Returning to God: 3 Key Lessons for the Modern Church
King Josiah inherited a kingdom steeped in evil, yet his rediscovery of God’s Word led him to personal and cultural repentance. His story is a testament to the transformative power of returning to God’s Word and highlights three key lessons for the Church today.
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Josiah Reigns in Judah
34 Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned thirty-one years in Jerusalem. 2 And he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, and walked in the ways of David his father; and he did not turn aside to the right hand or to the left. 3 For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet a boy, he began to seek the God of David his father, and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, the Asherim, and the carved and the metal images. 4 And they chopped down the altars of the Baals in his presence, and he cut down the incense altars that stood above them. And he broke in pieces the Asherim and the carved and the metal images, and he made dust of them and scattered it over the graves of those who had sacrificed to them. 5 He also burned the bones of the priests on their altars and cleansed Judah and Jerusalem. 6 And in the cities of Manasseh, Ephraim, and Simeon, and as far as Naphtali, in their ruins[a] all around, 7 he broke down the altars and beat the Asherim and the images into powder and cut down all the incense altars throughout all the land of Israel. Then he returned to Jerusalem.
The Book of the Law Found
8 Now in the eighteenth year of his reign, when he had cleansed the land and the house, he sent Shaphan the son of Azaliah, and Maaseiah the governor of the city, and Joah the son of Joahaz, the recorder, to repair the house of the Lord his God. 9 They came to Hilkiah the high priest and gave him the money that had been brought into the house of God, which the Levites, the keepers of the threshold, had collected from Manasseh and Ephraim and from all the remnant of Israel and from all Judah and Benjamin and from the inhabitants of Jerusalem. 10 And they gave it to the workmen who were working in the house of the Lord. And the workmen who were working in the house of the Lord gave it for repairing and restoring the house. 11 They gave it to the carpenters and the builders to buy quarried stone, and timber for binders and beams for the buildings that the kings of Judah had let go to ruin. 12 And the men did the work faithfully. Over them were set Jahath and Obadiah the Levites, of the sons of Merari, and Zechariah and Meshullam, of the sons of the Kohathites, to have oversight. The Levites, all who were skillful with instruments of music, 13 were over the burden-bearers and directed all who did work in every kind of service, and some of the Levites were scribes and officials and gatekeepers.
14 While they were bringing out the money that had been brought into the house of the Lord, Hilkiah the priest found the Book of the Law of the Lord given through[b] Moses. 15 Then Hilkiah answered and 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. 16 Shaphan brought the book to the king, and further reported to the king, “All that was committed to your servants they are doing. 17 They have emptied out the money that was found in the house of the Lord and have given it into the hand of the overseers and the workmen.” 18 Then Shaphan the secretary told the king, “Hilkiah the priest has given me a book.” And Shaphan read from it before the king.
19 And when the king heard the words of the Law, he tore his clothes.
The Story of Josiah
Josiah was the descendant of a wicked line of kings in Judah. He was the son of King Amon and the grandson of King Manasseh. Josiah’s grandfather introduced many forms of idolatry to Israel and broke the nation’s covenant with the Lord. Eventually, Manasseh’s sins destroyed Israel and led it into captivity.
After serving Judah for two years, Josiah’s father, King Amon, was assassinated. At eight years old, Josiah began his reign by inheriting a corrupt kingdom that had turned away from the Lord. Unlike his evil grandfather and father, King Josiah tried to lead the people of Judah back to God.
When he ordered the temple of the Lord cleaned and repaired, the high priest found the Book of the Law that had been lost and forgotten. Scholars disagree whether this book included the entire Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible) or only the Book of Deuteronomy. Regardless, the people of God had lost and forgotten the Word of God.
Although the Word of God had been in the temple all along, it hadn’t been read. Convicted by the words in the book, Josiah gathered all the people and read the Book of the Law to them. The Word so convicted him that he tore his robes, which was an Old Testament sign of outward grief and repentance toward God. This is what the New Testament calls the grace of godly sorrow (2 Corinthians 7:10). The loving conviction of God was at work in the human heart.
When reading this story, also shared in 2 Kings, we see the fruit of God’s Word emerging in the people. They began to honor the patterns of God, such as, for the first time in hundreds of years, God’s people celebrated the Passover according to God’s Law. King Josiah called for a time of national repentance. The Law was read to the people of the land, and a covenant was made between the people and the Lord:
“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 this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people joined in the covenant.” 2 Kings 23:3
Despite hundreds of years of neglect, the picture is that as God’s Word is read and honored, fruitfulness emerges among God’s people as they return to Him. As faith families, we can learn much from Josiah’s story. Let’s examine three lessons for how the modern Church underestimates God’s movement when we return to His Word.
Returning to God: 3 Lessons for the Modern Church
1) God’s Movement Through Emerging Generations
“Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned thirty-one years in Jerusalem. And he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord and walked in the way so David his father; and he did not turn aside to the right hand or to the left.” 2 Chronicles 34:1-2 (emphasis added)
Josiah shows the influence a person can have from a very young age. Even children have enormous potential to live for God and to have a great impact. Scripture constantly reinforces this.
David: At age 12, David had a greater revelation of God than humanity does of Goliath.
Jesus: As a child, He told His parents, “Didn’t you know I was about my Father’s business (Luke 2:49).”
Timothy: The Apostle Paul told young Timothy, “Let no one despise your youth (1 Timothy 4:12).”
2 Chronicles 34:3 tells us while Josiah was still a boy, he began to seek the God of David, and when he turned 16, he began seeking the Lord’s ways. However, consider the numerous challenges he has encountered in his life. Not only did his father die when he was a young boy, but it was also a tragic death (assassination). Josiah wasn’t raised in a godly home, as both his father and grandfather were profoundly evil, and the culture reflected their leadership.
Yet, despite his obstacles, this young man began seeking the Lord in his teenage years and never turned away. Let no one ever underestimate what God can do through the emerging generations.
2) The Power of Rediscovering God’s Word
“And when the king heard the words of the Law, he tore his clothes.” 2 Chronicles 34:19
2 Chronicles 34 tells us of how the Book of the Law was found by Hilkiah and read by Shaphan. This book may have been hidden in the temple during the reigns of ungodly kings, or it may have been just thrown aside during the years it was no longer used. Although the Word of God had been in the temple all along, it had not been read.
In East Birmingham, Alabama, where I grew up, very few people brought their Bible to the church I attended as a child. While that’s just anecdotal, it represents something much larger. According to the American Bible Society, during the COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns, 26 million Americans stopped reading the Bible regularly. I believe that the primary reason that happened is because people were pulled out of community and forced into isolation. We’re not designed for isolation, and I have a holy hunch that there’s a correlation between the negative effects and when we can no longer meet.
I still vividly remember going to Costco in Birmingham early in the COVID-19 shutdown. There was a liquor store at the entrance, and hundreds of people were coming out with liquor boxes. I began to process that this was how people would handle the wilderness season of the shutdown.
When reviewing Scripture, we recognize that as people go through wilderness seasons, it’s unto something. Whenever we read about people entering a wilderness season, God is up to something. Let me be clear: I’m not saying that God orchestrated the COVID-19 virus or shutdowns. However, I am saying God uses all things together for His good.
As we emerge from the season of COVID-19 shutdowns, it’s fascinating to see the pockets of revival emerging, specifically on college campuses around the United States. I believe that some of this can be attributed to the deepening many experienced as God pressed His revelation upon them in that wilderness season.
Lifeway Research found that only 32 percent of church-going Christians read their Bible daily. Hypothetically, if we took that data and applied it to various size churches:
250 members: 80 people read their Bibles daily; 170 do not.
400 members: 128 people read their Bibles daily; 272 do not.
1,300 members: 416 people read their Bibles daily; 884 do not.
The most simplistic way to represent this data is to say that the critical mass is not reading God’s word. The late evangelist and author Lenard Ravenhill said, “The American Church is a mile-wide and an inch deep.”
Our new mission statement at Chris Methodist is: We exist to glorify you and make disciples of Jesus Christ among all peoples. Behind the development of that statement is a study by the Barna Group about why American Christians don’t make disciples. Based on the research they conducted, they found:
37% Don’t think I am qualified/equipped.
24% No one has suggested it/or asked me.
22% Just haven’t thought about it.
14% Had a bad experience in the past.
3% Other
As a church family, we’re in what we’ve called The Great Inversion. We no longer want to be a teaching church; we are becoming an equipping church. It’s one thing to listen to repeated lectures on how to play golf versus stepping onto the green and taking a swing.
Was it Shakespeare who said, “Go and make disciples?” Maybe we should hope it was Shakespeare! If the King of Kings, Lord of Lords, and Creator of the Heavens commanded it, then God help us as the American church to awaken.
As the American church, there’s a name for where we are: Crisis. What makes it an even greater crisis is that many people don’t consider it a crisis. We see crisis defined as “an unstable or crucial time or state of affairs in which a decisive change is impending; a situation that has reached a critical phase (Merriam-Webster Dictionary).”
By the time Josiah became king, the Scriptures had long been neglected. The king’s heart was rattled by God’s people’s failure to expose themselves to His Word. So, Josiah took action. He responded to God rattling his heart. He had Scripture read to the people and committed to live by it.
3) God Can Use the Worst of Times
Josiah was confronted with the worst of times. Based on our passage, we get a very clear picture of what was happening in the culture because of Manasseh’s reign:
Witchcraft: He devoted himself to witchcraft, sorcery, and divination, which were strictly prohibited in the Hebrew scriptures.
Idolatry: He promoted idolatry through the worship of Baal and Asherah and even set up altars to these deities in the Temple in Jerusalem.
Pagan Temples: He built pagan temples, which made the whole nation sin. One thing I realized on my mission trips to parts of Asia is that you eventually stop counting the pagan temples because of how numerous they are. In Western culture, we rarely dwell on the relevance of the text for much of the world.
Child Sacrifice: He encouraged child sacrifice to pagan gods and even sacrificed one of his own sons in the fires of Moloch as an act of worship.
Persecutor: He routinely persecuted the righteous. Any prophet God raised he persecuted, leading to a moral decline in Judah.
Bloodshed: The biblical account suggests that he shed much innocent blood, which is often interpreted as a reference to violence and oppression against his own people.
These abhorrent practices were strictly forbidden by God out of His love for His people and stood in stark contrast to the Lord’s commandments out of love for His people and His own glory.
Yet, we can turn this on ourselves and examine our nation.
A government that seems like it’s functioning sub-optimally.
The extreme polarization of our culture.
Post-Enlightenment philosophies that permeate worldviews.
Antisemitism has been legitimized or enabled at some of what we had considered our most prestigious universities.
City streets where it’s not safe to walk.
Sexual confusion and brokenness with dozens of manifestations.
Education systems are in disarray in our cities.
We have the highest prison population in the world.
In 2024, 21% of adults in the US are illiterate. 54% of adults have literacy below a 6th-grade level, and 20% have literacy below a 5th-grade level.
46.8 million (16.7%) Americans (aged 12 and older) are addicted to drugs or alcohol each year.
We are witnessing many of the foundations that make Western civilization work crumble before our very eyes. If people do not exercise personal restraint, the only alternative is government constraint.
There was a news story of an Oklahoma business leader who spent thousands of dollars to have a billboard posted. It simply read: “Church, Have a Revival.” Instead of spending his hard-earned money to increase profits or pour back into further resourcing his company or lifestyle, he pleaded with the local church to initiate a revival. Why? He recognized that we’re in an hour where cynicism and complaining won’t fix the complexities of what’s happening around us.
Josiah could’ve chosen a path of cynicism to deal with the evil of his familial legacy. However, he did something unique: He asked himself, “Are my eyes on the problem, or are they on the Problem Solver?” That’s why the writer of 2 Kings recorded this story: He shares a glimpse of the fruit that emerges when we respond to God’s Word.
“‘Because your heart was responsive, and you humbled yourself before the Lord when you heard what I have spoken…I also have heard you,’ declares the Lord.” 2 Kings 22:19
A Church and Her Vision
Josiah proved that returning to God’s Word requires action on our behalf. That’s why, as a church family, we spent time laboring over our new mission statement.
In addition to our mission statement, we also have a new vision statement. If our mission statement is the sword, then our vision statement is what we aspire to live out as the edge of the sword by making disciples of all people. Our vision statement reads:
By the power of the Holy Spirit, we will be a gospel-centered community who magnifies Jesus Christ as we worship passionately, love extravagantly, and witness boldly while serving the poor, the oppressed, and the marginalized, spreading scriptural holiness in our city and to the nations for the spiritual awakening of all.
Historically, when churches create mission and vision statements, there’s been a problem. While they sound great, churches tend to fail to create lanes to fulfill the mission and vision. We must guard our hearts against that. A vision statement should invite the congregation to participate in the church’s mission. With God’s help, churches need measurable (and attainable) goals so that we can celebrate God and give Him glory when something is achieved. Additionally, when we don’t achieve a goal, we can pray for God’s discernment for what we are or aren’t doing so we can adjust faithfully.
There also need to be opportunities for the equipping of discipleship and disciple-making. Churches need goals around local and global missions that serve the formation of mission teams to serve in the lens of social holiness in their community and at the local level of serving underserved or marginalized groups. We want to be a church that ministers locally and globally by developing missions teams that pray and support those on the frontlines. We also want to be willing to serve alongside them in short and long-term capacities.
None of this is achievable if we don’t wed these goals with rhythms of individual and corporate prayer. As a church body, we want to pray into these topics to corporately discern, “Lord, what are you saying to us as we would seek to set goals for our future in light of the mission and vision that you’ve called us to?”
William Wilberforce, a former member of the United Kingdom Parliament, stood before Parliament for decades to decry the brutality of slavery that occurred across the colonies. Although he eventually saw slavery outlawed, we often overlook what caused William to persevere in his fight. His convictions for ethics wasn’t a conviction for ethics’s sake, instead his root system was the Gospel. He was a new creation in Christ and an ambassador of God’s truth. Wilberforce was in deep community with what John Wesley called scriptural holiness. He drew strength from his community of Christian brothers and sisters, who kept his spirit strong as he persevered for the glory of God.
Wilberforce knew that because God reigns, it wasn’t too late. Josiah knew in his day that it wasn’t too late because of the revelation of God. History shows the complexity of darkness in cultures, yet we repeatedly see them renewed through the Church of Jesus Christ and a movement of God’s power in His people. While we may feel we’re drowning in the mire of our current times, and it’s easy to get overwhelmed and be reminded of loved ones, it’s not too late.
Church, with God’s help, and only God can do it, please, have a revival.
