The journey of faith is one marked by continual deepening of understanding.
2 Chronicles 34
We’re looking at a series a that we call still speaking. It’s actually taken from one of the first verses in Hebrews chapter 11, where it talks about Abel. And it says though, dead, he still speaks. And the picture of those individuals and Hebrews 11, our lives that continues to speak to us today. And so that’s the title of the series that we’re in.
And this morning, we’re looking at a character that. Uh, I believe powerfully still speaks to us, to man named Josiah, an individual who went continually deeper with God, his whole life. I like to pray. And then we’re going to jump right into our study this morning. Gonna look at the number of verses here at different times.
And second Chronicles, chapter 34. Let’s pray together. Lord we gathered today here in this building for many others gathering in their living rooms, in their car or wherever they’re watching this morning. Lord, we ask that you would be our teacher. We believe that the scripture is given to us as the sufficient.
Venue of truth to change our lives, to let us know you, to help us know ourselves, that we might better know you. So Lord instruct us and guide us into your truth this morning. I pray as we look at the life of, of this man who did go deeper with you in Jesus name. Amen. The word deep has lots of different content patients to us a week.
Talk about the deep, uh, that is a term that is often used to talk about the, the parts of the ocean that have the greatest depth. Uh, I understand there’s a channel, a pretty wide channel, many mile wide channel that. Goes between somewhere between the Philippines and, and the Guam. And it’s seven miles below the surface of the, uh, of the ocean, the depth of the water there.
And it’s called not surprising. The challenger deep. We use the word deep in football parlance to talk about, uh, someone going deep in the ideas that go far out, the receiver goes out. It means he’s going to catch a bomb, a long pass. We talk about an individual being. Deep, uh, I’ve often been reminded of my lack of this, uh, in talking to Marianne when I’ll, uh, she’ll say something nice about a sermon that I’ve preached and, and of course I’m, I’ll I’ll charge right in and say, Oh, what, what, what did you enjoy?
You know, the sermon, what really spoke to you and I, a number of times she will share this. Amazing insight, uh, from the sermon. And I’ll say to her, babe, that is an incredible insight of that passage of scripture, which never entered my mind. Um, uh, there is some people are just deep. We also talk about a tree or a plant.
They dig deep. And that’s the one I want to, I think most closely is associated with the context of an individual going deep. It said that you can, you can grow a squash in a few weeks, but it can take a hundred years to grow a mighty Oak and the roots go deep. The taproot goes deep, deep into the soil.
This is the picture in days past, we used to talk about the deeper life. And I think the picture of it is an individual who is deepening in their trust of God, which I personally have come to believe is the greatest demonstration. The greatest picture of really spiritual growth is we’re growing to trust God more.
We grow in trust in God. We grow in love for God. And the guy that we’re looking at this morning named Josiah is a beautiful example of a life that continually went deeper with God. I’d like to just give you some historical context. Uh, he was a King of what is called Judah in nine 31, the kingdom of Israel, which had been started, um, Uh, Saul had been the first King.
Then David was the King. Then Solomon was the King and then Solomon’s son Rehoboam, uh, caused a division of the kingdom and it divided into two different groups. One was the Northern kingdom called Israel of 10 tribes. Lasting about 200 years. And during those 200 years, there is not one godly King identified in the nation of Israel, the 10 tribes, Northern kingdom of 19 of them, the it of Judah or the kingdom of Judah in the South comprised of two King, two tribes, Judah and Benjamin lasted approximately 350 years.
And 200 of those years. We’re six different Kings godly Kings presided over the kingdom of Judah. And the two most godly Kings identified in the kingdom of Judah were a man named Hezekiah. And this guy, Josiah, Josiah was a godly man. And the cool thing about Josiah for all of you, young people, is that when Josiah was 16 years old, His life was irrevocably committed to God.
He began to walk with God. He had known God, apparently somewhat before that, but it was then that his heart really was all in, in following God, a position that lasted his entire life for young adults, for young people. This is a great guy to know, and to have as a role model in your life of wholehearted.
Walking with God. I’d like to look quickly this morning at seven principles. We’ll spend more time in the first couple, but seven principles we find about going deeper with God. So we have a life that is deepening and trust deepening in love for God. The first of those is that. Going deeper is a choice.
We see this now, as we enter into our text in verses one through three, Joe Josiah was eight years old when he became King and he reigned in Jerusalem 31 years, he did was right in the eyes of the Lord and follow the ways of his father. David, not turning aside to the right of the left in the eighth year of his reign while he was still young, he began to seek.
The God of his father, David. Now that’s interesting. His father is not David. David was a great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather. But Kings of Israel and Kings of Judah were always compared with David. He was the standard. He was the role model of what they were to be. And Josiah was one of those Kings that really followed the pathway of David.
Okay. He did. So because it says here in verse three, when he was 16 years old in the eighth year of his reign, Josiah determined you seek God. Now, as you go through the book of Chronicles, you find that there are two primary ways this word seek, uh, is used. And what it’s talking about, what does it mean to seek God?
Well, the first thing it means is to seek God’s will. Here’s what it says in second Chronicles, chapter 18, verse four. You are to seek the counsel of the Lord. Jehoshaphat said, talking to someone else, see what God has to say about the matter to, to, to see, to be taught, to seek God’s counsel God’s mind God’s will
I’ve been both a cat owner and a dog owner in my life. Uh, I grew up with a cat. We had puff for many years. Um, always hated it when I I’d go to these conferences. And one of the things they often would have you do with you would be identifying yourself. I remember one particular one, they said, okay, everybody’s going to identify themselves by the name of their first pet.
Do you know what it’s like to be called puff for a whole conference, but we had a cat, uh, growing up. So I was a cat. Owner, if you will. We’ve also had three different dogs in our, our, our own family and our adult life. Now I’m going to say this right now. I’m really don’t want any emails as a result of this illustration from pet owners.
Some of you are going to be tempted to, to say that hasn’t been my experience. I get it. There were some wonderful cats. There was a, a puff was not one, but there are some wonderful cats out there, but there are differences between cats and dogs. A dog looks at his owner bill and he says, bill feeds me. He provides me a comfortable place to live.
He cares for me. Bill loves me. He must be God. A cat on the other hand has the same response. He says, my owner, bill feeds me, provides for me. A comfortable place to live. He cares for my need. He loves me. I must be God. Now, Josiah here, pictures. The idea that he recognizes, he is not, God, God is God. A God seeker says God, speak into my life today.
What do you want me to do? What are the particular things that you want me to do with my life today? He’s a listener. He’s a responder. He or she seeks God’s minds on what he wants you to do, what he wants you to surrender your life to. And it’s a day by day journey. Josiah was such a man. He was a God seeker.
So he saw the will of God. Secondly, Second Chronicles, 20 verse four. It gives us the second sense of seeking God. The people of Judah came together to seek help from the Lord. A God seeker seeks help from God. It’s an intentional seeking. Josiah sought to know God’s will day by day, and he lived in continual dependence on God.
What made the difference? What made his life unique from all these other Kings are all the Kings of Israel. Most of the Kings of Judah, he said, Lord, I want to hear from you today. I want you to lead me. I want you to teach me. I want you to speak into my life and God, I recognize that. That I’m not wired, that, that the engine of my eye to live in my own strength, that, that, that the June of my life needs to fuel the spirit of God to run.
I don’t have the resources in myself. I am a God. Depender. You may be here and say, well, Mark, my life is so full right now. I don’t have time. I mean, I know I get it. I mean, I hear, I’ve heard this, my whole Christian journey. You should spend time with the Lord. I trust. I can’t write. I don’t have time. Hey, you will always find time to find what’s most T to make time for what’s most important to you.
We all do. Well, we might look and we might say, well, I don’t know where to start. I don’t know how to even really get into the Bible. Why can’t I can tell you there’s not a pastor in this church that doesn’t get em, get their, their, their juices flowing. When somebody says, look, I’m trying to, I’m trying to really get into the script.
I don’t know where to start. I don’t know how to, we’d love to talk to you about that. The first thing. And again, these will be longer. We’re not all seven. Aren’t gonna take this long don’t despair. But the first thing we find is that going deeper with God is a choice. He chose to be a God seeker. Secondly, going deeper is a series of steps beginning in verse three.
And I’m going to jump around. I’ll highlight as I move, but if you’re in your Bible, you’ll see. In verse three, it says in the eighth year of his reign, while he was still young, Josiah began to seek the God of his father, David. In his 12th year, he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of high places, poles and idols direction.
The altars of bale were torn down, jumping down to verse eight in the 18th year of Josiah’s reign to purify the land and the temple he sent Shaffer and son of as Elia and may. Assiah the ruler of the city with JOA son of Joel has the recorder to repair the temple of the Lord. His God now jumping all the way to verse 30.
He read in there hearing all the words of the book of the covenant, which had been found in the temple of the Lord. The King stood by his pillar and renewed the covenant and the presence of the Lord to follow the Lord and keep his command statues and decrees with his whole heart and his whole soul.
And to obey the words of the covenant written in this book, then he had everyone Jerusalem and Benjamin, Benjamin pledged themselves to it. The people of Jerusalem did this in accordance with the covenant of God, the God of their ancestors. Josiah removed all the detestable idols from all the territory, belonging to the Israelites.
And you had all who were present in Israel, served the Lord, their God. Here’s the story of Josiah and a quick overview. When Josiah was 16 years old, he began to seek God. Verse three, when he was 20 years old, he began to purge the high places in idols from Jerusalem and Judah. When he was 26 years old, he repaired the temple.
And restored the, the, the vibrant worship that David had done many, many generations before when he was 39 years old, he called the people to a national repentance and to commit to the covenant of God, this was a lifelong learner whose whole life was devoted to going deeper with God and to always being used by God.
There is a continual process, his whole life, a learning more and more about God and about what God wanted him to do. And the longer he lived, the deeper he went with God. One of the beauties of walking with Christ is that you are growing in an awareness of the beauty and the wonder of God. He never ceases to all you.
It also helps you. To know your own heart. And there’s a continual growing at what the Puritans used to call self knowledge of just seeing how much I need God more. And I didn’t realize how much, how much of my heart needs to be changed as a continual peeling back of the underneath is this beautiful process of growing less and less confident in ourselves and more and more confident in God.
My father grew up, uh, in a background that were Christ was not central in his family. It was in his mid twenties, actually late twenties. And my father came to faith in Christ and my dad was an electrical engineer. Um, When he was up on long Island, he would, uh, he worked in a place called Sperry. It was a defense contractor.
He later came down and did the same thing in this area at what is now Martin Marietta. But as he was there as a, a guy in his and it was his late thirties, he’d walked with God for a few years. He began to start these, uh, uh, lunch hour meetings and he got permission and he showed moody science films, and he was, people were coming to know Jesus.
As these moody science films put up with the moody organization. My father had a secretary whose nickname in the organization was the blonde bombshell. She was a socialite. She was a very worldly, um, And my dad had the privilege of leading her to Christ. He had the privilege of leading her husband to Christ.
I remember one Saturday night when we were sitting at our home and our, our family of four were sitting around the radio as the Jack Watson broadcast from word of life was being transmitted. Cause once a week, Jack Watson would get on and he’d interview people. And he happened to be interviewing the blonde bombshell and her husband, and then the listen and hear her talking about her boss who had led her to Jesus.
But then to hear the story, which I didn’t know till I actually heard it on the broadcast that she and her husband had now been called to give their life into vocational Christian missions. In another part of the world, I give that backstory to say, my dad walked with Christ for many years. When he came to Jesus, he was all in,
but one of the callings of walking with God and going deeper with God is that we’re always learning. We’re always growing. Right? One of the most memorable moments I have from my, with my dad was when my dad and I, we had been talking about you. He was old school and. He was struggling with the informality of clothes that we were wearing to our worship services.
And he talked to me about it. He said, I Felix, this and I still remember the day. My father now retired. He came to me and he was very active in our church till the day died, but he came to me and he had this, I actually wrote it down. He said, Mark, I’ve been convicted about my own pride. The real reason I care.
What people are wearing is that visitors from other churches, people I know Mike come to our service and I’d be embarrassed. I share that story to say this. If you are walking with God and going deeper with God, you will always be learning things about your own heart. You will always be learning things about God’s heart.
So here’s my question to you today. And now I addressed the younger people earlier with a challenge, man, get to know this guy, Josiah, a guy who from from his early teens was devoted to follow Christ through his whole way through, but now I’m speaking to you who have walked with God, maybe for a long time.
Are you hotter for God today than you were years ago? Are you more in love with Jesus than ever before? Do you show a deeper passion to hear his word, to love his, his voice speaking into your life? Is this. The apex in your journey with Christ, if not, why not? Josiah continued to grow and learn and change.
Growing deeper with God is a continual set of steps. As we walk along, knowing him and loving him. The third thing we find is going deeper with God will involve standing alone at times verses three through seven. Talk about the impact that your CYA had and how he got rid of the high places and, and the alters in the idolatry, not only in Jerusalem, but ultimately in the entire kingdom.
And it sounds like national revival and there was some buying in, but notice these solemn words in Jeremiah, the prophet of contemporary Jeremiah three, 10 of this day says this Judah did not return to me with all her heart, but only in pretense, the people respected Josiah and they went along with his changes.
But he was largely alone in his passion for God’s glory. There were others, but it wasn’t what one might have thought in seeing the support for him. He was an influencer for the glory of God. It’s striking that Josiah’s grandfather and Josiah’s father had done great harm to the work of God in the kingdom.
They had almost completely obliterated any remnants of God’s truth. We’ll see that in a moment they didn’t have the, the, the, the scriptures, even the, the, the, the book of the Torah, the first five books of the old Testament until they happened to discover it in the temple, hidden in a, in a, in a shelf somewhere they’d gotten rid of it because they, they despised it for the most part.
Yet this man, this man’s heart in some ways, almost the first generational Christian
follow Christ wholeheartedly stood with him. If you’re going to go deeper with God, if you’re going to make a difference in your generation, you will have to come to grips that there is only one person that will really determine the trajectory of your life. You can’t wait for the people around you. You can’t wait for your family, friends, others going deeper will sometimes mean you make choices alone.
The fourth thing going deeper as centered in the scriptures in verses 14 to 21, you have this remarkable story. And what happens is they’re, they’re going in, they’re starting to clean out the temple and they’re actually taking some money in that has been raised by the populace for the renovations. And while they’re taking it in, they find.
And a shelf somewhere, the scriptures it’s astonishing to think that they didn’t have it. The only scriptures probably that Josiah had at this time were those, which were the songs or other things, because the Psalms were built into the worship experience. So he would certainly have those as in the songs that were sung.
But as far as the. The first five books and notably the book of Deuteronomy, which is also often called the book of the law in the old Testament, they didn’t have the principles of godly conduct that were presented there. At least in written word. They would only have some of it by oral tradition. And here’s what happened when they bring the scriptures out to Josiah.
It says this in verse 18, this guy is Shaffer and brings it to him and shape and read from it in the presence of the King. And when the King heard the words of the law Torres ropes, he gave these orders to Hilkiah go and inquire of the Lord for me and for the remnant in Israel and Judah about what is written in this book that has been found greatest.
The Lord’s anger is poured out on us because of those who have gone before us. Have not kept the word of the Lord. They have not acted in accordance with all that is written in the book here. The Lord honors Josiah’s desire for, for him by giving him the ultimate gift, the scriptures.
It’s easy to diminish the gift of the scriptures in our day, because it’s so commonplace for us. I mean, you can go in any secular bookstore and you’ll have your choice of all kinds of Bibles. It’s everywhere. It’s easy to forget the treasure. That is God’s word. The privilege of being able to meditate on it, to memorize it.
To study it to, to let its truth speak into our lives, to, to counter the countless verse voices that are, that are speaking into us every day, God gave to Josiah as a gift of his desire to know him, his word. I remember reading the story of John Jay, who was the first Supreme court justice of the United States.
And he was dying. And, and back in those days, people didn’t just jump on a plane to get home quick, to be with a dying relative. And, and most of his children were not able to get there to his death bed and time. And so someone was with John Jay, who was a wonderful believer and they said, do you have any, any particular.
Words of counsel, you want to pass on to your children and he made this statement. He said, no, they have the book. They have the Bible, they have the scriptures. The fifth thing we find is going deeper, brings God’s blessing. Just going to highlight a couple of verses here in verse 24 to 27 behold, I will bring disastery, say, he says, ultimately God is going to bring judgment on the people because of their former sins and that they have not really corporately turned to him in repentance.
I’ll bring disaster upon this place and upon its inhabitants. But then he says this about to Josiah. But to the King of Judah who sent you to inquire of the Lord because your heart was tender and you humbled yourself before God, you shall be gathered to your grave and peace and your eyes shall not see all the disaster that I will bring upon this place.
And its inhabitants, God says to Josiah disaster is coming on this place, but not on you. My eyes on you. I take care of my own. A few years ago, I received a letter from a man named Frank McQuaid. Frank was a to know his background. Frank, um, actually had been born in an unusual way. His mother, who he never knew left him in a basket.
And put it on a doorstep and those people eventually took this baby or took this baby and, and Frank, and this was years ago, Frank grew up in an orphanage Frank later in life, as he grew up, uh, became, uh, a bomber pilot in world war two and married a girl that he had met named Dolores and many years after that in their seventies.
Frank and Dolores were part of our church a number of years ago. Frank after he left the military had given his heart to Christ and they began to pastor and they pastored small churches, never churches that were, were, um, uh, fluent and Franklin, Dolores did not have a great amount of money. And he always would say his statement was, um,
I have it here. His wealth. Oh, his wealth. My wealth is in my loved ones. And my friends later in life, even now into their eighties, Dolores began to fail. She had Alzheimer’s and they went out to live in California to be near their kids. And I got this letter from Frank, who was the last correspondence I ever had from, and in the letter he talked about, um, How they were living in this retirement home.
It was just before Dolores passed and God had given him ministry. He’s always said, he said, he said, I’m, I’m the volunteer chaplain here in, in the, in the nursing home where we live their retirement convalescent home, where he was living, they were living around their friends, around their family. They were cared for.
He was obviously happy. God has had watched out for them even to this point in their lives. And when I read the letter, it was a very emotional letter for me to just think how God takes care of his own. And this man is simple couple that had followed Christ and I read the letter to Marianne and these were her words.
She said, God keeps taking care of that little orphan boy, that’s the picture. God takes care of his own. God takes care of his kids. And he says to just say this, this bad things, dark things coming, but my eye is on you. I see you. You never have to worry that you’re going to be left on your own. You never have to worry how life will play out.
You never have to worry that you’re going to have to work at a nipple and control it. If your hardest on a trajectory for your whole life for Sam, my passion is to go deeper and trust to, to grow in deeper love with God.
Going deeper brings God’s blessing. Going deeper will call for repeated commitment. I actually love this part in verse 29 31. Here’s what happened actually verse 31 in particular, they brought the law to, to Josiah and he stunned by it. And here’s his response in verse 31. The King stood by us pillar and renewed the covenant in the presence of the Lord.
This is by himself later, he’ll call the people to follow the Lord and keep his command statutes and decrease with all his heart and all his soul. And to obey the words of the covenant written in this book, this guy has been a King of Judah for about 30 years. Now he’s in the latter part of his reign.
And yet this man who has done so much to walk with with Christ to so much to honor God in his, in his rulership still feels called to renew his commitment. Maybe you’re here, maybe you’re listening. And this is the moment where God says, why not renew it again? You say, I have known the Lord for a long time and, and, and it, sorry, maybe God is just using this simple message to say, Hey, let’s restore the fire.
Let’s restore the longing, the hunger, the dependence going deeper with God will call for those moments. Of repeated commitment. And the last thing going deeper is the path to immortality.
Second Chronicles, 35 verse 24 says this and Josiah died and was buried in the tombs of his father, all Judah and Jerusalem, mourned for Josiah. A lot of ways. He did a lot of things that offended a lot of people. He didn’t know that people were going to be starting to see him go. I’m sure there were many times along that path when he thought, eh, this is going to turn against me.
People are going to throw me out, but there was a love for him. It was a blessing for him. We don’t know what God has for our lives. We don’t do it for the acclaim of people. But we do remember this verse in first, John chapter two, where it says this, he, that does the will of God remains forever. There is a sense of immortality that comes when you invest your life in that, which will never be wasted.
John Piper’s great book written particularly to young adults. Don’t waste your life. Josiah didn’t waste his life. His name went on into immortality. Because he was a man invested in that, which was eternal to go deeper. These things are involved, but I do want to close with this. Maybe you hear, or maybe you’re watching this morning and I would want, and this whole.
Coming to Christ thing and giving your life to Jesus Christ and being born again and receiving Jews as savior. It’s, it’s kinda looking a little bit through the glass and I hear about, I don’t know what it means. I mean, where do I start? Well, you start by embracing Jesus Christ as the savior for your sins.
That Jesus Christ came to enable us to enter a relationship with God that lives. And endures forever. It’s why in colation chapter two, it says this. So then just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him. You first need to be rooted in Christ.
Then you read it, just go deeper and you can grow in all these ways we’ve talked about. But first it means that. Our life is rooted. Not in our works. It’s not rooted in how we can earn God’s favor. We’re rooted in Christ in what Jesus Christ did for us on the cross. And then we grow and then we are built up in him, but it starts with that personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
If that’s a new concept or something you’ve heard, you’d love again, one of our pastors, we would love the chance to talk to you about how you can embrace Jesus Christ as your savior. Let’s pray together this morning, Lord, we thank you that you are determined. It seems to call your children to grow deeper.
Lord may this man’s life be one that still speaks to us renew our passion. God renew our longing for you wherever we are as young people, just beginning starting out on the journey of faith, maybe as an age, it’s Saint to believe Lord that no one is ever too old to be off your, I can do it through you list.
Lord call us to live deeper. I pray in jesus’ name. Amen.
I’ll go in peace to love and serve and enjoy the Lord. Thank you.
Call me to heaven. Sweet and right. I see your scars, your own beauty of yours. .