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Welcome to the live big broadcast with Derek Greer. We believe this teaching from God's word will empower you to live a full, impactful life in Christ. Let's dig in.

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Isaiah, chapter 6 and verse 1. In the year that King Uzziah died, there was a total of 42 kings, one queen that reigned in Israel and Judah in our Bibles. But what's interesting is out of all of those kings and queens, Scripture only calls eight of them good. So when you find a good man or a good woman, hold on to them because they are rare. And one of the best signs that you have a good man or a good woman in your life is they make you better. How many know I can do bad all by myself? Yes, I can. And you need to surround yourself with people that make you grow. In the year that King Uzziah died, Uzziah began his reign when he was only 16 years old. And he reigned for about 52 years. Years. But when his dad passed, the queen mother was a very intelligent woman, very smart woman. So when his daddy died, she made sure that her son had a strong and God fearing man to mentor him in life. You know, some days a single mom really has no idea how she's going to do it, but. But every single day she still gets it done. Let's take a moment to celebrate our single moms. We salute you, we recognize you, and God can make up the difference. Let's keep digging in 2nd Chronicles 26:5, there's more commentary about this king. It says he sought God in the days of Zechariah. Now this Zechariah is not the Zechariah from the book of Zechariah, but he was a major influence in Uzziah's life and spiritual formation. And as much as we might not want to admit it because we're Americans, most of us, and you know, we're rugged individualists. And I pull myself up by my own bootstraps and I make my life happen. The company we keep and the role models we follow have a lasting impact on our lives and our choices. I've been walking with God for about 38 years now, and I have found a pattern. If God wants to bless me, he sends a person. But also if the devil wants to curse me, he sends a person. So pay attention to the company you keep because it reflects who you are, where you're going, and who you want to ultimately be. It says King Uzziah sought God in the days of Zechariah. This otherwise unknown prophet, but a solid spiritual Leader. And what we see here is you don't have to be famous to be solid. People need stability in our shaky world. And there are few things that create credibility, like being consistent over time. You know, fast success may build the ego, but slow success builds character. And what do you think it is God's more concerned about? Sometimes that's why it takes so long, because God's trying to develop you more than just give you the thing. Zechariah, who had understanding in the visions of God. Now, that's complicated. The esv, it says Zechariah instructed his him or Uzziah in the fear of God. This is important because Proverbs tells us that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. So if you want to be smart, first find yourself on your knees, recognize there's a greater power, a smarter being. You hear what I'm saying? Oswald Chambers, he says this. The remarkable thing about fearing God is that when you do, you fear nothing else. Come on, give God a hallelujah for that. As faith is the grace that serves all other. The fear of God is the grace that protects all others. Outside the will of God is nothing we should want. And in the will of God is nothing we should fear. And as long as Uzziah. So there was a condition sought. The Lord God made him prosper. How many of us want to prosper in life? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, according to this passage, keep seeking the Lord, keep hanging out with God's people, keep putting God first in your life and your life's choices. But we're about to learn in this narrative that prosperity and blessing are not always the same thing. Prosperity without the proper priorities will ultimately destroy you. Now, I couldn't bear this out in my own reading, but commentators say that after Zechariah died, Uzziah lost his spiritual grounding. And over time, or really very quickly, his success went to his head. And as soon as that happened, he lost the blessing of God in his life. I want to say something to you. Nobody is too big to fail. I recognized he was the king. I recognized he had been anointed with oil. But no one is too big to fail. 2nd Chronicles 26:16 tells us even more. But when Uzziah was strong in his heart and he was lifted up to his destruction. The greatest weakness of the strongest is pride and arrogance. Our ego trips are just journeys to nowhere. For he transgressed against the Lord, his God by doing something a king had no business doing. A king was blessed to rule. He needed to learn to stay in his lane, the priests were ordained to serve in the temple and tabernacle. But the king got big headed and he decided that he would do something only a priest could do. And he started to think he was above the law. I know some people, they just, you know, make a few coins in business. All of a sudden they know enough to tell the pastor what to do. Or our kids just, you know, get a couple honor rolls. And all of a sudden they know more than mom and dad. I knew I'd bring you back when you get back on my team with that. For he transgressed against the Lord his God by entering the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense. And when he did it, 80 godly priests protest. And you need godly people in your life. Say you're tripping. You need people in your life that could check you. People in your life. Not mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of the world. Someone will tell you, you ugly right now, you ain't acting right, you better get yourself together. But when these 80 godly priests confronted him, he, he flew into a range. He wanted to switch churches. He was like, you know what? I can't take that guy no more. But what I want you to see, I'm going to talk to this side of the room. What I want you to see is when the king got mad and started intimidating and frightening the priests, threatening them. And he had the power of death. He could have killed them at any moment. He who sits high looks low. And the king got mad. But guess what? God could get mad too. Verse 20. And Azariah, the chief priests and all his priests looked at Uzziah. And there on his forehead, he was leprous. God struck him right where he wore crown. And if you let your head get too big, it will eventually break your neck. Say, he's just trying to help somebody. He's just trying to help somebody. All right? So they thrust the king out of that place, a place he shouldn't have been in the first place. Indeed, he also hurried to get out because the Lord had struck him. But I want you to listen and watch the conclusion here. King Uzziah was a leper until the day of his death. The king started out so well. I mean, he looked for godly counsel and he was hungry. Probably wanted to first to hear Zechariah prophesy. But how many know it's not just how you start, but how you finish that matters. And the result was he dwelt, isolated. The Bible says Because he was a leper, for he was cut off from the house of the Lord. And one of the worst things you could do is cut me off from God's presence. And I know I supposed to float like a butterfly and sting like a bee and everything, but in my life, I have had moments where God has backed up his presence. Like, boy, you think you got it all together, Let me remind you, Let me just back up a little bit. And then you try to do everything I was helping you do and see how much you can really do in your own strength. And there will be moments because he loves you, God will back away just to remind you of where your help comes from and who the one that's really making life happening for you. All God has to do is just tamper a tiny bit with those chemicals, all those chemicals flowing. All he got to do is shake it just a tiny bit and we're drooling. It doesn't take God much to change our reality. But King Uzziah forgot, arrogance is the carbon monoxide. Sin it silently and it slowly kills you without you ever knowing. Now you're ready for Isaiah 6:1. In the year that King Uzziah died, in the year a good king, and there weren't many good kings, a good man, a man who at first heard God, a man that walked with God, became a cautionary tale. It was in that year that Isaiah had become disillusioned with God's kingdom, the church, if you will, all its heroes. It was in the year that Isaiah was asking himself, who can I trust? Who can I look up to? Where can I run? It was in that year he looked at the world, the condition of the kingdom and everything else. And he's like, does God even care about things anymore? In that year, when he experienced church hurt, the pastor went sideways. The man who had preached faithfully week after week, year after year, all of a sudden has lost his mind. In the year that everything is shaken up and everyone's cynical and no one believes in God, no one trusts the house of the Lord anymore. In that year, the prophet said, I saw the Lord. After the shocks, after the disappointments, after the heartbreaks, the scandals, the pain, Isaiah saw something. Isaiah is trying to show us something. He's trying to teach us here through telling us his story. Now, you know, Isaiah is considered the prince of prophets. I mean, he has eloquence. It's like a silver, silver tongue. But when Isaiah experienced this disappointment, he didn't take his ball and leave the playground. He said, well, it Hurt me so much in the church. I'm never going back again. It was in his moments of greatest discouragement and disappointment that God showed up to give him a fresh perspective of who the Lord really is. And some of us are so messed up by things going on in the church because we forgot about who the Lord really is. People will disappoint you. People will hurt you. Wherever you have people, you have problems. Put your faith in God. In that setting, God gave him a fresh, a revitalized, and a more accurate picture of who God was. I saw the Lord. You know, many of us read the Psalms and we just kind of think of David as a king. But David was a man of war. He was a warrior. David knew what it was like to. To stab somebody in the belly up close and personal. He knew what the smell of blood soaking in the ground smelled like. He knew what it was like to have soldiers that had been laying on the field for days before they were buried. This was a man not that spoke things from an ivory tower somewhere. David was a guy in a real grind, dealing with real issues. And he says things that seem strange to us. He'll say things like, oh, magnify the Lord. And most of us are thinking, how do you make God bigger? That's not. You know, a magnifying glass doesn't make anything bigger. It changes the way you see it. So what happens in life is when people do stuff, the wrong they did gets big. And as we focus on them, God begins to shrink. And it's not that God has changed sizes or anything. It's just our perspective. And David has to constantly say, oh, come, magnify the Lord. Sometimes you can't do it on your own. Sometimes I do try to praise by myself, and God does break me through. But other times, I need to come, I need to be around y'all to bring me into that place. Oh, come, let us magnify the Lord together. Let's remember, he who sits high, looks low. That God is faithful, God is big and God is true. And sometimes life tries to shrink God. Our world has gone crazy. And if you watch the news too much, God will begin to shrink. The world will begin to enlarge, and you'll find yourself in the corner somewhere, shaking. In the year that King Uzziah died, it was in the year that Isaiah stopped putting his confidence in men. It was willing to put it in God alone. By the way, if we fear God more, we'll fear men less. It was in that year that he got a new vision. Of God. He saw the Lord. Not a religious figure, the Lord. And when he saw him, he noticed. He wasn't nervous, he wasn't flustered, he wasn't worried. He wasn't at all moved by all the things that are going on in that kingdom. And neither is he moved by all the things going on in our world today. He saw the Lord sitting not in a chair in the corner, not in a spectator seat. I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, in complete control, sovereign and reigning. Understanding that the situation, he's still working out his purposes despite all the things happening. You know, sometimes the best way for God to show us that he's in control is to put us in situations we can't control. And Isaiah said, I saw the Lord despite what was going on in the kingdom. And he seemed to possess time. He seemed to know that everything's moving toward a certain destiny. He had a command that I could not explain. Actually, it unnerved me. We're gonna see that in a moment. Sitting on a throne, despite all the wrong, God was still large and in charge. And then God wasn't just barely holding on. The Bible said he was high and lifted up. Now, you know, 30 years ago, discussions like this, things that we're talking about today might not be taken as seriously. But today, serious people are asking, is, what's happening in the world today? Is that the beginning of the third World War? Serious people are asking, will we soon need to have computer chips in our heads in order to compete in the workplace? And are people willing to risk being monitored and manipulated in order to perform better? Serious people are asking, do aliens exist? And all I can tell you as your pastor is I don't know. But what I do know is what I already said. He who sits high looks low. Even if Darth Vader lands on the White House lawn next week, if God before me, who, who, who can be against me?