SEP 14 2025 | Elijah: From Drought to Downpour S1E5 | Obadiah: Faith in an Ahab World

Sea Change Church · Elijah: From Drought to Downpour · "Obadiah: Faith in an Ahab World" Pastor Adam Stadtmiller · September 14, 2025
1 Kings 18:1-16
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

The Book of one Kings chapter 18, verses one through 16. It's a long story. After many days, the word of the Lord came to Elijah in the third year saying, go show yourself to Ahab and I will send rain upon the earth. So Elijah went to show himself to Ahab. Now, the famine was severe in Sumaria and Ahab called Obadiah who was over the household. Now, Obed feared the Lord greatly. And when Jezebel cut off the prophets of the Lord, Obediah took a hundred prophets and hid them by fifties in a cave and fed them with bread and water.

And Ahab said to Obed, go through the land to all the springs of water, into all the valleys. Perhaps we may find grass and save the horses and mules alive and not lose some of the animals. So they divided the land between them to pass through it. Ahab went in one direction by himself, and Obed went in another direction by himself. And as Obadiah was on the way, behold Elijah met him and Obadiah recognized him and fell on his face and said, is it you, my Lord, Elijah?

And he answered him. It is, I go, tell your Lord, behold Elijah is here and he saidhow. Have I sinned that you would give your servant into the hand of Ahab to kill me as the Lord your God lives there is no nation or kingdom where my Lord has not sent to seek you. And when they would say, he is not here, he would take an oath of the kingdom or nation that they had not found you. And now you say, go tell your Lord. Behold Elijah is here.

And as soon as I have gone from you, the spirit of the Lord will carry you. I know not where. And so when I come and tell Ahab and he cannot find you, he will kill me. Although I your servant, have feared the Lord from my youth. Has it not been told by Lord what I did when Jezebel killed the prophets of the Lord? How I hid a hundred men of the Lord's prophets by fifties in a cave and fed them with bread and water. And now you say, go tell your Lord.

Behold Elijah is here and he will kill me. And Elijah said, as the Lord of hosts lives before whom I stand, I will surely show myself to him today. So Obadiah went to meet Ahab and told him, and Ahab went to meet Elijah. This is the word of the Lord. Good morning church. Uh, good to be with you. It's no place I'd really rather be than with you guys at church today. It's really good. He, Nicole, good to see you. What are you doing here?

Not like you don't come to church no more. Uh, really heavy week, right? Super heavy, heavy as a pastor to like try to sort what you say. Um, just so you know, um, I'm, I kind of made a decision in 2016 not to address everything that was happening as society. And the reason that happened is because we had done three silent, um, moments of silence in five weeks. Uh, and you live in a half staff nation now, where I look at the flag many times, and I don't have any idea why it's at half staff.

That's probably happened to you as well. So what I made a decision, and I think it was after the Charlie Hebdo thing, um, I said, Hey, I, I, I, God's called me to be a spokesperson for the gospel, to equip people and really to create an oasis where you can come from within the storm and, and I can just give you the tools, the word of the Lord, and really create a place and then really allow you to go out and take that.

I'm always aware, and if you listen to when I speak, you're usually gonna hear it. We, you know, I, I weave it in there. And so you kind of, I try to build a bridge and let you walk over it. So, uh, that makes it somewhat difficult, especially, you know, this week is really super heavy for me. I get more text about it than probably you do. So there's really no way to escape it. Um, if you're in leadership of some kind or if you're a counselor or something like that, somebody or a teacher.

Some of you guys are seeing this all the time. So with that said, um, the Lord is really faithful. I want the word to speak first. The, the word of God speaks first. Adams, you, you didn't, some people were like, why didn't you put it on your podcast? You released? Well, we filmed it three hours before the event happened. Uh, and it went out automatically. Um, and it probably would be a good thing to address in the next podcast we do.

But here on Sunday morning, I want the word of God to be the, the primary compass of our life because there's really no opinion. I mean, I haven't heard an opinion yet that, that, I mean, I don't have an opinion that I haven't heard someone else say already. Um, I'm, you know, a lot I don't agree with, but a lot I do. And so with that, I wanna let the word speak and then I'll make a, a, a, um, a comment at the end. And thank you for allowing me to have that opening and to do that.

Um, I want to begin by, uh, a a quote that was really important to me this week, which, uh, was by Trulian in the second century, at a century that understood what's going on in our society. I mean, as we're coming to understand it, second century Christians were, they got it. He said, the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. And people have said, what does that mean? What Christians have found out in China today, different parts of the world, Saudi Arabia all over the world.

'cause there's a, there's kind of a, a cause du jour that the media gets behind and we all get excited about it. But there's so many other things happening in the world too, that I'm aware of, you're aware of. And, and in this part of the world at that time, they understood that when the church was pure persecuted, when the blood was spilled of the believers, whether it be in the Colosseum, whether it be on, uh, being crucified, Jesus himself was crucified.

Um, it tended to have a, um, a power that ignited the church, uh, to release the kingdom. Now, I don't, that's antithetical to how we live our lives, right? And how we think about our lives. But it tended to do that and truly understood that the seed of the, the, the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. And I began to think about all the martyrs that have gone before us and who we are as a church and as a people.

And that really stuck out to me. And so, uh, in this passage, I wanna get into the passage. Now you have, um, um, you have Elijah meeting Obadiah. Obadiah is not the prophet who wrote the book of Obadiah. It's a different obadiah. I didn't know that until this week either. So that fooled me. I'm glad I did my research. Uh, don't know everything. And they're having this moment where Elijah says, um, uh, where Obadiah, who has been really faithful, right?

He hides these prophets. He's bringing it up about, Hey, I hid these prophets. Look at all the stuff. Look at all the, the things I do for the Lord. But then in verse 12, go to verse 12, he says, as soon as I've gone from you, the spirit of the Lord will carry you away. And I don't know where he is gonna do it. And so when I come to tell Ahab that I cannot find you, he will what? He will kill me, right? So he's living under this heavy hand of oppression.

One wrong move, one mistake. And I am for my faith, or for my belief, or for following God, I'm gonna be killed because of that. And that's something that the church has understood for a very long time. It's something we as a church are beginning to understand. Again. Um, I, I discipled my children since they were chil since since they were children. Uh, when they were little kids, I always raised them and said, if you're gonna follow Jesus, we follow him to death.

And I know that's heavy to talk to a five-year-old about, right? And you have to use different words and how you do it. But the cross, uh, is a scandal. And, uh, and we, and we follow Jesus unto death. And so I would say to, I said to my children, if we're not, if we don't wanna be like Jesus, and we don't, you don't have to do that, because I never, I wanted them not to rent my faith. I wanted them to own their own faith.

And I wanted them to understand from the beginning, 'cause I would take 'em to art museums. And both times I took both of my girls art museums and they saw Jesus once at the, the, um, the, the monastery or the, the Church of Clooney in France, which was Lucy. And she was there and she just had tears in her eyes, and they just came, confronted with the, the crucified body of Christ. It happened to Lily when we were down at, um, the Tim Chem Museum here.

There's a crucified Christ with a skull underneath it. And both of 'em had tears in their eyes. And I let 'em just ingest the cross as little children. I just exposed them to the cross as like a six, 7-year-old. And then eventually I just said, Hey, this is, this is where we go. And if you don't wanna follow Jesus, you don't have to. But that's where we're going. Um, and it worked. I guess I, I guess what worked is they understood the, the message of Jesus.

And so you have Obadiah here, and he's living in an Ahab world. Ahab is an evil king. Ahab is in Israel. Ahab is trying to kill the prophets. Ahab is attacking the, the people of God. It's not the church of God, but it's the people of God. Uh, and he understands this. And I guess the question was, or to us today is how do we live as faithful believers in an Ahab world? Me, if you're not aware yet, you're living in an Ahab world, you're, you're living in a post-Christian society, although there are some really good signs, especially among young people, the, uh, decline of people accepting Christ, especially with young people, especially with young men, which is awesome because men take a lot of leadership, obviously.

Um, and you are seeing that decline stop and actually move forward. And I'm meeting with seven or eight young men today for lunch that are all college age, 18 to 22 years old, that are of this church that are fired up for Jesus. They wanna make a change in the world, and we're gonna go after it. And that's one of the things we're gonna do, is make Jesus known as a church. And you guys are helping make that happen. And for everyone who invests in this church and all the different ways that you do it, thank you for that.

But that's where we're going. So Obadiah was this person, and I'm, I'm gonna ask you is how are you living in an Ahab world? Um, and are, do you, are you any different than everyone else who's just living in the world? Uh, we, you know, we live in a world where if you were to look at all the places where power exists in our country, um, very few, if any, are professing Jesus Christ as Lord, right? And so that is something that, that you see back in this passage, obit I is confessing.

God is the true God. And, uh, you know, obviously Ahab wanted him to worship. Baal Obah, as we look at him, was a man of character. He was a man of courage and faith. And then I put, and sometimes doubt. And you're gonna see that he does these incredible things, right? It's these huge swift shifts. I don't know if you've ever, I've, I don't know who said the quote, but I, I've lived by it for a long time or understood it for a long time that, um, I'm usually on, you know, I feel like my life is on a pendulum and I'm on center every time I swing by.

And I don't know about you, but it's like, oh, things are amazing. Oh, things aren't so good. Uh, you know, I had a scorpion in my house last night. Can you believe it? A scorpion. I didn't even know there was scorpions in San Diego. I had a scorpion. I'm like, oh no, I have still have a scorpion issue in my house. It was crazy, right over here this week, back and forth and obit, I was a person like this. I want to, I want to let you know that if you're a person who experiences those vast swings of emotion in the midst of trying to follow God, while Satan would want to disqualify you for that, you're not disqualified.

You're like every other person. You could have been in the Bible. The people that were in the Bible were just like us. God chose them for a reason. And so you have your OB here, and he was a person of character, courage, faith, and sometimes doubt. And I wanna say that on your notes, if you can circle character, courage, and faith, those things are key. The character you have, we'll look at that in a second. But look at Obadiah. His name meant servant of Yahweh.

And this was key. Obadiah means servant of Yahweh because as it said earlier, there he was the head person in the, um, he was the head person in the household of, uh, of, of Ahab. He was overseeing like Joseph, remember Joseph in Israel, I mean in Egypt, he was overseeing. God had raised him up. And God will take faithful people. He will give them influence, and he will raise them up and continue to give them influence.

And each of you has influence in areas. And I hope you're praying that God would, would expand your territory, that he would increase your margins, that you can have influence to make a, a, a change for Jesus Christ. And to make Jesus known, this is what Ahab was doing. And sometimes, sometimes subversively, as we see, he's hiding prophets when he shouldn't be hiding prophets. But he's not willing to follow any law that goes against the word of God and the voice of the Spirit.

We've had a, we've had a lot of experience with that in the last five years of seeing different laws come down. And you have to check all those against the scripture. Scripture says that, you know, obey those that are put in, in front of you or above you. But if they have unjust laws and unjust un unjust ways that go against the, the, the word of God, then you need to look at that with a jaundice eye and figure out, how am I gonna live underneath that rule?

That's what Ahab's trying to do. And my question, excuse me, that's what, um, Obadiah is trying to do in an Ahab world. And so, one thing I wanna say is you don't wanna blend in so much that no one knows the difference between you and anybody el anyone else. Is there anything, any marker in your life that makes you look different? And so we, we, we see that he was a servant of Yahweh, but he was over the household. So Ahab would've said, he's my servant.

And there's some people who think they're that you're their servant, right? They think you're their servant. And sometimes we, we, we kowtow into those roles, right? We kowtow into the role. We're afraid of a boss of what might happen. We might lose our job if this happened, or we did that or whatever, or what might happen to us. But Obadiah was willing to take risk in the name of God. I don't say the name of Jesus, his Old Testament.

Um, but looking forward to, to Christ. He was willing to take risk. Do you take any risk with your faith? I think it's a great question this week. Do you take any risk or, or, or, or would, or would you be terrified to bring up the name of Jesus in a, a line waiting for your coffee at Starbucks? Would that just terrify you? You can grow in courage and God can give you courage. But are you taking any risk? Obadiah here in this passage is taking risk.

I put he was over the household. Go to verse three, and Ahab called Obadiah who was over the household. And I like this because he has tremendous authority to, to work within the highest parts of government. Paul in one of his epistles, uh, says, and I greet you who are in the house of Caesar in Rome, meaning there was Christians immediately within 30 years of Jesus' death that were serving in the highest levels of government.

Whether, I don't know if they were, you know, tasting the cup, you know, like, I think it was Nehemiah. I think it was Nehemiah who was doing that. I'm probably getting that wrong. But you know, Nehemiah was, was, um, over on the other side of the, uh, um, in Babylon, but God was raising him up. And so I want to ask you, where's God strategically put you? Are you in a school find a strategic way to, to make Jesus known?

Even if they say, don't make Jesus known, make Jesus known. That's what we do, right? Uh, I'm not afraid to say that. I think you need to be wise. He hid these prophets. He hid the key word is hide. No one knew He hid them. And I want to tell you that I think it's no problem if you were subversive in sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ, wherever God has put you. And if you can't be there and can't do that in a way, maybe look for somewhere else to go where you can.

Um, but we want to do that on a regular basis. And so we see Christians being willing to expose themself to danger on a regular basis. And we've seen that as the, the, um, the core, the kernel of the growth of the church as we've gone out. And it's a church that loses when a church loses that understanding. When things get too comfortable, the church often dies. And so you'll see that with the House church in, in, um, in China right now.

That they're, that they are moving forward. Here's three things that you're gonna need if you're gonna live in an Ahab world. One, you're gonna need character. Let's look at that verse three. And Ahab called Obadiah, who was over the household. Now Obadiah feared the Lord greatly circle, feared the Lord greatly, not a little feared him greatly. And when Jezebel cut off the prophets of the Lord, Obadiah took a hundred prophets and hid them by fifties in caves and fed them with bread and water, I liked that he didn't just hide them and say, take it easy.

He said, I'm going to sustain you. I don't know where he got the food from. I don't know if he had his own that he had saved. I don't know if he got it from Ahab's storage. I have no idea. But I know that he sustained them and he was willing to take a risk for that. If you've ever heard of Brother Andrew, there's a picture up here. Be there in just a second. There it is, brother Andrew passed away in 2002 in his nineties.

If you haven't read the book, God smuggler, it's a really good time to read that book. If you haven't read God's Smuggler. And God's smuggler is about a brother Andrew, who went into communist countries and continued to go other words after the wall fell in 1989. But he would take, he was Dutch, and he would take Bibles and load his car up with Bibles and like, drive into East Germany and then go deliver the Bibles. He would go all over the eastern blocks where he could have been put into prison, where he could have been beaten all these.

He would, he would just pack his car over and over again. He would pack the trunk. And he has all these stories where he would just, he would push, would come to shove and he would just pray and he'd say, God, this was his main prayer that he was known for. Uh, 'cause the guards would come with their guns and they would be there and he'd have, and it was, you know, it was high stakes back then. He said, God makes seeing eyes blind.

He said, there were so many times they opened it up and all the Bible, they would pull the thing out and they'd look and the Bibles would be there and they'd look right over 'em. Said so many times. They'd look at 'em and say, okay, move on. Boom. And off they'd be gone. He'd go and find a church where there was a pastor who was willing to be a pastor, even though he'd been in prison. I, I was in Azua Pacific with a, uh, Yuri.

He was, uh, he was right, 2000. And uh, his name was Yuri. He was from Russia. And he had just come over and he was so blessed to be in our country. We brought a, brought another woman to Costco and she walked into Costco and cried. You don't cry when you go to Costco. You're just crying 'cause of the, the traffic, right? She cried for a different reason. 'cause she doesn't see that kind of abundance, right? So Yuri's in my class, and Yuri was a, um, he was, he, if he died, he was gonna be a fourth generation martyr.

So all his great-grandfather, his grandfather and his father were all killed for the faith. And he had been beaten multiple times for the faith. And we're in this class and this welp of a kid was in this class with me. And he, and, and Uri said something and he just starts like attacking him. And I pulled him aside afterwards. I said, bro, you need to keep your mouth shut. I said, this man has shed blood for the gospel.

And I said, his point was right. I said, you don't know what you're talking about. Now, maybe I was a little too hardcore. Maybe I was in my twenties, but somebody who had shed blood for the gospel, I think had a little more credence in my book than this kid who had read a couple magazines or been on the internet. And so the question to us is, I'm not telling you that you're gonna be smuggling Bibles, but do you speak the name of Jesus?

Do you pray in public, do you, or is it, oh, I don't want anybody to think anything bad of me. Guys, we're in a different time and we're lucky there's a window open right now of the gospel. Like there's a window open right now. There is a window of grace. And what you're seeing is a demonic pushback because the strongholds have been demolished and there's been these massive small strongholds that have been demolished, like Paul says, excuse me, like the scripture says.

And so in that moment, we're gonna step into it. One of the reasons as a church that we are just pouring resource into sending kids to camp, into all the things that we're doing into miracles, buses and all these things. We're not just doing that because we need more to do. We're doing it 'cause we see a window of opportunity of the gospel right now. We wanna sweep as many people into heaven as possible. 'cause there will come a time when, when, when that invitation will end.

And so that's what we want, and that's what we are about as a church. And we wanna hope that you'll be about it. So it's gonna take great, he feared the Lord greatly. I'm not sure I feared the Lord enough. And now fear doesn't mean afraid. It means you have this, this deep reverence and respect of God if that he feared him greatly, despite serving under Ahab Obah. His inner allegiance was to Yahweh, it meant servant of God.

Where's your inner allegiance? You know, it's a good, it's a good question. It's a, it's a strong question. The next is, we see faith and courage under persecution. When Jezebel tried to wipe out Yahweh's prophets, Obadiah risked his life to hide them in the caves. Um, I love the risk taking. I've already kind of pre preached this a second ago. Um, but it takes faith to live under persecution. It takes faith to make a decision where you're like, Hey, I don't know how this is gonna pencil out.

I've said many times, one of my favorite quotes, faith doesn't pencil out like to make this movement. There's a, like, if there's a window, where are the open windows in your life? If you're not aware of any open windows in your life, you might not be looking because God is a God who closes doors that no one can open. And he opens doors that no one can close. And so there's windows of opportunity right now where God's opening them and he's saying, I want you to step into those.

But it takes faith to do that. Not only does it take faith, it's going to cost you. You see him, you see obadiah just, he's bringing, he's, he's sustaining the work of the Lord. He's sustaining these other prophets. There's no reason to do it other than to say, I am a person who wants to see a remnant because God is looking for a remnant and he raises remnants up. And so oftentimes civilizations are saved by a remnant.

I would say that you are a remnant if you're here on, on this Sunday, this isn't the most popular thing to do in California. FYI, I just wanna let you know to be here on, I I I know our announcements are great and Joshua's amazing, you know, and all these other things. But you're here for a reason. And hopefully it's for hope, but not just to be fed because a lot of people are coming to church 'cause they're so emotionally drained.

They're just in survival mode. And and I understand that and that's okay. And we want to, we wanna reach people there. But we want to help people get to where they're not in survival mode, where they're starting to swim with their head above water and they can actually go rescue someone else. You see, that's the kind of church that we want to have and, and, and to be a sustaining church, but that's gonna take faith and courage.

Um, he was a protector of God's people. Then the final thing I said is just hear this, is that when Alisha ask Obadiah to announce as a arrival, Obadiah hesitates, don't be surprised when the hesitation comes and when those really heavy feelings show up, like he's gonna kill me. That's what he says it. He says it twice. Let me like, let me just say it, uh, right here. Go to verse 12 again. 'cause this is, uh, remember Elijah just kept on disappearing and God would just, would just teleport him different places, which is really weird.

But it, what the scripture says happened. And he says, as soon as I've gone from you, the spirit of the Lord will carry you and not know where. So when I come and tell Ahab and cannot find you, he will kill me. Although I your servant and feared the Lord from my youth, has it not been told the Lord what I did when Jezebel tried to kill the prophets, how I hid a hundred men in the prophets by fifties in a cave and fed them with bread and water.

And now you say, go tell the Lord. Behold Elijah is here and he will kill me. Like he is wrestling with this. Just going and telling Ahab, Hey, I saw Elijah by the way. Okay, you're dead. Like that's a short leash on Obadiah. I don't know if you understand that. I don't know what the dark feelings are that show up in your mind. I have my own graveyard of darkness that I deal with as well. I think everyone has it, especially, it's really hard not to in this society.

This is gonna happen to me. This could happen. What if this happens? Ah, you know, um, self-doubt, all those things, right? I think one of the keys I read this week, I was reading in some Al-Anon literature and it said, when you have feelings, don't just push through them. Actually feel them and acknowledge them. And I was like, okay, Lord, I've got loneliness here. I've got a fear of abandonment here. I've got boom, boom, boom.

And I just acknowledge it and sat in it and let myself feel it. And I just gave it to God. Because faith is not, not, is not the inability to doubt or not doubting you read those verses, you know, if you have perfect faith, it can't happen. We understand that faith overcomes faith isn't unless it overcomes something. It's not faith, it's just a foregone conclusion. You don't need faith in something you know is gonna happen, right?

It has to overcome something. So I want to give you permission to understand that there is, that God in a way has a binary meaning. You are trying to have faith like the one person who said to Jesus, Hey, I'm trying to have faith give me more where I need it. Like that's a really good place to live. I'm super afraid of this. I'm afraid this will happen if I have this conversation. I'm afraid this is gonna happen. But it's his faith to step out when that moment is and when to say it and when to move.

You're gonna see this, you see this all through the scripture. You see it with Joseph. God used him. Moses was in the house of Pharaoh, obviously had become like a son to him. Obviously Daniel, Shadrach, Micha and Abednego. They were put in a fiery furnace and the furnace did not burn them. You have Esther, you have Mordecai, you have Nehemiah, you have Obadiah here you have the centurion who was working, uh, that, that um, confessed Christ.

You have Cornelius Serius, palace Raus and members of the household of Caesar that I mentioned. There's a long line of Christians who have said the most important thing for me is to make Jesus known in a society. And there is an open door right now where people are listening. I have had the best conversations about Jesus in the last, since COVID that I've ever had. And I've been at it a long time. I mean, just people want to talk, talk to a Jewish friend of mine recently and he just wanted to talk about the history of Israel and, and God and the church.

And we just had this really long conversation. It was awesome. I'm like, well, I wanna send you this book. He goes, yeah, I wanna read it. I'm like, great. I wasn't getting that in 96, right? It was like, nah man, I don't need to hear that. But people know they need something because there was a, a giant God shaped hole that void right now. And people are struggling with it. I wanna say to conclude that faithfulness isn't about location.

It's about your allegiance. It's not about your location. Some of you, God has you right where he wants you and he just wants to use you. Here am I God. Send me, you know, here am I God, send me where is God sending you and where are you? Or maybe you're being asked to send somewhere, but I would find a way that you can make Jesus known. And if that's just a smile, if that's talking to a kid off campus or however you do it, or you know, whatever your thing is, make Jesus known as much as possible.

I'll, I'll, I'll finish with with Charlie Kirk. Um, and like I said, um, I'll probably, just so you know, I'm gonna do an oasis thing where I let the word of God speak and I'm not gonna bring up everything. 'cause we'll do it every week. I mean, literally we'll be doing it every week. But I thought this was important because I do see Charlie as a martyr, not just a politic political figure. Just like I saw the children as martyrs, uh, a week earlier that were killed in the school two weeks earlier, whatever it was, you tend to lose track these days, right?

Um, and 15 minutes bef Charlie was, I guess he was warming up the crowd or whatever. Um, I didn't watch a ton of him. He would come up on my Instagram on occasion. I was very aware of what he was doing. And, and we have students from this church that actually went to his event in Florida and, um, making a huge impact with young people. A guy didn't go to college, um, wanted to, you know, make a difference in the world, wanted to speak truth in the best way that he could.

You can agree with disagree how he did it or whatever. But 15 minutes on the microphone before his event started, and he was assassinated, he said this, he said, it's not intra biblical evidence, but extra biblical evidence that Jesus Christ was a real person. He lived a perfect life. He was crucified. He died rose on the third day. He is Lord and God overall, I'm just gonna say if I go out, I want to, I hope I go all that good with the word of Jesus Christ crucified on my lips.

That's guys, that's all that matters. We're doing hot dogs, we're doing small groups, we're doing all this fun stuff. It's awesome and it's great. It's all part of church and it's part of community and, and it's, it's, I love what we're doing here. That is all that matters. And when the church scatters, which it will, when the church scatters, what matters is that message. And that's the message of the martyrs. And so lemme just reset your compass.

If you're not here to pick up your cross and follow Jesus to death, you might think you're in the wrong place, because that's what he's called us to. It is a death unto ourselves. It is following him. It is not being sadistic. It is not being masochistic. It is trying to be like our savior, the Lord Jesus. And so we want to give you, I just want to, I'm gonna end with that and just say at the, at the we end of the service, I'm gonna call Chris back up to do a worship song and just let you have a moment to reassess that.

Um, Joshua and I might talk about this a little bit on the podcast, but from that point on, I'm gonna, I'm not gonna be talking about it anymore. And probably if you see more things in the future, um, I probably won't bring it up. You'll hear me preach about it with the word. Um, it's just what I feel like I'm called to do. I'm not called to address that. But this one God did tell me, and I asked my wife, I said, what should I do?

She says, you need to address it. I said, yes ma'am. Um, she got a little, yeah, let's stand if you would. I'll give you a moment to work with your savior. If you have never made a decision to follow Christ after service, the the prayer people will come up and we wanna be able to pray for you. But let's, let's just lean into this song. You know how to do work with God. You do your work with God. I'll be, be here back in a second.

Ing great is your faithfulness, your to ness, to the rising. I is your, I invite the prayer team forward. If you need prayer, which a lot you might come forward. Just don't be afraid to flood the altar of God. And we'll have our incredible prayer team here to pray for. I know they're excited to pray for you, and they, they want you to come forward so they can pray for you. Uh, in this moment of reflection, I just want to, uh, encourage you to just take some time to say, what do I need to edit outta my life?

And what do I need to bring into my life? What do I need to need in and fold into my life? Um, and if you've never made a decision to follow Jesus, now's the moment. 'cause you might not have another moment. If you come forward, we will pray with you and make sure that you have a saving knowledge to spend eternity with Jesus Christ. It's where Charlie is. It's where the martyrs before him are. It's where those children are.

It's where hopefully we are going. If we remain faithful to Jesus Christ, come forward and do that. That's why we're here to extend your hands. I wanna bless you. The the worship will continue as the service ends, and then you can come forward for prayer. Lord Jesus, bless your people. God, we, uh, we, we on these difficult moments, we understand that this is happening all over the world. It's, we're just, it's not on our radar,