Stories from the Bible are not for our entertainment. They’re for our instruction and transformation.
By the time we get to King Amaziah in 2 Chronicles 24, a familiar pattern has emerged: king after king has failed. Amaziah continues the trend. Now, if the stories in Kings and Chronicles were a TV show or a novel, many of us would begin to get bored. Every episode and chapter is basically the same story, just with a new character.
But the repeated pattern of their failures serves as a diagnosis of our human hearts and illuminates what our hearts ultimately need. This is made abundantly clear in the banner statement summarizing King Amaziah’s reign:
“And [Amaziah] did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, yet not with a whole heart.” (2 Chronicles 25:2)
“…Yet not with a whole heart.” This simple explanation shows that God wants more than just your actions; He wants your undivided heart. And, it shows that God also wants more than just your heart, because He also cares about your actions.
Before Scripture says that Amaziah had a divided heart, it commends him for doing what was “right in the eyes of the Lord”! If God only cared about our actions and behaviors, there would be no reason to make note of Amaziah’s divided heart. But 2 Chronicles 25:2 makes it clear that God wants both. He wants your undivided heart, which leads to your right behaviors. It is a very high bar, as Romans 14:23 plainly states:
“…For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.”
Even when we do what is right in the eyes of the Lord, if our actions are not motivated by faith, they are ultimately sin. Here, then, is our dilemma: how can anyone possibly know how divided their heart is? How can anybody understand how faith-filled their actions and behaviors are?
This is precisely why we are saved by grace through faith! We don’t have faith in the extent to which our hearts are undivided. Rather, we have faith in the certainty that Jesus’ heart is perfect and undivided.
If God wants us to have an undivided heart, then what sinful humans need is not a repaired or redirected heart; we need a new one! God shows us this pattern of a divided heart in Scripture so we would come to confess that we need a new heart, and He offers this new heart to His people in the new covenant:
“I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.” (Ezekiel 36:25–27)
This promise is fulfilled through Jesus Christ, who never had a divided heart. When we put our faith in the undivided heart of Jesus, we become an entirely new creation.
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” (2 Corinthians 5:17)
God wants to give you a new, undivided heart in Christ. It fuels obedience that is truly right in His eyes, and it’s yours by faith in the undivided heart and righteous life of the King of Kings, Jesus Christ!
Want to dive deeper? Check out our sermon series guide on Kings of Judah, or watch the most recent sermon from our Kings of Judah sermon series.
