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2 Chronicles 26:6-15

I read a Youth Bible that suggested what fun it must be to be 16, and king, and have everyone obey your decrees. What might be the first law you would pass? Maybe one banning homework!!

Leaving that trivial thought behind, we do see that Uzziah was a highly successful man. He was good at battling and building. He grew rich and powerful and famous (6-8). He had various interests and abilities. The last part of (10) reads like this in The Message: – he loved growing things. (I make the observation that unfortunately the growth of his inner world did not keep pace with his burgeoning outward success, and it was to be his undoing.) The passage shows also that he was a resourceful military leader (11-15): He also installed the latest in military technology on the towers and corners of Jerusalem for shooting arrows and hurling stones (15a). The Message.

However, it is also transparently clear that Uzziah’s success was God-given (5b, 7 and 15b). He became great with the great help of God.

Now success can go to your head. You can start to read and believe your ‘reviews’. Major league success can be a dangerous thing. You can easily forget who it was who gave you the success and (perhaps subtly at first) lose your sense of dependence. The danger, however, is that we should become strong in our own conceit, and credit ourselves with the position which is due to the grace of God alone…God cannot trust some of us with prosperity and success, because our nature could not stand them. F.B.Meyer: Great verses through the Bible, p.159. A man was writing about a friend, a colleague in ministry, and he said he had always wondered why this guy, with his great gifts, hadn’t become prominent. He had conducted a fairly ordinary looking ministry and had not appeared to achieve anything spectacular. One day he happened to mention this to his friend. The man replied with a disarming, humble honesty, saying that he believed God had denied him such success because He knew he wouldn’t be able to handle it. Warren Wiersbe writes: ‘The starting point in Uzziah’s success was his seeking God and wanting to do his will (v.5)…The turning point was his pride (v.16)’: With the Word, p.247. Everything seemed to go his way. But then the strength and success went to his head. Arrogant and proud, he fell. The Message.

Here, then, are the ‘take homes’ from today’s passage:

1. Be a man/woman of prayer;
2.  Get your success from God;
3. Give God all the glory for every good thing that happens in your ministry;
4. Stay, humble and obedient;
5. It is possible to be in great blessing today, and in disgrace tomorrow. (No wonder Paul said he beat his body and made it his slave, so that after preaching to others he would not himself be a castaway: 1 Cor.9:27).

A wonderful song says something like this: While walking in this world, we are nothing in ourselves; but God’s chosen to use us in His mighty will. And the Master’s plan requires human instruments, but they must not ever glorify themselves…All the glory must be to the Lord…      

2 Chronicles 26:1 – 5

No one should despise youth.

Young people can be involved in leadership (1). It is part of the task of leaders to identify younger people who have potential and mentor them. It seems Zechariah (5) was a key figure in Uzziah’s life I think, as I write, of a highly effective youth leader who identified his successor and had him in his home every week for a year to try to encourage and develop him. That young man effectively picked up the mantle of his ‘Elijah’ and led the large youth work (as big as some smaller churches) with distinction. He is now a respected pastor.

Not only can younger people be involved in leadership. It is also true to say that they can achieve great things (2). Let’s endeavour not to stymie anyone’s progress by our lack of confidence in them (and most of all, a deficient confidence in God and His ability to do great things through them.)

Young people can walk with God (3).Many people who become Christians do so in their childhood or teenage years. Lots of great revivals, I understand, have taken place among the younger generation. When I was a teenager, living in Wigan, I became friends with a remarkable young man, David, who was a similar age to me. He went to a local parish church; one not renowned for its evangelicalism. But he knew and loved the Lord. He was truly filled with the Holy Spirit. I think about him from time to time. We lost touch years ago and I often wonder what happened to him. Last July I spent 24 hours in Ambleside, in the Lake District, with my wife Jilly, and I recounted to her a story of a trip to that same town made with David years earlier. We decided to have a day out and took the train to Windermere, and then a boat from Bowness to Ambleside, and back. But we spent our away day predominantly talking about the Lord, and that really was because of David. He just loved to talk about Jesus. I would say he was filled to overflowing with the Holy Spirit. In 1 Thessalonians 1:5 Paul writes about full conviction, and someone said it implies a cup that is so full to the brim it just overflows. That was young David!

Young people can seek God (5). Like most people, I have struggled with prayer at times. But especially in my late teens, kneeling by my bed at home in Wigan, or out walking the leafy lanes of Surrey, close to my college, I began to have foretastes of intoxicating heavenly joy and to sense something of the sweetness of walking with God. There is no doubt that true success comes from seeking the Lord, and the earlier we learn this the better it will be.

Sadly, as we have seen so often, people can start well and finish badly. Brace yourself. We’re in for another big disappointment with this man. But we can learn so much from him.

Thank you that you are the only wise God, and you know better than we do what will be for our ultimate good.

Psalm 102: 18 – 28

Let’s live with an eye towards the next generation. African pastor, Oscar Muria, made a big impact at this year’s ‘Global Leadership Summit’ in Chicago, with his insistence that ‘you never do ministry alone.’ He has a track record of training huge numbers of younger people to be pastors and leaders, three of whom were with him at the event. He talked about the importance of investing your life in people who are at least twenty years younger than you. He said the real measure of your leadership will be revealed after you’ve gone; you have to instil your vision in those who will be there after you’ve left the stage.

Well that was all inspiring and thought-provoking stuff, but this psalm looks beyond the next generation still alive to a future generation…a people not yet created…(18). In particular, the writer has two big things on his heart: praise and prayer.

·         He wants the generation to come be a praising people (18b, 21, and 22). Verses 21 and 22 read like this in The Message: Write it so the story can be told in Zion, so GOD’s praise will be sung in Jerusalem’s streets And wherever people gather together along with their rulers to worship him.

·         He wants this coming generation to be a praising people who know for sure that God  answers prayer (19, 20). They may face difficult days, as he himself did (23, 24) and as did his city, Jerusalem. But as we have already seen, at the heart of this psalm there lies the conviction that God hears and answers prayer. Even in the face of terribly bleak circumstances he can and does affirm this: He will respond to the prayer of the destitute; he will not despise their plea (17; see verses 1 & 2). He wants his words, his example to inspire a coming generation, so that they will live in God’s presence (28). He wants them to know that ‘coincidences happen when Christians pray.’

We live in a world of turbulence, turmoil and change. We, and all around us, are transient. But God is eternal (25-27). You have more years than you know what to do with! You laid earth’s foundations a long time ago, and handcrafted the very heavens; You’ll still be around when they’re long gone, threadbare and discarded like an old suit of clothes. You’ll throw them away like a worn-out coat, but year after year you’re as good as new. The Message. He stands at the centre of this Psalm. We may be surrounded by trouble and change on all sides, but He will be our solid Rock if we let Him.

Although this psalmist could not know it at the time, the words he addressed to God in prayer were the very words the Lord spoke to His Son Jesus (Hebs.1:10-12) as they together planned a future far superior than anything this writer could dream of. Through the coming of Christ into the world, His death on the cross, His rising again and ascension into heaven, a whole new life has been made possible. Through faith in Jesus all our wrongs can be forgiven; our broken relationship with God restored. Jesus doesn’t simply give a new start in life, but a whole new life to start with! The psalmist yearned to see the restoration of his city. God did far more than he asked or thought. Aren’t you glad that sometimes the Lord refuses your request but answers your prayer? He gives you an answer better than anything you could think to ask for.

 Lord, grant me the ability to love as you do; to love as Paul and the great leaders of church history did. Please enable me to love in a way that faces into hard issues and does not avoid them

1 Corinthians 16:9-24

This closing section is full of love:

Aquila and Priscilla loving each other: Although this is not explicitly stated, it is implicit. They were very much together; a couple in Christ and for Christ. They were bound together with the threefold cord that is not easily broken (Ecc.3:12), their lives intertwined with Christ’s. Thinking about them I am reminded of some words of David Pawson, that being in love isn’t a matter of sitting looking into each other’s eyes the whole time, but looking out in the same direction.

Aquila and Priscilla loving the church (19): Here is an insight into the strength and beauty of a Christ-centred marriage where a couple use their home as a place of ministry (See also Romans 16:5). As the two sides of a triangle draw nearer to each other the closer the get to the pinnacle; and as the spokes of a wheel come closer together the nearer they are to the hub, so, in our marriages (and all our relationships) the closer we get to Christ, the greater will be our proximity to one another. When Jesus is at the centre of a marriage He can turn the ‘water’ of every day married life into the ‘wine’ of something very special.

The church loving the church (20): Whatever form it takes, a genuine Christian greeting that conveys your love (and God’s love most of all) is a powerful thing. It carries great blessing. Let’s not allow our greetings to slip into mere clichéd formalities, but put our whole heart into each one. May our brothers and sisters in Christ know Jesus’ touch through ours!

Paul loving the church through his letters (21, 24): This, then, reminds us that Christian love is not slushy and soppy and sentimental. There is such a thing as ‘tough love’. You can’t read the Corinthian letters without feeling something of Paul’s great bursting heart towards this church. But because of that love he was prepared to say and do the difficult things. Real love does not shirk such hard issues. A godly senior pastor once prayed with me when I was going through a time of enormous pressure and strain. He said, ‘Lord, you know how we can fear to grasp the nettle for fear of getting stung.’ Paul got badly stung, but in uncompromising love he grabbed the nettles and sought to pull them out of the ground.

Finally, there is something sad and tragic said here about those who do not love the Lord (22). Here is a doctrinal ‘nettle’ some would rather not pick up, but it is before our eyes and has to be handled. The Bible teaches here, and in other places, that those who do not turn to Christ will be eternally separated from Him. C.S. Lewis said that in the final analysis there will only be two types of people in the world: those who say to God ‘Your will be done’, and those to whom God says, ‘Your will be done.’ If we do not want the Lord we will not have Him.