Heart of Kings - David 15: Saul Spared Twice

Thanks, Zach.

Morning, church.

All right, here now the word of the true and living God, 1 Samuel 24, 8 through 15.

Afterward, David also arose and went out of the cave and called after Saul, my Lord the King.

And when Saul looked behind him, David bowed with his face to the earth and paid homage.

And David said to Saul, Why do you listen to the words of men who say, Behold, David seeks your harm.

Behold, this day your eyes have seen how the Lord gave you today into my hand in the cave.

And some told me to kill you, but I spared you.

I said, I will not put out my hand against my Lord, for he is the Lord's anointed.

See my father, see the corner of your robe in my hand, for by the fact that I cut off the corner of your robe and did not kill you, you may know and see that there is no wrong or treason in my hands.

I have not sinned against you, though you hunt my life to take it.

May the Lord may the Lord judge between me and you.

May the Lord avenge me against you, but my hand shall not be against you.

As the proverb of the ancients says, out of the wicked comes wickedness, but my hand shall not be against you.

After whom has the king of Israel come out?

After whom do you pursue?

After a dead dog, after a flea.

May the Lord therefore be judge and give sentence between me and you, and see to it, and plead my cause, and deliver me from your hand.

This is the word of the Lord.

Please be seated.

Good morning.

Welcome to church this morning.

My name is James Rathman.

I'm the pastor here at Redemption Church Denver.

No baby gear on me, unfortunately.

Um but Sebastian's baby is fresh.

That's a fresh baby.

Um thank you for joining us.

Uh the it looks like people are gonna be trickling in, I think, because the Cherry Creek Sneak.

Did anybody end up in Cherry Creek Sneak traffic?

Yeah.

Oh, maybe they won't be joining us.

Um the yeah, that that race uh tends to uh what's the word?

What?

Snarl traffic.

Snarl traffic.

Wow, that is now the word.

Um tends to snarl traffic.

So uh before we get started into our text this morning, uh uh wanted to make a couple of announcements.

One in particular um that is very important, so I'll save that until last.

Uh but firstly, our Gotham Fellowship is concluding.

Um that is a nine-month intensive curriculum that we offer for people in our church and other churches in the area as well.

Um, and we basically take a small cohort and we move through some of the foundational texts of Christianity.

And we do that together over basically a school year, uh, nine months, and uh this year's is wrapping up in May.

And the final thing that's done in that curriculum is called a cultural renewal project.

And the idea is that people are able to step back from their lives and see where God has placed them, and then take some time to imagine how is God calling me to redeem this area of culture that I've been, in a sense, put over by God.

And so those uh cultural renewal projects are being presented on May 4th, which is a Saturday, in the auditorium here uh at 9 a.m.

So those are great things to come check out and hear from people in our congregation how they've grown and developed and see what their hope is for how God could use their lives in our city.

Also, if you're considering joining the Gotham Fellowship for next year, which will be from August of this year until May of 2020, um, which it's bizarre to say that things are gonna happen in 2020.

We'll take our flying cars to that graduation.

And uh if you are interested, coming to this Saturday is a great way to sort of give you a taste of what that is like and help you discern if next year would be a good time to do that.

Um okay, so that's uh Gotham Fellowship.

Applications, by the way, are open for next year's.

This uh we are at a very exciting, very pivotal, very important moment for our church.

Redemption Church is a young church uh of uh coming up on just a year old.

We are birthed out of a church with a long legacy, which was L2 Church.

But at our establishment of Redemption Church, uh, what we did is we pulled together a board that would form the foundation for Redemption Church to be built off of.

That was a leadership board that we referred to as the founding board, with the intention to make the distinction between the founding board and our first group of elders.

Founding board is not a biblical distinction, uh, that is not a term that's derived from scripture.

That is something that we just sort of took the liberty to do, to establish the church logistically, so that we could arrive at this moment where we implement our first elder board.

Elders are a biblical body.

It's described, this is following the description of church governments that is laid out in Scripture, which is an elder-led church.

In 1 Timothy 3, the qualifications for elders are described, as well as in Titus 1.

And so what we're trying to do is match as closely as we can our church structure with the church structure that is described in Scripture.

So this is one of those types of Bible studies that at face value is like, well, this is incredibly boring.

Let's talk about like substitutionary atonement and let's get all of tulip right for the Bible nerds in the room.

Uh uh, but this is actually one of the most exciting things that we can look at in Scripture because we can apply it immediately.

And so we want to have a church governmental structure that can be defended from scripture.

And that's what we're looking to do.

So, one of the examples of this is that eldership elders are uh the biblical models that they are appointed by other elders.

And so Titus in Titus I is commanded by Saul to go into this town and to appoint elders.

That was his job to establish the core of these churches.

So for our church, with the situation that we are in, we have uh in trying to keep with that model, we've said we will appoint elders, and they'll be appointed by the founding board.

But that comes with input and guidance from you, the congregation.

So that's the stage that we're in now.

In uh uh January, I think it was, we uh opened up our applications for eldership, which is basically where we said, if you would like to be an elder, please submit an application uh to us.

The thinking behind having applications submitted was that in the qualifications for eldership that are listed by Paul in 1 Timothy, he begins by saying, He who desires the office of overseer desires a good thing.

And so one of the built-in sort of tripwires we wanted in our eldership process was that people would of their own accord submit an application.

And we would take that as a sort of verification that they desire this good thing, which is to desire to be an elder in the church.

And so after receiving those applications, we uh uh vetted them through an interview process.

And as a board, we want to present to you this morning the five names of our uh elder candidates.

Now, these are not yet confirmed, because we still have one more step in the process, which is what we need you for.

For uh these people, of which I'm one, uh, to be confirmed.

We will we require uh input from the congregation.

So this is that moment in our process where if you think of this as a wedding, right now we're saying speak now or forever hold your peace.

That's this part of the wedding.

That's the part of every wedding that I've done where I've said, please can I do this, please can I do this?

And the couple's like, just could you just don't do that part?

But I love that part, and I love when it seems appropriate to do, because the reason that we ask that question in a wedding is because uh it acknowledges the reality of the covenant that's about to take place.

And what that means is the entire group, the entire community that the people are being married in front of, by their silence, they're saying, once this marriage takes place, then it is my job to support it no matter what.

To say, this is something that God has created, God has joined these people together, and so in honoring that, I'm going to support this.

And so what we're asking now is for you to consider these names.

And we're asking in particular, this falls on those of you who know these individuals best.

So if you know Kyle, Ryan, John, me, Zach, and you have insight into any of our lives, blind spots that we can't see, that would disqualify us from the eldership position, we are asking you now, please speak up.

This is such an important time.

And like getting married, it is far easier to not get married on the front end than it is to get divorced.

And so we are asking you, would you please speak up at this point?

And the way that you'll do that is you'll email info at redemptiondenver.com and share, here are my concerns.

Now, it's important for us to understand as a church body that these are not uh these are not concerns that are uh to be submitted anonymously.

And the reason for that is because you aren't putting a curse on these people's lives, on our lives, if you have those concerns, but rather you are saying, I don't think now is the time for you to be in this office for the church.

And in that, there will likely bring up and be pointing to sin issues and realities in our lives.

And in a church community, those things aren't done anonymously, and those things aren't done in a corner or in a closet.

They'll be brought into the light so that we might seek reconciliation together.

So this is not an anonymous review.

We're asking you to join in the vulnerability by submitting something legitimate and real if you have it.

The elder candidates are also listed in our app with brief bios.

The bios are not really meant to sell you on the candidate, it's just more of an introduction if you uh don't know the elders yet.

And they are uh there you'll find the description for elder qualifications, which is listed in 1 Timothy.

And you'll also see a description of the four main duties of the eldership.

What are those?

So the elders are called to first of all lead.

So uh elders have certain distinctions, one of them is the ruling elder.

And the elder who rules is in charge of the structure of the church.

So we would decide things like our church is going to be structured where you can engage with us in two ways.

You gather and you gather.

So that would be an eldership decision.

Uh likewise, organizational structures.

So we would be operating under the bylaws of our church organizationally, establishing those so that our church can be healthy and move through generations of people in the elder role.

Likewise, they are called to teach and preach.

That doesn't mean every elder needs to be a preacher, but it means that the elders as a board need to designate and stand behind who is doing the teaching and the preaching, the upholding of the doctrine and the word of truth in our church.

Thirdly, they're called to model.

And that means that we, the shepherds, are called to model what a godly life looks like.

So that means we must actually be engaged in the community.

We must be engaged in a shepherding capacity in the church.

So if we are unknown in the church community, uh that means eldership isn't really happening because shepherding can't happen theoretically.

It happens with real people in the context of real relationships.

And finally, fourthly, elders are called to pray.

This is not a possible position to fulfill without being men of prayer.

And so, with those conditions in mind, with those duties in mind, and then the qualifications which you can look up in First Timothy, we'd like you to respond to us in these emails.

Um, info at Redemption Denver.

That time will close May 9th, which is this feedback period.

Um, and we will be um uh addressing these concerns as they arise with the intention of uh uh confirming the elders as a congregation on May 12th, Sunday, May 12th.

So if you have any questions about that, which you likely do, uh I'll be downstairs after and I'll have my Bible and we can we can do Bible study to figure out what eldership is.

Sound good?

Nice, thanks for clapping, Matthew.

Appreciate it.

Um let's pray.

We'll get into our text.

Father, we pray at this moment in our church that you would give us a transparency that the gospel allows.

Father, we know that our hope and our identity is grounded in you, and because of that, we can approach our lives with this honesty that wouldn't be possible elsewhere.

Lord, we approach you as our chief shepherd.

And we ask that as a congregation, you would help us discern who it is that the under-shepherd should be among us.

Father, I pray this morning you would open our word as we look at the story of David.

And would you show us the glory that you have in your word?

Father, lift us up in Jesus' name.

Amen.

So we're continuing through our story of David.

David is now a fugitive on the run from Saul.

My son is obsessed with the movie Coco.

You seen that movie?

So it's about uh a small boy in like 50s Mexico, and he's obsessed with this uh singer named Ernesto de la Cruz.

He's like the elvis of Mexico.

He's he's in he's huge.

And uh my son is so obsessed with this movie, they go, the half the movie is just skeletons because they're in the day of the dead.

It's about the day of the dead in Mexico.

And so my son, now when we we like to ask him, who's always with you?

And he says, God, God's always with me.

We taught him that.

But now he also we say, Who's always with you?

And he says, God, and spooky skeletons.

Which is a terrifying thing for your son to say.

So I'd say, as far as our discipling, our child, we're we're one-to-one.

Ernesto de la Cruz is this kid's idol.

The kid's name is Miguel, and he looks up to Ernesto so much because he's the most successful singer uh who had ever lived.

He's just beyond anything this kid could imagine.

And so the Miguel just follows to a T the philosophy that Ernesto de la Cruz lived by.

And Ernesto sums that up in this phrase, which he tells to Miguel.

He says, success doesn't come for free, Miguel.

You have to be willing to do whatever it takes to seize your moment.

And that phrase, seize your moment, at first is this inspiration towards taking creative risks and putting yourself out there creatively, bearing your soul authentically.

But then it also becomes this justification for anything, so long as you are able to get success.

You have to be willing to do whatever it takes to get success.

And our culture has a real soft spot for that type of thinking.

The type of thinking that uh it the person who does whatever it takes to get success, this is sort of a strange fluke in our language.

We call that person uncompromising.

Isn't that weird?

Because think of all that they would compromise at the altar of success, whatever that might mean for them.

And we make movies kind of celebrating these anti-heroes who will do whatever it takes to get success.

The Walter White, you know, the Winkelvoss twins had it coming.

We celebrate the ones who do whatever it takes to get success.

Today, David will have the opportunity to take success into his own hands.

And on both occasions that he's provided this opportunity, he will pass it up.

And so, in looking at David, where he has the kingdom just in his grasp, it looks like his dedication to being king.

I think if our culture would look at it, we would say, well, he's he's compromised.

He's not uncompromising in his dedication to becoming king.

But the reality is he's uncompromising in his dedication to the Lord.

And because of that, he'll compromise the kingdom.

So let's go ahead and move into our texts for the day as we see David on these three occasions be uncompromising in his dedication to the Lord.

So we're going to look at first David's encounter with Saul, his first encounter with Saul, where he has the opportunity to kill Saul, a second middle encounter with a man named Nabal, and a third encounter, which is a second encounter with Saul.

So two encounters with Saul that sort of sandwich this third encounter with a man named Nabal.

So let's go ahead and get into the first encounter with Saul.

1 Samuel 2, excuse me, 24, verses 3 through 4.

And he came to the sheepfolds by the way, where there was a cave, and Saul went in to relieve himself.

Now David and his men were sitting in the innermost parts of the cave, and the men of David said to him, Here is the day of which the Lord said to you, Behold, I will give your enemy into your hand, and you shall do to him as it shall seem good to you.

Then David arose and stealthily cut off a corner of Saul's robe.

Okay, so where are we?

We're in the wilderness of Engedi.

David has gathered together this group of men, and they are hiding from Saul.

Saul has gotten together 3,000 troops, and he is in hot pursuit after David.

They end up in the same wilderness area because Saul gets a tip that David is hiding out there.

And while they're camped close by, Saul moves in to the exact cave that David and his men were hiding in because he has to go to the bathroom.

This is a crazy moment.

God is doing something incredible with such an outrageous coincidence.

This is one of those bizarre twists of history.

That Saul walks into the cave that David is hiding in because Saul has to go to the bathroom.

It's bizarre.

Of all the gin joints in all the world.

Play it again, Saul.

That's where that goes next.

And David, David's men, they rally around him.

And they say, look, this is that moment.

You know, you've shared with us, you God's promised that you're gonna get the kingdom.

And Saul has been pursuing you, and we know it's unjust.

This is that perfect moment.

Look, God himself has given Saul into your hands.

And David starts to move towards Saul quietly, silently.

I I don't know.

And he stealthily, I do know that, and he uh Just gets close to Saul, but then he just cuts off a corner of his robe.

For some reason, at this opportunity, David just can't go all the way there.

And right when he cuts off a corner of his robe, it picks up in 24, verses 5 through 7.

And afterwards, David's heart struck him because he had cut off a corner of Saul's robe.

He said to his men, The Lord forbid that I should do this thing to my Lord, the Lord's anointed, to put out my hand against him, seeing he is the Lord's anointed.

So David persuaded his men with these words and did not permit them to attack Saul.

And Saul rose up and left the cave and went on his own way.

David's conscience, just by tearing the robe of Saul, is pierced.

He says, I can't raise my hand against the Lord's anointed.

The kingdom was given to Saul by God.

It is God's to remove it from him.

It is not mine to raise my hand against the Lord's anointed.

This would be the same as raising my hand against the Lord Himself.

And so David's hand by his own conscience is stayed.

He compromises on taking the kingdom into his own hand.

Instead, he trusts.

Now, this is that moment where Saul and David, for the first time, they speak.

Saul stands up and he leaves the cave, and David sometime waits and falls until Saul is a bit further off, and then he shouts over at Saul.

And David says to Saul, we'll pick up in 24, verses 9 through 10, David said to Saul, Why do you listen to the words of men who say, Behold, David seeks your harm?

Behold, this day your eyes have seen how the Lord gave you today into my hand in the cave.

And some told me to kill you, but I spared you.

I said, I will not put out my hand against my Lord, for he is the Lord's anointed.

Now it's important to see this language that repeats in David.

He won't put out his hand against the Lord's anointed.

That's because David has this understanding of authority that flows from the Lord.

And this kingdom that is Israel, the one who is over it, he knows, was put there by God, and he won't raise his hand against that, even though he's at this moment suffering under it.

So this might make us ask: does that mean so long as Saul is anointed, that he can just do whatever he wants?

Is the anointing of God somehow this strange license to kill?

Is there no hope of justice for or within David?

In fact, is that the Christian perspective?

Are we just supposed to resign ourselves to this reality that there won't be justice in the world, but don't fight back?

You should be a doormat like David is in this situation.

Well, no, that's not the case at all.

David continues.

He says this to Saul face to face in 1 Samuel 24, verse 12, he says, May the Lord judge between me and you.

1 Samuel 24:12

May the Lord avenge me against you, but my hand shall not be against you.

You see, David voices and makes clear a desire for real, tangible justice.

May the Lord avenge me against you.

May the Lord see what you are doing, Saul, and bring justice into this situation.

But I won't raise my hand.

I won't take God's justice into my own hands.

His desire for justice never becomes a license for disobedience.

That's the distinction that we see in David.

For many of us, our desire for justice all of a sudden becomes the way that we're able to justify in our own minds that it's okay if I turn on this person, it's okay if I hurt this person, look how they've hurt me before.

But David doesn't allow his desire for justice to become a license for disobedience.

He sees himself completely under the law of God.

And this is so important to understand because the law is ultimately reducible to these two things, which are that you love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and you love your neighbor as yourself.

And so when David is saying, I'm not gonna lift my hand against the Lord's anointed, what he's saying is I that would be to hate God.

That would be to deny the authority of God that for some reason has been placed on someone like Saul right now, but I can't lift my hand against it.

Instead, I'm just going to have to put myself in this place of humility before God and say, even though I can see from here a way that I could bring this injustice to an end just by reaching out and taking it into my own hands, David assumes God must know more than me.

Because God has put this boundary in my life, which is his law, and it causes me to love him and to demonstrate my love towards him in real, tangible ways towards other people.

And so, even though I could see, I could make the justice happen on my own, God has put a boundary here for me.

And in that boundary, he forces me to trust him.

To not resign myself that no justice will come, but to trust that God is a God of justice, and he will bring his justice, and it will be perfect, and it will be on his terms.

So, David and Saul don't reconcile.

Instead, Saul offers this false repentance, and he says, I promise I'll never seek your life again.

When God gives you the kingdom, please spare my family.

And they make this sort of agreement, but they don't reconnect with each other in any way.

Instead, they both move their separate ways.

The second encounter with Saul is a mirror to this encounter.

Almost the same exact thing happens.

But there's an encounter in between where David almost slips.

David is in the wilderness of Engedi, and his troops, which are about 600 of them, happen upon the shepherds of a very rich man named Nabal.

And Nabal has thousands of sheep and shepherds that are grazing them in the wilderness, and that's a very dangerous place to be.

And so David, while they were there, offered his shepherds food and protection and cared for Nabal's shepherds.

So now David is at a point where he requires provision and he gets word from the shepherds that they are going to the town of Carmel, which is where Nabal gathers together all his sheep to shear them.

And when David gets this word, he sends some messengers to go to Nabal and say, Hey, we've offered you this protection.

You can ask your shepherds, we've really been taking care of you.

Would you give us some provision?

And instead of uh saying, Yeah, you've offered me this protection, I'm incredibly wealthy, it would be nothing for me to give you this provision, Nabal says, David, never heard of him, don't care about him, I'm not gonna offer him anything.

So, what's David's response?

David gets word that he was rejected by Nabal, and he immediately goes to his troops and he says, Every one of you put on your sword.

There's not gonna be a man living in Nabal's house.

We're gonna go kill every one of them.

Look at how quickly David slips.

One offense, one no.

And he's willing to step outside this law and say, forget that, I'm gonna take justice into my own hands.

Sure, I could take it with Saul, but one more thing, I can't take it.

The world obviously isn't working.

There is obviously no ultimate justice in the world, because even when I'm doing good things for people, I keep getting turned on.

And immediately he slips.

Thankfully, some of the shepherds go to Nabal's wife, who's a woman named Abigail.

And Abigail is like, Nabal ruined something again.

Now Abigail's gotta go pick up the pieces.

And so Abigail gathers together a group of donkeys and uh a bunch of provision and gifts and offerings, and some people go with her, and she's like, all right, let's roll.

We gotta get to David before he gets here.

And she approaches David, and her wisdom in this passage is incredible.

The way that she gets David to put down the sword, she reminds him of God's promises to him.

Word must have made it around somehow.

But she reminds David, God will protect you.

God is the one who will vindicate you, he's the one who brings your justice into the world.

She says this in 1 Samuel 25, 30 through 31.

And when the Lord had done to my Lord according to all the good that he has spoken concerning you, and has appointed you prince over Israel, my Lord shall have no cause of grief or pangs of conscience for having shed blood without cause, or for my Lord working salvation himself.

And when the Lord has dealt well with my Lord, then remember your servant.

That's what Abigail says.

She says, think of this time when God does finally preserve you and you didn't kill all of Nabal's men, your conscience will be free because you will know you didn't take salvation into your own hands.

Instead, you trusted the Lord.

David responds to Abigail.

He says, Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who sent you this day to meet me.

Blessed be your discretion, and blessed be you who have kept me this day from blood guilt and from working salvation with my own hand.

I want you to consider what areas in your life do you think you're working salvation with your own hand?

What ways, in what relationships are you taking justice into your own hand?

This is worth considering.

Abigail and her wisdom and in God's grace towards David.

Look, David is right there.

But God holds his hand through Abigail.

Abigail goes back and Nabal is partying, and she waits until the morning and she tells him, Hey, I went and spoke with David, and he's not gonna cut, he was coming to kill you, but I turned him away.

And he becomes heart sick, and ten days later, Nabal dies.

And then David marries Abigail.

Power moves only.

So this colors David's next interaction with Saul.

Saul is pursuing David once again because his repentance was false.

And David this time gets word that Saul is close by, and so he sends in some spies to spy out the camp that Saul's army is inhabiting.

And so Saul is sleeping in the middle of the camp with his troops surrounding him.

And David goes to a trusted soldier named Abishai and he says, Okay, I've got a plan.

Let's go into Saul in the middle of the camp while they're all sleeping.

So the whole camp is asleep, and David and Abishai sneak their way in.

They Cherry Creek sneak in there, and they uh uh Abishai sees Saul sleeping with his spear next to him.

And he says, David, this is that moment that God has put him into your hands.

I I can pin him, and it'll take me one hit and it'll be done.

This is David's response to Abishai.

1 Samuel 26, 9 through 11.

David said to Abishai, 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.

And we see a repeating of the events of before.

Just as David had held up the piece of his cloak that he had cut off and said, See, I spared you.

Now he holds up Saul's own spear and says, See, I was this close to you while you were sleeping, and I spared you.

You can trust that I will be merciful to you.

David is able to move to that so quickly because he had just experienced the justice of the Lord.

That almost killing Saul and cutting off the piece of his cloak, that almost killing Nabal, that's prevented by Abigail.

And yet here, after seeing Nabal's death, David has this deep trust that God will bring justice.

And so David moves in peace.

In peace while being pursued unjustly, in peace in the midst of terrible war and strife.

David moves in peace, not because he has resigned himself in some nihilistic way that justice is impossible or will never be realized, but because he trusts that God will bring justice.

This is something deeply to be admired in David.

They have another exchange, another false repentance from Saul.

But you know, this strange thing happens that we'll look at next week.

David is freed from Saul.

What he doesn't know is this is the last time that he will ever see Saul again.

But immediately after they part ways, David becomes so filled with fear that God won't protect him, that he runs and lives with the Philistines for a couple of years hiding out.

His fear takes hold of him once again.

We're a lot like David.

We waver in our trusting in the Lord to provide his justice.

And we can even feel a sense of our own weakness in those moments where we're trusting God to bring his justice.

We can start to buy into our cultural narrative, which says, you know what you're doing by trusting the Lord?

You're actually being compromising in what God is calling you to.

How easy for David to think, you're compromising because you know God has called you to the kingdom.

So now do what a king does and kill your enemy.

Instead, he thought, I will be uncompromising to the Lord.

But you know, we have something better than David.

Because while David was tempted by his own men to take into his hands one kingdom, and he didn't take it, Jesus begins his ministry by being taken up on a hill by Satan, and Satan saying, Look at all of the kingdoms of the world, I will give these to you if only you worship me instead.

If only you compromise your worship of God.

And Jesus doesn't do it.

He denies the kingdom to worship God.

David trusts that God's justice will come down upon others.

And that's why David is obedient to the Lord.

Jesus does something far more amazing.

Jesus, in his uncompromising obedience to the Lord, trusts that God's justice will come down upon himself.

Because here is the news that we really need.

The uncompromising justice of God means that we are under that justice as well.

But in Christ, because in his obedience, he knew that God would pour out his justice on Jesus so that the death that Nabal had would be just like the death that Jesus had.

And because of that, we have a hope not just that the sins that have been done against us will one day be rectified, but that the very sins that we have committed will be forgiven.

David at this time probably couldn't imagine a hope like that.

But in Christ, we see it.

And so we're able to live with this incredible peace in the world.

Taking hits that seem perhaps like we don't care if justice is done.

But it's because we have a hope for a higher justice that allows us to fulfill the law of God, which is to love Him and to love our neighbors.

It might look naive, but it's the ultimate trust in God's justice.

So let's take one question and we'll pray.

No questions today.

As we take communion, let's remember the justice that was poured out on Christ, so that even sinners like us might hope in God's justice.

Let's look towards his obedience as inspiration, but more than that as our salvation.

Father, I pray that you would show us the glory of your gospel, that we might be able to look through it like a lens that colors these stories in the Old Testament.

And God, that we might be able to look through it to see our very own lives.

That the justice that you received on the cross might put metal in our back to be able to endure the things that you have called us to, to trust and hope in your justice.

Send abigails into our lives that might stay our hand.

Make us a body that prevents sin in each other.

For your glory, Lord.

Lift this up in Jesus' name.

Amen.