II Chronicles 24:1 Joash was seven years old when he began to reign, and he reigned forty years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name also was Zibiah of Beersheba.
It Is Never Too Early
Maybe your church has a youth night where a thirteen-year-old preaches, a fifteen-year-old leads the singing, and the entire choir is made up of teenagers. It is an exciting night, right? It is also one of the most terrifying nights of the year. The young people conducting the service are scared, and the people in the service are thinking, “Oh boy, I hope this works out okay.” It is a nerve-wracking night, perhaps, but it is exciting and, I think, very important.
In II Chronicles 24 we read the story of a king who was very young. Joash was seven years old when he began to reign. Seven years old! Imagine if everyone in your sphere of life today were seven years old. The president of the corporation is seven years old, the secretaries are seven years old, sales people are seven years old, the mechanic working on your car is seven years old, and your doctor is seven years old. Well, Israel had a king who was seven years old. But here is the thought that ought to take us: every king that Judah or Israel ever had began learning how to be king by the time he was seven. He may not have become king at seven years of age, but he would have begun his training by that time in his life.
Joash’s father would have learned the basic convictions, foundations, and principles of governing when he was seven years old. Joash just came to the throne much quicker than most. That means that it is never too early to teach what matters. None of us know who will take our place in ten, twenty, thirty, or forty years, but whoever it is, they are younger than we are and probably younger than we think. That means what we are teaching our kids today is very important, not just for the immediate return of well-behaved kids, but because of what it will substantively mean when we are gone.
Today, if you are young, remember that what you are learning is not unimportant. It may not be directly connected to what you want to do in life, whether or not you know yet what you want to do in life. In either case, God has a purpose and a plan, and what you are learning today is certainly important for tomorrow. If you are older, what you are teaching young people today is the most important factor that will determine the vector of tomorrow.