This post is written by David McLemore and is published as a companion to Unit 14, Session 1 of The Gospel Project for Adults Vol. 5 (Fall 2022): From Rebellion to Exile.
John Newton once wrote in a letter, “Religion does not consist in doing great things, for which few of us have frequent opportunities, but in the doing of the little necessary things of daily occurrence with a cheerful spirit, as to the Lord.”[1] As we consider the life of Joash from 2 Chronicles 24, where does he fall on this insightful diagnostic quote?
Joash’s Early Life
The chapter opens with the volatile beginnings of a boy who would one day become king of Judah. There was another on the throne in those days, Athaliah, who sought to destroy the royal family and did harm to the temple of God.
But there was a high priest named Jehoiada, the uncle of Joash, who took him and hid him in the temple and protected him during his early years. Joash grew up in God’s house, surrounded by mercy and grace, wrapped in the arms of God. Once Athaliah was overthrown, Joash took the throne at the ripe age of seven, and he reigned forty years.
Faith and Faithlessness
But Joash’s life was a rollercoaster of faithfulness and unfaithfulness. He started out well but ended in judgment. His story is one well-traveled. Many start off well only to fade in the end. Many drift from what they first heard, and find themselves chasing other gods, pursuing another life, abandoning the God who loved them and gave Himself for them.
Surely, Joash did great things. He was a king after all! Kings do great things regularly. And we know of a specific great thing he accomplished in the restoration of the temple, the place of worship in the heart of Jerusalem. What could be greater? But did that great thing assure him daily of nearness to God? For as great as this great thing was, was it not his neglect of the “little necessary things” that did him in? Where was his cheerful spirit, as to the Lord? Where was daily faithfulness?
Faith in the Little Things
It is a lesson to us all. The great things of our lives are not what makes us who we are. Who we are is revealed in the little things. It is the silent, hidden prayer of the heart that rises to God like incense though the world never sees nor hears. It is the gratitude within that praises God even when life is hard, though the world cannot understand our joy. It is the cheerfulness of spirit that looks to the Lord in all things, gives Him all glory, includes Him in all of life, reveres Him deep within, rejoices in His grace with thanksgiving—those little things are in the end not so little at all. You can restore a temple and lose God. You can never do anything so great and have Him. The Christian life is made up of small things done as to our great God.
Joash’s life reminds us that in the end there are really only two options. We can serve the Lord or we can serve another. In his final sermon the great preacher Charles Spurgeon left his congregation with one final reminder. “Every man must serve somebody: we have no choice as to that fact. Those who have no master are slaves to themselves. Depend upon it, you will either serve Satan or Christ, either self or the Saviour. You will find sin, self, Satan, and the world to be hard masters; but if you wear the livery of Christ, you will find him so meek and lowly of heart that you will find rest unto your souls.”[2]
David McLemore serves as an elder at Refuge Church in Franklin, Tennessee. He is a regular contributor to Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary’s For the Church website and a staff writer at Gospel-Centered Discipleship.
[1] Josiah Bull, Letters by the Rev. John Newton (Frankfort, Germany: Salzwasser Verlag GmbH, 2020), 393.
[2] Charles Haddon Spurgeon, “The Statute of David for the Sharing of the Spoil,” June 7, 1891, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Volume 37, The Spurgeon Center, www.spurgeon.org/resource-library/sermons/the-statute-of-david-for-the-sharing-of-the-spoil/#flipbook/.
