in God's word that you're excited about. Because it's not just meant for you. It's community Bible reading because God didn't just give you this word for you. He gave it for all of us to share.

The people, the kings, the priests of Israel—they forgot about that. And scripture became hidden in plain sight. And it happens to all of us and it's a terrible shame. The bottom line is that Satan will use anything, any device that he can in order to keep us from actually receiving scripture as it is designed—as a gift.

Because several things happen. Several amazing things happen when we come into contact with God's word and his Spirit enlivens our hearts. Listen to what happened in this passage.

Notice that there were four things that happened, four specific things. The first thing that happened, verse 11, what does Josiah do? As the book of the law is read, what's the first thing that he does? He rips his clothes like Superman, right? Like, I'm Josiah. I'm coming to the rescue. No. He rips his clothes. He's sorrowful. He's convicted. Why? Because as he comes into contact with God's word, it shows him, it reveals to him how short Israel has fallen, how short he as a king has fallen, how short God's people have fallen, and that they have no hope in and of themselves of salvation. They have nothing and so he has nothing but godly sorrow. He's distraught. Ripping your clothes in the Old Testament, that's just about as distraught as it comes. Sackcloth, ashes, all of that, right? That's what he's doing.

When we read God's word, that's what happens to us. Don't we become convicted? And isn't it great? Don't you love that? Isn't that why you love reading scripture? You're like, man, I can't wait to get into God's word this morning so I can be convicted of all of my sin and I can find out how awful I am. That's what I think. No. No, that's an incredibly hard thing but I want you to see it's an incredibly beautiful thing because what it leads to is essentially a process by which God like shows and reveals to us our idols and how infinitely small and weak we are apart from him. He reveals to us our need for him but more than that, he reveals his beauty.

Notice the second thing that happens. Verses in 23 verses two through three. Let me read it again:

And the king went up to the house of the Lord. This is after he tears his clothes and freaks out. 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 priest 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 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. — 2 Kings 23:2-3

Why did he do that? He has no hope in and of himself. He has no hope. He's rent his garments, right? Why does he go and make a covenant with the Lord? It's because in the book of Deuteronomy, God reveals himself to be so faithful even when people are faithless. He reveals the power of his salvation from Egypt. He's reminded of that and in that process, he becomes enamored with how beautiful God is and instead of worshiping the idols, instead of running to them for hope, he says, our only hope is this beautiful, amazing God that is laid out here in the scriptures and that is why being convicted is such a beautiful thing is because it makes space for us to adore God and to see his majesty and his beauty and his splendor. We're convicted and we become enamored with the beauty of God.

Notice the third thing. Verse 23 verses four through really 20. It outlines Josiah's reforms where he tears down all of the idols. We talk a lot about idolatry here. We all know that we struggle with idolatry. You could probably all tell me, hey, here are my idols. Here are my rude idols. Here are the different things that I'm distracted by that are good things that have become ultimate things that have taken the place of God in my life and I repent of them and I'm struggling with them and I hate them and probably some of you have even explored to some degree how they have enslaved you and how they're miserable, right?

That was certainly the case in ancient Israel. Their idols were terrific. The worship of these false gods, it was terrible what they had to do in order to worship them. They had become enslaved to these idols. And imagine how heartbreaking it is, was for God who loved them so much that they had given themselves to these terrible idols that would never offer them any hope. But we all do that, right? We all run to idols and we all want to do battle with them and we think we can fight them on our own but we can't. We need God's word. We need to be reminded of the beauty of who Christ is and how God loves us in order to replace our love of these false gods that rule our lives.

So the third thing that coming into contact with God's word is is that you turn from idolatry and then the fourth thing and this is really important. I want you to catch this. In verse 23, chapter 23 verses 21 through 23.

And the king commanded all the people, keep the Passover to the Lord your God as it is written in this book of the covenant. For no such Passover had been kept since the days of the judges who judged Israel or during all the days of the king of Israel or the kings of Judah. But in the eighteenth year of King Josiah, this Passover was kept to the Lord in Jerusalem. — 2 Kings 23:21-23

It seems like if you just read that passage real quickly, you might think the Passover wasn't kept at all from the time of Judges until the time of Josiah. That's not what it's saying, and we know that's not true. The Passover was kept periodically during that time. What the passage is saying is there was no Passover like this Passover. There ain't no Passover party like a King Josiah Passover party. Essentially, that's what it's saying.

When we come into contact with God's word, when our hearts are actually steeped in it and we realize the amazing love of God who forgives us even in spite of our shortcomings, even in spite of our idolatry, how loving he is, how he even sacrifices his son for us—it leads to a celebration, to a party, and not just a personal little private party. Like, a big party. There ain't no party like this party.

Do you remember? Remember when you were excited about the gospel? Remember when reading God's word, when you would encounter the message of Christ freshly and you would get excited and you would rejoice? How many of us have forgotten that God's word does this to our hearts? And we've hidden it in plain sight. That's what Satan wants. He wants us to hide it away. He wants us to lose it, and many of us have. In fact, if we're honest, all of us have, to some degree or another, in some way or another. And all of us always will lose it.

You know, Josiah was the last good king. It didn't last for Judah. This last point of the sermon that I want to point out to you is: how did they find God's word in this passage? Notice, did they all get together and say, "Hey, we're resolved to find God's word. Let's get a search party together. Let's go find it"? Did they say, "We're going to read this thing together"? There was something of a resolution, right? This is New Year's after all, right? It's the time of resolutions. Any of you do that? Does anybody do that still? No, everybody else? A couple of people? Yeah, good.

Resolutions aren't bad, by the way. Some of us like to do them. Some of us don't. It's fine. Resolutions aren't bad. They're only bad if you think you can do them in your own strength.

Jonathan Edwards, the Great Awakening pastor, had 70 resolutions that he made. If you ever want to see how to do resolutions, check out Jonathan Edwards' resolutions. It starts out at the beginning with this very important clause. He says:

Being sensible that I am unable to do anything without God's help, I do humbly entreat him by his grace to enable me to keep these resolutions so far as they are agreeable to his will for Christ's sake.

And he did actually resolve to study Scripture. Number 28, he says:

Resolve to study the scriptures so steadily, constantly, and frequently as that I may find and plainly perceive myself to grow in the knowledge of the same.

So there's nothing wrong with resolving to read God's word. There's nothing wrong with that at all. But that's not how they found it in this passage.

How did they find it? God gave them a king. Do you see that? God gave them a king—a king who is faithful to rebuild the temple, who is faithful to deliver to them God's word, and who is faithful to apply it to them. God gave them a good king.

Do you know how we experience God's word? How we find it? We find it because God gave us a good king. We just got through with Christmas, the whole celebration of Christmas. We did lessons and carols. How does that end? John 1, right?

In the beginning was the word, and the word became flesh and dwelt among us.

One of the many things that Christ did in his administration as our king is he came and he brought God's word to us. He not only brought God's word to us, but he ensured the application of it by sending his Spirit into our hearts so that as we read God's word, our hearts would be enlivened with understanding and we would rejoice and give thanks for the gift that it is.

Our problem is that so often we think that discovering God's word is up to us, but it's not. It's something that Jesus Christ has already secured for us, and it is a gift that we get to revel and rejoice in. It's something that we get to celebrate.

That's why when we give out these CBR journals, we say, "Hey, I don't care if you do it every day. It's okay. It's not some sort of new legalism that we're trying to enforce on you."

It's just something that we want to remind you—just like as you're driving down the road, we want to put a book in your path that reminds you that once upon a time, your great King Jesus gave you an immeasurably great gift in giving you his word and reminding you in written form, in a love letter of how much he loves you and from so many different facets and directions and in so many different ways that you will spend your entire life reading over it and over it and you will never exhaust the depths of the ways in which God tells you how much he loves you in this book.

We give you the CBR journals because we want you to remember that hidden in plain sight is God's word. We want to invite you—an invitation from your King Jesus—to return to it and to revel in the gospel that is found in it. And not just to revel alone. That's why it's community Bible reading: to revel together. Please, read God's word and come tell me about what you find there.

We did that text chain earlier this year and there were a number of you who were on it with me. Thanks to all of you, by the way, because so many of you found things in Scripture that I didn't see and it helped me to rejoice in Jesus Christ.

The Party and the Passover

We need to get to the party, the celebration that our King has appointed for us to celebrate his goodness. The Passover—that's what it was. The celebration of God's deliverance from Egypt. It's a picture of God's deliverance of us from our sin. Something that we celebrate when we get together. We go through a liturgy of the word and then we get into the party. We celebrate it together, the feast, right? Where we talk about how much God loves us. Let's eat together. Let's pig out on the amazing love that our God has given us.

My hope for CTK is that we would become a community that is so rich by Scripture that we recognize it to be the gift that it is—that as we preach the gospel to one another, we would become more and more a people who celebrate and revel and rejoice.

The Unopened Gift

We were in Florida for Christmas and it was great being in Florida. We had five stomach bugs, a case of pink eye, an ear infection—always, always, always a party, always fun with our family. I actually got the stomach bug on Christmas morning. We opened stockings and then, well, you don't want to know. Needless to say, I was in bed for the next day. My Christmas present sat under the Christmas tree unopened. Very sad for like two days. Finally, I got to open it and I was like, yes, I'm finally getting to open my presents and it was exciting. But I was kind of sad that it had to sit there for two days.

For some of us, that's what happens. Jesus, the incarnate word, came and gave us this love letter and it sits unwrapped under the Christmas tree. But he wants us to open it. He wants us to dive in and start to experience what's inside of it and to rejoice in that.

The New Year Party

And then, as we get to New Year's, right? New Year's is the party. A lot of you don't think about New Year's as a party that God is involved in, but God loves a good party. God's word and his gift to us is meant to lead us to a party.

Let's think about CTK. How can we revel in this party together as we go through God's word? Let's turn now to the party. We'll use the liturgy that's printed in your bulletin as we prepare our hearts.