Jonathan & His Armor Bearer

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

Thank you. If you want to turn in your Bibles, we're going to be in 1 Samuel, excuse me, 2 Samuel. 1 Samuel 13. I just could not get that straight. 1 Samuel 13. We're going to be in 13 and 14 today. To kind of kick off the summer, we are going to begin a new series that's going to run all summer, and we're calling it hidden figures, hidden figures. In this series that's gonna run around 10 weeks, we're gonna turn our attention anew to Old Testament characters, but we're gonna look at people that we usually gloss over. So we're not gonna look at David or Moses or Abraham or Solomon. It's gonna be more like Jeroboam and Zerubbabel and Uzzah. and Uzzah, okay, it's gonna be those guys. It's gonna be the weird ones.

It's people that we can call small players, right? Small players, many of these people that are small players, like many of us, they're not people that make headlines, right, you and I are not major social media influencers, we are not running our own Fortune 500 company. Our lives can feel ordinary. Our lives can feel sometimes in a bad moment, our lives can feel insignificant.

The people that we will study in the Old Testament are a lot like us, man. They're just ordinary people. So they're small players, but yet these small players are caught up in a big story. In the Old Testament, when you read it, it's like, I'm gonna start calling it the Wild West Testament. It is crazy when you read the Old Testament. It's like talking to people who I imagine, talking to people who grew up on like the Western frontier. It was such a grisly and sobering time. And when you look at their life in the Old Testament, it was just very kind of solemn, very grisly, very kind of take it as it comes. It's kind of the life that they had to make with what they had. But their stories can help us see God at work in history. We get this grander view of what's going on, and we see God's character, we see his faithfulness, and we see it to generations of people

that there's a really big story going on that's full of all these small players. And lastly, all these small players help us see and inform our real life. So Romans 15:4 says specifically that we have Old Testament history for a reason. That it is for our instruction. That we should read the Old Testament and take instruction from it. In other words, these small players can push us to see how big God is. That they can warn us of dangerous situations and they can inspire us to great heights. They're for our instruction. And so for that reason alone, we should be excited to read about Uzzah and Jeroboam and Jehoshaphat. We're actually going to read about Jehoshaphat this summer. It's going to be great. These are our hidden figures. So small players, big story, real life, hidden figures. Okay. The first hidden figure that we're going to look at to kick off our summer series is

Jonathan and his armor bearer. Okay. Jonathan and his under bearer. You find their story in first Samuel. Again, first Samuel 13, um, is, is kind of where we start. And, uh, the thing to know about Jonathan, uh, who is Jonathan, uh, his armor bearer, we actually never get his name. So he's just Jonathan's armor bearer. That's his whole, this whole title. Jonathan is famous for being David, King David, the famous David for being David's loyal friend, he saved his life a couple of times. Jonathan also, kind of in his own identity, is a prince. He is the son of the first king of Israel, King Saul. Okay? So in Israel's long and sordid history, there was a time whenever there were no kings, there were just kind of these leaders that we called judges. And then there was a time whenever they got a king. And their first king in the line of like many generations of kings,

They had kings for like 300 years, but the very first one was a guy named Saul, his son, Jonathan, Prince Jonathan. Jonathan never actually became king. That's kind of another story. That's not the story we're going to tell today. But in this story, we find Jonathan and his armor bearer, and we find that God's people, Israel, they are losing a war against their bitter rivals, the Philistines. Okay. Philistines. Everybody say Philistines. Okay, good, that's who we're fighting against. And they are losing the war. Here's how we know. Let's read verses 16 and 17 of 13. It says, and Saul and Jonathan, his son, and the people who were present with them stayed in Geba of Benjamin, but the Philistines encamped in Micmash, and raiders came out of the camp of the Philistines in three companies. Okay, what we are already beginning to see, So we have Israel encamped in Geba,

and we have the Philistines in Micmash. You don't really need to understand where those places are, but you do need to know that what we already see is that the situation is getting worse, okay? The first indication that it's getting worse is that the Philistines are kind of in a hidden place and they are running out raiding parties, okay? They're running out raiding parties in three companies, and those raiding parties are just going through the different little encampments of Israel and just plundering their stuff and leaving. And they're doing that repeatedly. The second indication that we get is in verses 19 through 21, and that is that the Philistines were the only makers of swords and spears in the whole region. So verse 22 it says this. It says, so on the day of the battle, there was neither sword nor spear found in the hand of any of the people with Saul and Jonathan.

But Saul and Jonathan, his son, had them. So what's going on is God's people, Israel, are in the middle of a lopsided battle. They are getting their heads handed to them. They are losing, they have no way of fighting back Wrigley, except for like maybe sharp sticks, which don't really hold up well against steel. They are facing defeat. Okay, that scene needs to be set. We need to understand this because there's some dire straits in 13. When we flip to chapter 14, when we go to just the very next chapter, we begin to focus on Jonathan and his armor bearer in particular. So, 1 Samuel 14, 1, it says, did we lose light?

Oh, we did, because it was flickering, is that the thing? That's okay, yeah, sorry, I was getting, it's like, what happened? You ever get that feeling like something happened? I don't know what happened, but something happened. Okay, sorry, I'm good now. Let's move on. 1 Samuel chapter 14, 1, again, we are pulling back from the major lens of the battle, and we are now focusing on Jonathan. Okay, it says 14, one, it says one day, so one day in the middle of this battle, Jonathan and Jonathan, the son of Saul, said to the young man who carried his armor, come, let us go over to the Philistine garrison on the other side, but he did not tell his father. Okay, so Jonathan is coming up with a plan and he's gonna bring his armor bearer with him. And as we read this story, I want you to try to see this through the armor bearer's eyes, okay? Don't try to see it naturally through Jonathan's,

try to look at it through the armor bearers. We're gonna see both, and so it'll just be just a little more interesting if we do that. So a few verses later, right? Jonathan is, so in 14.1, Jonathan is starting to give his plan. A few verses later, Jonathan gives his plan more detail to the armor bearers. So verse six, Jonathan said to the young man who carried his armor, come, let us go over to the garrison of these uncircumcised. It may be that the Lord will work for us, for nothing can hinder the Lord from saving by many or by few. Okay, I want you to just focus in on like a little tiny word here that says, it may be that the Lord will work for us. Okay, that's a really important phrase, and that is exactly as it sounds, okay? In the original language, and here we're not losing anything in translation. In other words, it might work, okay? It could be, it's possible, right?

So what we see unfolding from Jonathan to his armor bearer is an extremely risky plan to provoke the Philistines. He's like, let's go to the Philistines. Let's just see what's gonna happen, okay? And his armor bearer, right? This really risky plan. What does his armor bearer say? Something amazing. Verse seven, the next verse, it says, armor bearer said to him, do all that is in your heart, Do as you wish, behold, I am with you, heart and soul." So again, this is an extremely risky plan that the Armor Bearer actually doesn't have the full details of yet, but he's saying, I'm with you, let's go do it, I'm with you. So the Armor Bearer is committing to Jonathan, really without knowing the end and without knowing many of the details. So no doubt, this is heroic for Jonathan to come up with this plan, but let's not lose the heroism of the Armor Bearer. maybe even more heroism, because he's trusting this, you know,

what could be just this cockamamie plan, to just go and see what the Philistine garrison is going to do. Jonathan begins to give a few more details of his plan in verse eight and then in verses nine and 10. So he says, Jonathan says, behold, we will cross over to the men. We will show ourselves to them. Okay. So stay calm, like the, the armor bearer. He's listening to this plan. Imagine you're listening to this plan. You're going, okay, we're gonna go over to them and Okay, we're really gonna go over there and then this is what nine and ten say

Here's Jonathan's plan if they say to us wait Until we come to you Then we will stand in our place and we will not go up to them Okay verse 10 But if they the Philistine garrison if they say come up to us then we will go up for the Lord has given them into our hand and this shall be assigned to us. Okay. In summary, this plan is possibly the riskiest thing that Jonathan could have ever come up with. Let me just give you the plan. Jonathan saying, if they say, stay, then we're dead. We're gonna go over to the Philistine garrison and we're gonna show ourselves to them. If they say oh stay where you are we're gonna come down to you We're we're dead But if they say come on up we win

That sound like a plan you're gonna follow right no no Also, let me just say there's an absence really of any kind of vision that Jonathan had this isn't like a dream This isn't some like no angel is appearing to like condone this thing nothing. This is just out of Jonathan's noggin. If Sean Coffman, who is a Teagan Air Church, if he would come to me with a plan and it would involve risking my life and his only defense was, no, no, trust me, this is going to be great. It's going to work and there's no vision and there's no plan, there's no prayer, there's There's not even a verse of the day. There's nothing that Coffman has that he can bust out and show. Then that's a non-starter. I mean, no. No, not even a little bit. I mean, I'm probably going to have some kind of excuse to not do that, but man, it's just because it's so risky. It's going to be so scary to do that, right?

This plan that Jonathan is laying out for his arm bearer is just the maximum risky plan, 50-50 shot, we could die. And for the armor bearer, look, for the armor bearer, we can try to explain his behavior. We can say maybe the armor bearer has like a high risk tolerance, maybe it's in his personality, maybe he's an adrenaline junkie. I'm not really sure what's going on with the armor bearer, but I know that the reality He is that that armor bearer is being obedient because he is trusting Jonathan completely.

The armor bearer is being obedient because he trusted Jonathan completely. He says, I'm with you heart and soul. And so if Coffman would come up to me with that risky plan, I mean, it would be such a step of faith for me to say, Coffman, I have no idea how you're going to pull that off. And we're probably going to die, but I'm with you heart and soul. Man, that is the stuff movies are made of. That is good. That'll get you on your feet. And yeah, it's crazy. But here's how this extremely risky plan turned out, verses 11 and 12. So both of them, Jonathan and his armor bear showed themselves to the garrison of the Philistines. And the Philistines said, look, Hebrews are coming out of the holes where they have hidden themselves. And the men of the garrison hailed Jonathan and his armor bearer and said, come up to us and we will show you a thing. Translation, we'll show you how

to use that sword in your hand, son. That's what they're going to show him. I'll show you, let me show you a thing. Let me show you my favorite move with that sword as I cut you in pieces. So the Philistine garrison has selected option B. They have selected Jonathan's armor barrier to come up, which according to Jonathan's plan, if we're following along at home, according to Jonathan's plan, certain victory. So then what happens? Certain victory. Look at the next two verses, 13 and 14. Then Jonathan climbed up on his hands and feet and his armor bearer after him, and they fell before Jonathan and his armor bearer killed them after him. And that first strike, which Jonathan and his armor bearer made, killed about 20 men within, as it were, half a furrow's length and an acre of land. Half of Furo's length would be a couple of sizes of this worship center right here, right?

Not a huge, maybe three of these. Not a huge piece of land to kill 20 men in, but Jonathan and his armor bearer are killing 20 men in a relatively small area. And I love how the armor bearer is like following up and just like grabbing dubs still, like still like killing people as he's going by. You know, maybe taking credit, maybe not, maybe they had an argument about it later. What we need to focus on, like what the point of the story, if the story stopped now, if the story stopped right now, Jonathan and his armor bearer are already obedient. Period. We don't know the... They didn't know the details of the plan. They didn't have, at least what we know, they didn't have a special message from the Lord. There's no, you know, there's nothing kind of giving us that clue, but they are already obedient because even though they didn't have those things, what they did have, what they do know is the Lord's

reputation for saving the people that he loves, for desiring his people to take risks and to come through for them in the clutch. Jonathan and his armor bearer know that and they are being obedient in the process. The story of Jonathan and his armor bearer gives us a unique perspective on obedience. And it's obedience in a way that we really don't think about very often. And so I want to look at this obedience in two ways. Their obedience shows up in kind of two ways. First, they are obedient in reaching toward the Lord. All right. They are obedient in reaching toward the Lord. And this is what I don't mean by reaching toward the Lord. I don't mean buying a truck on credit and like hoping for the money. Okay. Like I'm, I'm trusting the Lord to make that payment for me every month. Reaching for the Lord is not finding an awesome house and like praying victory over the price tag. Okay, that's not what we're talking about when it talking about like

You know It's it's not talking about just just leaping out for something that you really want to chase the American dream and asking God to somehow Baptize that whole enterprise. No, that's not what I mean That's not reaching toward the Lord reaching toward the Lord like Jonathan and the armor bearer reaching to the Lord, it means that we must know the Lord's heart. It means that we must understand what the Lord is trying to do. Not that we can read the future, not that we can, you know, always understand what God is doing at a given moment. But we know the Lord and his heart. We know that the Lord, for us, it means that we know the Lord wants to connect to disconnected people. We know that the Lord wants us to cherish and build up our church family. We know that the Lord wants to invest, wants us to invest in somebody else's spiritual journey. We know the Lord wants us to open our hearts in new ways to Him. We

know all of that about the Lord. Nobody's going to dispute that. If you have a problem with anything I said, then I would just direct you back to the Bible, okay? Because all those things are basic Christianity following Jesus kind of stuff. And to sit there and proclaim like, I know the heart of the Lord, it sounds pretty grandiose, but in reality it's just those things. And we know those things. We know, for example, that the Lord has called us to cherish and to the bill of our church family, because He has revealed this in Jesus Christ. We know for sure that He has made us ambassadors because He has revealed that through His Word. We know for sure that He has made us a family because He has revealed that in His Word. When we reach toward the Lord on those fronts, and that means that we work and we plan We give and we sacrifice all knowing that the Lord wants to use this, that the Lord loves

this. I mean, do you have any idea how full the heart of the Lord gets when you and I sacrificially love one another as our church body? I mean, really, it's not just duty, right? That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about like we put a smile on the face of our creator when we do what he has asked us to do when he when we Understand okay. I'm just going for this And I'm gonna reach toward the Lord on this. I mean this is let me just use a very simple illustration

My kids This is whenever Jed was very young and story was very young I know it's the cutest I know No, look, it's like when your little kids know that their parents make breakfast every Saturday morning. And one Saturday morning, they wake up early and they get excited and you can see like, look, they have the matching coffee cups, like that was Christie's cup on the pink one on the right and that's mine on the left, that's brown, blue, or black. They made coffee for us, they made waffles, They cut pairs in half. My wife didn't even like pairs, it didn't matter.

They woke up early because they knew our heart. They woke up early because they said, you know what, we know that they wanna do this. We know it happens most Saturday mornings anyway. We know they're gonna love it. They weren't doing anything, they were risking, but they weren't risking on, maybe dad wants us to change the tire of the car. I mean, they're like, maybe mom and dad would love this. Because they woke up early, they knew our heart, they wanted to please us, and so they made breakfast. And let me tell you, I don't remember how that breakfast tasted. I'm sure it was terrible. But it doesn't matter, right? It doesn't matter. Jed's hurt right now. He's like, oh, that was not bad.

As a parent, as a parent, you get up and you eat everybody to that. Because you know, you know that what they did was good. And it's not perfect, but you don't care. Because you're their parent. You just want to see them take a risk for you. Church, can we just get up and make breakfast? Can we just take some risk together? Can we assume that the Lord wants us to make disciples? Can we assume that people, our coworkers, need us to invest in them? Can we assume that? Can we just say, you know what, I don't need a sermon, I don't need a Bible study, I don't need a verse of the day, I don't need a message from heaven, nothing in the sky, I'm just going to ask, my neighbor had what his weekend was, and I'm gonna pray for him to come to know the Lord. Can we make breakfast? Can we make breakfast?

You wanna make breakfast? Yes, let's go, let's just get it. We should assume these things are true. We should understand that the Lord wants these things in people's lives We should bank on the fact that the Lord The Lord rewards repentant hearts And we can as a church we can actually plan on this we can plan for these moments and these seasons as a church Right it. It actually isn't even that complicated. I mean, that's what VBS rec week is about We're gonna like teach some things. We've got the whole week planned, but we know, we are anticipating that the Lord wants to use that. We are anticipating the Lord wants to reach little kids' hearts and parents' hearts in our neighborhood. We are assuming all of that. We are taking a big risk, and we could open up our doors and no kids could come. It's a risk. We're gonna have to be able to get out of this. No kids could come it's a risk and to be completely transparent man. I was hoping for a hundred kids

I really was we got 41 signed up right now But part of my part of like my pain on this is I need to understand that the Lord is giving us 41 kids plus I mean there's gonna be some kids who just walk in That a hundred just a number but every one of those 41 are kids that need that potentially need the Lord Every single one of them. That's been my prayer wrestling this week. I need to be content. I need to be okay with this. Poor Kristie, she's had to hear about it all week. Part of that is you want to take that risk and you just want to see it just come in waves. I want to see 150 kids here, man. I'd love it. I think it'd be great. Christie who's doing snack is probably not thinking that 150 kids would be great. Like I don't have enough food for 150.

But if we are going to be obedient, it means that we need to take a risk. It means that we need to reach toward the Lord, that we need to make breakfast. We need to know his heart. We need to make plans to please him for that. But that's not just, that's not the only thing Jonathan and his armor bearer did because obedience doesn't just mean reaching toward the Lord. It also means training in ministry. Obedience is reaching toward the Lord and it's training in ministry. You got to think about like the physical feed of defeating 20 men with two guys is impressive. I mean I couldn't do that. So how long did Jonathan and his armor bear train in sword fighting? How much strain, physical strain and anxiety was it to fight 20 men in a small area. I mean, I watch fight scenes in movies and get a little anxious, right? So I could imagine actually being in a fight scene where it's life and death.

But all their training, all their training in sword fighting and the military strategy, all of that made them resilient, even when they faced a near-death experience because they were trained for it. That's what they were looking for. If we're going to reach toward the Lord, it is not an excuse to skip the hard work of training in ministry. And whenever I say training in ministry, let's not be confused. I don't mean seminary training. In fact, that's actually not what I mean at all. I love seminary. Seminary is great. Seminary is for everybody. Ministry is. Ministry is for everybody. And so let me just explain what I mean by training in ministry. It means if you're going to be training in ministry, that you need to discipline yourself to hear from the Lord regularly. That's a good thing to do. If you're going to train a ministry, you need to discipline yourself to go to the mat for

people in prayer to intercede for them. I received a text this morning from somebody who just said they were praying for me. It was a great encouragement, and you know who you are. It was a great encouragement for me. But man, we all need that kind of prayer. We all need to be praying for each other. We need to pray for the small group leaders and the snack people. We need to pray for people that are working in preschool and people that are preaching. We need to pray for all of us as we're ministering all around. We need to be disciplined enough to confess our sin to trusted friends. All those things that I just listed, all those disciplines I just listed, We do them in a life group regularly.

They're gonna start in July. If you are interested, you can sign up. What else is training and ministry involved? Well, it involves making room in your life for disconnected people. It might involve even like signing for a gym membership or a kid's sports league with the intention of connecting to other people there. It means purposefully meeting the people that physically live around you. We encourage all this through our Connect groups. More are gonna be coming in the fall. But I just want you to understand, those Life groups and those Connect groups are there for a purpose, and they are to train all of us in ministry, to get those rhythms of ministering to other people and of like just spiritual transparency with some people so that we can continue to grow and not die on the vine. Many wonder, many churches, many Christians wonder why God withholds the blessing.

But this is a sobering thought because sometimes even if he did answer what you were praying for, even if he did give you all that you were asking for, you would squander it because of lack of ministry ability. You don't have the wisdom, you don't have the discipline, you don't have the rigor and all the blessing that would be put into your hands would run right through your fingers for lack of training. So for example, we say something like, Lord, save my family member. We're praying for a family member to be saved, but you would not know how to disciple them. You didn't even know where to start. In Jonathan and Armor Bear's story, they are obedient because they are reaching toward the Lord and they are also training in ministry. And when we combine these two, so let me put it all positively, when we combine these two, when we say, for example, Lord, save my family member,

and we are also receiving some kind of training on discipling them. or when we say something like, Lord, I want you to help me grow spiritually and then we make room in our life for a life group. What we do individually is we begin to engage in risky obedience. We begin to make breakfast. We begin to say, we begin to pray proactively. We begin to say like, Lord, I'm not sure what you're doing in my coworker's life, but I wanna be, I just want you to do something, I wanna be a part of it, even if I don't get any credit, I'm not worried about credit, I just want you, Lord move, move in their life. And this is, look, walking forward in risk obedience isn't just about being uncomfortable, right? It's because the Lord calls us into risk so that He can show us His power, so that He can display His faithfulness to us, not just in the mundane tasks, but also in the adventure.

Not just in the mundane tasks, but also in the adventure. When we talk about Jesus' faithfulness to us, He's not just faithful to wake you up every morning. He's not just faithful to give you a sense of peace in the middle of being frustrated. He's also faithful at the other end of the risk when you take it. Jesus is faithful. This is what we see in the rest of the story. We're gonna keep reading 1 Samuel 14. This is the next verse, after Jonathan and the armor bearer strike down 20 men in a relatively small area, verse 15.

As soon as this happened, says there was panic in the camp, the Philistine camp, panic in the camp, in the field and among all the people, the garrison and even the raiders trembled, the earthquake and it became a very great panic. The Lord sends a panic to the Philistines. In this panic, they begin to kill one another. So again, remember, Israel's in a lopsided battle. They're dying, they're down. What does the Lord do? The Lord begins to make them kill each other. And it is after that, so they're already starting to kill each other. It's after that that King Saul and his army begin to notice. Look at verse 20. I realize we're skipping down, but they're up here for you guys too. So then Saul and all the people who were with him rallied and went into battle. And behold, every Philistine sword was against his fellow, and there was very great confusion. So let's remember, let's just crystallize this.

Let's have it in our heads. King Saul and his army did nothing to deserve this, nothing. They were sitting on their hands, worried about losing a battle. The Lord used the obedience and faith of Jonathan and his armor bearer to bring salvation to a whole bunch of other people. The story keeps going. Story keeps going. So again, Israel is beginning to fight the battle and the Lord even brings in those that are far away. So verse 21, what does it say? Verse 21 says, now the Hebrews who had been with the Philistines before that time and who had gone up with them into the camp, even they also turned to be with the Israelites who were with Saul and Jonathan. So the traitors, the traitors of the Israelites, of the Hebrews, the traitors are stirred up to fight for the Lord. It keeps going. Next verse, verse 22, Likewise, when all the men of Israel who had hidden themselves in the hill country of Ephraim

heard that the Philistines were fleeing, they too followed hard after them in battle. So even the cowards rallied. Do you see what good news this is? Do you see it? God in heaven is waiting to bless not just you, but many, many, many, many other people as you and I take godly risks. Because the traitors and the cowards and Saul and his army who were sitting on their hands, None of them, none of them knew what Jonathan did.

None of them coached him through that. There wasn't, they didn't have an idea like, oh man, only if somebody would go and fight the Philistines, they weren't saying that. They weren't praying toward that end. They were doing nothing. They were turning coat. They were hiding, or they were sitting on their hands. And that is such good news for us because that is exactly how the Lord saves. That's exactly how the Lord saves. The Lord saves. You and I are saved. You and I. All of our stories, each and every one of us are saved because God used somebody else's risky obedience to bless you. Let me say that again. The only reason that you're a Christian right now, not because you're good or good looking or because you're moral, or because you're born in Texas, or because nothing, no, none of that. The only reason you're a Christian, the only reason you're a Christian,

is because somebody else made a choice for risky obedience to the Lord, and that ended up blessing you. Now all credit goes to God, of course, but we can still say thank you to that person who risked, even though we probably won't know who they are until we're in heaven. God consistently takes the risky obedience of a few or even of one, and he multiplies that blessing to us, to the fearful, to the traitors, to the cowards. He takes the faithful obedience of one. And isn't that the gospel? Isn't that Jesus taking one really, really risky step of obedience and bringing blessing upon blessing upon blessing to many people, the cowards, the traders, and the fearful. When we reach toward the Lord, we see what Jesus does. He meets us on the other end. When we train for ministry, we will find new opportunities opening for us because Jesus promises to meet us in that whole enterprise in a fresh way.

God's word shows us this story of Jonathan and his armor bearer to bring out to highlight risky obedience. And again, I just want to repeat it. Look, I'm not preaching this because I like risk. I do like risk, but that's not why I'm preaching this. I'm preaching this because it's in scripture and it's because Jesus is faithful. I'm not optimistic. I'm a Christian. I'm not glass half full. I'm God's gonna save, all right? And I'm not equating those two. I think sometimes people can be blindly optimistic and say, oh, glass half full, and they're burning in a dumpster fire. I mean, that's... Again, Jesus isn't just faithful to wake you up or to keep you safe. He is. He is faithful, but he's faithful for so much more than that. Let's take a risk. He's faithful to see you through that risk. In fact, and as we move into our time of invitation, I want to just highlight the fact

that really the only way, the only way to follow Jesus is to take a risk. That's the only way. There's no safe way to come to the Lord. You come and you admit who you are, that's risky. You come and say, I need salvation, that's risky. You risk looking stupid and weak. You risk looking like you can't handle your own life and you can't. Just remembering that, you can't handle all of that. The Lord wants to do that. encouragement to you as we as we pray during this time what's the Lord calling you to do in risky obedience? Is He calling you to follow Him for the first time? Is He calling you to follow Him in obedience? Is He calling you to join our church? What's He calling you to do? What can you do today, tomorrow, this week to wake up and make breakfast? Let me pray for us. Jesus thank you so much. You You are our joy, our life. You are every reason to take a risk.

You have risked so much on our behalf. You call us to these little risks by comparison, but they seem so big to us. Give us the strength, the courage to take that risk for you, trusting that you're going to meet us on the other side. Help us to discern what you're calling us to do. Holy Spirit. That's our name that we pray. Amen. As we stand I'm gonna be up here if you would like to come and pray. There's a decision that you want to make and you want to come forward to do that. I encourage us to do that. Let's stand as we sing. God sent his Son

They called him Jesus He came to love Heal and forgive, he bled and died Who by my pardon entered through my Saviorly Because he's a future Life is worse Because he's sweet to her Come, assure this child Can face uncertain days Because he's late Because he's in phase Still my just healing time. The future of his work just because he lives. Let's go out today. You guys are dismissed. Oh, sorry? Yes. Thank you, Candace. Service is now concluded. We're putting you to work. We need a little bit of able-bodied people, So that's not everybody. We need you to take these chairs, all 126 of them, and we need you to take these chairs and we need you to put them in rooms back here. We need you to take them one at a time and we're gonna stack them in the rooms that are on the right. Candace Coffee, can I ask you to be in those rooms and direct traffic? Oh, that's great. All right, you got your orders, let's do it.