Sunday School Recap. #2: The Puzzle of King Uzziah
This Sunday School Lesson is based on II Kings 15:1-7 and II Chronicles 26:3-5 KJV from August 9th, 2020.
Consider this Question:
Think about a gift or talent that you have or an area of your life that you’re successful in. Who or what do you owe your success to?
It’s important to know where our help comes from (Psalm 121:1) because as we continue to grow in the Lord and as the Lord begins to start using us for His glory, if we forget this, we subject ourselves to falling into the deception and stronghold of pride that lies and says that one’s success is because of their own achievements and not because of the divine hand of the Lord in our lives.
King Uzziah’s sin was that he entered into the sacred area of the temple intending to offer incense as a priest, which he had no priestly right or privilege to do as king.
The Bible says that King Uzziah's fame spread far and wide (verse 15) because the Lord gave him marvelous help, to the point that he became very powerful.
Verse 16 of 2 Chronicles in the NLT says, “But when he had become powerful, he also became proud, which led to his downfall. He sinned against the Lord his God by entering the sanctuary of the Lord’s Temple and personally burning incense on the incense altar.”
King Uzziah fell into the sin of pride because he mistook the Lord’s blessing on him as his own accomplishment and it caused him to try to operate in ways he was not graced to do.
1️⃣ Lesson Point #1: Do not mistake the Lord’s blessing in your life for your own accomplishments; this is a set up to befall to pride.
A few reasons why we fall into pride include: insecurity, overconfidence, and giving up on the Lord.
Insecurity is not believing you’re worthy of the Lord’s blessing and so when people start to point out the God IN you, you become puffed up.
Overconfidence is when you have too much confidence in your own capabilities and remember, Paul said we put no confidence in the flesh (Phil. 3:3).
Giving up on God is when you depend on your own strength, began to struggle, and give up on God because of what YOU cannot do in your flesh; this is pride because you depended on yourself and not the Lord’s ability to show Himself strong in your life. The danger of depending on your strength is when you do well, you will account it to yourself and not to the excellency of the power of Christ IN you (2 Cor. 4:7 KJV). The other danger with this (perhaps the most deadly of the two) is when you’re not doing well in your strength, you give up on God. (Both are pride).
We are to have a healthy dosage of confidence that is derived from trusting in the Lord and not ourselves. First Lady Delsa said it best when she noted that our confidence should be that, “I can do ALL things through Christ which strengtheneth me” (Phil. 4:13). THIS – HE is our confidence.
2️⃣ Lesson Point #2: Faithfulness to God means dying daily to the work(s) of the flesh.
Though we don’t know the specific reason why King Uzziah entered into this sacred space (beside of his pride), what we do know is that he veered off in a direction that the Lord did not have for him to go in by entering the sacred space. This was not pleasing before the Lord.
The point I want to bring out with this is: There will be times when we think God isn’t moving on our timing, or when we believe the lie that he won’t come through for us. However, even in those times we have to choose to remain faithful to God; die to our flesh, and obediently serve God. We can’t just serve God with anything; the sacrifice has to be pleasing before Him.
Remember Cain and Abel? Cain allowed for pride and jealousy to rule him to killing his brother (giving up and disqualifying himself from the race), rather than seeking God (or even asking his brother for assistance) about what pleased God so that he could offer an acceptable sacrifice.
Not only do we practice a lifestyle of daily sacrifice, obedience, and faithfulness to God, we also have to realize and be careful to remain faithful in the WAY God is calling us to be faithful and not just making sacrifices that we believe God should accept just because we gave it (like Cain). We have to be obedient, faithful, and make to God the sacrifices He’s calling us to in the form He desires them to be made and given. If you remember in the Old Testament, when Gideon wanted to offer a sacrifice, he had to do it the Lord required him to in order for it to be received by God.
3️⃣ Lesson Point #3: Self-reflection is key and mandatory on our journey here on earth with the Lord.
2 Corinthians 13:5 KJV, “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?”
When we take the time to self-reflect with the Lord, we notice gap-holes in our relationship with God that we did not once notice before.
This becomes that much more important as we are continually growing in the Lord and He God exalts and raises you for His glory because how many people do we know fell off once they “got big” or fell to pride once their name became a bit more known?
One way to practice self-reflection is to gather some questions you can ask yourself on a weekly or bi-weekly basis (or however offer the Lord would have you to do one, but be willing) to check the position of your heart and see, “whether ye be in the faith.” Only God can truly know the heart, but we must do our part in positioning ourselves for Him to search it – a lot of the time this looks like us just asking Him to do so (Psalm 139:23-24 KJV).
Here are a few sample self-reflection questions:
Have I given God ALL of my heart?
Have I torn down ALL of the high places (strongholds, distractions, stumbling blocks, etc. – from verse 4) in my life?
Am I being led by God in the decisions that I’m making? Don’t sugar coat your answer; the answer is either yes or no.
Remember, these are just a few examples, but I encourage you to get with the Lord about different ones that you can ask as a self-reflection for your walk with God.
To end this recap., read Romans 3:9-20 because it proves that we are who we are because of Him! We are righteous because He is righteous; our righteousness is not of our own; they are actually filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6; Romans 3:32) when they’re offered in our mere strength. Therefore, we cannot afford to mistake who we are to be of our own accomplishments, but remember, instead, that it is of the excellency of the power is of God and not us.
Until Next Sunday's Lesson Recap.,
LaGerrica S. 🌻
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