JUL 30 2017 | The Giant Series S1E13

Sea Change Church · The Giant Series S1E13 · Adam Stadtmiller · July 30, 2017
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

All right. The Lord said to Samuel, how long will you mourn for Saul since I've rejected him as king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil and be on your way. I'm sending you to Jesse of Bethlehem. I have chosen one of his sons to be king. But Samuel said, how can I go? If Saul hears about it, he'll kill me. The Lord said, take a heifer with you and say, I've come to sacrifice the Lord. Invite Jesse to the sacrifice and I'll show you what to do.

You are to anoint for me the one I indicate. Samuel did what the Lord said. When he arrived at Bethlehem, the elders of the town trembled when they met him and they asked, do you come in peace? Samuel replied, yes, I come in peace. I've come to sacrifice to the Lord. Consecrate yourselves and come to the sacrifice with me. Then he consecrated Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice.

When they arrived, Samuel saw Eliab and thought, surely the Lord's anointed stands here before the Lord. But the Lord said to Samuel, don't consider his appearance or his height for I've rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things that people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. Then Jesse called Abinadab and he had him pass in front of Samuel. But Samuel said, the Lord has not chosen this one either.

Jesse then had Shammah pass by. But Saul said, Samuel said, nor has the Lord chosen this one. Jesse had seven of his sons pass before Samuel. But Samuel said to him, the Lord has not chosen these. So he asked Jesse, are these all the sons you have? There is still the youngest, Jesse answered. He is tending the sheep. Samuel said, send for him. We will not sit down until he arrives.

So he sent for him and had him brought in. He was glowing with health and had the fine appearance and handsome features. Then the Lord said, rise and anoint him. This is the one. So Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the presence of his brothers. And from that day on, the Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon David. Samuel then went to Ramah. This is the word of the Lord.

Best brandy? You rock it, bro. I don't read the scripture like you. Good to see you. Hey, welcome to La Jolla Christian Fellowship. Good to have you this morning. It's great to be here and be with you. It's an honor to be here on this beautiful day. Looks about even on left to right today. That's awesome. Good to have you. Hey, a big round of applause for our Surf Church leader, Alex Reynolds, and his new fiancee, Kara.

You guys want to stand up? Check, check. Stand up. There we go. He's only six foot eight. Let me pray. Lord Jesus, we just thank you, God, for this time to go into your word, to feast upon your word, God, and to harvest for ourself in the midst of it sustenance for our life, God. We live in a very rudderless world that has attachments to the fleeting thoughts of the day.

But, God, we anchor our word to the Spirit of God. We anchor our lives to the word of God. And, Lord, we bless you. So, God, give us a rich harvest today as a church as we grow and we move and we move on to the next pasture. In Jesus' name, amen. When was the last time you were stuck? Stuck is a very interesting word. And sometimes I think we can be stuck in the right place.

Sometimes being stuck isn't always a bad thing. There's been times in my life where I thought I was stuck. And I look back now and I feel like I was in the cleft of the rock, that God was protecting me. And maybe you look back at something in your life and you say, you know, I thought I was stuck. But in the midst of that, thank God I didn't move from that place.

I had times in my early 20s where I thought I was stuck in the mediocrity of just some ministry position where I just knew I had it in me to do great things. And I'm feeling, you know, that one position as a servant of God was better than another position as a servant of God. In the end, we're all just servants, right? But I felt that way. And I look back now and I see some of the things that I have to face in this position that God has given me.

And I realize, thank God for the people that I'm leading that I wasn't here when I was 27. And I've said that multiple times. Yeah, thank you. That's an elder right there thanking me. It's hard enough as it is. Keep this pony in the stable. Every once in a while, he gets out into that pasture and runs, doesn't he, Kai? Got Glenda chasing me, Dick Cotton.

Everyone's chasing me. No. Dick's pretty quick still. Dick and Abby, pretty quick. And you think you're stuck and God's protecting us. But then there's other times where you're actually stuck and it's time to move on. You're stuck in a sin that has plagued you for three decades. Isn't it funny how those decades creep up on us with that little bit of sin in our life?

Or you're stuck in a relationship with a dance that you keep dancing the same dance. It's a two-step dance. You offend me. I offend you. Let's ask for forgiveness. You offend me. I offend you. Let's ask for forgiveness. On and on and on. But there never is a change in the dance to where I edify you. I encourage you. You edify and encourage me. Let's give thanksgiving to the Lord.

It is a place where you're stuck. How do we move when we are stuck? Once the glue has set, once we've become rigid, how do we move on? Now let me just say that this message is not meant to encourage you to move on from something that God has called you into or something that you have vowed to. Sometimes as Christians we hear a message and we're very good at self-medicating using that message to make it say what we want it to say.

So if you are in a difficult relationship with your spouse who you have vowed your life to, this message is not meant to say, Pastor Adam told me I'm stuck. I just got to get out. I am not saying that. Okay? Pastor Adam got in blame for a lot of things. Give you a little heads up. But you know when you're stuck. You know when you're stuck. And we know when it's time to be patient.

And what does it look like? How do we move on? Last week we talked a little bit about God's timing and the giant of timing. In this giant series in the book of 1 Samuel, we've been looking at the different giants in our lives. And we're going to, in a few weeks, we're going to get to David fighting Goliath. We're finally there. We've had to make it through Hannah.

We've had to make it through Eli and his sons, Phineas and Hophni, and all the issues they had of the giant of parenthood, of trying to be a, how there's been a loss of fatherhood in Israel. You know what's so interesting? The most amazing, or the people who are leading Israel are really bad dads. David is a really bad dad. It says in one point that he never gave one word of asking his son, why are you doing that?

Just let his son go. You look at Absalom. You look at Eli. You look at Hophni. You look at Elkanah. It's, what is really interesting is there's only one kid who comes from one of those early leaders who has an amazing, or who was amazing and had, and seems to have a good, at least father relationship. And that's Jonathan. Jonathan actually comes from Saul.

Now Saul is the one who's rejected from, from, by God. And we're going to see him being rejected as the king, and Israel is going to move on. But that's just one of the giants. And it's interesting. I wonder how Saul produced such an amazing son. I actually skipped over the Jonathan passage because we didn't have time, but Jonathan would have been an amazing king of Israel.

And when he realized that David, not him, was going to be king, because he was next in line, right? He gave, I believe he gave his armor and his sword, and he became an armor bearer and a best friend for God's choice, even though he was supposed to be God's choice. Wow. Look at that. That is so solid that Jonathan, you look at the life of Jonathan.

What are these giants? Back to the text today, we are looking at being stuck. Perhaps you're stuck with an anger issue. Perhaps you're stuck with mourning. And there is a time for mourning. But the scripture regularly talks about a time when mourning passes. And what does it look like to move on from a time of mourning? Now, if you were in a fresh time of mourning, I want to encourage you to dive deeply into it.

When my wife lost her brother, she would spend time laying in bed, and I'd say, hey, do you want to get up? Do you want to go do something? And she says, you know, I just need to feel the pain. I need to go through it. I do not want to distract myself from this, because I don't want it to be a 20-year deal. I want to feel it. And she's one of the bravest people that I've ever met.

And I want to say, hey, I want to say, I want to say, I want to say, I want to say, I want to move on. Now, there's a time to move on. Now that you've ever completely healed from some of the wounds that we've had, like losing a sibling or something. Or perhaps you have lost a marriage, and it wasn't anything to do with you or whatever it is. But there is a time where it's time to move on.

And our mourning can become a giant. Our mourning can become an idol. Our mourning can become an identity. And I want to always encourage people that when God says it's time to move on, it's time to move on. I love the idea of having spiritual senses. David Levy talked about that in his last talk last year when he did his summer series for us. And he talked about having spiritual senses, that every physical sense in the body is represented with a spiritual sense.

Ears to hear, it speaks about, of the heart. Eyes of the heart. All these physical senses are represented in the spiritual. You'll see that Romans speaks about everything God created in the physical. He created a spiritual metaphor, a spiritual truth to go behind it. You can look at the sun. All of these things give a reason of God's invisible qualities.

And his divinity, the scripture says, as you look at it. One of the things we need to get good at is being able to define the direction of our life through our internal spiritual senses. To trust more in those than you perhaps do in your visible senses. We see that Jesus, or God says in this passage, I don't judge as people judge. Imagine living a life where the final decision is made not because of what you see, not because of what you hear, but something beyond that.

Sometimes you will meet the most difficult person, but in your spiritual sense, you sense something about them. That there is a spiritual giant within them waiting to be unleashed, waiting to roar. And you can just sense it, and you give that person a chance, an opportunity. Pastor Dave Dignall gave me that opportunity when I was 20 years old, just weeks off the streets of PB, just weeks sober.

And he saw something in me that I did not even see in myself. And he said, hey, why don't you lead the study? And he said, well, actually, I'm not going to have you lead it. Why don't you sit by me and we'll co-lead it? And I'll give you a couple of verses to elaborate on, and you'll be under my covering. And he saw something in me. Hey, there's other people that come, and they're so shiny.

They look so good. They have all the right words. And they show up, and they come to my office. And the first thing they want to do is, I'm coming from another church. Here's my resume. And I want to immediately get in ministry. And what I generally will tell them is, why don't you hang out for six months? You know, one of the things Pastor Mark Foreman always said to me, the hotter they come in, the hotter they usually come out.

And the quicker. He says, whenever anybody comes, coming in like a comet, I like to slow down. And he says, a lot of times, I tell them, wait six months. And usually, they'll be gone in two to three. Because they don't want to learn the community. They don't want to understand the flavor of the community on and on. So having spiritual eyes to say, hey, this person looks amazing.

And everyone's telling you they're amazing. Or maybe it's in your dating life. Person walks in. You know, they're great on the tennis court, whatever they are. You know, they carry their Bible. Something tells you that person's a wolf. They are a straight-up wolf. I want nothing to do with you. But I'm so lonely, I'll date you anyways. Because second best is better than nothing, right?

Just saying. Maybe there's a diamond in the rough there. Maybe you need to wait until that diamond gets shined up a little bit. Nonetheless, how do we move on? This is a question in verse 1 that God asked to Samuel. Well, Samuel, I believe, now Pastor Jim and I are having this debate back and forth. He likes Saul. He thinks Saul's misunderstood. He thinks we give Saul too much of a hard time.

So I want to let him preach. He's going to be here tonight. And I will address this with him as he sits there and can't say anything for my bully pulpit. But we were going back and forth at the meal after church on Sunday night. And I just, you know, I'm not quite feeling it like he is. But he had some really good points. But we do know that the Lord rejected him.

But Samuel, I believe, had this really codependent relationship with Saul. I just feel as you look through it, there's just, you know, I mean, even when Samuel's dead, what does Saul do? Saul goes to the Witch of Endor, okay? Witch of Endor. That's an interesting story. And he goes to get information from Samuel. I mean, after Samuel, the first person he wants to go to, there's just this really connected relationship that seems to go even beyond the grave.

And Samuel is mourning for Saul. He's not mourning over Israel as much. He's just mourning. He's so upset that Saul, the kingdom, is taken away from Saul, that Saul messed up. He's probably, you know, one of the reasons last week when we read Samuel didn't show up on time. And so Saul does a sacrifice that only the Levitical priests were supposed to make.

And God said, you've disobeyed me. And he said, well, I'm doing spiritual stuff, Saul says. And a lot of times one of the messages was, we do a lot of spiritual stuff and blame it on God. We do what we want. We call it faith. I'm going to jump out and do what we want and call it faith. That sensitive spiritual eyes and ears are going to be the thing that direct you to what is actually faith and what is not faith.

So you can imagine Samuel saying, if I'd only shown up in time, you know, if I wouldn't have stopped, you know, at the In-N-Out Burger or whatever it was along the way, you know. That wasn't that funny. Yeah, it wasn't that funny. If I wouldn't have stopped and, you know, if I would have been there on time, he wouldn't have had to do that. I could have made the sacrifice.

Maybe it's my fault. Maybe he's living in false guilt. And that can be another thing that's mourning. We just live in this guilt. But you see this, and in verse 1, God kind of pulls out the paddle. God kind of pulls out the paddle. Now, have you ever had God pull out the paddle, you know, on occasion? It says that if you're disciplined by the Lord, that if you are disciplined by the Lord, that it means that you have a Father who loves you.

That you have a Father who loves you. And it says, except all hardship is discipline. So every time you have a hardship, it is an opportunity to experience the love of God. How powerful. What a powerful way to look at that. And so God pulls out the paddle, and he says to Samuel this. The Lord said to Samuel, how long will you mourn for Saul, since I have rejected him as king over Israel?

He basically, God tells him it's time to move on. Now, this is interesting. You might not think it's time to move on, but God is saying to you, move on. Maybe you're grieving something. Maybe, you know, I've met people in marriages that they had an old girlfriend, and they never got over it, you know. It's time to get over it. It's time to take the box of letters and throw them away, you know.

It's time, whatever it is. I mean, I see it all in my line of work. And I understand what it means to grieve something. Sometimes we need to grieve our own sin. We like our sin, and we miss it. We miss the addiction. We miss the old relationship. We miss running around on Friday nights. We don't like staying home and waiting like I did for two years when God said, stop dating and stay at home for two years.

It was actually one year he made it, too. So from 24, these are my prime years, right? 24 to 26. I was in the sweet spot back then. I didn't have to worry about what I ate. Nothing. It just showed up. I was looking, okay? Where'd that muscle come from? When I was sleeping, it just happened. I was like, where'd that come from? I ate another donut. I spent two years.

I was living with my brother at that time. He'd come home. He wasn't looking that good, you know what I mean? It could have been way better. But I had no dates. It would be me and him playing Ken Griffey baseball for like two years in the apartment alone. He's an awesome guy to hang out with. He's here today, as a matter of fact. He's amazing. But it wasn't a date, I'll tell you that much.

So we'd play and I felt like God said, it's time to move on from this way you've been doing your relationships to a new relationship. And the next guy I dated, actually the next guy I dated, I got a guy for three months. We just held hands, did things totally spiritually right. She was amazing. Moved on from that, met my wife and we got married.

It was good. It was God say, hey, you know, sometimes when you do things my way, it's time to move on. I got something better for you. Sometimes if you're stuck, God has something better for you. Then the leftovers of whatever you have or whatever you've been doing. God had something better for Israel. It was called David. Now, remember, God was all in with Saul.

Saul was not a way station on the way to David. He said, Saul, if you would have done these things, I would have established your kingdom for how long? Forever. He says, I would have established your kingdom forever. Because you haven't, I had to find a new person. And so he said, it's time to move on. And then God gives him these directions. And I think if you're going to move on, you're going to need to know these things.

This stood out like a bright star in the scripture to me as I read it today. It says this. How long will you mourn for Saul since I've rejected him? Now it says, do three things here. Fill your horn with oil. I love that. We're going to talk about that. Fill your horn with oil. And do what? Be on your way. I love that. Get on. Get on. Get up and get on.

Get out. Time to go. Time to go. Out, clear the room. Lights, flick the lights. God's been flicking the lights for 15 years for some of us, right? Just flicking the lights. It says, you know, they wouldn't give you so much grace down at the symphony hall. God's just flicking the lights. Then it says, the next thing it says, I am doing what? I'm sending you.

I love that. When God sends you on a mission, you want to be on it, no matter where it goes. If God is sending you, who can be against you? How exciting. The excitement of moving on and knowing when it is time to move on. I'm sending you to who? Jesse of Bethlehem. That's a good meeting. I got to tell you, if you're going to meet some people that have walked this earth, God's sending you to meet Jesse, you know, that's going to be the future king, King David.

That's a guy you want to meet. I want to say, God has some interesting meetings set up for some of you, if you'll just get on up and go. Like Jesus says, pick up your mat and walk. It's time to go. It is time. And what is it going to take? It's going to take a sacrifice, as we'll see here in a moment. The first one, fill your horn with oil. If you're going to move on from this place, you're going to have to have an anointing of, you're going to have to be anointed.

In the Old Testament, once again, we have a physical and a spiritual that God uses oil as a representation of his spirit. If you look in the scripture, you want to do a study on the Holy Spirit as oil. Many of the qualities that you see happening with the anointing of oil physically over people are things that the Holy Spirit is the one actually doing the work.

The oil never heals people. It is what is behind the oil, and that is the power of God and the Holy Spirit on the act of faith of anointing with oil. And so anointing means sometimes you are being anointed for a position. You are being anointed for ascending. You are being anointed for healing. You are being anointed to be sent somewhere. Anointing for healing.

All these different anointings. It says to Samuel, where you're going, you are going to need oil because my anointing is with you. Realize that when God sends you from a loss, from someplace you've been stuck, he wants to anoint you to go. And when you go, he wants to send you into that new place. Some of you, God has been calling to lead Bible studies.

He's been calling you to mentor and disciple people. He's been calling you to move on and to do that next step. But you've waited, and God is saying, let's move on. He said, so fill your horn with oil. And then he says, be on your way. Once you get that anointing, and how do we get that anointing? He says, first of all, there's some things you might have to change in your life.

This week I decided I wanted to do a month of seeking the anointing. I believe you can seek anointing. Scripture is anointed word of God. Fill your life with Scripture. You know, turn off, you know, pause your cable for a couple months. Just turn off TV. Our set, we're beginning to set our internet at our home on an electric timer. You know, the little timer that goes off.

So it's only on so many hours of the day. Not just at any time, you know, I think of a recipe, and I'm just going to get online and go to the recipe. It's like we're just, whatever information we want, it's information overload. Where oftentimes we can't hear the word of God. We can't hear what God is saying. What does it look like? Perhaps having worship.

Perhaps having prayer in your house. Time of silence. Or saying to your significant other, or a family member, or a best friend, can we call and be in prayer on the phone once a week? Or whatever it is. But seek anointing. Ask God for anointing to be sent. And then get up and go. Be on your way. What does it mean to be on your way? Maybe it means to call somebody and say, you know what?

I am so embroiled in this sin, and I'm so shamed and embarrassed, and whatever it is. I need help, and I need you to help me. Or I need to go to AA. Or I need to go to Al-Anon. Or I don't know what your deal is, but get there. Seek the anointing. Ask God to send you. Get up and go. Because it's time. Because God is saying to you, I have someone for you to meet.

I have some place for you to be. Do you want to get there, or is it just too easy to live in your wilderness and get all the sympathy that comes from it? I sprained my knee this week playing basketball. It happens about every 12 years. Came out of the socket, the whole deal. But I've had it worse, okay? Have you ever blown out an ACL or anything?

I don't think I did that, but nonetheless. And my wife has no love or affinity for my basketball career, which is subpar, okay? Subpar. Never played in college. Picked the game up late when I was 17. I'm all sharp elbows, you know, like can't really shoot. Not very good. But she's been telling me, you always get hurt, you know? And I don't want you to get hurt, and I don't want you to play.

So it's, you know, do you want you to just surf? I said, because I like basketball. It's competitive nonetheless. So yesterday, I'm like, oh, my niece. She goes, don't come to me. I got nothing here for you. I've been telling you for years not to play that game. Yeah, right? You know, time to move on. I don't remember what I was saying, but that was a good story nonetheless.

God says, fill your horn with oil. Be on your way, for I am sending you. Maybe it is time for me to move on from my illustrious B-league rec team basketball career. I got one thing, and maybe the word never is too definitive. I don't speak in a lot of definitives here. You're going to get a lot of grace. You're going to get a lot of gray. The Apostles' Creed, I'm black and white on that.

You know, the majors. So maybe I could put sometimes, or rarely, but I put this. The future is never found in the morning. I kind of feel the moment you get the word that it's time to move on, you see the future. And I want to validate mourning. It is so important. We need to, we need to, maybe some of you need to go back, and to get unstuck, you need to mourn something.

You need to mourn a childhood that was stolen from you. You need to mourn sexual abuse. Whatever it is, maybe you've been victimized, whatever it is. You need to mourn that so you can, you can have been victimized but no longer be a victim. Jesus, like I've said multiple times, was never a victim. You get that? Jesus was not a victim. He was victimized.

He gets it. But he never had the identity of a victim. He had the identity of victory. Even in the midst of the victimization because he knew that his father was with him and loved him. And so there is a psalm in Psalm 30, 5b. It says, weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning. And I say, you know, the sun's rising for some of you.

And the sun's been rising for a long time. And God's outside that little gray, dark brick house that you live in and saying, come on out. Come look at the, look at the horizon. I want to show you something beautiful rising over the sea. Do you want to come out? And just the courage it takes to open up and to say, yes, I want to meet my father on the front porch.

Who's the prodigal. Who's waiting to chase you. To go before you and to chase you at the same time. Because God can be in front of you and behind you as we see in Israel. As they marched. He can be in all on the sides of you. You ever notice in scripture, he's to your left. He's to your right. He's in front of you. He's behind you. He is within you.

He wants to send you out. And I say that the enemy wants to make your stuckness a prison. He wants to make it a giant that you never move on. That you were paralyzed. We need to meet that giant. Let's move on. The future often requires sacrifice. I love this because what does he tell him to go do? He says, hey, it's time to move on from Saul. I got other things for my kingdom.

We're not going to wait anymore. Although it would take another 30 years or so until David was actually in charge of the entire kingdom. You know, just because God sent you. This is another. This is a key point in regard to moving on. We tend to think we're in movies. Like within an hour and 45 minutes, we're going to have the conclusion. Right? And we're going to get there.

You know, God might have called you. God told me things about my life when I was 12 years old. I had a man come and prophesy a future over my life. Small p. Not capital P like biblical prophecy. But God wanted to speak to me about my future. I believe that's prophecy if it's true. And he spoke to me about my future when I was 12 years old. I had used a particular savory four-letter word that starts with a consonant.

And in front of my mom, and my mom said, you can't play. I won't tell you what it rhymes with. My mom said, you can't play basketball. I'm, excuse me, baseball today. I was pitching that day. I was in my uniform. Oh, right? Good discipline, Mom. That was good. But Lloyd Hart, him and his wife, prayed for me before they passed away on their knees every night for 27 years, they told me.

27 years. Find that. Find someone that will pray for you like that. Look, being in ministry is hard, but all the people that pray for you is good. There are some real benefits. I tell my kids that all the time. And he came out and he says, one of these days, you're going to use that mouth to bless God. And I never forgot that. You know how there's little sentences along your journey you just never forget?

That was a prophecy over my life. It would be a long time before that mouth blessed God. Sometimes it still doesn't bless God all that good. The future is not going to come like that immediately. It might. Maybe God will do something. You'll get that call. You'll meet that person. Here comes the horse. You know, your princess in shining armor. There you go.

Empower everyone. Wonder woman, let's go. But whatever that thing is, God wants to move you on. But maybe it won't happen overnight. And are you ready for the journey? Samuel has to walk a journey to get where he's going to make that happen. And that journey, at the end of that journey, you know what they have to do? Sacrifice. The end of the long journey, they have to sacrifice.

I've got to say, there is a large component of our society that doesn't trust the process, that wants nothing to do with process, and they definitely don't want to sacrifice anything along the process, and the quicker they can get to the end of the story, the better. I want to say God values the journey. God values as much as he does the destination.

Samuel replied, it says, yes. When Jesse, the father of David, asked him, hey, why are you here? Now, if Samuel rolls up to your house, it's a big deal, right? It is a big deal when he shows up. And so he shows up and he's like, hey, why are you here? Do you come in peace? Like, this is a big deal. He says, yes, I come in peace. I've come to sacrifice to the Lord.

Consecrate yourselves to come to the sacrifice with me. Circle that word, consecrate. Then he consecrated Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice. Consecration is not anointing. Consecration oftentimes is the preparation for anointing, which means get holy. Set yourself apart. I said, we live in a world that wants everything with no consecration.

We never want to be told no, especially in the sexual climate today. We want no no's. No one wants to know a no because no gives boundaries and gives value. Without a boundary around anything, you have nothing of secrecy. You have nothing that is sacred. And so the world today is telling you in secular humanism that anything human beings want, as long as you don't hurt another human being, is okay.

Because man now is the apex of the social theological hierarchy. And I use the word theological because man is God. There is a, and we've talked about this before with secular humanism, but there is a moral code. There are things you can say. There are sins. All types of things. And it's just all, everything that is biblical has been replaced by man.

Consecration is saying no to a lot of things, saying I want to be holy. I want my life to be holy. I want, I want my speech to be holy. I want my sexual life to be holy. I want my, my thoughts to be holy. I want everything about me to be holy. But holiness comes at a cost. It's free because we are made righteous for free through what Jesus did on the cross.

But he even had to pay for that. So it wasn't free, but it's free. And now it's going to cost you if you're going to put yourself up on that cross with him. Because Christ said, if you want to follow me, then do what? Crucify yourself. It's so hard to crucify your mouth. So hard to crucify your heart. So hard to crucify all the desires. And perhaps you're going to have to mourn that sin that you're so used to and you love so much.

And this is a story now that I remember, is when I was with my brother in those, in that room playing video games for two years, that I just had to mourn because I was so sad that I wasn't having the previous life that I had before. Because a lot of it was fun. But a lot of it was killing me. And that's what I learned along the way. Anointing often requires consecration for sacrifice.

If you want to be anointed, it isn't going to come without consecration. God doesn't just anoint whatever. You get that? God just doesn't anoint whatever. He anoints things that he calls to be holy and things that he consecrates and people that he consecrates. And you will never live beyond your potential. And this is something that the world never thinks about.

That would say, live to your potential. Live to your potential. Spiritual faith following Christ calls us to live so far beyond our potential. He doesn't want you to live within your boundaries. He wants you to, if you have a gift of evangelism, he's going to make it ten times greater than it would ever be if you didn't consecrate it to him. He's going to give you a gift of peace, of joy.

He wants to give you more than you could ever have. But you have to contract for in order to have overflowing. You're going to have to contract the sin in your life, these things, in order to have overflowing in your life. And that is what he's called us to. So anointing requires a consecration. And so if you want to be anointed, because anointed people will accomplish more in their life than they could ever do on their own.

You have to have consecration. Here's a couple verses. Oil, I've often said, uses in the Holy Spirit is a metaphor for the Holy Spirit. Or a truism. James 5.14, if anyone among you is sick, then he must call for the elders of the church, and they will pray over him, anointing him with oil in what? In the name of Jesus. Maybe you need healing. Seek anointing.

After the service you want to be prayed for, come forward. 1 John 2.27, as for you, the anointing which you receive from him abides in you. You have no need for anyone to teach you. But his anointing does what? Teaches you about all things. And it is true and not a lie. And just as it has taught you, you abide in him. Now, this is what's interesting about living in anointing.

Living in anointing will tell you what to do. It will give you insight beyond what you can see with your eyes, beyond what you can hear with your ears, beyond what you can see in the physical. Living in anointing gives you the ability to live from within. I got to say, in the difficult decisions in my life that I have to make, whether it be family or work or life or whatever else, I would say almost 100% of them I make based not using my physical senses.

Granted, they will cue me. But going deep and saying, God, what are you saying here? And knowing the right thing to do. I would say if you have the Holy Spirit, you've asked Jesus to come in to your life and you want to follow him. If you settle down on this hard decision you're trying to make and you think, okay, God, what do you actually want me to do?

You can come in contact with a real sense of this. There will be this sense within you that will say, do this. But all these other reasons will come up to you and say, no, but look at this and this and that, that. But something will say no or something will say yes. Yes, we've taught our children how to, how to hear that voice. It's been our primary thing because I can't train them for every possible situation they might encounter.

What I need to train them to do is to hear the voice of God. Because they are going to hit a situation that I have never prepared for. And I was at a conference speaking to parents one time and a woman came up to the front and she said, what if this happens? What if this happens? And she just did this for like 15 minutes, just gripped in fear.

And I said, look, I don't have the answers for all your stuff. I said, you are not going to have, I said, and no matter how many you come up with, the enemy is just going to find one that you've never prepared them for. And that's the one he's going to use. Ah, you see the look on her face. I said, well, teach your kids to hear the word, hear the voice of God.

Teach them to know God. Let them sit on his lap. Don't touch a cardboard Jesus. Let them fail. Let them persevere when they struggle with faith. Don't give them stupid bumper sticker answers where they have to follow God. Or God's going to take care of it. Oh, just trust in the Lord and he will come. Da, da, da, da, da, da. Those songs are awesome on occasion.

But occasionally you have to say, you know, I have no idea how God's going to show up. We're just going to have to wait. I wish I could tell you. And they go away, they go away without an answer. I can give them a scripture. I know we've got to give scriptures. But on a time we have to allow our kids to persevere. Because perseverance leads to character.

And character leads to what? Hope. Bing, bing, bing. That's right. Persevere. If you give everybody the answer or your spiritual cure for every single thing they're going through. As opposed to sitting Sheba. It's a word. It's a Jewish word. For when somebody is in mourning. You don't say anything. You go sit for seven days. And they wouldn't say anything.

And they would mourn. And just sit there for seven days. You see it in the book of Job. They did. They sat Sheba with them. They would sit there. You let your kids mourn that. To deal with that. You know, oh, we had a divorce. We'll just give you more presents. Let's not talk about it. Whatever it is. No. Let's let them feel that. Don't be afraid of the pain to go through that.

1 John 2.20. An anointing will take us through it. It says that, excuse me. In the 1 John 2.27. It said that if you have anointing, God will show you. He will give you a truth. You see that? You will know truth. We see anointing for a lot of things. Have you ever seen it before in the scripture? Where the reason you want the anointing is so you'll have the answers.

That God will give you all truth. Walk in anointing. As long as the enemy can keep us from being consecrated, he can keep us from being anointed. As long as he can keep us from being anointed, he can keep us from the truth. So get sin woven into the church. Weave it in. Let's relax our margins on everything. Because the culture is relaxing our margins.

Let's relax our margins. Because everyone else is relaxing them. I'll tell you what. Then they will not know truth. And if they don't know truth, they will not know love. And it says in the end days, the love of people will grow cold. And they will look at sin and call it good. And they will look at what is good and call it sin. Have you seen that anywhere in this world?

Yeah, today. 1 John 2.20. But you have the anointing from the Holy One. And you have what? How much knowledge? Huh. Science ain't ever going to figure it all out. FYI. You get that? I like science. I think science shows us God. I think the theology of science is amazing. But if you want to find a scientific proof for everything, you're just going to keep disproving the proof that you found.

And we keep seeing that with science. They keep finding something out that disproves what they prove that they prove. Scripture says that we can have all knowledge. You know what? For the moment. That in that moment, even if it goes against science, like the last time I had a knee injury, a guy prayed for me before I went in for my surgery with an ACL.

And they woke me up 20 minutes into the surgery and said, hey, we had to wake you up because we would have had to deconstruct the knee to reconstruct your knee because there's nothing torn on the same knee. So I'm believing it's still fine. Which is interesting. He goes, our MRI must have been wrong. I said, okay, yeah. That's funny. It's all torn, but I guess it's not.

Science had a great answer. Go get surgery. I went for the surgery, but I also went for prayer. And I walked out of there and three days later I was playing ball again. It says, you have knowledge for what you need in the moment. You know the only moment you really need to live in? This one. You know how much knowledge you need? Just enough for now.

To live in that moment. And sometimes the knowledge is just rest. Chill out. I'll take care of this one. Sometimes the best knowledge is to know that you don't need the knowledge. To just sit back. We're in for a landing. We're done. The future requires spiritual senses. Verse 7. But the Lord said to Samuel, do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him.

The Lord does not look at the things people look at. An outward appearance. But the Lord looks at the heart. With every person in the world. And it says there are, you know, we live in a very political world. I understand everyone thinks America is the apex of that. I think there's things happening all over the world. God's very concerned about what's happening in different countries and everything.

And there's atrocities. God is orchestrating this whole deal. I don't know why he does it. Why does you allow Attila the Hun to rise up? Why do you allow Diocletian to be risen up to oppress Christians? I don't know why God does what he does. I don't get it. And I'm not sure I need the knowledge to have it. But God says he looks at one thing and he looks at the heart.

And let's take it away from the geopolitical and how he rises up. Let's take it back to us. Because the scripture today matters to us. God wants a heart. He wants a soft baby skin heart that he can work with. That says, I want to be consecrated. And when you're consecrated, then I can get to the business of anointing you. We can start a journey. It's probably going to require sacrifice.

But I'm going to bring you to the horizon. And we're going to watch the sun rise over your life together. Amen? Amen. Amen. Let's have Olin come forward. Stand if you would.