The Lone Ranger | Pastor Chris Kouba

We'll grab your Bibles, open them up with me to First Samuel chapter 18.

1 Samuel 18 · chapter mention

First Samuel chapter 18 is where we're going to be.

1 Samuel 18 · chapter mention

Uh, hopefully you had an opportunity to grab uh a journal that you hopefully got last week.

And maybe if you didn't, then you got one on the way in.

If you do not have a journal, we want to make sure you guys all have these as well.

Raise your hand if you don't have a journal, keep it up, and we will make sure to get you one of these.

Uh we got one here on the front row, and then we've got a few others.

But just keep your hands up.

We will get these to you.

We're encouraging you to take notes.

If you ever know, we are in the middle of a sermon series where all of our groups, literally from preschool all the way up through senior adults, is going to be walking through this, what we're talking about in the big room, in the smaller rooms as well.

And so we want to make sure that you take notes.

Uh, I've said this many times before, and I just want to remind you it is totally true.

If you take notes, you will get to cut in heaven.

All right.

So I just want to make sure, like you want that, all right?

And so uh just make sure to do that while you're here on earth and you can get that privilege.

I do want to take an opportunity as well, though, to welcome those who are joining us digitally.

Uh, I had a family come up to me last week and tell me that they've got uh a loved one of theirs that is incarcerated and is long out way outside in Texas, but long outside of this humble area and watches United City Church every week.

I just thought that was absolutely incredible and amazing, just incredible.

So let's give them a hand.

Those that are watching us online, we see you.

We're grateful for you, thankful for you being a part of our church family, and those of us that are uh maybe traveling and being able to connect with us as a church.

Some of you grew up with them, and then some of you only know the name.

Lone Ranger.

The Lone Ranger.

Here we go.

The Lone Ranger started in 1933, was on the radio at first, then it became a TV show, then it ultimately went into comics and then movies.

There was like a 30-year stretch where, like, this was the guy in America, right?

This was what everybody looked at, this is what everybody thought about.

Black mask, white hat, horse named Silver rides in, fixes what is broken, and is gone before anybody has the opportunity to even say thank you.

What's interesting is that you may be like me, and you had no idea who Lone Ranger was when you before you saw these clips, right?

Uh I had no clue, but I certainly knew the name, uh Lone Ranger.

In fact, that name has been said many, many times.

And what we think of whenever we say somebody is a Lone Ranger, that means they don't need anybody else.

That means they can do anything that they want by themselves without having any help.

But did you know that's not what his name actually means?

In fact, the story of the Lone Ranger is this he actually rode out with a patrol of Texas Rangers and they rode into an ambush, and every other person except for the Lone Ranger was killed.

He was shot and left what they thought was going to be bleeding to death there in the dirt.

So, what we think of is the Lone Ranger, meaning the one who doesn't need anybody else, actually means the Lone Ranger means the only one that was left.

Of course, we know that ultimately somebody did come and find him and began to nurse his wounds and began to stay with him until he was able to stand up.

We know that person to be Tonto.

Tonto is his sidekick.

And what's interesting is that the Lone Ranger, from the moment that he became the Lone Ranger, never ever again did anything alone.

He was always with somebody.

He was always a Tonto.

Let me ask you the question today.

Are you a lone ranger?

I'm not asking about the original definition that you may think that it means, because many of you may proudly say, like I probably would certainly say, Yeah, I'm a lone ranger.

I can take care of myself.

Like I can do what I need to do.

I can I can do the things that are necessary.

And so, therefore, I'm not asking you whether you're a lone ranger in the sense that you're independent.

I'm asking you, are you a lone ranger?

Meaning this, are you the only one left?

Let me give you a scenario that may help you decide that.

I want you to picture yourself with the phone ringing, or maybe beginning a conversation.

You're in a parking lot, that phone rings, and the get you feedback you get back is that they found something on the scan, you better get here right away.

Maybe the phone rings and you get word that your child is in the hospital, in the emergency room, something happened at school.

Maybe you have a conversation over a coffee, and at the end of that coffee, the person that you love, giving your heart to in every way, tells you they don't feel the same.

And they want to break out.

It's those moments in life when the floor drops out, and you just feel helpless.

Here's my question: Who do you call in that moment?

For some of you, you have a name that immediately pops to mind.

I want you to just hang on to that.

We're gonna do something with it later.

For some of you, though, you may think through the list.

It's not like you don't know people, you know a lot of people, but none well enough to make that call.

None to reach out to when the floor drops out.

Maybe some of you had somebody, and then now you don't have that same person, and you know exactly when that conversation and when that situation shifted.

We're in a sermon series that we started last week called the King's Table.

We're looking at the relational life of King David.

We're trying to envision this idea that he has a table, and with the table means he has certain people that he's allowed to have influence in his life, to have guidance in his life, to speak into him.

And we're gonna look and see who some of those people were.

Last week we looked at David and Samuel.

Samuel saw what God saw in David and called it out.

You people that believe in you.

This week we're gonna look at David and a man named Jonathan.

We're gonna look at three different chapters of scripture: 1 Samuel chapter 18, 1 Samuel chapter 20, 1 Samuel chapter 23.

1 Samuel 18 · chapter mention 1 Samuel 20 · chapter mention 1 Samuel 23 · chapter mention

One of the most beautiful pictures in all of the Bible of what it looks to have somebody on the other end of that phone call.

I want you to take your journals out and open them up with me to page seven, and I want you to write down the main takeaway that we're gonna take away from this message today, which is this leaders need someone, excuse me, leaders need a friend who will fight for them.

Leaders need a friend who will fight for them.

Write that down.

The whole premise of this series is that every one of you is a leader.

You're a leader maybe in your business, you're a leader in your company, you're a leader on your team.

Maybe you're a leader at school, maybe you're a leader in your home, maybe you're a leader in your small group.

At a minimum, all of you are leaders of yourselves.

And last week I told you that the primary thesis of this entire series is this healthy leaders do not lead alone.

So the question is not who's gonna be at your table, the question is who are you choosing to let be at that table?

And what I want to talk to you about today is how you can choose someone like a man named Jonathan who shows us an amazing picture of what true friendship looks like.

For some of you, this is gonna confirm and allow you to give thanks to somebody who already is this in your life.

For some of you, this is gonna tell you what you need to pray for.

And for some of you, this is gonna be a way for you to begin to identify how could I be this type of person for somebody else?

1 Samuel chapter 18.

1 Samuel 18 · chapter mention

Let me give you the context of what's taking place.

The previous chapter is maybe the most famous chapter in all the Bible.

Even people who don't know the Bible know about 1 Samuel chapter 17.

1 Samuel 17 · chapter mention

It's David and Goliath.

Okay.

It's the famous story where basically you have this Goliath, this large figure who's taunting the nation of Israel and threatening them and telling them that they aren't going to be able to defeat him.

And what you have is all these trained warriors in the Israelite army who are too scared to go off and face Goliath.

What you find is David, the main character that we're talking about, who is not a king at this point yet.

He'd been anointed and told he was one day gonna be king, but he wasn't there yet.

He wasn't a soldier, he wasn't somebody who was militarily trained.

He just finds himself coming up on the situation, being like, Well, I'll take this guy on.

There's no reason that he should be defying the army of the living God.

And so therefore, he steps up and we find him at the end of the chapter with Goliath's head in his hand, victorious.

It's a powerful scene.

At this scene, you also have King Saul, who is the actual king of the nation, and you also have his son, a man named Jonathan.

Jonathan was next in line to take over if his dad died.

And this is what we see in 1 Samuel chapter 18.

1 Samuel 18 · chapter mention

Would you stand in the honor of the reading of God's word with me?

1 Samuel chapter 18.

1 Samuel 18 · chapter mention

I'm going to read verses 1 through 4.

It says, As soon as he had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David.

And Jonathan loved him as his own soul.

And Saul took him that day and would not let him return to his father's house.

Then Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as his own soul.

And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was on him and gave it to David and his armor and even his sword and his bow and his belt.

You may be seated.

If we all need friends who fight for us, what does that actually look like?

Not friends who are just nice, not friends who are good hang, like those who are going to be genuinely in your corner.

I want to give you four things from the life of Jonathan that I want to point out to you.

Number one is this write this down.

A friend who fights for you trades his future for yours.

A friend who fights for you trades his future for yours.

I'm going to be honest with you.

First four verses of chapter 18 are a little weird.

All right.

You're like, what's really going on here?

This just kind of feels a little bit odd.

And many folks have having used this, but trying to let the Bible promote particular agendas, they've even used this as proof to show you that it's actually right there in the text.

I would tell you that's not at all the accurate reading of what's taking place here.

You need to know culturally what is happening.

What you see is that Jonathan is somebody who has this robes and all of this gear, this spear, this, this, this, these outer garments that represent royalty.

It's like an announcement to everybody else.

When King Saul dies, I'm next.

I'm gonna be up.

I'm the king who has the throne waiting for me.

And what it says here is that he lays aside all of those things and he gives them to this shepherd.

It's like him declaring that I am putting down my rights and I'm giving them now to David.

You ever seen whenever they uh they they retire a jersey?

You know, somebody that's just given so much to the organization, uh, the hometown team.

They're the one that's just beloved and revered.

Maybe they've won championships with the team, or maybe they've just had all these records with the team.

And so, in light of that, what you see is that they will actually retire that person's jersey.

They'll make them come back after retirement, and they'll have like a retirement also ceremony where they'll literally lift, in basketball terms, they will lift the jersey into the rafters, is what they would say.

I want you to see what's taking place here is the reverse of that.

It's you see Jonathan actively wearing the jersey, and he takes it off and he gives it to the kid.

He says, Hey, I've got all the rights, I've got all the privileges, I've got all the inheritance that is coming my way, but I see God has something in you.

God's doing something in your life, and I'm gonna take that off and I'm gonna give these things over to you.

He's not giving up possession, he's giving up position.

He's handing over the one thing that he cannot get back.

Nobody asked him to.

Saul didn't ask him to.

God didn't ask him, he just sees something in this man, and he's like, you know what, I'm gonna give these things to you.

Verse three tells us why.

It says that he uh he made a covenant with David because he loved him.

The word love is not a feeling word there, it's actually a loyalty word in the Hebrew.

It's it's when a man says when he's binding himself to somebody and there is no way out.

What you're gonna see is for the next part of the text, all the way through chapter 23, Jonathan takes risk after risk after risk, and many times to his personal detriment.

But he does that why?

Because he's got a covenant love to David.

He makes a commitment to David.

He's essentially saying, I don't know what challenges I'm gonna face, but I'm gonna face them with you.

And in light of that, he trades his guaranteed future and he gives it over to this shepherd boy that he sees God's hand is with.

I want you to hold on to that picture of a man laying aside a robe that he had every right to wear.

We're gonna come back to it before we leave today.

But what I want you to know is this leaders need someone who will fight for them, need a friend who will fight for them.

And what we see here is that Jonathan does that by trading his future for David's.

Now, let's be honest.

It's kind of easy to do all that and say, Man, I'm with you.

When he just got a Goliath's head in his hands, he just defeated him.

It's a good day, things are going really well.

I want you to know it goes real bad after this.

So let's see what kind of commitment level he's got when things get a little more difficult.

Second thing I want you to see, write this down.

A friend who fights for you, number two, goes looking for an answer he doesn't want.

Goes looking for an answer he doesn't want.

Turn with me over to 1 Samuel chapter 20.

1 Samuel 20 · chapter mention

Between chapters 18 and 20, like everything falls apart.

King Saul hears them singing these women, they're singing these songs, and the song is this Saul has killed his thousands, but David has killed his tens of thousands.

Saul's not a fan of that.

He begins to see David as a threat.

So, what does he do to deal with this threat?

His first thought is, well, I'm gonna send him out into war, and maybe he just conveniently dies on the battlefield.

Here's the problem: every time he sent David out into battle, David came back more victorious.

He won every time.

And so now the the the idea of David and the popularity of David is growing.

He killed Goliath, he keeps winning all of these battles, and so we see at one point, literally, Saul takes his spear and throws it at David, trying to kill him.

That's the context.

Pick it up with me in 1 Samuel chapter 20, beginning in verse 1.

1 Samuel 20 · chapter mention

It says then David fled from Naoth and Ramah, and he came, and who did he go to before Jonathan.

What have I done?

What is my guilt?

What is my sin before your father that he seeks my life?

And he said to him, Far from it, you shall not die.

Behold, my father does nothing, either great or small, without disclosing it to me.

And why should my father hide this from me?

It is not so.

But David vowed again, saying, Your father knows well that I have found favor in your eyes, and he thinks, Do not let Jonathan know this, lest he be grieved.

But truly, as the Lord lives and as your soul lives, there is but a step between me and death.

Then Jonathan said to David, Whatever you say, I will do for you.

Let me give you some context.

What we just read.

Verse 2 shows us that Jonathan didn't initially believe David.

Here's David coming along, saying, Man, your dad's trying to kill me.

What's the deal?

And Jonathan responds, like, I promise you, he's not.

He would never do that.

Everything that he would do, he would tell me first.

And in fact, we know he's not just saying that because he believes the best in his dad.

And chapter 19, we actually see that his dad, Saul, made a promise to Jonathan and said, I will not kill David.

So here he is saying, I promise you he's not gonna do this.

But here's what it says at the end of verse 4.

Whatever you say, I will do for you.

Here's what he agreed to.

He agrees to sit at his father's table, to study his dad like he's a suspect, and go looking for an answer that would make his father a murderer and everything that he believed about his family to become a lie.

Nobody wants that answer.

You ever had a situation to where you kind of have a hunch that maybe a friend is doing some things that they shouldn't be doing?

Or maybe you've got an idea, you heard some rumblings, some rumors in the background about maybe a family member that you kind of hear maybe caught up in some stuff that they shouldn't be.

Maybe you you you find out that you just kind of have this like kind of gut feeling that like, man, stuff's just not adding up, and you've got a choice in that moment.

Do you go and find the truth?

And here's the thing: whenever you realize what the truth is, you can't unknow the truth.

You know it's easier.

I don't know if I want to know that.

I don't actually know if I want those details.

Because if I just bury my head in the sand, then I don't have to face the reality of the situation.

Here's Jonathan doing the same thing, but tenfold.

Because for Jonathan, there's great consequence.

Literally, here, if he goes and finds out the truth, then it's gonna mean that he's gonna realize that his dad is a liar and his whole family is a farce.

What is he gonna do with that?

Folks, please hear me.

True friends are willing to find the truth even when it's tough.

Even when it's hard.

There's plenty of people that'll tell you what you want to hear.

There's plenty of people that will tell you what you think that you think is gonna be right, even if it's not necessarily true.

Plenty of folks will do that.

True friends are willing to go find the truth out, even if that truth is really, really hard.

Almost nobody will go and get the truth for you when giving it, getting it is gonna actually cost them their own family.

But you know what?

Leaders need a friend who will fight for them.

Who don't just puff you up and tell you you're great, but who actually go and do the hard things, even when it's hard for them to hear, and especially when it's hard for them to deliver that news to somebody else.

Confrontation takes place in 1 Samuel chapter 20, uh, in the next scene, and this is where we get our third description of a of a friend who fights for you.

1 Samuel 20 · chapter mention

Number three, write this down.

A friend who fights for you steps in front of the spear.

A friend who fights for you steps in front of the spear.

It's what's called the New Moon Festival.

They had a lot of festivals back in those days.

And this New Moon festival, people would gather together and they'd have these elaborate meals to celebrate.

And it was expected because David was close to the king, and David was close to Jonathan, that he would participate and be a part of the New Moon festival with David, or excuse me, with Jonathan and Saul.

So the very first day of the New Moon festival, they all gathered there to have this big elaborate meal, and David is not there because he had gone to Jonathan and said, Hey, I think your dad's trying to kill me.

I don't want to be anywhere near him.

Tell him that I'm actually going to do some stuff for my family.

I'm going to check on them and let's just see what his reaction is.

And so they had this agreed upon plan.

First day he's not there.

Saul doesn't say anything about it.

Second day they come back.

Again, they have the new moon festival.

All of them are gathered around at the meal.

David is, again, his chair is empty, and he's not there.

And so this time Saul says, Hey, where's your buddy?

Where's David?

Saul begins to, or excuse me, Jonathan begins to tell him what his elaborate plan was.

Like he's going with his family, and he's asked to leave, and I and I said that was fine.

And then here is the response in verse 31, which takes place where Saul begins to say these words to his son Jonathan.

Look at what it says.

Whole chapter is built on it.

For as long as the son of Jesse lives on the earth, neither you nor your kingdom shall be established.

Therefore send and bring him to me, for he shall surely die.

He blows a gasket, is what we see.

He gets so angry that he calls his own son, a name I'm not going to repeat in church, and then he says to him, You go and find David, and I'm telling you, it's either you as the next king or it's him, but you guys cannot be together.

This is not how it's going to be.

He essentially draws a line in the sand.

And here's what Jonathan says back in verse 32.

And Jonathan answered, Saul his father, Why should he be put to death?

What has he done?

Do you remember the language?

It's the same language from verse 1 when David said it himself.

Here's Jonathan taking David's question into a room that David wasn't able to go into safely.

And he asked him, What is it that he said?

Why are you doing this?

Why are you acting this way?

What is it that is necessary for you to go and kill him?

And so now David is now on the run, having to run for his life, all because Saul wants to take him out.

And now Jonathan knows what he cannot unknow.

He's now coming at his own son because we see just another verse later that he throws a spear at Jonathan.

And look at what it says in verse 34.

Jonathan rose from the table in fierce anger.

That's an understatement.

If somebody throws a spear at you, you're gonna be a little bit upset, all right?

And ate no food the second day of the month.

But why was he upset?

Because he had a spear thrown at him?

No.

For he was grieved.

For David.

Because his father disgraced him.

Here he is in a moment when he's the one taking shots.

But he's upset because his dad's mad at David.

Ever been in a meeting?

I've been in these before.

You're kind of sitting there with a group, and all of a sudden the boss, the person in charge, whoever it may be, starts kind of chewing on somebody in the office.

Starts getting on to them.

And you know, like that's not right.

They don't know the full perspective.

That's not how it went down.

And you just kind of have to sit there and you're just watching it go down.

And then what happens?

You at the end of the meeting, go home, and or you and then you kind of go back to that person the next day, and you're like, man, that was tough.

I didn't agree with anything that he said.

And if you're the one that got chewed on, here's what you're thinking.

Why didn't you say anything?

Why'd you just sit there?

Folks, it's so much easier to be the guy who tells you after the fact what he thinks.

It's something totally different to have somebody who's so in your corner that they'll tell you the hard truth to your face.

Folks, what we do not need as leaders is more people to tell us yes.

We do not need more people who will tell us what we want to hear.

We do not need more people who will tell us how great we are.

What we need is people that will be honest to speak the hard truths to our face.

Who confront us when we need to be confronted?

Who will warn us when we need to be warned?

Who will be honest enough not just to think, yeah, I don't think that's great.

And then all of a sudden you look up and their entire marriage and their entire family is ruined, and you're like, man, you know, I thought I had some red flags going back before.

Say the red flags.

Be willing to speak up and to speak out.

It is better for us to be over the line, being a little too cautious, than for us putting our heads in the sand and allowing sin to happen right in front of our faces.

What David is surrounding himself with is people that will be honest with him.

People that will speak truth to him.

People that will come alongside and step in front of a spear.

In this case, literally stepped in front of a spear.

Jonathan gets up from the table and he goes out to the field.

He's got to tell David the news.

They had this elaborate setup going where basically Jonathan was going to take a servant out with him.

David was going to be hiding out by a particular rock and he was going to shoot some arrows.

And if he shot the arrows and they were short of where David was, then that meant it was safe for you to come back.

If he shot the arrows past where David was, that was going to indicate to David that it was not safe to come back.

And so sure enough, he gets there, he shoots all the arrows past where David was, has his servant go and get him and go home, and then he walks up, and you see the end of the chapter, chapter 20, this embrace between David and Jonathan.

And it says that David wept uncontrollably, couldn't even stand.

I I believe, yes, it was probably by the fact that he knew this meant that basically he was going to be living on the run and having to constantly run for his life.

I think he also knew that his friend wasn't going to be able to do it with him.

It almost reads like the end of chapter 20 is the goodbye between Jonathan and David.

What I want you to see takes place is a beautiful picture that happens in the field later on after this, which is where we get our fourth point that I want you to write down today, which is this A friend who fights for you comes back when you're empty.

A friend who fights for you comes back when you're empty.

Turn with me to 1 Samuel chapter 23, the middle of the chapter.

1 Samuel 23 · chapter mention

What you see between chapter 20 and chapter 23 is that David's just literally on the run.

He's running for his life.

He's running to stay alive.

He doesn't really have a lot of support system around him.

He's got a few guys that are kind of near him, but they're just kind of there.

He doesn't have any army, he doesn't have a throne, he doesn't have a home, he's got nothing to give anybody, he's got nothing anybody else would even want from him, so he's got nothing to offer.

He is totally depleted, he is totally empty.

And look at what happens in 1 Samuel chapter 23, verse 16.

1 Samuel 23:16

It reads, And Jonathan Saul's son rose and went to David at Haresh and strengthened his hand in God.

Jonathan went and found him.

Nobody made him, there was nothing in it for him.

David could not do one thing in return.

And Jonathan walked into the wilderness to find a man who had nothing.

Catch the best part.

End of verse 16.

Read it again.

He strengthened his hand in God.

Think about how easy it would have been to do it differently.

Hey David, your boy's here.

We got this.

Let's go.

Let's put a plan together and let's go take these guys down.

That might have helped for a few hours, but guess what?

His situation wouldn't have changed.

He doesn't come flexing that his appearance changes everything.

What he does is he takes his David's hand and he puts David's hand not in his, but he puts David's hand in God's.

Verse 17 says, And he said to him, Do not fear, for the hand of Saul, my father, shall not find you.

You shall be king over Israel.

I shall be next to you.

Saul, my father, also knows this.

This isn't a pep talk.

This is instead Jonathan telling David what God had already said.

God promised you a throne.

God is going to keep you.

The promise is still standing, even though you're in the dirt where you cannot see it.

This is God's doing.

The throne is yours.

I've shared many times before from this stage.

If you've been here in United City, about 10 years ago, I was involved in a pretty serious burn accident.

What I haven't shared as much about is what happened after that in my recovery of that accident, that medical situation.

I went into a state of pretty bad depression.

It was not something I'd ever experienced before.

It was something that was very disorienting.

It was something that was very difficult.

Because, on the one hand, I knew what I was supposed to do.

Like I knew what coaching and what uh what what instruction I would give to somebody else.

It just didn't feel like it worked for me.

Like I knew all the verses.

I could preach on the verses in that time.

But they just didn't feel real.

I had a buddy of mine who called me one day.

The guy was not a pastor, he wasn't a staff member or anything like that.

He was just a guy in the church that had become a really good friend.

He said, Hey man, can I take you to coffee?

He knew that I was in the middle of it.

We got there to coffee, and he just honestly didn't say a whole lot.

He just listened.

While I just kind of walked him through what I was thinking, some of the really weird thoughts that were coming into my mind, and just some of the things I was wrestling through that made no sense, but I couldn't stop thinking.

And he just listened.

And then at the end of it, he said, Man, can I pray for you?

It's like, yeah.

So we just prayed.

Nothing magical happened at the end of the prayer.

Man, it just felt really good.

Then he said, Man, I I've got a couple of scriptures that have been really key for me.

Can I quote these verses to you?

And he began to quote scriptures that I had memorized, but they just sounded different that day.

He said, Chris, I don't really know this is gonna go.

I just know this to be true.

God is really good.

God is in total control.

And you can trust me.

I remember not snapping out of it, and all of a sudden I was just normal and everything was just right, none of those things.

But it did feel like in that moment I hit the bottom and I started to go back the other direction.

Here's the gift that he gave me.

He didn't show up and be like, bro, you got this.

You're good.

We'll get through this together, man.

I promise you, we'll get it.

All of that stuff would have sounded really good, and I'd have dismissed it, knowing that's not true.

He didn't grab my hand and put it in his.

What's come to mind is people that you know that are in the middle of something right now.

They're in the middle of the wilderness, feeling like nobody's gonna be helped.

They're finding themselves at a place in the dirt where they've got nothing to offer anybody else, but man, they need help.

Some of you need to be a Jonathan to somebody else this week.

You need to go fight for them.

You need to go find the truth out and speak that truth to them.

You need to grab their hand and lead it towards God.

Go back to that robe.

I mentioned to you Jonathan.

1 Samuel 18, he laid aside all of the things that he had the inheritance of.

He rightly was his, and he willingly gave it over to the shepherd.

What I want you to know is this there's another one who laid aside a robe.

He had every right to wear.

He came down out of a throne room, he went into the wilderness after people who had nothing to give him.

He took the spear along the way.

And three days later, he got up out of a grave.

He defeated sin and death, he paid the penalty for your sins, and he's now come to offer you forgiveness today.

And if that wasn't good enough, he not only offers you forgiveness, he also offers for you to be his friend.

You can do that today by giving your life to Jesus, by receiving his mercy, by receiving his grace, by moving your trust from yourself.

Instead, moving it into him.

Would you bow your heads and close your eyes with me all across this room?

Online, would you do the same?

This is the most important time of our service.

It's not a time to duck out early.

This is a time to lock in and focus.

It's time for us to do business with the Lord.

We're all about public next steps here at United City.

And some of you need to do just that.

Because Jesus came into the wilderness to rescue you.

There was a spear that was meant for you, but Jesus stepped in.

He took that spear.

He died on a cross, paid a sacrificial death on a cross for you and for me.

He rose from the dead three days later, defeating the power of sin and the power of death.

And he allowed all of his righteousness, all of his goodness, all of his perfection.

And he laid it aside so that he could give it to you.

So that you could put on the royal garments.

So that you could be a child of the King.

So that you could have the guarantee of an inheritance.

Have you ever received that gift of a relationship with Jesus?

Have you ever come to the end of yourself and put your trust and faith in him?

I want to invite you to do that right where you are.

Just pray these simple words right where you're seated.

In your heart.

Dear God, I know that I'm a sinner.

I know that I am lost.

I'm in need of a rescue.

But I believe you sent your son Jesus to do just that to rescue me.

I believe he died on a cross.

I believe he rose from the dead.

I right now I receive his gift of eternal life.

I put on his robe.

I claim his victory as my own.

It's in the name of Jesus that I pray.

Man, what an amazing time that we had today.

Hey, if you know of someone that needs to hear this message, we'd love for you to share that on socials.

We'd love for you to actually go and check out our socials so you can stay up to date on everything happening in the life of United City.

And if you need to take the next step, we'd love to help you do that as well.

Love you guys so much.

We'll see you next week.