Samuel: The Kingmaker - Week 3

Hol on a second. Mmmmmmmm Stanley cuff. Somehow this tastes like heaven this

water. I don't know what the difference is. I just can't explain it,

but I do know that one Saturday morning this summer, my wife was

leaving the house early and she says she had to run some errands and I

said, what are you gonna be doing? She goes, I gotta pick

up some stuff from Facebook Marketplace, which is her favorite website and I think

it should be called take my junk dot com. But I said, well,

you know, I got nothing going on. I'll go with you.

And so we're running around picking some stuff up that she bought this house and

this house, and then she says, I need you to go to this

bowling alley. I gotta meet this guy in the parking lot at a bowlin

alley. I was like, why are we meeting a guy in a parking

lot in a bowlin alley? And she goes because he's gonna sell me a

yetti cup for like twenty five dollars instead of fifty. And I was like,

well that sounds amazing. You know. Best case scenario is we get

a great deal. Worst case, our family is on Dateline NBC Murder in

the Midwest. A deal too good to pass by. So we get there

and we get to the parking lot and we make the exchange and she's all

happy with it. And then she is at work the next week and she's

over in the children's wing and there's a bunch of people gathering around and she's

showing off her new yetti mug and our compassionate children's pastor, Jordan Davis,

walks up, looks at it and goes fake and showed her how it was

fake and showed her what was missing. It absolutely crushed her, broke her

heart. And now for me, I was just shocked. That guy in

the bullet oul parking lot looked so credible. I just couldn't believe that he

would sell us a fake, you know, Stanley Cup. So anyways,

comes Christmas and she opened all of her gifts that she told me to buy

her, and then at the very end, I had an extra gift for

her, a little surprise, and a little surprise was an actual real Stanley

Cup, and she got so excited she actually opened it up and she yelled

and she hugged it, and I'm like, whoa all right. So I'm

very fascinated with this fascination with the Stanley mug, and so, you know,

I keep asking her and I said, you know what's so special about

this? And she said, well, it keeps your drink cold. And

I'm like, well, yeah, that's what mugs do. And then she

would say, but it lasts all day long. I'm like, well,

forty ounces of anything will last all day long. And I keep asking her.

I keep asking her, and finally the real answer slipped out. She

said, well, a bunch of the women I know have one. There's

the answer. There's the answer. I knew that was the answer before I

started asking. I just want to hurt admit it. But a bunch of

women I know have one. Now I can't judge her. I think that

a lot of us are in the same boat. It might not be a

Stanley mug, but there's just something in our nature that whispers to our souls.

Keep up with the Joneses are, in this case, keep up the

Stanleys. But as long as humans have been around, humans want what other

humans have. The very first fire made by a caveman in the cave next

door, the other caven said, gotta get me some of that fire that

looks awesome. It's just part of our nature and many of us want what

others have. And by the way, most of the time, there's nothing

wrong with that. You ever went to somebody's house, You're like, I

love that kitchen, and then if you got the money, go get it.

But sometimes wanting what other people want to lead us down a bad path,

especially when God has calling us to be content with what we have and

say of desire and what other people have. And as we continue through the

story of Samuel today, what we're going to see is a nation who's experiencing

their own version of the Stanley Cup craze, and yet their heart desires outweigh

their desire to serve their living God. All right, so let me just

give you a little background. Right now, at this point in their history,

Israel is expanding. They're looking good. They got a good nation,

they got big land, and they look like all the other nations. But

we see in first Samuel, we see this pivot. There's a huge pivot

by the people. And here's what was going on. They approach Samuel and

they say, Samuel, instead of us having this invisible king, who's gonna

provide for us, protect us, and make us prosper. We want a

real, physical king. We want what the other nations have. Now,

again, there is nothing wrong with Israel asking for a key matter fact.

In Deuteromedy seventeen twenty, God says us, someday, I'm gonna give you

a king. But the problem with the request here is it was not in

God's timing, and it showed a complete lack of trust in God. Because

the people are like, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, it's all

cool that we have God. You know, God is kind of like the

safety net for us. We can fall back on him in an emergency.

And also we don't want to outright reject God because we take him off,

he can send us to hell. But here's a problem. We're into here

and now and we have all these nations around us. We got real bills

to pay, we have real enemies who want to fight us, we have

real social issues we need to deal with, and so we need something more

than an invisible God. Ha's the time, we don't even know where God's

at. Do you need? You all know where God's at right now?

Like, hey, we don't even know where God's out. Has the time

we need someone that we can hold accountable. That's what we need. And

God calls this a rejection of him. And it's not a rejection like God,

we don't want you at all. No, No, it's more of

like God, we don't fully trust you. Matter of fact, we want

you, but we also need all these other things in our lives so that

we can be happy and secure. Now, ill, religious people, they

reject God outright. But religious people like I'm looking at right now and when

I'm look in the mirror, see, we reject God by letting him be

a part of our lives but not really trusting and depending on him for all

of our lives. Now, here's what I want to do. I'm actually

gonna walk you through this. Before I walk you through the story, I

want to ask this question right now. Aren't we like this sometimes as well?

Aren't there a lot of times we're like God, I'm really glad that

you are a part of my life. But God, I love that you're

a part of my life. But in order for me to be truly happy,

truly fulfilled, God, I need a good marriage. I need money

in a bank account. I need a great job with respect. I need

my kids to be acting wonderful. God, I could be truly happy,

truly content in life if you will make sure that ABCDEFG is all good in

my life. But if I don't have abcd FG in my life, then

God, I'm a little concerned about our relationship. You know, for a

lot of us, God is like a safety net, like something almost most

relevant in the moment that we're either dealing with a diagnosis or when we're about

ready to die. But is he who we really depend on day today?

Let me give you a little word picture. I'm want to show you a

picture of a two climbers. Okay, and they are repelling down the mountain.

Okay, they have the same equipment, they're going in the same direction.

But if you notice, one of them is completely leaning and trusting the

rope, completely leaning back and saying, I'm gonna trust this rope. I

feel like this rope is going to take care of me. The other person,

what are they doing. They're holding on to the wall and the rope

that's attached to them is more like a safety net. When we get to

this chapter in First Samuel, chapter eight, this is what's going on with

the Israelites. Instead of trusting God completely and saying, God, we trust

you with our kingdom, we trust you with our nation. We trust you

with taking care of all of our needs and protecting us and fulfilling us.

What we really want God is we want to hold on and we want to

have a little bit more control, and we want to really kind of use

you as a safety net in our lives. So all right, let's jump

into the scripture. Here we go. It says when Samuel became old,

he made his son's judges over Israel. Yet his sons did not walk in

his ways, but turned aside after gain. They took bribes and they perverted

justice. All right, let me just translate that for you. In the

original Hebrew, it means his sons were dirtbacks. Okay, they didn't follow

God, and they took advantage of people. And so this is a great

opportunity for Israel to say, oh, let's go get what we want.

It says, then all the elders of Israel gathered together, and they came

to Samuel and they said to him, behold, you are old. That's

the second time he's told he's old and not wonderful. It's like, hey,

Samuel, just in case you forgot a minute ago. You're old.

Okay, so you're old. Your sons don't walk in your ways. Now

a point for us, a king to judge us like all the other nations

have. Whoo, you might want to underline that, like what like all

the other nations have. God, we love that we have this, we

have this, we have this, but we don't have all that the other

nations have. We want our Stanley king. They want a king like the

other nations. They want an army like the other nations, and so they

want what other people have. But this goes on verse six. It says,

but the thing is pleased Samuel when they said give us a king.

The judges and then Samuel, what did you do? He prayed to the

Lord. And so why is Samuel so displeased? Is it a personal insult?

I'm sure some of that, But really Samuel is a prophet. He's

a man that God shares stuff with, so he sees something even deeper.

And the Lord said to Samuel, they've not rejected you, but they've rejected

me from being king over them, according to all the deeds that they have

done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt. Even to this

day forsaken me and serving other gods. So they are also doing to you.

Now, So let me ask you a question. What's wrong with the

demand, And let me just help you understand what's wrong with dr de mand.

God is supposed to be their king. God is the one that they

are supposed to depend upon. But every since God brought them up out of

Israel and said, hey, I'm gonna be your king. You are gonna

follow me. I am gonna lead you in a battle. We are gonna

win these battles. I'm gonna take care of your food, I'm gonna take

care of your family. I'm gonna take care of all of your needs.

And then what does Israel do all through their history? They go and they

build golden calves. When they don't see God rushing through them at the moment,

they go and they seek other idols as soon as they don't see God

taking care of them that very day. See, we have this problem,

and it's the same problem in Israel have but we have the same problem here

today in America. Christianting God, I'm gonna give you forty eight hours to

solve this the limit in my life. But if not I'm gonna put this

problem in my own hands, and I'm gonna take care of her things.

Let me tell you something, there's two ways for us to reject God.

One, you can just reject them out right. But two, and this

is what Christians do so often. We say we follow him, but we

don't really depend on him. We don't. We don't. We don't.

We don't lean back and trust him. And see, isn't it easier to

trust God? Let me ask you a question right now. Uh? And

and let's ad also, let's just be honest, one hundred percent honest day

because I'm gonna raise my hand too. Would you say that it's easier to

trust God fully with your life when family's going well, finances are going well,

job is going well, marriage is going well. Raise your hand if

it's a lot easier to follow God during those times. All right, for

the rest of you, didn't raise your hand. Uh, here's an altar.

Uh. After the service, you can repent. But but it is.

I don't know why it is, but it's so much easier to trust

in God when everything's going so well. You know, so many of us

want of God, who just gives us what we want. Just a few

years ago, one of my old students. I hadn't seen her since she

graduated high school and she went off to college. And now she's gone through

college. And she shows up at a Saturday night service and I was so

excited to see her. And I'm like, oh my gosh, it's so

good to see you. I said, what's going on. She goes,

well, I put an offer in on a house, and I'm going to

go pray in this service that Jesus will make sure my offer is accepted.

I'm like, cool, he's right in there. Just go find you know,

Jesus, he's right in there. He'll I'm sure he'll be glad to

hear this prayer. And so she comes out and she leaves, and the

next morning she shows back up again. So apparently the offer was not accepted

by midnight. So she went to all three services that morning, praying and

seeking the Lord for this house. Now I don't know if the offer was

accepted or if it was rejected, but I do know this, After those

services that weekend, I never saw her again. You see, she trusted

God to get her a possession, but she would not allow God to possess

her life. She wanted God to control the sell of the house, but

she was unwilling to let God control her. See, Israel, they wanted

God, but they wanted the things of the other nations even more. Israel

was not content to lean back and trust God as a nation as a whole.

But see, there's something even a little bit deeper going on here.

Can we just go a little bit deeper in theology right now? There's something

a little bit deeper going on here. See, they feel like they need

a king, but what they really want is not just a physical king,

but they want a king that they can control. Who here has controlled God?

Anybody can't control God, but maybe you can control someone else, and

so they actually want someone they can control. Now, let me ask you

this question right now, would it be easier to trust God and follow him

if you have some kind of binding, legal guarantee of what he'll do?

Wouldn't it be great if you had a contract with God? Like, all

right, God, it looks like my bank account is a little empty.

So can you just take some and put some from your account into my account?

That would be great. Our God looks like a guy a diagnosis.

It looks like I'm ill So God, I just need that guaranteed miracle that

you will take care of me. Or you know, we go to God

and and and we say, God, we're gonna trust you very things.

So all of a sudden, we trust God like a security system. So

if someone breaks into our house in the middle of night, we know that

two angels are gonna show up and beat the tar out of these guys.

Wouldn't it be great if we had this binding legal contract with God that we

serve him and then he'll do He'll take care of all of our needs.

You know? Would it be cool to uh, at the end of the

day to sit down with God and give him an evaluation on how he did

working for you that day. Well, God, this looks pretty good,

but I really need you to pick it up in this area. And you

know what, and until you pick it up in this area, I'm just

gonna have to hold back on my tithe, Okay, but I'll give my

tithe once you, you know, you step up up in this area.

See, it'll be a lot easier to trust God if we could control God.

But here's something we can't control God. And God calls us to follow

him, He requires for us to trust him. See, the reason we

require these contracts is because throughout the world we don't trust each other. So

we have to have a binding legal agreement because we don't trust each other.

And God says, hey, that's not the way it works with me.

You either trust me or you don't. See Israel, they want a key

that they could see in touch of control, and God calls us a rejection

of him. Now, can I just reflect on something just from one moment,

and I'm gonna ask you a question right now. But if you don't

stop, and if you don't answer sincerely and truthfully in your soul, you

might as well stay in bed this morning. Because what I'm not ready to

ask you is really the heart of this message. And I want you to

answer honestly from the depths of your soul. Do you require anything in addition

to God to feel secure and happy and fulfilled? Do you require anything in

addition to God? And so let me just ask you a question right now.

What is the thing that is driving you in your life that you are

working so hard to either obtain or possess. Let me ask you another question.

What is a thing that you have in your life that you so desperately

have to hold on to that. If you lost it, you would have

a hard time following God. Are some of you following God because as you're

working hard to obtain and to possess something, you're trusting that He will take

care of you and meet your need? But what happens if he doesn't?

And those of you you have some things in your life that you will follow

God as long as you don't lose certain things. What do you have to

hang on to? What do you need in your life for you to say,

you know what, I need this in my life for my life to

be good. And let me tell you guys something. I'm just gonna give

you a little insight, especially those of you who are let's go fifteen younger,

look at me those questions I just asked you. The things that you're

working hard to obtain or possess that you're trusting God with, are those things

that you are worried about losing? Go talk to somebody in our church who's

been following Christ and they're in their eighties, and they will tell you those

things pass, those things go away, those relationships die off, and so

therefore what's left is your pure unadulterated love for Jesus. Can you just real

quick close your eyes, close your eyes right now, and I just want

you to answer that question. Is there anything that you need in this life

more than Jesus to be truly happy and content? All right, you can

open your eyes now, but I wanted you to get your mind there because

this is what's going on with the Israelites. And we're going to jump back

into the scripture right now. Says now, then God says the same,

obey their voice and give them a king. Now you might be saying,

oh, why would God give them a king when that's the worst thing for

them? Well, I need you to understand something theologically today. And this

might be hard for you to understand wrap your head around it, but I

need you know that sometimes God allows your prayers to be answered so that there

could be a crash in your life, so that you will learn in a

loving way that Jesus is truly all you need. Have you ever prayed and

asked God and begged him for a certain job of promotion only to find that

erect your life that you're so stressed out, you're so overwhelmed, and all

of a sudden you finally got this promotion, you probably finally got everything you

wanted, and now you're the most miserable human being on this earth to live

with. And you realize, man, I didn't need that. Think about

these lottery winners who win all this money, then all of a sudden they

lose all their friends and family to jealousy. And again, some of you,

You've worked so hard for this job or this promotion only to find this

direct your life. Or what about marriage? So many people don't wait on

God to give them the right person. So therefore when they get married and

their marriage blows up, they don't understand why. It's because they did not

wait on God to give them the right person. You know, I have

a friend that I grew up with in church, and probably since she was

eighteen, she's went from one marriage after another. Matter of fact, Gena

and I often will be like, wh whoa wo would you see who she's

married to? Now? I mean, we have to like keep up of

her marriages on Facebook, and she's went for one after another. And here's

the thing. She cannot be single. She refuses to be single. She

has to have a man at all times. And because she has to have

a man, and she's never waited on God. She goes says, I

have to be married in order to be happy. I have to have a

man in order to be happy. So she goes that, she gets these

men, and then a year and a half later she goes, Hugh,

you are ugly, and then she throws them away and she gets another man.

See that's what we do in this life. We chase after things and

we say, God, in order for me to be happy, I have

to have this or that. Let's look at this because we see that sometimes

that God allows us to have the things that maybe we don't need. Romans

one twenty six says, and God turned them over to desires of their heart.

In other words, God's judgment sometimes is to allow people to experience what

they pray for. Look at this next quote here. Some of God's greatest

mercies to us are in the form of unanswered prayers. Some of the best

things that God can do for you is to say no. And some of

you right now, you're here today and you're actually mad at God for not

answering your prayer, and you don't understand that God might be protecting you,

and you're like God what's wrong with a promotion in fifty grand a year.

Well, God wants you to trusting him, not in money. Let me

give you an example from my profession. A lot of you will not be

able to relate to this, but I think you'll understand what I'm talking about.

Okay. In my profession, there's a lot of pastors who get really

mad at God for not answering their prayer to make them a big megachurch pastor,

and so they desperately want to have these big churches. And I've been

around a lot of megachurch pastors, and these pastors that have gotten seem like

everything you could ever imagine, and a lot of them are incredibly When you

hang out with them, they're incredibly, incredibly arrogrant, and their church becomes

all about them. And when you go onto their website, you don't see

anything about the church. You see their pictures, you see their billboards,

you see all this stuff. It's the church becomes about them, not the

church. And I've been around a lot of these guys, and you know

what, when you're in discussions with them and you try to have conversations because

of their success, they're right about everything and they and they are so closed

off because they're these leaders of large ministries. And by the way, these

guys didn't start out that way. They start out sincere of pure intentions,

but then came power. Let me tell you once, since I've been in

ministry, I've had so many heroes. I've read their books, went to

their conferences, listed of sermons. So many of them have now been involved

in scandals, split their churches, adulteries, stolen money, see power crops.

And sometimes it's not good for us to get every single thing that we

asked for. And you could apply that to anything. See, the worst

thing for you maybe is for God to answer a prairie quest and give you

something that will allow you to replace him in your life. Now, I

don't want to confuse anybody theologically, Okay, I'm not saying that it's wrong

to go to the Lord and say, God, give me a great marriage,

give me a great job. God, I'd like to have some money

into savings. There is nothing wrong with those prairiequests. What happens when those

prayer requests goes wrong? How do those prayer requests goes wrong? It's not

by saying God, will you please bless me. It's when you say,

God, I'll be disappointed in you if you don't bless me. Are God

in order for me to fully trust you, I need a B and C

in my life in order to fully fully trust you. Let's look at this

famous scripture. I want to reinterpret it for you. Okay, Now,

this is a famous scripture that I'm sure many of you have prayed many times,

but I want to make sure you have the correct interpretation of this scripture.

It says, don't be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer

supplication with thanksgiving. Underline that thanksgiving, let your request be made known to

God. In other words, when you pray and you ask God for these

requests, you bathe it in thanksgiving. Now here's what the scripture is really

saying. The scripture is saying that when you go before God and you give

them your request, you can pray these prayers with thanksgiving. But the thank

giving is mostly like this. It goes like this, God, I pray

God that you will give me the right husband. But if you don't,

I praise you anyways, because you are my God. God. I pray

for that job promotion. But Lord, if I don't get that job promotion.

I praise you because you are truly all that I need. And God,

I pray for this or I pray for that. But God, if

I don't get it, if I am not successful, if I don't have

all of these things, I still praise you because I have you. Because

I have you. Now let's get back to the story. So what happens.

God gives them a king, and it goes on in verse nine says,

only you shall solem me warn them, Samuel, and show them the

ways of the king who shall reign over them. So now God's gonna give

warnings about having a king. So he goes on to say, now these

will be the ways of the king who will reign over you. He's gonna

take your sons, and he's gonna point them to his chariots, to his

horsemen to run before it's his cheerios the words, I'm gonna build up an

army of your children, And every king does this afterwards verse twelve. And

he's gonna point for himself commanders of thousands, commanders of fifties and some to

plow his ground and reap his harvest, and make his implements of war.

And the equipment of his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers

and cooks and bakers. And then check this out, he will take the

best of your fields and vineyards and all of orchards and give them to his

servants. Oh, by the way, we see this happen. We go

where to the first kings, and there's a guy named Nabeth and he has

this beautiful vineyard right next to King Ahab's palace. And King Ahab goes to

him and says, I would love to have your vineyard. Can I have

your vineyard? And King or neighbors says no, no, no, this

is my ancestral lands. This has been handed down from generation generation. This

is a gift from God. Well, King Ahab didn't like that, so

his wife Jezebel. Jezebel goes to the people of Jezreel and she says,

here's what I want you to do. I want you to throw a party

for Nabath, and I want you to throw this big party. And in

the midst of this big party where you're exalting Negabeth, I would like for

two witnesses to come forward and say that Neiabeth cursed their king and curse God.

And so we had these witnesses come forward in line. You know what

they did. They took Neabeth out and they stoned him to death. And

the text says that the dogs came by and looked up his blood. So

we see all of these things that are warned here, they actually happen when

they reject God. See. See, God gave neighbor's family the land,

and then the king took it away. They're trading a king who gave for

a king who took. Now, let's go on, he goes on to

say, And then here's what else he's gonna do. He's gonna take a

tenth of your grain and your vineyards, give it to his officers, to

his servants, and he will take your male servants and female servants, and

the best of your young men, your donkeys and put them to his work.

And he will take a tenth of your flocks, and you shall become

his slaves. And in that you're going to cry out because of your king,

whom you have chosen for yourselves, But the Lord will not answer you

in that day. Now here's something I need in every single person in this

room to understand, especially those of you who are younger. When we ask

what's so devastating about their demand, the answer is simply this. When you

have other kings besides God in your life, those things will tyrannize you.

When you have other kings in your life besides God, they will tyrannize you.

If you look at this text here, if we see the word over

and over again, take, take, take, take, and the irony

is crazy. Here. They wanted a king so they will be prosper,

but instead they got a king who took things from them. They wanted a

king that they could control. Instead this king control them. And so they

understand this Old Testament phrase and a New Testament principle that whatever you depend on

for happ I mean it's a security, you will become a slave too.

So if you need success in your life to be happy, guess what,

you're going to become a slave to success. Some people say, well,

this person is driven by success. No, they're a slave to success.

See. Whatever you demand for happiness, you're going to become a slave of

See. And this goes along with so many men, so many men,

they want this physical release, they want this. They just need to relax,

and they have a busy life and a stressful life. They have all

this tension. So men start watching pornography, and all of a sudden,

they start watching this pornography and it goes from something that is every once in

a while thing to something that is maybe a few days a week, to

something that they're checking in on every single day. They don't want it to

control them, they don't want it to be a huge part of their life.

But the very thing that they needed now has enslaved them. See whatever

you need above God for happiness will eventually enslave you. Those of you who

are here today and you say, I gotta have money to be happy,

guess what. You're gonna have credit card debt and you're always gonna be chasing

things. You're not gonna be able to become generous. Why why can't you

become generous? Because if you're generous, you're not gonna have more money,

and you're gonna be disappointed and jealous when other people have more. Seen you

catch my drift. Some of us have a king, and a king is

anything in your life that you have to have in order to be happy and

secure. Let me ask a question again, do you have a king in

your life? Besides Jesus. Do you have a king in your life?

Besides Jesus. Well, that's the end of the chapter. Are you depressed.

I mean, that's what happened. They got a king. It didn't

go well. Things went bad, bad day. End of the chapter.

Let's go home and eat. Thankfully. We serve a god of grace,

and as grace allows us a turn back to him, and he gives us

these stories as warnings in our life of thinking that we need things in this

earth, but what we really truly need is Him and Him only for our

true happiness and our true joy. Personally, I've had a lot of kings

in my life. I don't know what's wrong with me, but I think

a lot of you will relate. It's almost like my heart is this factory

that just produces false kings or idols every day. It's like I'm fighting all

of these this factory that's always wanting to produce these false kings and false idols

in my life. And I had it before when I was growing up,

being successful sports was a king. Whenever I was going to school, being

successful school was a king. And before I came to Christ, pornography was

a king in my life, and then after I went into ministry. At

first it was just pure intensions. But after a while I had to be

successful in ministry because that's how you get respect. So being successful became a

king. And I remember the season where I thought it'd be really awesome if

I had if I led the biggest youth group in the state, and we

saw God do miraculous stings, saw God do amazing things, and God did

all these crazy things, and I gave my whole life to this ministry and

we did eventually end up becoming the biggest youth ministry in the state. And

then I burned out. I couldn't handle what God gave me. I went

to go plant a church and it was canceled on me. And here's something

that I was just so devastated and angry at God about. But then that

was the thing that he said no to that ended up changing my life for

more good than you could ever imagine. See the prairie quest that he said

yes to me ended up crushing me. And the one thing that he said

no to me about ended up being the great blessing of my life. And

now here I am, I'm ready to enter into my twenty fifth year full

time ministry. And here's what I could say. It just been the last

five years after chasing this king and this king and this king and this king,

and thinking, you know, once I have my bachelor degree, I'll

be happy. Once I have my graduate degrees, I'll be happy after all

these things. If I have this, if I have this, if I

have this, then I will finally be happy. And it wasn't until about

five years ago that I just realized I'm only happy of Jesus. And by

the way, it takes a long time to get there. Can I tell

you guys something really weird. How I pray each week? I say to

God, Church of the Crossing is your church, not my church. You

do with it whatever you want. You tell me what to do, but

it's your church. And then I pray this prayer. God, bring in

whoever you want to to this church, and God, remove whoever you want

from this church, because I just want it to be your church. And

you know who needs to be here. Now when you go from saying God,

I want the biggest youth group in the state and I want a big

crowd, to fifteen years later saying take out whoever you want. I don't

care about the size. I don't care about that. I just want it

to be your church. It's finally then where you realize that, man,

it's just within Jesus that I can find fulfillment and happiness. I don't need

all the other things. So now we're going to go into a prayer time

and I'm going to ask you some hard questions to pray through. So let's

bow our heads and let's close our eyes, and let's really get introspective this

morning and this powerful, powerful scripture that changed the course of Israel's history.

And the question I have for you right now is what's battling in your life

for the king position in your life? Is it a job, a promotion

that you have to have in order to be happy. Is it a relationship

that you have to have? Is it money? Is it a marriage?

Is it a house? Is there something in your life that you feel like

you can't be happy, fully content unless you have that? And when you

identify that, you can identify what's battling in your life or the position of

king. And this morning, I want you to recognize that, and I

want you to lay it down before the Lord lay it down. Lay it

down. Can you take a moment right now in service, and can you

tell Jesus that you only want him and that you are content and happy with

him. At this time, there's gonna be three baptisms of three people who

said, I just need Jesus, I just need Jesus. Let us cheer

them on.