Just Us Girls Conference 2022 Bloom Day 2 by Pastor Mildred Kingsley-Okonkwo: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

Text: II Chronicles 22

II Chronicles 22:10-12 When Athaliah, mother of King Ahaziah of Judah, learned her son was dead, she moved to destroy the rest of the royal family. Ahaziah's sister Jehosheba, wife of Jehoiada the priest, stole away the infant Joash and hid him with his nurse in the temple of God, where he remained hidden while Athaliah ruled the land.

Bloom where God plants you

The message is bloom where God plants you, not bloom where you are planted. Some people, planted somewhere they do not like, uproot themselves and plant elsewhere, but that is not what God is after. Sometimes the place God plants you does not look like good soil, and you may be planted, like Jehosheba, in the midst of wickedness.

Blooming is not really about you. The things God wants to do through your life affect the generations connected to you. God is not only interested in your marriage being happy, he wants to end divorce in your family through you. He is not only interested in you being wealthy, he wants to end poverty in your lineage through you.

Jehosheba's family

David's line: Solomon, then Jehoshaphat, then Jehoram, carrying God's promise that David would always have a descendant on the throne.

The wicked line: Omri, called more wicked than any king before him, then his son Ahab, who married Jezebel.

Jehoram, of David's line, married Athaliah, daughter of Ahab and Jezebel, joining David's lineage to that wickedness. Athaliah led her own father into idolatry.

Jehosheba did not become like her family. No other princess in scripture is recorded marrying a priest, yet she married the high priest Jehoiada.

Ahaziah, son of Jehoram and Athaliah, became king and followed his mother's ways instead of God's. When he died, Athaliah killed the rest of the royal family, including her own grandchildren, so she could rule herself. Jehosheba hid the infant Joash because she understood that if Athaliah succeeded, David's line, and with it God's promise that the Messiah would come through David, would be wiped out.

How Jehosheba hid Joash

Some historical accounts suggest Jehosheba swapped Joash for another child so Athaliah would believe the royal line was fully destroyed. Athaliah ruled seven years while Joash stayed hidden in the temple, guarded by people Jehosheba trusted.

What Jehosheba's story teaches about blooming

• You need the right people around you. Jehoiada was instrumental to the plan; God always sends helpers, but bad character can drive them away.
• Discretion matters. Jehosheba kept quiet; many destinies are destroyed by the mouth.
• She took responsibility rather than waiting for someone else to act. If not you, who?
• Children carry what their parents tell them. Jehoiada knew the promise of David because his father-in-law had told his wife; what you tell your children shapes what they carry.
• You must decide, thus far and no more, even if the family you come from has a history of wickedness.

Illustration: Isaac in famine

When there was famine in Isaac's time, God told him to stay rather than run to Egypt, and blessed him where he was. Isaac dug wells that were fought over more than once, kept digging, and the Lord eventually made room for him and he bloomed there. Wherever God sends you, you bloom there. The grass is greener where your own water is.

Illustration: Hagar

Hagar, a slave with no say in the matter, conceived for her mistress Sarah's husband, and when Sarah began to mistreat her afterward, she ran. The angel of the Lord met her on the road and told her to go back, because the very place she was running from was the place God would send her right back into, to rescue it. Hagar said she had seen the God who sees her. There is a season to bloom right where you are, the same way certain fruit will not grow just anywhere, it needs the right soil and climate.

Numbers 17:8 Aaron's rod budded and bloomed inside the tabernacle, in the presence of God, not outside it, and God told them to keep it there as a testimony, because the source of a thing is also its sustainer.

Blooming requires strength and understanding

To bloom you need the strength and willingness of Martha combined with the understanding of Mary. Like a seed pushed down into dark soil before it grows, blooming requires the work of pushing down roots before there is any fruit to show.

John 5:1-9 The man who had been lying by the pool of Bethesda for thirty eight years, waiting for someone else to put him in first, could not bloom until he took responsibility for his own healing.

Keys to bloom

1. Boldness

   You must be bold to bloom, and bloom God's way, even in a generation where wrong is now called right.

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2. Move

   Many people are planners without action, making plans for six billion when they cannot yet handle six hundred. Move; stop waiting and start doing what is in front of you now.

3. Consistency

   Show up whether you feel like it or not, whether it is working yet or not. Every single day of consistency matters; consistency, not sudden change, produces results over time.

Illustration: David's sin and repentance

When Nathan the prophet confronted David over his sin, David did not defend himself the way Saul had. He fell on his face and repented.

Psalm 51 Have mercy on me, cleanse me, purify me, create in me a clean heart.

God did not spare the child born of that sin, because if the child had lived it would have been a permanent reminder of David's sin. Instead God gave David a fresh start and called the next son Jedidiah, beloved of God.

Raising your Joash: training your children

• Discretion and correction from parents matters; a generation raised without correction struggles to bloom.
• What children watch and hear shapes them; do not leave to chance what your children are exposed to.
• Christian education and modesty in dress are choices some parents make to guard what their children are exposed to, the same way Jehosheba hid Joash in the temple.
• Motherhood means covering your children until they are old enough to be exposed to the world on their own terms.

Motive and boldness in Jehoiada's plan

When the time came to reveal Joash, Jehoiada gathered the priests and told them plainly why: to place the king's son on the throne and execute God's judgment on the earth. Boldness must be paired with a clear motive.

Closing declarations