JUN 11 2017 | The Giant Series S1E6

Sea Change Church · The Giant Series S1E6 · Adam Stadtmiller · June 11, 2017
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

We are all focused on the Word of God. Samuel, the prophet, a communicator. And we find that here in chapter 7 of 1 Samuel. Let's hear the Word of the Lord today and then pray forward as his Word teaches us. Samuel said to all the house of Israel, If you are returning to the Lord with all your heart, then put away the foreign gods and the Ashtaroth from among you and direct your heart to the Lord and serve him only.

And he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines. So the people of Israel put away the Baals and the Ashtaroth and they served the Lord only. Then Samuel said, Gather all Israel at Mizpah and I will pray to the Lord for you. And so they gathered at Mizpah and drew water and poured it out before the Lord and fasted on that day and said there, We have sinned against the Lord.

And Samuel judged the people of Israel at Mizpah. Now when the Philistines heard the people of Israel had gathered at Mizpah, the lords of the Philistines went up against Israel. And when the people of Israel heard of it, they were afraid of the Philistines. The people of Israel said to Samuel, Do not cease to cry out to the Lord our God for us, that he may save us from the hand of the Philistines.

And so Samuel took a nursing lamb and offered it as a whole burnt offering to the Lord. And Samuel cried out to the Lord for Israel. And the Lord answered him. As Samuel was offering up the burnt offering, the Philistines drew near to attack Israel. But the Lord thundered with a mighty sound that day against the Philistines and threw them into confusion.

And they were defeated before Israel. The men of Israel went out from Mizpah and pursued the Philistines and struck them as far as below Bethsar. And then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shane and called its name Ebenezer. For he said, Till now the Lord has helped us. So the Philistines were subdued and did not again enter the territory of Israel.

And the hand of the Lord was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel. And the cities that the Philistines had taken from Israel were restored to Israel. From Ekron to Gath. And Israel delivered their territory from the hand of the Philistines. And there was peace also between Israel and the Amorites. Samuel judged Israel all the days of his life.

And he went on a circuit year by year to Bethel, Gilgal, Mizpah. And he judged Israel in all these places. And then he would return to Ramah. For his home was there. And also there he judged Israel. And built there an altar to the Lord. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Pastor Adam. Thank you, Jim. I want to work on my Jim voice. Makes you sound...

I can say anything I want. And I don't want to talk like this. It works. I'm not going to disagree with that guy. We're living in a culture of victimization. I don't know if you see it. But we live in a culture where whoever screams victim first wins. I was listening to a podcast with Jason Whitlock on the Colin Cowherd show this week. He took the Friday edition of it.

And they were talking about a culture of victimization. And that victimization is the new holiness. I thought that was an interesting term. I wasn't quite sure what he meant by it. But I was completely intrigued. We live in a culture that if you were to go on social media or in the news, one of the things you will see is the regular headlines that talk about somebody who was taken advantage of and someone who was victimized.

And how that person should have whatever benefits due to the victimization that they had. Now, I'm not saying that we do not have victimization in our culture. We live with fallen human beings. And as long as we live with fallen human beings, we are going to have victims in the world because people tend to take advantage of one another. Interesting thing about scripture and interesting thing about our hero, Jesus, is that Jesus was definitely victimized.

He was victimized in the most cruel way. And he was completely innocent. But the interesting thing about Jesus is he never lived as a victim. He never lived as someone who was a victim of their circumstances. And while he was victimized, he lived in a culture of victory. I will say that if you allow victimization, and many of you have been victimized.

I'm a pastor. I've been in this game long enough to know that there is very devastating things that have happened to people. The Bible speaks about these victimizations. We talked about it in Judges. I won't go back to it. But there's just horrible things that happen. But there is something that happens to the human psyche and to the human emotions and to our spiritual lives and to our physical lives if we begin to allow the victimization that we have experienced to become the culture or our mentality.

One of the most powerful speakers we've had here is Dr. Edith Edgar, who was a Holocaust survivor who did not allow being a victim of the Nazis affect how she lived her life or the attitude that she had. What you're going to find out is that living as a victim will cause you to shrink. I had a friend the other day talk to me and say he has a friend and his friends has their children.

And the children came up to him and the mother kind of lives as a victim. And the child of this mother came to my friend because they have a close relationship. And he said, my mother is shrinking. It was a really interesting comment. Actually, physically, he goes, what do you mean by that? He says, she's physically shrinking. The things that she's allowing to bother her, to an older child, bother her in her life are actually causing her to have a physical reaction.

The Bible talks about that. The Bible says that laughter brings health to what? Your bones, your very bones. The Bible talks about we are holistic beings. God has caused us to live in a synchronicity, to use a term from the police in the 1980s. Just look at me. A synchronicity of body, soul, and spirit. I want to say this victimization is something that will crush a person.

And I believe it will crush a nation. They say a nation that is divided against itself. And we are divided against ourselves. I'm not here to do political talk. I don't do a lot of political talk. But it says that divided against itself will not stand. But I would say that a nation that takes on a victim mentality will not stand. Now, I'm not saying that you need to have a bully mentality.

And that's another term that, you know, we see being foisted upon our culture, this idea of bullying. We see that a lot. And I am now part of the Tolerance and Inclusion Committee at Torrey Pines Elementary. I'm not sure they wanted me on the committee, but there I am. And it was pretty funny. I said, I'm here to represent the faith-based community.

And the woman who was leading it said, well, we're here to deal in facts. Yes. Because I chase leprecaons. Yes. Did you see the unicorn? I said, well, the San Diego Unified School District is, I said, let me give you a fact that 80% of the world is faith-based. There's a fact. And I said, another fact is that the Santa Unified is doing Islamophobia training, so they're basing it on faith-based.

So it's good that I'm here as well to help you navigate that journey. Nonetheless, that was just a little fact. I didn't say anything wrong. It was just this idea of this victim-men culture, you know. And one of the things is, you know, with this idea of being a victim will stop you from having victory. They both have the term, I need Elliot to do some kind of little look, the difference between victim and victory and what that vic means.

I have no idea. But I just know in my own, like I'm going to get a big long email by Wednesday, trust me. It always comes when I say something like that. There's a difference between victim and victory. And Israel was living in this victim culture. We're going to see this as a giant of Israel. Israel under Saul especially, they were like hiding, oh, the Philistines, you know.

You know, sometimes with a bully, you know what we don't teach with our bully training? Punch back. You know what I'm saying? Like, one of the things, oh, it was real quiet right there, wasn't it? Like, I just, you know, I don't know if anybody had that parent of like, if you're getting bullied on the way home from school, you know, be willing to take a few licks.

But maybe if someone stands up in the alley, instead of just try to yell and cry, like, punch back on occasion. And what God said is, I want you to punch back. But perhaps we punch back differently. Israel was called to punch back with a spiritual punch. And at the same time, they had a physical manifestation in the life of David that came and stood up to the bullies in their life.

And so the giant today is the giant of victimization. And you might have been, like I said, victimized. But that doesn't mean that we need to live in a mindset or culture of victimization. And so we're going to look at Israel today and some of the things that they did that allowed them to live in victory. They had been under Joshua. They'd had tremendous victory.

Now, all of a sudden, they're under these different judges and they've had lapses of morality. And God has not given them victory. And I said last week, God loves you enough not to give you victory. Let me just say that again. God loves you enough not to give you victory. He wants to be in collaboration. And he wants your heart. And the biggest victory you can win with God is to give him all of yourself.

That's what he wants. He wants all of you. And you see that Israel's victory was conditional. It was always conditional to how much of their lives they wanted to give to God. And the Bible is conditional. And I will say that Christ's following is conditional. I said last week that God's love is unlimited, but it's not unconditional. Now, people are going to roil against that in our culture.

We want a religion that is non-conditional. There is a group right now that is going to be going out at the Southern Baptist Convention in July and protesting their sin list, asking them to take two or three sins off of the list. So, yeah, look it up. You can find it. I'll let you study on that on your own. They just want them to remove it from the list.

I want to say that the purpose of religion is to define truth and to discriminate against what is not truth. Okay? I know discrimination is the new sin. And we're not discriminating against someone because they're Polish or because they're of German heritage. You're discriminating against actions, the actual actions you take. So we're not discriminating against who you're attracted to.

You're discriminating against what you do sexually with that attraction. Say you're married. Well, I'm just attracted to lots of women. Well, we discriminate against you having lots of women besides your wife. I hope you understand that it is discriminatory in that nature. And that's what we do. And I understand that any word like that causes us to start freaking out.

But the Bible is conditional. And one of the things we're just going to have to tell people is if you want to follow Jesus, it's conditional. It's not unlimited. Anybody can come, no matter what you've done. There is not a sin that cannot, a person who has sinned, no matter what they've done, cannot come to Jesus. It is unconditional, the love of God.

He will overlook it all. He will allow you to come to him, no matter what you've done, no matter what has happened in your life. It is unconditional. Excuse me. It is unlimited. But it is not unconditional. Jesus says, if you want to come to me, if you want to follow me. It is like that. And so, yeah, we're just going to have to come to terms with that.

And that's something I think we've gotten soft on on a while. And God was saying to Israel, if you want absolute blessing, then have absolute obedience. He's not looking for perfection. We knew through the law that perfection can't happen. And Jesus gave perfection. So you don't have to be perfect. But do you want to give your whole heart? Do you want to give your whole self to God?

And that was the condition of victory. Do you want to live in victory? So the first giant is this. You have to ask yourself, am I being a victim? Am I acting like a victim? Now, you might be being victimized. And the answer to that might be yes. Am I being victimized? Absolutely. But are you living like a victim? And is there a culture of victimization in your life that is causing you to shrink?

It's causing your spirit to shrink. It's causing your hope to shrink. It's causing everything in your life to shrink. Or are you saying, I am going to live beyond my circumstances. And I want to do it in a way, in a systematic approach to letting God be on the throne and letting him fight my battles. Because if we want to punch back, we want God to do the punching.

Does that make sense? First point is, as we look here, that abundant blessing, and this is not in your notes. I wrote it this morning. That abundant blessing is conditional. We see that Samuel says to them early in the scripture, we'll get here in verse 3 in a moment. He says, you're going to need to turn back to God with your whole being. That abundant blessing is conditional.

Now, if you have Jesus in your life, if you said, Jesus, I want to follow you, I believe that you die, if you confess with your mouth and you believe in your heart that Jesus Christ died on the cross, then you're going to have blessing in your life. It is impossible to have the spirit of God in your life without blessing. You are going to have blessing.

You are going to have an extra supernatural protection. But if you want to open doors in your life that allow the enemy wide open lanes of attack into your life, then you are going to be walking away from abundant blessing. Now, I have seen with believers, oftentimes I've seen, you know, you're going to have a modicum of blessing. But how much blessing do you want is the question.

I mean, how much do you want? Do you want, you know, because oftentimes we're doing sin management. We got, you know, we're going to manage us enough sin and we want enough blessing. But what would it look like if you lived an absolute abundant blessing? What would it look like? Now, there are seasons, obviously, where we go through things and God prunes us back and you're doing everything.

You're completely surrendered to God and God's just saying, no, not for now. I want to do a deeper work in you. Because you know what's more important than blessing? Knowing me. That it's more important. And God loves you enough on occasion not to bless you abundantly. Because he wants to do a work in your heart. Because he understands the end of the story.

And at the end of the story, you are going to have eternal blessing. Now, some of that we can tap into now. But what would it look like? And are there blockages to that blessing? These are some of the giants we're talking about today. That abundant blessing is often conditional. If I were to ask you a question of what do you think a blockage in your possible life could be that would open up streams of blessing in your life, would you be willing to clog, unclog that blockage?

I had the plumber out yesterday for the second time. Clogging blockages in the pipes. When I say when that thing backs up, it backs up. And there's nothing I can do about it. I've got to bring a specialist in. I won't go into any more details about plumbing because it's gross. But nonetheless, Samuel's call, part one is this. Samuel's call for a complete and holistic return to the Lord was required.

A complete and holistic return to the Lord. What would that look like for you? I mean, let's read it in verse 3 here. Actually, I'm going to read it from the beginning. And Samuel said to all the house of Israel, If you are returning, there's our word right there, right? Two little letters, tiny little letters, tiny little letters. A lot hinges on that.

It's a hinge pin. If you are returning to the Lord with all of your heart, then put away, what? Foreign gods and the Ashtaroth from among you and direct, what? Your heart. That's the playing field. Do you understand? That is the playing field of all spirituality. That is the playing. Hey, look. God talks about your mind and that's super important. But over and over and over, if you want to do a comparison, the mind is controlled by the spirit.

The mind is so important. The logic is so important. Obviously, we don't throw out our mind with faith. I chase leprechauns, I know. But nonetheless, the heart is the thing that God over and over is looking at. And when we get to our boy David, David, it says, has what? A heart after God's what? Own heart. It is the connecting of hearts. Hearts are the playing field.

And God can read your heart and he knows the depths of your heart that you don't even understand. The heart is the playing ground and playing field of victory. And so it says, if you turn and direct your heart to the Lord and what? Serve him what? Only. Then what will he do? Then he will deliver you out of the hands of the bully, of the Philistines, those that would come before you.

It says, here's the key right here. Samuel's call was for a complete and holistic return to the Lord was required. And here again, we've seen that conditional element. And so I guess the question once again is, do you really want to have a holistic turn to the Lord? Or I want to say this, and I say this all the time because it's been so grace-filled for me.

Do you even just go to the Lord and say, look, there's four things here on the list that I just don't really want to give you. And I'm not even, you know, I definitely don't want to give these to you. I have this upsetness or someone's hurt me and I don't want to forgive them. I don't even have the ability to forgive them. I'll tell you where we'll start, God.

Can we just start? My heart is this, that my heart really is to give it all to you, even though I don't feel it yet. It is to give it all to you. Now, I believe God can see that beyond all the blockages that you have a heart that wants to be completely his. Do you really, I mean, deep down, do you have a heart that says, God, do you really look at that and say, you know, I don't know how to get there, but I would love to have a heart that was completely after God's own heart.

He knows that. If you start there and just say, God, you know, do what you need to do or pray a dangerous prayer. God, whatever you need to do to get me where I need to get. Just take that, take that desire away. Soothe that. Take that attitude away. I have an attitude that I've been praying about recently and I just said to the Lord, you know, I like this attitude.

I like it. I don't want to change it. And I just got to start there and you can take it away. You know what I found out? The attitude has just started descending. I haven't even been doing any self-help on it. I didn't get a counselor. I didn't call a mentor. I didn't like pray scripture over it. Nothing. All of a sudden I found that the attitude, the thing that was bugging me, just stopped bugging me.

And the other day I actually tried to like bring it back up a little bit. I was like this. I was like something triggered the attitude. And I thought to myself, I'm at peace with that. I thought, no, no, I can't be at peace. I tried to, it was funny how sometimes we will try to get a little sin generator when we feel released. I don't know. You know, you ever have that where the scripture says, because we never need to sin, the scripture says, because you can always have an open door, an out.

God says he will always give you an out for every sin. I'm not saying you can live perfectly. I'm just saying you never have to sin. Okay. Do you understand? So you can think about that for a second. Because the scripture says he always provides a way out. You ever had the way out provided and you wait till the way out goes away? Anybody else like that?

You know, like there's a way out and you can feel the Lord giving you a complete door and you feel, I have no temptation right now. But you're like, I'm just going to wait it out because this will go away. I know it will. No, I'm the only one that's done that in my life. Okay. So that's me. Thank God for the holiness of this congregation. What did it look like?

What did it look like? You know, it's funny. I was sitting here today and I just, I got to a point and I felt like, you know, God, whatever you want. I was doing the worship. The worship was really good. During the worship, I thought, this, this, this, whatever you want. You can have it all. I don't remember the, I mean, it's been a few weeks since I was in that spot.

Because that spot comes and goes, right? I don't know about you, but like, I don't live in that place of perpetual, like, surrender. I don't, maybe, maybe, once again, this beautiful congregation does. I don't. And I had that moment there and I was like, God, whatever you want, you can have it all. You know? And after the service, somebody walked up to me and said, hey, I have a word for me.

The Lord says he's pleased with you. Like, right today. And I was like, that's so rad. Like, I needed that. That was awesome. I was like, God, you're so good. He was pleased with me anyways. But that was a good word to hear. And so, do you, do you want to give a whole, what would it look? Holistic. To give it all to the Lord. That's the challenge. Go do it.

All right. Point two. Point two is this. God gave Israel physical victory through only spiritual means. That's really powerful. Look at this. There's a war going on. We know Goliath is going to show up not too long down the road here. And they're, they're, they're, they're, they would show up their battle lines. And then they would insult each other.

Like, it's just an awesome way to do battle. Right? We kind of still do it today, but it's social media. And so we, the Philistines show up and they show up and then they insult the, the Israelites and the Israelites will maybe insult them back. And it's like this insulting. And who's going to fight today? Send somebody. We'll see that with David here in a little bit.

You know, then they go to war often. And you know, sometimes we go to war when we don't need to. Let me say that again. Sometimes we go to war with people, physical things we manipulate and we choose to live in control of our circumstances and the things that we can control rather than in dominion over our circumstances. Now people have asked, what does that mean?

And I'm just going to keep preaching until we get it. But dominion is saying, I'm going to give God margin to fix this without having to fix it myself. There's multiple times during the week where an issue comes up here at the church. We get a lot going on now. And I think to myself, I want to fix that right now. And I can fix it with this email or I can fix it with a text.

Or if I get this person to, you know, agree with this person, then we can get more agreement. And then you can start getting multiple, you know, because churches work that way. Sometimes they don't need to get more agreement with your power figures and then, you know, whatever. Or I sit there and I think, or I can just go to prayer and see if God figures this out on his own.

I got to tell you, that's really hard to do. But the more you do it, the easier it gets. Because you start seeing God just take spiritual victory over things and you get in a lot less trouble. When I was a high school pastor, I got in a lot of trouble, okay? I get in less trouble these days because I want to live in dominion. I don't want to live in control.

And you know what? Samuel was a man who knew how to live in dominion. He didn't have to control everything. And so when there was an issue, what did he say? Let's go out, armor up and go fight against him. No. He says, turn your heart over to the Lord. And then we're going to go, we're going to give God some sacrifices. We're going to sacrifice to God.

Now, Jesus is the ultimate sacrifice and you don't ever need to sacrifice again. You don't need to have, you know, alignment or agreement from God or God's belovedness. We still do sacrifices. Why? Out of love for God. So that's why we give him our time, our treasure, our talent. But Samuel knows where to go. He knows where to go when push comes to shove.

And so when that immediate, that email comes or that phone call or somebody, where do you go? Where's your go-to? You know, for some people, it's the bottle. When I was using, I remember anytime anything, you know, difficult came, I would just go to the bottle. I would go smoke marijuana. At one point, I had 14 warrants out for my arrest from driving.

Yeah, I didn't do anything super bad, just driving stuff. I go, what did he do? One day, I was living at my grandma's, right? Still having to do all my meals, my laundry. I was a big boy. I was a 19-year-old boy and hadn't decided to be a man yet. And I went out to the store. When I was there, my grandma got a knock on the door. Who was it? It was the sheriff, right?

I learned that I needed to change some things in my life in order to see the results that I wanted. And, you know, the thing that I've tried to do is try to live a spiritual life now. And so let's see what Samuel does here. Verse 10 is super powerful. It says, actually, I might even go back a little bit further to verse 9. So Samuel took a nursing lamb and offered a whole burnt offering to the Lord.

And he cried out to the Lord. I love that. That's in the spirit of Hannah, his mother. Hannah cried out to the Lord. Who do you think he learned that from? He learned that from Hannah. Moms, thank you. Let your children see you. Grandmas, dads, let your children see you spending time with the Lord. You know, a lot of times I said to my moms, and this is a little extra, this is a little tip for the day that wasn't in the message.

When I did these talks for parents, moms would always say, I get no time to be with the Lord alone anymore. I got this kid, and as soon as I get a quiet time, the kid tries to get in, great. You know, it's a season. It's going to be a few years. Pretty soon that house is going to be quiet again. 18 years, not pretty soon, but pretty soon. Hopefully 18 years.

Now it's like 35 years. No offense. I said, let your kids see you with the Bible on your lap every morning. Let them come in. Let them put their head on your lap. Read the Bible. Pray over them. Maybe there's just a season where you say, I'm not going to get intimate, quiet time with the Lord for six years. It's like I didn't get to snowboard for six years when I was trying to teach my kid.

At the end of the day, you know, I'm with them all day. At the end of the day, I'd say, can I get one run, please? My wife would say, you can go get one run. I'd pay $100 for a lift ticket. I'd get one run in. I'd be like, I basically gave up my snowboarding career. Hey, look. Not that I was that great anyways. But moms, parents, invite your kids in and let them see you.

This is something that Samuel learned from Hannah. Samuel's very existence was a result of someone crying out before the Lord. And I've got to say, she stood up and cried before the Lord. That was one of the most powerful things from this message, from this series so far, is Hannah standing up. And maybe it's time to stop laying down in the valley of the shadow of death and stand up and quit being a victim and fight back.

And so we see that here with them. And he fights back in a spiritual way. It says Samuel was offering up in verse 10, the burnt offering, the Philistines, as Samuel was offering. During the offering, the Philistines drew up. You know the Lord, you ever tried to turn your life back over to God and what happens? Oh, the Philistines show up. Oh, the Philistines are here.

You know. I find that all the time. Whenever I want to get back and get right with God, oh, Philistines are on the door. Because the Philistines. Let's stop offering. Stop offering. Quick. Run. Everyone hurry. The Philistines are here. No. Finish the offering. Samuel, finish. He said, you know what? I know what wins victories. I know what wins battles. Because he'd learned from his mom.

You know, he knew what won victories. And so you know what? The Philistines are here. Well, I'm going to keep praying. Try that for once. That you don't have to immediately react. How quick's your trigger? Do you have to go into whatever crazy chaos mode that you do to fix things, right? Like how quick is your trigger to just say, well, you know what?

That can wait. One of the things we say in our staff culture all the time here, all the time with our staff, time is our friend. I learned that from Pastor Mark forward. There's moments you have to act. But for the most part, time is our friend. I say it to the staff all the time. The church has been here 100 years without us. It doesn't need us today.

It'll keep on going. You know? Time is our friend. Go back. The Philistines are at the door. And Samuel kept on sacrificing. Let's see the result of that in verse 10. As Samuel was offering up the burnt offering, the Philistines drew near to attack Israel. But what happened? The Lord thundered with a mighty sound that day against the Philistines and threw them into confusion.

And they were defeated before Israel. Israel didn't lift a finger to battle them. That's dominion. Okay? When was the last time you prayed or you just used spiritual means and had victory? Do you even know what that tastes like? Do you even know what that looks like? To have victory where you didn't have to do anything except spend time and pray or gather your prayer warriors together?

Where you got out of the chaos? I want to tell you, it gives you a lot more margin in your life. If you're not having to run around and control everything and you're just saying, God, I'm just going to trust you here. Not that we never act. I'm not saying we never act. Okay? Sometimes we need to act. But you know what I'm talking about. It's that craziness.

I'm in control. I'm going to fix this. God. I got this, God. I'll be right back in a minute. Let me sort this out. And then have complete victory. Victory in a marriage. Victory with a fight with a neighbor. Victory with finance. Victory, victory, victory. Or victim. Victims go out oftentimes. And they try to get things fixed other ways. Through pouting.

Through manipulation. Through, you know, being passive aggressive. They learn their ways. Victims are, victimization is a very powerful tool. I don't know if you see it in culture today. It's a very, very powerful tool. Very powerful. You know? But what does it look like to live in victory? And I mean spiritual victory. So here's that, here's the next challenge.

Okay? You've had one already. Go get holistically pure with God. Number two. The next time something comes up, just use spiritual means. Now, on occasion, if you have to act, I'm saying you need to act. But you know what? You'll know the situation because the Holy Spirit will talk to you. And finally, circling the tower. Coming in for a landing. Iceman is coming in for a landing.

I'm not really Iceman. I just liked Iceman. So many references to culture and they just kind of just fly on by. Not only did Israel have victory in the moment. Look at this. Ah. I just want to dance on this point. I actually, in a good way, I actually left out the verse. You'll have to read Ephesians 6.12 that talks about spiritual victory. They can do that in your homework.

But on to point three. See, Israel didn't have only victory in the moment. But what they did restored their past. Did you see that? Did you see that in the scripture? Now, how many of us, I won't ask you to raise your hand, have a train wreck behind us? Like, look. I was so good at being the conductor of train wrecks. Like, I was so good at it. Just train wreck after train wreck after bad relationship.

It was just a train wreck. My late teens, you know, early 20s. Just train wrecks. You know, when we had alcoholism in our family, that was another. Alcohol and substance abuse is a family member. Whether you know it or not, it's a family member. It has a voice in your family. It changes things in your family. It changes the culture. When we had that in our family, it was a train wreck.

It was a complete train wreck. We came out of that. My mom made a decision, as you know her testimony, to get sober. And our whole family has changed. And now, almost every single person in our entire extended family, all the way back to the East Coast, has made a commitment to follow Jesus. But it is because of that change. But we had a train wreck.

I want to say God has restored those years. Through this dominion, God has the ability. Now, this is why God, the eternality, my word, of God, I think it's my word, is able to reach back and fix something that's already done. Do you see that he can fix something that you broke? That he can reach back and actually fix it. And not only fix it, he can make it better and completely restore it.

The restorative grace of God. So let me just read this scripture in verse 13. So the Philistines were subdued. This is because God thundered. They didn't, Israel just prayed. They just used spiritual means. And did not, again, enter the territory of Israel. Hey, the Philistines quit knocking on the door. Imagine what your life would look like if your Philistines stopped knocking on the door.

Just imagine it. It's fear. It's anxiety. It's loneliness. Whatever it is. It just stopped knocking on the door. It says the territory of Israel. And the hand of the Lord was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel. So not only do they not knock on your door, there's actually no more inertia. There's actually momentum of the Lord that is clearing out margin in your life.

So now where depression used to come in and take over your life, you were able to not only not have depression, but to start walking joy a little bit where people start harvesting joy from your life because of the way that you live. You see, God had not only subdued the Philistines, he had had active work to continue to push them out. And they weren't even lifting a finger to do it other than to pray.

That's powerful living. Let's keep looking at what happened here. And it says, And the cities that the Philistines had taken from the Lord were what? Restored to Israel. From Ekron to Gath. And Israel delivered their territory from the hand of the Philistines. You know, not only did God beat them in the moment, he beat them back in the future and continued to press out with momentum.

They gave them spacious boundary lines that fell in pleasant places for them. But he also gave them back things that they had lost. That sounds like a pretty good deal for just praying and turning our hearts over to God. Amen? Let's stand. Worship team, come forward if you would.