Throughout my Christian life, I have heard church members and leaders talk a lot about two different “r” words - reformation and revival. On one hand, I have seen churches talk about revival while also trying to do something about it. On the other, the talk of reformation has been mostly just, well, talk. I have been struck by the irony of it all as I have spent time reflecting on it.
Revival is the work of the Spirit. It cannot be scheduled, executed, or accomplished by man. Yet, for decades, churches have incessantly scheduled and executed revivals. We have attempted to accomplish through our own means and strategies what only the Holy Spirit has been given to do. Meanwhile, the thing that God has put in our hands to do, which is the work of reformation, is something we have talked a great deal about, but not many have attempted. I’ve lost count of the conversations I have been involved in over the years surrounding the things we see in our churches that do not match up with God’s Word. But I am hard-pressed to recall examples of people making an effort to reform the church in those areas.
The excuses are plentiful. “I know what the Scripture teaches, but you can’t change it because people will get mad. You can’t change that because the power players of the church will be against you. You can’t get rid of this because it’s been here for 100 years. You can’t question that because it’s just the way that it is.”
Whenever it seems acceptable to say, “I know the Scripture teaches, but…”, then there is a cancer in the church and reformation is needed.
Either the Bible is God’s Word or it’s not. It is either sufficient or it’s not. It is either binding on us as God’s covenant community or it’s not. The church all over this country is falling apart at the seams. I believe this is because we have abandoned the practice of the sufficiency of Scripture. Instead of following the pattern of Scripture, we have evolved, morphed, and adjusted in order to keep up with the culture. We have done this to the point that the church in the last century would be unrecognizable to the church of the last 2,000 years. But the very culture we have been trying to keep up with is headed rapidly for collapse. When it does collapse, they will be left in shock and desperation because all the things they thought would work proved to be their destruction. They will be searching for the answers. A society in ruins will need to be rebuilt. I believe that as they look around at all the wreckage, there will be countless steeples buried under the proverbial rubble. However, a remnant will still be standing strong, which is the church built upon God’s Word. We will be in the position to rebuild from the wreckage because we will show ourselves to have had the right foundation all along.
I believe the focus of the church in our current cultural climate should be reformation. We should cease trying to integrate the ways of a collapsing culture into our practices in order to draw people. We should stop trying to force revival to happen. We should focus on doing what God has put in our hands to do. We should work for reformation. But how do we do that? Where do we start? I believe the account of King Josiah shows us ten things we need to return to if we want to experience true reformation in our churches and lives. We’ll look at the first in this post.
We Need to Return to Men of Righteous Character
“Josiah was eight years old when he became king, and he reigned thirty-one years in Jerusalem; and his mother’s name was Jedidah the daughter of Adaiah of Bozkath. He did right in the sight of the Lord and walked in all the way of his father David, nor did he turn aside to the right or to the left.” (2 Kings 22:1-2, NASB)
As is pretty standard in the accounts of the kings, the author gives us a general overview of the whole of Josiah’s reign before going through a more detailed chronology of it. This is the first thing the author wants us to know about Josiah. Throughout his reign, he was a man of righteous character. We are not talking about some general sense of righteousness based on what seems right. Righteousness is clearly defined here. He “did right in the sight of the Lord.” In other words, he did right according to what the Lord defines as right. He lived according to God’s moral standard.
This wouldn’t have been easy, and we see that from the next line. He “walked in all the way of his father David.” Josiah was the great-grandson of King Hezekiah. As you read through the accounts, especially in 2 Chronicles, there is a generational digression that takes place. Hezekiah rules righteously and serves the Lord. His son, Manasseh, rebelled against the Lord and only through God’s discipline was turned back to Him. Then Manasseh’s son, Amon, followed his father’s example of rebellion. However, unlike his father, he never turned back to God. Now comes Josiah, who has been handed his father’s rebellious legacy instead of his great-grandfather’s godly legacy. Yet, we see Josiah living righteously before the Lord. And where does he look?
I’m sure Hezekiah’s example impacted him, but he looks back further to the same example Hezekiah looked to, King David. The Scripture refers to David as his father. Biologically speaking, Amon was Josiah’s father. He could never change that. But spiritually speaking, Josiah chose to imitate the legacy of David instead of the legacy of his biological father. This progression from Hezekiah to Amon shows us it only takes one generation to turn a family from the Lord. Fortunately, Josiah shows us that it only takes one generation to turn a family back.
Because of the times of cultural and spiritual collapse we are living in, many of us were not gifted with Godly legacies from our biological fathers. Whether we like it or not, we cannot change our genetic heritage. But, just like Josiah, we can begin a new spiritual heritage in our families. If we are going to have a new reformation in our day, our men need to return to righteous character. That means many of us are going to have to resolve to live differently than our fathers. We are going to need to choose to walk according to God’s standard, not man’s. And, yes, women are included in this. We need Godly women, but the pace in this, as the spiritual leaders of the church, needs to be set by the men.
Men, we want to see a reformation in our midst. So, let us be resolved to set the pace. Let us discipline ourselves unto godliness. No excuses. If you have been blessed to come from a godly family tree, then walk in that godliness and bear fruit. If you’re family tree has left a legacy of godlessness, then plant a new one and walk in righteousness.
Young men, our generation is the one that has disappeared from the church. Everyone is always trying to figure out how to fix the problem of the missing generation. There is no strategy or gimmick that will fix it. The Bible is clear about what needs to happen. Repentance and return. Repent of spiritual laziness and return to God’s covenant community. Stop blaming the church. Stop blaming your parents. Stop blaming your experiences. Blame shifting is exactly what the first man, Adam, did when God called Him out. Stop hiding from your God-given responsibility. If you are a Christian man, God has called you to be a leader in the church and in your home. If we want to see a reformation, we need to return to men of righteous character.
Bonus content: Getting Practical: Five Steps for Returning to Righteous Character.
Next up: Care for the House of the Lord