Now, you've got to realise there were 630 years between him saying that, and Josiah appearing. There's no one alive who remembered the prophecy. The parents wouldn't have remembered, so 630 years before Josiah turns up in history as a reformer, God already has got the destiny - I've got a man coming, he's a reformer, and his name will be Josiah, so God knew his name, God knew his destiny and God had it all worked out at least 630 years ahead of him coming into being. So do you think your arrival was a surprise? [Laughter] Only to your mum and dad. [Laughter]
Have a look in Jeremiah, Chapter 1 - so for all of you who had surprises, we had heaps of surprises, wonderful surprises - seven of them, one named after every birth control method that didn't work [Laughter] but all beautiful, and all welcome. So Jeremiah 1, Verse 4; Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying to Jeremiah - now notice what He said - Behold, before I formed you in the womb, I already knew you, and before you were born, I already set you apart, and ordained you to be a prophet to the nations. Now notice this - before he's created, before God formed him, so God actually claims He is responsible for the shaping and forming of the person in the womb. The parents have a part to do in that of course too, but there's also a part that God plays. God hardwires into them desires, passions, certain kinds of gifting, certain kinds of areas into their life. Why? Because He's already got a plan worked out, so before the child's born, God's already genetically put into him some of the things, that will put into him the desires, to fulfil a certain course in his life. If you think about it from God's point of view - we'll get to this in a moment - if I've got a plan sorted out for you, how on earth am I going to get you into my plan, especially since you've got a free will to choose what you want to do? So God outwits us completely.
He anticipated sin would come in and we might have a mind of our own, but He planned for that still, and so what He did was build into our genetic DNA, aspects of desire, passion, gifting, and orientation of our personality and life, that would incline us towards what He had for us. That's why you can't ignore those things. You can't put them down, because they're part of how God wired you, to make you a specific gift, with a specific destiny to fulfil see, but there's another part to it of course; if I don't connect with God, I'll find my own way of expressing that, and it'll be a lot less than what God has. So God says, my ways are higher than your ways, my thoughts are higher than your thoughts, so we're going to see how the two need to come together, what's in my heart that God has hardwired, and my connection or prophetic revelation from God, need to come together and then to be worked out.
If you don't understand that, and just go God's sovereign, God's in control, you won't know what to do with your desires and dreams, so you'll suppress them, and be unhappy, and live like a slave, waiting to be told by God what to do with your life. Think about that. Okay then, so God created us, so He imagined you, and He imagined your life, and He worked out what you could accomplish with your life, far more than you realise, and far more than the people sitting next to you can see. People around us see us only as we are, and where we've been. God sees what you could be, so when people looked at Peter, he's just a rough coarse fisherman that swore and all that kind of stuff. God said, I see a rock on which I can build a church! I see a man, who can preach to multitudes. See, when people saw David, he was so unimportant they didn't even invite him into the meal with the prophet, so they just saw a little shepherd boy. God said, I see a king, and it'll be such a great king, he'll transform a nation. Others just saw a little boy. You see, God's destiny was already worked out for this young man.