The Year I Saw (Tauren Wells)

like I have a word from God today. And I try to avoid this moment for as long as possible. I try to schedule trips, vacations, tours, everything possible, and somehow the Lord just made it happen. And I am so grateful to be here. I really can't say enough of how much this church means to me. I don't know if you realize how much you mean to me. This is an incredible moment for myself. And you know, I was listening to Pastor Steven when I was twenty one,

twenty two years old. That was just three years ago. Ha, just kidding, It's been been about ten twelve years. But based on age, so you know what I'm saying. So still looking smooth, little revitalized lotion, you know what I'm saying. But I was downloading podcasts sermons. This was when you just download them from iTunes, and I would go back in the archive and I would get series like Core. Oh see, I'm a real one. This ain't no Badwagon. And then I would listen to eighty See y'all don't

even know. It's got quiet in the room. Eighties rock series Left High was a worship series. You'll remember that, No, y'all remember three D Easter. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. See. I was around for all that online somewhere jogging, listening to a video iPod, listening to sermons, and Pastor Steven, thank you so much for your ministry, for what you have communicated to the world and into my heart. I am so grateful. I was impressed from a distance, but

I've been impacted up close. And you know, my kids last night they were watching a movie provided by the Verdicts. They sent a little movie night in a box and it had robes and slippers and candy and popcorn and seasonings and all this. I just thought, you really just don't get better than these people, and thank you so much. I could cry, but I'm not going to. I love you guys, and I'm grateful to be here today. I got a shout out all my Elevation fam Chris Breezy,

love you, Love you Bro. Thank you Chris for letting me participate in Elevation Worship singing songs like Echo. You know what I'm saying, never lost, come on, and I love all y'all. Jenna John sal You guys have sent me some of the nicest text messages I've ever received from human beings. Thank you so much, Aaron, Love you, bro. I could literally talk about everyone, and I'm not going to because the clock is ticking. But I love you

all so much. I've got my wife here with me today and she looking all fine, and this is a mountaintop moment for both of us. I'm not preaching today. We're preaching because this woman holds it down. And we've got those three little boys, seven, four and two years old, and you can't tell she's had any children because she's fine. But I was writing songs with Pastor Steven and with Chris, and like every song ended up being about her and I was like, no, this is about the Lord, not

the Lorna. Okay, we got to refocus this writing session. But I love you. Thank you for your love support. You're a treasure to me and I bring you greeting today from Houston, Texas Lakewood Church Pastor Joe oh See representing h Town today. Well, you guys can go ahead and sit down. You already exposed me with the video. I was here in January. We were celebrating the kickoff of my album, Citizen of Heaven, and I was out here just dancing, you know what I'm saying, doing my

little thing. Had Holly in the front row. I was worried. I was nervous. I was like this Holly liking this is this? Okay? Am I gonna be kicked out? Am I gonna be invited back? She's smiling, She's smiling. I'm good and she makes me a little bit nervous, but I love her. We were here, and we were it

was lit. I mean, I thought, I'm coming into twenty twenty with a new album and I get to do the first weekend that the music is released at a church that I love, Elevation Church, and I was going out of my mind, and then Pastor Stephen asked me to come back and preach, and that just scared me to death, maybe nervous. I started doing push ups immediately. Guys, I've been in the gym. You can't tell you, but I've been there, and uh, I was just so filled

with expectation. But I have to be honest, this is not what I saw. I dreamed about preaching an elevation church. I'm gonna keep it one hundred. What you see is what you get. I've dreamed about it. I didn't dream that it would look like the youth room that I ap preached my first message in when I was sixteen. I didn't know it was gonna be thirty of y'all. But you're here, Phraise God. It's not what I saw. It's not what I envisioned. I mean, I came into

twenty twenty with so much expectation. That's the beauty of a new year. That's the beauty of a new season. We come into it with some expectation, We have our hopes up. Possibility is in the air. The gym memberships are up, the calorie counts are down. Where thinking about this is the year, This is the year that God's gonna restore my marriage. This is the year that I'm gonna rebuild a relationship with my kids. This is the year that I'm gonna graduate and I'm gonna step into

the real world. Nah, bro, you're gonna be at home. Come on. This is the year. This is the year. This is the year. And we've all said this, We've all wrapped our minds around this idea that I'm going somewhere this year. I'm doing something this year. So I was putting together my plan for the year. She sounds funny to say it now, but I was. I'm a little journal and I was writting down and like many of you do, I pick a word every year, and the word for the year for me was build. I

wanted to build. I wanted to I wanted to build man. I wanted to build my health. I wanted to build my family. I wanted to build my ministry. I wanted to build God's Church. I was ready to build, and I prayed about it and I felt like I heard from God on it. But I must have missed something he said in the prayer meeting, because I didn't realize that if God was going to really build something that stood the test of time and gave him residual glory.

He was going to have to bring everything else down to the dirt, and this year it's all been brought down to the dirt. But there's good news. He knows what to do with the dirt. He may bring it down to the foundation, but he knows what to do, for he is a lamb slaying from the foundation of the earth. He knows what to do with the dirt. He breathed into the dirt and created the object of his affection in the humanity of Adam. He stepped down into the dirt of humanity when he put on skin

and bones and climbed into the trenches with us. He knows what to do with the dirt. When he was walking through the dusty streets of Jerusalem and there was a man who couldn't see, he reached down, not for some medical supplies, not to a doctor, not to a physician, for he was the great physician, and he had a prescription, and the prescription was in the dirt. Now that's not my message today, but it sure does preach good. You can bring them your dirt. The year twenty ten, my

wife and I I proposed to my wife. We got engaged, and I gotta tell you, man, I killed the engagement, no cap I mean one of the best engagements all time. Definitely the best one I've ever done. Okay, and there's only been one. But I was in Nashville, Lorna was in Houston, and I had this whole plan, man, I had this whole plan. I went and I found these jewelry boxes and they were vintage. And this is before you could just order it on Etsy. Okay, that's too easy.

I had to actually go somewhere and find these vintage jewelry boxes and gave one to one of her friends, and I put a camera and a note in it. My friend put it under her couch and her apartment. So I sent her a text this morning in twenty ten and said to go go look under your couch, little cryptic, little creepy. She goes and opens it up and there's a little flip camera and a note. Now this was before like the camera and the phone had been integrated. They actually used to be two separate objects,

little zoom camera. And I said, hey, record your day today. Pick you out a good outfit. It's going to be a great day, I'll talk to you later. So she gets on there. She's got a little retainer in you know, eh Turin put something under my couch and she's done her a little thing and goes to the church. She's working at the church. Her brother works at the church as well. Shot out Royalwood and they're working and Brandon comes in. That's my brother in law. He says, hey,

let's let's go get lunch. She's like, cool, so they go. He gets on the phone. He's on the phone the whole time. They show up at the airport. She's like, what are we doing at the airport? He gives her a second jewelry box and she opens it up and there's some plane tickets in it. Boy had the size. She opens it up. She's like, hey, this this is a overnight this overnight ticket. Brandon reaches back, pulls out

the the bag. We already had another outfit plan for I haven't made a plan since then, but I plan this day. So she goes. She gets on the plane. She flies to flies to Nashville and shows up. I've got my friends there and they pick her up from from the airport and they give her an iPod. This sounds archaic when you just say it an iPod And it had an inscription on the back Tory and LB that she calls me Tori. You call me Toy, I will send the SWAT team to your house. But that's

that's just for her. And it had a little love songs on it, you know what I'm saying. So she puts into little earbuds and then they blindfold her. Okay, little scary, but you know it's not a Limbniesen movie. So uh they they're they're driving, and they show up to this venue I'd rented out a Venue's just a little club, you know, nothing crazy, but I had it, you know, I had it looking right, you know what I'm saying. There is a single chair in the middle of the room, spot lit. And then I was up

on the on the stage. I'm a little stool, you know, sitting with my little pose, you know what I'm saying. And I had the third jewelry box. Yah, I told you, I told you some movie. I told you some movie, But you got my little jewelry box. She comes and sits down. They take the blindfold off and you can just see like the moment wash over her face. One of the best moments of my life. And then I got my homie in the back, got the little lights,

got a little haste. It kind of looks like a youth room because that was my contact at the time, but it was still still nice. And I started singing a song, You're a diferent, beautiful a love song out of control, written for me, beautifully different from me, for me to Ryan Edgar song, y'all don't know it, and step down off the stage. You know it's wearing my little vest. I don't know why. Got down on that knee. Boy. This is how you do it, guys. This is how

you do it right here. None of the taco bell packets and weird stuff I've seen people doing onlines. You know what I'm saying, You gotta go classic, sometimes retro. You know what I'm saying. Down on one knee, and I say a bunch of stuf. I don't know if I quoted the Notebook or Casey and Jojo, but I was just I said a bunch of stuff I don't remember, but I meant it. In the moment with God stood up Gabral hug. It was it was the year of our engagement, so then then we start making the wedding plans.

And by we, I mean she starts making the wedding plans. Tiffany, remember this include him just a little, you know, he's just happy to be there, but make him feel like he's participating. And so we start, you know, getting everything together. We start sending out wedding invitations, and uh, one of the wedding invitations comes back, but it doesn't come back to our house. It gets sent to the church that we attend and work at. And I went in to

my father in law's office, who was the pastor. He said, they they sent their wedding invitation back. Really, yeah, they they don't agree with the two of y'all being married. It's an interracial marriage. I thought maybe this was one couple, you know, maybe they were disgruntled. They were looking for escapegoat to leave the church. Know that there were many families that felt like a biracial man black and white shouldn't be married to a white woman, So they left

the church. One hundred people deuces in a year that was supposed to be framed by the joy of an engagement is now framed with prejudice and dissension. But we put our heads down, man, and we just piled through it. We get to twenty eleven. My father in law is a g He's a champion. He stands up in the pulpit and he preaches with passion against this sin called prejudice and racism, to the point where someone asked him, what are we going to do when you know these

black people and these Mexicans are in heaven. He said, don't worry about it, you won't be there. Some things just don't go through the gate. So he took a stand and he married us. He did the wedding ceremony for us, and we got married. We sang to each other, it was great. We went on our honeymoon, came back and I went on tour. Was gone for three weeks. Well halfway through the tour, I get a phone call from Lorna and her voice is shaking and she's in tears,

and I'm like, babe, what's going on. She says that her dad has been diagnosed with leukemia. Newly weds, y'all, we just went through a church split me finding out people didn't like me for the first time in my life because I'm black. And now my father in law who is one of my heroes, has now been diagnosed with what we feel like is a death sentence. And a year that's supposed to be framed with the joy

of marriage has now been framed by illness, sickness, heartache. Man, those were hard and there was more stuff going on. I know that we've all had years like this that twenty twenty has been hard, but it may not even be the hardest year you've ever been through. We've all got years like this where the rug gets pulled out from under us and we're wondering what do we do? And what happened to our plans and what happened to our calendar and what happened to the things that we

thought were going to happen. I had a different idea of what this was going to be. This was not the year that I saw. We're in the middle of a year like that right now. Where where I mean? We started off the year with like forty seven million acres of Australia being burned to the ground. We started off the year with the news of Kobe Bryant and his daughter and seven seven other people passing away. We've

had our president go under two articles of impeachment. We've had a worldwide pandemic and quarantine, and that's just like at the macro level. This isn't the personal implications of the loneliness that we felt and the hurt that we felt in the heartache that we felt, and we've had to watch grandparents die on the other side of a piece of glass because you can't get into the facility to see them. This is real. This is the year

that we've been living in. And that's where I have to point myself, my soul, and my eyes to Scripture because none of this is new to God. This isn't anything that he hasn't seen before. It's not anything that is outside of his control. And so I peered back across the vast landscape of Scripture to look into the heart of a young prophet named Isaiah, and he says, in the year King Uziah died, maybe you feel like that's the year you've been living in. It's the year

King Uziah died in your life. It wasn't the year you saw, It wasn't the year you anticipated. It wasn't the thing that you had in your heart for what this was going to look like, and what you thought was strong has been removed. Usiah means strength. In the year that what I thought was strong dies, I realized

what true strengths really look like. Because Isaiah says, in the year King Usiah died, I saw also the Lord and maybe this year God has been removing some things from your life that you've been dependent upon, that you have placed your faith in, your confidence in because you thought they were stronger than they really were. But there is no one stronger than our God. We have discovered in twenty twenty what true strength really looks like. We've discovered that Hope has a name, Peace has a name,

Joy has a name, Comfort has a name. In the year my strength died, I saw that God was stronger. Come on and put your hands together. I thought our education system was pretty strong until I had to download twenty apps, send nineteen emails, and God bless all y'all teachers. I mean, it's just hard for all of us, we all just trying to make I thought our healthcare system was pretty strong, y'all, until they said, stay home, we

don't have occupancy. Y'all get sick. You one yump. Thought that healthcare system was pretty strong, boy, then we gotta flatten the curve. I thought y'all was supposed to flatten the curve. Y'all healthcare professionalists, They're in a tough spot. Man. I thought the economy was pretty strong. I've been here about that a lot. Greatest economy in the history of America, it's been, and it's been great. Oh yeah, But one little, teeny tiny bacteria took out a whole infrastructure. Thought as

strong as I thought it was. Thought my marriage was pretty strong, until we were spending weeks on end together with nothing to distract us from our dysfunction, and we had to look at each other in the eyes. Thought I was strong. I thought my kids teachers were wrong about them, my son miss me. No. Then you put them in your house day after day, hour after hour, minute after and you realize, Man, some of my perceptions weren't as strong as I thought they were. But I

saw something stronger. Yeah. And instead of running to a building to fix all my problems, and running to a marriage to fix all my problems, and running to a prescription to fix all my problems, I had to learn to run to the name. Because the name of the Lord is a strong tower. The righteous run into it and they are safe. They that way upon the Lord shall renew their strengths. They shall rise up on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary, they

will walk and not fay. I've discovered what true strength really is. It's Jesus, always, only and forever Jesus. He's my health, He's my strength. Found out what strength really was, found out what strength really was. You got strength today. I like how the King James frames it for us. In the year that King Uziah died, I saw also

there's more to see. Many of us get stuck in an isolated narrative where we only see one half of what is true, and because of the pain that we're experiencing and the trauma that comes with the pain, our perception and our perspective is held captive and we become imprisoned with our pain because the narrative has been isolated. But there's more to the story. My kids are fantastic at isolating narratives. They'll run downstairs, hit me, he hit me, Kennon say it maybe hit me loss hit me me.

I for a while it was like I just get onto the other one, like why did you hit him? Yeah? Exactly what's I've learned to ask a question, guys, learned to ask a question. And what did you do to him first? Cause you're not bringing me the whole story. It's an isolated narrative. Facebook is sending you an isolated narrative. Twitter is sending you an isolated narrative. CNN and MSNBC and Fox and all of them, they're sending us an isolated narrative. There is more to this story. There is

more to be seen, there is more to experience. In the year Strengths died, I saw also the Lord, and he was upon the throne. Transition did not change his position. He was still high and lifted up, and his glory filled the temple. I wish you'd just give him a little I wish I had just a little something on the organ, just a little just give me, just a little bit, gimme just to give me just I saw something else and it looked like the Son of God. Mm,

thank you. I need some of them white girl amens too, you know them little white girl amens. So she's like so good, so good, Oh my god, oh my god, yeah, so good. I was just journaling about this the other day. I was drinking a chime, I tell you, I tell you, and it was just free. Oh lady, man, I'm a whoa. Let me ask you a question. What narrative have you

been isolated in? I was talking to my dad about some things, just you know, growing up, you got questions, you're trying to figure it out, and as you come into adulthood you start trying to dig around and see, you know, the context of things. And I was asking him some questions, and as he was telling me about things that were happening around the context of my childhood, I started seeing a story that I hadn't seen before. In it, it changed the way that I saw some things.

I had been living from this place of pain, as if that was the only reality, and that the effects of that pain, those stressors, and those wounds were the only reality. You see, Pain can restrict sight. Wow, Pain can keep you from seeing the whole picture, y'all? That sure can. Man. You get hurt by one person at church, and now all Christians are bad. One pastor doesn't shake your hand. He didn't stop to talk to me, I mean, and now you all ministry is corrupt because somebody didn't

shake your hand. The pain can restrict your sight. You can be hurt in your life, betrayed by a friend, and now nobody's loyal. You can't even see the people that want to love you because the pain has blinded you to their very existence. You'll live from a place of insecurity, where you're suspicious of everybody. Are you really with me? Are you really with me? Are you really

with me? Are you really with me? Because a few people that were with you weren't actually for you, and you rob yourself of deep, meaningful relationships because the pain has restricted your sight. You can't even see your kids. You can't let your kids become who they were created to be and live the life that God has called them to live because you are trapped in an isolated narrative and your pain is restricting your vision. But your

pain can also produce clarity. Because Isaiah saw something he had never seen before, experienced something he never experienced before. The scales came off of his eyes and he was able to see the Lord. Also, he was able to see the Lord in the midst of it. He was able to recognize the presence of the Savior. And it was that clarity of who Jesus was that allowed him to write scriptures like Isaiah ninety six, for unto us, a child is born, and unto us a son is given.

How could you write it, Isaiah? I saw it. I saw it. I saw it. I saw it, and I didn't see it when everything was going right. I didn't see it when everything was lined up for me and it was all falling into place. You see. I had a vision in the year King Osiah died, and he told me the government will be upon his shoulders, and his name shall be called Wonderful counselor the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. You see. It

created some clarity for Isaiah. He got to write scriptures like God not only has power and strength, but he graciously uses it to save us. His clarity gave him authority when he wrote scriptures like when you pass through the water, I will be with you. And when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, woo, you will not

be bursed. Come home if you allow it to. Your pain will allow you to see what has always been there but you never could quite put your finger on. Pain can be a clarifier. You have to choose you have to choose if losing a king makes you blind to the king. Yeah, yeah, it's a king. It was a job, it was a real relationship. It was a opportunity of this. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. But there's still the king, the king, and he's not just any old king. He's the King of kings, He's the Lord of lords.

He's the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. I love this one. The author and the finisher. Your story is not finished until God writes the final chapter. And let me tell you something, he hasn't written it yet. There is more story, more glory, more power, more presence, more miracles, more life. You choose what you see. You choose what you see. You choose the year King Uzaiah did. I saw also the Lord. He was high and lifted up. This glory feels when Isaiah died, I saw the Lord.

He was high and lifted up. Well, I thought the greatest position in the early in an earthly kingdom was the king. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, But there's another realm higher than the earth. So there happens to be a king who is actually the king of the heavens and the earth. There was an office above his office, there was a higher court to appeal to, there was a greater reality to see. And in the pain, the pain of the loss, and the pain of the disappointment, we

don't ignore it. We don't act like it doesn't exist. We just allow it to point us to a greater reality. And what Isaiah saw was that the king that was over him had somebody over him. But what I'm trying to tell you today is the thing that has been over you has someone over it. Yeah, yes, sir, yes, sir. The thing that is over you has someone over it. When you're going through something difficult, you'll hear people like well intentioned trying to encourage you and say, you know what,

you're gonna make it through it. You're gonna make it through it. You're gonna make it through it. You're gonna make it through it. Man, you're gonna get through this. The either way I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I'll fear not. Yeah, you're gonna get through it. Yeah I've I got through it. But I'm still not over it. I'm no longer living in that season of my life. But man, every morning I wake up, decisions that I make are being influ by the thing

I've been through. But I'm not over yet. I'm not over yet. I'm not over how she hurt me. I'm not over how he hurt me. I'm not over the time we spent together, the time we didn't spend together. I'm not quite over it yet. I'm not over it. And if you're not over it, it's probably over you. It's probably influencing decisions you don't even realize. It's probably making you take a stand on things that you don't

really need to take a stand on. It's making you view people a certain way, and they really have great intentions and they want what's best for you. If you're not over it, it's probably over you. And I'm not an insensitive preacher today. I'm not saying just get over it, just get over it. You gotta get over you gotta climb over it. You gotta I'm not saying any of that. But you can look over it. You can look over it. You can lift your eyes a little bit higher. You

can lift your eyes a little bit higher. You can see a little bit further beyond the reality that you think is all consuming. You can look a little higher and realize that the thing that is over you has someone over it, that there is a higher office of command, that he is in control, that he is ordering your footsteps, that he is doing what he has purpose in your life, that he's working all things together for the good. There's somebody over it, somebody over it. God is still God.

God is still God, and you still aren't. God is still God. So stop trying to control it, stop trying to manipulate it, and look over it. I will lift mine eyes to the hills from which come in my help. You have to look over it so that you can see a greater reality. You're through it, but you're not over it. Life is full of both wonders and wounds. We choose which one we glance at and which one we stare into. We choose which one we live from. Are you gonna live from the wonder of who God is?

Or from the wounds of what people have done to you. I'm gonna change gears a little bit here, and I'm gonna move us to a little bit further down in this scripture. Is this all right today? Yeah? Verse one, it says, in the year King Uzaiah died, I saw. In verse three, Isaiah describes what he hears, and one crowd into another, speaking of the angels, and said, Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full

of his glory. So verse one he sees. Verse three he hears, and then down in verse five he speaks, I wonder what our world would look like. Wow, if we would see listen, and then respond, I didn't come to talk about that, but I drop it off and see what y'all would do with it. He responds to what he has seen, he sees the Lord. Now anyone who sees the Lord and like the vision that Isaiah has received, I don't want to know what they say next?

What's the response? And he says, WHOA, it's me, And I'm not talking about like David at like eight point thirty, Like how why what do you do you wake up at four to like are you working up through the morning? I don't understand this. He says, WHOA, it's me for I am undone. See so many of us when we get a revelation of who God is, we want to run and tell somebody else what they should be doing.

Because you saw this in scripture. We miss we missed the fact that revelation is for reevaluation of us, not everybody else. What I gotta The Lord told me, you know he really wants me in that word six am every day. Well he told you, bro, he didn't tell me six am. He told me nine pm something. We want to click the share button on and God's like, na, Bro, I need you to download that into your spirit because I want to change some things. I want to transform

some things that anger. I'm gonna work on that. That perspective, I'm gonna work on that a little bit. You cussing out the TSA agent, Torrin, I'm gonna work. I'm gonna work on it. God be testing my patience in the TSA liney'd Oh my God. So I just I just want to remind you today that the true response to people who have really seen Jesus is an inward look, woe is me? You know, they should really fix that, they should really work on that. They should. Doesn't anyone

around here know what they're doing. I'm sure there's people talk about church like that, not elevation church, that wouldn't exist here. But everybody got an opinion, and they got a revelation who Jesus. They want to share it with everybody and tell everybody with their supposed to be doing. You post articles on your timeline hoping that somebody else sees it. You sub tweeting because you're gonna fix somebody on Twitter. No no, no, no non nine nah? Whoa is me for? I am a man of unclean lips.

I got problems, I got issues. I'm dysfunctional. I'm not here to call you out. I need work done in me. Fix me, heal me. I'm a sinner. I need Jesus. Woe is me? Not woe is them? They should? How could they release everybody from all that you just saw Jesus letting them come in and change some things in your life? Woe is me? Woe is me? I need him, I need him, I need him, I need Jesus. I need Jesus and he knows it, and a lot of us.

We would like to skip to verse eight right here, because Isaiah says that he hears the voice of the Lord asking who will I send and who will go for us? And and Isaiah says, ooh me, me, me, me, me me, I'll go. I'll go. I'll go, lord Ship, I'm a man, I'll go. I'll do it. I'll do it. I'll do it. I'll do it. I'll stand on stage, I'll declare your glory, Lord, I'll do it. I'll lead that corporate that corporate boardroom to the glory of the Lord. If you just blessed me with the influence God, I'll

do it. I'll do it. I'll do it. Whatever you want me to do. Here am I send me And we want to skip to verse eight, but we have to go through the process from verse five to verse eight, which says one of the angels came down and touched the lips of Isaiah with a call and purified him and cleansed him from all of his iniquity. What I'm trying to tell you today is before you touch a stage, you got to touch the altar. Before you touch a mic, you need to touch the altar. We need to touch

the altar. We need to touch the altar. I know church is about programming, and it's about lights, and it's about all this stuff that we've built around the Gospel. I think it's all good. I use it all, I love it all, but you cannot replace the altar with it. We still got to get to the altar. We still need a touch from heaven. We still need a touch of his power. We need a touch of his goodness.

We need deliverance, we need transformation. We've got to get to an altar and what twenty twenty has taught us. It may not be what we saw, but it can be the year that we saw. Also, the Lord and I went to the altar, and the altar touched me and transformed me and changed me. That's the only way you go from woe is me to hear am I is a touch from the altar. Oh, God, touch our hearts today, touch us. I don't care if it burns.

I don't care if it hurts. God, you can do more with a touch from the altar then you can do with the lyric. You can do more with a touch from the altar than talent. You can do more with a touch from the altar. So do it, Lord, touch me. Yeah. I want to go. I want to lead, I want to be a part, I want to come alongside. But more than anything, God, I want to be touched. I want to be touched God. I want to be changed. I want to be more like you. Son about subscribers

and followers and platforms and people and opportunities. Jesus, it's about you, so touch me. To my father in law, Pastor Ron Macy said, sometimes God has to change us before he can use us. And if change is the price to carry the cross, I'm here for it. Change anything you want in me, God, change my heart, change the motivations of it. Always striving, always reaching, always performing,

always achieving. But nothing replaces a touch. So wherever people are listening from today, God, would you touch them, would you touch their relationships, would you touch their homes? Would you touch the places where they're lonely? And touch the places where they're broken? Because if you're gonna really use it, we have to surrender to the process of transformation. In the year King Uzaiah died, I saw also the Lord. He was high, and he was lifted up in his

glory filled the temple. Now this was not the year I saw, since the year I saw coming wasn't what I expected. And yeah, I saw some valleys, I saw some low places, I saw some hardships, I saw some disappointments, I saw some tears, But I also saw the lords and I saw attributes of his character I would to have known existed had I not have to live through the year and now in twenty twenty, I see, I see that you're good. I see that you're real. I

see that you're present. I see that your grace is weaving my story together with a needle called time and trust. We spend a lot of time today and Isaiah six. This is actually just the beginning of Isaiah's ministry. It's very young when this happened. There are sixty six books in Isaiah that lets me know that story doesn't end here. If it's not good, God's not done. The story doesn't in here. There's sixty more chapters to be written, sixty more seasons of life where you get to see who

God is and what he's capable of. So don't get stuck here, don't get stuck in twenty twenty. Don't carry all of this with you. May this be the year that you say I saw something else. I saw something greater, something bigger. I saw Jesus. Let's pray, Lord, thank you so much for your word. It is a lamp unto

our feet and a light unto our path. God. I pray that your word would illuminate our hearts today, that we would see things we've never seen before that we would behold your glory God, and that we would be changed by it. God, I pray that there would be a transformation that would occur in the heart of every person under the sound of my voice. I pray that our perspective would be lifted, our hope would be lifted, our eyes would be lifted. God. We know that you

give us beauty for ashes. God, so would you bestow beauty upon us right now? God, Lord, you give us a song in the midst of our sorrows. God, so would you put the melody in our hearts again, even in difficulty. God, I pray that we would see that you are worthy to be praised, nor that you are higher than it all seed, it high and in control. Lord. We love you. We worship you in Jesus' name, and the church says Amen, God, bless you, Elevation. I love y'all, Man,

God bless you. Thank you for joining us. Special thanks to those of you who give generously to this ministry. Is because of you that this ministry is possible. You can click the link in the description to give now, or visit Elevationchurch dot org slash podcast for more information and if you enjoyed the podcast, You can subscribe. You can share it with your friends. You can click the share button, take a screenshot and share it on your social stories and tag us at Elevation Church. Thanks again

for listening. God bless you.