A Heart That Trusts God Has Courage | Clayton Hentzel

Crossing Nation, How you doing? Are you doing good, man?

It's good to be with you. And if you don't get anything

out of today's message, I just want you to know this.

Our church loves you. I loves you.

I loves you. I'm trying coffee, guys.

I started 2 weeks ago. I'm on the drip and who knows

what's going to happen today? OK.

But I do know this. I hate my breath because I don't

even want to talk to me. All right.

That being said, we, I want to welcome all of you joining from

our different locations, those of you watching online and those

of you who are part of our inside family.

I'm so glad that you're here today.

We are going to be talking about probably the second most famous

story in all of Scripture. You know, there's the story

about Jesus kind of a big deal, but then there's this one and

almost everybody. Even if you're not a Christian,

and if you're here today and you're not a Christian, you

probably have heard this story, which is a bit of a challenge as

a communicator, because how do you tell somebody something that

they probably already know? But what you guys are going to

do is you're going to pretend to be really attentive listeners.

And I'm going to pretend that you haven't heard this story

ever before. And I'm going to walk you

through it. And I believe, if you'll stay

with me all the way to the very end, that God will do a

transformative work in your life.

And at least one of three areas, the story we're talking about

today is the story of David and Goliath.

The scene is set up with the Philistine army on one hillside

and then there's a valley, the valley of Elah.

And then on the other side is the Israelite army.

And in in the middle of this valley is a small Ur valley.

And inside of this small Ur valley, eventually David will

reach down where there's some water running through it and he

will pick up some stones. We were going to be going to

Israel in about 6 weeks. When I went to Israel the first

time, I was in the valley of Elah and while the guides were

talking and people were conversing, I I bent down in

that very valley and pretended to tie my shoe.

And I picked up a rock and I put it in my pocket.

And then I was like, well, David picked up five smooth stones.

I picked up about 20, put them in different people's bags, got

them back to the states. I'm selling them.

If you guys want them, $1000 as where we're starting the bid, I

have them. I'm just going to say because

you never know when you're going to face your giant.

So there are these two opposing forces gathered on opposite

hillsides and a battle is about to take place from the

Philistine camp. There's there's a warrior.

Let's look at them. 17, Chapter 17, verse four.

A champion named Goliath. He was from Gath, came out of

the Philistine camp. The word champion here means man

of the interspaces. Turn to your neighbor, say

interspaces. It refers to a man who stood in

between 2 armies, a man who was willing to engage in single

combat for his army. Now let's take a deeper look

into this champion and what it would have been like to stand

against him. First Samuel, chapter 17, verses

1 Samuel 17:4–7

4 through 7 give us a deep dive. This is what it has to say.

His height was 6 cubits in a span and you guys are all going

Yeah, of course it is. And he had a bronze helmet on

his head and he wore a coat of scale armor of bronze weighing

5000 shekels On his legs he wore bronze Greaves and a bronze

javelin was slung on his back. His spear chef was like a

weaver's rod and an iron point weighed 600 shekels, and the

shield bear went ahead of him. And those of you guys, you guys,

you're all going well. We're big, you know, into

ancient weights and measures. We already get the picture.

But for the two of you who don't know, let me unpack a little bit

of this. Goliath stood 9 feet tall.

In other words, if I was standing on a 24 inch stool,

that's how tall Goliath was. In fact, when I was growing up

for church and they did the school plays or the little

church plays, I never they never picked me to be Jesus.

Never. No, they never picked me to be

the Apostle Paul. Guess who I've always been in

every church play. Hey, Clayton, how about you play

Goliath? Yeah, the guy who dies.

OK. His attack weapons were all of

bronze or were all of iron and his defense weapons were all of

iron. The bronze helmet would go on

his head and then he had a coat of scale armor.

So think of like an Arctic Bass. And then how all of those scales

covered on the back and it weighed 125 pounds.

And he would just put this on and it would protect, completely

protect him. Then he had a spear that was the

size of a Weaver's Rod. And all of you guys, when you're

at Home Depot picking out your wife, a brand new Weaver's Rod,

you're going, boy, that's a pretty big Weaver's Rod.

Think about 10 feet long. And then on the end there was a

2 foot long point that weighed an additional £15.00.

So this guy was hurling a 25 pound death instrument at his

enemies. And add to all of this there was

a shield bearer who was going in front of him First Samuel 17.

Eight through 11, Goliath stood and shouted to the ranks of

Israel. Why do you come out and line up

for battle? Am I not a Philistine?

And are you not servants of Saul?

Choose a man and have him come down to me.

If he is able to fight and kill me, we will become your

subjects. But if I overcome him and kill

him, you will become our subjects and serve us.

Then the Philistines said This day I defy the armies of Israel.

Give me a man, and let us fight each other.

On hearing the Philistines words, Saul and all the

Israelites were dismayed and terrified.

The people were dismayed and terrified for obvious reasons.

Who is going to fight this giant?

And if they fight this giant, will they win?

The good news is if we go out and we find someone who can

fight this guy and we win, nobody else has to die.

I like that part. Bad news.

If we find a guy who's willing to fight Goliath and he loses,

good news is only one person has to die, because if we all go off

to war, there's a chance that some of us are going to die in

the fight. Worst news, if the guy we pick

goes out to fight Goliath and he loses, we all become slaves.

As the story unfolds, Jesse, David's father, is too old to be

out to war. And so he's been sending David

back and forth to the war to get reports about how his oldest

three sons are doing in the battle.

And then he has David come back, give a report, take care of the

sheep for a while. Then Jesse's going, I got to

know what's going on with the war.

And so he sends David, and David has been going back and forth.

So Jesse brings David in and says, David, I want you to go

back to the front lines. I want you to take this food

that I've gathered together, and I want you to give it to your

brothers. And then I've got this pile of

cheese that I want you to give to the commanding officer

because, you know, every boss wants a bunch of cheese.

And so maybe he'll be like, hey, this cheese is so good, let's

keep these guys at the back of the line.

And so he sends David out to bring back a report on how

everybody is holding up. Well, David leaves and he

arrives at the war camp just as the Army was getting ready to go

out to their battle lines. And Goliath issued his

challenge, and everybody hears this challenge.

And every time he issues this challenge, the Israelites would

flee from him in great fear. But David has a different

perspective. While everybody else is

frustrated and scared and dismayed, he's looking at

Goliath and going, who is this guy making such claims about the

armies of the living God? Who would dare come against the

people of God? And not just any God, a living

God. And so he's paying attention to

what everybody's saying. And David learns that Saul is

offering an incredible reward to whoever goes and fights Goliath

and wins. It's a threefold reward.

The first one is you will get great wealth.

Pretty nice. The second thing is you get to

marry one of his daughters, which if you're tired of being

single now you got a girl who you don't have to ask out, she's

just your wife now. And then the third thing is, and

this is where it gets really good, your family is exempt from

taxes. This is where all of our

campuses in Illinois are like, I understand now one of us is

going to go fight. We have got to deal with this.

You know, those of you who are part of our Iowa campus and our

our two Missouri campuses, Like, I don't get that part.

I don't understand why the tax thing's such a big deal.

But those of us in Illinois were like, we need a Goliath right

now. And I'm already signing up to

fight him. I don't care how big he is.

Saul is trying to incentivize someone to go out and fight the

Goliath. And so far there have been pay

attention to this zero takers, no matter how good the reward

is. Nobody is saying, Yep, I'm going

to go out and fight this giant. But word eventually reaches Saul

that David seems to be having a different feeling about this

entire set up, that David might be the guy who's willing to go

and fight the giant. So Saul sends for David.

This is their interaction, David said to Saul, let no one lose

heart on account of this Philistine.

Your servant will go and fight him, Saul replied.

You are not able to go out against this Philistine and

fight him. You are only a young man and he

has been a warrior from his youth.

David volunteers to go and fight, but Saul's like you know

what? You don't stand a chance and

David doesn't take no for an answer.

He starts to walk Saul through his resume, and his resume is

pretty impressive. I'm going to walk through this

part slowly. I just want you to feel the

imagery that we get here, verses 34 through 36.

But David said to Saul, your servant has been keeping his

father's sheep. When a lion or a bear came and

carried off a sheep from the flock, I went after it as you

do, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth.

When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair.

He fights like a girl struck it and killed it.

Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear.

Did you see all of this? He's not taking care of his

father's sheep. A bunch of sheep out there, lion

or a bear, show up, grab one of the little sheep sees, starts

running off with it. And you know what he doesn't do?

He doesn't go well. You win some, you lose some, he

says. Oh no, not today.

He chases down a lion, smacks it, grabs it out of its mouth.

No, if the lion or the bear turns on him, grabs it by the

hair, whacks it and kills it. How many of you guys have been

to a zoo? Yeah, Yeah.

And from a distance, you know how they set it up where it

feels like you're close but you're just not like that's

where you go to. Like most zoos, you kind of feel

close to the animals, but you're you're really not.

Now, if you want the opposite experience, go to the Peoria Zoo

because that's where we went. We went to the Peoria Zoo and

they have a tiger. And most places have like the

the railing and then a big valley and then, you know, the

tiger. Not the Peoria Zoo.

The Peoria Zoo has like a broken railing and chicken wire.

And I'm assuming there's been some budget cuts because that

tiger looked hungry and we were kind of walking along and I was

going, you don't stand a chance, 0% chance that if this thing

decided it wanted out, that you could stop it.

And if it got a hold of you, so I mean, I I knew that it was

like a lower end one. So we took my mother-in-law in

case it did get out, you know, shook her hand with some sweet

baby rays on it, said it's so good you're here, wiped in her

hair and said you go first. Right.

This is the David is seeing this and he's going, yeah, I've

killed lions and bears. And he's not doing this from

afar. He's doing this from up close.

David was built different. I'm guessing he didn't have like

cool Instagram filters. I'm guessing he was horrible at

Minecraft. He's like, yeah, I'm not really

good at at those things. I'm I'm more into killing lions

and bears with my bare hands. I mean like it.

I always have like an exit strategy in case things go

South, right? Like I sit.

And how many of you guys, when you, me and my wife fight over

this, when you go to a restaurant, how many of you want

to make sure you can see the door in case somebody crazy you

want to see it first? Yeah.

The rest of you savages are just sitting there going.

Somebody else is going to save me.

But those of us, we're reading our Mexican.

We want to see the front door in case someone comes in.

And if if you're navigating like a lion or a bear, you got to

have a strategy. My strategy?

Well, you guys know the strategy.

You always invite a fat friend, right?

Like if you're camping with a bunch of friends and you're

hanging around the campfire and you notice that you're the only

fat guy, your trip insurance. These aren't your friends.

If an animal shows up that tries to kill him, you're the

sacrifice. You're the you are going to play

the role of Jesus, OK? You always reminded me of Jesus.

You're going to die for our sins because we're out of here.

David doesn't allow himself that kind of position.

He goes out and he kills a lion and a bear, and then David draws

a connection. A connection That's a pretty

profound one. Look at verse 36.

This uncircumcised Philistine Goliath will be like one of

them, the lion or the bear, because he has defied the armies

of the living God. The Lord, who rescued me from

the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear, will rescue me from

the hand of this Philistine Saul said to David, Go, and the Lord

be with you. This is what David says.

I've been in difficult situations before, and in those

difficult situations, the Lord rescued me.

So this issue with Goliath is just another difficult situation

that I'm going to find myself in, and it's just another

opportunity for God to deliver me.

He's not boasting in his abilities, he's boasting in

God's Now Saul tries to help David prepare for this battle,

and he puts his own armor on David and David's like, I can't

walk around and all of this stuff, this doesn't fit me and

I'm not used to it. I'm going to go out and I'm

going to fight this giant in the same outfit that I protect my

father's sheep in verse 40. Then he took his staff in his

hand. He chose 5 smooth stones from

the stream. He put them in the pouch of his

shepherd's bag and with his sling in his hand approached the

Philistine. Meanwhile, the Philistine, with

his shield bearer in front of him, kept coming closer to

David. He looked David over and saw

that he was a little more than a boy glowing with health and

handsome. You know, I understand David,

and he despised him. OK?

He said to David. Am IA dog, that you will come at

me with sticks. And the Philistine cursed David

by his gods. Come here, he said, and I'll

give your flesh to the birds and the wild animals.

David said to the Philistine. You come against me with sword

and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of

the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel whom you

have defied. This day, the Lord will deliver

you into my hands, and I'll strike you down and cut off your

head. This very day I will give the

carcass of the Philistine army to the birds and the wild

animals, and the whole world will know that there is a God in

Israel. And those gathered here will

know that it is not my sword or spear that the Lord saves, for

the battle is the Lord's, and he will give all of you into our

hands as David steps into the interspaces.

Goliath is caught off guard for 40 days and for 40 nights he has

stepped out from the ranks of the Philistine army and he has

issued this challenge. And for 40 days and for 40

nights, no one has accepted. And all of a sudden a small boy

emerges to fight him. Who is this that they are

sending to fight me? A boy?

He's insulted and he has issued these threats, and they're more

than idle threats. We're told that he's been a

warrior from his youth. How many times has Goliath stood

in this very spot? We know he's undefeated because

if he had been defeated, he wouldn't have been issuing the

challenge. And the warrior that they send

is a boy. He would not be standing in

front of the Israelite army if he hadn't won every single time.

But David's reply is so incredibly strong.

This is what David is saying to Goliath.

You are coming at me with a sword and a spear and a javelin,

but I am coming at you in the name of the Almighty God, and

you can't cut him. You can't throw a spear at him,

You can't put a javelin through him.

You are fighting against my God, and he is going to put you into

my hands. Verse 48.

As the Philistine moved closer to attack him, David ran quickly

toward the battle line to meet him.

Reaching into his bag and taking out a stone, he slung it and

struck the Philistine on the forehead.

The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell face down

on the ground. So David triumphed over the

Philistine with a sling and a stone.

Without a sword in his hand, he struck down the Philistine and

killed him. David ran, stood over him.

He took hold of the Philistine sword and drew it from the

sheath. After he killed him, he cut off

his head with. The sword.

I got a couple takeaways for you.

Take away #1. Sometimes you are going to have

to fight a battle that belongs to someone else who should have

been fighting Goliath that that day.

It wasn't David. There was an obvious choice in

Israel as to who should fight Goliath.

Why wasn't Saul fighting Goliath?

The Bible goes out of its way to tell us some special physical

features about Saul. Look what it says, like go all

the way back to Chapter 9. Kish had a son named Saul, as

handsome as a young man as could be found anywhere in Israel, and

he was a head taller than anyone else.

It doesn't just bring this up once, it brings this up again.

Look at verse chapter 10, verse 23.

They ran and brought him. This is Saul out.

And as he stood among the people, he was a head taller

than any of the others. Who was Israel's champion?

Who was the one who was bigger than everybody else?

It was Saul. If you were picking based on

physical features, who would be the champion For Israel it would

have been him. But for 40 days and for 40

nights, nobody stepped forward, not even Saul.

But check this out. Saul wasn't just big, he was

accomplished in battle. Look what it says in 1st 14

verses 47 through 48. After Saul had assumed rule over

Israel, he fought against their enemies inside Moab, the

Ammonites, Edom, the kings of Zoba, and the Philistines.

Wherever he turned, he inflicted punishment on them.

He fought valiantly and defeated the Amalekites, delivering

Israel from the hands of those who had plundered them.

Saul was the obvious choice. He was head and shoulders above

everybody else, and he was accomplished in battle.

But. He didn't have the faith that

God would deliver him if he faced a giant.

There are some of you that are going to have to fight a battle

that belongs to somebody else. Right now, all across our

locations, there are some of you who are going to have to fight a

battle that somebody else should have fought.

You're going to have to step into an area that you never

thought you were going to have to face.

For some of you, it's going to be raising grandkids.

You didn't see that one coming. For some of you, you're going to

have to have tough conversations with managers or leaders in the

organization about ethics, and it shouldn't have been on you to

do it. Some of you, You're going to end

up raising a child by yourself because your spouse walked out.

And you're going to find yourself fighting a battle that

you never thought you'd have to fight.

You're going to find yourself fighting a battle that belonged

to somebody else. I just want you to know, if you

find yourself in that spot, God sees you and he's with you, and

the battle belongs to the Lord. Take away #2.

Faith is a muscle. I'm going to break this down in

two parts, so just stay with me. Saul didn't have to let David

fight Goliath. David proved that he was ready

to fight Goliath because he had brought receipts.

He had a track record of faithfulness.

He had killed the lion, he had killed the bear, and he believed

that God would protect him in the fight against Goliath.

People will sometimes come up to me at church and say that they

want to go into full time ministry.

And you know what I like to do inside of my head?

I don't say this out loud because that would be rude.

But in my head I go, where's the lion or the bear?

If you haven't already been faithful in your walk with the

Lord personally, what makes you think that you're ready to

navigate it organizationally? There's people who want to be

leaders in the church, and I just kind of want to look

around. Look for the bear skin.

Look for the lion skin. Some of you, how many of you

bought your kid an absolutely brand new car when they turned

16? Like just like, yeah, we're

we're idiots. So we kind of we're so rich.

We were like, we want to wreck a new vehicle, right.

What do you do? You give your kid, You know, I

don't want to say a car because then someone's going to be like,

you hurt my feelings. I saved so long for this car.

But you know, the car that you're like, OK, that'll be his

first car. Like, God bless Honda's, right.

And it's got 300,000 miles. It doesn't even need oil, which

is good because she's not going to change it.

And you just give it to him and let it ride, right?

And once they're faithful with the old car, over time you allow

them to have a nicer car when they're paying for it.

Your kid, your kid wants a cell phone.

Well, have you been faithful with your comforter?

And have you learned to make your bed?

Are you doing a good job with your iPad?

Are you being nice to your mom? Are you getting yourself ready

in the morning before I'm going to trust you?

The bigger thing You need to be faithful in smaller things.

You have to learn to be faithful and trustworthy in smaller

areas, and when you do that, your faith and your faithfulness

grows. Faith is a muscle.

Which leads me to this point. God is the one who did the work.

David's job was to have the faith.

You might be wondering, how did David know that God was going to

deliver him, That he was going to win against Goliath?

It's because of the lion and the bear.

Faith is a muscle because David had turned over the situation

against the lion to God, and he had turned over the situation

against the bear to God. He was used to turning things

over to God, and he had built up confidence.

His faith had been strengthened. And so when it came to the

Giant, it wasn't about what he was facing, It was about who he

was facing it with. His faith in God had grown.

Faith is a muscle, and the more you use it, the stronger it

becomes. Here's what I mean.

The more areas of your life that you turn over to Jesus, the more

areas of your life you will want to turn over to Jesus.

Because after you see his faithfulness in these areas,

you'd be like, well, I want to see his faithfulness in this

area and I want to see his faithfulness in this area.

More than likely, one of the reasons why you are struggling

in a particular area you keep hitting a lid is because you

don't believe that God has the solution for the challenge that

you're facing. So you keep bumping up against

it. You keep thinking I'm going to

try all these other ways because you don't have enough faith that

you haven't developed a track record.

That God took care of me here, God took care of me here.

God took care of me here, God took care of me here.

And when you face this, you'll have the faith to believe that

God will take care of you in this situation too.

David's courage came from knowing that God was faithful in

his past and would be faithful in his present and.

This is one of the tough challenges.

Because God always chooses to work through people with faith,

it is impossible to please him without it.

And God does His mighty works through people of faith.

Let me explain to you. God is the one who freed the

people from Pharaoh, but Moses is the one who had to stand and

defy the oppressors. God was the one who parted the

Red Sea, but Moses had to stand on the banks.

God was the one who parted the Jordan River, but the people

still had to put their feet out when the waters were waging.

God was the one who brought the walls of Jericho down, but the

people still had to do The Walking.

God was the one who delivered the midnights into the hands of

Gideon, but they still had to blow the trumpets and break the

jars. God was the one who made Peter

walk on water, but Peter was the one who had to step out of the

boat. God was the one who fed the

5000, but the boy was the one who had to give up his lunch.

Some of us, we want our marriage to get better.

But we want our spouse to be the one who does the repenting.

Oh, you're like, I like this sermon.

Until then, OK, stay with me. It gets worse.

We want Jesus to change our work environment and reduce the

drama, but we want them to do the changing.

We want our families and friends to know about Jesus, but we want

somebody else to do the praying, the inviting, and the

discipling. We want a closer walk with

Jesus, but we want somebody else to do the praying.

We lack the courage to believe that God will show up and bring

about change. We want God to do the work and

everybody else. Instead of believing that God

could do the work in us, if you want to see God, move.

And if you want to see God do something, it starts with you

moving out of the ranks and in front of the giant giant,

believing that God will get you through.

I don't know why this happened, but a while back I just started

kind of having soundtracks to my sermons.

It makes me a complete dork. And late 1 night I was going, I

was on my phone and I came across this like 30 second clip.

And of worship. And it hit me in such a profound

way the next day I searched and searched and searched until I

could find it again. I have to issue a disclaimer.

This style of worship is not ideal.

There's things about the the worship that I'm not necessarily

OK with theologically. But there was something about

the way that they were singing it that moved me in a profound

way. I don't understand these

artists. Their songs are like 50 minute

songs. So, like, imagine if they were

leading worship at our church. Guys, we're just going to have

three songs. Then we're going to get right

into the sermon. You're like, Oh my goodness, you

better order some food. And because we're going to be

here a while, like 3 hours later, everybody's asleep, then

I get up. Well, that's about what it is,

OK. But I was in a season where it

just kind of felt like there were a bunch of challenges.

Giants if you will. And the way that they were

singing this one part of the song impacted me in a profound

way. And I would say for the last 6

to 8 months, this song, this 50 minute song, and I'm not going

to play the whole thing for you, has been the soundtrack of the

sermons that I've preached and I want to share it with you.

Watch this video. If I ever needed you, I.

Need you now if I ever wanted you.

I want you. That's no better time.

I If I ever needed you, I need you now.

There's no better time. If I ever needed you.

I need you if I ever wanted you. Oh, I want you now.

If I ever needed you, I need you.

If I ever needed you, I I need you now.

If I ever knew dead. I need you now.

If I ever need night, I need you.

Now I want to play it again too, and I just want to kind of want

to take you through what I think about when I think about you in

this song. There's some of you.

You haven't felt God in a really long time.

You haven't seen him, you haven't experienced him, and

you're kind of wondering where he is.

But you won't experience God when you're standing among the

ranks, because you don't need him when you're hiding.

But when you decide to take a step out and say this giant in

my life needs addressed, needs dealt with, if you were to pick

a prayer, it would be this one. If I ever needed you, I need you

right now. God, my parenting is falling

apart, and no matter what I try, it's not working.

I don't know what to do. I don't know how to get through.

If I ever needed you, I need you right now.

My marriage. My spiritual walk.

My finances. God, this giant is too big.

And I don't know what to do and I don't know how to proceed.

I don't know what I'm supposed to do.

God, I need you. And I know I'm going to need you

next month. And I know I'm going to need you

next week. And I know I'm going to need you

tomorrow. But God, I'm not so much worried

about an hour from now. I'm worried about right now.

My addiction doesn't need you tomorrow.

It needs you now. If I ever needed you, I need.

I need you now. And you are going to have to

take a step, a step of faith to believe that God will meet you

in the battle. Now, I don't want to make every

single thing that you're facing out to be a Goliath, and I don't

want you all walking out of here thinking that you are warriors.

But the bottom line is, is every single day you are going to face

a challenge, and you have two choices.

To stay in the ranks or to believe that God we'll see you

through. And there are people who need

you to take down the giants and the challenges and the fears and

the worries and the anxieties and the uncomfortablest nature

of sharing your faith. But you also need to know this

4th take away Goliath was not the biggest giant that God

defeated. There has always been a giant A3

headed dragon, if you will. Satan sin and death, and Satan

tries to steal and kill and destroy all that God has for his

people. Sin brings pain and envy and

strife and evil into every relationship and every

experience, and the inevitable result is death.

Oh, it's a physical death, and it's a spiritual death, but it's

also an emotional death, a relational death.

But the good news of the gospel is that we too have a champion.

A man of the interspaces, he is 100% human, and so he

understands the human experience.

But he's 100% God, who has power over life and death.

He comes from miraculous beginnings, Born of a virgin,

his birth heralded by angels, visited by wise men from a

distant country. Grew up in Nazareth.

Ministered along the Sea of Galilee, the confounder of

religious elites. He's a friend of sinners.

He's a water walking, miracle working, demon casting, cross

caring, resurrecting, king. And he hung in the inner spaces.

For you and for me to make a way, when there was no way, to

bring about freedom to you and to me.

However, to experience it, to receive it, and to pass it on

requires you to take the step of faith to receive it and share

it. And I hope you'll do just that.

We're moving to a time of decision.

One of the things I love about this church is that every single

week there is somebody who chooses to start an intimate,

personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

And sometimes we know who it is, and sometimes we have no clue

who it is. But right now, here at our 48th

St. location, and to those of you who are watching online,

there is somebody who has never said yes to Jesus.

And if I could put this sermon in your spiritual context.

Here's what you need to know. You can't earn your salvation.

You can't stack up against the giant that faces you.

You don't stand a chance against Satan.

You don't stand a chance against sin, and you don't stand a

chance against death. You've already messed it up.

You've already disqualified yourself from the fight.

But Jesus was our warrior who stood in the interspace on your

behalf. See, the only way that you are

getting to heaven is if you are righteous and you're not.

But when Jesus died on the cross for your sins, he took our sin

on himself and he gave us his righteousness.

That's why the Bible screams by his stripes, we are healed.

And if you're here today, or watching online and you've never

started an intimate, personal relationship with Jesus Christ,

you need to be saved. You need salvation.

And salvation, the Bible tells us, Jesus tells us, is only

found in him that if you want to be in heaven, if you want to be

with the Father, there was only one way to the Father.

Jesus is the way and the truth and the life, and no one comes

to the Father except through him.

You might You might have a really good metabolism.

It's not going to do. You any good?

You might give to a lot of charities.

Not going to do you a bit of good.

You might be extra nice to your dog.

You might even have a cat. And none of those good works

matter. You could have been faithful to

your wife your whole life. You could have, you know, been a

really good employee. You could have prayed 10 times a

day before you even got to work outside of a relationship with

Jesus Christ. Where you receive His work on

the cross in your life, there is a 0% chance that you enter into

the glories of heaven. Jesus stepped in and fought the

battle that we could never win. All you have to do is say I'm

ready to receive it and accept it, be changed by it, and live

differently because of it. And if you're here today and you

have questions about what happens after you die and you're

not sure where you stand. There's somebody right over

there by the Baptistery in just a second, who'd love a chance to

talk to you about that. To the rest of you in the room,

you're wanting to see a move of God.

You're wanting to see him do something in your life.

You've been bumping up against the same challenge, the same

addiction, the same sin, the same situation.

You've got a proverbial Goliath in front of you.

It is not going away. And it might not even be yours

to fight, but it is in your. Way so I'm going to.

Encourage you to do whatever it is.

Would you spend some time on the steps praying that God would use

you to address it? Would you spend some time on

your knees saying, God, I can't fight this on my own.

You are going to have to fight this battle.

You are going to have to deliver the victory and hear me.

There are people all around you that need people who've been

transformed by that kind of faith to point them to Jesus,

and he wants to use you. We pray those kind of prayers.

Would you stand with me, God? I'm asking you to do a work

today, a work that only you can do in ways that only you can do

it. God, You know, the full extent

of the pain and the heartache and the sorrow and the fear and

the anxiety that people are facing.

God, you know, for every single person in this room at all of

our locations, exactly what they're going through and

exactly what they need God give. Us the humility to receive your

guidance, your counsel to recognize that we can't do this

on our own. But God give us the courage to

step out and believe that you will be faithful.

And you name my praying. Amen.