Samuel: The Kingmaker - Week 5

Good morning, Welcome to a church at the Crossing. My name is James

and America. What do they have on their mind today? Super Bowl?

Yeah, so I thought I would start. I was off with a little

some sports stuff a little bit here today. I wonder how many of you

remember this exact quote that was on national television just a few years ago.

This one man said, in this fall, this is very tough. In

this fall, I'm going to take my talents to South Beach and join the

Miami Heat. Anyone, Yeah, Lebron James. And as an Ohioan,

I did not appreciate this moment where he went from Cleveland down to Miami.

But Lebron James is not the first person that was traded or hired from another

team. And because they were expecting to receive a savior, someone who would

rescue them, a hero, and someone who would make them a perennial winner.

Matter of fact, we can go all the way back to Babe Ruth.

Babe Roof was easily the best player in Major League Baseball and he was

playing for the Boston Red Sox. But then the owner of the Boston Red

Sox got into some financial trouble and so he traded Babe Roof to the New

York Yankees so that Boston, their owner, could fund some Broadway musicals.

Yes, and then we know that the New York Yankees have gone on to

be the most successful sports team in American history. And for close to one

hundred years, people truly believed that Boston was cursed by the baseball gods.

People have always been looking for a savior. I remember when I was young

and King Griffey Junior traded to the Cincinnati Reds, and that was one of

the best days of my life. And I kept thinking, Oh my gosh,

we're going to finally have our dynasty. And well, you know,

it didn't happen. Well, some of you might remember this story, but

I would assume a lot of you don't remember this story. But there was

another moment in NFL history where a team hires someone that they thought would be

their savior, their hero that would change their team and make them a playoff

contender every single year. And that's when the Saint Louis Rams traded for a

guy. And they were so excited about this quarterback, so they traded for

a guy named Trent Green. They hired him on for a four year contract

and he was supposed to change the whole organization. Well, it started out

great their first two or three preseason games games, he was phenomenal. In

the third preseason game, he passed for twenty eight of thirty two passes,

I mean twenty eight out of thirty two completions, doing pretty phenomenal. But

before the game was over, someone hit him in the knee and he was

done crushing in and this devastated the Saint Louis Rams, and then all of

a sudden, the media jumped all over it, like well, they thought

he was going to be the savior, but now it looks like the team

is just going to be in the bottom again. But taking his place would

be a lowly unheard of backup guy named Kurt Warner. Now, four years

prior to this, Warner was stocking shelves at a grocery store in Iowa and

nobody expected the Rams that could pete. But by the way, by the

end of that season, think about this, Warner would shatter all the expectations.

He threw for forty one touchdowns and also he led them to a victory

in the Super Bowl, and he was named the MVP. So you talk

about a turnaround, unexpected story they see oft in the world. We're looking

for these Trent Greens while overlooking these Kurt Warners who were around today. Our

text leads us to a similar situation. The story begins with a hero,

someone everyone thought was a surely God's chosen one, surely the savior of the

country. He had all the pedigree, he had the looks, He's from

the right family, the right town. He had it all. But then

he was taken out of the royal ballgame because of some bad behavior. And

so the prophet Samuel and all those around him thought, well, since God

is not going to continue on with King Saul, surely God's gonna bring us

another hero, another savior, someone who's even better than King Saul. He

might even be from a better family, better looking, better build, better

pedigree, a better warrior. Surely God's gonna bring us someone better. But

God had something different on his mind. The anointing of the new King of

Israel reminds us from the very start today, and he's your first feeling.

It's dangerous to judge people for who they appear to be. It's dangerous to

judge people for who they appear to be the first king of Israel. He

was promoted because he had all the right stats. Immediately he won some early

battles. He was an amazing leader, and Samuel, who had been leading

the nation for years, was like, okay, I can finally hand this

whole nation over to Saul. Saul can lead this nation. We got the

right guy. And at that moment in Israel's history, they all assumed Saul

was the right guy for this moment in history. But then what do we

see last week, those of you who are with me, last week,

we saw the darker side of Saul emerge and he began to show through his

heroic image. We saw that he he loved power more than he loved God.

And also he began to disobey God. What did he do? He

built a monument to himself, statue to himself. And then also instead of

crucifying or killing King of God, what did he do? He put him

in prison. That way, every year he could bring him back out to

his parades and say, hey, look here's another one of the kings that

I conquered. He was supposed to get rid of all the animals, and

said he says, no, no, no, I'm gonna do a religious

sacrifice. And then even when he was confronted by Samuel with all of his

disobedience and he had all these consequences brought down to him, think about what

Saul did. Saul did not fall down on his knees and repent and say

God, I have sonned, God, forgive me, God help me.

Knowing what did he do, Saul said, all right, Samuel, I

knew, I know, I really blew it. I really messed up.

But here's what I need you to do. There's a religious festival out here.

Can you and I go out together to this religious festival and we're gonna

act like everything's okay with me, and that I'm still the king, that

I'm still loved by God, all everything's all cool. He cared more about

how he looked to the people of Israel than how he looked to God.

And so we see in this last chapter we discussed last week, we see

Saul just have this complete metamorphosis that at the heart of it was this all

consuming search for more and more power. So God took the kingdom away from

him. And now let's look at the text. We're going to go to

first Emuel sixteen and we're going to watch today. We're going to see the

heart of God. And now here's what I want you to do today.

Those of you who are followers of Christ, those of you who are new

and those of you who've been following Christ for a long time. Today,

you're going to see the heart of God. And you're also going to see

who God wants to partner with to do great things. You're gonna see some

characteristics. It's gonna say, here's the people that God partners with. Sorry,

I beg you, I beg you. I beg you to pay close

attention today. All right, here we go. For Samuel sixteen, it

says the Lord said to Samuel, how long will you mourn for? Saul

says, I have rejected him as king over Israel. He says, fill

your horn with oil and be on your way. I am sending you to

Jesse of Bethlehem. I have chosen one of his sons to be king.

Now, let's say at the obvious right here, it's a very dangerous job

to select a new king while a king is still in the throne. Would

you agree that's a very dangerous job. You know, Samuel's no dummy.

He knows that. All right, this, this sounds like a dangerous job.

You want me to select a new king while Saul is still on the

throne. Now, check out his response to God. He says, how

can I go? Samuel asks the Lord, Saul will hear about this and

kill me? Now, pay attention to that, he says, Saul,

when he hears about this, is going to kill me. Now, if

we look back at all the previous chapters, King Saul coward to the Prophet

Samuel. Okay, he had huge respect for him. He was also in

fear of him. But we see that something's changed, Something's changed in such

a dramatic way that now Samuel says, hey, if if Saul finds out

that I'm trying to replace him, he will murder me, even though I've

been his mentor, his spiritual God. Here's what we know. During this

time, Saul's heart had turned so evil, he became so corrupt with power

that he would be even willing to kill his own mentor and the prophet of

Israel if it meant keeping his throne. Saul is fully over to the dark

side. Now, all right, so let's look at this. Now,

this is a legitimate concern for Samuel. He's like, listen, he's gonna

kill me if he finds out. And I love how the Lord reassures Samuel.

Check out this verse about how the Lord reassures Samuel. Let's look at

it. Let's look at that scripture about how the Lord reassures Samuel. Are

you noticing something here? He doesn't reassure Samuel. What does he say?

Verse three? You are to annoint for me the one I indicate, says

the Lord. Now, this lack of reassurance from God, I think he

is basically saying he's saying, Samuel, get off the task. And that

reminds us. I think a lot of us and I find this a lot

with Christians, that we spend a lot of time waiting for all the stars

to align and make sure all everything's in place instead of just getting all of

the mission that God's called us to do, you know, and God sometimes

it just said, Hey, you're waiting for everything to line up, and

I'm just telling you, go trust me, move forward, stop worrying about

all the what ifs, and just trust me and obey. The Lord says

Samuel, I know what's going on. Go trust me. Stop worrying about

all the white ifs. And so he goes to Bethlehem for a worship service.

All right, let's look at this. It says. When Samuel arrived

to Bethlehem, he says to the town elders, consecrate yourselves and come to

the sacrifice with me. So everybody comes to the sacrifice, and finally the

family of Jesse approaches. Verse six and seven, it says when they arrived,

Samuel saw Iliab and thought, oh, all right, surely the Lord's

annoyed to stands here before the Lord. But the Lord said this, do

not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. And

now this is the scripture of the day, says the Lord does not look

at the things. Man looks at man looks at the outward appearance, but

the Lord looks at the heart. Now. I love that this series is

called the Life of Samuel, not the Perfect Life of Samuel. And here

we see a huge flaw in Samuel's thinking. He's incredibly focused on the appearance

of a person. Now I thought a lot about that this past week,

like, what would make this holy guy who has been following the Lord,

who listens to the Lord who has been faithful all these years. What would

make this guy just kind of just get off the path so far? And

I started to think about the office of the prophet and how that was the

highest office in Israel. I had the most respect. They were to spiritual

leaders. But if you look at their track record for picking leaders, pretty

bad. Okay. First of all, Eli, who was a prophet before

Samuel, he picked his sons to lead Israel. And what was the text

say about them? Says Eli's sons were scoundrels. They had no regard for

the Lord. So the first guys were picked, they were scoundrels. Well,

then Samuel did the same thing. He tried to say the same things

right, and he appointed his own sons to lead Israel, and that didn't

go. Well, let's look at this. When Samuel grew old, he

appointed his sons as Israel's leaders, but his sons did not follow his ways.

They turned aside after dishonest gain and accepted bribes and perverted justice. All

right, so they're oh for two and picking leaders. But then after they're

over two. So remember this is after the prophets mess up two appointments to

lead Israel. That is actually when the people said, all right, guys,

obviously you don't know what you're doing, so can you get as a

king? So then Samuel says, okay, I will find you a king.

He gets to be the king, and Saul now turns out to be

a dud. So Samuel and the prophets, they've suffered an embarrassment of riches

up to this point, especially when it comes to the appointment of people to

lead Israel. So Samuel's not too far away from death, and Samuel's thinking,

I got one more shot to get it right, and I got one

more shot to elevate the office of the prophet. So naturally Samuel's going to

be concerned about restoring the respect of the office of the prophet, and that

would include being very concern about public perception. Can everybody say public perception,

don't act like you don't care about it. Over time, if you stay

concerned with public perception, you could become more focused on what the public wants

and admires instead of what God wants and A Myers. Now, I'm not

saying that Samuel's hearts to mess up. I'm just saying that he became a

little too concerned with what the people thought, and he became more concerned about

what the people thought instead of only being concerned with what God thinks. And

so one by one, all these brothers pass by, and God says no,

no, no, no, and Samuel and the rest of the world

is about ready to learn about what God looks for in a man or woman

that he is going to partner with to do some amazing things and make an

impact in this world. So after they go through all the sons, the

beauty pageant is over, no one is crowned, and then Samuel says,

this, are these all the sons you have? And the father says,

well, they're still the youngest. But he's out tending sheep. So they

thought so little David that they didn't even bring him up to the party.

Okay, he doesn't even rate in imitation. So by the way, Samuel's

mad. Okay, he says, send for him. He says he cries.

I don't think he was crying, And I think he was just like,

are you kidding me? We're out here in the hot desert waiting on

this guy. Go get him. And then he says, I love this.

He just trips on the people a little bit. Uh, we're gonna

stand here. No sitting down, get up, no sitting down. We're

all gonna stand here until he comes. So they all stand and they wait,

and then verse twelve, this grimy, dirty shepherd boy shows up.

Verse twelve. It says, now he was ruddy and had beautiful eyes and

was handsome. Ah do you hear that? All right, let me break

this down for you. What does that mean? Remember that King David was

on the throne when this book was written, and I believe that they threw

the king of bone. Okay. They said he's ruddy and handsome, all

right, all right, Okay, the text says ruddy. Does anyone here

know what ruddy means? Runny means redheaded? So they're like, well,

he's no Saul, but he's a redhead. And we all know how crazy

women go for redheads. I mean they lose their mind over redheads. Ask

any girl on my high school. They lose their mind. Well maybe not,

okay, listen. So they're like, all right, the best of

writers could come up with us. Yeah, he's a redhead. All right,

So here we go verse twelve. And then the Lord said, rise

and annoint him. He is the one. So Samo took the horn of

oil and anointed him the presence of his brothers, And from that day on

the spirit of the Lord came upon David in power. God found his king.

And here's what we're gonna learn from God's choice. That God doesn't look

at the things the world looks at. He looks into the heart. He

doesn't choose the next king based on his size, strength, age, wisdom,

education, battle, experience resume. No, God doesn't need all those

things. See, the world looks in all of these things of our pedigree,

talent, charisma, The world looks at looks style. The world looks

at all of these things. But God, when he chooses the partner with

someone in his kingdom. Do you know why God doesn't need all of those

things? The answers in the verse because the spirit of the Lord came upon

David in power. Because God looks for the right heart, and then he

equips that heart with his power. See, God doesn't need what the world

needs. God goes deeper and he looks at the heart. He sees the

beauty underneath all the appearances. Now what does this mean for us? All

right, very practical, Since the Lord doesn't judge by appearances. Neither should

we. Since the Lord doesn't judge by appearances, neither should we. In

can I, H can I address something that we don't talk about much in

church at all, but it's a huge, huge deal in our society.

We live in a culture that is obsessed with looks. Yet here's the internal

danger that obsession poses when we look at the outside of others. Okay,

And here's what happens when we're judging other people. We're looking at other people

in our subconscious we're actually comparing ourselves to those around us. We evalue way

one hundred things like their appearance, their personality, their height, their weight,

their intelligent their strength, their achievements, their age, and so on.

And here's what happens when we're judging other people and we're breaking down someone

and we're looking at someone. Did you know what's going on on a subconscious

level when we're judging other people and looking at other people. Here's what's going

on on a subconscious level. You're deciding this, am I superior to them?

Or am I inferior to them? And what you're really doing when you're

looking at other people is you're really looking at yourself and you're saying, am

I better than them? Or am I not as good as them? And

let me tell you something. That's not a good place to live. That's

not a healthy place to live. Now, I'm one who is not typically

obsessed with looks, and I'm sure you're like, well, yeah, amen,

we get that obviously. I have a good case. Years ago,

I invented the dad bod, and then recently I invented the super dad bod.

It's a little bit bigger, slower, needs more naps. But I'm

typically not too concerned about looks. I remember a few years ago, about

four or five years ago, my hairline got mad at my face and decided

that they weren't on talking terms anymore, and so my hairline decided to back

off a little bit from the relationship. It's no big deal. My childhood

best friend made some jokes, my wife and daughter made some jokes. No

big eie. I brushed them off. I didn't care. And then a

Facebook video of one of my sermons popped up as I was scrolling through,

and I saw these lights shine down on my head right here in the camera.

That's a different look. And I was a little bit shocked because I

was like, oh my gosh, that's the truth teller. Something's going on

right here that I don't like. And I was just as shocked. And

I remember that for the next probably month, every time I was watching TV,

I would look at other men's like, you know, their hairstyle,

and I would look at their frontage and I would think, he's got good

hair. And then I would look at guys who didn't have great frontage and

I would say, that's why he's in the support roll. And if you

look and you pay close to attention, that's true. Good hair gets the

leading role, you know, and the guys who are a little bit of

bald unless you shaved the whole thing off and become evil character, you're not

in the show. You're a sidekick. Okay, you're the scientist, you're

the funny guy. Well, anyways, so I'm noticing this, and then

I decided I don't care again. I quickly said, you know, this

is stupid. I'm not gonna care about this. That is until a few

weeks ago I said to my daughter, you gotta watch this joke I tell

about your mom. So we pull up my sermon. Okay, and these

lights were super bright they're down on my head, and all of a sudden,

I just trimmered because it looks like, now I have a mustache right

here. And if you've seen me on video, you know what I'm talking

about. It looks like I have a little mustache right here, and I

could hardly look at it. I was so overwhelmed by this. I even

went to my wife and daughter. I said, I look at this.

This is a real problem. And so I said, I think I need

to shave this. And my wife's like, I don't know, you might

want to call your mom. So I call my mom. I said,

mom, get on Facebook. I want you to look at my head.

And so she gets on Facebook and she's like, yeah, it's not looking

good. And I said, okay, here's my idea. Should I just

shave that? And she says, oh no, honey, no, no,

no, no, you'll regret it. Don't do this. So I

didn't, and Mommy saved me and probably saved you. But the good thing

is you guys have to look at it way more than I do. But

I think on some level, we all have insecurities about our looks. Yet

we don't only have insecurities about our appearances. We all have insecurities about how

we appear to others. Am I successful enough? Is my house enough?

Is my bank account enough? Is my career enough? Is my care enough?

Is my family enough? And we can quickly become insecure worrying about how

we appear to others. And by the way, none of this is helpful.

It only helps us. It only distracts us from what God looks at

when he sees us. And we better be thankful because despite how the world

judges, when God looks at us, he's not judging us by the same

standards that the world judges us. Matter of fact, here's the next lide.

See, when the Lord looks at us, the Lord sees my heart.

And we ought to praise God that he sees the heart, because that's

comforting that God sees your heart. But then as I start thinking about that

this week, I go, oh, no, he sees my heart.

Oh, because sometimes my appearance and who I'm projecting myself to be is a

coverage of my heart, of who I really am. Matter of fact,

Jesus happened to say this about our hearts. He says, Jesus said,

what comes out of a man is what marks him. Or makes him unclean.

For from within, out of men's hearts come evil thoughts, sexual,

immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, to see,

lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance, and folly. All these evils come

from inside. And that's what makes a man unclean. What does that teach

us? We can't fool God. We can fool others, but we can't

fool God. Now it's a frightening thought. But I also think it's a

very beautiful thought that since I cannot hide those things from God, I might

as well confess them and ask for forgiveness and receive a clean heart. And

then I can live my life only caring about what God thinks about me,

instead of caring about what everyone else thinks about me. God sees our heart.

But God is also the one who can cleanse our heart. Second truth,

the Lord sees what my heart can become in his hands. All right,

now, may ask a question here, what did the Lord see in

David's heart that was not in his brothers our souls? Let me tell you

the answer is simply this, David's willingness to surrender his heart to the Lord.

David places his hands and the Lord's might. Listen to one of David's

prayer, he says, my soul thirst for God, for the Living God.

Where can I go to meet God? Do you hear this? David

passionately wanted to know God. He saw after the Lord. And David knows

that he cannot feel his imptiness in his heart by pleasing people. Only God

can make him whole and seeing in God's hands, the little shepherd boy became

the greatest King of Israel. But here's the real point of the story today.

Let me give you three lines. Outward appearance is never the real story.

It is not the real measure of you. God looks at who we

are beyond the surface, and what does he see. God sees his beautiful

children that he created. God sees those that he has been with since you

in your mother's womb. God created you, God equipped you. God's given

you talent. God is walking with you, and your God is crazy about

you. And your God sees the possibilities of what your life can become if

it's in his hands. When God looks at you, he's a proud,

proud parent who is deeply in love with his children. And let me tell

you some One of the most basic themes we learn in the Bibles, this

is that He searches in the most unax back to places and uses the most

unlikely people. So he chose the youngest son, He chose the shepherd.

At that time, that was the lowest job on the totem pole. It

should have been his oldest brother, should have been from a big tribe,

someone had military victories. But God says, that's not how I make my

choices. See, God chooses nobodies and then he turns them into somebodies.

All right, So let's ask this question today as we head down to land

the plane. How do we compare this scene in the life of Samuel and

David to our lives? How do we do this? And here's the thing.

If we look at David's life, all right, I don't think a

lot of us are in line to become a king, okay, are a

queen. And if you look at the royals, it doesn't look like it's

a great job anyways. And David's journey, it's a messy life, but

it's a real authentic life. But his life had impact on those around him

and for generations. And see, here's what I believe about everyone who goes

to Church of the Crossing. I believe that all of us are looking for

a life of significance, not just success. Are you looking for success or

significance? That's the question that God has for you today. Do you need

success or do you need significance? Because let me tell you, those are

two different things. And God wants to team up with those who are looking

for a life of significance. So here's what we're gonna look at. All

right, what does God look for when he teams up with people? When

God scans the earth for potential, He's not in search of angels and flesh,

because there's certainly no perfect people. But let's look at the qualities God's

looking for. Number one, God looks for a surrendered heart. That's number

one, a surrendered heart. As I say, here says the Lord has

sought out a man after his own heart. Now, what does it mean

to be a person after God's on? Hold? Here's what it means.

What's important to God? That's important to you? What burns God? That

burnens you? When God says go right, you go right. When God

says go left, you go left. When God says sopped out, in

your life, you're like, okay. When God says, hey, this

is wrong, I want you to change, you say okay, because I

have a heart for God. And that's bottom line Biblical Christianity. See,

when you're surrendered to God, you have a heart that is sensitive to the

things of God. A parallel verse and second chronicle says this, for the

eyes of the Lord move to and fro throughout the earth, that he may

strongly support those whose heart is completely his. If you want the empowering of

the Holy Spirit in your life, then allow your heart to belong completely to

him and he will empower you all right. Secondly, God looks for humility.

Think about this. God went to the home of Jesse. No one

knew he was there. He was like almost on this secret surveillance, and

he's going around and he's checking out all the sons. But then the Lord

saw David in his heart of humility, the boy who was faithfully keeping his

father's sheep. And now again during his time in history, that's the lowliest

job there was. And God says, listen, and I want everyone in

this room to get this. God does not care about you having a slick

image. Here's what God says, show me a person with character, and

I will give them the image they need. I'm gonna say that again.

Some of you need to hear this today. God says, show me a

person with character, and I'll give them the image that they need. God

doesn't require a certain temperament, a certain charisma, doesn't care about looks or

impressive track record. He cares about character. Number three, God's looking for

integrity. What does this say here? In Psalm seventy eight, talking about

David, says, from the care of talking about his Lambs, he brought

him to shepherd Jacob his people, and Israel his inheritance. So he shepherded

them according to what the integrity of his heart. Circle that word integrity because

it's so significant. God is not looking for magnificent specimens of humans. No,

He's looking for those who are deeply spiritual, genuinely humble, honestly to

core people of integrity. Integrity is that that's who you are when it was

looking You're a bone deep, honest person. Now when I think about integrity,

I think about Tim and Andrew. I've worked with him now for over

fifteen years together. And let me tell you something. There are two men

of integrity. Okay, let's take Andrew for instance. Andrew, if you

ask him about his ministry or his life, he never makes himself sound better

than he is. He's a scruciatingly honest about his failures, his mishaps.

He never tries to sell himself. Now, on the flip side, when

I ask him how he thinks I'm doing, he's also excruciatingly honest, and

he doesn't make me I'm better than I am. Several years ago, we

were hanging out with some friends and they were asking me some personal questions and

I said to him, I said, well, you know, here's how

I think other people might describe me. And then I looked at Andrew and

I said, Andrew, would you agree? Is that an honest assessment of

myself? And Andrew just stared at me no answer, which means you might

want to take another look at yourself. See, it's fun to have friends

with integrity, but you can trust integrity, and the Lord wants those that

he can trust, and who can God trust those with integrity. Lastly,

God looks for those who are real. As we see through David's life over

and over again. When David blew it, he was real think about this.

We're going to read this passage here in a moment. I want to

show you the difference between David's confession and Saul's confession. When Saul had the

kingdom taken from him and he has consequences, what does he do? He

says Samuel, I don't want anyone to find out that I've messed up.

How about let's go to this festival and let's fake it like everything's okay.

So, in other words, he goes, I don't want to be embarrassed.

How does David respond to his sin? For I know my transgressions of

my sin as always before me against you, and only you have I sin

and done what is evil in your sight, creating me a pure heart of

God. David was real and God can use real people. Now let's get

really real at the moment as I close up today, for over three and

a half years, I went to weekly counseling, and now I do what

you would call like mental emotional spiritual checkups. Don't worry, you didn't put

me in counseling, but I did realize in order for me to be the

best pastor that I could be, I needed someone looking into my life someone

helped me to take significant steps of growth. And one of the commitments I

made in counseling was I was gonna be boned honest. Okay, I was

gonna be very real. I was never gonna try and make myself look better

because you can, and by the way, in counseling try to impress your

counselor, which is really dumb. But I have some things in my ministry

and my childhood that needed some real, deep healing. Here's what was funny.

The more honest and vulnerable that I was, the more healing that I

received. Every single one of my breakthroughs happened after a moment of deep honesty

and vulnerability, in other words, being real. And when I think about

this, how cool is it to confess before a whole church that I need

help to be a man of God. I haven't arrived, I'm not polished,

I'm not superhuman. I'm a broken man who needs the help of Jesus

Christ. Now, I remember how nervous I was the first time telling this

church that I was in counseling. But I knew it was necessary. Do

you know why I knew it was necessary. It was because the type of

church I dream of pastoring. I dream of pastoring a church to people who

are surrendered to God, people who walk in humility, but most importantly,

that we're real people, that we're honest about who we are, that we're

not putting on a facade when people come in. Because let me tell you

those that we're trying to reach out there, they're looking for real people and

real relationships. They're looking for people who are honest about who they are so

that they could be honest. Because here's the thing, and to your honest

with who you are and honest about what you struggle with, there can be

no spiritual breakthrough. And so in order for us to become the church that

Jesus can use, we got to become real. And let me tell you

something, the Holy Spirit will do a work through us that we couldn't even

imagine. See. God chose David because he was a real person who depended

on God for mercy and grace. And David was motible and because he was

faithful, motible, God could use him to make a significant impact. And

I want the same for you today as we close, here's what I want

us to do. Go ahead and close your eyes and bow your head.

I'm going to give you four subjects that we talked about today, and I

want you to speak to God about which one of those you need to take

some steps to grow in. First of all, have you surrendered your heart

to God? And if you haven't surrendered your heart to God, today's the

day to do that. If that's the prayer you need to pray today,

can you raise your hand? You need to surrender your heart fully to God.

Okay, I see those hands. Secondly, maybe integrity is an area

that you've got to grow in and take next steps in. Can you raise

your hand if that's the area that you need to grow in? Okay,

I see those hands. What about just being real? Is that an area

you need to grow in in your life? We see those hands? Yeah,

I see those hands. Maybe if one of those was not hitting you,

I would maybe encourage humility and ask God to grow you in humility.

Let's just take time to pray through those right now and speak to your Lord

where you're at. God, we thank you that we can come to you

and receive grace and mercy. But also God, we thank you for conviction.

For God, you want to mold as you want to shape us.

And you want to change us. So God, I pray in the mighty

mighty name of Jesus Father, that God you will grow us into the type

of people have a heart like David, because David had a heart like yours.

And again, God, thank you for your grace today in Jesus' name.