Prepared for His Plan

I confess I woke up this morning completely convinced that I didn't have anything and I was going to be sitting and listening, and I was okay with that. And then as I was getting ready, some very simple thoughts came back to me, I don't think I'm going to necessarily be up here a long time, so don't settle back too much. But I'm just trusting the Lord to share something that we've, truth that we've heard and scripture that we've heard many times as often as is the case. But my mind went to 1 Samuel chapter 17, and it's the familiar passage about David and Goliath. There are some principles that apply to every one of us here this morning and to our lives. Because God was at this time in David's life preparing him for a role, obviously we see the grandeur of it because he was being prepared to be king. Saul had proven himself as a king to be a self-willed proud man who didn't believe in God at his word and doing what he said. And there were specific examples of disobedience, willful disobedience. And God said that he was looking for a man after his own heart. That's pretty important. I pray that I'm speaking to a lot of people who are after God's heart. That is, we want what he wants. His will rules. His will is the most important. His plan is the most important thing. We see that he has a bigger plan than just me getting through my day and through my earthly life. And so David certainly had a low place in society. He was the eighth son of a shepherd, a man who owned flocks of sheep in Bethlehem. And you remember when Samuel was sent to the village to anoint a new king, and he brought all the first seven sons, and boy, he saw that first one, he said, man, that's got to be him. He's just, he's handsome, he's tall, he's a clear leader. And the Lord said, don't pay any attention to that, to paraphrase.

God doesn't look on the outward appearance. He doesn't see like people see and like the world sees. He looks at the heart. That's what God's looking for today, by the way. He is looking for a people who will in this hour be in tune with his heart and want what he wants, because we'll see the world and our own lives through different eyes. And so, you know, they went through all the first seven sons and finally, do you have any more? Oh yeah, there's the youngest. He's out there tending the sheep. So bring him in. And that was the one. And we see a young man who obviously had spent a lot of time alone doing the menial task in the eyes of the world and just doing his job. But there was something about him that had connected with God, even in that everyday life that seemed meaningless and of low esteem in the world. But yet he didn't take it that way. He simply used his time to learn about God, to spend time with him, to worship him. And of course, he had a musical talent too, didn't he? He played the lyre and he wrote songs. And of course, we have, you know, a huge number of songs that he wrote that we call psalms that were hymns expressing all kinds of different things that he went through. But always this sense of I'm trusting God, I am looking to him. That was the characteristic of his heart and his life, even though he was doing something that in the eyes of the world was unimportant. He still did it with a sense that this is, I'm doing what God gave me to do. Wouldn't that be a good way to look at our lives instead of just measuring things by outward values and how the world sees them? But see, David was this man after God's own heart, and we know how a demon began to afflict Saul and they said, you need a guy that can play the lyre and he'll sing songs that are

soothing and you can get some relief. And so they found, they brought David, heard about him, and he started traveling back and forth back to his responsibilities with the sheep, and then he'd come and serve Saul for a while. And so then you come to the part where the Philistine army lines up against Israel. And instead of just everybody coming to the battle, they send out. This giant, who's nine feet, nine inches tall, is wearing 125 pounds of armor, has a spear with a point that wears 15 pounds. I get tired of just thinking about it. I'm not sure I could get out of a chair. But anyway, so this was the way they were gonna fight this battle. It's gonna be one-on-one, you pick your champion, we'll pick ours, and whoever wins, that's gonna win the whole battle and one will serve the other. And so he came out and challenged them day after day. Who are you, what are you afraid of? And in the middle of that battle, we know how God no doubt put it on Jesse's heart. I don't think Jesse understood what was going on, David's father. But he said, you know, you got three brothers that are in the army down there and they're fighting and I want you to see how they're doing and I'm gonna take some supplies. So he goes down there just about the time the giant comes out and basically David said, who is this guy that he could challenge

the armies of the living God? He saw the battle through different eyes than everybody else did. And he realized that we have a place in God's plan and that's what it's about. It's not these earthly battles that we see. And so God used this time, basically, he started talking about it and just objecting and the word got back to Saul, here's somebody that's not afraid. And so David goes and he tells Saul about things that had happened while he was keeping the sheep. Now again, the emphasis of what I've sensed from the Lord this morning is what you and I are doing today matters. We're not just doing meaningful jobs and it's not just, well, this is my earthly job and then I'm supposed to have a relationship with God. Everything is about a relationship with God. If you have a job, a place, whatever it is, God gave that to you and we need to see that not as some meaningless little job that we just gotta get through and oh, it's boring and this is no good, but rather I am here not to serve man or to fill an earthly purpose but to serve God and I'm gonna see it that way and I'm gonna serve him in the middle of this and do my best. Do you know Paul talked about that in his letters?

He talked about people who were employed by others but in those days, there was a lot of servanthood but there was a lot of slavery too. And obviously, slavery is a difficult thing and I'm glad we're past most of it anyway. But I'll tell you, Paul said when you're a slave, you're not just a slave, you're not a servant of man, you're a servant of God. You do your job with God in mind, all right? Different perspective, wouldn't it be good if we saw our lives? You're pounding a nail, you're turning a screw, you're doing some physical manual thing and oh, this is unimportant, I gotta get through this. Every part of that was something that God had put him in. He was in God's school. God was getting him ready for something that was big but God's getting every one of us ready for our place in the kingdom regardless of what it looks like on the outside and whether we think it matters or not. He saw it that way. And of course, he tells Saul about the occasions when he was tending the sheep and a lion or a bear. I remember preaching one time down in South Carolina with lions and tigers and bears, oh my. But anyway, how do you think it came to pass that the lion and the bear came out? Was that just happenstance? Hungry animals, was that just meaningless? Or do you think that there was a power,

there was an inspiration behind all of that? Well, that's how David saw it. And he realized, I'm here doing God's business. God's business is not just standing behind this thing and talking. God's business is doing what he gave us to do. And so he said, I'm here, this is my place, this is my job and something is attacking that. And I'm one with him. They're not just attacking me, they're attacking him. Think about that. Wouldn't it be good if we saw the earthly issues of life, even the ones that have to do with our daily lives in that light and realized this isn't, they're not just attacking me, they're attacking him. Now, if you're doing your own thing and you've got a self-willed prideful life, you need to get over that and repent and wake up and realize we're not here to live our own private little lives. We're here to serve Him. Everything matters to Him. God saw that and He wanted to teach David something and He wanted to not just reinforce this wasn't something just David read in a book. This was God sending him a real situation, a real battle that he had to do something about and how was he going to see it? He was going to say, wait a minute, this is an enemy of God coming against me. This is his battle and I'm going to step out and do what I know to do and I'm trusting God to be with me and He was. So David didn't come into this battle with Goliath with no experience. He had been in God's school and he had learned, oh, I know, I believe with all my heart God longs to teach us those kinds of simple lessons if we'll pay attention and recognize our lives

are not just about the mundane stuff of daily life, they're about serving Him and walking with Him. And so, of course, David's brothers were still, they had been there when he had been anointed by the prophet and they're still ridiculing him. You're just here, you're just a proud little characters here to see the battle. I know you're, I know what you're about. They had no clue. And here's David looking at this giant standing there and saying, wait a minute, this is not an earthly deal here. This is something where the enemy of God has sent somebody not to challenge the Israelites, but to challenge God. He has no right to do that. We have every right to stand against it and, of course, we know how that turned out. You know, the picture often painted is of a little boy doing all this. I don't think he was a little boy. I don't think he was a 35 years old either. He was probably a late teens or 20, something like that. He was big enough and strong enough to stand and be a young man, but still by earthly standards, this was ridiculous. But there he was. And boy, when the giant saw him and said what he did, anyway, let me find the scripture. He talked about, yeah, there's where he talked to Saul and then, of course, Saul tried to give him his own earthly weaponry. That wasn't going to do it. He said, I have already had God prove that I can stand up to trouble that is way beyond my ability by just trusting in what he's given me. I don't need your armor. I don't need what the world thinks that I need to stand in this situation. I'm not going in earthly strength on an earthly battle. I'm fighting the Lord's battle, okay?

So anyway, Philistine sees all this in verse 43, 44, somewhere along there, says, am I a dog that you come at me with sticks? And the Philistine cursed David. Then there's a phrase that you need to notice. Then the Philistine cursed David by his gods. You see what the real battle was here? This was not an earthly deal. This was something where Satan's forces were arrayed against people that God had had a covenant relationship. In spite of their condition, he still was working with them. He still had his people there. And so this was not an earthly battle at all. And even the giant recognized this. I'm coming in the name of my God. This is my God versus your God, okay? And the Philistine cursed David by his gods, come here, he said, and I'll give your flesh to the birds and the wild animals. And so what did David say? You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but, there's the, getting your but in the right place. But I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel whom you have defied. This day, the Lord will deliver you into my hands and I'll strike you down and cut off your head. This very day, I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds and the wild animals and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. Sometimes God does things like this because there's a, there's a testimony that is needed. A lot of our lives are very private. Nobody really knows all the details of what's going on, but there are times when God does something very public because he was trying to send a message.

just to the Israelites, but to everybody. Hey, you better pay attention. This Israel's God is God. Took a while, but the Egyptians finally got that. And everybody that heard about it, that message went out to the far corners of the world. Do you know what Israel's God did to the Egyptians? Well, here was another instance where God was showing himself mighty for a testimony. All those gathered here will know. Now, all those gathered here include a whole bunch of unbelieving Israelite soldiers. Everybody needs to know something, all right? All the world will know that there is a God in Israel. All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves, for the battle is the Lord's, and he will give all of you into our hands. And so then, of course, you have the battle, and one little stone, and boy, he was down, and the battle was over, and of course, then the Philistines, anyway. Obviously, the battle went the right way. But the lesson that the Lord focused my attention on was here was a man who was after God's own heart. He did what was in his hand to do at the time as unto the Lord. He saw the issues that faced him within doing that battle as not just this is against me, or this is about me, and I got to fix it.

This is God's battle. If my heart is united to him, if there's a battle that I'm facing, this is his battle. I am so much a part of his plan and his purpose that that's how he sees it, and I need to see it that way so that I don't react with fear. I just pray that somehow God, I mean, we've heard these things, and somehow this needs to resonate in such a way that when you get up in the morning and you're just washing dishes, you're pounding nails, you're whatever it is that you're doing, changing diapers, you name it, God has put you in a particular place, and you need to do what you do with a sense that I'm doing this as unto the Lord. I'm serving the Lord right here by being faithful of what he has put in my hands to do, and in that, you are going to find, of course, that there will be battles. We know all about that. We know that we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers of the world, the unseen kingdom. God is going to, I said this a while ago, that the devil sent the lion and the bear, but who do you really think sent him? God did. God said, I've got a lesson for my servant. He's busy, he's faithful, he's singing to me, he's worshiping, he's trusting in me, he's looking, he sees this the way he needs to see it,

but he's not quite ready for where I'm taking him, and so I've got to send him a battle. I wonder if we really see the battles that we face as something that God has sent so that we can face it the way he wants us to face it and learn and grow. This was only a step in David's preparation to be king. He went through many, many years of running from Saul and all the things he went through. I won't go into all of that. You remember the story and you can read it at the end of 1 Samuel. It was pretty rough stuff, but God was getting him ready with the difficulties that he was having to face, but he needed to see every battle as this is God's battle, and I'm just going to be faithful and do what I know to do and trust in him. Trust is not just some theoretical thing where I'm trusting God. This is in the face of the enemy. This was standing there looking at a giant and saying, God, I am trusting you enough that I'm going to take this sling in my hand and go forward and trust you to do the job because this is not my battle. This is your battle, and I'm just going to do what you show me to do. David didn't get up that morning and say, boy, I've got a battle today. He just did what came to hand.

Oh, wouldn't it be nice if we learned to live that way and just say, God, my life's in your hands. I don't have any more responsibility to get up this morning, like we said last week, make it a brand new morning, a new beginning, and look to you and trust you to order my steps, and if there's a battle that comes, then I'm looking to you because it's not my battle, it's yours, so I'm going to trust you in it and ask you for the wisdom to know what to do. Now, not every battle is one where you need to take weapons in hand and go kill somebody. Some of Paul's battles were living in prison for years, and how was he going to handle that? How was he going to be? victorious in the middle of that, and that was because he trusted God and said, God, I'm in your hands, this is your battle, not mine. You're the one who put me here, you've got to reason. And I need to be an example of how to handle this kind of thing, because that's the world we live in. And of course, we know that a good chunk of the New Testament we would not have today had Paul not spent years in prison. And God put it, laid it on his heart, made the circumstances right so he could write the things and share the truths that God had shared with him. So Paul was fighting a battle, wasn't he? And yet he wasn't winning in the sense that we think, oh, he should walk out of there and just look the devil in the eye and say, you know, I'm serving God, you don't have any right to bother me, Pharaoh, or not Pharaoh, but Caesar in that case. God has a plan in every circumstance. We're not the ones who get to define victory. Victory is standing firm and trusting God and not allowing anything. It's an unconditional trust. It's a vision that sees my life right now as needing to be in the will and in harmony with whatever God's purpose is for me, and it's okay. You know, I have, many times I have referred to a lady who was

often talked about, I guess, I don't know how much anymore, but anyway, Sophie the washerwoman. Remember the story about the lady who was a poor, uneducated immigrant who lived, I think in the late 1880s, maybe she, you know, lived into the early 1900s, I don't know, but lived in New York City in an apartment, and the only way she could put food in her mouth was to work, and she worked as a washerwoman, which meant she did laundry for people and they paid her enough to have food. Very simple life. She was a woman who loved God, had a burden to share the word, share the gospel, and her prayer was, oh God, I want to be a missionary. Please send me to some foreign land so I can share the gospel and be a missionary. And the Lord said, who lives around you here? And she started thinking, that's an Italian family that lives over there. There's a German family that lives upstairs there, and there's a bunch of Norwegians there, and one after another, she went through the very building she lived in, and there were foreigners all over the place. Said, I've already given you, put you in the middle of a mission field. And that poor, simple lady shared the gospel to the point that people are still talking about her over a hundred years later. Now, did she matter in the eyes of mankind? No. But she saw her life not as just some earthly life that she had to get through somehow, but as a place that God had put her. And she was in a place where she just simply served God right where she was at, and God blessed her, and to say, she's going to have an honored place in heaven. There are a lot of people that people think a lot of, that many of them won't even be there, and the ones that are there, she'll probably have a higher place than they will. All God is looking for from every one of us is to be who He has called us to be right where He has called us, doing what He has called us to do, and thanking Him for it. God doesn't see the lowest person by human standards, the grungiest job. He doesn't see that as some lowdown, unimportant thing. Everything matters to Him. And God has put everybody right where they need to be so that He can work in, not just in us, but through us. I don't know what God's preparing us for, but I know there's a whole lot coming. God knew what David was being prepared for. He had no idea. When they called him to go stand before the prophet, he had no idea what was coming. All of a sudden, he's anointed. You've got to be kidding. I'm going to be king? But he just kept looking to the Lord, and the Lord brought him to the throne later. But I don't know. I just sense this. I don't think there's a whole lot more that needs to be said,

but I just pray that God will, again, make us aware, more aware than we have been. What I do, no matter how ordinary it seems, matters. God doesn't see it the way people do. How easy is it for us to just write it off as, well, I've got to get through this. Let me get done with that so I can... I can do what I really enjoy doing instead of saying, Lord, I'm just going to thank you and praise you for the strength to do what I do. I'm not doing this for people or for praise or for any earthly thing that people seek. I'm doing this just to do right by people and please you. I'm doing it to be faithful. And I'll tell you, there's a God who sees that. Where men see the outward, God sees that. And when it comes to the battles, it would be well if we would see when there is some kind of opposition that's raised even to what we're doing in the natural, wouldn't it be good if we remembered that's God's battle? I can think of a number of circumstances where, you know, I've been faced with a situation, we've been faced with one, I know you probably have too, where the Lord helped me to see it that way and say, wait a minute, it's not like I've got to do this, I've got to do that, I've got to fight my way through this. Say, Lord, this is your battle. You have allowed these circumstances to accomplish a purpose that you know all about. The battle is yours, not mine. You fight it. Just show me what my place is and I'm handing that over to you. I'm going to find a place of trust and rest. You're responsible for how it turns out, but I'm just ... Show me what I'm supposed to do and give me the strength and faith to do it, but that's it, the battle is yours. And I leave it in your hands. Is God ... Is this truth? Is this truth that matters to you right where you're at? Stop looking at your earthly life through human eyes and see it as God put me in this

place. He gave me certain responsibilities. I need to do them as if Jesus were standing there and I was doing them for him, because that's really what's happening. And I'll tell you, when we walk in harmony with him, God will fight the battles and he will use the opposition of the enemy and the battles we have to fight to get us ready for things that we don't even know are coming. And we'll get there and we'll be able to look back and say, hey, wait a minute. Now I get it. I see what was going on there. God was building my faith and bringing me to a place so now I could face this. And so David was able to face Goliath. He still wasn't ready to get on the throne. There was a whole lot more, but God was taking him through step by step. Now we say, oh, that's somebody important. You were important to him. Every single one of you matters to him just as much. Even though we see where David was headed, there was a time when he was the unimportant eighth son who got the one job nobody else wanted, stuck out there watching sheep, and he saw it through God's eyes and God used it to get him ready for a great testimony. I don't know what God's purpose is for your life or mine, but that's the one I want. I pray that everyone here is a person after God's own heart and that you just give your everyday life to him and serve him and do it as unto him and trust him with the battles because the battles, when Satan comes against you, he's not just coming against you. He's coming against your savior and your God. We have every right to rest in him and look to him. I guess I'm saying the same thing over again, but that's all right. But I praise God today for his goodness and his mercy. So I think that's probably all I need to say. Thanks.

Praise God. I'm glad the Lord is preparing us, you know, and what was shared there about David. I think it's so true for all of us because the Lord is preparing us. But I was thinking too back to the way the service started, you know, Joel, we prayed for Danny and he posed that question, who is the God that we serve? Is it a different God or the same God? The same one. And, you know, because of Christ, we can expect, first of all, we are victorious. The victory has already been won in Christ. And so when we come into relationship with him, in many ways, we are prepared when we receive his spirit because we're clothed with the power. We can then do, even at a very young spiritual age, do things that are supernatural because of who dwells in us. And I was just thinking about that. When do we say, okay, I am ready? If we're in Christ, we are ready. There are things he's preparing us for, but things we are prepared for now because of who dwells in us. And I'm so thankful for that. And I just, you know, just seeing recent things come to fruition. And I think things that we're seeing come to pass here is because he's been preparing us. And he's going to allow us to. step into ministry in some ways that maybe we haven't stepped into, but we see it in the Great Commission and what the Lord has for us. But just as David came to the point to where he was reigning as a king, he went through a whole lot. I mean, I guess his kingship was even worse than Goliath. I mean, it was a huge responsibility with all those people. But the one consistent thing he had the whole time was a relationship with the Lord. At a very young age, he had a relationship with the Lord.

And even before the new covenant and the Holy Spirit was sent back at Pentecost, it said that those men were carried along by the Spirit, right? It's the same Spirit, but it's the one the Lord has given us. And I had some thoughts earlier this morning. I believe it'll go along with what's been said, but I was thinking about Jesus. We don't have, we know a lot more about David's youth than we do Jesus. There's not that much recorded. There's the time he was, his parents lost him and they kind of got frustrated. Sometimes we get frustrated with our children. But, you know, they got frustrated. And, but you know what he said? He went back with his parents and submitted himself to his parents. He took on everything that we face from our youth up. He lived it all, but not a whole lot is said about him. But was he a carpenter? So he had a day job. I bet he did quality work. You know he did. Did he have a relationship with his father? I believe he did from early on. He was aware of his, you know, when he was in there teaching the temple, he said, I got to be about my father's business. He knew who his father was. Well, the thought I had this morning was, even though he was clothed completely in flesh for our benefit, to prepare us for what's ahead, there came a time where it all changed. And it changed when he was baptized, right? He was baptized in the river. The Holy Spirit came on him and he was tempted. He went through some severe battles against the enemy for like 40 days and 40 nights. But this was the verse I read this morning. Everybody's familiar with this.

It's in Luke, Luke chapter 4. This is where he, I'm just going to, okay. Then Jesus came to Nazareth where he had been brought up, as was his custom. He entered the synagogue on the Sabbath. And when he stood up, then he stood up to read. Okay, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it was written. The spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to release the oppressed, or set the captives free, and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. It said, you know, then he handed the scroll back to the attendants. And it said all eyes were fastened upon him. You know, Phil mentioned there that sometimes publicly Jesus is put out there. It is to get people's attention. When the Christ in us comes out out there, it's going to get people's attention. And nothing that we can do naturally matches what he can do supernaturally through us and what we've been called to do. And I just see the Lord preparing us. I believe that he's been preparing us for quite a while. But I see the Lord moving and I am incredibly thankful. I'm thankful to see that the Lord is increasing our vision. And just as Jesus was prepared, he has prepared us and he has put his spirit in here. Are you thankful? I believe that we're going to see the Lord do things because of what he's put in us and it'll be way beyond what we can do. I'm thankful for that. And we are privileged people. And I think that he's—I'm so thankful that when he cried out on the cross, it is finished.

There was something that was done there. And when he sent that spirit back and they were clothed with power, that's the same spirit we have. It's his spirit. And that qualifies us to be workers together with him. And that's where it needs to be. It needs to be out here. It's like the lady, the washerwoman. Praise God. Her spot of ministry was right there in that building. But one thing about it was the Lord made it real to her, right? There's a German up there, there's that. That comes back—that lady had a relationship with the Lord. And he spoke to her right where she was at in the building she was in and then he spoke to the people in the building. That's what he wants us to be aware of. And what he's bringing us to in a measure that maybe we haven't been. I'm just going to say again, I thank God for what he's done. he's doing. I thank him for the work he started in us. I'm thanking him for the salvation he's provided. I thank him for raising us from the dead spiritually to do what we could never do otherwise. And I'm, we are kings and priests. We're already in a place where we can minister Christ's people and the Lord wants us to know that. Praise God. Praise the Lord. The song we sing, Jesus Never Fails. There's been several times I wanted to request it and then it was just, it didn't work out because someone else requested a song and, but God's on time. This song, I was sitting there thinking about it. I've been singing up here since I was 14. So I've been singing up here for 30 years. I've sang this song when nothing was wrong. Jesus Never Fails. I've sang this song when I could barely sing it. When I was mad at the world, I was mad at God. I've sang this song when I was mad at some of y'all. Uh, I'm just being honest. Uh, I've sang this song when there was, seemed like there wasn't much to live for. And every time it's true, Jesus never fails. He loves us. I'm just thinking over

30 years, you look back on your life. Uh, maybe some of y'all were happy every day, but stuff happens. Life happens, but this does not change. His word does not change. He never fails. And I was thinking about this part right here. Uh, I don't know how to find it. Oh, here we go. So what can I do to prove to you? Tell me, how can you deny? No untold facts, no mysteries. It's all so cut and dry. On the witness stand of your life, I'll be the first to testify that Jesus never fails. And as you're going through something right now, I'm not even a year ago, probably worst day of my life. I called Carl. I couldn't even talk to him. He just started praying for me. I couldn't even talk to him. God has turned all of that around. And to God, it's the glory. But I'm saying, if you're going through something, you call a brother or a sister. And even if you can't even talk to them, they can pray for you. God can help you no matter where you are, no matter what you're going through. And Jesus never fails. He loves us. He loves us when we don't, we never deserve to be loved, but he loves us when we're at the bottom. He loves us when he's, when, when everything's going right too. I'm just telling you, nobody here and nobody that can hear me is alone. You say, Lord, I prayed during those times a lot. Lord, help me. That's all I can say. Lord, I need help. I prayed that over, I'm talking about every 10 minutes for a few days. Lord, I need help. I needed to get through that next 10 minutes. And every time he gave me enough to get through it. He loves us. And you, if you need help, you ask him and he'll help you. With the manna, he gave them enough to get each day. That's how much manna he gave them, enough for each day. So we're not going to have all the answers for tomorrow and what's going to happen. God's going to give us enough to get us through for each day, but we have to ask for it. I've really been struggling the last few weeks with Brother Joel. It's been a painful. I love, I love our brothers in Christ. They're wonderful and they are wonderful to call upon when you're going through something. But the Lord has set me free and I'm going to tell you what happened. My sister Renee from Florida, I called and talked to her for about an hour and a half one evening. And the Lord through her really took my focus off of myself and into what God is doing. God has a reason. And there was a devotion she sent me, and boy, I've been listening to it a lot. One of the devotions last week really set me free.

But the devotion, one thing I've heard in it, as well, it said, it reminded me a lot of what Fr. Steele was saying, we hear the Word. We are God's people. We hear the Word. We know the Word. It's real to us that how often do we experience it? How often is it that God has got us in a battle to experience the Word? And what we've heard, this is teaching us. It's teaching us what to do as we call upon Him. But there was one devotion, and it was, I am fighting a battle you have already won. And boy, did it set me free. I said, Lord, you're speaking directly to me. If God is putting us in these battles, He's already won. He knows what we're going through because He's put it before us to get us through it, to make us stronger, because He's got something that He needs done in this world that He's going to use us as His people. We're nothing. We're nothing. And I feel like I've failed most of the times. I think, Christ, I am not. I am His child. And what I'm going through, He's growing me up. He's teaching me. And most of the stuff that I've got to get through He's got to get it out of here, get it out of me, so His life can shine. But boy, there is a song that says, and this devotion, if you want to, it was wonderful. It's a daily devotion, and it uses songs, and it's wonderful. I've sent it to some of you. But there's a song, I'm fighting a battle you've already won. No matter what comes my way, you have overcome.

I don't know what you're doing, but I know what you've done. And I'm fighting a battle you have already won. It's set me free. We don't have to fight these battles. We can rest in Him, because He is in charge. He's brought them our way, and we can just surrender and say, Lord, help me to trust You. Help me to believe in You. You know, in myself, so many things went through my mind about, what do I need to do? I've got to do this. I've got to do that. I don't have to do anything except rest in Him, because I can just walk into my faith, give it up, and trust in Him. So I don't want to be fighting these battles myself. I want to trust in Him. Amen. I want to get up and read this before I talk myself out of it. The Scripture actually came to me, well, just a part of the Scripture came to me while Phil was speaking. I believe it. I don't know how much I'll elaborate. I'm just going to read it. I believe it touches on almost everything that's been shared this morning. It's 1 Peter chapter 5. And I guess what really stood out to me, I'll preface this, is we were reading the account there with Saul and David. Right there about where Phil stopped, you know, Saul got jealous of David because I think what happened is after the battle, there was a song sung in the streets about David.

Saul's got his thousands, but David his ten thousands. He said, oh, Lord, they think more of him than me. And he got jealous. You know, that was already there. There was already issues there with Saul. But I found it very interesting. I guess I could read it. Was that 1 Samuel 18? But it says, and then an evil spirit was sent from God. You know, sometimes you say, well, I know God is pure and God is love. But we know with Job, right, and we know with, well, our lives. God, what's that song, he'll do whatever it takes? I don't know. I want to trust God and not worry about, he's got his instruments. I don't know how it all works, but he is love, and he'll do whatever it takes to get our attention. That being said, that's what sent me down this path. I'm just going to read 1 Peter chapter 5 here. To the elders among you, I appeal as a fellow elder and witness of Christ's sufferings, who also will share in the glory to be revealed. Be shepherds of God's flock that is under your care, watching over them, not because you must, but because you are willing. I think that doesn't just go for deacons and elders. That's the heart of Christ that's put in us. Because you are willing, as God wants you to be, not pursuing dishonest gain, but eager to serve, not lording it over those entrusted to you. but being examples to the flock. And when the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory

that will never fade away. In the same way you who are younger submit yourselves to your elders. All of you, all of you, all of you clothe yourselves with humility towards one another because God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble. This is the scripture that actually came to me. Humble yourselves therefore under God's mighty hand that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. You know, all can think, I don't know what's your mental vision you get of the Philistine coming out of the giant. But what did he say? Come out there railing accusations and insulting the God of Israel, our Lord, right? And he was proud, he was haughty and God put him in his place, didn't he? And anyhow, be alert and sober mind your enemy, the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him standing firm in the faith because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same types of sufferings. And the God of all grace

who calls you to his eternal glory in Christ after you have suffered a little while will himself restore you, make you strong, firm and steadfast to him be the power forever and ever. To me that just wrapped up, I don't know, I was listening. All we've gone through what David was called to go through, we know that that's the end goal. But let's, you know, Jesus said to count the cost, right? And I don't, we don't want to paint a picture of just beds of roses and ease, right? Our flesh is having to die that our soul might live. And so I don't know, I don't want to add too much more, but here that there after you suffered a little while, he himself will restore you, make you strong, just like what Debbie was saying. There's an end game here that we don't always see. But I think the result and the gain far outweighs this temporary and momentary affliction.