Sermon Tone Analysis

Leader Guide ESV, Unit 15, Session 2

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Edited by Rev. Lex DeLong, M.A., Feb. 2023.

Summary and Goal

The kingdom of Judah had been led into sin and rebellion by her unfaithful kings.

The book of the Law had been lost, and the people had become idol-worshipers.

But young King Josiah sought to honor God, so we see him on a great adventure of destroying idols throughout the land.

Yet when Josiah came face to face with the holiness of God revealed through the accidental discovery of God’s Word, he repented and led his people to do the same.

After Josiah’s repentance, he restored the worship of God and greatly influenced his culture.

Josiah found his purpose in the worship of God through his repentance.

This is the key to discovering our purpose as well.

It’s through the darkness of repentance that we begin to live fully in God’s light.

Session Outline

++Repentance involves removing and destroying idols (2 Chron.

34:1-7).

++Repentance involves restoring and resuming worship (2 Chron.

34:8-11).

++Repentance involves recovering and obeying God’s Word (2 Chron.

34:14-15,18-21).

Background Passage: 2 Chronicles 29–35

Session in a Sentence

God desires that people repent of their sin and turn to Him in worship and obedience.

++God desires that we turn from sin’s lies and slavery, return to Him as the only rescue, and live in His light.

Christ Connection

Josiah was a good king whom God used to lead the people back to Him, but he was not the perfect king that the people needed.

Jesus is the righteous King of kings who brings us to God by paying our sin penalty and giving us His righteousness.

Missional Application

Because we have been forgiven in Christ and have been credited with His righteousness, we are able to turn from all sin and cast aside all else that hinders our worship of the one true King.

Although we will not fully attain more, or even as much as Paul did, but like him, this is what we are to “press on” to (Phil.

3:12).

P. 85 DDG about Alexander Fleming’s accidental discovery of penicillin.

In 1928, Alexander Fleming was experimenting with bacteria that cause staph infections.

He left a Petri dish uncovered, and it became contaminated with mold spores.

The bacteria grew all over the plate except in the area where the mold had formed.

This was Fleming’s accidental discovery of penicillin, which would later be mass-produced for use in World War II and go on to save countless lives from bacterial infection.

1

Say: Penicillin is still saving people.

However, it doesn’t have the power to really save.

No matter how we cut it, one day our lives will fail us despite modern medicine, and we will go either to heaven or hell.

Summarize: King Josiah makes an accidental discovery that does have the power to really save.

When Josiah came face to face with the holiness of God revealed through the accidental discovery of God’s word, he repented and led his people to do the same.

After Josiah’s repentance, he restored the worship of God and greatly influenced his culture.

Josiah found his purpose in the worship of God through his repentance.

This is the key to discovering our purpose as well.

It’s through the darkness of what drives us to repentance that we begin to look for and turn to living fully in God’s light.

Point 1: Repentance involves removing and destroying idols (2 Chron.

34:1-7).

Read: Ask a volunteer to read 2 Chronicles 34:1-7 (DDG p. 86).

1 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 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.

DDG (p.