How the Mighty Have Fallen

Hey, everybody. I hope that you have your Bibles with you. If you if you do, you can go ahead and start turning to second Samuel chapter 1. If you don't have a Bible there are some in the back on the book table. I'd encourage you to, to at least be close to somebody that's got one tonight.

2 Samuel 1 · chapter mention

We're, we're gonna be all over the place. I I would have put all of the verses in the worship guide as as I often try to do, but it would have been more cost effective just to supply you all with Bibles. So if you don't if you don't have one in front of you, again, they're back there on the book table. If you don't own a Bible, take it home with you. So we'll be in 2nd Samuel.

Some of you who have been around for a while, I put the worship guides together and so over the last 5 years you've probably seen, a fair amount of mistakes here or there, but but tonight is not one of those mistakes when it when it says what the text for the sermon is. It is chapter 25 through chapter 31 of First Samuel. And then not as not a mistake again that that it's second Samuel as the text printed in there. Don't worry, it's not 6 chapters, it's probably gonna be closer to 7. So don't don't start making your way to the door just yet.

Isaiah 25 · chapter mention

So this past Monday, Joel asked me if I would would be interested in preaching this Sunday. And, as always, I said yes because I really love this time with you all and this time in our our church community. And so, I said yes. And I said, where do you wanna end up on the the next sermon, the the Sunday after this? And he said, well, I'd like to pick up where David is king.

And I said, that's 6 chapters away. And he he took my hand and he said, I believe in you. No. He didn't. He didn't say that.

But I think I think he does. He didn't say it, but he kind of just the look in his eyes seemed to convey that. But, no, lord lord willing, we're gonna make our way through, these chapters, and we're gonna go pretty quickly. We're gonna kind of just hover over them and and catch a couple of things, and then we'll linger, with the death of Saul in chapter 31 and just kind of ask the question, what does this all mean today? So let's turn our attention now to second Samuel chapter 1 beginning with verse 17.

2 Samuel 1 · chapter mention

Beginning with verse 17, let us listen carefully for this is God's word. David lamented with this lamentation over Saul and Jonathan his son. And he said it should be taught to the people of Judah, behold, it is written in the book of Jashar. He said, your glory, oh Israel, is slain on your high places. How the mighty have fallen.

Tell it not to Gath, Publish it not in the streets of Ashkelon, lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, lest the daughters of the uncircumcised exult. You mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew or rain upon you, nor fields of offerings. For there, the shield of the mighty was defiled, the shield of Saul not anointed with oil, From the blood of the slain, from the fat of the mighty, the bow of Jonathan turned not back. And the sword of Saul returned not empty. Saul and Jonathan, beloved and lovely, in life and in death, they were not divided.

They were swifter than eagles. They were stronger than lions. You daughters of Israel, weep over Saul, who clothed you luxuriously in scarlet, who put ornaments of gold on your apparel. How the mighty have fallen in the midst of the battle. Jonathan lies slain on your high places.

I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan. Very pleasant have you been to me. Your love to me was extraordinary, surpassing the love of women. How the mighty have fallen and the weapons of war perished. Let's pray.

God, we, we desire to meet with you here in your word and by your spirit. And so we ask that you would instruct our hearts, you would open our minds, open our eyes to to receive your word, not to be like Saul who rejected your word, but to receive your word and that your word would change us. Lord, as we come into this place seeking to meet with you, we ask that you would you would honor this time, this gathering, that you would honor the reading of your word, and that you would meet with us in spirit and in truth, and that you would lead us to all truth, and that we would leave this place transformed with the renewing of our minds to the praise and glory of Christ our king. We pray these things and in for his name. Amen.

So about 500 years or so after Saul's death, Sophocles would write, Oedipus the king, Oedipus Rex, the Greek tragedy, which is kind of like the apex of the Greek tragedy. And then that moved on to the Roman tragedy and then the British tragedy. And and and tragedies always have this this character, this lead character, the protagonist. And and the the tragedy is about this person who's lifted way up, who's brought way low. And here we have the tragedy of Saul.

Now, in all of those, the protagonists, they have a tragic flaw, this this flaw about them. Not just a particular action that they've done, but something that's more innate, something in their character that that keeps drawing them off course and it's going to result in the big fall. So how do we get to this lament? What happened? What happened to go from the anointed one, Saul, who was the king of Israel, the one anointed by god himself, the one chosen by god, the one anointed by Samuel, how did they how'd they get here?

How did it turn into this lament for Saul and his sons? What happened? And so we're gonna we're gonna work our way backwards and and look at what happened. How did we get here to David's lament? First, look in chapter 25 of first Samuel.

And then, I'll I'll be calling out some different verses from from here on. You can make your way there. If you wanna just scratch them down and look at them later, that that would probably be wise too. So last week, we left off with 24 where David spared Saul's life in the cave. You know, he cuts off a bit of a robe and then he kinda holds it in front of him and he says this is how close I was.

Essentially, I could have ended it all. This whole, is Saul going to kill David? He's throwing spears. He's sending out this search for David. And this whole back and forth could have just been put to rest, and and he didn't.

David spared the life of Saul. And then you hear that at the end, he's there's this seems like this reconciliation, that he's not going to hunt him down. He's not going to try and and kill David anymore. But then in 25, something pretty critical happens. At the very beginning, you'll see Samuel dies.

Samuel dies. Samuel is the prophet who has been kind of interspersed throughout this story so far as the the wise counsel, the wise counsel from Yahweh to Saul and to David. And now he's gone. He he's died. He he was kind of introduced as an old man.

He kept being an old man and then he and then he died here in in chapter 25, the death of Samuel. And then from that, David goes into the wilderness. And and the the reason for him going into the wilderness might be that now that Samuel is dead, he thinks Saul might be off his hinges again. Saul might be wanting to seek me again and try and kill me, so he goes into the wilderness. And while he's out in the wilderness, he comes across these shepherds and he takes care of these shepherds and he finds out that they belong to this guy named Nabal.

And Nabal, he, owns a lot of property. And so David, out in the wilderness, he doesn't have a lot of food or or drink out there, he sends some of his men to say, hey, we've been taking care of your shepherds. We've been defending them. They profit you. How about you send some kind of kindness in return?

And he says, David who? Son of Jesse who? Like, he really says that. He said he's like, David who? Son of Jesse.

And they're from I I do not know where. So he doesn't recognize the name, and so he says, I'm not sending anything. Well, David gets word of this and he says these are all like these classic scenes, you know? Like, the, who's this David guy? He's from where?

And then David says, put on your swords, guys. And and they start making their way to Nabel's house. They're stopped by Abigail, the wife of Nabel. They're stopped and she has the kindness. She has the kind return to him and and so he says, okay.

We're not gonna come and destroy your house, but bad things are gonna come to him. Your kindness has spared him now, but the Lord's gonna take care of this. And here's what happened. A few days later, the Lord strikes him dead. Just strikes him dead.

Who comes in to scoop up the wife and the treasure? David. That's called vindication. Kind of like as clear cut as possible. He's like, oh, you're gonna stand against me?

Well, you know what? Your time's coming. Lord strikes him dead, and he gets the wife. You might be thinking back to McCall and wondering if she's okay. Well, she now has a different husband, so it gets complicated from here when it comes to the marriages.

Let's let's be honest. So David marries Abigail, and and they start making their way. Chapter 26, David spares Saul again. Now how did this situation come about? Well, Saul gets word of where David is hiding.

And not really hiding, but he's just kinda laying low for a while. So he's laying low and word gets to Saul where he's at. And Saul, even though this he has now made this I'm not going to kill David statement 2 or 3 times now, swearing to the name of the lord, all these things, he says, now would be a good time to go kill David. So he gets 3,000 men and he heads out to kill David. So as they're making their way, David then sneaks into the camp with one of his right hand men, which I was a little leery of this at first too.

I was like, he sneaks there are 3,000 men, and he just kinda tiptoes in. Is anyone on guard? Well, no. God cause causes them to fall asleep into a deep sleep, and they make their way in. David goes and he stands above Saul's body.

And that's when look at verse 9 in chapter 26. Chapter 26 verse 9. Verse 9, but David said to Abishai because Abishai wants to kill him right then. He's like, this is this is the moment. This is our chance.

He's asleep. God caused this this kind of mystical sleep to happen, and and he's defenseless. And David says to him, do not destroy him. For who can put out his hand against the Lord's anointed and be guiltless? And David said, as the Lord lives, the Lord will strike him, or his day will come to die, or he will go down into battle and perish.

The Lord forbid that I should put out my hand against the Lord's anointed. But take now the spear that is at his head and the jar of water and let us go. So here, again, you see him taking this evidence to later show Saul what could have happened. He takes the jar of water and he takes the sword and he calls out, after there's some distance between them, and he calls out and he says to king Saul, look. Look what has happened again.

You've sought to kill me again, and the Lord delivered you into my hand again. And again, I would not lift my hand against the Lord's anointed. And, again but in in some new language that he hasn't before, look at verse 21. Saul says this. Chapter 26 verse 21.

Then Saul said, I have sinned. I have sinned. Return my son David, for I will no more do you harm. Because my life was precious in your eyes this day, behold, I have acted foolishly and have made a great mistake. So, again, he spares him.

But again, David has this sneaky suspicion. After all of this, and even though he said, I've sinned and I feel bad and I'm not gonna do this again, David says in the very beginning, verse 21 or sorry, verse 1 of chapter 27. Then David said in his heart, now I shall perish one day by the hand of Saul. There is nothing better for me than that I should escape to the land of the Philistines. Then Saul will despair of my of seeking to kill me any longer with the borders of Israel, and I shall escape out of his hand.

So now David, who is known I mean, even outside of, like, any faith circle, Judeo Christian history, even like, you could just pick up the most random person, and if you said, who is King David? What did David do? They would say he killed What? Who was a Philistine. From yeah.

See, I got you there. Alright. No. He's a Philistine. And and as as David has known, he's the Philistine killer.

He has done this, and he has he has taken out the big giant, but now there this there's still this this threat. And now David's going to go join them. But he's gonna go join them. He's gonna go hide with them because he still believes, and rightly so, that if given the opportunity, Saul is still going to hunt him down. And so he says, may maybe the the best thing, maybe the better thing for me to do at this point is just to have distance on the on the border of Israel, and I will go to be with the Philistines.

And the Philistines kind of had 5 different city states. One of them was Gath, and that's where David went. And he befriended the ruler there in Gath. And he was given he was given this property, a place to live and for his men to live called Ziklag. Now, this is the moment where I've lost about 3 fourths of you.

Right? Trains, Ziklag. I mean, has anyone ever, like, been really into Lord of the Rings and, like, tried to explain it to you? And You're like, I just want to watch the movie. I just want to see Does Elijah Wood and Rudy, do they make it up the mountain?

That's all I care about. And they're like, but ziklag. Okay. Alright. So I understand.

I understand. A little bit of Old Testament fatigue here. I get it. But he's given this land that he is supposed to kind of take care of, and he can have his men there, and they're they're hiding out. And then a really, really bad thing happens, but it's happened time and time again.

The Philistines want to fight the Israelites. But now who's with the Philistines? David and his men. And so the war trumpets begin, and here comes another epic battle of the Philistines and the Israelites. And David is on the border with the Philistines.

Word gets back to Saul, of course, that the Philistines are wanting to make war with them. And so he goes to the Lord and he's seeking the Lord. He's like, what's, what's going to happen? He usually would go to Samuel to find out some information, but Samuel's dead and God's not responding in prayer, he's not responding through the prophets, he's not getting word, and Saul gets nervous. We've seen this before when Samuel was supposed to meet him before war in chapter 13.

Samuel doesn't show up in the time frame that Saul is expecting, and Saul decides that he's going to start doing the ceremonial sacrifices himself. And kinda like Aaron says to Moses, he was like, I was in this position, and I just I had you. I made myself do these sacrifices like it was against his will. But he was being disobedient. He was disobeying the command of the Lord.

And so here in this scene, he's not hearing from God. He's prayed his prayers, he's consulted his friends, his confidantes, and and they're not giving him any word from Yahweh. So someone says to him, there's there's a witch in Indore. Maybe we could go to her and and she could give you some information. Now, Saul himself had outlawed witchcraft.

But they go. Saul is in a disguise, the witch of Indore. I I'm pretty sure David Bowie was in the movie of this. See if you can find it on Netflix. But it's so the witch of Endor, and he goes to this witch and she's she's asking him these questions.

She says, but this is illegal. And he says, no harm will come to you. And then she says, well, who do you want me to call up? And he says, Samuel. Look in verse or chapter 28.

Chapter 28 verse 15. Then Samuel said to Saul so Samuel shows up. That's kind of a strange place to begin, but Samuel shows up or at least it seems like Samuel, that she said, it was there's this old man and he's kinda got his robes on and stuff. And so it looks like Samuel's and it sounds like him and the things that he's about to say. In my mind, I picture like a really small Samuel, kind of like the hologram Obi Wan, but he might have been full size.

I don't I don't have any records of that. But so here Samuel shows up and he's interacting and and he says this, Samuel said to Saul, why have you disturbed me by bringing me up? And Saul answered, I am in great distress, for the Philistines are warring against me and God has turned away from me and answers me no more, either by prophets or by dreams. Therefore, I have summoned you to tell me what I shall do. Verse 16.

And Samuel said, why then do you ask me since the lord has turned from you and become your enemy? The lord has done to you as he spoke by me, for the lord has torn the kingdom out of your hand and given it to your neighbor David, because you did not obey the voice of the lord and did not carry out his fierce wrath against Amalek. Therefore, the lord has done this thing to you this day. Moreover, the lord will give Israel also with you into the hand of the Philistines, and tomorrow you and your sons shall be with me. The lord will give the army of Israel also into the hand of the Philistines.

Bad news from Samuel. Saul is terrified. He actually falls out on the ground. Takes him a while to revive him and give him some food and to get him back up and on his feet and back to the camp. Now in chapter 29, the Philistines are getting ready for battle.

Remember? So back back over to the Philistines in their camp, getting ready for battle. And David shows up with his men to fight with the Philistines, to fight for the Philistines, and they say, this guy's gonna fight with us? And the other rulers, they said, not a chance. The commanders within the army said, he's not fighting with us because he'll he'll turn against us and he'll start attacking us.

And now during this time where he had befriended the ruler in Gath, he had been doing some shady business. He would he would he would go off and conquer an area and come back and say that it was just some people that were friendly with Israel and that he was doing that to get back at Israel. That wasn't true. So he had been kind of playing this double agent over there, and so they were right to suspect him. And so he gets sent back.

And during that time, while they had been gone, Ziklag had been plundered. The wives, their possessions had all been taken back. And and then we see in chapter 30, David takes those things back. He's successful. He defends his people.

He defends them, and he retrieves the women. He retrieves the wives and and their goods. He's victorious. In fact, he seems quite kingly in this endeavor. But that is how David is not a part of this battle that comes to Saul.

But then it happens. The battle begins. The Philistines, the Israelites, it comes to a head in chapter 31. Look with me in verse 1. Now the Philistines were fighting against Israel, and the men of Israel fled before the Philistines and fell slain on Mount Gilboa.

And the Philistines overtook Saul and his sons, and the Philistines struck down Jonathan and Abinadab and Malekashua, the sons of Saul. The battle pressed hard against Saul, and the archers found him. And he was badly wounded by the archers. And then Saul said to his armor bearer, draw your sword and thrust me through with it, lest these uncircumcised come and thrust me through and mistreat me. But his armor bearer would not, for he feared greatly.

Therefore, Saul took his own sword and fell upon it. And when his armor bearer saw that Saul was dead, he also fell upon his sword and died with him. Thus, Saul died and his 3 sons and his armor bearer and all his men on the same day together. And when the men of Israel, who were on the other side of the valley and those beyond the Jordan, saw that the men of Israel had fled and that Saul and his sons were dead. They abandoned their cities and fled.

And the Philistines came and lived in them. Verse 8. The next day, when the Philistines came to strip the slain, they found Saul and his 3 sons fallen at Mount Gilboa. So they cut off his head and stripped off his armor and sent messengers throughout the land of the Philistines to carry the good news, to carry the gospel to the house of their idols and to the people. They put his armor in the temple of Ashretoth, and they fastened his body to the wall of Beth shan.

And when the inhabitants of Jabesh gilead heard what the Philistines had done to Saul, all the valiant men arose and went by night and took the body of Saul and the bodies of his sons from from the wall of Beth shan. And they came to Jabesh and burned them there. And they took their bones and buried them under the tamarisk tree in Jabesh and fasted 7 days. First Chronicles and its account of this story, first Chronicles 10 adds this note. Pretty much everything before it was was word for word.

But he adds this note. So Saul died for his breach of faith. He broke faith with the lord in that he did not keep the command of the lord, and he consulted a medium seeking guidance. He did not seek guidance from the Lord. Therefore, the Lord put him to death and turned the kingdom over to David, the son of Jesse.

Thus ends the tragedy of Saul. That's what happened. That's how we got here. This is what happened to king Saul and why David laments his death in second Samuel chapter 1. This is what happened.

2 Samuel 1 · chapter mention

But why did we get here? Why did he have to die? Well, first Chronicles 10 was saying it's because he didn't keep the command of the Lord. And there are 2 points in time where that really happened. We've already referenced them tonight.

But in first Samuel 13, with the unlawful sacrifice and then in chapter 15, with the plundering of the Amalek, where they kept things when they were supposed to destroy everything. They brought things back with them, treasure with them. And he played it off like he was gonna use it as a sacrifice, but really they were they were plundering, and god told them not to. So that's the first thing. He did not obey the command of the lord.

And then the second thing, he consulted the medium. He consulted the witch, and he didn't seek the guidance of the Lord. Now, if you heard in that section there in in 28, he had gone to the Lord. He had asked. He had prayed, but he wasn't waiting on the Lord.

He wasn't patient with the Lord. He prayed probably like we do sometimes, a very quick prayer and that we want some kind of result right then and there. And if we don't see that, then we're gonna look for a sign. And if we don't see a sign, then we're gonna ask a friend. If we don't get an answer from a friend, we're probably gonna find a book.

We need to find a book, and we start flipping through, and we we want answers and we want information and we want god to fill us in right now, right here, answer me. That doesn't happen. So, yeah, he's he was seeking God, but he wasn't seeking God. He wasn't seeking after the Lord. He wasn't following after him.

And even if he had gotten word, do you think he would have done it? I don't know. Do you? It's it's it's really hard to say that if he had just gotten this vision, if he had gotten this this information right then when he wanted it, what would that have changed? Because he swore to Yahweh time and time and time again of what he was going to do or what he was not going to do, and yet he failed.

And then we come to the death of Saul. And in those days when a king would die, it reflected on his god or gods, reflected on what the deity was that he worshiped, which is why his head and his armor ended up in a foreign temple to put before their god and say, this is King Saul, King of the Jews. This is Yahweh's anointed one. But who killed Saul? Who killed king Saul?

First Chronicles tells us in verse 14, it was his god that put him to death. The lord put him to death. And it wasn't just the witch in Endor and it wasn't just the Amalek and it wasn't just his sacrifice in chapter 13. Going all the way back to 1 Samuel 8, Do you remember these words? It's been some time since we read them in verse 19.

But the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel, and they said, no. There shall be a king over us, that we also may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles. And God says to Samuel, obey the voice and make them a king. You see, the very office, the very throne of Saul was a testimony to the people rejecting God as king. They rejected God as their king, and they wanted to look like the other nations.

They wanted a man in front of them on a throne. They wanted somebody that would go out and fight before them. And then they got Saul. They rejected god as king and so they got Saul as king and he was, by all practical purposes, a failure. There there were times when he was strong in battle and and he did, as David lamented, he did bring luxury and some goods to the people.

But when it came to submitting to the lordship of god, he was a failure. He was a failure. There are 3 failures that we can highlight. 1, he was consumed and preoccupied with power and envy. He was consumed with this, I'm gonna kill David.

I'm not gonna kill David. I'm gonna kill David. I'm not gonna kill David. You're not doing a lot of governing when you're just warring back and forth with whether or not you're going to kill your heir apparent. The second failure, he he made no real progress in defending against the Philistines.

No real sizable change there than when they had no king and the Philistines were pressing in. So he didn't govern and then he didn't really defend that well. And then the third failure, from his disobedience and rejecting god's commands, God rejected him. First Samuel 13 and 15. He rejected him and he broke the dynasty.

He said your kingdom shall not continue. He failed to preserve the kingdom. He didn't govern, he didn't defend, and he didn't preserve. That's why it didn't continue on through his children. Now there's gonna be a a battle coming up for the throne, but but that's why in first Samuel 13, god says your kingdom shall not continue, meaning your line, your your throne.

Now the throne continues on to David, but but what had been promised to to Saul ends. Preservation of the kingdom was lost. Saul failed, but the people of god needed those things. The people of god needed those things from their king, and he failed. And the people of god still need those things.

Consider this past week. We still need a king, a king who would govern with righteousness. We need a king who will defend us from enemies and from death. We need a king who will preserve us forever, and Jesus is that king. Have you ever read John's revelation, maybe after reading one of the gospel narratives, and and you're kinda like, I don't know if I really recognize this Jesus.

He seems different. It's not just a robe. Like, he seems different. That's because as in the first advent, when Christ came, he came to reconcile us back to God, to bring us back into relationship with the father. And as he returns in that second advent, when he comes in glory, he comes as king.

The king he's always been, but the king revealed in his kingdom in fullness. He comes as the reigning king of everything, and it can be startling. He is the true and good king. King Saul feared for a long time whose sword he might die by, and it turned out to be his own. That's irony.

He falls on his own sword. He rejected God's commands. He was impatient, and he was a failure. I could be describing any one of us here. Let me say them again.

He rejected god's commands, he was impatient, and he was a failure. See, the danger in judging someone else as a failure is thinking that I'm not one. It's it's really easy to go through these chapters and and to just see how, I'm gonna do this, and then he turns and he does that. I'm gonna do this and then he's gonna do that. I'm thankful that thus far no one's written a biography about me.

I hope that remains the case, lord willing, because it would just be it'd be it'd be my tragedy. Right? It'd be it'd be my downward spiral, just as easily as Saul's. There's no real difference between me and him. I reject God's commands.

I'm impatient. I'm a failure. I have a tragedy just the same. And whether you wanna believe it or not, so do you. But Jesus is greater than our failures, All of them.

Being a failure is one of our generation's, like, most dreaded fears. Being a failure. I could be lots of things, but I don't wanna be a failure. I could be lots of things, but I don't wanna be unimportant. Jesus rescues failures.

Failures like us, and he brings us into his kingdom, his perfect kingdom. He rescues failures. And in his kingdom, he governs with his love and his peace. Colossians 2 and Colossians 3:15, we see a Christ who is the head and rule of all authority, that his peace would rule in our hearts. He governs us with love and peace.

Colossians 3:15

He defends us. He's the true king who defends us from condemnation, from ruin, and from wrath. Romans 8 verse 34, who is to condemn? Christ is the one who died. More than that, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.

Romans 8:34

He defends us against condemnation. He is our advocate. He defends us from wrath. Romans 5:9. Since therefore we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.

Romans 5:9

He defends us perfectly, and he preserves us. Luke chapter 1 verse 33 in the birth narrative, the prophecy over who this Christ who this anointed one is. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom, there will be no end. The true king, the one who rescues failures. John chapter 10 verse 28, I give them this is Jesus speaking.

Luke 1:33 John 10:28

I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. And no one, no one, no one will snatch them out of my hand. That is the true and good king. That is the king that will not fail us. That is the king when we are scared, when we turn on our TV and we're scared when we turn it off.

That is the king who holds all things together and who, behold, is making all things new. That is our king. The tragedy of Saul reminds us that our own failures and our own ruin are redeemed by 1 king. There is a king who is greater than our failures, one who gave his life as a ransom for many that we might hope in him forever. Here's a, I'm just gonna torpedo Joel going into the future.

Spoiler alert, David will fail too. Because we've had this downward spiral of Saul and this lifting up of David, and he's gonna come in pretty triumphant, but he's going to fail too, in some ways worse than Saul. David will fail too. Everyone does and everyone will. But it's not about trying just to try to be perfect.

It's about serving and submitting to the perfect one, the one who is perfect. It's serving that king, the king of kings, the lord of lords, the savior of the failures and the victory over our tragedy. Let's pray. Oh, god, we we are a people of unclean lips, and we dwell amongst the people of unclean lips. And, lord, to even speak the good news of the gospel is a grace.

To hear it is a grace. And so we we want to enjoy and soak in you lavishing that grace on us in this very moment. You are extending grace to us because we are hearing the good news of the gospel, and we can live in the good news of the gospel. And so we we treasure this moment together as a family of faith that you speak good news to us. As you said in Isaiah 40, that comfort, comfort my people, speak tenderly to Jerusalem.

In your gospel, you are speaking tenderly to us in our failure, in our brokenness, in our fear. You speak to us right now tenderly. And our perk our perfect sacrifice is our perfect high priest, The one who showed us how to perfectly serve, who came to us to serve us, teaches us how to serve as he is the king, do our service. So we stand in this gospel grace tonight, and we thank you. Give us hearts to respond, to see honestly our failures and our sin, but with equally fervent eyes that we would see the grace purchased for us through the cross and through the resurrection and through the ascension of our lord and king, Jesus.

In this moment, fix our eyes on him. Fan into flame our faith for those here in this moment whose faith might seem weak and small and but a flicker, fan it into flame by your spirit, lord, and call sons and daughters to trust in you. Lord, we thank you for this time together. We we treasure it. We pray this in the name of Jesus.

Amen.