Who is your God?
Finding Mercy through an Encounter with the Holiness of God
“What comes to our mind when we think about God
is the most important thing about us.”
A. W. Tozer
“The size of your God determines the size of everything.”
Howard Hendricks
At a Promise Keeper Rally in Washington DC in October 1997, Joseph Stowell said, “In our culture, God has been treated like a household God, domesticated and forced to fit into our schedule. We have downsized God. We want a God who can fit into our scheme. We want a wallet-sized God, sort of an Eternal Express Card we can whip out when we need Him. We want a 911 God, for emergency use only.”
God has been so pushed out of our culture that we no longer look to Him as the last resort; we don’t look to Him at all. Yet whenever we downsize God, we invariably upsize ourselves and downplay sin. We become self-sufficient and we begin to believe that sin doesn’t matter. When sin doesn’t matter, chaos ensues.
In 2 Chronicles 26:1-23, we find a king who became self-sufficient and lost everything. Uzziah was made King of Judah when he was sixteen, reigned 52 years and is considered the last great King of Judah. He “did right in the sight of God” and “as long as he sought the Lord, God prospered him.” Uzziah was a brilliant military strategist (he invented catapults!) and was an architectural and agricultural genius.
However, there was a turning point that changed his life and his legacy.
“Hence his fame spread afar, for he was marvelously helped until he was strong. But when he became strong, his heart was so proud that he acted corruptly, and he was unfaithful to the Lord his God, for he entered the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense.”
(2 Chronicles 26:15b-16)
Somewhere along the line, Uzziah began to read his own press clippings. His focus shifted off of his Lord who was the true source of his success and onto himself. The more he focused on himself, the less he thought of God. The less he thought of God, the more his pride grew. As his pride grew, he crossed boundaries that God had established.
As King, Uzziah was granted by God a great deal of authority, but there were limitations especially as it came to the temple. God had decreed that only Aaron and his descendants were to offer sacrifices on the altar of incense. What made Aaron’s family so special? Nothing! It was simply God’s decision. Sometimes God sets boundaries to protect us, yet other times he sets them to give us the opportunity to display our faith by honoring His authority. Humility is reflected in faithful submission to God. Pride makes us unfaithful. In The Four Cardinal Virtues, Josef Pieper wrote, “Pride refers to man’s relationship with God. Pride is the anti-realistic denial of the relationship between creature and Creator; pride denies the creaturely nature of man… It is a turning away from God.”
When Uzziah stopped seeking after God, he took his focus off God and onto his own fame and accomplishments, opening himself up for corruption and failure. The consequences of Uzziah’s unfaithfulness were severe. He was struck with leprosy, lost his kingdom, and died in exile.
“Self-sufficiency is the enemy of our salvation.”
C S Lewis.
Self-sufficiency is a result of devaluing God and always leads to a marginalization of sin.
Uzziah’s tragic story is the backdrop to Isaiah 6:1-8. “In the year of King Uzziah death…”
The year was 739 BC, coincidentally the same year that Romulus, the founder of Rome, was born. The people of Judah continued in corruption and the nation was divided.They had rebelled against God and tried to cover up their sin with slander and falsehoods. Isaiah was God’s mouthpiece to confront Judah for their unfaithfulness to God. “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil; who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness; who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitterness! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight! “(Isaiah 5:20-21)
It is in this context of railing against a sinful nation that God gave a life-changing vision to his prophet Isaiah.
What Isaiah saw was an overwhelming vision of God in all His glory filling His throne room, leaving no room for rivals. The scene reveals the magnificence of God. The constant thunderous shouts of, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of Hosts. The whole earth is filled with His glory” by the Seraphim shake the foundation as the temple fills with smoke. For Isaiah, the revelation was both awesome and terrifying. In the recognition of his own sinfulness, he immediately cried out in true repentance and confession.
When we come face to face with the holiness of God, we are undone by our own sinfulness.
God sent one of the seraphim to Isaiah. He took a burning coal out of the altar with tongs, touched Isaiah’s lips (his area of sinfulness), and declared, “Your iniquity is taken away, your sin is forgiven!”
When we repent and confess our sin, God graciously intervenes with cleansing.
Uzziah’s pride was met with judgement. Isaiah’s humility was met with merciful cleansing. The difference? Uzziah approached the altar with a corrupt heart. Isaiah approached the altar with a broken heart. Uzziah’s corruption led to exile. Isaiah’s cleansing led to renewed service.
While many of the details are different, there are also many similarities to where we currently find ourselves as a nation. The country is sharply divided. Evidence of corruption can be found on all sides of the political divide. Right is being called wrong and evil is being championed as good. It’s easy for me to rail against the failures of our political leaders and our socio-political constructs. But what does that accomplish? Focusing on the failures of others or my own frustrations keeps my eyes off of God and the problems will begin to appear insurmountable. Yet when I remember that the majestic God of Isaiah’s vision who, without rival, sovereignly rules the universe, has cleansed me of all my sin, and calls me His child, all the problems of the world shrink into their proper perspective. Our perception of God changes our perception of everything else.
Further reading:
2 Chronicles 26: 1-23
Isaiah 6:1-13
Psalm 2
John 14:1-6
John 15:18-16:33
Colossians 3:1-4
Hebrews 12:1-4
James 1:1-8
