AUG 13 2017 | The Giant Series S1E15 | 1 Samuel 17:45-47

Sea Change Church · The Giant Series S1E15 · "1 Samuel 17:45-47" · Adam Stadtmiller · August 13, 2017
1 Samuel 17:45-47
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

1 Samuel 17, 45-47, and David said to the Philistine, you come against me with sword and spear and javelin, 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.

All who 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. This is a reading of the Lord. We have finally made it to David. Made it to David and this giant series will be ending in the next few weeks as we look at this particular passage of the biggest, most well-known giant, perhaps in all of human history.

And the man that God called to defeat that giant. And we're going to be looking at David and we're going to be looking at what I feel was the key to this entire series. What God spoke to me in the midst of it is not something I understood or knew how to articulate when we started. But it is the idea of dominion versus control. This has been something that has come up over and over again and it is the ability to live in collaboration with God to become more than you could ever be upon on your own.

Oftentimes we hear in culture people will say be the best you that you can be. Just max it out. Be the best you can be. I got to say that is the last thing that I ever want to do. The last thing I want to be is the best me I can ever be. What I want to be and what I think the scripture calls us to is to live with a supernatural abundance that takes you far beyond the limited confines of being the best you you could ever be.

If I can be and I have the ability like all the people on TV and the different speakers tell you to be the best me that I can ever be on my own. Why do I need God? What God has promised is to allow you to live beyond the margins beyond the confines beyond the boundaries of anything you could ever hope to be or dream to be or imagine to be. We are not a goal oriented church here.

We are a value driven church. We don't set many goals. I actually don't ask my staff to set goals. I know when I was working at other churches they would ask me to set goals and it was always tedious. Go and spend 10 minutes sitting by a lake and then figure out your goals and then come back and write down these goals and then we won't talk about them all year.

And then at the end of the year give us a report on how you did them. And then at the end of the year I'd look maybe if you've done this is it just me that does this? And you look and you say where have I accomplished my goals? Now we're not in sales and so obviously some of those numbers are easier to quantify if you're a salesperson. But what I have believed since I've gotten here is that if we live according to our values it's very possible, very likely that we will far exceed any goal that we would ever set.

As a matter of fact if you were to look at what God has done in the last three and a half years with this generation of La Jolla Christian Fellowship we never would have been foolish enough to set the goals that we have accomplished. That God had for us we never would have we never would have dreamed so high we never would have dreamed so big we never could have dreamed so large because perhaps we would have been terrified to set a goal that high.

And by living according to our values God has allowed us to really start doing amazing things. I believe that it is after three and a half years here in this generation this season of church that we are still in the harbor at La Jolla Christian Fellowship. I believe we've got about another year and a half in the harbor to kind of get things solidified.

It's about a five-year process of getting this old ship not just the terra firma that we're on or the building in order but just to get things the culture set leaning on what has been in the past and moving on. And probably about a year and a half we'll probably start to move out to sea to some great thing God wants to do and I hope you're here as part of that.

David was a man that became far greater than he ever could have been on his own. As a matter of fact it says that God establishes his kingdom. Does anybody know how long it says that David's kingdom would be established for? Forever. Hashtag forever. God establishes kingdom beyond the confines of time. Think about it. If David was called to be the best David he could be, the best king that he could be, and not collaborate with God because the reason that David's work and life becomes eternal is because God kissed it with his presence.

And anything that God comes in collaboration with, anything that God comes in unity with, those things will live for eternity. 1 Corinthians 3.13 tells us that. We'll talk about that in a moment. But David was able to live an eternal life. A life of dominion not of control. A life that he wasn't trying to control. Matter of fact, the job that he was called to, the giants that he was called to face, were too big for him to ever fight, to ever overcome.

But not only did he overcome them, he lived a life that will be remembered in eternity. The things that David did will be remembered in eternity. Are you living a life of control or are you living a life of dominion? As he fights the Philistine, we see that the Philistine is depending upon his javelin, his sword, his spear, his size. I think he had six fingers.

Maybe that was his brother. I don't know. He had a lot of fingers and a lot of toes. I mean, you do not want to fight somebody with extra digits. I'm just telling you. Maybe you have extra digits. No offense. No shade on you to the extra digit people among us. But I won't fight you. David lived in dominion. And you'll see in your notes, David never slayed a giant on his own.

David never slayed a giant on his own. He went in the name of the living God. And I have to ask you, are you living on your own or are you in collaboration with God? I'm not talking about just a head nod to God, right? Because spiritual activity is not spiritual relationship. Spiritual activity is not spiritual obedience. There's a big difference between having relationship with God and kind of just giving him a wink.

And you sit over there in the corner and I'll take care of my life. Or completely immersing yourself in the midst of God so that all of you do has the presence of God. Look, God has called you to be more than you can ever be. And the only way to do it is if we are in collaboration with him. Verse 45, straight into the text. David said to the Philistine, you come against me with the weapons of this world or with the sword, the spear, and the javelin.

But I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel. Other times in the Psalms he would say the God of the angel armies whom you have defied. David knew what he was fighting for. He wasn't fighting for his own name. He wasn't fighting for his own glory. He wasn't fighting for anything about himself to be remembered.

He was fighting with a righteous anger because the Philistines, and especially Goliath, have defied the armies, the name of the living God. Why are you doing what you're doing? Perhaps it's time to get a little hipster with our faith and break down everything, deconstruct, using the same materials to reconstruct. I'm not asking you to throw out all of your theology and everything you've ever thought about God.

But what I might ask you to do is take that old cool barn wood that's on your theology and pull it off for a while, refinish it, recondition it, and bring it into something that's beautiful. We all understand this. If you go to any restaurant right now in San Diego, anybody's house, you're going to find barn wood that nobody else wanted anymore.

It is a barn wood. And I'm asking you to have a barn wood theology. Not to come up with some new crazy ideas, but to break it down and saying, am I living in collaboration with God? What am I doing? Is it about bringing glory to me? Or am I upset that perhaps even the things that I am doing are defying the presence of God in my life? And saying, you know what?

You can just wait on me, God, until I am ready. I love the quote by Count Zisendorf. When it talks about being remembered and being known by men, he says this. Preach the gospel. Die. Die. And know what it says after that? Be forgotten. I just love that. Preach the gospel. Die and be forgotten. The mentors who brought me up in the faith, who chiseled off the hard stone of my heart that I sat with, mechanics I sat with, Dave Chrysler in his kitchen right after I got saved.

Every week, show up on Wednesday. Don't be late. If you're going to be late, don't come. I mean, that kind of hardcore, just, you know, on your knees, kicking butt. That's what I needed. I needed tough love. I didn't need some gentle kiss. You're amazing. God loves you so much. Just do whatever you want. I didn't need that. That wasn't going to work for me.

God knew who to send into my life. And these were men that hewn my faith in the minds of God's love and in God's discipline and in God's obedience to try to find some gold amidst the rubble that was my life. They told me things like Count Zisendorf said, preach the gospel, die, and be forgotten. There's one person that we care about. There's one name we want to glorify.

There's one name we want to make famous, and it isn't David. It's the name of Jesus Christ to be lifted high in everything that we do. David understood why he was fighting, verse 45, where people called to live in dominion. I said this. This goes back to the origins of the faith. Genesis 128. Look what it says. This is, I think, the King James Version, I believe.

I forgot to put my version there. It's good to read multiple versions of the Bible and to understand some of the versions, but some of the older versions are great. Genesis 128. It says, and God blessed them, and God said unto them, be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it and have what? Dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air and over everything that moveth upon the earth.

It says that the Spirit of God in Genesis did what? Over the waters. Did what? It hovered. Where? Over the waters. That God is over creation. If you want to do a biblical word study, just looking at over, you will see that God is over. He has a dominion over, and he calls mankind at the beginning of the text in Genesis. 6,000 years of written history tell us that at the beginning he called us into dominion.

He says, I want you to rule over these things with me. But what man has wanted to do is have control within. Man does not want to rule over because it's impossible to rule over something the size of creation. It is impossible to have control over something the size of creation unless you are collaborating with God to have dominion over, where when this gets out of control or that or the bison go crazy or the apes are, you know, planted, whatever it is, you know, when things happen beyond your control is what I'm trying to say, that you can say, God, I can't do this.

I need to let you have dominion. And God's given you a kingdom that he has established in your life, a God's kingdom in your marriage, in your family, in your business, in your school, whatever it is, and it can get out of control really quick. And if we are living in dominion, we can get to that place and say, God, okay, this is a dominion area.

This is a spot. I can only control so much with my limited understanding, God, but call me deeper. God called us to have dominion. It's an impossible task to do without collaborating with God to control the earth. You know what you'll see today? We see the result of humankind's attempt to control the creation independent of God's sovereignty. What we see over and over is mankind trying to control each other and control the creation separate of God's sovereignty.

That will always lead to death. It'll never lead. You can see what's happening today. Just read the news. Here's a couple ideas about dominion versus control to make it very simple because many people have asked me, just, it's a difficult concept. Tell me how to do it. And I was at a family camp this week speaking and a woman came up and she said, how do I do it?

I'm not sure I have a roadmap for you. Other than submission, I surrender all, my favorite prayer, help, four letter word. You know, I'm not sure I have a roadmap. And I believe that each of us is going to have a different journey to that place of submission and surrender. But it is when you are trying to control and you feel the anxiety, you feel the depression, you feel the loneliness, whatever it is, you step back into heaven and you harvest God's peace, God's joy through the things, the weapons of our warfare, which are the word of God, thanksgiving, forgiveness, things of this nature.

Look at your notes. First one. Control is done within the confines of our own abilities. Dominion resources supernatural abilities beyond the margins of our limited talent, skills, and capacity. None of us want to think about the limits of our skills and capacities. What we're told all the time is it's limitless. Be the best you you can be. Dream as big as you can dream.

And it is limitless. That is not true. It's a lie. It's an advertising lie. You can only do so much. You only have so much emotional margin, so much time. We are limited people. Dominion versus control. Dominion calls us to live beyond the confines of our limited talent, skills, and capacity. The cool thing with dominion is even if you are the least talented person in the world, you can have eternal dominion.

See, God doesn't base his kingdom on your talents. We tend to think, get the most talented people in the church. Get a five-gifter. Make sure they have five gifts or seven gifts. And we start using the world's eyes to determine people's gifting. If people's gifting would have been, you know, used to determine how God would use people in the world, Mother Teresa never would have shown up.

Have you ever looked at just this humble Hungarian, tiny little woman, quiet, simple, humble, world changer, eternal woman, changing the world, bandaging the wounds of those in Calcutta, changing the world, the philosophy of suffering. Unbelievable that God takes this little humble nun and she will be remembered. I mean, I would say probably, you know, hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands of years just on this earth, but definitely in eternity.

As we go on, it says, as you look at a couple of verses to back it up, the weapons we fight are not the weapons of this world. On the contrary, they have divine power to do what? Demolish strongholds. You know, our control does not promise to demolish strongholds. But if you have strongholds in your life, strongholds of addiction, anger, whatever those things are, even strongholds in governments, there are strongholds.

Strongholds, the devil loves to build strongholds. But when we live in dominion, you can take down the strongholds in your life. Strongholds of lust, strongholds of covetousness. That if we use the weapons of our warfare, these are the tools that God uses to demolish strongholds. Not your talents, not your willpower, not your ability to say no.

It is God's ability beyond you that allows us to live in dominion. Romans 8.37, and I've said this many times, the theology of conquering. No, in all these things we are conquerors. Is that what it says? What does it say? More than conquerors. Let me just say this. You're not called to be a conqueror in Jesus' name. This whole conquering theology.

Let's conquer. Let's conquer. You're called to be more than a conqueror. More than a conqueror that demolishes strongholds means that the stronghold that was in your life or a stronghold that was in the city of La Jolla of whatever it would be, we could talk about different strongholds we see over cities or in your life, is so conquered, more than conquered, and demolished to the point that when the spiritual archaeologist or emotional archaeologist or the sociologist come a thousand years later, there is no evidence that that stronghold ever existed.

Meaning that you've had strongholds in your life. 30 years you've been dealing with something, but God gets you to a place where 10 years after he heals you of it, there is no more knowledge that it existed. You tell people the story and they say, what? You know, I tell people sometimes about my past oftentimes. And I remember first early in my Christian life, they'd be like, oh, I can see that.

I can tell you did that. You know, now, you know, I don't leverage my testimony like I used to because it gave me a place in the, you know, I kind of needed to have a place the first five to 10 years. So I'd always be talking about my testimony, always be talking about it. But now there's a point when I tell people my testimony, they'll say like, really?

You had that in your life? I can't believe that. Not that we're not just one, you know, poor decision away from going down a wrong path. But looking back and saying that that stronghold was so strong in my life, I never knew how I would overcome that mountain, has been demolished to the point where there's no longer any existence. It's barely even remembered that you even had that struggle more than conquerors.

That's dominion, not control. Control gives you temporal results while dominion establishes the eternal. We already spoke about that with David. Dominion gives you kingdom influence beyond what you can control. Dominion does not pencil out. You see that? You can't pencil out dominion because it's eternal. It goes far beyond. I got to say, if you're living a life where everything's in control, I'm not saying that we don't have peace because peace can, even if you're not in control, God gives you peace beyond what?

Your understanding. That's just another biblical example right there where God says, hey, I don't want to give you peace of your understanding. Like, hey, the check came in. Oh, thank God, I have peace now. You know, right? When you're waiting for that check, it comes in. You're like, oh, I know how I'm going to pay the bills. Okay, so that's peace within control, right?

Because you have peace within your understanding. God is saying, I want to give you a peace beyond your understanding. I have no idea how the check's going to come in. Why do I feel so good? Because God has given you something beyond the margins that you can control. I got to say, if everything in your life, and we are control-based people, right?

God is sometimes calling us to let go of that and to allow to step into dominion. If everything is in control in your life, maybe there's a season where God is just letting everything be hunkered down. But if there is no risk, if there is no stepping out in faith, why do we need God? God has called us to live beyond control. Dominion does not pencil out.

Control is established through hard work and striving, while dominion can be established through restful increase. Or shmita. Shmita means like a sabbatical year. They had a shmita year, the Jews would have, where they would not plant for an entire year. And then God would give increase, even though they didn't work. Now you realize, if the Jews were to not work a year, that means they're eating all the fruit from the year before, and then they don't plant.

So year one, they don't plant. Year two, there's nothing to eat. Okay? Because they did not plant. God has to show up. Well, not only did they not plant, because it is a Sabbath, shmita year, they don't sow seed for the following year. So, actually, the second year, they're eating the crops from the first year. I apologize. But then the second year, they don't plant.

So they have to wait a whole other year, because the year that they had shmita, they didn't plant seed for the next fall. How are they going to survive? God says, I will give you so much, if you read, I think it's Leviticus, so much in the third year that you will have more than you can eat. The manna, the understanding of the manna, the understanding of the dominion, a restful increase.

We think we've got to work our fingers to the bone. You know, people always come up to me, and they're like, you must be so busy. You must be so busy. You know, busy, oftentimes, I've found in my life, has been something to validate myself when I don't feel that I'm validated just from God. You just work, work, work. We have this German work ethic in my family.

We work until we die. That's like what we do. My dad did a really, did one of his largest business deals of his life, went home, cleaned his house, cleaned his office, opened up his briefcase, took his business card, put it in the middle of the briefcase, went to the hospital, and died three days later. Like, right? My grandma, she's carrying laundry.

She didn't know she had terminal bone cancer. She'd be dead in about four weeks. She's carrying laundry, and she walks past me, and she collapses, and I carry her while she's doing the laundry. She'd been having sweats and working in the garden and work, work, work, work, work, and within a month, she was dead. My father's mom, when she was going to die, he had eight sisters.

There's nine children. Invited all nine children in from youngest to oldest with the father coming in last into the room. Said goodbye to each of them. My dad was the oldest child. Said goodbye to him. He walked out. Father walked in. Said goodbye to him and died. That's how we do it in the Staten Miller home. That's how we roll. Work to death. Work, work, work, work, work.

And work gives value, and if you understand, I was talking, there was an Asian woman at camp, and she goes, hey, that German thing? The Asians, we got it too. She's on from Korea. She's all, we do this thing. She said, why can't I just be from one of those continents where they have rest? I don't want to live a busy life. Why are we trying not to have so much stuff at this church?

Because we want to give you something contrary to the world. It's moving so fast, so quick that you can come here. I mean, we ask you to volunteer once a month if you can. We hope that you can. But we don't want to just, hey, come here and rev the throttle for God so you can walk out saying, I did a bunch of spiritual activity. Spiritual activity is not spiritual relationship.

Spiritual activity is not spiritual obedience, as I said before. He gives us restful increase. I'm going to say, when was the last time you gave God margin to win the victory for you? Like, do you even know what it tastes like to let God win a victory for you, or do you win them all on your own? You sort it out, you work hard, you get it done. God's going to let you do it.

But I got to say, the victories God gives are so much more definitive than any victories of our own. And they don't just leave the stronghold halfway finished. God demolishes the entire stronghold. Once in a while, give God a little ability to win a victory. David understood this. Final one here, it says, control is clung to with a clenched fist.

Dominion is established through release. We sang that song a minute ago. It's God's desire to establish you beyond the margins of your ability to control. Why? Because we're an eternal people built to live in the eternal now. What do I mean by that? We are not a temporal people. We have eternal souls. And what God wants to do is allow us to build upon a foundation where the things that we do here on earth will be remembered in heaven.

That means that you are harvesting from heaven the kiss of Jesus upon your work. And because he put himself into the nutribullet of your life, it's work on life, and he mixed it and blended it all up. Or the ninja, whichever one you use. If we mix God into the components of our life, it becomes blended together that it can never be sifted out again.

And those things will be remembered. Let me give you a really powerful, powerful verse. I mean, this, 1 Corinthians 3, it's in your notes, 12 through 15. Here's what it says. If anyone builds on this foundation, the foundation of Christ, and it talks more about what that foundation is, but the work that Christ had done, using gold, silver, costly stone, wood, hay, or straw, and what it's saying right there is some of you are going to do stuff that when you build it, it's going to look like gold.

You're going to play in the NFL. The world's going to look at it and go, that's awesome. But some of you just have straw. Some of you just have straw. Like I said, God doesn't care about the building blocks as long, or what you have, or how many talents you have, as long as it's built upon the right foundation. So all of these things will move to eternity.

Here's what it says. Their work will be shown for what it is, because the day will bring it to light. That's the day of Christ's coming. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person's work. If what has been built survives, that means survives, through the fire of Christ's coming, and through judgment, the builder will receive a reward.

But if it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss, yet will still be saved, even though only as one escaping through the flames. What it's saying right there is the work that you do, if it is built upon the foundation of Christ, it will survive. It will be tested in the fire, and it will survive in eternity, and you will be rewarded for what you did, and remembered for what you did, because it was done for Christ in eternity.

Your works will follow you on into heaven. If your whole thing was, hey, Jesus is a big lifeguard. He saved me. I gave him a tip of the cap most of my life, and I've done everything just to build my own little kingdom. It says you will still be saved, as if one escaping out of a burning house, but everything you did will be burned up and not remembered.

You'll end up in heaven, but there'll be no remembering. You will have nothing eternal. You will have built nothing eternal. Do you know that that scripture right there says every day you can build eternity here on earth? That's a bit of kingdom theology here on earth. What are you building? The thing I think about on a regular basis is I love coming to work, because it's just a lot easier.

It feels a lot more easier to kind of define building kingdom work here, working with people, seeing their lives change, but I love coming and thinking, what am I going to build eternal today? What am I going to do today that's going to last forever? In everything you do, it could be opening a door for someone. It could be picking up trash as you walk down the street.

God, there's no little minor action that God says that's not worthy of eternity if it's built on the foundation of Christ. Your marriage, even though we will not be married in heaven, we'll be married to Christ himself, the works of the things that you created in your marriage, in your home, the culture of your home, can be remembered in heaven. That is how David says that his kingdom would be established forever, because God established it.

What are you building? It doesn't matter if you have straw. You know what? Spin the best straw you have. Use your straw because you know what? It will be tested by fire and that straw will not burn up. We tend to look, I don't have this, I don't have that. Look at them. They got this. Look at Facebook, you know, that envy factory of Facebook. Look what they're doing.

Look at their marriage. They went on the Norwegian cruise, you know, whatever. I don't know what it is. What's the one out through the rivers in Europe? That's the one I want to do. That really? Viking, right? Yeah. Do not raise your hand if you've been on a Viking cruise because I'll punch you. My wife always says to me, I will punch you in the follicle.

I'm like, I've got a lot of follicles here. So, that's her joke now. I want to go on that. It's God's desire to establish you beyond your ability to control. Do you want to be eternal? Do you want to be remembered? The things that you did, remembered forever, were forgotten on earth but remembered in eternity? I want, I want to get to heaven. I want to, you know, and it allows you, this way of living brings peace.

I've got to say, just to let go, I'm not saying be lazy. I'm not saying don't do the things God's called you. We do a lot around here. There's a lot happening behind the scenes but we're doing it in a spirit of rest and we're beginning to see eternal foundations built. We're closing right now. I'm circling the tower. Good. Zach says good. Okay. Put you to sleep.

Yeah, good. Front row. Can you say it from the back row, please? Not right in my face. Yeah, good. Good. Because you were stinking up the joint today, bro. Love you, man. You're awesome. I'm coming after you, bro. Punch you in the follicle. This is probably, when I wrote this sermon, I wrote it on Thursday morning in an hour and I got up and I was making my coffee and the thought came through my head, you will never have dominion over any territory larger than the size of your heart and it just kept sticking in my head and I thought, change your sermon this week and so that was a pivot point.

You will never have dominion over any territory larger than the size of your heart. David's entire deal, all the stuff he did wrong, everything, it came back to one thing God would say about him. He is a man who has a heart after my own heart. Heart is the currency of heaven. Heart is the thing that the mouth speaks. Heart is the essence of your life that God looks at when he judges the quality of your work and a foundation.

How's your heart? You know what? I don't talk a lot about what's going on in the world from the pulpit. I'm very, I'm apolitical from the pulpit and there's a reason for that because I feel that what God wants to do is create a place where we can escape from all that and we can have a place where we have a different news because we have the gospel and I don't think any of you have a lack of news in your life.

You don't need me to reiterate it or to get a position on one thing or the other. I just want to teach the word of God and give you a place where you can hear the gospel which is the good news and then you can take it out as mature adults as congregants and you can face that news with the news you get here. You know, there's often a thing of church without walls and that was a statement from our, you know, I hear a lot but the more I think about it, I kind of want to be a church with walls so we can come in and like, huh, okay, we made it back from the enemy lines.

Let's eat, let's feast, you know, have the mead, you know, or whatever it is and send you back out refreshed and renewed. That's what we want to do here is refresh and renew you and so we see that, you know, and this is a place where I want to soften hearts. I don't want you to, I don't want to come in and trigger you with a whole bunch of political stuff that you can go out and get ticked while you're sitting here listening to me.

You might do that anyways nonetheless but to go back out because I want to create, we want to create hearts here because if we do the heart work, everything outside of these walls will take care of itself. The first corner of the four corners of this church is the corner of your heart. We see that Saul's heart was changed by God at one point when he became king.

It says in 1 Samuel 10, 9, as Saul turned to leave Samuel, God changed Saul's heart and all these signs were fulfilled. Well, if Saul had a changed heart, why did God remove him? And we remember that God was all in with Saul, right? He said he would have established his kingdom for eternity. He was not a stopgap on the way to David, which I had always seen that.

Only in this few weeks have I realized Saul was not a temporary solution. Saul, God was all in. He would have established him, but he did not have a heart for God and God gave him a heart and what that showed me as I read that this week is fashioning a heart for God is not a one-time event. God gave him a heart. Imagine if God gives you the soft beating heart, the heart of fire of God and that fire goes out.

That's what happened. It's not a one-time event. David rekindled the fire of God on a regular basis. What are you doing to keep the fire of God lit in your life? 1 Samuel talks about him losing this kingdom in verses 13 and 14. Chapter 13, You've done a foolish thing, Samuel said to Saul. You have not kept the command of the Lord your God gave you. If you had, he would have done what?

Establish your kingdom over Israel for all time. But now your kingdom will not endure. The Lord has sought a man after his own heart and appointed him ruler of the people because you have not kept the command of the Lord. Dominion then, as we see right there as the final point, is a product of obedience. We see that God expanded and contracted the territory of Israel on a regular basis based on their obedience.

Will they do what God says to do? And I believe that God will expand your kingdom influence. It doesn't mean that you're going to have a larger business. but he has ways of expanding your influence. And we see here in 2 Kings 10 31, God contracting the kingdom of Israel. Yet Yehu was not careful to keep the law of the Lord, the God of Israel, with all his what?

There it is again. He did not turn away from the sins of Jeroboam, which he had caused Israel to commit. In those days, the Lord began to reduce the size of Israel. Haziel overpowered the Israelites throughout all their territory. I want to say God is not afraid to reduce your territory. And he doesn't need you. Full stop. He doesn't need Saul. He doesn't need you.

What he wants is a heart. And then he wants to go have fun and collaborate with you in your life. He doesn't need you. I tell the staff on a regular basis, the church has been here 90 years without us. They don't need us. You know, God, they need God. We need to be submitted to God. The stage is not the star. And God can bring someone else to do the job when it's needed.

Look at King David's kingdom, though. It's a great verse. And this is opposite of what it said before. We see, let's go right to the Chronicles verse. David obeyed God and he defeated the Philistines. He even chased them all the way from Gibeon to the entrance of Gezer. From then on, David became even more famous. That's God establishing him as king. And the Lord made all of the nations afraid of him.

I want to say, God was, he was obedient. He defeated, he chased them all the way because of his obedience. And from that point on, God began to make him famous because all David cared about was making God famous. Amen?