Cameron: 00:09

Heavenly Father, it becomes so easy to let the noise of the world drown out your voice. Sometimes, lord, we get to a place of where we say, I don't know that I've ever heard the voice of god speak to me. Father, I pray, this morning that if that is us, that we would, for the first time, know, lord, hear, feel your presence and your voice to us. Lord, I pray that you would empower me to speak boldly and confidently your word that gives life. Your son that brings salvation, lord.

Cameron: 01:08

And your spirit which convicts of truth. Thank you, father, for our time together this morning in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. I wanted to return this morning to, to our message from last week, on King Josiah.

Cameron: 01:32

So, we talked pretty extensively about Josiah, and I originally had planned to talk about him for 2 weeks. But after last week, I kind of walked away feeling like, well, man, I don't really know that I have much more to say than that. I feel like I said all I could possibly say, and probably talked for a half hour longer than I needed to talk last week. So what is there more to say about it this week? But I came back to it again, this week because I think that there are some qualities about Josiah that we that we kind of talked about in the midst of the story last week that I want us to understand as also applicable to our lives so that we can experience the same type of things that Josiah experienced.

Cameron: 02:22

So I wanted to return really to what is the uniqueness of Josiah, and ask questions about what exactly was or ask the question, what exactly was unique about Josiah and why do we want to be unique like Josiah? Why would we want to be like an ancient king of Israel? Remember, Josiah the story of Josiah is really one that paints a picture or a methodology of renewal, both personal and corporate renewal, in the midst of an environment or a culture of extraordinary godlessness, wickedness, darkness, and sin. Josiah's Josiah was a king, a king of Israel. And for, really, generations before him, the nation of Israel had all but lost any sense of, god fearing kings, god worshiping kings.

Cameron: 03:32

They had a long line with maybe the exception of Hezekiah, his grandfather, of kings who, who had who had forgotten about the law, who had abandoned the covenants, who were, who were worshiping idols, who were leading the con or who were leading the the nation of Israel in a direction towards wickedness and evil, especially Josiah's grandfather Manasseh. Right? Josiah's grandfather Manasseh was the most evil king, the most wicked king, the most godless, idol worshiping king that the nation of Israel had ever known. And then, and then Josiah's father Ammon kind of followed in his footsteps. And now, here comes Josiah, a king born kind of out of season, spiritually speaking.

Cameron: 04:25

The question is, well, how could a situation like Josiah's or how could a story like Josiah's, like, apply to us at all? Why are we talking about this ancient king who led in faithfulness in a world of evil and darkness? Right? There are many applications there, not least of which, should be like some some of us live or have lived or have experienced nothing but what we would describe as spiritual darkness and godlessness in our lives, wondering where God is, wondering if there is anyone who seeks the Lord, wondering wondering, like, what is this world that we are living in? How do we experience a renewal or return to the worship of the Lord?

Cameron: 05:16

And many of us are not just experiencing that as we see the world around us, but maybe you're even asking that question of yourself. Like, I have been feel like I have been walking in faithlessness and godlessness for so long and for such a long period of time in my life that I am not even sure how to get back to a place of experiencing the presence, blessing, favor, and relationship of the Lord. And so while Josiah's story certainly is a story that is applied to a nation, It is not a stretch to also apply the same principles to our own heart, to our own lives, to our own relationship with the Lord and the world around us. So if you remember from the story last week, a few key points, and then we'll get into the new material. The things what did Josiah do?

Cameron: 06:16

What did Josiah do that that turned a nation from its absolute godlessness, godless leadership in Manasseh and Ammon back to the Lord as king? What did Josiah do? The very first thing that he do did was he he reestablished the centrality of worship. Almost as soon as Josiah was made king at the ripe old age of 8, I got a few 8 year olds in my house and let me tell you. Then as soon as as soon as Josiah was made king at 8, he reestablished the centrality of worship.

Cameron: 06:59

Meaning meaning hey. The very first thing that we're gonna do is we're going to make sure that we are worshiping the Lord most high. Rebuild the temple. Rebuild the place where worship was central. Make that the foundation.

Cameron: 07:17

The foundation for renewal in our lives, the foundation for a new season of faithfulness to God must always start in an expression of worship to the Lord. That must be central. It must be how we are approaching everything else. Ascribing glory and honor to him who deserves it. The number 2 the second thing that Josiah did was that Josiah and this is where we're gonna spend a lot of time later in the sermon today.

Cameron: 07:47

Is that Josiah honored and obeyed the word of the Lord. As as he was rebuilding the temple, as the temple was being rebuilt, they discovered the old an old scroll. And it had been so long since they had, as a nation, honored and obeyed the word of the Lord that they hardly recognized what it could even be. What is this strange scroll hidden in the walls of the temple? Jeez.

Cameron: 08:16

I wonder. And as the priest unrolled it in the the sight of Josiah and began to read from it, Josiah was cut to his core for the way in which the Lord was speaking to him through it. And and and Josiah was put in this moment of saying, I have heard from the Lord. His word has been read or proclaimed in my life. Now what?

Cameron: 08:45

Pretty important question even for you and I is is when we are encountered by the word of God, when we are encountered encountered by the truth of God, when we when when the word of God is either spoken over us, spoken to us, or we read it and receive it ourselves, what then is our response? Because the word itself is very clear. Right? That no response is a response. Right?

Cameron: 09:19

And that there is a difference between simply hearing the word and being like, oh, yeah. That's a good word. That's a good story. And then letting the word transform us. Letting the word correct us.

Cameron: 09:35

Letting the word letting the let making letting the word do something in us. Not merely hearing it, but doing something about it. And because Josiah was willing to be responsive to the word and do something about it, It led him to the It led him to this place of being like, Okay. Here's the word and here's the way that we've been living. And the 2 are not in alignment.

Cameron: 10:09

And so his response to the misalignment of the word of god and the reality of his life was repentance, mourning, humility, and weeping before the Lord. I recognize that there is a God in heaven. And he has spoken to me. And he has made his will clear. And I see that my life is out of alignment with what he has spoken as clear.

Cameron: 10:41

What is my response? Lord, I repent of the way in which I have been living. I'm I'm I'm more in the condition of my heart. I'm more in the condition of my life. Lord, I turn towards you so that I may be restored.

Cameron: 10:58

That's exactly what Josiah did. He tore his robes. He wept before the Lord. He responded in humility to the revelation of God's word in his heart and in his life, and he was restored. But then he he didn't stop there.

Cameron: 11:15

He didn't stop at hearing the word and then repenting. But all of second Kings chapter 23 describes this all out, essentially, scorched earth policy that Josiah had regarding all of the idolatrous worship that had been set up in the nation of Israel in the time of unfaithfulness. And he was like, we are going to tear down every idol, every alter to false god, every high place, every priest who offered who offered sacrifices on an altar to a false god, every pagan worship practice, all of it is going to be destroyed. Not when we get there. Not in a little while.

Cameron: 12:07

Now. All of it. And so you there's a whole an entire chapter about how he tore down all of the places. He he broke the altars to the pagan gods into pieces. It says that Josiah this is not a very seeker friendly message.

Cameron: 12:23

Right? Josiah was so so incensed about pagan worship that he had the the pagan priests slaughtered, burnt burnt their bodies and their bones on the old altars, took the ashes and ground them to dust, and spread them in the Kidron Valley. He took absolutely every vestige of idolatrous pagan unfaithful worship that existed in the nation of Israel. And he tore it down. He broke it apart.

Cameron: 13:05

He burnt it to pieces. He ground it to dust. So that that moment and that moment alone would be known as the time where the generational curse of idolatry and sin went no further. He tore down every high spiritual place of idolatry and worship that set itself up in faith in faithlessness to say to say, we will we will we will tear down and destroy everything that is not of the lord's. How many times, how much, how many times has sin continued to reign in our lives because we refuse to do vicious spiritual violence to it.

Cameron: 13:49

We play patty cake with it and allow it to exist in our hearts and our lives in small slivers and small bits here and there compromising with it, letting it overpromise but under deliver for our lives. And sooner or later, it is a spiritual high place that now has a stronghold for us. We need to do spiritual violence to the idolatry and sin of our lives if we want to experience freedom. Lastly, at the end of 2nd Kings chapter 23, it says King Josiah reinstated the Passover celebration. Now for you and I, this might not seem like a whole lot, not seem like a big deal.

Cameron: 14:37

But for Jewish people, the Passover was as central and identifying celebration for them as Easter is for you and I who follow Jesus. So think about it this way. Easter for us is the it is the foundation of our faith. Paul says that if Christ has not been resurrected from the dead, our faith is our, like resurrection is used on our souls, our faith. If Jesus Christ himself has not been resurrected from the dead, then nothing matters for us.

Cameron: 15:12

We might as well go home right now. Right? If Jesus has not been resurrected from the dead, if the truth of Easter is not true for us by faith, then we might as well it's over. Right? Who cares about anything else?

Cameron: 15:25

It is central to who we are. And because we believe so fully in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, we have hope for eternity. And we live in forgiveness. And we are living by grace. And we are living by love.

Cameron: 15:38

And our whole world is changed. Our identity is changed. We now have not an earthly identity. We have a heavenly identity. We are made new.

Cameron: 15:49

We are changed people. It is central to who we are, foundational to who we are. Now imagine if we spent 400 years not celebrating Easter. Who would we become? Certainly not the people that Jesus called or that we've been called to be through faith in Jesus Christ.

Cameron: 16:14

Right? Right? It would completely remove us from our identity as the children of God. Passover was the Easter for Jewish people. It was the moment where they celebrated, remembered God's miraculous deliverance of them from slavery in Egypt where he delivered them from the hands of the Egyptians and led them eventually to the promised land.

Cameron: 16:47

And they celebrated passover as this main identifying mark of a people who had been delivered by God, called out by God, and then set on a path of blessing to the world through the covenant of Abraham. And so it was for for Josiah to come by and say, oh, yeah. And just in case, just to make sure we never again forget who God has called us to be and who God has made us to be by his faithfulness in the past. We're re celebrating the Passover. It's gonna be the biggest celebration of the Passover we've ever had, and we're not gonna ever stop celebrating it again.

Cameron: 17:28

So he reestablished a celebration that gave them that reminded them of their identity, who they were. Josiah was significant in this way. But what made him unique? And there's lots of people, right, in scripture that we see that led really significant spiritual movements. Right?

Cameron: 17:56

I mean, you could you could name any any one of them and and name a bunch of good things that they did. Right? All throughout scripture, we could do that. But Josiah is unique even in the way that the scripture talks about him in relationship or in relation to others in comparison to others, I should say. In 2nd in 2nd Kings chapter 23, the word of God says this about Josiah 2325.

Cameron: 18:21

Neither before or after Josiah was there a king like him who turned to the Lord as he did with all of his heart and with all of his soul and with all of his strength in accordance with the law of Moses. 2nd Kings 2325. Not before or after him was there a king like him who turned to the Lord with everything that they had. What would it take? What was so unique about Josiah's disposition before the Lord?

Cameron: 19:05

What made him so different than David, a king before him or Hezekiah, or any other godly king? What made him so differently than the ungodly kings, the faithless, the evil, the pagan kings? What were the unique features of Josiah's life? And can we take the uniqueness of Josiah, apply it to ourselves, right, and experience the same type of words? I mean, I would experience the same type of disposition that Josiah experienced.

Cameron: 19:41

So, really, the point today is to ask the question, how do we develop a Josiah like uniqueness to our walk with the Lord, to our relationship with God. Here's one thing that I recognize we should recognize about Josiah that it was incredibly unique. It was this. Josiah was uniquely attuned to God's voice. Meaning, like, that there was there was something about Josiah that allowed him seemingly beyond the capacity of his peers to hear clearly the word of the God and the voice of God speaking to him.

Cameron: 20:34

Not not incidentally so, but we we can see this kind of anecdotally so in just the reality that the boy was 8 years old when he first responded to the voice of the Lord. Right responded to the voice of the Lord. Right? I got I got 8 year olds that don't respond to my voice. Right?

Cameron: 20:58

Let alone let alone an 8 year old who is attuned to the voice of the Lord and then responds by ordering a nation towards worship. Right? But but as kind of like an aside to the main point of hearing the voice of the Lord, like, I do often want listen. It should be clear that God is no respecter of age. What is abundantly clear is that God rushes to use those whose ears are attuned to his voice for his glory, not those who have met a specific age and are now mature enough to do great things for the Lord.

Cameron: 21:52

It should become that fact and that fact alone should birth something within us, church, to say, how are we discipling the lives and spirits and minds and hearts and souls of the kids in our community here So that they are positioned to know. Listen to the voice of the Lord, 8 year old. Because when he talks to you, if you respond in faithfulness, he will do great and mighty things through you. How how eager and ready and willing are you and I to let a child lead us in faith. Because they are listening.

Cameron: 22:52

Because they are ready and eager to respond. You know what one of the most beautiful things about kids are? For the most part, they don't know how to not believe. They just don't. They live in the place of faithfulness.

Cameron: 23:19

I've always said that if you want if you if you if you got something big going on, don't don't ask me to pray for it. I mean, ask me to pray, but you get what I'm saying. Like, don't ask me to pray for it. Ask a child to pray. Because when a child prays, they only know how to pray in faith.

Cameron: 23:43

I I pray I pray a lot in doubt. Well, Lord, if you want to, and I don't know, if you're not too busy, if it would be your will, like, I've, you know, I've seen people not healed before, but if you could heal this time, you know, like, I I pray with this nuance of doubt, like, that is an undercurrent, right, all of the time. Like, god can heal, but will heal. I don't know. But a child prays, lord, heal them.

Cameron: 24:10

Lord, because you can. Of course, you can, lord. I know you can. I've heard that you can. I've seen that you can.

Cameron: 24:17

I've read that you can. Of course, you can, lord. Heal them, lord. Like, we wanna see things done. Ask a child to pray.

Cameron: 24:24

They don't know how to not believe. But how are we discipling even our own children to make space for God to speak to them, to move in their lives? How are we showing and displaying the heart that's necessary to respond when they do hear the Lord? But, like, getting back to this, like, the uniqueness of Josiah in this moment, he was uniquely attuned to God's voice. Now, obviously, we have the whole 8 years old thing, and that's kind of a unique situation.

Cameron: 24:58

He was obviously had a special spiritual disposition that allowed him to hear the Lord even at a young age. But, like, the uniqueness of having a voice or having ears that are attuned to God's voice these days for you and I is probably less about our age like it was for Josiah and more about our willingness, your willingness, my willingness as individuals, and then our willingness as a community of faith, our willingness to shut out, shut off and block the noise of the world to create space to hear God. What does it take to be unique like Josiah? It takes a willingness to have attuned ears to hear the Lord, but that willingness comes at the hand of being willing to shut off and shut out the general noise that competes for our attention and our mental, emotional, and spiritual bandwidth all the time, all day, every day, forever. I was struck this week when I decided to do, as much research as anyone can reliably do on the Internet about these things anyway.

Cameron: 26:30

Right? About what is the average amount of time well, I'll say it like this. A study was done earlier in the year, June 2024, that showed the average amount of time that an American spends in front of a screen on a daily basis. Now, I will say they gave it gave figures from, from it gave global figures, but Americans topped the list. They were at the very, very tippy top of the list.

Cameron: 27:13

Now granted, some of us are lower than the average and some of us are higher than the average. But the question there then being is, like, where where does our attention go? What is the noise that competes to hear the voice of the Lord, to attune our ears? This study done in June of 2024 showed that the average American spends 7 hours and 3 minutes in front of some form of a screen per day. Whether that would be a phone, a tablet, a TV, a computer.

Cameron: 28:02

Now granted, some of us use those things for work and we're, we it's it's has become necessary in some ways. Right? But if you, if you are like me, I was like, wow. Man, there's no way that I spend that amount of time. I've got to be below average.

Cameron: 28:19

And I do I do use my phone a lot for work. So, like, I I like reluctantly pull picked up my phone. And I I have an iPhone. Right? So if you have an iPhone, you know like on your on your little settings, you can go to like the screen time button.

Cameron: 28:37

You're like screen time. Average over the last week. And I was like, okay. What you know? Okay.

Cameron: 28:46

Yeah. I can see I used it for work here. Work here. Work here. Email, email, email, whatever.

Cameron: 28:50

But then there's, like, the other things that are definitely not work related. And the question and so the question there is, not the question. The reality should be straight is nice is not lost should not be lost on any of us. Right? We continually fill our minds, our eyes, our ears, our mental space, our spiritual space, our emotional space with a never ending flow of information, data, pictures, music, words, videos, scrolling this, scrolling that.

Cameron: 29:31

It's no wonder we cannot hear the Lord. The reality is is that it's very very rarely that the Lord is not speaking to us. It is very very very common. We don't have the space to receive it. We have an inability to filter out the still small voice of the Lord in our lives because we have become accustomed to.

Cameron: 30:07

In fact, it has become completely average and normal to drown ourselves in a sea of worthless information that brings us 0% closer to holiness with Jesus. And then we ask a question, why isn't the Lord speaking to me? Attune his ears to the voice of the Lord? Do we want to develop the keen ability to attune our voice to the Lord? The Lord has given us Lord has actually built within the fabric of creation.

Cameron: 31:04

The means by which we hear clearly from him and experience his presence. It's one of the most significant curse words that Christians don't like to use. It's this one, Sabbath. Sabbath, Jesus says, is a gift that God has created and given to us. Jesus said that in Mark chapter 2 verse 27.

Cameron: 31:39

He said that, Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. What does that mean? Like, no. God intentionally created the rhythm of Sabbath as a gift that we may enjoy. What has been what is shocking what should shock us is that out of all of the things that God has given to us as gifts, Sabbath oftentimes seems to be the one that we hate.

Cameron: 32:25

That it becomes for us like a burden. Something that we must do or fulfill or obey. Well, I know. Like, I get it. Sabbath.

Cameron: 32:41

Yeah. I get it. It's cute. It's cute. Alright.

Cameron: 32:43

I know. You know? Like but I am just so busy, and I have an incredible amount of responsibility, and my calendar is so full. And I don't practically know how I would even fit that in. And so I don't.

Cameron: 33:14

And you forfeit the gift of God's presence that he desires to give you when you receive the gift of Sabbath by stopping what you're doing and start being who you were created to be. Sabbath calls us to stop, to find our identity in being with him and not listen. This is this is more true for pastors than it is for anyone. I'm just gonna I'll admit it flat out. Sabbath gives us it calls us to find our identity in being with him and not doing for him.

Cameron: 34:11

You know, we can get so tied up trying to do things for God that we forsake the practice of being simply in his presence alone with him. But, god, I'm like doing this. And I'm like doing this. And, like, doing this. And, like, doing this.

Cameron: 34:31

And, like, doing this. And he was like, you you are not a human doing even if it's for me. Come and be with me. Come and enjoy my presence. And it is in that place that I will give you an identity to then go out and do.

Cameron: 34:57

Sabbath Sabbath reminds us that we create nothing in this world. It helps us to to stop. It helps us to cease from our striving to create and control and to give up and realize and recognize that everything that we have has been given to us through the generosity and graciousness of the Lord. It is a time and a place purpose built to experience His presence. I wanna get to I don't wanna get too much deeper into this, but I will tell you that in 2025, the year 2025, Sabbath is gonna be one of 2 main spiritual themes that guides our life as a congregation together.

Cameron: 35:55

K? So one of the ways that we attune ourselves to the voice of the Lord is that we receive and practice the gift of Sabbath. With the second is that we have a consecrated time to listen. Now, consecration the idea of consecration, is means to like, to consecrate something means to set something aside for special use. This might be, kind of what you have classically or traditionally known or heard of as your quiet time, a devotional time, a time of prayer, a time where you read your bible, or you, at in the morning or at night or whatever.

Cameron: 36:38

But listen, without without you consecrating or setting aside a specific amount of time in order to quiet your quiet your life so that you can hear his voice, all of that time gets absorbed up into the other busyness of life together. Consecration is necessary in order that we would avoid the trap of saying, I'll I'll I'll get to it when I get to it today. I'll do it at some point when I have a spare a few spare minutes in between this and that. Consecrating time is an intentional decision to say, I will stop the noise of life. I will stop the busyness of life.

Cameron: 37:33

The screen goes off. The phone goes off. You go into the room. No one else is there. I will consecrate this time so I have this time and this time alone for the Lord.

Cameron: 37:49

If you want to be unique like Josiah, turning to the Lord with all of your heart and with all of your soul and with all of your strength, learn to tune your ear to his voice. When you begin to tune your ears to his voice and you begin to hear him and he begins to speak to you, you get to kind of step into this next, like, possibility or season of uniqueness. And that's this. What was unique about Josiah? Josiah did not hesitate to respond to God's word.

Cameron: 38:27

He did not hesitate at all. In fact, in 2nd Kings chapter 22 verse 19, the prophetess Hulda said this about him. He said, because your heart was what? Responsive and you humbled yourself before the Lord when you heard what I have spoken against this place and its people. And because you tore your robes and wept in my presence, I have heard you declares the Lord.

Cameron: 38:55

There was no hesitation in Josiah's life when he heard the voice of the Lord. When the word of the Lord came to him, when conviction came upon his heart, when when when the when the word of the Lord showed him how he was living in misalignment, his life was living in misalignment, Josiah had a choice. Don't respond to God's word, which is a response, right? Or respond and respond immediately. And if you wanna be unique like Josiah, you must learn to respond immediately to the word of God when he pushes conviction into your life.

Cameron: 39:41

Josiah went immediately to work righting the wrongs of the nation and aligning its direction with God's word. It was not something that could be done timidly by him. It had to be done aggressively. And right now, without hesitation, the word of God has spoken. Oh, shoot.

Cameron: 40:04

I'm doing something completely different. I must make a choice. Bring them into alignment. That's what made Josiah unique is he was willing to respond to the Lord without any hesitation. He was he the the word of God came upon his life and he was like, I gotta get corrected right now.

Cameron: 40:30

Question for us, for you. How often do you allow god's word to correct you? To rebuke you, to train you. The apostle Paul told Timothy that this was a key factor of the word of God. That in in second Timothy chapter 3 verse 16, he said, all scripture is God breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness.

Cameron: 41:14

It's the reality. It's like we don't like to be corrected. We do not like to be rebuked. Some of us don't even like the idea of having to be trained because it admits it it admits some level of deficiency in our lives. Right?

Cameron: 41:38

Correct me? What do you mean correct me? Rebuke me? What do you mean rebuke me? Train me.

Cameron: 41:45

I don't need any training. And we walk in the obstinacy of our own sinfulness refusing to allow the word of God to correct us. You see that there is there is a difference. There is a large, large, large difference between hearing the word of god and being like, oh, yeah. Yeah.

Cameron: 42:11

That's, that's convicting. I see that. That's sure. I get it. I get it.

Cameron: 42:22

Not doing it though. I mean, not doing it. Right? See, correcting being corrected or rebuked or trained is the willingness to allow God's word to transform your action, to move you in a different direction, to take you from the place where you are at and move you in faithfulness to righteousness. Right?

Cameron: 42:55

Many of all kinds of us, you're all here because you're willing to hear the word of god. That's not the question. The question is whether or not you are willing to let the word of God correct you. All over the book of Proverbs, we see, we see, little scriptures that say something like something to akin like Proverbs chapter 1 verse 7 says, a fool despises god's wisdom, or a fool despises wisdom and discipline. Proverbs chapter 3 verse 11.

Cameron: 43:42

My son, do not despise the Lord's discipline and do not resent his rebuke because the Lord disciplines the ones he loves. Listen, if God's not disciplining you with his word, you may not be a child of his. If God is not using his word to discipline, correct, rebuke and train you in righteousness, if God is not bringing rebuke upon the sin of your life, if God is not correcting the brokenness of your heart with his word, you may not be his son. You may not be his daughter. Repent.

Cameron: 44:32

Meanwhile, I don't really feel like god uses his word to correct me too much. That's a problem. That is a problem because all god's kids are getting it. If you want to be unique like Josiah, let the word of God transform. Transform.

Cameron: 44:57

Not just fill your mind. Transform it. Correct it. Rebuke it. Move it from point a to point b.

Cameron: 45:07

If you want to be unique like Josiah, let the word of God transform your mind. Rebuke, correct and train you for righteousness. Do not merely listen to it. Do what it says. Josiah was the king of doing what the what the word of God said.

Cameron: 45:26

The scroll gets unrolled for the first time in 400 years. We presume through some intertextual clues that it was the the scroll of Deuteronomy. And Deuteronomy gets read for the first time in 400 years in Josiah. And Josiah is like, I am going to be undone. We must do this now.

Cameron: 45:45

And reforms started in the nation. Do not merely listen to the word, do it. But listen. To do it, to listen to it, to be trained and transformed by it, you must what? Be in it.

Cameron: 46:08

I just got I just want the I I just want god to transform me. I just I just I I want God to I just want God to create holiness in me and sanctification. I want him to take me from point a to point b. And I wanna I wanna experience freedom from this. And I wanna I wanna be free from brokenness.

Cameron: 46:24

I wanna be free from the chains that I'm in. Right? Like, I like, I wanna I wanna move forward. I wanna move forward here. Like, listen.

Cameron: 46:31

You need to partner with God by being in the word that he uses to transform you. You need to partner with God through faith to step in the practice of engaging his word and listening to his voice, being attuned to him in solitude and silence so that he can use the tools that he uses, his word and the power of his holy spirit to correct and rebuke and train and teach you for all righteousness. We want to be transformed. We want to be changed. We want to be made new.

Cameron: 47:21

We just want it with no effort. We must be in it. Like, I don't really wanna be in it. There is a point where as we are growing in our desire to see the Lord work in our lives, that we do need to ask the Lord to give us a deeper hunger and thirst for the things of him. Lord, give me a hunger for your word.

Cameron: 48:09

Lord, give me a thirst for your word. Lord, Lord, make your make your word like the bread of life to me, Lord. Make it be the only thing that I want. Give me a desire for your word, for the living water of your word above and before anything else. Lord, I don't want it right now.

Cameron: 48:32

Lord, desire within me is low. I don't even know what it means, Lord, to hunger after your word. I don't even know what it means to love your word. I don't even know what it means to want to read your word, Lord. But I know that you want me to want me to read your word.

Cameron: 48:49

So father, if you want it in my life, I want it in my life. Give me a hunger for it that cannot be denied. And what is incredible is that when we begin to pray prayers like that, god is really, really quick and eager to answer them. Like, well, I don't feel hungry. Well, watch today.

Cameron: 49:14

Go ahead and pray that prayer today, and your phone's gonna break tomorrow. And then all of a sudden, you're gonna have 7 hours and 3 minutes a day. Pray that God would give you a hunger for his word. And here's what I'm gonna here's what I would say. And then take your Bible.

Cameron: 49:39

Open it up to the very middle of it to the book of Psalms and try and find Psalm 119, which is the largest chapter in all of the Bible. It's got a 150 verses to it. And in every single verse in Psalm 119, the writer of the Psalm is like, Lord, I love your law. I love your word. Your decrees are life to me.

Cameron: 50:01

Your your your law is like bread to me. Plant your law deep in my heart. Give me a hunger for the things of your word, Lord. It's all the word of God, the word of God, the word of God, the word of God, the word of God, the word of God, all of it. You want to develop a hunger for the word of God in your life?

Cameron: 50:17

Spend a year reading Psalm 119 every day. It will. You will have an insatiable hunger for God's word, and it will transform and correct your life. Jeepers cry money. Where is the time going?

Cameron: 50:43

Okay. Becoming unique like Josiah, we must become fluent in repentance. You want to become unique like Josiah? Become fluent in repentance. Josiah humbled himself, tore his robes, and wept in the presence of God when he realized the sin of the nation in his own sin.

Cameron: 51:05

He repented of the sin of the nation because God brought conviction to his heart through his word. Repentance was his reflexive response. It was the thing it was the only thing that he could do in light of the word that had been revealed in his heart. And notice that repentance did not come at a time when it was convenient for Josiah. It was like the Word of God is revealed.

Cameron: 51:30

Repentance happens now. Because when God calls us to repentance, the responsive action cannot be half hearted. We cannot wait. We cannot hesitate. When conviction comes upon our heart to repent, we must do it, and we must do so now.

Cameron: 51:51

We must also do it fully and wholeheartedly. Should you hear this? Okay? Half hearted repentance is full hearted sin. Half hearted repentance.

Cameron: 52:15

Full hearted sin still. I give up a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Turn my back on a little bit of that and a little bit of this. Play patty cake with hoping that God sees the effort as good enough, but still playing over here in a half hearted form of repentance. It's full hearted sin, brothers and sisters.

Cameron: 52:41

Josiah's repentance was full. It was immediate. It was without hesitation. It tore down everything that stood in the way of him and the Lord. But listen.

Cameron: 52:52

The way that Josiah is described as weeping, humble, tearing robes, wept in my presence. God does not desire our kind of, like, self flagellation. He's not asking us to punish ourselves, coming with a false humility. God does not delight in our weeping. God delights in our new found vision of how deeply like how deeply damaging our sin is and how it creates such a significant divide in our relationship with him that it leads us to a place of, like, utter weeping and sadness and humility.

Cameron: 53:40

I don't weep before the Lord in my sin because the Lord needs to see an authentic response. I weep before the Lord in my sin because of the extraordinary nature of my sin and the holiness of the lord as I stand before him in repentance. Here's another thing. Understand this. We talk about repentance like it's something that we dread.

Cameron: 54:17

Because what does it usually mean? Repentance usually means us, like, if you if you have to repent of your sin to someone in your life, right, it usually means you got to come to them and be like, I did something bad. I'm a bad person. Horrible. Probably think worse of me now.

Cameron: 54:41

Probably think all these things about me. Breaking trust and ruining relationship and creating division and all of that. But listen. Repentance is not a punishment. Repentance is not a punishment.

Cameron: 55:01

Repentance is a gift. God has given us repentance as the pathway to spiritual restoration with him. He does not have to give repentance is not a given. Like, it God has given us repentance as a gift saying, hey, repent and come back to me. Repent and be restored.

Cameron: 55:24

Repent and be renewed. Repent and be resurrected. Repentance is a gift. It's not a punishment. It's like, oh, now I gotta go and repent again.

Cameron: 55:35

Thank the Lord that we can repent. Thank the Lord for the tremendous gift of his grace that calls us into repentance. What is interesting for me is that Josiah did not he did not, consider his reputation or his name or his position at all when he went and repented. It says at the beginning of chapter 23 of 2nd Kings, that that Josiah, when he called together all of the elders of Judah and this is the king. Kings don't admit that they're wrong because they're not wrong.

Cameron: 56:20

They're never wrong. Whatever the king says is right. Right? But then he calls together everyone. He calls together the elders of Jew Judah and Jerusalem.

Cameron: 56:31

He went out to the temple of the Lord with the men of Judah, the people of Jerusalem, the priests, the prophets, all the people from the least to the greatest. And he read in their hearing the book of the law. And in that place, he reestablished the covenant with them. And he led the people to reestablish their covenant with the Lord. And so Josiah stood before everyone in name and reputation as king and said, I have sinned.

Cameron: 57:02

We have sinned. He gave he gave he did not care about his reputation. He did not care about his name. Image meant nothing in that moment. Reputation meant nothing because God does not honor reputation.

Cameron: 57:18

God does not honor image. God honors the heart of the contrite, humble spirit. So be unique by becoming fluent in repentance. Finally, talked about this last week. Be unique by doing spiritual violence to the idolatrous high places of your life.

Cameron: 57:50

We need to do spiritual violence to the sin of our lives and stop glorifying the idea of perpetually struggling with this sin or that. Maybe the truth is that we just like our sin, Then we are not fully willing to pursue God in wholehearted devotion and consecration. It's no longer a struggle for us. Now, it has become a stronghold in our life. One way to do spiritual violence in our lives, or I would I would say this.

Cameron: 58:35

I'm going to say it like this. You want to be unique like Josiah. Here is a way that we do spiritual violence to the sin of our lives. Okay? Sin thrives and grows in darkness, In secrecy.

Cameron: 58:57

That is where sin grows, the biggest. Sin grows in secrecy. And while sin is in the darkness of our lives and in the secrecy of our life, sin breeds as a part of its function. It breeds shame. And shame manifests itself in these large, heavy chains that keep us shackled in the dark.

Cameron: 59:25

Meaning, like, we get into a pattern of sin. Right? And then because we're in a pattern of sin, we feel like we feel shameful about it. I can't believe I'm doing that. A follower of Jesus.

Cameron: 59:38

I should know better. I should do better. I should think better. I should do differently. I should be differently.

Cameron: 59:44

Like, shame. Shame. How how could you? How could you? How could you?

Cameron: 59:49

How could you? How could you? How could you? And where does that shame lead us? That shame keeps us in the dark for fear that someone is going to find out just how shameful and sinful we really are.

Cameron: 01:00:07

And so we remain in the dark, continuing to wallow in a pattern of sin because shame tells us that the dark is where you belong when you're sinful. And when we get into a pattern like that, there's only one response to the pattern of sin that keeps us in secrecy, darkness, and shame. One way to do spiritual violence to the high places of our lives is to expose them to the light of Jesus Christ, bringing them out into the open. We bring our sin. We bring our shame.

Cameron: 01:01:02

We bring the thing that we think does, that we think needs to be kept secret and in the dark out into the light of Jesus Christ by willingly surrendering our love for them and asking God to replace it and give us a different greater love in his son, Jesus. The light of Jesus Christ is the place where the darkness of sin and the secrecy of sin goes to die. That happens internally, generally speaking. We become sick and tired of being sick and tired, and we cry out to Jesus for help. In the midst of the secrecy and darkness of our sin and our shame to come and save us from bondage to sin, to replace our heart of stone with a heart of flesh.

Cameron: 01:02:12

But listen, doing spiritual violence in our lives is also in some ways a public act. Josiah didn't secretly break down all of the altars, the idolatrous pagan altars in the nation of Israel. He did it publicly so. One of the ways that we can do spiritual violence to the dark and secret places of sin and shame in our lives is that we can bring them into the light of Christ by confessing it to someone else. Someone who loves Jesus and is Christ centered and that loves us so that we no longer are living in the darkness of our sin and our shame.

Cameron: 01:02:58

I shared with you last week, and I shared with you guys conduit several times before. Well, I'll share it as many times as I need to share it in order for it it to be an effective, example is that, is that I have an alcohol problem. Right? And for the last 10 years of my life, I've been sober. And and and that's been that's been through God's grace.

Cameron: 01:03:24

Right? But I am by every definition of the word an alcoholic. And even 10 years now free of that, 10 years without a drink, I will still, from time to time, go out to dinner with friends, go over to a buddy's house to watch the football game or something like that. And for whatever reason, maybe it just has never really come up in conversation, they don't know that I am an alcoholic. And so even in that moment right there, you begin to hear the the the powers of darkness and the attack of the enemy say, you know, it's if you have like a drink or 2, they don't know that you're trying to live a sober life.

Cameron: 01:04:20

Your wife is not going to know either. Right? Like, your sober friends, your church will never know. Like, it's it's fine. Just 1 or 2.

Cameron: 01:04:32

No problem. Right? No one's gotta know. Like, listen. Anytime anytime you hear a voice that's trying to get you to do something in secret, you should be wary of it.

Cameron: 01:04:44

K. Nothing good happens in secret. Nothing good. Right. And so what needs to happen in that moment for me?

Cameron: 01:04:55

What needs to happen? Yeah. You guys are gonna order drinks. That's cool. Want to let you know.

Cameron: 01:05:02

Not sure if you knew or not. Like, I am I struggle with alcohol. I've been sober for 10 years. I don't drink. It's not something I want in my life anymore.

Cameron: 01:05:11

I'm cool if you do around me, but it's just not something that I want, not something that I wanna do. Wanted to let you know that right off the bat because, like, this whole, like, living in secret about it thing here has got me doing weird things up in my head about it. You know what happens when you bring the truth out into the light? Darkness flees. It retreats.

Cameron: 01:05:42

It goes. It leaves. It's never there anymore. And when you're met when you're met with the power of exposing what was once for you, shame and sin to the light of confession. Right?

Cameron: 01:06:00

You begin to realize that that it no longer has power. Confession brings power. Exposing things to the light brings power. Saying it out loud brings power. Because because Christ lives in the light, not in the darkness and the secrecy of our shadows.

Cameron: 01:06:24

Listen, brothers and sisters, we can be you can be unique like Josiah. By taking intentional time to consecrate yourself and attune your heart, attune your ears to his voice, To not hesitate a bit when the word of God comes upon you to respond to the Lord's word. To be fluent in repentance when that word shows a misalignment between your life and the life of God's word, and when you do spiritual violence to the things in your life that keep you, that keep you in shame and secrecy and darkness, you will experience for you. You will experience God's freedom, God's blessing, God's favor, God's clarity when you approach your walk with him as Josiah approached it as well. Let's pray.

Cameron: 01:07:36

Ask the lord to do just such a thing. Heavenly father, oh, lord, that you would transform us by your word, and that we would be responsive to your word. We pray, Lord, that you would give us hearts that are eager without hesitation to align ourselves with your truth. Lord, I pray that where we have been hesitating to repent, lord, that you would bring us there fully now. Lord, I pray where we have been, allowing spiritual high places to exist in our lives, not sure how to deal with them or what to do with them, Lord.

Cameron: 01:08:44

That we would surrender them to the light of Jesus Christ even now. And that, Lord Jesus, you would come and save us from them. That we would confess that sin and darkness, Lord, bringing it out into the light of trusted fellowship with brothers and sisters in Christ that we might experience the freedom that comes from living from a place of truth. Lord, we turn to you. We worship you, Lord.

Cameron: 01:09:28

You are worthy in Jesus name. Amen.