MK040 Sermons
Facing Your Fears (Audio)
school and I attended a small private school in Maryland and there was a team that we played in soccer and in basketball that was basically our nemesis you would call it our arch rival but in a rival we usually won team wins and then the other team wins and that's not the way it worked in this relationship because in the soccer season they beat us two games during the regular season then took us out on the playoffs and then we got the basketball season and the first time we played them our normal defense was a man-to-man defense and so that's what the coach had to set up and their star player went off and scored 40 points against us if you know anything about high school basketball 40 points on a high school game is a lot of points in a basketball game so coach decided next time we played this team let's go to zone defense try a different defense well that didn't work we still lost by 20 points and eventually we were going to you know we won our next two playoff games and we were going to come up against them in the championship game and we were like we don't know how we're gonna beat this team we just can't beat this team if there was a team that had our number this team had our number every single time all the time and our coach came up with the defense that we had never played before and this defense was a defense in which he would put our best player on their best player kind of man-to-man and then a zone on the rest of the team it's called a box-in-one is what we called it at that time and that team had never faced that defense before and because they never faced that defense it frustrated their star player he had his lowest scoring output of the whole season and we actually won the game by seven points and I remember at the end of the game that they were just stunned they they couldn't believe that we had beat them they never expected to lose they were so confident they never expected to lose they didn't think it was possible for us to take them down and I don't know if you have a story like that that you can think of in your life experience where where you were kind of the underdog and no one expected you to do this no one expected that you would be able to do this and you were able to beat all of the odds and accomplish the significant thing or maybe you were on the other side of the equation where maybe you were the top dog and you thought there was no chance anyone was going to bring you down and someone eventually did maybe you asked the guy or grow out and you thought there's not a chance they're going to say yes to me and they did and you're like wow I can't believe that happened or maybe maybe you applied for a job that's a little bit above what your experience was and maybe it's a little bit far beyond your skill level and you're competing with someone else who surely that person is the best fit for the job and the ownership decides to take a chance on you and you're like I can't believe I got that shot and I got a chance to beat all of the odds well whether it's your favorite sports team or your sports experience all of these are your life experience all of these things stories come from one source and that's a story in the Bible known as David and Goliath and David and Goliath is a story that many many people know and it gets compared and uses analogies all over the all over the every setting you can imagine there's David and Goliath stories and and the story of David and Goliath if you grew up in the church setting you might know this story about only a boy named David in this little song only a little sling only a boy named David but he could pray and sing and and that's maybe this cute little story of David and Goliath but the story we're gonna look at today has so much more so much more so much more than just a simple song that you might have sung as a child if you're not here with us last week we began a new series entitled unlikely hero unlikely hero and the story of a hero is the someone who doesn't expect to be a hero most people don't wake up in the morning say I think I'm gonna be a hero this morning I think I'm gonna do something heroic that's not how heroes are made most people find themselves in difficult situations unique situations and they simply choose to act last Sunday night was watching 60 minutes and there was a story on 60 minutes about a school shooting that happened three years ago in a little town in Ohio it was one of the top five best places to live in the country and a school shooting occurred and when the school shooting occurred the lockdown procedures were that every teacher when they hear this takes place and they hear the alarm sound that teachers responsibly secure their kids secure their room make sure that everyone is safe and that's the what they are supposed to do but an assistant high school assistant football coach didn't do that he didn't follow the rules he just knew that his kids were in danger and one of their students had a gun and that gun was going off and he took off down the hall after this kid dodged behind the lockers his bullets were flying chased this kid out in the parking lot tackled the kid before he could pick up the next gun that was fully loaded after the first magazine the first gun was out and they asked this on this assistant football coach who's also the the lunchroom monitor that's basically his roles said why did you do that he said I don't know why I did it my kids were at risk and I had to protect them and that's why I did it he said I'm not a hero I'm just someone who cares about these kids and that's often what happens with a hero they find themselves in a very unlikely situation that they didn't wake up that morning planning to be in that didn't say this is what's gonna happen in my life today they just acted in the moment and their actions result in something that we then see as amazingly heroic last week we looked at the story of David and as we looked at that story of David we saw that he was given his calling for his life and his calling for his life was that he would be king in those days the way that was designated as they were their heads were anointed with oil and Samuel was the prophet of Israel and he was supposed to go find a new king and he pointed out David he said you will one day be the future king and I challenge you last week to consider your calling consider what it is that you were made by God to do not what you do to make money but you're calling your unique gifts and abilities and loves and desires that God has created in you and given you a heart and a burden for you to live out in this world today we're gonna look at a story that goes beyond just the cute little kid song we're looking a story of a young man likely a teenager who is not swayed by the opinions of others a teenager who saw a reality that others could not see and enabled him to face a challenge that no one believed he could accomplish no one and if you're a Christ follower this morning my hope is that as you hear this message that it will remind you and challenge you about will the way God wants you to live out your faith every single day and if you're checking out faith if you're maybe you've been here a few times or maybe just someone invited you this week and you're still exploring what this whole God thing is all about my prayer for you this morning is that you will get a glimpse of the way God wants people who call themselves Christ followers to live maybe decide that's the way you want to live and what you want your life to be about if you have your Bibles if you would turn to first Samuel 17 first Samuel 17 if you don't have a Bible our guys are passing some of them out and we'd love for you to follow along we're not going to have all the verses on the screen because it's such a long story this morning first Samuel 17 has page 227 in the Bibles that they're passing out to you and just to set the stage of what has happened in this story the people of Israel the Jewish people they have said they wanted the king God gave him a king but this king didn't turn out to be such a good king and God describes the kind of king that he wants in first Samuel chapter 13 verse 14 he says the Lord has sought out a man after his own heart an important ruler because you've not kept the Lord's command those are God's words to saw he said I want a man after my own heart someone whose heart is willing to follow after God no matter what his life journey and experience will be and so David shortly right at the time when he was anointed as king in first Samuel 16 it tells us that the spirit of God came upon him powerfully and we don't know what that really meant we just know what happened we get a glimpse of what that meant in chapter 17 so in chapter 17 we're introduced to this group of individuals called the Philistines the Philistines were people who lived in the land that we know now as Israel they were a tribal people who occupied several cities five primary cities along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea and when the people of Israel moved into the land of Israel the people of the Jewish people moved in the land of Israel God said I want you to move all of the people who don't worship the God of the heavens out because if you don't move them out over time you're gonna worship their gods and you're gonna follow their gods and so that's what they were doing and say they would go to battle Saul was a military leader David was a military leader and their goal was to move all these foreign nations out of the land of Israel and so they they are preparing for a battle against the Philistines and in chapter 17 verse 1 it describes that the Israelites are on one hill side the Philistines are on another hillside there's a valley in the middle and know what they would do is they would begin each day and they would come out after they ate something from their encampments they would line up in one single line and in this particular battle someone from the Philistines side would issue a challenge and the guy that they sent out the issue the challenge was a guy by the name of Goliath says that he was a champion his height was six cubits in a span that's nine feet nine inches he had a bronze helmet he wore a coat of scale armor of bronze weighing five thousand shekels that's a hundred and twenty five pounds and it goes on to say that he had a spear that weighed 15 pounds when I was a kid the biggest person I could imagine was Andre the Giant that's the biggest person I could imagine this guy two and a half feet taller than Andre the Giant okay there's nobody in human history that we have recorded as big as this person his code of armor hundred and twenty five pounds normal suit of honor for an average person it's about sixty to seventy pounds in the Middle Ages hundred and twenty five pounds this was a mammoth of a man mammoth of a man and so he would come out every day and he would come out and he would stand there and he would issue this challenge to the people of Israel and listen to the challenge in verse eight it says why do you even come out and line up for battle Goliath would say am I not a Philistine or you not the servants of Saul choose a man and have him come down to me if he's able to fight and kill me we will become your servant subjects but if I overcome him and kill him you will become our subjects and serve us then the Philistine said this day I defy the armies of Israel give me a man and let us fight each other so this was the deal they said send someone out we're gonna fight if I win you're our servants if we you win we serve you pretty easy pretty easy challenge but look at the Israelites response in the next verse on hearing his words they were dismayed and they are terrified they were dismayed they're like there is no chance there's no chance we don't have anyone even close to fighting this giant and they were terrified they were scared to death because they really realized they were out of options they didn't have any options I know about you but I don't like it when I'm faced with situations that I don't have options I think I'm a pretty good problem solver and I like to find solutions to dilemmas but when there are situations that have no options it is very disconcerting to me and that's the situation that the Israelites found themselves in and so in the midst of this story with the Israelites at this unresolvable conflict a one other element in the story that the text goes on to tell us is that this happened every day morning and evening for 40 days 40 days you know it's like to be in an unresolvable unsolvable problem day after day after day after day when you have to go in and work for a boss that mistreats people day after day after day after day when you pull out your checkbook and you look at your finances and you know what you have there is not going to pay all the bills and you look at it the next day and no more went in but you still don't have enough to end day after day after day after day after day are you and your spouse are you in one of your kids you have conflict that you cannot resolve and and every time you have to walk through that door you're like oh no here we go again day after day after day after day after day and that's what the people of Israel were facing for 40 days morning and evening they heard this challenge and so we're introduced to this young man by the name of David again and it begins by telling us about his father Jesse and they have eight sons and the three oldest who we met last week Eliab, Binadab and Shema they are all sons who are fighting the armies and in those days there weren't supply lines back to the food and all the resources the families were responsible to provide for the men in the military for those those who are fighting and so you would send food from your family and supplies from your family to provide us very much like it was in the Revolutionary War in our country where the families provided for that and so that's what David or that's what Jesse was preparing to do and so he says to David he said I want you to get some food together here's some roasted grain and some bread and cheese and I want you to go out to battle and while you're there why don't you get a report there's no CNN available so get me a report on what's happening on the battlefield there's no embedded reporters you're the embedded reporter go find out what's going on in the battle so the story goes on to tell us that David woke up the next morning and he made sure he's sheep were taken care of pretty responsible for a young guy he's responsible if it's sheep got another shepherd to make sure he's sheep are taken care of packed up all his supplies and headed out that morning I don't think David woke up thinking you know what why do something heroic today just kind of feels like one of those heroic kind of days I don't think David woke up thinking that I think he was taking food to his brothers gonna get a report come back make sure sheep were okay so as he arrives early in the morning probably left very early gets there right as he's getting there the soldiers are coming out of their encampments and they're starting to form these lines on each side and as they're starting to form these lines David hears Goliath's challenge just bellowing through that valley and as he hears Goliath's challenge the soldiers are also talking about what the reward is gonna be for whoever wins the battle your promise great wealth your promise one of King Saul's daughters hand in marriage which would give you a position of power and influence in the kingdom and get this no taxes the rest of your life that's a pretty good deal if you knew you were gonna win if you didn't know you were gonna win it would really not be worth it but it's pretty good deal if you knew you were gonna win so that's what the soldiers are talking about well David gets there and he hears what's going on drops off the food with the the guy in charge of the food supplies and David goes up to see what's going what's taking place and as he goes up to take see what's taking place in verse 26 he says what will be done for the one who kills the Philistine removes this to grace disgrace from Israel but then look at the second sentence he said who is this uncircumcised Philistine that she should defy the armies of the living God first time in 26 verses where God shows up on the scene faced an insurmountable challenge the people of Israel they worship the one true God no mention of God any the military guys by Saul no mention of God anywhere on the radar until David the shepherd boy shows up on the scene one of the soldiers said hey this is what's happening for the man who kills him and then an interesting side note shows up in this story it almost seems like why did they put that in the story but I think it helps us understand a little bit of what's going on in David's life you remember in the story from last week if you weren't here with us last week I encourage you go home and go back and listen to podcasts on our website but last week when the future king was being selective Samuel the prophet who is given this task he went to David's family and he starts looking at the oldest brother alive says I think he's a good one God what do you think God's like yeah not gonna work well you think the older brother forgot that he got snubbed no way no way look what it says when you lie of David's older brother heard David speaking with the men he burned with anger at him he burned with anger he was furious furious at his younger brother and look what he goes on to say why have you come down here and with whom did you lead those few sheep out the wilderness I know how conceded you are and how wicked your heart is you only came down here to watch the battle a little bit of anger issues there a little bit of jealousy going on there who sent David David just come down on his own accord no it's father sent him your few sheep implying that's not really an important job and you left them you're irresponsible was he irresponsible no he made sure someone took care of his sheep before he left for battle conceded how wicked you just came down here to see what was going on now let me ask you this question I asked last week who the younger brothers were in the audience but when you're a younger brother and you're around your older brother and all of his buddies do you want to stand out and make a fool of yourself or do you want to get accepted by your brother in his buddies you generally want to get accepted by your brother in his buddies and so you'll do whatever they ask you to do they say eat some worms to cut you'll eat you'll eat worms you know if they say eat some dirt clean up the poop whatever you'll do whatever it takes to get accepted by the older brothers right you'll do whatever it takes because you want to be accepted by the older brothers you know David shows up on the scene he's like what's going on what's going on and his older brother calls him out right there shames him right in front of all of the other soldiers all of the other soldiers and what does David do what does he do it says what did I do don't I even get a chance to speak don't I get a chance to speak David didn't cower and say you're right I really shouldn't be here hear your foods here I'll see you later David didn't defend himself which I find kind of ironic because at least half of those accusations were not even true he just ignored his brother and kept doing what he was doing it's kind of a head scratcher isn't it when you think about it here's the youngest kid in the family getting called out by his older brother doesn't change his actions modify his behavior at all he just goes about doing what he came there to do which is drop off the food and get a report for dad what in the world's going on a little bit surprising and family systems today which is study of how families and groups of people relate to one another there's this concept called differentiation describes your ability to act differently than the group when the group is doing something that you personally disagree with if your level of differentiation is low that means whatever the group wants you to do you will do whatever they want you to do regardless of the cost of yourself or anyway you will do what they want you to do if your level of differentiation is high if the group wants you to do something your family wants you to do something and it violates something internally inside you say thanks but I'm gonna pass on that and this is what I'm going to do for the average person their level of differentiation is pretty low because our need for approval is so high David did not have this need to have his brother's approval which is very shocking to me very shocking that a young teenage boy would not crave that as I'm pretty certain I would and I don't know most of us I think likely would so what happens in the story well somehow saw over here is that David it goes on to say he just walked away from his brother and went and found someone else and kept asking who's gonna stand up to this guy and define who's defined the armies of the living God and so now David encounters Saul the king of the land and look what David says the Saul in the next verse he says don't worry about a king let no one lose heart on account of Philistine your servant will go and fight for him now this is a teenager talking to King Saul who we know his head and shoulders above everybody else the king of the land saying I got this covered King I'll go on your behalf as I think about this story it's a little bit like when it snows really heavily you got two and a half feet of snow and your four-year-old comes out with his little plastic snow shovel and says I got this dad I'll take care of it I'm good I'm good we're fine you know and you're like yeah buddy thanks for the help you know come on outside playing the snow it's just kind of a ridiculous you look at that statement you think David said this to saw he said it to saw really he not only doesn't get swayed by his brothers who just tried to shit brother just tried to shame him now he's not put off by the king of the land and he says don't worry King don't lose heart don't lose heart remember the response of the Philistines what was their response terrified he says you're serving he's humble I'll go take care of this you're like man what is up with this kid well Saul says I don't think this is gonna work buddy he says you're only a little guy and he's been fighting since he was your age David said well how about I give you my resume he said here listen to my resume he said your servant describing itself again has been keeping his father's sheep when a lion or bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock I went out I struck it and I rescued the sheep from its mouth when it turned its attention to me I seized it by his hair struck it again and killed it your servant has killed both the lion and the bear the Sun circumcised Philistine will be like one of him because he has defied the armies of the living God the Lord who rescued me from the Paul of the bit of the lion and the Paul of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine David says let me tell you my resume King he said I'm a shepherd and I watch my sheep and one time a bear came after him after one of my sheep had it in its clutches I cracked it on the head with my staff and he dropped it and came after me and I took him out you know it's basically what he said and then a lion came after me and he picked up one of my sheep and I cracked him and with my staff and he dropped the sheep came after me and I took him out so I'm guys gonna help me I'm good King I'm good good either this guy is the most arrogant teenager I ever met in my life or he has faith that I've never seen before take your pick take your pick so the king says all right you insist it you want to give it a try what do you have to lose here let me give you all my armor you know and remember David's a shepherd he's a teenager not fully grown saw his head and shoulders above everybody else and so he's probably weighed it down with his arm or can barely move it and said I think gonna work king thinking to work here you go your methods your ways your approaches to things it just doesn't work it just doesn't work so David goes out to a brook picks up five stones puts it in his pouch goes out now to face Goliath the third person in the story Goliath sees this little kid coming towards him he's like what what is who is that is this like you know a comedy routine or what you know I can't quite figure out and and look what says about him when the Goliath looked down at David he saw that he was a little more than a boy and even Goliath recognized he's glowing with health whatever going with health means and even Goliath recognizes he's handsome but he despised him he's despised him he's like are you kidding me why are you insulting my strength and my capacity as a fighter to do this he says you come out with his sticks the Philistine curse David by his guys come here I'm just going to feed you to the wild animals this isn't even going to be close not even going to be close so as Goliath confronts David listen to what David has to say verse 45 he says you come at me with a spear and a sword and a javelin but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty the word for God that describes a powerful God the God of the armies of Israel whom you have defied this day the Lord will deliver you into my hands and I will strike down and cut off your head this day I will give the carcasses of your whole army of the birds and the animals and the whole world will know that there is a God of Israel he walked away from his brother who trying to shame him he offered his service to a king who tried to give him his ways and he said those ways aren't going to work for me and now he stood face-to-face with the giant that not even a single member of the army would go up against and said I'm going to take you down today today and the reason I'm going to do that is so that the whole world well no there's a God in Israel I don't think David woke up that morning thinking he was going to be a hero but when the circumstances were placed upon him there was something about this young man something about his level of differentiation to not be influenced by the family around him to not be forced into something that wasn't true about himself even by the king of the land to be able to stand up to a giant did not a single person could stand up to and as the music builds and they run towards one another he reaches into his bag put the stone in there turns that sling and releases that rock right into the giants forehead and kills him instantly without a sword in his hand it says in verse fifty struck down the Philistine and he killed him and that day the people of israel defeated the people of the Philistine armies with a great victory and a great battle and at the very end date saw is like uh... who in the world did this i don't know where saw was the whole day but he was kind of out out of touch said to his general abner bring him here bring him here and he said who are you and he said i'm david son of your servant jesse you know it'd be really easy to think about just the giants in our lives and that the challenges that they face before as we all have those things but i'm not sure that that's all this story is about the story really gives us a glimpse into something that's going into the heart and mind and soul of this young man david he was not the least influenced by what others thought of him he was the first to mention god he came back to god on several different occasions he recognized that god was the only one that was going to get him through this and even after speaking to solve about it the king of the land saw never once said well may god go with you that never even entered saw lips it was as if david had this special filter on his life where he could see things in a way that no one else could see it he could see that there was a possibility that god would enable him to do something when no one else thought that they could do it it's as if david had a reliance upon god instead of our alliance on everything else to solve the problem that was in front of him his brother alive just wanted to avoid the problem and chase david away saw wanted to solve the problem in a way that wasn't going to work and david said no there's a different way to solve this challenge that's in front of us and as i thought about what enabled david to have this capacity to function so differently than everyone else there's three things that i came up with that i think gave him this capacity the first is what we looked at the end of last week is that the spirit of god was in him the spirit of god was in him the bible says that when you place your faith in jesus christ when you invite him into your life that god spirit comes to live within you and it's a spirit of god that gives you the capacity to follow god to do the things for god that he calls you and challenges you to do jesus said when he's talking about the vine he said apart from me you can do nothing as jesus bill challenges a couple weeks ago when we stay connected the vine when we stay connected to jesus when we are walking with him and listening to him and following his direction in our lives our capacity to do things that seem insurmountable seem unconquerable seem to have no way out increase exponentially i also wondered how did david have this close relationship with god well there's a few other things we know from david from some other places in the second half of the story in solace in first amule sixteen we know that david was a musician well known enough to be called into the king's court to soothe a very disturbed soul not only on that occasion but on the number of other occasions we know that david spent lots of time out of the wilderness with his sheep and the david was not only musician but he was an artist he was a prolific writer and he wrote about these times when he felt alone and away from god and wondered where god was and where god was going to show up and in the midst of all of that he remembered repeatedly that god was there with him remember when he read his resume he didn't say yeah i outsmarted the i outsmarted the lion the bear it was just unfortunate for the bear now he said god help me do this god help me do this god helped me do this and he said i wanted to feed this giant so the whole world knows about the god of israel you know i think the only way that that was possible in david's life is because he was intentional about spending time with god to reflect on the situation in his life and reflect on his god that's what the songs are all about david describing this is my situation and this is my god and that helps him bring resolution to the tension that exists in his life the situation in the circumstances don't change the giant in your life may not go away but if you learn to reflect on the situation and remind yourself about your god your ability to navigate through it and live with it and to face it every single day is going to increase beyond what you believe you have the capacity for right now in david's case he killed the giant but there were more that came where those came from and the last thing i think david had to do is he recognized that he wasn't going to be able to do this himself he wasn't going to be able to do this himself he said the only way that i'm going to defeat this giant is with god's help as i thought about these three things i think this may be the hardest one for many of us to enter into because most of us especially in the community we live in are good at a lot of things good at a lot of things one of things i've learned and and learned from talking to tim who i work with others is that when you grow up on a farm you grow up around the farmer you learn to do just about anything you fix it you solve it you make it work you learn to do just about anything and we live a community of do it yourself is people that are good at a lot of things and they're good at fixing their good at solving their good at strategizing good at to the point that i wonder sometimes how much we really need god so i need god does your life give any evidence that you need god meaning i was just ticked as a brother god wasn't anywhere on the picture saw he was terrified and he was dismayed he didn't bring god in the picture david's the only one that brought god into the city into the picture the only one the only one i found myself in a situation about two weeks ago that i normally and pretty adept at handling it was something that was going on inside of me and and i i think have a fairly good level of self-awareness and i know what i need to do to kind of process through things when there's things troubling inside and i just a really really hard as like okay i gotta get along some quiet time just me and god and sort this out and kind of figure this whole thing out and i do that on a regular basis i just kind of have this prompting this day i was like john i don't want you to do this one on your own what do you mean god i think you and me we can navigate through this now i want you to allow someone else in what you're going through i got i don't need anybody else i know what to do i've been down this road before i know what to i just need some time alone and i'll get this sort out i'll be fine and god spirit just wouldn't let this go for me i was challenged a phone a friend actually i didn't phone i texted a friend couple friends i said hey available one of them said yes we sit and talk i don't really need advice i just need you to just listen and they did and um i don't know that i walked away with any answers that day that i didn't have before i entered but i walked away with a reliance upon god in an area i had been just relying on myself as i thought about this story i thought about this picture of this young guy who had this amazing level of differentiation not be influenced by the crowd and in spite of everybody around him family individuals in authority a giant that no one would dare tackle he had this undeniable faith and confidence and reliance upon god it was unshakable in his life unshakable some of you may have giants in your life right now and you know what they are soon as i started talking about this it's admitting you need help in your marriage that you're stuck oh you and your spouse are committed but there's no sparks fires out you don't think that's the way it should be and not the way god wants it to be but you don't know what to do and you need help you can't do it yourself maybe the the giant for you is admitting that your relationship with christ is kind of dead and lifeless and yeah sure you show up at church and you try to crack your bible periodically but there's it's just kind of like words on a page and there's nothing and you don't really sense god correcting you and god aware and involved in you can't do this on your own and you need to rely on someone other than yourself or maybe you've gotten yourself into a mess financially and you're embarrassed about it and you're just trying to make ends meet you gotta get some help you can't do this on your own maybe for you the giant is that demon from the past that shows up in your thoughts that haunt you in your dreams and that older you get it doesn't get or it doesn't get better it only gets worse and you have to decide if you're going to rely on yourself or someone else we all have a choice we all have a choice because we all have these things in our lives that may currently exist that we're clearly aware of that are bigger than life or that may show up on our doorstep tomorrow i never expected five weeks ago and i would have a family member be told they had stage four cancer and would be dead in a month sometimes they show up on your doorstep and you're not expecting them and so you can tackle those giant problems with a a giant like reliance upon god admit your need ask for help rely on him or you can ignore you can dismiss you can hide from or try to solve these giant size problems in your own life and you know what's going to happen if you do this just like that giant kept coming out day and night for 40 days it's going to keep showing up in your life day after day after day after day after day until you're ready to say you know what i surrender i surrender i can't do this on my own and i'm done trying and i'm going to rely on god and i'm going to put all my eggs in that basket because i don't have anywhere else to turn and that might mean asking for help that might mean sometimes just waiting and not doing something about it that might need to be the support of a group that's going to walk through this journey in your life with you i don't know what that's going to be I don't think any of us want those things to keep showing up every single day but if you would choose this approach that's what's going to happen i want to ask you to close your eyes and just bow your heads and i'm going to give you a moment to talk to god about your own heart giant that you're wrestling with today you god you know each person's heart here this morning you know how those that have giants that they're battling right now that they're wondering if they're going to win this one god just give them an awareness of your spirit and your presence with them still others got are trying to ignore them trying to blame something else trying the same solution over and over and over again that's not changed the situation one bit gotta pray that today might be a crossroads for them to say i i need to rely on you and others in ways that i've not been open to before god somehow help each of us as we face whatever you bring into our lives god's a part of the conversation a part of whatever takes place a part of the solution for one reason and one reason alone and that's the whole world knows about our great god help us lord so we can't do this on our own yeah