SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Spring Church Podcast.
SPEAKER_01: We are so glad you joined us.
SPEAKER_01: Our mission is to reach the lost by raising up fully trained disciples that are empowered by God to impact their world.
SPEAKER_01: We pray that you are challenged and encouraged as you listen to this week's message.
SPEAKER_00: I'm excited to be here this morning.
SPEAKER_00: It's a great honor to be able to preach here.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Pastor Owen, for the opportunity.
SPEAKER_00: And uh man, just excited about what God is doing in the life of the church.
SPEAKER_00: And my name is Pastor Matt, if you don't know who I am, and um I do want to just extend, just once again, just happy Father's Day to every single uh dad in the house this morning.
SPEAKER_00: You know, dads really do come in all flavors, right?
SPEAKER_00: It's it's a variety pack of dads.
SPEAKER_00: There's the biological dads, stepdads, adopted dads, even foster dads, spiritual dads.
SPEAKER_00: And then, you know, what obviously really dear to our heart, um, there's children who are grieving the loss of a father, and there's fathers grieving the loss of a child, and we want to just pay honor to those individuals as well as they walk through times of mourning.
SPEAKER_00: And it's really helps lead into the message.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to share, uh, you could turn to 1 Chronicles 21.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to start off by sharing Psalm chapter 20, verse 7, which is sort of a text that I pray just primes our hearts, prepares our hearts to receive the word that God has for us this morning.
SPEAKER_00: And David writes in Psalm 20, verse 7, he says, Some trust in horses, some in chariots, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.
SPEAKER_00: Some trust in horses, some in chariots, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.
SPEAKER_00: Some trust in the things of this world that promise an easy and convenient life.
SPEAKER_00: Some trust in humanity's ingenuity to somehow expedite progress and make life better for everyone.
SPEAKER_00: Some people trust in the promise of politicians, some people trust in the might of militaries, some people trust in money, some people trust in relationships, some people trust in themselves and their ability, their own wisdom, their own intellect.
SPEAKER_00: But the people of God, we will trust in the name of the Lord our God.
SPEAKER_00: And I believe the message this morning is from the heart of God, and it really centers on a very simple question.
SPEAKER_00: And I believe it's a question that from the Holy Spirit meant to encourage, meant to challenge, meant to convict, meant to provoke, ultimately meant to lead us closer to the heart of God.
SPEAKER_00: And that question is are you prepared to trust God with everything?
SPEAKER_00: Are you prepared to trust God with everything?
SPEAKER_00: As you ponder that, let's take a moment and pray.
SPEAKER_00: Father, we we come before you thankful for the opportunity, thankful for an incredible week of VBS, thankful for this day.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, this is the day that you have made.
SPEAKER_00: God, I pray that you would open up ears, open up hearts to receive your word.
SPEAKER_00: God, that you will watch over your word and perform it today.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, draw us closer to you that you may be honored and glorified.
SPEAKER_00: And we give you all the honor, we give you all the glory in the mighty name of Jesus, the strong son of God.
SPEAKER_00: And everybody said, Amen.
SPEAKER_00: So 26 years ago to this month, I woke up one morning and I said to myself, Man, I really want to go skydiving today.
SPEAKER_00: And so I made a couple of phone calls, and um there was a couple of spots available at a skydive place in Daytona.
SPEAKER_00: So I drove down there, I watched the video, signed a few waivers, hopped on a plane, then hopped out of that plane at 13,000 uh feet up in the air.
SPEAKER_00: And by the grace of God, I landed safely because this was before I was born again, before I knew Jen.
SPEAKER_00: So thank you, Jesus, for getting me to the ground safely.
SPEAKER_00: But you know, in the moment, in the moment, like I made up my mind and I didn't want to like ask too many questions, I didn't want to give myself much liberty to talk myself out of it, so I just like I didn't think about it, I just went and I did it.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm so glad that I did.
SPEAKER_00: And if you're asking me, would I ever do it again?
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00: I would absolutely do it again.
SPEAKER_00: Today's Father's Day.
SPEAKER_00: It's a beautiful day outside.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe we can go today.
SPEAKER_00: I can go.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, no, uh, no uh parachuting today.
SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm quite happy with what we have planned.
SPEAKER_00: Um but but I remember this on the on the backside of that, like looking back on it, thinking to myself, man, that was crazy.
SPEAKER_00: I remember along the way, and I want to show you a quick picture.
SPEAKER_00: This was actually me and freefall.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a I didn't exist back then.
SPEAKER_00: That is a that is an actual photo that I had to scan to give it to the media team.
SPEAKER_00: That's how long ago this was.
SPEAKER_00: I had hair, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks.
SPEAKER_00: My wife.
SPEAKER_00: Look at you, look at you.
SPEAKER_00: As soon as I show, I was, oh, I'm gonna show this on Sunday morning.
SPEAKER_00: She's like, oh, they're gonna talk about how you used to have hair.
SPEAKER_00: She predicted it.
SPEAKER_00: She called it, you can take it down now.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want it to be a distraction.
SPEAKER_00: But I remember, so that that guy, like, he was, I was strapped to him, right?
SPEAKER_00: And that he was the instructor.
SPEAKER_00: It was a tandem jump.
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, they're not gonna let me jump out of an airplane with zero experience.
SPEAKER_00: And so he was strapped to me like the entire time.
SPEAKER_00: And I remember all along the way, he kept saying, like, are you sure?
SPEAKER_00: Are you good?
SPEAKER_00: Are you like, are you positive?
SPEAKER_00: Like, we're gonna do this, right?
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: And then, of course, like I remember sitting on like the bay door of the plane, and my legs are literally just dangling over nothing.
SPEAKER_00: 13,000 feet down, there's the ocean, there's land, and I'm like, I'm about to plummet towards that.
SPEAKER_00: And my legs are dangling, and like one last time he kind of leans over my shoulder and like tries to lock eyes with me as best as he could in that you know predicament, and he says, like, you're 100% sure because we're about to jump, and I'm like, let's go.
SPEAKER_00: And then, of course, they go off the plane.
SPEAKER_00: But you know, my life was totally in his hands.
SPEAKER_00: I I had zero agency, I had zero autonomy.
SPEAKER_00: There was nothing I could do.
SPEAKER_00: I was completely trusting in him to get me safely to the ground.
SPEAKER_00: I was trusting in him to make sure that as we're falling, we're not like tumbling through the air.
SPEAKER_00: I'm trusting him to pull the ripcord at the right time.
SPEAKER_00: I'm trusting him to make sure that that parachute deploys and we we fall safely to the ground.
SPEAKER_00: I'm trusting that he knows how to navigate that thing so we hit the landing spot we're supposed to hit.
SPEAKER_00: I'm trusting him to make sure that landing is as smooth as possible because I don't want any broken legs.
SPEAKER_00: My I completely trusted him to get me out of that plane and safely to the ground.
SPEAKER_00: And then I think about my relationship with the Lord in times in my life where I struggled to trust the God of the universe.
SPEAKER_00: And I I want to challenge us this morning to be a people who are prepared to trust God with everything.
SPEAKER_00: Proverbs 3, uh chapter 3, verses 5 and 6 say this trust in the Lord with all of your heart.
SPEAKER_00: Trust in the Lord with everything, every part of your life, and all of your ways, acknowledge him.
SPEAKER_00: And then it says, He will direct your paths.
SPEAKER_00: And that that gives us like warm, fuzzy feelings.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, God is gonna direct my path.
SPEAKER_00: But what it doesn't tell us is what that path involves and what that path entails.
SPEAKER_00: Now, we want the Google Maps version of like God's plan for our life.
SPEAKER_00: We want to see the beginning, we want to see the end, we want to see all the turns, what alternate routes are there that I may want to take instead?
SPEAKER_00: Where's the traffic?
SPEAKER_00: Where's the detours?
SPEAKER_00: Where's the obstacles?
SPEAKER_00: Where's the construction?
SPEAKER_00: Like that's that's what we want from the Lord in terms of trusting him with our lives.
SPEAKER_00: But how many of you know God has not given us a Google Maps version of his plan for our life?
SPEAKER_00: God gives us the compass and he says, follow me.
SPEAKER_00: And then we have to trust him in every season, in every circumstance, and in every situation.
SPEAKER_00: We don't know the path that he's gonna lead us down.
SPEAKER_00: We know it's paths of righteousness for his name's sake, but we don't know what type of trust will be required of us in our walk with the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: So I ask again, are you prepared to trust God with everything?
SPEAKER_00: And really, the first thing we have to wrestle with, the first truth that we have to settle on to prepare our hearts to really trust God with everything, is do we believe God to be trustworthy?
SPEAKER_00: Do we believe he is someone that we can actually trust with our lives?
SPEAKER_00: And how do we know he's trustworthy?
SPEAKER_00: David said it like this we will trust in the name of the Lord our God.
SPEAKER_00: We will trust in the name of the Lord our God.
SPEAKER_00: David is saying we're gonna trust in his character, we're gonna trust in his reputation, we're gonna trust in his integrity.
SPEAKER_00: He's been faithful in the past, he's been good in the past, he's delivered us in the past, he's made a way in the past, and he is going to continue to be trustworthy as we go into the future.
SPEAKER_00: And I I believe that with all of my heart.
SPEAKER_00: I believe that God is indeed 100% trustworthy.
SPEAKER_00: I believe that because God's character does not change.
SPEAKER_00: God is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
SPEAKER_00: Which means if he's ever been good to you in your life, then he has always been good.
SPEAKER_00: If he's ever been trustworthy in your life, then he is always trustworthy.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because God is not temperamental like you and like me.
SPEAKER_00: God is not wishy-washy, God is not double-minded, he is not unsure about his plans and his purposes.
SPEAKER_00: He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
SPEAKER_00: His character does not change.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, I believe him to be trustworthy.
SPEAKER_00: His promises never fail.
SPEAKER_00: He is not a God that can lie.
SPEAKER_00: So if he promises something, we can rest assured that he is both willing and able to see that through to the very end.
SPEAKER_00: We can trust him.
SPEAKER_00: He is trustworthy because his promises never fail.
SPEAKER_00: We sang about it already.
SPEAKER_00: He is holy.
SPEAKER_00: He's not just holy.
SPEAKER_00: He is what?
SPEAKER_00: Holy, holy, holy.
SPEAKER_00: That is an ancient way of saying he is completely and utterly holy.
SPEAKER_00: God is perfect and complete in every way.
SPEAKER_00: He loves you with a perfect and complete love.
SPEAKER_00: He is patient with a perfect and complete patience.
SPEAKER_00: He is gracious with perfect and complete grace.
SPEAKER_00: He is uh he is perfect in his plans and his purposes for our lives.
SPEAKER_00: He is trustworthy because he is holy.
SPEAKER_00: And his faithfulness endures.
SPEAKER_00: David said it best in Psalm 37, I was young, now I'm old, and I've never seen the righteous forsaken.
SPEAKER_00: And he's not faithful because of who we are or what we've done.
SPEAKER_00: He is faithful because of who he is and what he has done.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm telling you, church, if he was faithful then, then he's going to be faithful when.
SPEAKER_00: He's going to be faithful when the crisis comes, when the challenge hits, when the bottom falls out, when you're on top of the mountain, and when you feel as if that mountain is on top of you, when the unthinkable happens, he will remain faithful because his faithfulness endures from generation to generation.
SPEAKER_00: I think about Job.
SPEAKER_00: When I think about the trustworthiness of God.
SPEAKER_00: You know, we know about Job.
SPEAKER_00: We know he lost everything and we know he lost everyone.
SPEAKER_00: And we remember what he said when his wife told him to curse God and die.
SPEAKER_00: He said, No.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord gives and the Lord takes away.
SPEAKER_00: Blessed be the name of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know what else Job said?
SPEAKER_00: In Job 13, 15, Job said, Even though he slays me, yet I will trust in him.
SPEAKER_00: Now we know that it wasn't God doing all this to Job, that Job had an adversary.
SPEAKER_00: Job had an enemy that was coming against him.
SPEAKER_00: Job didn't know that, but from Job's perspective, it really didn't matter.
SPEAKER_00: Job said, Even if it is him, even though he slay me, yet I will trust him.
SPEAKER_00: Are you prepared to trust God with everything?
SPEAKER_00: I think about Jeremiah, who was a prophet in the nation of Judah during the most tumultuous period of its history up until that point.
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah prophesied during the time where the people of God were in such rebellion against God's plans and God's purposes.
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah prophesied during a time where he saw his countrymen be taken away into captivity.
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah prophesied during a time where he saw the city of Jerusalem destroyed, where he saw the temple destroyed, where he saw his fellow countrymen and women and children slaughtered by the Babylonians.
SPEAKER_00: And it was in that period that Jeremiah said this about the trustworthiness of God.
SPEAKER_00: In Jeremiah 17, verse 7, he says, Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him.
SPEAKER_00: They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream.
SPEAKER_00: It does not fear when the heat comes.
SPEAKER_00: You follow God, you're a child of God, you put your trust in God, the heat's gonna come.
SPEAKER_00: But the leaves are always green.
SPEAKER_00: It has no worries in a year of drought.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna follow God, you're gonna take up your cross and follow him, there's gonna be drought, there's gonna be seasons of dryness.
SPEAKER_00: But because of our confidence and trust in God, we have no worries because it never fails to bear fruit.
SPEAKER_00: Job found God to be trustworthy.
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah found God to be trustworthy.
SPEAKER_00: Church family, can I challenge you this morning?
SPEAKER_00: If you wrestle with the trustworthiness of God, God is trustworthy.
SPEAKER_00: We can trust Him with our lives.
SPEAKER_00: Are you prepared to trust God with everything?
SPEAKER_00: Corey Tim Boom, who survived the Holocaust and not much of her family did, if any of them, she lived the rest of her life talking about God's faithfulness and God's goodness and God's forgiveness, even against those who caused her so much pain.
SPEAKER_00: But she's quoted as saying, never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, I I've been walking with the Lord for some time now.
SPEAKER_00: And I have found as I have grown to know the Lord more and more, I trust him more and more.
SPEAKER_00: One of the dynamics of trust is you really get to know whether you can trust someone.
SPEAKER_00: The more you get to know somebody, the more you begin to realize, can I really trust this person?
SPEAKER_00: And the more I get to know the Lord, the more I walk with the Lord, the more he reveals of his love and his mercy and his grace and his goodness in my life, the more I find God to be trustworthy.
SPEAKER_00: We can trust God.
SPEAKER_00: Are you prepared to trust God with everything?
SPEAKER_00: You know, I trust Jen wholeheartedly.
SPEAKER_00: I know she trusts me wholeheartedly.
SPEAKER_00: And that trust between us has not been built and developed during moments of crisis.
SPEAKER_00: If you wait for moments of crisis to develop trust, then you're you're gonna be in more trouble.
SPEAKER_00: The trust between me and Jinn has been built over a lifetime of daily things, daily proving to one another that we are trustworthy.
SPEAKER_00: And so my point is as you walk with God, as you as you know God, as you experience God, as you learn from him, as you as you on a daily basis incorporate habits that will prepare your heart to trust him with everything.
SPEAKER_00: When things happen, then it's just a matter of walking in that trust.
SPEAKER_00: And so I want to share with you three things from 1 Chronicles 21 that I believe it's not comprehensive and it's not conclusive, it's not the whole story, it's not everything, but it's three things that I believe that if we incorporate into our daily walk with the Lord and make it a part, a habit, a spiritual habit in our relationship with God, when it comes time to really trust him, we're gonna be prepared to trust him.
SPEAKER_00: And this comes from 1 Chronicles 21.
SPEAKER_00: Let me let me start here in verse number one.
SPEAKER_00: It says that Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to take a census of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Now, let me pause very quickly because if you study the Bible, if you read through the Bible, you you remember that 1 and 2 Chronicles shares a lot of the same information as 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings.
SPEAKER_00: And they kind of share a lot of the same information but from slightly different angles.
SPEAKER_00: For instance, in 2 Samuel 24, when it gives this same story, it actually says that God wanted to judge Israel, and it was God who provoked David to take a census.
SPEAKER_00: Whereas in 1 Chronicles 21, it says that Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to take a census.
SPEAKER_00: Both can be true.
SPEAKER_00: God is sovereign.
SPEAKER_00: And if God wanted to deal with something in Israel, God can use whatever means he wanted to deal with Israel.
SPEAKER_00: And when it talks about how Satan rose up against Israel, what I believe is taking place, and as we read through this, you'll see what I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_00: I believe that Satan mobilized some sort of military threat against David and his kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: Where all of a sudden, where David thought there was peace in his kingdom, there was saber rattling, there were threats that were coming his way, and because of that, in his flesh, as a king, he said, I need to take a census.
SPEAKER_00: I need to know how strong my military is.
SPEAKER_00: So if I need to take care of this, I'm able to take care of this.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so that's what's happening here.
SPEAKER_00: And to give us some context for 1 Chronicles 21.
SPEAKER_00: So verses um verses 2 and 3 and through, it just talks about how David commanded Joab to take the senses.
SPEAKER_00: Joab was like, Are you sure about this?
SPEAKER_00: Are you sure this is what you want to do?
SPEAKER_00: David was like, I'm sure, get it done.
SPEAKER_00: Joab comes back, he gives the number of how many military men that there are in the nation.
SPEAKER_00: And then it gets to verse 7, and it says, This command was evil in the sight of God, so he punished Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, there was something happening in the nation of Israel that God wanted to deal with.
SPEAKER_00: But I also believe there was something happening in the heart of David that God wanted to deal with as well.
SPEAKER_00: And the issue was not the census.
SPEAKER_00: The issue was not that David took a census, the issue was that there was something within David that stopped being a shepherd, stopped being a man after God's own heart, and started to be a king like every other king in the world around him.
SPEAKER_00: Because just think about this for a second.
SPEAKER_00: David, before David was ever a king, David was a shepherd.
SPEAKER_00: And remember, just prime example is 1 Samuel 17, where David fights Goliath and defeats Goliath.
SPEAKER_00: But when David showed up to the battlefield that day, he wasn't there to fight.
SPEAKER_00: He was Uber Eats.
SPEAKER_00: He was Instacart, he was delivering food.
SPEAKER_00: That's all he was doing.
SPEAKER_00: And then all of a sudden he sees this giant, and this giant is mocking Israel, and this giant is blaspheming the Lord of heaven, and he says, Who is this giant?
SPEAKER_00: Why is he mocking Israel?
SPEAKER_00: Why is he blaspheming?
SPEAKER_00: God and why is no one doing anything about it?
SPEAKER_00: And he says, I'll take care of them.
SPEAKER_00: And they're laughing at him, David.
SPEAKER_00: There's no way.
SPEAKER_00: You're just delivering food.
SPEAKER_00: And David said, Let me remind you of something.
SPEAKER_00: I'm a shepherd.
SPEAKER_00: And I take care of sheep.
SPEAKER_00: And there was a time that a lion tried to get between me and my sheep.
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord gave me victory over that lion.
SPEAKER_00: And there was a time that a bear tried to get between me and my sheep.
SPEAKER_00: And God gave me victory over that bear.
SPEAKER_00: And this giant is trying to get between God and his sheep.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm going to take care of them.
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord is going to give a victory.
SPEAKER_00: You see, David was a shepherd, and there was something within David that God said, That's a man after my own heart.
SPEAKER_00: And I want him to shepherd my people.
SPEAKER_00: I want him to lead and guide and direct my people.
SPEAKER_00: But now David's a king.
SPEAKER_00: Now David's a king.
SPEAKER_00: And now all of a sudden there's a threat against his nation.
SPEAKER_00: And instead of trusting God, some trust in horses, some in chariots, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.
SPEAKER_00: Instead of trusting in the Lord, what did David do?
SPEAKER_00: He started counting men, he started trying to figure out how big his military was.
SPEAKER_00: You see, David as a shepherd, he knew his sheep, he fought for his sheep, put his life on the line for his sheep.
SPEAKER_00: But now that David is king, he stopped counting sheep because he cared for them, and now he started counting soldiers because he was either full of fear or he was full of pride.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever it was, he was no longer acting like a shepherd, he was no longer acting like a man after God's own heart.
SPEAKER_00: Now he's acting like every other king.
SPEAKER_00: He once he trusted in God, now he's just trusting in numbers.
SPEAKER_00: The simple truth, the thing that God was trying to deal with in the heart of David, and probably in the nation itself, was David no longer trusted God with everything.
SPEAKER_00: Now he had more confidence and more trust in his kingdom and in the resources of his kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: And I just want to pause here and I want to speak to the fathers in the house.
SPEAKER_00: Because God has not called us to be kings, God has called us to be shepherds.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we look at what God has given us, whether it's a job, whether it's marriage, whether it's family, whatever it may be, and we think to ourselves, this is my little kingdom, this is my little domain.
SPEAKER_00: And these people are here to serve me and to meet my needs.
SPEAKER_00: And yes, God has given you authority.
SPEAKER_00: And yes, God has called you as a spiritual leader in your home, but not for it to be about you.
SPEAKER_00: Remember Jesus, Jesus is our example.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus came and he had all authority.
SPEAKER_00: All authority in heaven on earth was his.
SPEAKER_00: But he came and what did he do?
SPEAKER_00: He he served, he washed the disciples' feet, he laid down his life for those who would follow him and love him and want to be a part of his kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: And is that not what God is calling us to do as fathers?
SPEAKER_00: To shepherd our children, to shepherd our family?
SPEAKER_00: Not to make it about me, myself, and I and what I could get from myself, but to lead and to live in such a way that we're bringing our children, we're bringing our marriages, we're bringing our those around us in our sphere of influence to the heart of God, to shepherd them to the heart of God.
SPEAKER_00: And the only way that happens is if we allow God to shepherd us.
SPEAKER_00: The moment that my parenting changed was the moment that I realized I need God to shepherd me more than my kids need me to shepherd them.
SPEAKER_00: That I'm still in need of a father, that I'm still in need of a helper, I'm still in need of a shepherd.
SPEAKER_00: And as I submit to him and yield to him, it is the Holy Spirit of God that empowers me to be a father and to be a husband and to be a man after God's own heart in that regard and in that respect.
SPEAKER_00: So, so fathers, so men, he has not called us to be shepherds or to be kings, but he has called us to be shepherds.
SPEAKER_00: Now, let's get back to David.
SPEAKER_00: Again, what did David do?
SPEAKER_00: How did David respond to this situation?
SPEAKER_00: Because I believe it's in David's response that we see some of those habits that we can incorporate into our lives on a daily basis in our relationship with the Lord that will prepare our hearts to trust God with everything.
SPEAKER_00: So we we see that what happened was evil in the sight of God.
SPEAKER_00: In 1 Chronicles 21, 8 it says this.
SPEAKER_00: I have done a very foolish thing.
SPEAKER_00: David quickly repented.
SPEAKER_00: And if we want to have hearts that are prepared to trust God with everything, we need to be people who repent quickly.
SPEAKER_00: We need to not negotiate with sin, to justify sin, to excuse sin, to allow sin.
SPEAKER_00: If sin pops up in our life, whether it's uh uh just something small or something big, we need to deal with it and we need to deal with it aggressively.
SPEAKER_00: We need to repent.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because the wages of sin is death.
SPEAKER_00: And if we don't deal with it, then that sin will harden our hearts, and when the challenges come and we are in a situation where our trust in the Lord is tested and we have to walk through something, if we have hardened hearts, we're gonna try to take matters into our own hands as opposed to trusting God with everything.
SPEAKER_00: So we don't negotiate with sin.
SPEAKER_00: No, God has come not that we would be, uh not that we would deal with sin, but that we would have victory, that we would have life and life more abundant.
SPEAKER_00: So we don't negotiate with sin.
SPEAKER_00: We deal with sin, we repent quickly.
SPEAKER_00: David didn't blame Joab.
SPEAKER_00: David didn't try to justify his actions, David didn't try to make excuses, he didn't try to defend the sin.
SPEAKER_00: He just said, Lord, forgive me.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I have made a mistake, I have been a fool, and I'm asking you to wash my sins away.
SPEAKER_00: And by the grace of God, we can go to Calvary again and again and again, and we can seek his grace, and we can seek his forgiveness, and we can walk in that as well, and we can walk in victory in our life because of what Christ has accomplished for us, but we quickly repent.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the second thing that David did in 1 Chronicles 21, 11 through 13, Gad, who is the prophet at the time, he comes to David and he says, David, here's you gotta make a choice.
SPEAKER_00: God's gonna deal with Israel, and God's gonna deal with the issue of your heart, and he's given you three choices.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, This, verse 12 three years of famine, three months of being swept away before your enemies, with their swords overtaking you, or three days of the sword of the Lord, days of plague in the land, with the angel of the Lord ravaging every part of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Now then, decide how I should answer the one who sent me.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 13, David said to Gad, I am in deep distress.
SPEAKER_00: Anybody ever been there?
SPEAKER_00: Anybody ever been in deep distress?
SPEAKER_00: David says, I am in deep distress.
SPEAKER_00: Let me fall into the hands of the Lord, for his mercy is very great.
SPEAKER_00: But do not let me fall into human hands.
SPEAKER_00: David knew judgment was deserved, but he also knew God's character.
SPEAKER_00: So he said, I want to fall into the hands of God.
SPEAKER_00: I want to fall upon the mercy of God.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna fling myself upon God's mercy.
SPEAKER_00: David cried out, I am in deep distress.
SPEAKER_00: And when we find ourselves in those places in life where we are in deep distress, when when we should trust the Lord and put matters into his hands, so often we want to take matters into our own hands.
SPEAKER_00: And if we want to prepare our hearts to trust God with everything, then in our daily lives we have to be a people who are willing to put things into the hands of the Lord and to trust that his mercies are great.
SPEAKER_00: To trust that his mercies are great.
SPEAKER_00: When you're in deep distress, do you take matters into your own hands or do you fall into his hands?
SPEAKER_00: Do you cling to the things of this world or do you cling to his mercy?
SPEAKER_00: Do you count on your own righteousness like that Pharisee that prayed in the temple?
SPEAKER_00: Oh God, I'm so thankful that I'm not like every other sinner.
SPEAKER_00: Or do you do you come to God in humility and brokenness, like the tax collector who prayed, Lord, have mercy on me.
SPEAKER_00: I'm a sinner.
SPEAKER_00: Lamentations, I I love these verses that remind us of the mercy of God.
SPEAKER_00: Lamentations 3.
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah wrote this.
SPEAKER_00: This is literally right in the middle of the book of Lamentations.
SPEAKER_00: A great calamity has taken place.
SPEAKER_00: And Jeremiah says, Through the Lord's mercies we are not consumed.
SPEAKER_00: Because his compassions fail not, they are new every morning.
SPEAKER_00: Great is your faithfulness.
SPEAKER_00: Ephesians 2, 4 and 5, Paul writes this But God, who is rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, had made us alive together with Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 103, 11 and 12, for the heavens are high above the earth.
SPEAKER_00: So great is his mercy toward those who fear him.
SPEAKER_00: As far as the east is from the west, so far as he removed our transgressions from us.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to the heart of David.
SPEAKER_00: David said, His mercy is very great.
SPEAKER_00: I would rather fall into the hands of God because his mercies are great than to try to take matters into my own hands or fall into the hands of anyone else.
SPEAKER_00: His mercies are great.
SPEAKER_00: Trust is not believing that you deserve better, that God has somehow did you wrong because life is not turning out the way that you wanted it to turn out.
SPEAKER_00: Trust is believing God is merciful, believing God has a plan, believing that all things work together for good for those that love God and are called according to his purpose, no matter what the season of life we may be walking through.
SPEAKER_00: At this time, if the band can make their way back to the stage, 1 Chronicles 21 14 through 19 shows us this judgment of God upon Israel.
SPEAKER_00: And there's a point where God says, Enough is enough.
SPEAKER_00: And David, in the supernatural, he sees the angel of the Lord standing over Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: And he's standing right over this this uh place, this threshing floor of a Jebusite by the name of Aruna.
SPEAKER_00: And in verse 16, uh it said, David looked up and saw the angel of the Lord standing between heaven and earth with a drawn sword in his hand extended over Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: Then David and the elders, clothed in sackcloth, fell face down.
SPEAKER_00: This is that that repentance of the heart.
SPEAKER_00: David said to God, Listen to this, was it not I who ordered the fighting men to be counted?
SPEAKER_00: I, the shepherd, have sinned and done wrong.
SPEAKER_00: These are but sheep.
SPEAKER_00: What have they done?
SPEAKER_00: Lord, my God, let your hand fall on me and my family, but do not let this plague remain on your people.
SPEAKER_00: You see, when we started 1 Chronicles 21, David was a king.
SPEAKER_00: And now here we are towards the end through great calamity and disaster, and David, he's a shepherd again.
SPEAKER_00: He's still king, but now he's a shepherd.
SPEAKER_00: These are these are these are not men to be counted for my benefit, these are sheep to be cared for because this is this is the heart of God for these people.
SPEAKER_00: And once again, he puts himself, he puts his own life on the line to protect the sheep that God had called him to protect.
SPEAKER_00: And out of this place of transformation in the heart and in the life of David, it says this in verse 18 the angel of the Lord ordered Gad to tell David to go up and build an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Aruna.
SPEAKER_00: So David went up in obedience to the word that Gad had spoken.
SPEAKER_00: And then in verse 26, it says, David built there an altar unto the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: This is the last thing.
SPEAKER_00: We we repent, we we throw ourselves upon the mercy of God and into the hands of God because we can trust his character.
SPEAKER_00: And finally, we need to make a habit of building an altar in our life, a habit of repenting quickly, a habit of throwing ourselves upon the mercy of God, a habit of building an altar.
SPEAKER_00: And the after the plague stopped, it wasn't like David said, Okay, let's move on.
SPEAKER_00: Thank goodness that's over.
SPEAKER_00: No, there was something that needed to happen.
SPEAKER_00: There was something that God did in that nation and in David's heart that needed to be memorialized, that needed to be remembered.
SPEAKER_00: And so David built an altar.
SPEAKER_00: And we know what an altar is, we know what it represents.
SPEAKER_00: It represents worship and surrender and sacrifice and that dependence and trust being given and received in very real terms.
SPEAKER_00: And it's amazing to me that this chapter begins with a census being taken, but it ends with a deeper consecration, a deeper trust in God and his plans and in his purposes.
SPEAKER_00: And one of the most amazing things about this is as you continue to read, you you find out that where David built that altar, that was the very location where his son Solomon built the temple.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, if you keep reading in 1 Chronicles, you get to 22, 23, 24, it begins to tell you all of the preparations that David made for the temple.
SPEAKER_00: David did not build the temple, his son Solomon did, but it was David who made all the preparations.
SPEAKER_00: So when I think about how important it is for us to be a people who are prepared to trust God with everything, I think about my own children.
SPEAKER_00: The foundation that I'm laying now, so that as they grow, as they you know enter into that relationship with the Lord and walk with God, and they have to begin to learn to trust God for themselves, that there's a foundation there that they can build upon, that they can do something for the kingdom of God that outlives them.
SPEAKER_00: And so when we talk about preparing our hearts to trust God with everything, it's not just for our sake, it's for the sake of those around us.
SPEAKER_00: It's for the children that just went through an incredible week of VBS, it's for the youth that are about to go through an incredible week of camp.
SPEAKER_00: So as we prepare ourselves and repenting and flinging ourselves on God's mercy and building an altar, what we're doing is we're establishing a foundation.
SPEAKER_00: We're preparing something that future generations can build upon for the glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: Praise God.
SPEAKER_00: Now I think about this as we wrap up.
SPEAKER_00: Trust, you know, trust is not just merely uh, it's it's it's more than just you know walking with someone or talking with someone.
SPEAKER_00: Trust is really when you walk through the fire together, instead of turning away from one another or turning against one another, you really turn towards one another.
SPEAKER_00: You know, think about my wife and I, when when we go through difficult seasons, because there's a trust there, we we turn towards one another.
SPEAKER_00: It strengthens us.
SPEAKER_00: And it's that strength, it's that trust that helps us get through whatever the challenge may be.
SPEAKER_00: And it's so different in our relationship with the Lord that when we go through challenges, when we go through difficulty, do we turn towards him?
SPEAKER_00: Do we cling to him?
SPEAKER_00: Or is it more of, oh God, not this again?
SPEAKER_00: And I'm I'm do we turn away from him or do we turn against him?
SPEAKER_00: And I just want to end with this quick example of a giant of the faith, his name is Polycarp, and he's a church father, he was a disciple of the apostle John, and he he was a bishop, a leader of the church in Smyrna.
SPEAKER_00: And if if you read the book of Revelation, you read that the church in Smyrna was a persecuted church, they faced severe persecution.
SPEAKER_00: So Polycarp would have been someone that was leading them through that persecution.
SPEAKER_00: And it got to a point in Polycarp's own life where he was arrested because he refused to acknowledge Caesar as Lord, he would only acknowledge Jesus as Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And the authorities that had arrested him gave him every opportunity to recant, to deny, to just say Caesar is Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And Polycarp refused to do so.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, the the story goes that he was eventually executed, he was martyred, he was tied to a stake, and he was lit on fire.
SPEAKER_00: But this is what he is recorded as saying.
SPEAKER_00: And I pray this is this is my testimony.
SPEAKER_00: I pray it's your testimony, I pray it's a testimony of our church that whatever we walk through, whatever we go through, good, bad, up, down, whatever it may be, that our testimony would be that of Polycarp, where he said, eighty and six years have I served him, and he has done me no wrong.
SPEAKER_00: How can I blaspheme my king who saved me?
SPEAKER_00: Talk about trust.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, his life is literally on the line, and he says, He's never done me any wrong.
SPEAKER_00: How could I turn away from him now?
SPEAKER_00: Will you stand at your feet?
SPEAKER_00: Our worship team is gonna lead us in a song of worship, and these altars will be open.
SPEAKER_00: I know over the past several weeks, for many different reasons, these altars have been full of people just seeking the Lord, and we want to open them one more time.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're here this morning and and you've been struggling to really trust God with everything, and you just want to come and find a place here and reignite that trust in God.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe there's something of which you need to repent.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you need to fling yourself upon the mercy of God.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you just need to find a place right here and build an altar, a place of deeper consecration and deeper trust before the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever it may be, these altars are open, our prayer team, our pastors will be available to come along with you and pray.
SPEAKER_00: But right now we're gonna worship, we're gonna sing.
SPEAKER_00: These altars are open.
SPEAKER_00: Let's seek the Lord together, and we'll come back in a few moments to close out the session.
SPEAKER_01: Thanks for listening to the Springs Church podcast.
SPEAKER_01: We pray that you were encouraged, uplifted, and challenged by the message today.
SPEAKER_01: If you need prayer or want to learn more about the church, we would love to connect with you.
SPEAKER_01: Visit the New Here page on TFCjacks.com.
SPEAKER_01: We pray you have a great week walking in all that God has for you.