Royals: Raising the Next Generation
Happy Mother’s Day!
Focus: Natural and spiritual are appointed by God to help form the next generation for Christ.
Project Hail Mary
Prophetess and a King
Our Passover Lamb
Project Hail Jesus
Mothers are appointed by God to help call out the purposes of God.
2 Kings 22:1-10 ESV
“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 all the way of David his father, and 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. And let it be given into the hand of the workmen who have the oversight of the house of the Lord, and let them give it to the workmen who are at the house of the Lord, repairing the house (that is, to the carpenters, and to the builders, and to the masons), and let them use it for buying timber and quarried stone to repair the house. But no accounting shall be asked from them for the money that is delivered into their hand, for they deal honestly.” 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 hand of the workmen who have the oversight of the house of the Lord.” Then Shaphan the secretary told the king, “Hilkiah the priest has given me a book.” And Shaphan read it before the king.”
God already has in his heart and mind what he desires for each person to be and do.
King David would have this revelation when he said:
Psalm 139:13-18 ESV
“For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I would count them, they are more than the sand. I awake, and I am still with you.”
Josiah and who he would be in the Lord was spoken about generations before.
1 Kings 13:1-2 ESV
“And behold, a man of God came out of Judah by the word of the Lord to Bethel. Jeroboam was standing by the altar to make offerings. And the man cried against the altar by the word of the Lord and said, “O altar, altar, thus says the Lord: ‘Behold, a son shall be born to the house of David, Josiah by name, and he shall sacrifice on you the priests of the high places who make offerings on you, and human bones shall be burned on you.’”
Project Hail Mary told the story the story that is true of all of our lives:
We are trying to figure out who we are
When called to mission we think, “It can’t be me!”
Natural mothers and spiritual mothers in the faith help call the purposes of God out of people.
Natural and spiritual mothers help us remember that life isn’t just about us, but it’s about Christ, his gospel and his Kingdom.
“Family is a gift to enjoy, but it makes a terrible god. And it can become a god whether one is married with kids, married and childless, or single. The church itself is rightly family-oriented, and the desire to have a family is a wonderful, God-given desire, but family does not belong on the throne of our hearts. The throne of our heart is reserved for Christ alone. The family is not the good news we need; it is not our gospel message, however many put all their hope in parents, grandparents, siblings, and children.
If we aren’t careful, family can impede the gospel, instead of drawing us further into the gospel. The family was designed by God to reflect him and the love within the Trinity, the love we are brought into through the good news. Family must point us to God and his gospel. We must love our family through Christ, and for Christ.
The family is God’s means for us to drive upward into a far more important relationship and a far greater love. As Paul says in Romans 11:36, “For from him and through him and to him are all things,” so the family obviously falls inside these lines.
Family is from him, family is through him, and family is to him.”
….
“The alternative to worshiping family as god is to worship God through our family. Family is not meant to impede the gospel, but to further it — to secure our hearts for God, not distract us from him.”
-Liz Wann. She is the author of The End of Me: Finding Resurrection Life in the Daily Sacrifices of Motherhood.
2 Kings 22:11-13 ESV
“When the king heard the words of the Book of the Law, he tore his clothes. And the king commanded Hilkiah the priest, and Ahikam the son of Shaphan, and Achbor the son of Micaiah, and Shaphan the secretary, and Asaiah the king’s servant, saying, “Go, inquire of the Lord for me, and for the people, and for all Judah, concerning the words of this book that has been found. For great is the wrath of the Lord that is kindled against us, because our fathers have not obeyed the words of this book, to do according to all that is written concerning us.””
*Natural and spiritual mothers help our worldview be shaped by the word of God.
Prophetess and a King
Mothers are appointed by God to help affirm the word of God.
Huldah the prophetess helped shape King Josiah’s worldview with the word of the Lord.
2 Kings 22:14-20 ESV
“So Hilkiah the priest, and Ahikam, and Achbor, and Shaphan, and Asaiah went to Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shallum the son of Tikvah, son of Harhas, keeper of the wardrobe (now she lived in Jerusalem in the Second Quarter), and they talked with her. And she said to them, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: ‘Tell the man who sent you to me, Thus says the Lord, Behold, I will bring disaster upon this place and upon its inhabitants, all the words of the book that the king of Judah has read. Because they have forsaken me and have made offerings to other gods, that they might provoke me to anger with all the work of their hands, therefore my wrath will be kindled against this place, and it will not be quenched. But to the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire of the Lord, thus shall you say to him, Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Regarding the words that you have heard, because your heart was penitent, and you humbled yourself before the Lord, when you heard how I spoke against this place and against its inhabitants, that they should become a desolation and a curse, and you have torn your clothes and wept before me, I also have heard you, declares the Lord. Therefore, behold, I will gather you to your fathers, and you shall be gathered to your grave in peace, and your eyes shall not see all the disaster that I will bring upon this place.’” And they brought back word to the king.”
Both natural and spiritual mothers in the Lord are important for helping build lives on the word of God.
As Josiah was influenced by natural and spiritual mothers, he rose up to be a national reformer, notable in the eyes of the Lord.
“NOTHING IS MORE IMPORTANT IN YOUR LIFE THAN BEING ONE OF GOD'S TOOLS TO FORM A HUMAN SOUL.”
-Paul David Tripp
What were Josiah’s reforms when he heard the Book of the Law (I Kings 23)?
No more privatized spirituality - Josiah brought worship back to the Temple in Jerusalem
An outright attack on idolatry - Josiah burned the items devoted to the false gods Baal, Asherah and astral deities found in Yahweh’s Temple, and destroyed those used for child sacrifice.
Went to the root - Josiah ventured into the former Northern Kingdom and destroyed the altar at Bethel built by Jeroboam.
According to his Word - Following the discovery of the Law, Josiah would have the people of God renew their covenant with Yahweh.
All of Josiah’s reforms culminated with the restoration of the Passover celebration - the first since the time of Judges.
2 Kings 23:21-25 ESV
“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 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. Moreover, Josiah put away the mediums and the necromancers and the household gods and the idols and all the abominations that were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, that he might establish the words of the law that were written in the book that Hilkiah the priest found in the house of the Lord. 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.”
*Scholars estimate this would have been 300 to over 400 years where a central festival and expectation of worship that Yahweh ordained was unseen amongst the people of God.
What things are we neglecting in Scripture because it has been generations since these truths have been upheld?
i.e. - the person and power of the Holy Spirit was unfamiliar to me until I read I Corinthians 12-14.
*This implies how long elements of Scripture can remain neglected, yet still important to God, while we suffer all the while because of our willful ignorance and disobedience.
Our Passover Lamb
Mothers are appointed by God to help lead us to the Lamb of God.
Jesus is our Passover lamb that is central to all of our worship.
Whereas Josiah’s reforms were built on the word of God, that word all leads to Jesus, the Lamb of God and the truth found in his gospel.
So what should a mother let their natural and spiritual children know to call out the truths and purposes of God in their lives?
Paul would later say in the New Testament to the people of God:
Ephesians 2:1-10 ESV
“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the flesh and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”
Christ our sinless, unblemished Passover lamb was sacrificed on the cross to take the punishment for our sins.
Jesus died but rose three days later so that as we turn from our willful ignorance and disobedience, we might not only see Jesus reform our lives, but our families, our cities and the nations in which we live.
Just as we celebrate mothers today, let’s even more importantly celebrate Jesus who came to redeem all of our broken lives from Hell.