Nobody Saved Him a Seat | Pastor Chris Kouba

And it is good to be back.

I've been out a little bit uh and it is just so good to be back in the room and to be worshiping with my church.

Man, I love my church.

I really do.

I love the people of this church.

I love this place.

I love the gift, the opportunity, and the privilege that you give me to be able to stand up in front of you and to be able to deliver God's word.

And I'm excited to be able to be back and to be able to do that uh today.

For those of you who don't know, I've been out a little bit on the sabbatical.

I'm just so, so, so grateful.

I'm grateful for a church that many years ago had the vision to be able to put a sabbatical policy in place for a pastor that they didn't know one day was going to be able to take it.

I'm grateful for uh to be able to be here long enough to have qualified to receive it.

Uh I got to be here for seven years and that put the sabbatical policy in place.

And uh I just am so, so thankful for the time that I got uh to be away.

I I drove immediately from here up to the mountains of Colorado, which is kind of my place uh that I love to go, got to spend a week uh by myself, uh, which was a really, really interesting time.

About three days in, I was tired of being with myself.

Uh, but it was really, really good.

Uh I I slept more that first week than I probably have in 30 years.

Uh I had no idea how tired I was.

Just physically tired.

And just to be able to rest was such a gift.

Most of my afternoons spent something like this.

I got to hike a little bit and go explore a little bit, some different places, which was super fun to be able to get to do.

The second week, uh Hillary came up and she got to join me, which was just an amazing time to get to spend together.

We almost we've done some cool things over the years, but we usually kind of make it connected to a family vacation or connected to like a work trip.

And this was the time that we just got to do our thing and just got to spend some time together.

It was such a gift.

Uh, my family then got together.

We got to spend some time as well there in Colorado.

All of us.

Let me just tell you like I'm at the stage of life where that's really hard to get everybody together.

Like it's a it's an event in and of itself.

So that was just such an incredible time to be able to be with my family.

We got to do some ziplining and we got to do some other kind of fun stuff there in Colorado.

Got to go to family camp.

One of our favorite places in all of the world uh is to be able to go to family camp.

My daughter actually works there this summer, and she was our counselor, best counselor we've ever had.

It was incredible, uh, so much fun just to be together with that.

Uh but but most mornings, let me kind of show you a little picture of what most mornings on this sabbatical look like.

It was this.

Hillary took this whenever she was up.

Uh I got to spend every morning just by myself reading, praying, thinking, journaling, just wanting to hear from the Lord.

Uh and I I can't begin to describe to you how thankful I am for that gift.

Um, it's interesting.

I've had a couple people asking me, it's like, don't you usually take some time off in July?

What was different about a sabbatical?

What exactly is that?

Well, a couple things.

One, it was longer than normal, so that was one thing.

Uh, but the second thing is that the church cut off my email and they gave me a burner phone.

And so literally the only people who had access to that number were my immediate family and two people here at church that were only going to call me in the case of an emergency and they never called.

Folks, can I just begin to describe to you what that did for my soul?

Um, I've been the pastor since I've been in fifth grade.

Fifth grade, I felt like God called me to the ministry.

That's all I've ever known.

That's all I've ever done.

And I got the opportunity for a little while not to have to be the pastor, to just be Chris and just to be with the Lord and to spend time with him.

And what I realized is this, I'm not saying this is the case for you, but I'm saying I realize this is the case for me.

I thought that I was really, really good when it came to technology in my phone in terms of boundaries.

What I realized is that I am radically addicted to my phone.

When you I had all these ideas or I had thoughts or I had suggestions, and guess what?

Whenever you go to reach your phone and there's nobody that cares to call, you you tend to put it down, and guess what happens?

You begin to actually sit still, and silence became something that was a gift, that was a blessing.

Um, what I what I would tell you is this, church, I believe God wants to walk with us.

I believe God wants to be near us.

I believe God speaks to us.

But for me, the noise that I have become addicted to crowds out that voice.

And I confess to you today, I want to make sure you hear me and keep me accountable.

I have already put many things in place.

I will have a radically different relationship with my phone going forward for the rest of my life.

I firmly believe that while it is helpful in so many ways, the ability to be always connected keeps you from ever being connected to the actual source that matters.

One of the things I expected and hoped in this sabbatical time was that I thought God would give me revelation.

You know what I mean?

Like here's the next hill that we need to go tackle, and here's the vision that we need to go and do as a church, and here's the next big thing that you need to do for your family.

And I was, I mean, I listed these things out at the beginning of the time saying, God, give me revelation on these certain things.

And what I discovered in the midst of the quietness and the solitude of being with him was that he didn't give me revelation, he gave me an invitation.

The invitation was this we should do this more often.

You should hang with me.

Like I want to walk with you.

Yeah, there's big things that we need to go do, and that's all great, but at the end of the day, who cares if you gain the whole world and you forfeit your soul?

Church, that invitation is a gift.

It's a gift that God gave to me, and I just want to thank you for giving me the freedom to be away long enough to hear that invitation from the Lord.

Grab your Bibles, open them up with me to 1 Samuel chapter 16.

1 Samuel 16 · chapter mention

1 Samuel chapter 16 is where we're gonna be today.

1 Samuel 16 · chapter mention

We're starting a brand new sermon series called The King's Table, and we're gonna be looking at some leadership lessons from the life of King David.

We're gonna be exploring uh King David, not as the warrior who fought Goliath.

We know of David as that.

We're not gonna be looking at David as the poet, the songwriter who wrote so many of the psalms.

We're instead gonna look at David as the leader.

And we're gonna see how David had people around him that influenced and shape who he became as a leader.

I want you to have this image in your mind of a king sitting at the end of a table.

And there's multiple seats that get outlined at that table, and the king has the right to choose who gets to sit at the table.

And if you're at the table, here's what it means: you get influence, you get the ability to have a say, you get the ear of the king, you get the chance to be able to guide some of the things that he's thinking about himself and about others and about his leadership.

And so, what I want us to see is who do you let at that table?

Because here's what I know to be true.

You all have a table that you sit at, and you're in charge of that table, and you get to decide who gets a seat at your table, meaning this: who's gonna influence you?

Who's gonna direct you?

Who's gonna guide you?

And what David begins to show us is a very important thing that all of us as leaders get to choose who sits around us.

Some of you are like leaders.

I'm not a leader, are you kidding me?

I I barely slept last night.

I've been drinking gas station coffee.

I'm just trying to stay awake during this message today.

That's what I'm talking about.

Folks, please hear me.

All of you are leaders.

All of you.

Some of you are leaders in your businesses, some of you are leaders in your schools, some of you are leaders in your classes, some of you are leaders at home.

You got little people that that are with underneath you that you get to lead every single day.

Some of you are leaders in this church, all of you lead at a minimum yourself.

And so the question you have to ask is what kind of leader am I going to be?

And the way we're going to determine that is who are the people I'm going to allow to sit at my table to influence me as the leader.

We're going to look at six different relationships in the life of King David.

Today we're going to look at Saul, who or Samuel rather, who anointed him.

Next week we're going to look at Jonathan, who befriended him.

We're going to then see Saul, who attacked and sabotaged him.

We're going to look at Absalom, his own family member who betrayed him.

We're going to look at Bathsheba, who ended up exposing him.

And then we're going to look at Nathan, the one who ultimately came to help restore King David.

And I want you to consider who are the people that are running with you, sitting with you at your table.

I want you to open up your journals to page four, and I want you to write down this principle, which basically serves as a guide for the whole six weeks of the series.

Okay?

If I could summarize everything in one sentence, here would be the next six weeks.

Is this healthy leaders do not lead alone.

Healthy leaders do not lead alone.

You were never supposed to do this by yourself.

The way that we say it here at United City is we're better together.

That's not just a catchy slogan or something that we put on a picture out in the lobby.

It is the actual way that God has wired us to live in relationships.

So the question is: who are we sitting with?

Who are we allowing to be near us?

Today we're going to start with Samuel, the first man who ever saw something in King David.

And here's the main bottom line takeaway that I want you to get for this message today.

It's this.

Write this down.

Leaders need someone who sees what God sees in them.

Leaders need someone who sees what God sees in them.

Not someone who likes your post.

Not someone who's impressed by your numbers.

But somebody who looks at you and sees what God sees.

And then has the guts and the ability to say it out loud.

Let me tell you about a 16-year-old kid in Venezuela.

The Houston Astros were doing a tryout.

They had about 50 to 60 different people that came out for this particular tryout in Venezuela.

And they all fielded and they hit and they ran and they did all the times and all that kind of stuff.

And there was this one kid who was doing his normal thing.

But then at the end of the day, the coaches looked at him and they sent him home and said, There's no reason for you to come back.

It wasn't because he was slow.

It wasn't because he couldn't hit.

It wasn't because he couldn't field.

It was because he was too short.

He's only like five and a half feet tall.

And so, in light of that, in baseball terms, that means you're just, you have no ability whatsoever.

And so they sent him home.

The kid went home, 16-year-old.

He was disappointed.

He was sad and upset about being sent home.

And his dad convinced him, well, just go back tomorrow.

Just go back and see what happens.

So he goes back the next day, goes through all the drills, just like everybody else.

And there was one scout named Al Pedriki.

Al Padriki saw something in this kid and thought, I think this kid's actually got something.

And so they decided to take a flyer on him and they decided to go and sign him.

And they went down to meet with him and his family, this 16-year-old kid, and they were trying to offer the littlest amount of money that they possibly could.

And the kid said, If you'll just give me a chance, I'll prove to you that I could play.

So the Astros signed him for$15,000.

His name's Jose Altuve.

He's a two-time World Series winner.

He's an MVP of the league.

Arguably the best Houston Astro of all time.

Here's what's interesting his talent didn't get better the second day than it did the first.

Exact same player.

The difference was somebody saw something in him and had the guts to say it out loud, and it changed everything.

Here's the truth.

Most of us feel more like the kid who's being measured, as opposed to the guy who's standing there with the World Series trophy.

You're not asking to be famous.

You just want someone to see the potential in you.

Like you find yourself at a place and you're like, man, I know there's something there, but nobody else seems to notice it.

I want to go ahead and tell you this up front in this message.

God does not see you that way.

Some of you are working so hard to prove yourself to the Lord so that the Lord will look down favorably on you.

And I want to tell you this up front, he already does.

He already looks at you and doesn't see you as a project with potential, maybe.

Instead, he looks at you and he says, No, I see something in you because I'm working in you.

And he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.

What I want to show you is a passage of scripture where God flips the normal measuring stick that most people use when it comes to whether we're good enough or not, and he flips it upside down and he shows you what he really cares about.

It's 1 Samuel chapter 16, one of the most famous passages in all of the Bible.

1 Samuel 16 · chapter mention

Let me set the scene for you.

There is King Saul.

Saul had been anointed the king of Israel.

Saul was Israel's first king.

He was tall, he was handsome, he looked the part of being a king.

The tallest man in Israel, though, found himself in a situation where he came up short multiple times.

Because God had told him what to do, and instead of just doing it obediently, following God as the ultimate rule and authority, he took matters into his own hands and he did it his way.

So as a result of that, he was disqualified from being king.

There was this prophet named Samuel.

Samuel was the one who had anointed Saul.

He's the one who had mentored Saul.

He's the one who had poured himself into Saul.

And so therefore, Samuel was so disappointed because he now looks up and Saul has disqualified himself.

And so what we see is that in the middle of this whole situation, we see that God has said, There's enough of having Saul as your leader.

I'm going to anoint somebody new to be the next king.

Pick up with me in 1 Samuel chapter 16, beginning in verse 1.

1 Samuel 16 · chapter mention

It says, The Lord said to Samuel, How long will you grieve over Saul, since I have rejected him from being king over Israel?

Fill your horn with oil and go.

I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided there for myself a king among his sons.

Here's an interesting setup here.

God's first words to Samuel are a question.

How long are you going to grieve over Saul?

He's saying, Samuel, I know that your heart is broken.

I know that you poured into the sky and it didn't work out.

But guess what?

I'm not done working in people's lives.

I'm not done working in Israel.

He's saying, it's time for you to stop grieving what was and instead embrace what God says can be.

Folks, some of you need to hear that word today.

Because some of you are still grieving the peak of what you thought was what your past was.

And instead of you allowing God to give you a new future, you're still grieving over what was in the past.

What God desires to do is something new.

What God desires to do is something fresh.

What God desired to do is to allow his glory to be shown.

And so you need to move on and instead embrace what God is about to do.

You can imagine Samuel was scared because Saul's still alive, which means this if Saul finds out that Samuel is going to be anointing a new king while he is still the king, you can imagine what that means.

That means he is a dead man.

So God gives him an out.

He says, Go make a sacrifice in Bethlehem and go find this guy named Jesse and go line up all of his sons.

And I've got one of his sons that are going to be the guy.

And that's what we see take place.

Pick up with me in verse 6.

It says, When they came, he looked on Eliab and thought, Surely the Lord's anointed is before him.

Eliab was the oldest of all of Jesse's sons.

He's tall, which means he looks just like Saul.

Like by all accounts, like this is the guy.

In fact, we even see that the prophet of the Lord even says, Surely this guy's it.

Surely this is the one.

And watch what he does, God does in verse 7, which the whole message hinges on this verse.

Look at what it says.

But the Lord said to Samuel, Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him.

For the Lord sees not as man sees.

Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.

The message is clear.

People look on the outside, God looks on the heart.

So he's told that Eliad, the oldest, the tallest, the most impressive, is not going to be the king.

So he brings out the next one, and all of a sudden we see this parade start.

Nope, he's not the one.

Son number three, which is Shema, nope, he's not the one.

They go all the way through the list.

All seven of the sons that are presented there before Samuel, none of them are the chosen ones.

And now it's awkward.

It's awkward for Jesse, the dad, because he had this great presentation of all of his sons, and basically Samuel said, No, none of them are it.

It's awkward for Samuel because he'd been told by God that he was going to find a son from the ones of Jesse, and he'd gone through all of the sons that he knew of, and no one was there.

So look at what happens in verse 11.

And Samuel said to Jesse, Are all your sons here?

And he said, There remains yet the youngest, but behold, he is keeping the sheep.

And Samuel said to Jesse, I love this.

Send and get him, for we will not sit down till he comes here.

Jesse got everything right ready for the prophet of God.

And catch what Samuel says in verse 11.

We're not going to sit down until that youngest son comes in and comes in from the field.

Nobody takes a seat.

Jesse had cleaned everybody up, lined them up, and think about this.

He did not even send for David.

His own father did not think enough of him to invite him to the show to see whether he would be the next king.

David was so far down on the list that nobody saved him a seat at the table.

Where was he?

He was out in the field.

He was doing the job that nobody wanted.

He was doing the job that nobody saw.

His payment was paid in dirt and sunburn and smelly animals.

And God says, That's the one.

Go get him.

Nobody sits down until this forgotten kid gets here.

Look at what verse 12 says.

And he sent and brought him in.

Now he was ruddy and had beautiful eyes and was handsome.

And the Lord said, Arise, anoint him, for this is he.

Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers.

And the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon David from that day forward.

And Samuel rose up and went to Ramah.

In one moment, we see that the forgotten one became the chosen one.

The kid that nobody invited gets the oil poured over his head, and the Spirit of God, it says in verse 13, rushes over him.

I'm going to give you three things that I want you to take away from this story.

I want you to write these down.

These are so important.

First one is this God sees what man misses.

God sees what man misses.

Like everybody in the room was betting on Iliad, the oldest son.

Like the prophet was even, Samuel was like, just assumed it was it.

Tall, strong, looked like leadership.

And here's the reason.

Because we have a tendency to look at man and others on the outside.

We can't help it.

We look at their resume, we look at their highlight reel, we look at their title, we look at their follower account.

But that's all that the outside gives us.

But God reads a file that we can't even open.

He looks at the heart.

Which should do two things.

Number one, it should free you.

Some of you are worn out managing the image.

You're worn out managing the performance.

The version of you that you put out for everybody.

You're trying as hard as you can to make sure it's the best picture of all of the selfies and the pictures that you took.

Because you don't want to show the bad stuff.

You only want to show the good stuff.

And it's exhausting.

It may put yourself at a place where you just don't even know who you are.

You just know the stylized image of perfection that you put forward to everyone else.

And I want you to know this God already sees past all of that.

He has the ability to look past your profile, and he has the ability to look into your heart.

And he sees you.

And he still chooses you.

And he still loves you.

And he still wants to be with you.

The second thing, though, this should do is it should change how you see other people.

Because here's the deal: I do it too.

We all do the same thing.

We we do the same thing Samuel does.

We look one look and we decide who somebody is.

The quiet new hire that gets hired at the office, we just write them off.

They don't have anything to contribute.

The awkward 15-year-old, we just assume that they've already peaked.

We pick Eliabs while God is in the field with the Davids.

And because of that, we've got to have a whole different mindset when it comes to our evaluation of others.

And not just assume that the surface tells the whole story.

Not just assume that the cover tells us about what's inside the book.

There is a David that you have not saved a seat before.

And what I want to encourage you to do today is to look again as to who it is that you've written off that you need to bring in.

Second thing I want you to see from this pastor is not only that God sees what man misses, number two, formation happens in the hidden season.

Formation happens in the hidden season.

If you've ever been measured and then you've been sent home before you got a chance, this next one's for you.

Because formation happens in that hidden behind the scenes season.

Let me ask you, look at verse 13.

When the spirit rushed on David in verse 13, was that the moment that David became a leader?

No.

No question, something real happened there in that moment.

There's no question about it.

But God had already been building the man for years out in the field when nobody was watching.

Think about that field.

David learned to worship when he was completely by himself.

He's out there singing, he's out there worshiping, he's out there reflecting and thinking about his God, just a kid, a harp, and the stars.

He learned courage out in that field when a lion would come up towards the sheep and he had to make the decision am I gonna run away or am I gonna fight against that lion?

And in those moments when nobody else was looking, he learned courage.

He learned faithfulness.

And he's guarding the sheep that he may never own, day after day after day, with no scoreboard and no applause.

Look at the end of verse 13.

It says the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon David from that day forward, and Samuel rose up and went to Rama.

So Samuel anoints David and then goes home.

You want to know where David went after he got this great this great anointing?

We find in verse 19 he went back to the field.

So I don't want you to miss this.

There was no coronation.

There was no fanfare.

There was just, you're gonna be the next king.

And David goes right back to where he came from, which was the field.

Folks, those shepherd years were not wasted time.

They were God's curriculum.

The field that he was in was his classroom.

God was not parking David until something better came along.

He was forming him through the thing that in his mind probably felt like nothing.

And here's where everybody always gets it backwards.

The assumption is that God anoints people as a leader when they get the oil poured on them, meaning this.

We think that God now somehow is working in my life whenever I get the promotion, whenever I get the opportunity, whenever I get the position that I've always wanted.

What you don't realize is this God had been working in the past for years, long before David ever had a title.

And God is doing the same exact thing in your life.

Some of you feel like you're in a wilderness season.

You feel like you are you're going up against the grain.

You feel like you're in a place where you know God's called you, you know God's leading you, you know God's working in you, but nobody else seems to know.

It's as though somehow the answering machine isn't working, and nobody seems to notice you.

And what I want to plead and tell you is this you are not being punished, you are being prepared.

God is building you for something that you cannot see around the corner.

The field that you are in is not a waste, it is actually the training ground that God has you in because he loves you, because he believes in you, because he sees something in you, so that he can get glory through your life.

Final thing I want you to see.

Somebody has to call you in from the field.

Somebody has to call you in from the field.

Go back to the scene.

David is out there with his sheep, been faithful for years.

God's been forming him this whole time in the background.

But David is not going to anoint himself.

He's not standing in the pasture saying, I says the Lord is gonna use me and I'm gonna go through and be used.

That's not how it works.

He had to have a Samuel, he had to have somebody that showed up with a horn of oil and eyes to see what God saw.

Samuel did not create anything in David, the gift was already there.

God just put him out there, uh, God just put it in him out there, but Samuel named it, he called it out loud, he poured the oil, and he said, Out of everybody in this house, you are the one.

Jose Altuve couldn't have signed himself.

He had to have Al Pedrique say, Hey man, we'll give you a shot.

I see something in you.

And then all of a sudden, the gifts that were already there got to be unlocked.

Here's the bottom line Leaders need someone who sees what God sees in them.

Leaders need a same.

Let me tell you how I know this is true.

I've experienced it in my own life.

Uh I worked at a church in the Dallas area for almost two decades.

Started out as a resident, as an intern, uh, and began just to move around in different positions, got kind of moved into an associate pastor uh type position along the way, and uh began to uh do all kinds of things at the church, whatever really they needed me to do.

And but for the most part, I would tell you that the majority of the tasks that I was being asked to do in the various roles were more administrative.

There's nothing wrong with that.

We need a lot of folks that are very administrative in order to help uh uh equip the saints to do the work of the ministry at the church.

But I felt called by God to preach and to lead since fifth grade, and I knew it.

Like I was assured of it.

In fact, I've never been assured of anything as much in my life as that.

And so I found myself at a place where, to be honest with you, I felt like I was in the field.

I felt like I was doing a lot, but I didn't feel like anybody was noticing.

I didn't feel like anybody was utilizing the gifts that I thought that God had given to me and the passions that He began to stir in me.

And I just I was trying to stay faithful where I was, but I but I also just kind of had this discontent a little bit of just like, God, I want to be doing more.

I want to be doing what I feel like you've called me to do.

And I even tried to force the door open a couple of times and it never really worked, and it was just obvious that that just wasn't the right time.

I found myself 10, 12 years in or so, I don't know exactly the time frame, when uh I was away at a conference or a mission trip.

I'm not even sure exactly where I was.

And we had started a campus at the church there, and I was put in charge of that campus, but again, what was primarily seen as just sort of an administrator of what was taking place there.

I wasn't really being asked to speak or lead or anything like that.

I was just kind of facilitating, making sure things took place.

Uh and while I was away on this trip, the church had a meeting with the leadership of the church and some of the leaders on the ground at the campus, uh, and they began to discuss the future of what this campus was gonna look like.

And uh unbeknownst to me, I wasn't invited, I wasn't even invited to the meeting, I was out of town.

There were two men at that meeting, JD Ferguson and Steve McCormick.

And both of these guys spoke up at the meeting.

They decided that they were gonna transition that the campus from being one that was just gonna uh basically be more in an administrative role, and they needed somebody that could maybe do more of the preaching, and they could do somebody that could do more of the hands-on leading and more of the forward-facing of the ministry.

And J.D.

Ferguson and Steve McCormick said, You got your guy, it's Chris Kuba.

He's your guy.

I've never had a conversation with J.D.

Ferguson, and I never had a conversation with Steve McCormick about this.

I knew those guys extremely well.

I counted them as mentors and friends, but I never complained to them.

I never told them that this is what I wanted, but I'm not getting it.

Would you say something if you ever had an opportunity?

I never even thought that opportunity would ever come.

Yet here I am, totally away, not even able to be there.

And these two guys spoke up on my behalf.

I came back from that trip and everything in my job changed.

I got called into a meeting and said, Hey, here's what we're gonna do.

I began to preach on a consistent basis.

I began to have a way more leadership and influence in the midst of that campus, and I'm convinced today that I'm standing here in front of you.

And part of the reason why I'm able to do what I'm able to do is because of JD Ferguson and Steve McCormick.

Here's what's wild.

I didn't even know about it until years later.

I had no idea what happened.

I thought, man, man, finally everybody starts seeing what's real big about me, you know?

And here's what I began to realize.

No, that's not at all what happened.

What happened was I had two guys, two Samuels, who God had put a burden on their heart, speak up in the right place to say, This is what I see in Chris.

Because this is what God is doing in him.

And everything changed.

Every one of you need a Samuel.

You need someone who doesn't just see your function, but who sees your future.

You need someone who can pull the best out of you because they believe in you.

Not because you're anything special, but because they see God's hand on you.

They know that God is moving and he's working, and this is what Samuel did.

He saw the king inside the shepherd, and the shepherd eventually became the king.

Let me close with two practical questions.

First one is this Do you have a Samuel?

Not a friend, not a follower, someone older, someone wiser, someone further down the road, who knows the real you and speaks to who God is making you to be.

I'm not talking about a yes man who tells you what you want to hear.

I'm talking about someone who sees God's hand in your life.

Who looks, doesn't look at you like the forgotten shepherd kid, but instead looks at you and says, I see it.

God put something in you.

Get up.

It's time.

If you have this person, here's your assignment this week.

Call them.

Don't text them, call them.

Tell them what their voice has meant to you.

We save our best words for funerals when the person can't hear them.

Don't do that.

Call them and tell them, thank you.

Thank you for speaking up for me.

Thank you for for advocating for me.

Thank you for calling out what I believe God's been doing in my life.

If you don't have one, stay faithful and ask the Lord to give you someone.

It might be somebody in this room.

It might be somebody in your small group.

It might be somebody totally random that you aren't exactly thinking about.

Please hear me.

Your job is not to force the door open.

Your job is to put your head down and stay faithful while you are in the field.

It is God's job to call you out.

So be faithful today.

Be faithful this week.

Be faithful to what God has called you to do.

Second question I have for you.

This might be the bigger one.

Are you being a Samuel for somebody else?

Because somewhere near you, there's a David in a field who's waiting for one person to call him out.

What I'm going to ask you to do is to make it specific.

If you got somebody on your team who's doing a great job at work, let me just ask you, don't just say, hey, you're doing a really good job.

You speak up for them.

You speak life to them.

You go to them and you tell them, I see this, these specific things that you do.

And I just want you to know you change our company because of that and allow you to be the Samuel in their life.

Maybe you got a teammate.

Maybe you got a friend who just feels like they're pressing away and it doesn't mean anything, and no one's even noticing, and they just need you to call them up and just say, Hey, I just want you to know I see what you're doing.

And I thank you.

God's gonna honor that.

I believe in you.

Parents, you got teenagers who are about to head back to school.

Can I just tell you this?

They got plenty of critics.

They got plenty of people who tell them what they're not.

They got plenty of things and their devices that are gonna allow them to compare themselves with somebody else.

You be the parent that speaks life into those kids.

You be the one that tells them what you see God doing in their lives.

You be the one that builds them up who doesn't join the chorus to tear them down.

Leaders need someone who sees what God sees in them.

You need a Samuel.

Somebody out there needs you to be theirs.

Here's the good news.

Perhaps the best news of all.

If there's ever any person who saw something in you, God saw it first.

He saw you in the field.

He saw you and nobody noticed.

He saw the real you.

He saw the heart under all the performance and he did not write you off.

In fact, the Bible says this, he actually sent his son on a rescue mission on the cross to come and get the forgotten kid that's in the field.

This is the gospel.

God refusing to leave you out there alone.

He did not come for you because you earned it or because you were impressive.

He came because he loves you.

In fact, the Bible says this that all of us are sinners, all of us have fallen short.

None of us qualify to be chosen, but God sent his one and only Son, Jesus, to die on a cross, taking your sins upon himself.

Folks, it's that invitation that changes everything.

It gives you the reason to serve, it gives you the reason to sacrifice, it gives you the reason to lead, it gives you the ability to walk closely with him.

So let me ask you: have you ever received the gift of salvation?

Have you ever transferred your trust from yourself and instead receive the one who came to find you?

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

Today I want to invite you to receive Jesus as your Lord and Savior.

To be a great leader, you have to first be a great follower.

Follower of Jesus.

We believe that every single person has one.

And so for some of you, what you need to do is not just try to white knuckle it and be better.

What you need to do is to receive the grace and the mercy and the forgiveness of Jesus.

Others of you need to come and join United City Church.

God is leading you to make this your church home, a place where you believe and you belong.

If God's leading you in that way, would you come and lead the way today?

Maybe others of you need to come and be baptized.

We're baptizing forward in our next service, making a public testimony of their faith.

If that's your next step today, would you come forward and let us talk with you and schedule that way?

Maybe others of you need to come and pray.

Maybe you recognize that you've been trying to do it all by yourself.

Maybe you would say that, you know, I find myself just overwhelmed.

I feel like I'm in the field and I feel like I'm losing steam.

I feel like I don't have anything left.

Would you come and let us pray for you?

God sees you.

We want to lift up that situation before the Lord.

Maybe some of you have people that you know you need to make right.

Maybe that you know you need to call up and call out.

Maybe that you need to speak what God is saying to them and let you be the vessel.

But maybe you need courage, would you come and let us pray?

Maybe you've got another need of any kind.

Would you come and let us pray with and pray for you?

Father, I pray that you would move in these final moments that we have left together.

Lead people to make life-changing decisions for you.

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

Amen.

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, and we'll see you next week.