2 November 2025

Returning to the Heart of Worship

Bible Passage: 2 Kings 18:1–6, 2 Kings 22:1–2, 2 Kings 23:1–3

Summary: The narrative of Hezekiah and Josiah illustrates a profound journey of rediscovering true worship amid a backdrop of idolatry. These kings exemplify the necessity of returning to the heart of worship through obedience to God's Law and a commitment to spiritual renewal, leading a nation back to the worship of the one true God.

Application: This sermon challenges Christians to evaluate their own lives and communities for areas where idolatry may have crept in, calling them to recommit to authentic worship. Believers are encouraged to actively engage in the practices of prayer, Scripture reading, and community accountability, ensuring that their worship aligns with God’s standards.

Big Idea: Genuine worship involves a heart turned fully towards God, leading to personal and communal transformation. When believers prioritize their relationship with God and reject idolatrous distractions, they cultivate an environment ripe for spiritual renewal that can influence those around them.

1. Opening

A few years ago, a student worship leader at a youth camp brought his favorite guitar as he had year after year — a beautiful instrument that had been with him for as long as he could remember. It sounded amazing, but somewhere along the way, likely through all of his travels, the tuning pegs had gotten bent and one of the strings buzzed constantly. It still worked, sort of, but every song was just a little off.

The other leaders noticed that something was off and offered to help fix it. But the student kept saying, “It’s fine, I’ve got this. I’ve learned how to play around it and you are focusing more on what is wrong than what is right.” We all know how this goes, when asked nobody ever wants to get up there and play. But when you get up there, everyone shows up to give you pointers and suggestions about how you could improve.

Well...On the last night of camp, one of the national speakers who was brought to the camp to provide the message took notice of this worship leader. The speaker approached the student one-on-one off to the side and said, “You’ve got a great gift, but you’re playing it out of tune. Why not let someone fix what’s broken?”

That night, after the message, the worship leader had some time alone with the Lord and prayed. During this time, the Spirit prompted him to finally listen to all those signs that God put in his life. The young man finally handed over his guitar to the other leaders. They replaced the peg, restrung it, and tuned it properly.

The young man strummed it again, this time with all that was off made right. Here’s the thing, it sounded completely different — richer, clearer, alive. All those in the camp were amazed by how much better it sounded and the music it produced enhanced the worship experience for everyone there at camp.

The young man said, “I didn’t even realize how bad it had gotten because I guess that I had just gotten used to it.”

This is similar to what had happened to God’s people in the days of Hezekiah and Josiah. For generations, Israel and Judah had been playing out of tune spiritually. They still had religion — they still sang songs, still went through motions — but their hearts and their worship were way off pitch. They had built idols, blended their faith with the culture around them, and convinced themselves everything was “fine.”

Then two kings came along who said, “No more pretending this is okay.” Hezekiah cleaned house. Josiah rediscovered the Word of God and led the people to renew their covenant — to retune their hearts to God’s heart.

And that’s what our lesson today is really about: what it means to return to the heart of worship. Because even today, it’s easy to let our faith get slightly out of tune — not always out of rebellion, but out of routine.

The question I want you all thinking about today and this week: Where might my heart have drifted out of tune with God’s? And am I willing to let Him reset it?

2. Hezekiah's Holy Heart

2 Kings 18:1–2 “Now it came to pass in the third year of Hoshea the son of Elah, king of Israel, that Hezekiah the son of Ahaz, king of Judah, began to reign. He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Abi the daughter of Zechariah.”

After King Solomon’s reign, Israel split into two kingdoms: the northern kingdom (Israel) and the southern kingdom (Judah). The north had ten tribes and was ruled by a series of kings—almost all of whom turned away from God, leading the people into idolatry and injustice. We talked about how Israel adopted the gods of those around them, built alters and idols, and sacrificed to these gods. Prophets like Elijah, Elisha, Amos, and Hosea warned the northern kingdom to repent, but the people refused to listen.

Over time, Assyria rose as the dominant empire in the region. Israel’s kings tried to survive by forming alliances and paying tribute (we talked about this last week), but their unfaithfulness to God left them politically weak and spiritually bankrupt. In 722 BC, Assyria invaded and destroyed the northern capital of Samaria, capturing much of the population and scattering them throughout the empire. We talked about how Assyria would de-populate a kingdom, the fishhooks in the lips, the breeding out of a culture, this is what all took place and marked the fall of the northern kingdom—a tragic fulfillment of the prophets’ warnings.

Meanwhile, in the southern kingdom of Judah, Hezekiah eventually became king. Today we are going to see a contrast to to what happened in the north.

What did we talk about last week, Israel did the next comfortable thing, the easy thing, the popular thing, but what does God call us to do? Simply said He calls us to do the next right thing. Here we see that King Hezekiah and Judah were going to make a commitment to doing what was right in God’s eyes, not man’s. Judah’s worship started with aligning their hearts with what God wanted, not what the world wanted.

3. Hezekiah's Cleaning House

2 Kings 18:3–6 “And he did what was right in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his father David had done. He removed the high places and broke the sacred pillars, cut down the wooden image and broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made; for until those days the children of Israel burned incense to it, and called it Nehushtan. He trusted in the Lord God of Israel, so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor who were before him. For he held fast to the Lord; he did not depart from following Him, but kept His commandments, which the Lord had commanded Moses.”

He removed the high places, none of the good kings before had the courage to tear down the popular places of worship. God hated the high places because they reflected an all-out rejection of His commands and a devotion to other gods.

The sacred pillars, here what it says elsewhere: NIV, NLT, and CSB - “cut down the Asherah poles”, and I rarely do this, but here is what the Message says, “He got rid of the local fertility shrines, smashed the phallic stone monuments, and cut down the sex and religion Asherah groves.”

All the weird pagan stuff was tossed out

Here is what is going on with the serpent staff...

Numbers 21:5–9 “And the people spoke against God and against Moses: “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and our soul loathes this worthless bread.” So the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and many of the people of Israel died. Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord that He take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. Then the Lord said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and it shall be that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall live.” So Moses made a bronze serpent, and put it on a pole; and so it was, if a serpent had bitten anyone, when he looked at the bronze serpent, he lived.”

So, this bronze serpent head had been preserved for more than 800 years, not only that but they named it Nehushtan which means “piece of brass”, and what’s more, they began to worship it as the thing that provided them salvation from the snake bites...they began to worship the creation vs worshiping the creator

The bronze serpent was just a thing, it was neither good nor bad, it was just a thing. God used this thing for good and when he provided it, he gave Israel an opportunity for salvation from pain and death. It can even be seen as a representation of Jesus as pointed out in John 3:14–15 “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.”

Only God can take something meant for evil, the serpent and use it for good. Likewise, only man can take something meant for good, the serpent staff, and make it into a destructive idol.

In the same way, sometimes God gives us something good and then it becomes an idol.

Imagine if you will, that the actual cross of Jesus was uncovered by archeologists. Think of how amazing it would be. It would provide more proof for the crucifixion story of Christ, so many more would come to faith, others would have their faith strengthened, at first it would be amazing. Soon after that, it would be encased in a shrine, protected by a church or a government as a holy shrine, it would be set apart from the people. Eventually, we would see a church erected around the cross and people would make pilgrimages from all over the world to see this holy relic, to worship it...ok, this was all a made up scenario...let’s look at some real ones.

Idolizing leaders (Trump, Obama, Musk, and so on)

Idolizing education (school must be done before ALL ELSE)

Idolizing our comforts (what things exist in your life that you could not do without)

Idolizing worship (worshiping the worship vs the worshipped)

If we glory in men—even godly men like Peter and Paul and Apollos—we are robbing God of the glory that He alone deserves. (Wiersbe)

Idolizing the worship leader (I can only listen to this pastor because he’s so amazing)

Hezekiah royally cleaned house in Judah like none before him and after there would be none like him. He did such an amazing job, which is remarkable considering his father (Ahaz) was recorded as one of the worst kings (2 Kings 16), however he studied much of his life under Isaiah

4. Josiah: Not Bound to the Sins of the Past

2 Kings 22:1–2 “Josiah was eight years old when he became king, 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 sight of the Lord, and walked in all the ways of his father David; he did not turn aside to the right hand or to the left.”

2 Kings 23:1–3 “Now the king sent them to gather all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem to him. The king went up to the house of the Lord with all the men of Judah, and with him all the inhabitants of Jerusalem—the priests and the prophets and all the people, both small and great. And he read in their hearing all the words of the Book of the Covenant which had been found in the house of the Lord. Then the king stood by a pillar and made a covenant before the Lord, to follow 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 took a stand for the covenant.”

Ok, so Hezekiah’s son was Manasseh, who became known to history as one of the most wicked kings of Judah (worshipped the stars, idolatry, child sacrifice even with his own kid, witchcraft and lots of killing), reversing almost all of the good that Hezekiah did. He was followed by Amon, who followed in Manasseh’s wickedness but was assassinated by his own officials after only 2 years of ruling. Now Josiah takes over when he’s 8 and his pops and grandpa were his influencers.

Josiah again purged the land of the idols, destroyed the high places, restored the temple in Jerusalem which had fallen apart, found the long-lost “Book of the Law” (likely Deuteronomy), renewed the covenant with God (this would have been like a national renewing of their vows ceremony), celebrated Passover, he removed everything that was contrary to God and restored moral order

Deuteronomy was essentially Israel’s “covenant constitution”, a restatement of God’s law for a new generation before entering the Promised Land. Finding it would be like rediscovering the nation’s forgotten identity; they were not just another kingdom, they were a covenant people called to live differently than the world.

Despite his history (dad and gramps), Josiah shows us what true leadership and repentance look like, even during the darkest of times; he refused to let the “sins of his fathers define his own actions or future”

Said like today, Josiah would have refused to let society dictate how he would live his life; he lived it unto the Lord

6. Something to Chew On

True worship is about the heart not the habit

Hezekiah and Josiah both turned from cultural comfort to courageous obedience, reminding us that genuine worship starts when our hearts align with God’s truth, not the world’s trends

Revival requires removing God’s rivals

Just as Hezekiah tore down the high places and Josiah purged the idols, we too must confront modern idols: comfort, success, politics, or even religion itself; anything that competes for our devotion to the Lord

Renewal flows from recommitment to God’s Word

When Josiah rediscovered the Book of the Law and led the people to renew their covenant, it showed that lasting spiritual change comes from returning to the Word, repentance and wholehearted obedience

BL - Where might my heart have drifted out of tune with God’s? And am I willing to let Him reset it?