Heroes of the OT:
Josiah
2 Kings 23:19-25
March 29, 2009
Our last hero is Josiah. He is what I’m calling a breakthrough hero. I’ll be talking about what that means for the people of the OT and for us. What I believe this hero will address is the social area of our lives with a strong emphasis on our emotional and spiritual growth as well.
I want to share one more time from our trip. On the ship, we had an inside cabin. There were two long hallways running the length of the ship that had access to cabins on either side. The cabins along one side all were on the outside and therefore had windows. The cabins on the other side were oriented toward the middle of the ship so no windows.
I didn’t think anything of it… until the first morning. I have packed a clock for trips in years because hotels all have alarm clocks in them but our cabin had no clock except the LCD on the phone, which couldn’t be seen in the dark. And believe me, on the inside cabins, it is dark. Pitch black. No windows. No light except what might come in under the bottom of the door. With no clock and no windows, we had no idea what time it was.
I had my cell phone. But that first night, I didn’t realize that whatever network that my phone connected to must have been on Pacific time. I get up to see what time it is and look at the cell phone and it says two something. I’m thinking this is the longest night ever. Remember I had no window. Of course the ship has been going back and forth all night. I knew that this wasn’t true but when laying down, the movement was really accentuated and it felt like the ship was going to tip over. I also figured out why the beds always are perpendicular to the length of the ship. Other wise you’d probably find yourself on the floor.
So I get up and see what time it isn’t. And think, I better go to the bathroom and go back to bed. But here is the thing about the bathroom. For some bizarre reason, it has a lip that you have step over. A sort of speed bump. I guess if you really have to go, they want to slow you down so you don’t run straight through the wall because it really was about the size of a closet. It is like the engineers were saying, “I know you are in a hurry but don’t forget that this bathroom is puny. We don’t want you to forget that and forget to hit the brakes.”
Again its pitch black. Do you see where I’m heading? I’m heading through the wall anyway. I could just see someone tripping over that ledge and landing with their head in the toilet. Their hand goes out to push themselves up by pushing the wall and they find out that the little button is what flushes it. And when it flushes, it flushes!! Whooosh. It creates a little cyclone. The toilet paper starts to unroll. I could just imagine me getting my head stuck there when I flush.
So you learn pretty quick to make the giant step over. And if it is dark, you want to make sure that you clear it. So it looks like this. And that becomes a habit. Everytime you go to the bathroom, you step over the ledge. So if you see me walking into the bathroom here and I do this, you know why. But it’s also pretty handy. It is a great tell. Because you tell who is needing to go to the bathroom by how they are walking. The bigger the step. The worse they have to go.
So after two or three times of tripping over this barrier, the light goes on (sometimes literally) and you adjust to get over the barrier. And sometimes it is that way in other areas of our lives. Sometimes we have trip and fall down metaphorically or bang our head against the wall a few times before we realize what we need to change in order to breakthrough.
In Judah’s case, they realized that big changes needed to be made. Josiah as the king of Judah saw that. Josiah was a breakthrough hero because he helped Judah make a huge breakthrough spiritually. Unfortunately, just like in the days of the judges, the pattern of falling away continued and the changes were not permanent.
A little history, Josiah became king at 8 years old. He became king because his father was assassinated. Josiah’s Dad, Amon, was a poor example. He followed the Baal’s and led the people of Judah into rejection of God and God’s ways. But his example was his own father (Josiah’s grandfather), Manasseh. The bible says that Josiah’s grandfather desecrated God’s temple by instituting worship of idols in it. It says that he led the people to practices that were worse than the people that God drove out in the first place including child sacrifice. God tried to speak to Manasseh but he nor the people listened so they were attacked and subjugated by a foreign king. Finally Manasseh turned to God and things improved but he died and his son, Amon, became king. Amon tried to get the country to go back to idol worship but was assassinated. The people then made Josiah the king.
Josiah removed the idol worship and spent his own wealth to restore the temple. During the renovation, a book of the Covenant was found that people hadn’t heard in years. When Josiah heard it read, he was broken. He tore his robes and sought the Lord because he realized not only how far they had gone in worshiping what they should have been worshiping, they also were not worshiping God in the ways that God had set up for them to do.
It was a breakthrough time for Judah and for Josiah because Josiah did what no other king had ever done. He returned the people to many of the feasts and worship practices of this book including the worship of God during the celebration called the Passover. The bible tells us that Josiah celebrated the Passover like no other king had ever done including David and Solomon. It was a breakthrough time that tugged on God’s heart who had had enough of his people’s unfaithfulness so that God gave them a reprieve that would continue if they would remain faithful as Josiah had led them. Unfortunately that did not happen.
So here is what is important for us.
Josiah, a Breakthrough Hero
• Josiah was teachable
Sure Josiah was a kid but it wasn’t until at least his eighteenth year of reign that the Book of the Covenant was found. Even then, he listened to the book and he sought out God’s Word for direction. He remained teachable.
On a personal level, breakthrough moments come so less often when we are unteachable. If they do come, they usually are much, much more painful. Spiritually, remain open and willing to what God is saying through His Word, through His Spirit, and through those around us. Too often I encounter people, both Christian and not, that know all that they need to know. They are rigid. Inflexible. While they are a trial at times, they also speak to me. They remind me that I’m not as humble as I think and certainly not as humble and teachable as I need to be.
Drunks are notorious in this way. Unfortunately, I met some drunks in Christian settings that may have never had a drink of alcohol in their lives.
A couple of months ago, there was a story on CNN of a Christian school basketball team that beat another team (another Christian school—I think) by the score of 100 to 0. It was a slaughter. The coach of the winning team even though it was clear that the other team was no match kept a full court press going. He kept pushing his players to keep scoring and humiliating the other team. The coach was unapologetic about it and was fired. The school administration realizing how un-Christ-like the game had become, opted to forfeit the win. But the coach didn’t seem to see that anything wrong had been done. Unteachable.
• Josiah overcame his past
What a past to overcome. A grandfather who was one of the vilest kings ever. A father who was no better and was eventually assassinated. Josiah didn’t have very good examples to follow. But he didn’t allow his past to keep him from doing what was right.
So often our past overshadows us. I believe right now there are a lot of us here today that are struggling. We hurting. Some of them from past things that perhaps were done to us and not done that should have been. I believe that as long as we stay here, we are missing out on some of God’s greatest blessings. The hurts past and present are barriers that need to be broken through. Healing needs to take place. But sometimes true healing can’t come until we open up the wound and let out all the rot that is poisoning us. Sometimes wounds will not heal properly until they are opened up and exposed. We’ve tried putting bandages on it and new bandages on it but it just festers. We’ve tried to cover it but it does really heal.
So we keep going back to the past… we relive those unholy moments over and over again wishing that something would have been different. Fantasizing about how different things could have been. Or perhaps even worse, we constantly romanticize the good times so that we don’t have to deal with the pain we are feeling. We get stuck there and can’t find anyway to move forward.
I believe Josiah was meant to be last because Josiah is the one that shows us that we can move forward. We can overcome our past. We can find healing and wholeness. We find the inspiration to open up our festering wounds and expose them to God’s healing grace that comes in the presence of God’s people. Everybody knows that would is there anyway.
Josiah shows that there is hope and there is strength and there is peace. He shows us by the third thing.
• Josiah restored the covenant
He knew that the way forward was through God. He led the people to restore and renew that covenant that God had made with His people generations before. God had always been faithful. But they had not. But it wasn’t too late. They didn’t need to stay stuck. But to do so came through a restoration of the covenant. They pledged themselves anew. They pledge to walk in God’s ways and did so like had not been done since at least the times of the judges (which is why we looked at Deborah and Gideon first). They sought the Lord. They worshipped the Lord. They, well, basically… prayed!
John Wesley said, “God does nothing but in answer to prayer.”
What Wesley was saying is that breakthroughs do not happen unless we are teachable and show that we are ready by seeking God with every ounce of our being in prayer. It is not that God cannot do these things. But history and the bible show repeatedly that we just aren’t able to experience the blessings of God until we are willing to seek Him.
I believe there are a lot of hurts in our midst. Some are past and some are present. I also believe that we can’t move forward until we as the church face them. We can’t breakthrough unless we, together, breakthrough. We can’t move ahead until was let God heal our hurts. We won’t find the healing balm of God’s grace unless we seek it together in prayer.
I mentioned how a Christian sports team got it wrong. Let me share how we got it right.
Grapevine Faith’s football team was scheduled to play the Gainesville State School. Gainesville was 0-8 and only scored two touchdowns all year. Gainesville was a state school. Many of the kids had been convicted on drugs and assault and robbery. The families of many of them had disowned them. They were playing with pads that were 7 years.
Grapevine had an enormous following as a Christian school by the parents. They had 70 kids and the latest equipment. They had a full coaching staff and were 7-2 going into the game. Overall 400 parents and fellow students came to support their team. Everyone knew the score of the game weeks before they actually were due to play it.
So Grapevine’s coach, Kris Hogan, called the students and the parents together earlier in the week and prayerfully told them his idea. He told them who their opponents were and asked that for this game that half of the Grapevine fans become Gainesville fans for this one night. “Imagine you didn’t have a home life. Imagine if everyone had pretty much given up on you. Now imagine what it would mean if hundreds of people would suddenly believe in you. Here’s the message I want you to send: You are just a valuable as any other person on planet Earth.”
They agreed. These parents made a banner for the Gainesville kids to run through and cheered them on in a forty foot line sprint. They cheered the Gainesville kids to make the hits on their own kids. 200 Grapevine parents and students cheered the Gainesville team by name. Grapevine even gave them cheerleaders for that night.
"We can tell people are a little afraid of us when we come to the games," says Gerald, a lineman who will wind up doing more than three years. "You can see it in their eyes. They’re lookin’ at us like we’re criminals. But these people, they were yellin’ for us! By our names!"
The score? Grapevine won 33-14 but Gainesville did score the last two touchdowns of the game. Afterwards, the Gainesville coach grabbed Coach Hogan hard by the shoulders and said, "You’ll never know what your people did for these kids tonight. You’ll never, ever know."
I want us to pray. Not just individually but together. I know we are busy. But we need to pray if we are going to make any progress. I don’t even know when or what times. But here we are at Easter. And we need to pray. We need to seek the Lord praying with and for one another.
