David Before Goliath ၏ စာသားမှတ်တမ်းအပြည့်အစုံ

he does some bad things, right? 00:04:25.025 --> 00:04:29.131 And God, very vocal, does not approve of these bad things, you know, 00:04:29.131 --> 00:04:34.801 and David, famous Psalm 51, where he's repenting of his bad actions, 00:04:34.801 --> 00:04:38.454 you know, which I'm sure at some point during the series, we'll do a deeper dive on. 00:04:39.127 --> 00:04:43.965 But even after all the things he goes through and how at kind of the tail end 00:04:43.965 --> 00:04:48.835 of his story, he's not really like you don't really ever see him bounce back, you know. 00:04:49.723 --> 00:04:52.825 But even despite the fact that you don't really ever see him bounce back from 00:04:52.825 --> 00:04:58.625 his mistakes, what you see in the New Testament is he still looked back as a 00:04:58.625 --> 00:04:59.775 man after God's own heart. 00:04:59.775 --> 00:05:04.605 Yeah. I mean, they're like the big figures of the Old Testament that like when 00:05:04.605 --> 00:05:08.515 the Jewish people are thinking of the Messiah, you know, basically going, 00:05:08.515 --> 00:05:11.327 oh, we need the good old days back. There's like two people. 00:05:11.577 --> 00:05:13.243 It's Moses and it's David. 00:05:13.795 --> 00:05:16.555 And, you know, and they're like, if only we had a leader like Moses, 00:05:16.555 --> 00:05:20.925 if only we had a leader like David again, like the two most powerful kind of 00:05:20.925 --> 00:05:24.123 people, some of the most powerful people in their history. 00:05:24.448 --> 00:05:27.530 Right. So there's a reason he's looked back at like that. He's flawed. 00:05:28.006 --> 00:05:33.445 He's got problems. He makes a lot of mistakes. But at the same time, 00:05:33.445 --> 00:05:38.215 you know, the Lord clearly sees in him and we see in him as we will experience 00:05:38.215 --> 00:05:40.794 the story that he has a heart for God. 00:05:41.084 --> 00:05:44.655 And even though he makes these mistakes and he's flawed and he falls down and 00:05:44.655 --> 00:05:48.695 messes up, he's repentant. The Lord restores him over and over again. 00:05:50.270 --> 00:05:53.435 And he has this, you know, he pays for a lot of those mistakes, 00:05:53.435 --> 00:05:58.056 too. He takes his lumps. Even the king is not above the judgment of God, right? 00:05:58.161 --> 00:05:58.445 That's right. 00:05:58.445 --> 00:06:01.725 That's a big theme of his story. What I really like about David, 00:06:01.725 --> 00:06:07.628 though, just to put it up front, is I really admire that David is like a visionary. 00:06:07.930 --> 00:06:14.623 Like, in his story, there's a lot of things that happen that go on way beyond his rule. 00:06:14.998 --> 00:06:19.335 You know, for instance, he's like, I just have this image in my head when I 00:06:19.335 --> 00:06:24.445 read the story of David sitting in his throne room, right? In this big kind 00:06:24.445 --> 00:06:28.772 of sort of temple castle kind of thing he's in, right? Yeah. 00:06:29.459 --> 00:06:31.869 And he

goes, oh, you know, it's not fair that I have a place, 00:06:31.869 --> 00:06:33.464 but the Lord doesn't have anywhere to live. Right. 00:06:34.019 --> 00:06:38.786 So he wants to build him a temple. And the Lord says, you can't build me a temple. You're a man of blood. 00:06:39.158 --> 00:06:39.399 Yeah. 00:06:39.399 --> 00:06:42.850 Right. And he's like, but you'll have a son who'll build me a temple. 00:06:43.314 --> 00:06:46.066 You know, so David holds on to that promise. Like he doesn't pitch a fit. 00:06:46.524 --> 00:06:50.797 He's not, you know, he's like, well, you know, I mean, the Lord gets to choose who builds his house. 00:06:51.203 --> 00:06:55.199 Right. So but he sets the groundwork. He's the one who buys the place that the 00:06:55.199 --> 00:06:57.319 temple eventually gets built on. Right. 00:06:57.812 --> 00:07:02.125 And he sets up his successor to build the Lord's temple. Right. 00:07:03.061 --> 00:07:07.339 In the same way, you know, David is the one who gets the promise that the throne 00:07:07.339 --> 00:07:08.518 will never depart from him. 00:07:08.912 --> 00:07:14.479 Right. That from him, we will receive the Messiah through his lineage. 00:07:14.799 --> 00:07:19.141 So a lot of like visionary kind of stuff that works with David there. 00:07:19.570 --> 00:07:23.449 Yeah. So David is a really kind of interesting character. I'm really excited 00:07:23.449 --> 00:07:27.589 that we're taking this deep dive into his story, whether, you know, 00:07:27.589 --> 00:07:31.216 Maybe you are kind of familiar with David. Maybe you're not familiar with him at all. 00:07:32.139 --> 00:07:35.743 I think we're all going to really enjoy this time we spend with David. 00:07:36.079 --> 00:07:38.949 And I'm really excited about it because, spoiler alert, I guess, 00:07:38.949 --> 00:07:42.656 but we talked about already, come Christmas time, we flip the script. 00:07:43.200 --> 00:07:46.111 And we talk about Jesus as shepherd and king. 00:07:46.759 --> 00:07:52.147 Those are both terms used for David and Jesus. and we're going to talk about how, you know, 00:07:52.686 --> 00:07:58.566 David is sort of like the appetizer, like the foretaste, the imperfect image, 00:07:59.066 --> 00:08:02.200 of kingship for Israel, for God's people. 00:08:02.351 --> 00:08:05.353 And then Jesus is the perfection of that, right? 00:08:05.608 --> 00:08:10.009 He's the one who comes in and kind of standing on the shoulders of David isn't 00:08:10.009 --> 00:08:11.908 the right way of saying it, but basically like, 00:08:12.653 --> 00:08:16.513 Puts forth the perfect image of what David always wanted to be, 00:08:16.513 --> 00:08:18.498 but couldn't because he was flawed and broken. 00:08:18.690 --> 00:08:23.113 It's kind of like simultaneously David stands on his shoulders and he stands on David's shoulders. 00:08:23.113 --> 00:08:28.483 Yeah, a little bit, you know. I think David provides a good kind of like God 00:08:28.483 --> 00:08:33.357 saying, this is

what to look for in the Messiah. Someone even better than David. 00:08:33.953 --> 00:08:36.393 Somebody from Bethlehem. 00:08:36.893 --> 00:08:40.593 Yeah, from Bethlehem, the line of David, of Judah. 00:08:40.773 --> 00:08:42.313 A little bit of a nod there. 00:08:42.613 --> 00:08:46.933 Yeah. Well, yeah, absolutely. You know, so there's a lot of parallels there, of course. 00:08:46.933 --> 00:08:47.213 Yeah. 00:08:47.533 --> 00:08:49.553 So, yeah. So, really excited about this. 00:08:49.553 --> 00:08:53.443 So, bringing it back to kind of the sermon and what we talked about this last Sunday. 00:08:54.184 --> 00:08:59.648 So, we had, not only did we start the series David Shepard King this Sunday, 00:08:59.817 --> 00:09:03.123 but we actually, we had something called a Kidsmen Takeover, right? 00:09:03.123 --> 00:09:03.224 Yeah. 00:09:03.601 --> 00:09:06.973 Which is where we brought all of our kids from Kidsmen, especially those in 00:09:06.973 --> 00:09:09.737 like the first through fifth grade age range. 00:09:10.143 --> 00:09:15.003 And we brought them into, basically, it's almost like we're doing kids men in 00:09:15.003 --> 00:09:20.133 big church, but it's not like a lesson that's only for kids, right? 00:09:20.593 --> 00:09:23.753 Which is something I really appreciate. But also what we're doing is we're trying 00:09:23.753 --> 00:09:27.563 to show people like, hey, this is what we do in kids men, right? 00:09:27.563 --> 00:09:33.825 We're trying to make sure that kids are learning the Bible and learning how to apply it. 00:09:34.156 --> 00:09:38.123 And we do that every single week. And I think it's this beautiful picture of 00:09:38.123 --> 00:09:39.607 actually the message, right? 00:09:40.002 --> 00:09:42.453 Because ultimately, when you're starting with David, shepherd, 00:09:42.453 --> 00:09:46.933 king, you're going to start with the shepherd, right? You don't jump all the way to the king. 00:09:47.253 --> 00:09:50.410 The beginning of David's story starts out with him as a shepherd in the field. 00:09:50.839 --> 00:09:54.133 And so there's this almost like beautiful parallel in terms of what we were 00:09:54.133 --> 00:09:58.839 doing on Sunday with the kids coming in and how we've been shepherding them 00:09:59.176 --> 00:10:02.953 back there and David being a shepherd in the message. 00:10:02.953 --> 00:10:03.791 Yeah, I mean... 00:10:04.376 --> 00:10:09.007 In the same way, too, we wouldn't necessarily consider David as a shepherd being 00:10:09.007 --> 00:10:12.375 a full-grown man, not quite. 00:10:12.659 --> 00:10:16.387 Wouldn't call him necessarily too much of a child, but yeah, 00:10:16.387 --> 00:10:18.427 so there's a little bit of something there as well. 00:10:18.886 --> 00:10:22.917 I think it is important, though, that our church sees that what happens in children's 00:10:22.917 --> 00:10:24.357 ministry is discipleship. 00:10:24.357 --> 00:10:28.027 I mean, that was what Pastor Steve Williams was trying to show everyone. 00:10:28.027 --> 00:10:31.433 I think he did a great job of that. When I was doing kids ministry, 00:10:31.874 --> 00:10:35.027 when I first started out, you know, I would often tell people, 00:10:35.537 --> 00:10:37.967 I hear a lot, oh, well, it's so great you're doing that because kids are the 00:10:37.967 --> 00:10:39.641 future of the church. And I was like, no, no, no, no. 00:10:39.891 --> 00:10:42.947 Kids are the church today. Like, they're here in church today. 00:10:42.947 --> 00:10:44.277 They're all part of the body. 00:10:44.277 --> 00:10:47.657 That's right. Not to mention, when you look throughout Scripture, 00:10:48.457 --> 00:10:51.677 there's this beautiful picture of when God chooses a person, 00:10:51.677 --> 00:10:54.357 he often chooses them when they're still a kid, right? 00:10:54.357 --> 00:10:54.747 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 00:10:54.747 --> 00:10:56.927 He starts to call them when they're a kid. 00:10:56.927 --> 00:10:57.625 Samuel. 00:10:57.765 --> 00:11:02.487 The disciples. Right. Most of them, we believe, you look through church history, 00:11:02.487 --> 00:11:04.307 we believe they were about teenagers, right? 00:11:04.307 --> 00:11:07.667 Yeah, they're not going to be necessarily too far in years. 00:11:08.247 --> 00:11:11.643 So, yeah, definitely. So, Kid Takeover Sunday was great. 00:11:11.910 --> 00:11:17.107 And it's such a good Sunday to start this lesson. Now, Pastor Steve Williams, 00:11:17.107 --> 00:11:19.997 he kind of opened up saying, you know, the story that we all think of when we 00:11:19.997 --> 00:11:24.052 think of King David is David and Goliath. It's either that one or it's Bathsheba. 00:11:24.359 --> 00:11:25.307 Bathsheba's a little bit further 00:11:25.307 --> 00:11:27.390 on. So if we're talking about the beginning, it's David and Goliath. 00:11:27.633 --> 00:11:27.807 Right. 00:11:27.807 --> 00:11:30.722 And that is sort of where he gets his name put on the map, you know? 00:11:31.082 --> 00:11:32.580 But he said he wanted us to, 00:11:33.091 --> 00:11:37.091 to go before that story, right? Because there's still a lot of setup that takes 00:11:37.091 --> 00:11:40.330 place before David picks up the sling and slays the giant. 00:11:40.568 --> 00:11:43.698 That's really important. And he wanted to focus on that. 00:11:44.116 --> 00:11:47.991 And doing that, he was using the method that they use in kids' church, 00:11:47.991 --> 00:11:54.069 where they have like these big three questions that they answer to kind of get to the heart of 00:11:54.464 --> 00:11:59.324 what we can learn about Jesus through a Bible story or through anything in the Bible. 00:11:59.498 --> 00:12:02.185 So there's three questions where who is God? 00:12:02.627 --> 00:12:07.288 Who does God say I am? And how do I interact with others? Right? 00:12:07.515 --> 00:12:07.821 Yeah. 00:12:07.821 --> 00:12:10.791 So he broke that down for us as he taught this. So we're just going to do that 00:12:10.791 --> 00:12:12.131

really quick as we summarize this. 00:12:12.768 --> 00:12:15.991 Which he calls this, by the way, when studying scripture, he calls this the 00:12:15.991 --> 00:12:18.873 heart-shaped identity model of studying scripture. 00:12:19.227 --> 00:12:23.308 Which is, especially as you start with the first question of who is God, 00:12:23.581 --> 00:12:25.921 it influences how we answer the other two. 00:12:26.275 --> 00:12:27.314 Right. Yeah. 00:12:27.540 --> 00:12:27.923 Go ahead. 00:12:28.062 --> 00:12:32.265 So yeah, so let's talk about who is God. So what it is, tell us about who God is, James. 00:12:32.625 --> 00:12:37.961 So in the message, we see, especially as you go from, and we were talking about 00:12:37.961 --> 00:12:41.611 this a little bit before we started the podcast, you have Saul, 00:12:41.611 --> 00:12:44.011 who is the first king of Israel, right? 00:12:44.671 --> 00:12:49.267 Appointed, and he is doing a lot of things that God does not approve of. 00:12:49.586 --> 00:12:53.931 And so he gets to the point where he is essentially, God is like, 00:12:53.931 --> 00:12:55.066 hey, it's not working out. 00:12:55.414 --> 00:12:59.111 So sorry, going to have to let you go. You know, kind of like a boss fire. 00:13:00.631 --> 00:13:04.859 I do want to kind of take this back maybe even further. 00:13:05.476 --> 00:13:11.105 So what happens is to set up what's kind of going on here, Israel does not have 00:13:11.105 --> 00:13:13.416 a king, right? Let's go back that far. 00:13:13.543 --> 00:13:13.851 Okay. 00:13:13.989 --> 00:13:17.815 Israel doesn't have a king. All the people around them just after that. 00:13:18.175 --> 00:13:18.975 Maybe not that far back. 00:13:18.975 --> 00:13:23.375 Not that far. Israel doesn't have a king. All the people groups around them, 00:13:23.375 --> 00:13:24.830 all the countries around them have kings. 00:13:25.194 --> 00:13:27.012 So Israel looks around and goes, well, we want a king. 00:13:27.453 --> 00:13:31.098 And God through his prophets are like, you have a king. It's me. 00:13:31.441 --> 00:13:32.775 And they're like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. 00:13:33.275 --> 00:13:36.735 Yeah, yeah, that's fine. But we want like a king. like a person like a king 00:13:36.735 --> 00:13:42.250 to rule and he warns them well kings you know they go to war they do taxes they they're, 00:13:42.915 --> 00:13:46.325 i don't know you might want to think about this well yeah i mean like for real 00:13:46.325 --> 00:13:49.384 he's like they they take from people and he's like do you sure you want a king, 00:13:49.854 --> 00:13:54.005 like we want a king we want a king so like god's like okay like he works with 00:13:54.005 --> 00:13:55.096 his people so he's like all right, 00:13:55.617 --> 00:13:58.868 so he lets them basically pick their first king, 00:13:59.665 --> 00:14:04.945 and they pick saul and it's important to understand like they pick Saul. 00:14:04.945 --> 00:14:08.535 That's kind of sort of what happens here. God approves of Saul as being their 00:14:08.535 --> 00:14:12.552 king, but they're much more involved in the choosing of Saul than David, 00:14:12.703 --> 00:14:16.315 than when God picks David. And Saul is chosen because he's tall, 00:14:16.315 --> 00:14:18.978 and he's strong, and he's like, handsome. He's, 00:14:19.830 --> 00:14:22.431 everything you would think of a king should be. 00:14:22.634 --> 00:14:23.023 Right? 00:14:23.377 --> 00:14:29.630 But spoiler alert, it doesn't quite work out. Saul is not really a good king. 00:14:30.475 --> 00:14:34.305 So that's kind of where we end up, right? In what we're talking about. 00:14:34.305 --> 00:14:37.845 So Saul does a bunch of stuff that God just doesn't approve of. 00:14:37.845 --> 00:14:41.355 And over and over again, Samuel, God's prophet, tells him this. 00:14:41.655 --> 00:14:47.685 Yeah, yeah. And several times, actually, it's like, and Saul or in Samuel tells 00:14:47.685 --> 00:14:50.961 Saul, hey, God is going to find a new king, right? 00:14:51.228 --> 00:14:55.535 And he goes so far as to say, hey, God has decided you're no longer going to 00:14:55.535 --> 00:14:59.235 be king over Israel. But in fact, I'm going to go find a new king and he's going 00:14:59.235 --> 00:15:02.928 to be a guy who he is after my own heart, right? 00:15:03.178 --> 00:15:06.969 Which is kind of setting up David, who is that guy, you know? 00:15:07.137 --> 00:15:13.394 So God says, hey, Israel, you had your chance, didn't quite pick the king you needed. 00:15:13.655 --> 00:15:17.870 So God kind of takes it into his own hands to pick the king that needs to rule over his people. 00:15:17.997 --> 00:15:22.996 Yeah. And you can kind of see the point that God is making between Saul and David. 00:15:23.367 --> 00:15:27.645 And that is, when you look at what was really wrong at the core of Saul, 00:15:27.872 --> 00:15:31.303 is that he really desired the people's heart. 00:15:31.931 --> 00:15:36.735 Whereas what's right with David is that he desired God's heart, you know? 00:15:36.735 --> 00:15:40.535 Yeah. And Saul, I mean, he's building monuments to himself. 00:15:40.875 --> 00:15:44.605 He's trying to gain fame and acclamation for themselves because that's how kings 00:15:44.605 --> 00:15:48.635 rule you know kings got to keep the approval of their people so their people 00:15:48.635 --> 00:15:51.111 will follow them and listen to them otherwise you know, 00:15:51.635 --> 00:15:56.255 they overthrow their kings which isn't what Saul wants that's right so yeah 00:15:56.255 --> 00:15:57.826 so that's where we kind of end up here now, 00:15:58.745 --> 00:16:02.292 I think it's important, again, as we talk about anything with David, 00:16:02.292 --> 00:16:07.313 Saul, and all this stuff, to keep in the back of your mind Jesus and how he's ruling. 00:16:07.667 --> 00:16:11.028 Like, for instance, talk about, like, the people picking Saul, 00:16:11.301 --> 00:16:15.872 right? And we're going to get to no one would

really pick a picking David. 00:16:15.872 --> 00:16:17.923 But in the same way, Jesus is the same thing. 00:16:18.432 --> 00:16:23.192 He's rejected by his people. No one would pick Jesus to be their king, 00:16:23.552 --> 00:16:25.572 not, you know, conventionally. 00:16:25.572 --> 00:16:30.702 He's not he's meek and he's humble and he's nothing that we would really think 00:16:30.702 --> 00:16:35.152 of or that is the people at the time thought a king would be and yet god still 00:16:35.152 --> 00:16:39.435 picks and chooses him and well i mean picks chooses and exalts him right 00:16:39.766 --> 00:16:42.422 yeah so again and that's. 00:16:42.422 --> 00:16:45.426 Part of what god is like trying to help demonstrate with david. 00:16:45.669 --> 00:16:46.087 Right yeah. 00:16:46.331 --> 00:16:49.682 It's like hey as you go and pick this new king and i love the picture that you 00:16:49.682 --> 00:16:52.862 get because you and we talked about this before the podcast as well there's 00:16:52.862 --> 00:16:59.852 this scene where you know samuel put what is it cuts to bits this king that saul had taken. 00:16:59.852 --> 00:17:05.771 Captive yeah this is like the final straw he's supposed to go out and fight the amalekites i, 00:17:06.224 --> 00:17:10.342 think it's one of the people groups that israel always has a problem with yeah 00:17:10.342 --> 00:17:15.232 he ends up defeating them but saul or samuel tells saul pretty clearly god wants 00:17:15.232 --> 00:17:20.512 you to keep nothing the livestock devoted all the destruction to destroy all of it and 00:17:20.892 --> 00:17:24.794 he doesn't do that he keeps like tons of spoils and he and he takes the king 00:17:25.217 --> 00:17:29.072 and he chains them up like a like a trophy and parades them around so, 00:17:29.989 --> 00:17:33.942 samuel's not okay with this yeah he does. 00:17:33.942 --> 00:17:35.852 The thing he i and. 00:17:35.852 --> 00:17:38.602 Yeah you retell it i mean it's this is crazy and. 00:17:38.602 --> 00:17:42.632 I don't remember this might just have been like a tv show adaptation or not 00:17:42.632 --> 00:17:44.116 but i'm pretty sure he takes, 00:17:44.679 --> 00:17:49.244 Oh, no, it wasn't. So he takes a sword and he basically cuts the king to bits. 00:17:49.244 --> 00:17:50.774 It's literally how the Bible describes him. 00:17:50.774 --> 00:17:51.784 He hacks him into pieces. 00:17:51.784 --> 00:17:54.784 Yeah. Hacks him to pieces. Pretty brutal sight. 00:17:55.086 --> 00:17:58.199 And then he basically says, hey, God's done with you. Right. 00:17:58.443 --> 00:18:04.364 And as Samuel is walking away, Saul gets on his knees begging him to stay. 00:18:04.364 --> 00:18:10.639 He reaches out and grabs Samuel's cloak and a piece of it just tears, right? 00:18:10.999 --> 00:18:15.394 And when it tears, Samuel, as a very brave man in the moment, 00:18:15.394 --> 00:18:19.814 looking to a king who could pretty much say, hey, to any of his soldiers, 00:18:19.814 --> 00:18:21.114

kill this man, and they would. 00:18:21.114 --> 00:18:25.082 And he just hacked apart another king. He's covered in blood, probably. 00:18:25.222 --> 00:18:30.244 But Samuel, very boldly, like, really only concerned with his fear of God over 00:18:30.244 --> 00:18:31.863 his fear of a king, right? 00:18:32.101 --> 00:18:36.623 Looks at him and goes, hey, just as this cloak was torn apart, 00:18:36.866 --> 00:18:41.874 like as this cloak tore, so God tears the kingdom of Israel from you. 00:18:41.874 --> 00:18:44.894 Yeah, I mean, he makes it pretty clear. And that's like the last sort of things 00:18:44.894 --> 00:18:50.079 he says to Saul before he leaves to go anoint David. So that's kind of where we pick this up. 00:18:50.852 --> 00:18:54.709 But the point is, we're saying, what does this say who God is, right? 00:18:55.316 --> 00:18:59.072 And the point is, God is a planner, right? He's had this plan the whole time. 00:18:59.072 --> 00:19:00.714 David was always his plan. 00:19:01.010 --> 00:19:06.409 Now, he picked Saul for a time to teach Israel lessons through Saul's failure, right? 00:19:06.606 --> 00:19:09.642 And Saul hangs around for a while after David's anointed. 00:19:10.020 --> 00:19:13.782 And there's this very dramatic thing where he's being chased to the wilderness 00:19:13.782 --> 00:19:17.078 and all this stuff. So we're going to get to all of that, I'm sure, in this life of David. 00:19:17.206 --> 00:19:19.102 Yeah, which I'm pumped for. 00:19:19.102 --> 00:19:23.818 But this is all God's plan. God's a planner. He planned for David through David's life. 00:19:24.004 --> 00:19:28.832 Yeah. And you kind of see that when you get to David, right? 00:19:28.832 --> 00:19:34.512 So the story continues. He goes and he goes looking for the house of Jesse, right? 00:19:34.803 --> 00:19:38.352 Says, hey, go to Bethlehem. Wink, wink, nod, nod. Think about Jesus. 00:19:38.352 --> 00:19:39.852 Where do they find him? Yeah, God tells him to go to Bethlehem. 00:19:40.387 --> 00:19:45.622 Bethlehem. And so Samuel goes to Bethlehem and he finds the house of Jesse and 00:19:45.622 --> 00:19:48.692 he says, hey, get all your sons. We're going to figure out who God wants to anoint. 00:19:49.195 --> 00:19:53.624 Gets all the sons out. And like, as if to almost emphasize the point, 00:19:54.144 --> 00:19:58.698 Samuel's looking at the sons, looks at the oldest, biggest, strongest one. 00:19:58.965 --> 00:20:03.162 Surely Eliab is the guy who God wants to anoint the new king. 00:20:03.162 --> 00:20:06.918 Like we just saw a big, strong man did it before big, strong man will do it again. 00:20:07.377 --> 00:20:13.202 And God makes it very clear to Samuel in the moment. Hey, you like man looks 00:20:13.202 --> 00:20:16.118 on the outside, but I look at the inside. 00:20:16.431 --> 00:20:19.537 I look at the heart of a man. That's what I'm concerned with. 00:20:19.898 --> 00:20:24.132 Right. And it shows like, and it just points back to what like God,

00:20:24.132 --> 00:20:28.402 he's a planner. He's planning not for a big, strong man who can come lead, 00:20:28.402 --> 00:20:33.792 but for a man who is more concerned with God than he is with outward appearance. 00:20:33.792 --> 00:20:38.322 Yeah. And he tells Jesse, he's like, so are these like all of your sons? 00:20:38.322 --> 00:20:38.772 That it? 00:20:39.092 --> 00:20:42.642 And Jesse's like, well, no, I have one more, but he's out watching sheep, 00:20:42.642 --> 00:20:47.273 you know, shepherding was like first of all thought of as mostly a woman's job 00:20:47.651 --> 00:20:51.377 it wasn't something men often necessarily did a lot of 00:20:51.798 --> 00:20:55.369 it wasn't thought of to be very like strong work you know, 00:20:56.202 --> 00:20:59.561 And he's like, well, I got David. He like watches sheep all day and plays a 00:20:59.561 --> 00:21:02.521 harp and like sing songs. 00:21:03.621 --> 00:21:05.548 But yeah, you know, like we can bring him in. 00:21:05.775 --> 00:21:08.861 Doesn't exactly sing king to me, you know. 00:21:08.861 --> 00:21:14.221 And this is like youngest, you know, smallest. So he comes in and Samuel hears 00:21:14.221 --> 00:21:15.684 from the Lord. That's him. Anoint him. 00:21:16.241 --> 00:21:19.713 So he goes to David and anoints him as the next king of Israel. 00:21:19.835 --> 00:21:20.392 That's right. 00:21:20.508 --> 00:21:24.183 Which is an incredible thing to think about happening to you one day. 00:21:24.432 --> 00:21:28.687 You're called in from the field and you're anointed as the future king of the country you live in. 00:21:29.750 --> 00:21:33.481 But at this point, we talk about God as a plan. And David's life up to this 00:21:33.481 --> 00:21:35.351 point had prepared him for this. 00:21:35.351 --> 00:21:42.271 He had so far killed multiple lions and bears that had attacked his sheep with 00:21:42.271 --> 00:21:45.421 his bare hands. This is an incredible idea. 00:21:45.461 --> 00:21:48.031 It's really interesting because you see the story of Goliath. 00:21:48.031 --> 00:21:52.027 You get there and you know, for the most part, people know the story. 00:21:52.294 --> 00:21:56.619 He uses a sling and a stone and he hits Goliath in the head and he kills him. Right. 00:21:57.219 --> 00:22:02.121 But when you read about him fighting the bears and the lions and it says he 00:22:02.121 --> 00:22:05.221 uses his bare hands, you're like, oh. 00:22:05.221 --> 00:22:06.551 Yeah, he like rips him apart. 00:22:06.551 --> 00:22:06.781 What? 00:22:06.781 --> 00:22:11.351 I mean, it's crazy. So all these things like he's been preparing for this. 00:22:11.351 --> 00:22:14.590 Not only that, but he talks about he's prepared him through solitude. 00:22:14.828 --> 00:22:18.991 Shepherding was often a thing that wasn't, you know, done. 00:22:19.021 --> 00:22:22.908 And at least in David's case, he didn't have a lot of people with him doing it. 00:22:23.661 --> 00:22:27.146 So he spends a lot of time alone with the Lord and the sheep, right? Caring for them. 00:22:27.593 --> 00:22:31.709 So he also has this thing where he's spending a lot of time with God alone, 00:22:32.051 --> 00:22:34.941 which prepares him in the future, as we'll get to, is his time alone in the 00:22:34.941 --> 00:22:36.955 wilderness, running from Saul. 00:22:37.118 --> 00:22:40.101 That's right. So one of the things that I'm reminded of, 00:22:40.821 --> 00:22:43.782 especially when you look at this part of the story of David, 00:22:44.171 --> 00:22:47.851 you see that as Samuel's getting ready to anoint him, because they go off, 00:22:47.851 --> 00:22:52.804 They bring him back and he gets his flask of oil to anoint him. 00:22:54.078 --> 00:22:57.936 You get this idea that like, and you see this throughout scripture, 00:22:58.473 --> 00:23:01.352 David is the runt of the family. He's the smallest. 00:23:01.625 --> 00:23:06.020 He's the one who you'd look at and you'd say he's least likely in the family of Jesse. Right. 00:23:07.082 --> 00:23:11.148 And that's the one God chooses. And so a repetitive theme that you see throughout 00:23:11.148 --> 00:23:18.208 scripture, I believe, is God always seems to choose not only the worst circumstances 00:23:18.208 --> 00:23:21.525 you could imagine to prove that he is sovereign and in control. Right. 00:23:22.041 --> 00:23:25.341 But he always seems to use like the runt of the litter, right? 00:23:25.585 --> 00:23:31.574 The least likely person who you would expect God to use is the one often God uses. 00:23:31.748 --> 00:23:32.457 Oh, right. 00:23:32.457 --> 00:23:36.247 And so I would say the encouragement there is like, hey, if you're listening 00:23:36.247 --> 00:23:37.777 and you're like, well, God could never use me. 00:23:38.137 --> 00:23:43.797 Hey, can I just encourage you? God is used to using people who you would never expect him to use. 00:23:43.797 --> 00:23:48.797 And again, that's the story of Jesus, you know, Jesus looking from the outside. 00:23:48.797 --> 00:23:51.625 I mean, we even told this in like Isaiah. 00:23:51.787 --> 00:23:55.340 He's the least likely person you would ever expect to be the messiah, 00:23:55.977 --> 00:24:01.437 but you know i mean to the point where people would say like nazareth can anything 00:24:01.437 --> 00:24:03.457 good come out of nazareth right yeah so, 00:24:03.957 --> 00:24:08.717 yeah i mean it's like that idea like there's almost a zero percent shot that 00:24:08.717 --> 00:24:12.012 anyone would have thought jesus could have been the messiah just like david could have been king, 00:24:12.537 --> 00:24:17.677 so but anyways the next question then that steve pastor steve williams answers 00:24:17.677 --> 00:24:22.298 is who does god say i am and this kind of gets to what we were talking about with David. 00:24:22.768 --> 00:24:25.447 God is preparing me is the answer to that, right? 00:24:25.447 --> 00:24:25.827 That's right. 00:24:25.827 --> 00:24:28.547 That's what David's

doing. He's in the wilderness with the sheep. 00:24:28.547 --> 00:24:33.667 He's fighting these wild animals. And all of these things are formation for 00:24:33.667 --> 00:24:35.294 him becoming king one day. 00:24:35.817 --> 00:24:39.050 They're turning him into the person God needs him to be to rule over Israel. 00:24:39.184 --> 00:24:44.089 Yeah. It speaks to, as the discipleship pastor, you know this well, 00:24:44.420 --> 00:24:49.087 there's such a thing in And, you know, Christian circles, we call spiritual formation. 00:24:49.383 --> 00:24:49.997 Right? 00:24:49.997 --> 00:24:54.497 This idea of growing in the Lord to the point where suddenly you're living more 00:24:54.497 --> 00:24:56.092 for the Lord than you are for the world. 00:24:56.597 --> 00:25:01.237 You're starting to read scripture and apply it. You're starting to build these 00:25:01.237 --> 00:25:03.061 disciplines that help shape you. 00:25:03.368 --> 00:25:08.027 And so while David is out shepherding in a field, writing songs and, 00:25:08.027 --> 00:25:13.637 you know, protecting sheep, like God is using each and every single one of those moments. 00:25:13.637 --> 00:25:17.107 Moments where, like in my own life or in your own life, you'd probably look 00:25:17.107 --> 00:25:18.637 back and say, I just don't understand 00:25:18.637 --> 00:25:23.667 what God would use that for is the exact thing God wants to use. 00:25:23.667 --> 00:25:25.955 Yeah, I mean, the truth is that, 00:25:26.542 --> 00:25:31.690 We are all being formed in some way, whether we are conscious about it or not. 00:25:32.108 --> 00:25:35.763 We're formed by our algorithms on our social media. We're formed by the media 00:25:35.763 --> 00:25:39.608 that we consume. We're formed by our friendships and the people around us. 00:25:40.296 --> 00:25:46.818 You know, consciously or subconsciously. And depending on what lane you're swimming 00:25:46.818 --> 00:25:51.908 in and where you're staying rooted, are you being formed by Christ and the Holy 00:25:51.908 --> 00:25:53.738 Spirit into the image of Christ? 00:25:53.738 --> 00:25:56.710 Or are you being formed by the world into something else? David, 00:25:56.995 --> 00:26:00.565 he's out in the wilderness, but he's spending that time with the Lord, right? 00:26:00.902 --> 00:26:05.648 He's shepherding sheep, but he's, you know, writing songs for God, 00:26:05.648 --> 00:26:08.315 right? You know, and playing his harp and all that. 00:26:08.593 --> 00:26:13.838 Yeah. And you can look at the book of Psalms. The book of Psalms is a book that's 00:26:13.838 --> 00:26:18.645 not entirely written by David, but a large portion of the book of Psalms is written by David. 00:26:18.941 --> 00:26:22.228 And if you're listening to this and you don't know what the book of Psalms is, 00:26:22.228 --> 00:26:24.208 the book of Psalms is a book of songs. 00:26:24.508 --> 00:26:25.892 Yeah. It's a psalm book of the Bible. 00:26:26.142 --> 00:26:30.248 And so David writes a large portion of that. And that's somebody who you look 00:26:30.248 --> 00:26:33.998 at through the story of David and you're like, oh, here's this amazing warrior, 00:26:33.998 --> 00:26:37.608 this amazing king, and also this amazing poet. 00:26:37.608 --> 00:26:41.279 Yeah. He writes poetry and plays music and leads worship. 00:26:42.557 --> 00:26:48.306 So all these things are forming him. Now, the last one was, how do I interact with others? 00:26:48.684 --> 00:26:54.001 And just like David, the answer to this is we reveal Jesus to others, right? 00:26:54.528 --> 00:26:57.153 That's what David is doing. David, like we talked about, and we're going to 00:26:57.345 --> 00:27:04.578 discover throughout this entire series, David's life is leading us to revealing Jesus to us, right? 00:27:05.263 --> 00:27:09.327 That's like what we said in the beginning. David's this foretaste of the Messiah. 00:27:09.635 --> 00:27:15.161 Like he is the kind of giving us a little hint of what the Messiah will look like, right? 00:27:15.463 --> 00:27:20.228 And we receive that full image in the coming of Jesus. So that's what we have 00:27:20.483 --> 00:27:26.713 kind of there. So those are those three that, that what, but he calls it the three heart-shaped, 00:27:27.509 --> 00:27:28.042 What was it? 00:27:28.042 --> 00:27:29.762 The heart-shaped identity. 00:27:29.762 --> 00:27:35.362 Heart-shaped identity. Right. And in that, he also kind of pulls in five kind 00:27:35.362 --> 00:27:41.742 of threads that make up the tapestry of David's early life and kind of pairs 00:27:41.742 --> 00:27:43.867 those into that. So we'll just run through those really quick. 00:27:44.139 --> 00:27:44.302 Yes. 00:27:44.302 --> 00:27:47.412 Because we saw some discussion we want to do. But one of those was David was 00:27:47.412 --> 00:27:51.030 humbled before he was exalted. He was this young shepherd boy, 00:27:51.502 --> 00:27:55.285 you know, wasn't to come from like some place of means and royalty. 00:27:55.494 --> 00:27:55.882 Yeah. 00:27:57.082 --> 00:27:58.878 He served before he was promoted. 00:27:59.058 --> 00:27:59.392 That's right. 00:27:59.392 --> 00:28:03.902 I mean, even in his life after this anointing happens, he serves in Saul's court. 00:28:04.522 --> 00:28:08.120 He plays music for him and all that. He was a follower before a leader. 00:28:08.822 --> 00:28:12.132 So again, he serves under Saul. He learns to follow. 00:28:12.132 --> 00:28:17.042 He has a tremendous respect for authority, which is something to be emulated. 00:28:17.042 --> 00:28:20.422 And I'm sure we'll get to a lot of that, especially when David comes upon Saul 00:28:20.422 --> 00:28:22.956 in the cave and cuts his robe. And we'll talk about that story. 00:28:23.171 --> 00:28:27.380 But that's, you know, we do not attack the Lord's anointed and that sort of thing. 00:28:28.302 --> 00:28:32.302 He practiced before he performed, right? So he was doing these things like with 00:28:32.302 -->

00:28:38.154 the animals, like defeating those wild animals, practice for later and that sort of thing. 00:28:38.322 --> 00:28:41.248 And then he spent time alone with God before others. 00:28:41.614 --> 00:28:47.976 So he valued time alone in solidarity and solitude with God before being around other people. 00:28:48.208 --> 00:28:50.919 He sought God's approval before he sought people's approval. 00:28:51.035 --> 00:28:55.302 Yeah, you know, and you want to talk about one thing that's like huge takeaway 00:28:55.302 --> 00:29:00.149 from the message if you're looking for any, you know, something to be applied is... 00:29:00.731 --> 00:29:04.638 You want to cultivate a heart for God requires time with God. 00:29:04.952 --> 00:29:09.717 You know, it's like, hey, if I really want to love somebody requires time with 00:29:09.717 --> 00:29:12.236 that person, intentional time set aside. 00:29:12.806 --> 00:29:17.237 Yeah, exactly. And that's what David understood. And then Pastor Steve Williams, 00:29:17.237 --> 00:29:21.027 he wraps this all up with a little bow and reminds us none of these things happen 00:29:21.027 --> 00:29:22.430 in our life without Christ. 00:29:22.831 --> 00:29:25.890 You know, humble and exalted, serving and promoting. 00:29:26.296 --> 00:29:29.397 All of that happens in the context of a relationship with Jesus. 00:29:29.397 --> 00:29:35.661 So great so that was like the overall idea of the sermon if you haven't listened to it yet, 00:29:36.137 --> 00:29:39.827 hopefully that convinces you to actually give it a listen it's really great 00:29:39.827 --> 00:29:43.227 you can find it on our youtube channel we're going to discuss a little bit more 00:29:43.227 --> 00:29:45.681 some questions to expand on it i wanted to start, 00:29:46.297 --> 00:29:52.217 with this idea of in first samuel 16 and 7 samuel he almost anoints eliab the 00:29:52.217 --> 00:29:58.686 oldest son right because eliab he looks like a king he's strong and he like is tall he's the oldest 00:29:59.093 --> 00:30:01.567 But ultimately, he's not the one chosen for king. 00:30:01.567 --> 00:30:04.392 They chose David, the smallest, and that sort of thing. 00:30:04.967 --> 00:30:08.287 So what does that say about our modern understanding of what makes a good leader 00:30:08.287 --> 00:30:10.898 versus how leaders work in God's kingdom? 00:30:11.545 --> 00:30:20.185 Yeah, I mean, in God's economy, what's far more important than stature or just 00:30:20.394 --> 00:30:22.327 prestige or how people look at you—, 00:30:23.142 --> 00:30:24.286 is the heart of a person. 00:30:24.495 --> 00:30:24.779 Right? 00:30:25.656 --> 00:30:29.957 In every case, when you look at leaders in the Bible, what sets them apart more 00:30:29.957 --> 00:30:32.692 than anything else, it's not that they're smarter than anybody. 00:30:33.063 --> 00:30:36.077 It's not that they're better than anybody, stronger than anybody, 00:30:36.077 --> 00:30:37.481 any of these other things. 00:30:37.852

--> 00:30:42.055 It is that they have a heart that is devoted to God, right? 00:30:42.334 --> 00:30:46.856 They are more concerned with what God thinks than with what other people think. 00:30:47.419 --> 00:30:53.305 And because of that, it motivates how they live, Right. They believe God. They trust God. 00:30:53.607 --> 00:30:57.276 And that's ultimately what God is most concerned with. Right. 00:30:57.537 --> 00:31:00.467 You want to see a blessing or an anointing right in a ministry. 00:31:00.947 --> 00:31:04.232 It's usually in the ministries where you see people who have just like, 00:31:04.569 --> 00:31:08.232 you know, God, whatever you want to do. Yes. My yes is already on the table. 00:31:08.406 --> 00:31:10.503 You know, it's submission to the Lord. 00:31:10.607 --> 00:31:15.427 Exactly. And that is something that's not external. You can't see that on the 00:31:15.427 --> 00:31:17.864 outside. That's something you can only see internal. 00:31:18.172 --> 00:31:22.517 The closest you'd be able to get to observing somebody who is like that is by 00:31:22.517 --> 00:31:24.563 looking at somebody's prayer journal, right? 00:31:24.929 --> 00:31:28.888 So when you talk to somebody about their prayer life, you know, 00:31:29.201 --> 00:31:34.767 is it something like, you know, I'm working through submitting this thing to 00:31:34.767 --> 00:31:38.786 God, or is it I've submitted this thing to God, you know? 00:31:39.440 --> 00:31:43.987 Yeah, I mean, exactly that. I think, you know, the way that I've always heard 00:31:43.987 --> 00:31:46.273 it is it's the upside down kingdom of God. 00:31:46.534 --> 00:31:46.952 Right. 00:31:47.286 --> 00:31:52.897 Jesus, like we both. So we have this idea of what leadership looks like in a 00:31:52.897 --> 00:31:56.567 worldly sense. It's a leader who is powerful, who's sure, who's strong, 00:31:56.567 --> 00:32:00.673 who demands respect, who gets people to do the things that they need them to do. 00:32:00.986 --> 00:32:01.227 Right. 00:32:01.227 --> 00:32:05.027 And that sort of stuff. But Jesus flips that on his head. He says, 00:32:05.027 --> 00:32:06.865 the greatest among you will serve the least. 00:32:07.242 --> 00:32:12.987 And, you know, he even puts it out there He says, you know, the leaders of the 00:32:12.987 --> 00:32:16.647 Gentiles Take their power and lord it above the people under them But not so 00:32:16.647 --> 00:32:20.176 with you The greatest among you will be the servant of the least Which is. 00:32:21.477 --> 00:32:26.265 Radical reversal, right? And we see that here in the calling of David, 00:32:26.561 --> 00:32:32.285 where the least is elevated to the area of being exalted in the highest, right? 00:32:32.857 --> 00:32:36.099 And it's the same with Jesus. Jesus is the least, right? 00:32:36.406 --> 00:32:40.975 And God highly exalts him because he's a servant. He makes it very clear. 00:32:41.544 --> 00:32:46.237 The son of man did not come to be served, but to serve and give his life for ransom of many. 00:32:46.557 --> 00:32:52.417 And the word in Greek or serve there is literally like to serve tables, to wait tables, right? 00:32:52.417 --> 00:32:59.747 Very lowly place. So there is that idea that like the value system of the kingdom 00:32:59.747 --> 00:33:04.327 of God is very different than the value system for the world. 00:33:04.327 --> 00:33:09.549 And I think one of the things I've always heard of is like when it comes to 00:33:09.752 --> 00:33:13.357 like hiring, I'm not really, I don't really hire people, but when it comes to 00:33:13.357 --> 00:33:14.814 hiring, it's like the three Cs. 00:33:15.732 --> 00:33:20.560 It's character, culture, and competency. And in a worldly sense, 00:33:20.560 --> 00:33:22.948 we tend to value competency as the highest, right? 00:33:23.128 --> 00:33:26.257 Like, I gotta know that you know how to take care of this job and get it done, right? 00:33:26.501 --> 00:33:30.570 After that, it might be like culture, it might be culture, right? 00:33:30.791 --> 00:33:33.860 We want you to be able to jive with the team. We need to have the right culture. 00:33:33.860 --> 00:33:37.020 And then after that, maybe character. Like, you know, that's fine. That comes last. 00:33:37.525 --> 00:33:39.950 The kingdom of God's the other way around. Character comes first. 00:33:39.950 --> 00:33:45.321 Like, your character has to be unimpeachable, right? You have to have great character. 00:33:45.780 --> 00:33:48.790 And then after that, it's culture. Do you have a culture of servanthood? 00:33:48.790 --> 00:33:51.526 Like, do you serve other people? Is that the culture that you're promoting? 00:33:51.938 --> 00:33:55.622 After that, competency is what God can make up for, you know? 00:33:56.005 --> 00:34:01.897 And we often see that. The thing that I tell people is God does not necessarily, 00:34:02.451 --> 00:34:05.058 call the equipped. He equips the called. 00:34:05.174 --> 00:34:05.505 That's right. 00:34:05.778 --> 00:34:10.220 You know, so he's, like we said, specifically looking sometimes for those who 00:34:10.220 --> 00:34:12.700 are least equipped to take care of business. 00:34:13.060 --> 00:34:18.840 So God can shine the most to get the glory out of it by equipping that person to do that job. 00:34:18.840 --> 00:34:23.070 And that is his intention, you know? It's not that good is not done for us. 00:34:23.070 --> 00:34:26.165 God does good for us when he uses us. 00:34:26.571 --> 00:34:32.010 But ultimately, if the end goal is not the glory of God, it's probably not of God. 00:34:32.010 --> 00:34:35.859 Yeah, Jesus picks a bunch of fishermen and laborers. 00:34:35.999 --> 00:34:42.401 And honestly, that truth right there should kind of reshape how we even engage in church, right? 00:34:42.647 --> 00:34:46.527 Because a lot of the times we go to church with this mindset of what can church do for me? 00:34:46.904 --> 00:34:52.908 But like to hearken back to the 1960s and President John

F. Kennedy, 00:34:53.493 --> 00:34:56.600 ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. 00:34:56.600 --> 00:35:01.033 You know, sometimes the ministry that your church is missing is the one that you're not leading yet. 00:35:01.352 --> 00:35:01.637 Yeah. 00:35:01.887 --> 00:35:02.210 You know? 00:35:02.210 --> 00:35:07.198 And we mean that, you know, by leading a ministry. There's a lot of people out there. I remember... 00:35:08.141 --> 00:35:13.311 Hearing on a podcast saying, you know, the greatest untapped asset of any church 00:35:13.651 --> 00:35:15.701 is sitting in the pews every Sunday morning. 00:35:15.701 --> 00:35:16.135 That's right. 00:35:16.449 --> 00:35:20.181 So there is that idea that it's easy to look at yourself and go, 00:35:20.181 --> 00:35:22.921 I just, I'm not competent enough to figure this out. I can't lead. 00:35:22.921 --> 00:35:26.511 I'm not strong enough to do any of this. I wish I could share the gospel with 00:35:26.511 --> 00:35:27.988 someone. I'm just not equipped enough to do it. 00:35:28.510 --> 00:35:33.431 But God needs someone of character, not necessarily someone of great competence. 00:35:33.431 --> 00:35:37.514 He can fix that. You can learn and he can train you and mold you in those ways. 00:35:38.733 --> 00:35:43.011 But character is important in the kingdom of God, right? Especially servanthood. 00:35:43.011 --> 00:35:46.891 So I do think that there is that big disconnect. And we often have to check 00:35:46.891 --> 00:35:52.881 ourselves because I know that we can be, as humans, attracted to that worldly 00:35:52.881 --> 00:35:56.932 vision of leadership, the strong, courageous leader, and get a lot of followers. 00:35:57.292 --> 00:36:01.941 But, you know, that may not always be the right leader in the kingdom of God. 00:36:01.941 --> 00:36:05.293 In the kingdom of God, it might be the person who's quiet and meek and humble 00:36:05.723 --> 00:36:07.541 that instead should be the person 00:36:07.541 --> 00:36:10.704 that we're looking to for guidance and elevate and that sort of thing. 00:36:11.591 --> 00:36:16.171 I mean, I think of just, and Steve, you know, Pastor Steve kind of reminded 00:36:16.171 --> 00:36:20.066 us of this, looking to the people that you look up to as spiritual giants in your own life. 00:36:20.276 --> 00:36:20.630 That's right. 00:36:21.147 --> 00:36:25.151 Those are not necessarily the people who are the, like you would think of as 00:36:25.151 --> 00:36:28.589 the strong, boisterous, courageous leaders in a worldly sense. 00:36:28.814 --> 00:36:33.140 A lot of times, some of the most humble people I know who are not necessarily, 00:36:33.711 --> 00:36:37.581 leading giant companies and corporations and doing that, they're successful 00:36:37.581 --> 00:36:41.901 moderately maybe, but they're far more successful in the spiritual life rather 00:36:41.901 --> 00:36:43.460 than in their worldly life. 00:36:43.572 --> 00:36:45.497 Yeah, definitely true. 00:36:45.725 --> 00:36:48.066 So another little question here. 00:36:48.880 --> 00:36:52.618 So, Pastor Steve, he made it clear that we are presently being prepared, 00:36:53.001 --> 00:36:55.834 not have been prepared, but we are being prepared. 00:36:56.337 --> 00:36:59.863 So for people who feel stuck, what does preparation actually look like when 00:36:59.863 --> 00:37:02.463 it feels like we're in a holding pattern in life, when we're just spinning our 00:37:02.463 --> 00:37:04.191 wheels, waiting for something to happen? 00:37:04.517 --> 00:37:06.484 What does that look like for preparation? 00:37:06.658 --> 00:37:10.893 Yeah, I think wisdom would say, look at what you've been through and look at 00:37:10.893 --> 00:37:12.515 what you've learned along the way. 00:37:12.969 --> 00:37:17.313 And I think like what holds up a lot of people is the fact that you don't learn 00:37:17.313 --> 00:37:20.916 from the things that you're going through. Rather, you just kind of move through them. 00:37:21.223 --> 00:37:24.073 But God does not like, like he doesn't do things accidentally. 00:37:24.073 --> 00:37:26.743 He doesn't send you through things on accident. 00:37:27.081 --> 00:37:29.204 He has intention with what you go through. 00:37:29.583 --> 00:37:32.577 And what you go through is supposed to help shape you. 00:37:32.694 --> 00:37:36.483 It's kind of like, it's a wonder that you can look at two people who have gone 00:37:36.483 --> 00:37:41.719 through eerily similar circumstances and you have one person who's like downtrodden, 00:37:41.957 --> 00:37:44.708 depressed afterwards, and the other one who's like, 00:37:45.329 --> 00:37:49.162 You know, he's not exactly thrilled that he went through this difficult thing, 00:37:49.162 --> 00:37:51.032 but you can tell he grew from it. 00:37:51.032 --> 00:37:52.332 Yeah, it's a mindset thing. 00:37:52.332 --> 00:37:59.832 Yeah. So, like, God fully intends to use what you go through in order to prepare 00:37:59.832 --> 00:38:06.162 you for what he, like, I look at this in the life of so many of the leaders who lead at Journey. 00:38:06.162 --> 00:38:09.192 I have so many small group leaders who have been like, oh, you know, 00:38:09.192 --> 00:38:12.154 I did this job for a while and then I did this job for a while. 00:38:12.462 --> 00:38:16.542 And now I'm doing this and I can see as I look back and trace what I'd been 00:38:16.542 --> 00:38:19.660 through, how God was preparing me for where I'm at right now, 00:38:19.904 --> 00:38:21.772 you know, and he does that in our lives. 00:38:21.772 --> 00:38:26.332 And it's real easy to miss, but if you just slow down and you try to take a 00:38:26.332 --> 00:38:29.720 look and see if you can't see the hand of God, his fingerprints on, 00:38:30.922 --> 00:38:37.802 in his plan of your life, then like, because also when you realize God is fully 00:38:37.802 --> 00:38:42.573 at work in my life, that immediately changes how you view things.

00:38:42.736 --> 00:38:46.962 Yeah, I think sometimes those slow seasons of our lives are put there by God 00:38:46.962 --> 00:38:53.051 as a challenge for us to slow down and to look for the fingerprints of his work in our lives. 00:38:53.614 --> 00:38:58.122 I know, at least for me, some of the most, well, almost all of the most fruitful 00:38:58.522 --> 00:39:02.742 spiritual times of my life have been those times that have been slow, 00:39:03.122 --> 00:39:06.397 have been times where I feel stalled out, right? 00:39:06.623 --> 00:39:10.882 Externally, nothing is happening, right? There was that period of my life where 00:39:10.882 --> 00:39:16.562 I was between ministry positions in churches, and it was difficult and painful, 00:39:16.881 --> 00:39:20.973 and I felt like I was stuck in this holding pattern. I was frustrated that nothing was happening. 00:39:21.148 --> 00:39:26.232 And yet, I can look back at that and see in that time, I was drawing so close 00:39:26.232 --> 00:39:30.540 to God, and God was drawing so close to me, and I was learning so much about, 00:39:31.382 --> 00:39:35.782 the character of Christ and how to depend on the Holy Spirit in that time that, 00:39:36.569 --> 00:39:38.393 externally looked very slow. 00:39:38.701 --> 00:39:42.369 Like, I wasn't making any progress or doing anything. But inside... 00:39:42.988 --> 00:39:46.440 Maybe I wasn't totally aware of it at the time, but there was so much changing in me. 00:39:47.764 --> 00:39:51.968 So for the person who might be hearing this, who does feel stuck, 00:39:52.391 --> 00:39:54.817 who feels like they're waiting for the next thing to happen, 00:39:55.201 --> 00:39:57.046 I'd remind you that, you know, 00:39:57.639 --> 00:40:01.884 internally, the Lord is always drawing near to us, you know, 00:40:01.884 --> 00:40:03.444 and we're drawing near to him. 00:40:03.954 --> 00:40:07.722 And internally, there could be so much work happening in our soul. 00:40:08.094 --> 00:40:11.894 And that soul work takes a long time sometimes. 00:40:12.494 --> 00:40:12.954 Right? 00:40:12.954 --> 00:40:19.364 But we are always being refined and we're getting ready for when that next thing 00:40:19.364 --> 00:40:23.715 happens, when the Lord does call us into that next movement of our lives. 00:40:23.965 --> 00:40:27.894 So an application you could take away from this would be maybe to take some 00:40:27.894 --> 00:40:32.774 time and look at what you've been through in your own life and like see where, 00:40:33.474 --> 00:40:38.154 in your heart God has like started to craft these different passions, right? 00:40:38.154 --> 00:40:42.764 These things that you're passionate about and see, okay, well, 00:40:42.764 --> 00:40:46.358 hey, maybe God wants me to use this experience that I've been through, right? 00:40:46.683 --> 00:40:50.758 Like for me, I grew up doing wrestling and I wrestled all throughout high school. 00:40:51.136 --> 00:40:56.594 And now I do a wrestling class with elementary school kids. 00:40:56.934 --> 00:40:58.904 Just like suplexing them right into the mat. 00:40:58.904 --> 00:41:00.094 Oh yeah, 100%. 00:41:00.094 --> 00:41:01.434 Piledrive, tombstone. 00:41:01.434 --> 00:41:06.884 They got to learn somehow, you know? No, but I use that as a platform to share 00:41:06.884 --> 00:41:08.512 God's word too, you know? 00:41:08.924 --> 00:41:12.713 So I've been trained in God's word and I've been trained in wrestling. 00:41:12.933 --> 00:41:15.374 And so I just kind of mashed the two together and said, hey, 00:41:15.854 --> 00:41:20.155 can I get some glory for God's kingdom out of this thing that God put me through, 00:41:20.486 --> 00:41:22.223 right? Or God took me through. 00:41:22.740 --> 00:41:26.264 And it's kind of like one of my favorite examples to look at in scripture that 00:41:26.264 --> 00:41:28.471 was pointed out to me a little bit ago, 00:41:29.023 --> 00:41:35.924 was like, you know, I wonder if it was an accident that Moses grew up in Pharaoh's 00:41:35.924 --> 00:41:38.240 house before God chose to make him a leader. 00:41:38.999 --> 00:41:43.637 Like, I wonder if it was an accident, you know, if God chose to put him around 00:41:44.020 --> 00:41:46.921 leadership before he became a leader. 00:41:47.458 --> 00:41:50.479 I mean, I think we know the answer to that is no. 00:41:50.859 --> 00:41:54.979 Of course, it's not an accident, right? But there are those moments in our lives 00:41:54.979 --> 00:41:57.275 that it kind of looks like that when we're going through it. 00:41:57.879 --> 00:42:01.387 Like, clearly, this can't be part of God's plan because, like, how could it be? 00:42:01.886 --> 00:42:04.859 But at the end of that, we get through and we're like, oh, well, 00:42:04.859 --> 00:42:10.739 clearly, that was part of God's plan. I can see how it all works together. So, yeah, definitely. 00:42:11.179 --> 00:42:15.134 All right. So next one we got. Pastor Steve gave us those five threads, 00:42:15.418 --> 00:42:18.657 humility, service, following, practice, and solitude. 00:42:19.173 --> 00:42:24.059 So personally for you, just be real, which thread do you struggle with the most 00:42:24.059 --> 00:42:28.332 and which one do you think we may over-spiritualize to the detriment of others? 00:42:29.619 --> 00:42:32.947 Those are two very different questions. I'll do the first part first. 00:42:34.247 --> 00:42:38.267 I'm going to go with solitude. Solitude is difficult for me because I have very 00:42:38.267 --> 00:42:41.297 much grown up in a generation of like, oh, I want to do the next thing, 00:42:41.297 --> 00:42:42.627 then the next thing, then the next thing. 00:42:42.627 --> 00:42:44.747 And it's very much for me, how 00:42:44.747 --> 00:42:49.587 can I fill up my attention span without thinking too hard about things? 00:42:49.900 --> 00:42:53.121 But I know God is calling me to time alone with him. 00:42:53.827 --> 00:42:58.305 And for me to be able to set that time aside is a

very difficult choice. 00:42:58.584 --> 00:43:03.297 You know and i'm grateful for those times where i'm able to do that where i'm 00:43:03.297 --> 00:43:07.827 just very intentionally praying because i can tell the difference that it makes 00:43:07.827 --> 00:43:11.594 in a day just to have time alone with god in the morning right, 00:43:12.407 --> 00:43:19.002 but solitude i would say is certainly one of the more challenging ones for me what about you. 00:43:19.170 --> 00:43:23.767 So for me i think it might actually be humility humility is hard for me because 00:43:23.767 --> 00:43:26.637 the opposite humility is pride and we talked a little bit about this. 00:43:26.637 --> 00:43:31.093 Pride isn't always the walking around, beating your chest, talking about how great you are. 00:43:31.471 --> 00:43:35.128 Pride can also be this internal idea of if it's meant to be, it's up to me. 00:43:35.769 --> 00:43:40.727 And I do kind of get in that lane sometimes where I forget that I can't do anything without God. 00:43:41.127 --> 00:43:44.227 And sometimes I start lying to myself or thinking to myself, 00:43:44.616 --> 00:43:46.781 if I'm going to get this done, I got to do it, right? 00:43:47.529 --> 00:43:51.043 And it puts the pressure on me to be like, well, I got to perform. 00:43:51.043 --> 00:43:52.880 We got to get it done. I got to get it moving. 00:43:53.247 --> 00:43:56.547 And if I don't do this, it's going to fail. 00:43:56.924 --> 00:43:59.832 But that's not true. But that's what pride looks like. 00:44:00.204 --> 00:44:03.339 Pride looks like saying it's on my shoulders. I have to do it. 00:44:03.705 --> 00:44:07.303 Even if at the end, I don't take the credit for it. Right. And I struggle a 00:44:07.303 --> 00:44:10.363 lot with that, having to sometimes slow down and say, you know, 00:44:10.363 --> 00:44:14.646 it's not up to me that I'm going to do the best I can. I'm going to do what the Lord calls me to do. 00:44:15.198 --> 00:44:20.845 And I just have to leave the rest up to him. right that's what humility is humility is saying, 00:44:21.355 --> 00:44:26.463 really in honesty it's not only not taking credit for stuff that god's clearly 00:44:26.463 --> 00:44:28.350 doing but on the front end of that 00:44:28.734 --> 00:44:33.423 also saying you know it doesn't rely on me this is either gonna be a success 00:44:33.423 --> 00:44:37.623 or failure up to god really and is it really a failure if it turns out how god 00:44:37.623 --> 00:44:39.821 wants it to anyways right right so. 00:44:40.391 --> 00:44:44.123 I have a hard time with that a lot because I do kind of, I like to plan. 00:44:44.123 --> 00:44:46.903 I like to put things out and I like to go, well, this is how I'm going to do 00:44:46.903 --> 00:44:50.963 it and we got to get it done and let's, you know, work on it and get it done. 00:44:50.963 --> 00:44:53.574 And if I don't do this, I'm, it's going to be terrible. 00:44:53.946 --> 00:44:58.023 And that really spikes my anxiety and, you know, it keeps me up at night. 00:44:58.023 --> 00:45:01.883 And so I can start seeing those patterns happen in my life from like, 00:45:01.883 --> 00:45:04.093 oh, I'm operating in pride and not humility here. 00:45:04.488 --> 00:45:08.313 So that one tends to be one that I struggle with actually a good bit, 00:45:08.662 --> 00:45:13.248 trying to make sure I stop and I slow down and say, look, my family's not going to fall apart. 00:45:13.660 --> 00:45:16.333 The church is not going to fall apart. My ministry is not going to fall apart. 00:45:16.333 --> 00:45:20.143 My spiritual life is not going to fall apart because none of that is held together by me. 00:45:20.433 --> 00:45:24.423 It's all held together by God. And I just need to be obedient instead and slow 00:45:24.423 --> 00:45:28.061 down and just seek his will first. So, yeah. All right. 00:45:28.235 --> 00:45:32.283 Second part of that is, which one do you think we may over-spiritualize to the 00:45:32.293 --> 00:45:35.804 detriment of others? Not saying any of these are less important than the other, 00:45:36.351 --> 00:45:41.100 but is there one you think that maybe we kind of put too much emphasis on sometimes. 00:45:41.442 --> 00:45:42.859 Yeah i would say, 00:45:43.472 --> 00:45:48.608 Probably practice before he performed. Right. This idea that like practices, 00:45:49.166 --> 00:45:52.208 this thing, like you got to get it right. 00:45:52.671 --> 00:45:58.482 Otherwise, like before you get to the performance part, it's not going to go well. Right. 00:45:58.824 --> 00:46:04.188 So it's almost like we overemphasize the need to make sure we get things exactly right. 00:46:04.605 --> 00:46:09.124 And I think when you do that, you actually, in a prideful way, 00:46:09.784 --> 00:46:13.614 maybe a little bit more subtly, you're actually downplaying the work of the 00:46:13.614 --> 00:46:15.242 Holy Spirit in the activity. 00:46:15.550 --> 00:46:20.495 Yeah, I can understand that. I think practice, of course, is important, like Pastor Steve said. 00:46:20.873 --> 00:46:23.524 But I do think sometimes we can get caught in that loop of, well, 00:46:23.524 --> 00:46:25.124 I got to keep practicing and practicing. 00:46:25.124 --> 00:46:29.823 And eventually, we never actually do anything. We just get stuck practicing, 00:46:30.521 --> 00:46:33.564 because we're never satisfied or we're never brave enough to take the leap. 00:46:33.564 --> 00:46:37.814 It's almost like a person who practices an instrument, you know, 00:46:37.814 --> 00:46:42.067 until they're a virtuoso, but they never actually perform for anyone. 00:46:42.421 --> 00:46:46.368 So what's the point, right? There is a part where, okay, you practice enough. 00:46:46.728 --> 00:46:51.616 Now it's time to let the spirit do what you can't practice, right? So I think that's true. 00:46:52.221 --> 00:46:56.374 I'm going to be maybe a little, hmm, I might be maybe a little controversial, 00:46:56.374 -->

00:47:00.902 especially what you just said. I think solitude sometimes gets a little overplayed. 00:47:01.111 --> 00:47:03.074 And here's what I mean. I, of course. 00:47:03.074 --> 00:47:03.734 I was thinking it. 00:47:04.112 --> 00:47:04.724 You were thinking it? 00:47:04.724 --> 00:47:09.841 I was. I just, I decided on practice because I feel like that one's one that's, I. 00:47:10.595 --> 00:47:13.714 Totally think that I would love to spend more time alone with God. 00:47:13.714 --> 00:47:14.784 I think everyone needs to. 00:47:15.124 --> 00:47:17.566 Again, it's not saying that any of these are less important. 00:47:17.845 --> 00:47:20.954 And I totally hear what you're saying, because I do feel that same way sometimes, 00:47:20.954 --> 00:47:23.116 that I have a hard time sometimes just getting alone. 00:47:23.721 --> 00:47:27.024 I think, though, for some people, solitude becomes a trap. 00:47:27.350 --> 00:47:30.994 Because, I mean, maybe you've heard this before, and you go, 00:47:30.994 --> 00:47:33.994 oh, you know, I'd love to do that, or I'd love to serve in that way, 00:47:33.994 --> 00:47:35.228 but I'm working on myself right now. 00:47:36.204 --> 00:47:39.530 I need to take care of myself right now. And I get that look. 00:47:39.785 --> 00:47:44.302 I'm all about self-care is important. Don't get me wrong. I am married to a therapist. 00:47:44.859 --> 00:47:47.529 I think taking care of yourself is, of course, very important. 00:47:48.134 --> 00:47:52.284 I do think sometimes it gets to the point of selfishness and we may not always 00:47:52.284 --> 00:47:55.832 realize that we need the Holy Spirit to convict us of that, you know, 00:47:56.099 --> 00:47:59.274 where it's a little bit like, because like, I've heard that too. 00:47:59.274 --> 00:48:02.604 I've heard like, you know, hey, you know, I've asked, I've approached people 00:48:02.604 --> 00:48:03.897 maybe like I was doing kids ministry. 00:48:04.153 --> 00:48:06.446 Hey, I think you'd be great at doing kids ministry. I think, 00:48:06.637 --> 00:48:09.704 you know, you have a heart for kids is clearly like being with you. 00:48:09.704 --> 00:48:13.666 You can teach one to go, oh, you know, I get it. But I'm just working on myself. 00:48:13.921 --> 00:48:15.373 You know, it's just mean God right now. 00:48:16.144 --> 00:48:19.726 And that's fine. I think there's a time for that and a season for that. 00:48:20.482 --> 00:48:24.597 But sometimes we get a little wrapped up in just me and myself, 00:48:25.096 --> 00:48:28.568 and we forget, like, this is a community thing, you know? 00:48:28.864 --> 00:48:32.922 God's working in community, and not just in my life, but in the life of the church. 00:48:33.415 --> 00:48:37.053 And there is part of this where it's like, there's a time with solitude with 00:48:37.053 --> 00:48:41.345 God, and then there's a time to be with his people in service, you know? 00:48:41.705 --> 00:48:47.123 And I just don't see that. Like, we're supposed to love others as we love ourselves. 00:48:48.051 --> 00:48:51.473 But it doesn't always just say like, oh, and also just love yourself really, 00:48:51.473 --> 00:48:53.803 really a lot. Like, you know. 00:48:54.443 --> 00:48:58.353 I mean, I would say this. I'd say James says, not me, James, 00:48:58.353 --> 00:48:59.713 the James in the Bible. The book of James. 00:48:59.713 --> 00:48:59.943 Yeah. 00:48:59.943 --> 00:49:05.993 It says faith without works is dead, right? So the pursuit of living out your 00:49:05.993 --> 00:49:08.843 faith is evidence of the faith that you have. 00:49:08.843 --> 00:49:12.210 You know, if you never get to the point where your faith is producing something, 00:49:12.564 --> 00:49:15.699 then you have to question whether or not you have a genuine faith. 00:49:16.203 --> 00:49:21.533 The other thing I would say in Hebrews, it tells us, hey, do not neglect the 00:49:21.533 --> 00:49:24.763 like gathering together, right? Don't neglect the gathering. 00:49:25.303 --> 00:49:28.867 Be together with people so that you can love and encourage them. 00:49:29.273 --> 00:49:33.173 Because ultimately that's when you love people, you're fulfilling the law of Christ. 00:49:33.843 --> 00:49:39.243 We constantly need encouragement, not just from the scriptures that we read 00:49:39.243 --> 00:49:44.023 in the spirit, but also from each other, right? That's something that God makes very clear. 00:49:44.403 --> 00:49:50.033 And I'll even say this last thing, that when Jesus would pursue solitude in 00:49:50.033 --> 00:49:55.491 prayer, one, he would always do it in the morning and he would get away from people. 00:49:55.846 --> 00:50:00.893 But two, it would always be on the front end on a day that is filled with ministry. 00:50:00.893 --> 00:50:07.223 Yeah, of course. You know, again, the life of a growing disciple has all five 00:50:07.223 --> 00:50:08.597 of these things in balance. 00:50:09.258 --> 00:50:13.264 So they're all important. But just like anything, too much of anything is a 00:50:13.264 --> 00:50:18.292 bad thing. And too much solitude can lead us into this selfish sort of self-spiral. 00:50:18.518 --> 00:50:18.854 That's right. 00:50:19.154 --> 00:50:22.216 Absolutely. All right. Two more really quick questions, kind of fun ones. 00:50:22.600 --> 00:50:26.464 The Kidman takeover was this big shakeup that we did. What do you think our 00:50:26.464 --> 00:50:31.214 adult service could, you know, learn from this shakeup that maybe could help 00:50:31.214 --> 00:50:34.214 enhance what we do on Sunday morning for a big church? 00:50:34.935 --> 00:50:38.014 Yeah, I think we need to do some small group questions right in the middle of service. 00:50:38.014 --> 00:50:39.074 Oh, maybe. 00:50:39.694 --> 00:50:43.834 That might be a fun way to approach it. I don't know. That might be an interesting shakeup, like... 00:50:44.513 --> 00:50:49.494 To pause service to say, hey, we want you to walk away from service and

say 00:50:49.807 --> 00:50:53.939 you have a way to practice. Because like the purpose of small groups in kids 00:50:53.939 --> 00:50:57.741 men is how are you going to apply what you just learned about the Bible? Right. 00:50:58.290 --> 00:51:02.749 And I think a lot of times we walk in and out of a service without getting to 00:51:02.749 --> 00:51:04.414 the application portion. Right. 00:51:04.669 --> 00:51:06.208 Yeah. I mean, so danger. 00:51:06.725 --> 00:51:10.464 I don't know that it would necessarily have to be something like small groups. Right. 00:51:11.143 --> 00:51:16.948 But some kind of clear, obvious, applicational portion of like, 00:51:17.424 --> 00:51:22.590 hey, this is what you do from here in order to help you apply the scripture. 00:51:22.892 --> 00:51:27.259 Yeah, I think my answer's a little bit along those lines. I think I really like 00:51:27.259 --> 00:51:32.309 the idea of having that handout after service is over to take home, 00:51:32.309 --> 00:51:34.989 to kind of do like follow-up thing with your family. 00:51:34.989 --> 00:51:36.289 Oh yeah, the handout. 00:51:36.289 --> 00:51:38.829 Yeah, to kind of like think about the sermon during the week, 00:51:38.829 --> 00:51:42.759 think about these questions, discuss them at home sort of what we do on this 00:51:42.759 --> 00:51:46.299 podcast is a little bit of like along that that vein you know. 00:51:46.299 --> 00:51:50.289 Yeah i mean one of the things we have a desire to do with this podcast is give 00:51:50.289 --> 00:51:55.389 people practical application so that not only after being encouraged on sunday 00:51:55.389 --> 00:51:59.129 they can be encouraged through the week but also encouraged to start living 00:51:59.129 --> 00:51:59.949 out what they're hearing. 00:51:59.949 --> 00:52:04.759 Yeah something like a big proponent of like that take home do at home kind of 00:52:04.759 --> 00:52:06.155 with your family sort of thing. 00:52:06.669 --> 00:52:09.189 So I like that. I think that might be an interesting thing to do. 00:52:09.569 --> 00:52:14.886 By the way, if you ever wanted to figure out, I'll put it this way. 00:52:15.421 --> 00:52:18.569 You had a discipleship group, and one of the things you did with discipleship 00:52:18.569 --> 00:52:22.069 group is you met and you talked about sometimes the sermon, sometimes you talked 00:52:22.069 --> 00:52:23.169 about what God's teaching you. 00:52:23.169 --> 00:52:25.232 Yeah, just whatever is going on spiritually in our lives. 00:52:25.359 --> 00:52:29.167 But ultimately, the goal is to challenge each other to live out what you've read, right? 00:52:30.386 --> 00:52:35.249 What we're doing on here almost is a model for what you can do in a discipleship group. 00:52:35.669 --> 00:52:41.282 Just grab two guys, three guys, whatever, whatever size group you would feel most comfortable with. 00:52:41.712 --> 00:52:43.901 And like, this is just another application point, right? 00:52:44.590 --> 00:52:49.344 Get together with them and talk about how you can apply what you've been learning about God. 00:52:49.344 --> 00:52:53.366 Absolutely. Okay. So last question, this one's specifically for you. 00:52:53.933 --> 00:52:58.134 We're doing something kind of unique, at least since I think we both have been 00:52:58.134 --> 00:53:02.697 here in North Point, in that this series is happening not only with our adults 00:53:02.969 --> 00:53:06.180 on Sunday morning, but with our kids on Sunday morning are doing the same David, 00:53:06.714 --> 00:53:10.554 to Jesus and with our youth on Wednesday nights is doing David and, 00:53:10.554 --> 00:53:12.774 you know, Shepard King and Jesus Shepard King. 00:53:12.966 --> 00:53:13.254 Yeah. 00:53:13.254 --> 00:53:17.384 So what are you doing on Wednesday night that's differentiating what's happening 00:53:17.384 --> 00:53:20.379 on Sunday morning with the kids and the adults? 00:53:21.093 --> 00:53:26.514 That is a great question. And you're going to have to tune in on Wednesday. No, I'm just kidding. 00:53:26.854 --> 00:53:27.294 Show up. 00:53:28.331 --> 00:53:33.634 Yeah, be there. So my intention with that, because that can be challenging. 00:53:33.634 --> 00:53:36.154 Like with kids men, it's a little bit easier because you're saying, 00:53:36.154 --> 00:53:38.644 okay, this is what we're learning in big service. We're going to learn something 00:53:38.644 --> 00:53:42.234 that's a little bit more geared towards kids, but it's going to be the same 00:53:42.234 --> 00:53:44.194 exact kind of message, right? 00:53:44.727 --> 00:53:49.597 In student ministry, many of our students have heard the message on Sunday. 00:53:49.908 --> 00:53:54.954 And so it's like, am I going to parrot exactly what Pastor Steve or Pastor Steve 00:53:54.954 --> 00:53:57.024 or, you know, Pastor Steve teaches us? 00:53:57.074 --> 00:53:58.254 Yeah, I'm one of the Steve's. 00:53:58.914 --> 00:53:59.760 One of our Pastor Steve's. 00:54:00.733 --> 00:54:03.275 Or are we going to do something completely different? 00:54:03.275 --> 00:54:03.575 Right. 00:54:04.175 --> 00:54:08.035 So my intention as we go through this David Shepard King series is going to 00:54:08.035 --> 00:54:12.025 be kind of to walk in parallel with the story of David. 00:54:12.025 --> 00:54:16.445 Right. So, for example, this Wednesday, I really want to zoom in on the Psalms 00:54:16.445 --> 00:54:20.917 that kind of reflect on the fact that David, before he was ever a king or this 00:54:21.219 --> 00:54:26.855 amazing warrior having fought Goliath when he was kind of a shepherd, you know, 00:54:27.195 --> 00:54:32.195 really learning how to get alone with God and being in that presence with God 00:54:32.195 --> 00:54:34.428 and growing and how God wants him to grow 00:54:34.867 --> 00:54:38.915 and just being intentional with a time of prayer, you know? 00:54:39.541 --> 00:54:44.899 And so it'll kind of be in parallel with the series, but not exactly what we're learning on

Sunday. 00:54:45.404 --> 00:54:49.135 Okay. Yeah, sounds great. I'm sure teenagers are going to really like that. 00:54:49.735 --> 00:54:51.305 I mean, I wish I was there. Sounds pretty cool. 00:54:51.479 --> 00:54:54.085 Well, you can be. You're welcome. 00:54:54.207 --> 00:54:58.555 All right. So real quick, just want to give an application. I want to challenge 00:54:58.555 --> 00:55:02.355 our listeners to apply what they heard. And I got this application out of the 00:55:02.355 --> 00:55:04.872 sermon. I thought it was really, really good one. 00:55:05.151 --> 00:55:11.792 Pastor Steve Williams, he challenged us to follow a person and not a feed, right? 00:55:12.895 --> 00:55:17.355 So I think you're talking about like scrolling through my social media feed, right? 00:55:17.355 --> 00:55:21.492 Yeah, yeah. Don't like do that because that's formative in maybe a way you don't want to be formed. 00:55:21.730 --> 00:55:25.795 But to find those people in our lives that we would consider mentors or spiritual, 00:55:26.115 --> 00:55:28.754 you know, parents or guides in our life. 00:55:29.996 --> 00:55:32.025 Here's what I'm challenging you to do, and this one's a hard one. 00:55:32.025 --> 00:55:35.662 It's maybe one of the hardest sort of applications I've challenged our listeners with. 00:55:36.210 --> 00:55:42.185 Ask one older in faith person this week for coffee or a conversation and ask 00:55:42.185 --> 00:55:45.166 them, you know, I want to learn how you walk with Jesus. 00:55:45.404 --> 00:55:47.709 Be a follower before you become a leader, right? 00:55:48.022 --> 00:55:52.155 So think of that person in your life who you're like, I really value this person. 00:55:52.155 --> 00:55:56.835 I really admire their faith and how they, you know, grow and how they follow Jesus, 00:55:57.311 --> 00:56:02.265 invite them for coffee or something, you know, break that awkward kind of conversation 00:56:02.265 --> 00:56:05.757 barrier and just lay it out and say, I just want to talk to you about Jesus, 00:56:06.164 --> 00:56:10.268 talk to you how you follow Jesus and kind of, you know, pick your brain on it, right? 00:56:10.925 --> 00:56:15.015 Those are the conversations that change lives. So I want to invite you to do 00:56:15.015 --> 00:56:16.706 that. And of course, we got our memory verse. 00:56:17.031 --> 00:56:21.379 I picked out 1 Samuel 16, 7, very relevant to what we just talked about. 00:56:21.721 --> 00:56:25.745 But the Lord said to Samuel, do not look at his appearance or his stature. 00:56:25.745 --> 00:56:27.323 Because I have rejected him. 00:56:27.782 --> 00:56:31.555 Humans do not see what the Lord sees, for humans see what is visible, 00:56:31.659 --> 00:56:33.134 but the Lord sees the heart. 00:56:34.179 --> 00:56:38.878 Right. So very good. That is 1 Samuel 16, 7. I'm going to put in my app. 00:56:38.878 --> 00:56:40.963 I'm going to memorize that one this week. 00:56:41.565 --> 00:56:47.247 So challenge you to as well. Again, one more time, 1 Samuel 16, 7. So, all right. 00:56:47.526 --> 00:56:52.840 Yeah. With that, thank you for listening. We appreciate all those who take time 00:56:53.096 --> 00:56:55.093 out of their week to listen to our podcast. 00:56:55.261 --> 00:56:59.278 We pray and hope that it has been an encouragement to you and has helped challenge 00:56:59.278 --> 00:57:02.383 you to start applying some of these scriptures to your life. 00:57:02.749 --> 00:57:07.278 We want to invite you to review and subscribe and share, especially if you know 00:57:07.278 --> 00:57:10.807 somebody who you feel like would benefit from this podcast. 00:57:11.079 --> 00:57:14.024 We also want to invite you to join us at church on Sundays. 00:57:14.349 --> 00:57:16.907 We have services at 9 a.m. 00:57:17.453 --> 00:57:20.976 And 11 a.m. in the Lutz Land O'Lake area. 00:57:21.360 --> 00:57:25.728 And then also, if you have some questions or thoughts or anything you want to 00:57:25.728 --> 00:57:29.458 share with us as we consider what we're going to be tackling on the podcast, 00:57:29.458 --> 00:57:34.521 you can drop us a line at pod at northpointfl.org. All right. 00:57:35.448 --> 00:57:38.038 And with that, Pastor Robbie, can you close us in a word of prayer? 00:57:38.038 --> 00:57:43.275 I'd love to. Heavenly Father, we thank you that you look at our hearts. 00:57:43.606 --> 00:57:50.003 You don't see the outside. You don't regard the things that maybe other people look at. 00:57:50.363 --> 00:57:55.148 Instead you look deeper you see our hearts lord i pray that you would prepare 00:57:55.148 --> 00:57:59.328 our hearts for you for your kingdom that you would mold us and shape us that 00:57:59.328 --> 00:58:02.623 we would be formed in the image of your son by your holy spirit, 00:58:03.668 --> 00:58:08.318 father i pray as we explore the life of david that it would make an impression 00:58:08.318 --> 00:58:15.202 on our own lives that it would form us as well it's in your son's name we pray amen amen.