The Right Playbook
“Then the king called together all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem. 2 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. He read in their hearing all the words of the Book of the Covenant, which had been found in the temple of the LORD. 3 The king stood by the pillar and renewed the covenant in the presence of the LORD—to follow the LORD and keep his commands, statutes and decrees with all his heart and all his soul, thus confirming the words of the covenant written in this book. Then all the people pledged themselves to the covenant.” 2 Kings 23:1-3
Intro: It is great to be in church with you today and to worship and sing and praise together.
There are lots of awesome things going on each week here so you don’t want to miss a single Sunday.
Every week I hear people talking about Sunday morning worship is the highlight of their week.
I hear how encouraged you are by the warm welcome and genuine love by the people in this place.
Today we are hosting the Johnson Central football team at the 10:45 Prayer Clothe Service.
I am going to share again just a little bit of the opening from last week’s Prayer Clothe Service.
To set things up for today.
I am the father of two grown children. They both loved to play football.
There is almost a four year difference in their ages.
So I was very involved in football for over a decade.
I worked the concession stand as a dad and did my tour as President of the Football Boosters.
My oldest son Brandon could not get enough football.
Out of high school he played for the Knoxville Knights a simi-pro branded team.
Here is a picture of Brandon
Another picture of Brandon with the love of his life my granddaughter. She is on her way to becoming 6 now.
Trent is my youngest son and he also loved to play football:
Here is a picture of his junior year of high school.
See his name at the top team lift 585 lb.
That makes my whole body hurt just to say that.
He is a beast.
(He played rugby at Eastern Kentucky University)
Here is another picture of Trent and his girl friend Taylor.
The title of today’s sermon is “The Right Playbook”
I remember going over the high school football playbook with my boys.
The front of the playbook had some basic comments about good sportsmanship.
There were illustration of basic signals and calls by the referees.
The playbook contained descriptions of different team formations.
Diagrams of the both offensive and defensive plays for the team.
Some were the most frequently used tactics and others were sets of special plays.
The playbook contains a set of codes for each play,
so you know exactly what to do, what your position will be and if executed just right - make a successful play.
It is important to study the playbook, to keep up with the playbook to make sure it did not get lost.
Jason Brookins tried out for the NFLs Green Bay Packers.
After one day’s work out with the team, as the evening wore on,
There was a knock on his door and the voice of the assistant coach,
Brookins, coach wants to see you, bring your playbook.
Now during tryouts this warning usually means that someone was to be cut from the team
and that warning might be it for Brookins.
So Brookins became very upset.
In fact he was so upset and worried over this that he started going crazy.
Instead of doing as he was told to do and go to see the coach with his playbook,
he packed up his things,
left his playbook,
turned off his cell phone, and left for the long, discouraging, drive home.
He couldn’t face the rejection.
However, as it turned out, the coach
simply wanted to update some information in his playbook for the next day’s practice.
But without gathering enough courage to face the possible consequences
and now without his playbook, he was also without a job.
To an NFL Player, the playbook is the most important part of his life.
It is their guidebook, it is their life. Without a playbook, they are without a job.
Tom and Mat were best of friends, they played football once a week for 50 years.
As they were getting older they had an argument if people play football in heaven.
So they made up that whoever dies first will let the other one know what happens in heaven.
After Mat dies he comes to Tom in a dream and tells him, “Sure enough. You were right!
They do play football in heaven. Not only that, they have your name for starting quarterback!”
“Oh wow!!! That’s great!!!” Tom replies.
“Well,” replies Mat. “That’s Not that great, they have you playing in tomorrow nights game!”
There is truly a marvelous story in 2 Kings about a type of playbook.
Josiah, was one of the greatest kings to ever rule Israel,
his reign started when he was only eight years old.
2 Kings 22:2 says “he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord.”
Later on in 2 Kings, the story is told of the high priest finding the Book of the Law
which had been neglected, unused…, and lost for years.
This book could have contained the Pentateuch or the first five books of the Bible.
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy .
Those books are a type of playbook that contained pretty much all the laws or rules up until that time.
But the playbook had been lost.
King Josiah wanted to do what was good and right
but he really didn’t have much to go on up until the book was found.
This caused Josiah to tear his clothes and plead with the Lord
to not punish Israel for their disobedience to God’s Word.
Josiah read the Book of the Law or the Book of the Covenant publicly
Strongs Bible Concordance uses the word beriyth ??????? meaning a league or a team as being in the same beriyth
We Josiah and the people of Israel were in a covenant with God.
They were in the same beriyth or in the same leaguge or team of God.
This was the first league with the Lord along with his people
(2 Kings 23:3) to obey the Lord with all of his heart and soul.
Everybody likes a good story.
This is a really good story about Josiah who is renovating the Temple of the Lord.
While they are remodeling the Temple they find this book.
(it was not like a book we have, it was a scroll…, a piece of rolled up wood or papyrus.)
Just imagine with me…
They have carpenters, and brick layers, and builders.
They are all doing what carpenters and brick layers and builders do… right?
While they are doing what construction workers do…
The priests are there in the temple also.
The builders and brick layers and carpenters say, we going to tear out this wall and open up this space.
You need to move the stuff out of the sanctuary so we can do the demolition and remodeling.
So the priest are moving the candle sticks, they are carrying the table up front, the song scrolls,
whatever they had in the temple back then.
As they are moving all this stuff around.
One of the priests finds this scroll.
He says, “I have found the Book of the Law in the Lord’s Temple.” 2 Kings 22:8
This is really crazy.
It would be like me coming into this sanctuary.
Moving the book off the bookshelf over there.
While I am moving those song books, and there are some offering envelopes,
and some upper rooms and devotional books.
I find a bible.
AND THE PRIESTS IS LIKE HERE IT IS. I HAVE FOUND IT.
The Bible. It was here in the church all along.
You have got to listen and understand what is happening here.
Use your imagination just a little.
They are remodeling the temple. Making some repairs.
When they start moving stuff around.
The pastor finds a bible laying in the temple.
This doesn’t seem so unusual to us at first
because we would expect there to be a bible in the church right?
If you look around this church today you there are half a dozen bibles in every pew.
There is a dozen or more bibles on that shelf over there.
We put the words of the bible up on the screen
You can pull up the bible on your phone and have over a dozen different translations or more.
So finding the bible in the church should not be such a surprise.
But when we read and learn and understand that for many years the kings of Israel had been evil
and had done what was sinful in the sight of God.
They had neglected the ways of their ancestors who obeyed God.
They had refused to follow the ways of the Lord.
They had turned to worship idol gods and abandoned the Lord God.
It was so bad that they had lost…, the bible.
You think How could they just lose the bible.
There was not even a bible to be found in the church.
Yet I ask you…, if we are really honest…, is the world we live in today…, all that different?
I want you to think with me about a word you probably have heard many times in the church.
It is the word Repentance.
I want to be a little creative. And use the word Repentance as a football term.
If Repentance were a football term it would mean changing the plays.
I. Repentance (Changing Playbooks)
The discovery of the Book of the Law in the Temple
The discovery of the Book of the Covenant
The discovery of the right play book.
during Josiah’s renovation is about as good as they come,
because God’s word is a treasure that is priceless.
God’s word is the right book of plays for your life.
The world has its own playbook.
A lot of people like to make up their own plays.
But one of the worst type of player on a team is one who doesn’t want to follow the playbook.
They either don’t know the plays.
Teams run drills over and over again.
They run the same play in practice over and over again.
So when it comes game time.
The play is called for.
And the ball is snapped.
Everyone knows fake left go right whatever the play is
Everyone knows what is supposed to happen.
Coach you correct me if I am wrong
One of the best things is when everyone on the team knows the plays
It results in less offside penalties
It results in less open up a holes
Fewer quarterback sacks
Knowing the plays can win or lose games.
This is the story of Lost and Found,
This is a story about a young man.
He was just a boy.
He was younger than any of you.
He was only 8 years old when he became King.
And he ruled 31 years.
He was in a unique category of Kings.
He was really a great leader.
He had over 250 professional wins.
And he did what was pleasing in the Lord’s sight and followed the example of his ancestors.
He did not turn aside from doing what was right.
The Book of the Law wasn’t just found accidentally.
God chose to reveal his Word,
which is to say that God chose to reveal himself to Josiah and the nation he led as king.
God could have made that choice at any time in the previous kings’ reigns,
Yet he chose to reveal it to Josiah.
Why because Josiah had a willing and had a repentant heart.
Josiah decided to use a different play book than the Kings before him had used.
I am not going to use the wrong playbook.
The one where we run wild and unchecked.
The one where we abandon doing what is right.
Where we do what is wrong and sinful.
Where we forsaken God
The one that left the nation in ruins.
The one that left the temple fall apart.
The one that end up in disaster and trouble and our enemies came and plunder and defeat us
because we have turned away from God.
Josiah said, I am not going to live and lead like that anymore.
And When he started to fix up and rebuild the temple.
God help the High Priest find the Book the Bible again.
And the High Priest gave the scroll to the Kings secretary.
When the Kings secretary read the scroll
and the King heard what was written in the Book of the Covenant Law.
The king tore his clothes in despair. That was a sign of repentance and sorrow for past mistakes.
The King said to his priest.
Go to the Temple and speak to the Lord and for all the people.
Ask God to forgive us for we have not been doing what was written on the scroll.
We have been playing be the wrong playbook.
We are going to start playing by the right playbook.
We are going to start doing what is written on the scroll.
Let me ask you?
Has the bible become lost in your temple?
Have you been doing the things that you know to do that is right?
Have you been obeying God and keeping covenant with God?
Are you in the same league as God’s team?
The truth is we have all misplaced the Word of God at times in our life.
We have all forgotten the right plays.
Or worse yet we have all played by our own playbook and our own rules at times.
Today I want to I challenge you, I encourage you
To use “The Right Playbook.”
To get more involved in church.
Find a “Teens Group” and be loyal to that Team.
If there is something you need to change in your life.
You can start right now.
A offense, a failure, a hurt.
There is no better time than now to let it go.
We all need some work done on the inside of our temples.
I am a house. I am God’s temple.
I am God’s house and I need some work.
I need to find the Bible and let my life be remodeled and restored.
Closing: Heavenly Father, We all have needs.
We know it will not a be a Do-it-Yourself project.
We need what only you can do for us.
Work in me, God, Remodel my life.
Let me find the Word, the Covenant the repentance the healing, the renovation in my life.
Right now we trust in you. Amen
