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Howdy! And a quick note of gratitude to Luke who is our lead singer and rhythm

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guitarist who is going to be getting married next week. So congratulations.

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All right I'm looking for that better be some delicious cake okay I'm just

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saying. All right but I wanted to talk with you all today a bit about our Isaiah

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passage. Twenty years ago there was a Ukrainian election for president and

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there were two people that were main candidates for this particular election.

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One of them was a candidate who wanted Ukraine to be more closely tied to Russia

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that they had originally been a part of and the other one wanted to be more

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closely connected to the West US and NATO. The second candidate was named Victor

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Yushchenko and after a conflicted election and the Supreme Court getting

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involved and everything else is that Yushchenko ended up winning that

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election but at the same time Yushchenko was also poisoned. It's debated whether

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or not the poison might have been put into his soup that he was eating one

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night for dinner but what it was was a dioxin and if you don't know what a

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dioxin is it's what is in the San Jacinto Bay. It's the reason why you

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cannot go fishing there because paper mill its pulp that's been there for

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several decades has deposited dioxins in there for a while and it was only

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recently getting cleaned up when the EPA forced them to do so. So the dioxin was

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in his food and ended up becoming toxic into his body but what especially made

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it obvious was not just his body trying to expel it in whichever way it could we

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will leave that unspoken but also what was showing up on his face. His face

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developed lesions, giant crags, wrinkles, pock marks all over and what was

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happening was actually his body was trying its best to save his life because

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it turned out that the skin on his face was being transformed into a different

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kind of organ. His body in trying to fight the dioxin poisoning was actually

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turning the skin on his face into a second liver. It was actually trying to

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create another body part so that he could detoxify and his body could survive

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and later he was finally able to get into a hospital when they discovered

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what was happening and they were able to save his life but everything that was

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happening inside of him became clear and obvious on the outside. Now the Russian

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fact-finders claimed that the whole thing was fake news to blame Putin and

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claiming it to be a cosmetics issue despite the fact that international

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doctors and scientists confirmed it and studied it because it was giving an

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easy answer to the Russian people so that they could ignore what was happening

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right in front of them and that's where we want to look at the first of three

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lessons that I want to make sure that we have realized from our lesson for today.

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The first of these lessons is that what happens on the inside will reveal itself

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on the outside. What happens on the inside reveals itself on the outside and I

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need to talk a little bit about King Uzziah. Now in our Isaiah passage it

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starts off by saying that King Uzziah had just died. Now if you're reading this

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passage you probably just kind of skim past that part but it turns out that

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that's actually important for understanding what was happening. See Uzziah's

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father Amaziah they didn't have fun names like Chuck or Ted back then but

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instead Amaziah his father he had been what was considered a good king exactly

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but what you'll notice is that it would say not like his father David. Even though

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Amaziah had been a king that typically did what God wanted it makes a note that

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he was not like David. Why was that important? Because David didn't just do

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things that on the outside seemed like what God wanted. David cared on the

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inside what God wanted. He was a man after God's own heart. David would

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genuinely repent when someone showed him that he had done something wrong. David

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would genuinely go to God and ask what God wanted him to see and do on the inside

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David cared but Amaziah didn't have the same heart. He was very prideful and went

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to Israel in the north and he was from Judah and was trying to say hey let's

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make treaties with each other and the king of Israel said you're kind of small

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I don't really need you and they went to battle with each other and because of

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Amaziah's pride he got captured and Jerusalem was ransacked by Israel and

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to the point where Amaziah became so unpopular that assassins chased him to

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Lekish and he had to spend years in exile before he was finally murdered and

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while he was in exile his 16 year old son Uzziah also named Azariah became king

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they had to be king together for it to be legal but Uzziah Azariah becomes king

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and he ends up being like his father but it's important to remember that like his

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father he also wasn't like David you see that's the thing about this is there's

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another note that comes up when looking at the kings is that it says that they

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did not take down the high places now you're gonna hear this a lot okay and I

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want to make sure you understand what this is about you see even though I

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Uzziah he had all these great building projects and did all this farming and

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everything and he had a huge military it makes a note that he did not take down

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the high places because all of these little altars existed all throughout the

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land you may be wondering why was it such a big deal to not have other little

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places to worship God all throughout the land why was that such a big deal why

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did you have to go to Jerusalem well the reason is because in Jerusalem was

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where the priests who had studied and knew how to proclaim God's presence who

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knew what God wanted that's where they were at in all these other locations the

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priests didn't actually know what God was expecting they came up with all sorts

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of ideas and they might have all sorts of other practices in these other places

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they might not be sacrificing the animals that God wanted or they might not

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even be sacrificing animals at all sometimes even children or in these

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places throughout the land is that they might sell their bodies in exchange for

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a worship service or there might be times where they're not even at an altar

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but instead are worshiping in front of a tree and to realize that all these

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things going on throughout the whole land but why would the king not stop

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those things because each one of these little altars was usually supported by

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a wealthy or important person in the area and they might actually be making

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money from it so instead of offending the wealthy influential people the king

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might just leave it alone and let them do whatever they were going to do but

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the problem for Uzziah is that he himself started acting the same way and

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what we find out is that as much as he did so many things that would have been

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pleasing to God then he comes to the temple and decides that he wants to

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make the sacrifice himself so even though he was the government and that

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there were the religious priests that were supposed to take care of this and

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there was a separation between the two he wanted to cross over and he wanted to

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do it himself he felt that he was important enough that he could walk into

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the presence of God and make the sacrifice so God gave him leprosy

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leprosy could mean any number of things but this was the serious kind where you

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were no longer allowed to be in the presence of other people for the rest

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of his life and see that's the thing about this is that that was the downfall

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of Uzziah and so as Isaiah is talking that he has passed he now has to deal

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with this question of Uzziah was not worthy to be in the presence of God and

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now Isaiah has to see how could he be worthy in the presence of God so in

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looking at this understanding it what we would then know is this question of

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humility and trying to understand how it is that even though Uzziah had been

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disgraced and wasn't even able to be buried with the other kings what was

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going to happen for Isaiah or even more than that Judah as a whole you see Uzziah

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was larger than life captured everybody's attention but he was brought

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well so now asking the question what about the people but Isaiah also asking

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what about himself but Isaiah knew something Isaiah knew who the true king

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was the king ultimately was not Uzziah or his son Jotham or anybody else the

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true king was God and so knowing that is Isaiah does not fall into the same

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levels of pride and arrogance as Uzziah he's humble and he knows that he needs

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to be humble in being in the presence of God and that's something to deal with is

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that Isaiah began with repentance Isaiah began in a place of repentance see

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instead of starting off with the idea of I am worthy with God Isaiah did the

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opposite see Isaiah acknowledged his own unworthiness so in acknowledging his

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unworthiness he was able to then go to God and what was God able to do God was

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able to make him worthy but how what was needed and that's important to

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realize is that the purification that Isaiah has to go through it wasn't easy

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see that's the thing about when we are purified when God is working in our life

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it is not easy it's not supposed to be but rather is to realize that oftentimes

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it has to require pain it has to require time see the thing is is that

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purification it's not easy but even being painful it may just take time to

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get there but even more than looking at the repentance of Isaiah is instead

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also asking what about the people what about the people themselves because

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here's the thing is that Uzziah had been showing the people how to not follow God

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a leader will show people by their character what they're meant to do and

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Uzziah had shown them pride and arrogance so now what's going to happen to

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the people of Judah when Uzziah has passed away and so I want to point out

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a second point what is clearly and obviously established can still be

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denied when we want to what is obvious can still be something that we deny just

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because we want to see the thing is is that oftentimes we can ignore what's

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right in front of us I have to tell you confess something back when I was in

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California I was a pastor there a few years and I had been up in the balcony

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and the organ there was up in the balcony as well and it had all the pipes

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that were like around in a circle and there were these two little kids that

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were there and and I saw one of my said hey you know there's a goblin in the

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organ thank you that's that that's really the best response is a little bit of

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laughter there oh pastors being silly but I'm like I'm in my 20s and you know

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when you're in your 20s you know you don't know what you're doing but with it

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though is to realize that I wanted to convince them so I kept saying no no no

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look look look closer see there's a guy I'm looking right at him I can see the

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goblin oh my goodness I swear I blame this on my dad I swear this must I must

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have gotten it from him okay but I'm pointing and I'm pointing until one of

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the kids says I think I see him and then I realized at that moment what I had

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done and I went to his mother immediately and confessed what I had done in

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the hopes that she would help her son to get back in touch with reality which

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their pastor had just damaged for him because as much as I wish I could say I

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didn't know that was a part of me that knew what I was doing but I was able to

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convince him of something that should have been obvious that there was it

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should have been obvious there's nothing in there but I was so convincing that

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somehow he believed me but the thing is is that that's also what we sometimes do

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with our passage in Isaiah see there's a part of it that makes it sound as if God

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didn't want the people to confess as if there were people that he wanted to stay

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stuck in their sins it sounds almost as if that there were people that God wanted

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to never repent and never come to know now we know that that's not true because

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God's word repeatedly shows times that he has made salvation for everybody and

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that he keeps giving his word to everybody and it says he wants all to

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come to know him and yet there are still so many churches and teachers that

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will take this and keep saying no this is God predestining people for hell

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that's what he wants and after a while we sometimes listen but when we see the

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character of God we realize that there's more to this than that because in reality

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is that stubborn people sometimes just don't listen when there's an easy way to

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fix things you see that's the difficulty is that if God were to allow it to be

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really easy and quick just make it so that Judah will say they're sorry change

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things up and everything what are they gonna do they're gonna go right back to

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it right away it's like oh yeah God that was bad oops sorry my bad and not

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actually realize how bad it really is sometimes God has to let us wallow

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in our stubbornness sometimes he has to let the consequences play out and just

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let us get stuck in it because the real consequences have to actually be revealed

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sometimes as much as he loves us he has to leave us in it and let us go through

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the consequences of what we've been pursuing but Isaiah he knew he still

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had to go and proclaim God's word could you imagine what that is that Isaiah

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knows that the people are going to still be stubborn and are going to reject what

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he says and he still has to go and tell them see that's the thing about this is

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that we are oftentimes finding ourselves so hard-hearted but so does the world and

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yet we're still meant to hear and proclaim God's word even when we know it

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may fall on deaf ears but here's the thing and this is the third point I want

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you to catch is that the process of recovery is long and hard but it's

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necessary see Uzziah was blessed as a king all these things are going on but

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the blessing distracted from what was happening in his heart the blessing

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doesn't always reveal that we're actually right with God the blessing may be a

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distraction and in reality is that sometimes God wants us to go through

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the fire so we can actually come closer to him because as Uzziah as Isaiah had

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the coal placed to his lips a coal a hot stone whatever it was it burned that

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was what was needed that he could be God's person and that's the thing is

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that the only way to deal with what was happening in Judah the fact that they

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were worshiping in other ways it wasn't just to make it easy and fall back into

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the same pattern of oh we're sorry God but let's do it again but he had to let

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the poison damage the outside of their country and send them into exile

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Yushenko it took many months years for him to recover but it had to take the

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time to pull out the toxin and the outside it had to be damaged to help

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what was happening on the inside and the truth be is that even at the times

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whenever we wish that we could be blessed we sometimes have to just deal

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with what's happening because that's the only way that we can actually get

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better we may not always want to deal with what's actually happening on the

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inside we may want to reject what is obvious we may want to be the Russian

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fact-finder just trying to find an easy answer we may just want to protect

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ourselves from what we really need see the only true way to be restored though

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is for God to humble us and to let the pain do what he will because the

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children of God they needed to be convicted we need to be convicted but

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it doesn't mean we always respond but God continues to want to call us back to

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himself and that's the thing about this is that even as the chemo may have to

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damage the body it is ultimately the only way to kill the cancer inside and

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God had to use a cross to kill his son and his son's body to save the souls of

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all mankind and the thing is is that God may be doing something in your life

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that he wished he'd stop but maybe it's needed so that we would come back to

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trusting in him and to be willing to listen because repenting starts with us

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even when it hurts so I don't know what God may be doing in your life and I

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don't know how hard it may be and I may not know how long it's going to take or

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even if you're still going downward before it's going to turn around but I do

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know that God's grace is still there speaking and I do know that he wants us

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to willingly trust him and let him break our hearts the same way he did for

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David the same way he did for Isaiah so that we too can follow him in spirit as

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well as in truth so may God use everything even and especially the painful

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parts to bring us into his presence that he can cleanse us even as he has called

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us to be his children out of love and out of grace may God be merciful now and

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always Amen