Change Your Filter, Change Your Life | Crossroads Church

Welcome to Crossroads. My name is Nico. We're in the final week of our series, Origin Stories. Who likes to admit when you need help or when you've messed up? Most of us are pretty good at showing people the polished version of ourselves, but underneath there are often battles raging that we feel unequipped to fight. Battles against fear, doubt, shame. Battle to trust God when life isn't going the way we've expected. One of the things we've seen throughout this entire series is that the people we call heroes of faith weren't heroes because they never had battles. So whether you're feeling strong today or hanging on by a thread, you're in the right place. An origin story is the part nobody talks about. The part before confidence and success, before anyone knows your name. It's false starts, wrong turns, and total failure. It's the beginning. Every person you admire has one. The Bible may just be the greatest origin story ever told. It's a book about how God meets people at the beginning. In the beginning, God creates. In the beginning, humanity is formed from dust. In the beginning, there is possibility, purpose, and relationship. Then things fall apart, but God rebuilds and enlists humanity in the work of restoration. The Bible is full of people who eventually become known for things like faith and courage, wisdom, and sacrifice. We call them heroes of the faith, but none of them started there. The story God tells is about him meeting ordinary people in ordinary places and inviting them into something extraordinary. Today's origin story is about Abigail, a vulnerable wife who was decisive in crisis. Well, hey everyone. My name is Allie. I'm one of the teaching pastors here. It's great to be with you gathered here in community at Crossroads this weekend. We have been in this series looking at origin stories of people who are really commended in the Bible, and we always seem to end up talking about faith. Every single week, what is faith? What is it not? What does it look like? How does it act? We keep talking about the idea of faith, and every week I've been thinking, gosh, these people are a lot more like us than you might first think when you hear about their big moment or their, you know, big act of faith. They actually have first like a big problem or a big flaw or, you know, a big past of some kind. Today is no different. One of my favorite women in scripture, her name is Abigail. If you don't know her story, you're going to by the end of the day today, and she had a big problem. I'm hoping not a lot of you women can relate to this problem, but maybe one or two of you. Abigail was married to a real big jerk, and he made a real big mess, and she's the one that stepped into it. God used her in an amazing way in the story that we're going to read today together, and if you've ever wondered why does God choose to use some people?

What is it that he's looking for? How does he pick them and not someone else in the situation? Today you're going to get the answer. Let me pray for us. Lord, call faith out of us today. Right here, right now, there's people of great faith that has yet to hit the scene. I pray today would be the day that you raise up the people of faith in our community. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, it's the end of summer, and I've got probably like a couple hundred pictures on my phone camera roll that I didn't have at the beginning of the summer. Do you ever get in there and mess with filters? You apply different filters, you look at the same picture a couple different ways. Usually when I post pictures on my Instagram, I don't use a filter. I'll just use it as is, but if I do, I have a favorite one. I use Paris. I'm not totally sure why I picked that one, but it's got something to do with my skin. Like, I apply the filter, and I'm like, oh, that's a little bit how I used to look. I like that one. So I always pick Paris. Maybe you're gritty, you like the black and white one. Or the Rio de Janeiro, it like pops the oranges and reds and yellows out and fades some of the, washes out some of the other parts of the picture. You know if you mess with filters on the same picture, suddenly you're looking at different subtleties. You're seeing it a different way. The objects aren't changing, but the picture is being altered. The things that you notice are either sharper or softer or more colorful or deeper. There's things that change when we use filters. And the big idea in the story of Abigail that we're going to talk through today is that faith is a filter. Faith is a filter and you can either use it or not. And God has an invitation on the table for us to use the filter of faith to see a clearer picture of whatever it is that we're looking at, whatever it is that we're dealing with. If we apply the filter of faith, suddenly we have a fuller, more accurate, deeper, more beautiful picture of what we are looking at. Doesn't change the objects in view, just the way that we are seeing it. The story of Abigail is a story of a couple of different filters at work. And when we encounter Abigail, it's actually in the Old Testament section of the Bible. Her story is found in the book of 1 Samuel, chapter 25. And the whole reason we meet her is because most of this section of the Bible is detailing the life of David. David is soon to be, in this story, King David, but he's not king yet.

He's actually been running from the current king, King Saul, who kind of hates him. Because David has already been chosen as the future king. God has sent his prophet named Samuel to anoint David, but years are going by while Saul is still king and people love David. He's a great warrior and people know him and Saul hates him. So he's after David a lot of the sections of this time in his life. And so David often lives for long periods of time out in the wilderness or stays in caves. And at this point in his life, it's been a while of that. And he's living in the wilderness with a few hundred people that are now following him. And while they're in the wilderness, they encounter, who would you see in the wilderness, but shepherds. There were a bunch of shepherds and they actually were all working for the same man and his name was Nabal. And Nabal employed all these shepherds. He was like the wealthiest flock owner in the area and David and his men run across these shepherds where they're living and they're actually really good to them. They help them. They protect them. They do things for them. It makes me wonder whether or not there's like a subtlety in here when they meet them. Maybe even David himself did some special things for them because if you know the story of David, you know that he himself was a shepherd. That was his job in the family and he was very, very good at it. And so it just makes me wonder like what went down here. But what we know is he was really good to these guys. And so the time of year comes around and it's time to shear the sheep. And sheep shearing is kind of a harvest-like time. Big celebrations. Everybody gets paid. Big parties.

If you're a wealthy flock owner like Nabal was, you would be throwing a huge party and it would have been very customary for people in your town, your family, your friends to join into the celebrations around sheep shearing time. And that's what David requests. He sends some of his young men to greet Nabal and actually introduce themselves and to request a basic version of hospitality. Nothing crazy. Definitely according to custom. And he makes this request and instead of graciously allowing them to partake in the bounty of this time of year, Nabal insults them, demeans them and David personally and sends them away, completely denies their request. And David's real angry. Like real angry. He takes a few hundred of his guys and he comes. He starts toward the household of Nabal and things aren't going to go well. Now I was thinking like it's hard to wrap our head around the kind of insult. So I was trying to come up with a modern day equivalent. It's a little bit tough but I want you to have a sense for like what's the kind of insult? This isn't just like I'm mad because you won't let me join your party. It's a little bit more than that. It would be something like you have a home, a business, a property and it's amazing. You've built it. It's exactly your dream home. Your business is thriving. You own all the property and something threatens it. Let's say it's a fire and it's pushing toward all of your stuff and it threatens to ruin everything. And there's a group of first responders that come and they save you, your family and everything that you own. And you throw a big party to celebrate, hey, everything's still here.

It's okay. You're grilling up steaks. You've got everything flowing, your favorite beer, whatever you're serving, whatever. You're celebrating with everybody that everything has been saved. And the first responders, the same guys, they come to your door during the party and they say, could we have some water, maybe a PBJ? And instead of... graciously inviting them to join you, you close the door in your face and you say, pfft, I don't have to give you anything. Get out of here. That's the kind of insult we're talking about. One that feels like not just insulting, but wrong. Wrong, because David, he's done good to them. He's gone out of his way for them. He's actually used his strength and his skills and his men to help toward the bounty that's being celebrated. And he gets absolutely demeaned and insulted and he's coming to kill everyone. That's what he's bent on. And the servants of the household know this and they run to one person in the story, enter Abigail, Nabal's wife. They run to her. They dump the situation at her feet. It's an emergency, it's a crisis. They see that David and his men are coming and we're gonna pause right here and we're gonna look at a couple of people's filters

in the story because the same situation is taking place and people are seeing it very differently. Let's look at Nabal's filter first. I would call his filter, the filter of self. The question that he is asking over this whole story is what is best for me? He says, shall I take my bread and my water and my meat that I have killed for my shearers and give it to men who come from I don't know where? He chooses a filter that's primarily about himself, his stuff, his people, his property and how he can keep the most of it. And then there's David. David has a filter on this situation and it's the filter of what I would call offense. We've all done that, right? Those of you who struggle with road rage, you certainly know this one. They did something wrong to me. It's not okay. And here's what his sounds like. He has returned me evil for good. God do so to the enemies of David and more also if by morning I leave so much as one male of all who belong to him. David's filter is causing him to want revenge. He's saying, how will I defend myself? How can I get justice for this offense to me? All he can see, it's like a filter of red. Everything is being colored by the fact that he's angry,

he's offended and he's not wrong. And that's how he's seeing through. And there's other ones we use. I would say we're probably familiar with both of those two. I'm sure you know someone who is easily offended, right? Everything is about how it hit them and whether they're offended and how everyone offends them. You know, this is a pretty common one in our culture. I thought about other ones that we use to see situations. I have somebody in my life who knows this. I will not tell you her name, but it's pretty common to see everything through the lens of people-pleasing. How can I keep everyone happy? And we will do anything to avoid somebody walking away from an interaction with us and being unhappy with us. We don't want to disappoint. We don't want to anger. We don't want to upset. We see everything through the lens of people-pleasing. That's our filter. Maybe there's this anxiety or achievement. You know, what's in this for me that I could raise myself up, that I could actually accomplish something? And whatever that filter is, it's going to determine how you see things, what questions you ask about the situation and how you proceed, what you actually do as a result of it. That's what's going on with all these filters.

And Abigail is also using a filter and she's asking a totally different question than anyone else in this situation. And it causes her to do what I often hear taught about her, which is completely right, all accurate. She is wise. She is brave. She is decisive. She is, you know, she leans into action in the situation when everyone else seems to be coming apart. And those are all true, all true about her. But the question I actually have in my mind today for us is how did she know to do that? What caused her to be ready? How did she see the situation that she was able and willing to do something that nobody else was doing? Why were they seeing it so differently? She brings together a gift of wine, of sheep, of grain, of raisins, of figs. She packs them on donkeys. She rides out to where the servants have told her they're coming hundreds of men. They're on their way here right now. It's a very, very tenuous situation. First Samuel 25, 23, it says, when Abigail saw David, she hurried and got down from the donkey and fell before David on her face and bowed to the ground. And in this moment, people will often teach about her humility.

or her bravery to throw herself in front of basically a small army of men coming to kill her household. But we're asking, how did she know? And the answer is she was looking through a filter, the filter of faith. She was looking through a filter called faith. And I'm going to show you the three things that it changed about this situation as she used this filter that got her to the point where she was brave and ready and decisive and she knew what to bring and she knew what to say. How did she know? And it's this filter. It's the filter of faith. The first thing it changes is how we see people. The filter of faith changes how we see people. Now, there's a kid on my street I want to tell you about. I see him a certain way, not gonna lie. I'm gonna say it. Some of you parents out here, sometimes your kid is the problem. It's true. Now, if you happen to live on my street, there's like a gaggle of like 12 boys. You don't know who I'm talking about. And all I can say is if you know, you know. But this kid, you know what I'm saying? This kid. For many years, I have had private opinions. Private opinions about this kid. He's never been out in a game of baseball, never once. He's always wronged. He throws a fit when he doesn't get his own way. He's kind of unpleasant to the other kids, like on a regular basis. And I just, I'm like, this kid, you know what I'm saying? And then, you know, more or less, I'm the adult. Keep those opinions to myself. Until the day you call my daughter ugly and now we have a problem. We got a big problem and it's a personal problem and now I'm involved in the problem because I got a lot of opinions about how this person just treated my child. She's like, mom, please don't get involved. I know that you want to be involved. I'm like, oh, I'm getting involved, you know. She's like, I really don't need you to. I just thought, and I'm like, oh, then you shouldn't have said anything. But I have a filter on this kid and I've been working on it, you know. I've got the filter going and I see him a certain way. How many of you men would love to be remembered for who you were in middle school? Anybody? Yeah, I didn't think so.

That's pretty much the filter that I have on this kid and I like using it and guess what? I'm not wrong. That's what Nabal is doing in this situation. Here's what he says, who is David? Who is the son of Jesse? There are many servants these days who are breaking away from their masters. You guys, that's a ridiculous thing to say. Everybody knows who David is. They sing songs about him. His fame is all over the nation. He's married to the king's daughter. Everybody knows who David is. And he's like, who's this guy? Because guess what? If he chooses the slice to look at David, which is not wrong, this day David is a runaway rebel in the wilderness. And Nabal looks at him exactly like that in that one slice, in that one season, in that one picture, and he pushes everything else he may or may not know about David out of his mind because this picture suits his filter. If that's who he is, then Nabal gets to keep all his stuff. He doesn't have to share with some no-name nobody from nowhere who did nothing for him, who's gone tomorrow. But wow, did he miss a big chance here. How would you like to have God offer you a chance to be abundantly hospitable to the future king? That's what's happening here. And his filter, he cannot see that because he's using the filter of how can I keep my stuff? What's best for me? And so he chooses the slice of David and David's life that suits that filter. That's exactly what I do to this kid on my street. I'm trying to stop, I promise. Stops today. Lord, forgive me. Help me to see the full picture of who you've made and who I'm sure one day he's going to be. This filter of faith asks the question, Lord, how do you see this person? Who did you make? How do you name this person? What do you see about this person?

That's what the filter of faith is asking. Abigail is seeing through that filter. She's asking that question about the people involved. And it's not just sunshine and roses. She tells the truth even when it could potentially be detrimental to her. Here's what she says about her. own husband, Nabal, worthless fellow, Nabal, for as his name is, so is he. Nabal is his name and folly is with him. Your spouse sees your patterns. And she knows over a long period of time, what she sees are the patterns of a fool. And the Bible has a lot to say about what those are and how you live and what you might do and what you might say if you were a fool bent on folly. If you wanna know what that is, I highly recommend the book of Proverbs. Lot of help in there figuring out, am I a fool, am I living like one? That's what she's saying about her own husband. This isn't good. It's certainly not good for her. If she was using the filter of self, she would have kept her mouth shut about who he actually was because he had wealth and status and privilege. And what she's trying to do is say, I see this correctly. And she doesn't even just do that with Nabal, she does it with David as well. This is a really, really interesting part of the story

because she starts talking to David. She's thrown herself down on the ground. She's in front of him, her filter is at work. She's talking like not to a fugitive, but to a future king. And I want you to hear the speech that she gives. It's wordy, so I'm not gonna read it all to you. Instead, I want you to listen to it and I just want you to let it wash over you. Let it kind of hit you with a tone and hear the respect and the deference and try to count the number of times that she calls him, my Lord. Take a listen to her speech. On me alone, my Lord, be the guilt. Please let your servant speak in your ears and hear the words of your servant. Let not my Lord regard this worthless fellow, Nabal, for as his name is, so is he. Nabal is his name and folly is with him. But I, your servant, did not see the young men of my Lord whom you sent. Now then, my Lord, as the Lord lives and as your soul lives, because the Lord has restrained you from the blood guilt and from saving with your own hands, now then let your enemies and those who seek to do evil to my Lord be as Nabal. And now let this present that your servant has brought to my Lord be given to the young men who follow my Lord. Please forgive the trespass of your servant, for the Lord will certainly make my Lord a sure house,

because my Lord is fighting the battles of the Lord and evil shall not be found in you so long as you live. If men rise up to pursue you and seek your life, the life of my Lord shall be bound in the bundle of the living, in the care of the Lord your God. In the lives of your enemies, he shall sling out as from the hollow of a sling. And when the Lord has 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 for my Lord working salvation himself. And when the Lord has dealt well with my Lord, then remember your servant. Amen. Your servant over and over, my Lord, my Lord, over and over. It's not like she's standing in front of a fugitive rebel living in the wilderness, she sees who he is. It's almost like you can imagine David standing in front of her, almost transforming into, instead of whatever he's wearing or whatever he's holding, he suddenly, it feels like she's talking to a king because she's addressing him in the fullness of who he actually is. If we have people in our life that we would speak to like that, it's almost as though she is offering him the chance, don't forget who you are. And she almost calls it up and out of him

because he's very bent on one particular course of action. And she starts talking to him as who he actually is. Her speech actually shows us more than just that. There's a lot in that speech that we could pull apart. But the second thing that the filter of faith shows you when you use it is it changes the way that you see circumstances. Faith changes the way that you see circumstances. She was reinterpreting the situation. As she spoke to David, she said nothing about begging for her property to not be taken or her people that she loved in her household to not be killed. She said really nothing like what you and I might say. She was reinterpreting the actual situation focused on what? The filter of faith focuses. is on what God's concerns are. It always puts the concerns of God at the forefront of the situation. And it asks the question of God, Lord, what are you doing here? As soon as we ask that question, it activates the filter. It's like, help me see. We might as well be asking God, help me see. Because when we start asking him, show me what you're doing here. He's like, ooh, I have somebody that's willing to see this the way that I see it.

David is seeing only the need for justice. It's not that there was no need for justice. It's just that that wasn't God's primary concern. Abigail was seeing the situation a little bit differently. She's focused on David. Did you hear how much of the speech was about David? Here's what she specifically says. The Lord has restrained you from blood guilt and from saving with your own hand. Well, the Lord hasn't done anything yet. David's still standing there trying to decide. And Abigail says, I've been sent here to do something. The Lord is trying to restrain you from guilt. This situation is entirely about David's future kingship. It's about who he's becoming, what God has chosen him for, the life that he's supposed to be walking into. And God is like, oh, whoa, hold on here. David isn't seeing the situation the same way as God. Abigail walks in and offers him another view. What if I'm here to restrain you from guilt and from saving with your own hand? What if God wants to know the answer too? When you are offended and when justice is needed, will you take it into your own hands or will you do it my way? And Abigail shows up with that interpretation in the situation. I think a lot of us have moments where we do look at the circumstances taking place around us.

And we have that instinct, that little nudge that like something else is going on here. Do you ever think that? There's a situation, but it's like, the thing isn't the thing. And sometimes somebody standing there, sometimes it's you, addresses that. Jesus actually did that all the time. People would ask him about a situation and he would go under it or beyond it or over top of it. And he would address something deeper, maybe a motive, maybe inner thoughts, maybe something that God wanted to accomplish through these circumstances. And I think we have these little nudges a lot. We just don't feel the permission to treat them as the most important thing going on. And if we started asking God, Lord, what are you doing here? I wonder what he would show you. Because a lot of times he's doing something through the circumstances. It's not that what we see is not happening or not important. It's just that what God is doing is something around it or through it or deeper than what's just taking place. I wonder if you ask that question, if he would begin showing you whatever circumstances you're looking at, maybe are a test to see if you will live generously.

Or maybe they're an offer of a chance for reconciliation. You just keep passing by, not taking it. So it keeps coming around again. Lord, what are you doing? I wonder if the behavior that's bugging you out of one of your kids is really not about that. What if he's trying to show you something else, show you part of your character or theirs or something that's gone on in your home or with your parenting? It's a humble question to ask. Lord, what are you doing here? Because we are way more committed to how we are seeing the situation or the person or whatever is happening. That's what we think is right. And Abigail somewhere at some point in this situation understood God is doing something different, different than these other people. And she puts the concerns of God forefront, which in this case is the future kingship of the King that he has chosen for the nation of Israel. And Abigail gets that. She gets, this isn't really primarily about me. It's not primarily about my household. Even though I don't want them all to die, the best thing I can do is address God's concern. That's what faith does. What is God concerned about? And it's funny when we do that,

the other things have a way of finding their right place. And this filter she's using to see people and circumstances, there's one other thing that you just heard in the speech. It's the third thing that it changes. When you use the filter of faith, it changes how you see the future. Abigail talked a lot about the future in her. I'll just remind you of a few of the things that she said, because I know that was a lot of words. She said things like, "'The Lord will certainly make my Lord a sure house. "'When the Lord has done according to the good He's spoken. "'When the Lord has appointed you Prince over Israel.'" She's speaking about David's future. The life he's supposed to live toward the things that God has chosen him for. It shifts the promises to the forefront of the picture. It fades the current situation. It says, hold on, look at the whole thing. Look at this in the context of what God is calling you to and not just what's going down here, right here, right now, today. Abigail seems to know some stuff. When I first read this story, because you don't really get her backstory. You just meet her in this crisis. And I kept thinking like, does she know all this stuff? She's obviously been living a faithful life. She's obviously been listening to the scriptures and to the prophet of God and to paying attention

to the moves of God in her nation and with the people that are important to God. She's been living a faithful life. And this is the point where she makes a choice that that's the reality she's gonna live in. We have all different views of what we think is really going on, right? And Abigail makes a choice. She takes all the information that she knows. And she says, this is the most accurate picture that I could use. And it incorporates all the promises of God from here into the future. The filter of faith always sees the future according to the promises of God. And treats them as though they're certain. That's the crazy thing here. She just talks to him like all of this has already happened. I've been thinking about this a lot over the last week. I started this message far before the events that I'm about to tell you. And man, this one is the hardest one I think for us because what's happening in our lives is actually happening. And the things that God has promised are not happening. Like they're not here. Many, many times we have to make a choice to broaden our view through this filter. I have a very close friend. Try to do this for the first time without crying. In the last week, and she passed away suddenly, tragically.

And it was only a couple of days after she gave birth to her daughter. It's not right. It's actually happening. That's the true situation. That's the real deal. Her three girls no longer have their mom. That's real. And I was sitting on my daughter's bed. One of my daughters knew her very, very well. Also, and we were just crying, just in shock. And she's suddenly gone, what? That's the reality, right? And my daughter said, mom, last night, I looked up in my Bible where I'm supposed to read when I'm brokenhearted. And she said, I read a verse in 1 Thessalonians. She said, you're doing what that verse said. I said, what do you mean? And she said, you just told me that the only thing that you can wrap your mind around that's actually okay in this situation is that you know she's with Jesus. You knew her heart. You knew her faith. You know she's with Jesus. She said, that verse says we're supposed to grieve with hope. It's really hard. You know what I'm saying?

The circumstances that you are in, they are real. And you are living with them, whether they're good, bad, or otherwise. And also God offers us a filter that can broaden our view. All of us wanna know, how do we live a life of hope, of peace, of joy, of goodness? Guess what? A lot of those are available, but only through the filter of faith. And we have to make a choice to use it. You don't have to. You can pull up your phone and you can apply a filter or not, and you look at the picture that you choose from that filter. This whole series of origin stories began through a conversation. that we had in teacher's team about Hebrews chapter 11. If you don't know that chapter, you should just go read it. It's extremely encouraging. It lists a bunch of people who are commended for their faith and they're actually remembered sometimes for really interesting moments or moves. And it's kind of the background of how we arrived at this teaching series where we picked some of those people to talk about. And I want you to hear how the whole chapter begins. Hebrews 11 one, it says, now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Faith is holding a conviction,

is hoping against the circumstances that are in front of you that there's a bigger picture. That it's not that what we're looking at is untrue, it's just not complete. Faith asks us to believe there's a bigger picture taking place here and there's some things that you can only be, only feel, only access in your life if you're willing to use the filter because faith is a conviction of what we hope for. You wanna find out what you hope for? My last week, it's been the most brutal way to find out. You wanna know if you believe in the promises of what God says? We sang one of them earlier. We sang that dead things come back to life. Do you know how much I need to believe that right now? We need this filter on our life if we're going to make it as faithful people in a world like this. So Abigail presents David this choice. You can use the filter or not. She throws herself down, she gives this speech. She tries to call him up and remember who are you? What's really going on here? What has God promised you? And she uses the filter and she does her best and then she has to wait because he's the one that gets to make the choice. You can use it or not. And here's what he says.

And David said to Abigail, blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel who sent you this day to meet me. Blessed be your discretion. Blessed be you who have kept me this day from blood guilt and from working salvation with my own hand. And he said to her, go up in peace to your house. See, I have obeyed your voice and I have granted your petition. Abigail saved everybody involved in this story but she did it through the filter of faith, through God's concerns, through God's view, through God's future. She didn't go and beg for her life and throw things at him and try to deal with the crisis at hand her own way. She used this filter and she spoke to him the way that God saw this situation. I kept going back to the beginning of this chapter. See, if you go to 1 Samuel 25, you'll see that Abigail's story of her encounter with David, it's most of the chapter and it starts in verse two. And there's this one funny verse right before the story begins and it begins the whole chapter and it seems to be disconnected. And I just kept thinking, it's not, it's not. Lord, what is this verse? And I finally realized it is 100% the introduction

to this story and to who God chose. 1 Samuel 25, one, now Samuel died and all Israel assembled and mourned for him and they buried him in his house at Ramah. Let's remember together who Samuel is. He's the prophet of God. If you read all of his life through the scriptures, you would often hear him called the seer. He was called the seer and God would allow him to see something and then he would send him to the king or to the future king with his view, his messages, his plans. And Samuel dies. Enter Abigail. The future king is flying blind and God knows this is gonna go very badly and I've chosen you for a future that this is not consistent with and I need somebody, anybody who will step in and who will see this my way and who will speak my words and who will call you up to my promises. Who will do it? Enter the story of Abigail. She was the one, God chose Abigail against all odds. There were all kinds of people in this situation and Abigail was the one he picked and we get so hung up, you guys, so hung up on, are you the right age, the right job,

the right education, the right color, the right gender? God doesn't care about any of that stuff. God cares about one thing and one thing only, when he needs somebody to step into a situation and change an outcome, he's looking for somebody who will use the filter of faith. He's looking for a person who will say, who do I say these people are? What do I say is going on here? What are my concerns? And most importantly, what is the future that I have promised to them? Maybe you think that God can't use you where you are. I promise you He can. Big problem, big flaw, big past, doesn't matter. God can use you in any set of circumstances if you will apply this filter. And I wanna invite you to do something with me to finish. We're just gonna say a prayer together. It's actually an old hymn. And while we sing this together, I want you to ask the question that activates the filter. Lord, what are you doing here? Maybe it's a person, maybe it's some circumstances, maybe it's a future. But if you're anything like me this week, you're having a little trouble seeing. You need to apply the filter. God is giving you an invite.

I wonder what you'd see if you took another look through that filter. So would you stand up and sing with me? And I'll tell you the name of this hymn. It's called, Be Thou My Vision. And it's an old hymn. It has a lot of words to it, but I think you're going to hear what I hear in it. This is the exact prayer that I would love it if we would pray together. Lord, be our vision. Amen. ♪ Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart ♪ ♪ Naught be all else to me, save that thou art ♪ ♪ Thou my best light by day or by night ♪ ♪ Waking or sleeping, thy presence my light ♪ ♪ Be thou my wisdom and thou my truth, O Lord of my heart ♪ ♪ Any word I ever with thee and thou with me, Lord ♪ ♪ Though my great Father and I thy true son ♪ ♪ Thou in me dwelling and I with thee one ♪ ♪ High King of heaven, my victory won ♪ ♪ May I reach heaven's joys, O bright heaven's sun ♪ ♪ Heart of my own heart, whatever befall ♪ ♪ Still be my vision, O ruler of all ♪ ♪ Heart of my own heart, whatever befall ♪ ♪ Still be my vision, O ruler of all ♪ ♪ Of all ♪ Good people, thanks for joining us today and spending time with us in a word. My encouragement is simple.

Don't just hear God's word today. Take one step because of it. Maybe that's opening your Bible. Maybe it's spending a few quiet minutes in prayer. Maybe forgiving someone, asking forgiveness, simply saying yes to whatever God is putting in front of you today. Whatever that next step is, take it. And if this message encouraged you, we'd love to hear from you. Send us a video, Graham, or write to us at prison at crossroads.net. Our team reads every letter. We love to walk alongside you. Till next time, keep pursuing Jesus, keep opening his word, keep saying yes, one day at a time. See you soon.