Redemption City Church
David: Poet, Warrior, King Part 4 (Mark Bergin) 06/30/24
"An omen saying to other as they celebrated, Saul has struck down his thousands and David is ten thousands, and Saul was very angry, and this saying displeased him. He said, 'They have ascribed to David ten thousand, and to me they have ascribed thousands. And what more can we have but a kingdom, and Saul, I, David, from that day on?' The next day, a harmful spear from God rushed upon Saul, and he raved with him in his house while David was playing the liar. And he did day by day, Saul had a spear in his hand, and Saul hurled the spear for he thought, 'I will pin David to the wall, but David evaded him twice.' Saul was afraid of David because the Lord was with him, but he departed from Saul. So where did the Lord? Good morning, Redemption City. My name is Mark, if I haven't had a chance to meet you yet, I'm a member here at the church. We are all feeling today the heaviness with the Bartlett family, that feeling of loss and grief. I'm glad they could join us today and share their presence with us that we could join them in their grief. And Saul, we're here to worship God, we're here to open his word, we're here to eat at his table because he is our great hope. And we do not have a God who shies away from our sorrows or our darkest nights. Actually, we have a God who comes right into those things with us. This table in front of me is all that we need to know, that God enters into the sorrow of our world with us. On this table is the very broken body and shed blood of the Lord Jesus. Aren't you glad that you are a Christian? What rich resources we have in the promises of God? He makes known to us his intention for us, that he doesn't leave us alone to find our way out of the darkest nights of this broken world, but he actually comes into that darkness with us, joins us there, and he has found the way out for us. He's tasted the sting of our death, he's gone into the ground, gone into the actual grave. And then he has finally gutted our last enemy of all its power. He has made a mockery of the thing that we were most terrified of, he's triumphed over it, and he gives that to us. If you are not a Christian or if you're unsure about what you believe this morning, this church would commend Jesus to you. He is a friend of sinners. So whatever you have, whatever you bring to the table, whatever loss or confusion or guilt or shame or fear, it is not too much for him. He knows it. He is comfort, he is wisdom, he is safety, he is forgiveness. You don't have to figure it all out, you don't have to have all the answers. Lord knows we don't only open your heart to him, and he will come in. He will meet you where you are with friendship and love, and he will lead you forward. I want to pray for us this morning as we get started and then we're going to dive into our texts, open the Bible together and study God's word, hear his promises of fresh. Let's pray together. Lord Jesus, we're so grateful that you have come, we're so grateful that you are among us even now by your spirit, that you sit at the right hand of the Father and advocate for us there, that we are as safe and secure as though we were sitting at his right hand. Indeed, we are with you through that great mystery of your communion with us. I want to pray that we would live in that reality this morning, that we would treasure that reality this morning, that we would lean on each other in that, that we would experience that together. I pray for those who are outside of that, who have not put their faith in you, that they would be able to see that, that they would be able to experience the warm glow of that, that you would make known your grace and love to all people through us this morning. We pray it in Jesus' name. Is my mic really distracting? Is there something we need to do guys, sound guys? Is this a problem or it sounds super echoey? If nobody minds, I'll just dive in, but I thought I should ask. We are in the book of first Samuel, we've been in the book of first Samuel for a number of weeks now, looking at the life of David, and specifically looking at the rise of David, the ascendancy of David. I see a lot of brilliant minds back there working hard to try and solve this mic issue. Guys, do you want my participation or you guys got it figured out? It's like the three stooges back there. Did I just switch over to this mic? Tech, tech, tech. There we go. All right, that's way better. I'm grateful for that. I was not looking forward to the next half hour. So we are in first Samuel looking at the ascendancy of David watching his rise to prominence in the wake of Saul's crash, we're actually right in the middle of Saul crashing before our very eyes. The Bible is doing something here that the Old Testament narrative actually often does, and that is it is communicating to us a sort of literary theology, which is the best kind. By the way, there's lots of good ways to convey good theology, but when it's conveyed in literature, when it's conveyed in literary devices, it sticks. We know Jesus taught via parables in the New Testament and used all manner of literary devices in those parables, things like juxtaposition and repetition and irony and all these different literary devices that he used, and the parables of Jesus have stuck in the collective consciousness of cultures for millennia in large part because of the way he conveyed that truth. Well, that's happening in the Old Testament, but even more is happening there. The writers of the Old Testament are weaving this kind of literary theology with the use of real public figures and real events. King David and King Saul were actual kings in ancient Israel. Their exploits were real events that took place. Their interactions with each other and the Philistines and the wars that took place were true events, and yet the writer is taking all those true events and giving us something that is far greater than history, they're giving us far more than history, they're actually teaching us something very important, many very important things about God and teaching us many important things about us, about who we are. Pastor Mike has been leading a preaching cohort on Wednesday mornings this summer, and the first meeting of that cohort was a few weeks ago, and he showed us a Bible project video, I think he mentioned it in one of his sermons, that introduces the books of 1st and 2nd Samuel, and it shows sort of the literary arc, the structural framework of the book of 1st Samuel, and it highlights that the structure is essentially two hills, as it were. They actually draw it out in the video, it's very helpful, if I was more tech savvy I'd have a slide depicting it, instead of moving my fingers like this over and over again. The first hill is the rise, the ascendancy of King Saul, followed by his descent into madness and death. The second hill is the rise and ascendancy of King David, followed by his descent into chaos and death. But these two hills they overlap, and so we have this intersection that takes place, right in the descent of Saul we have the ascent of David, and there's all kinds of comparison going on here, and contrast. The life of King Saul is meant to be something of a cautionary tale for the successor, for King David, the literature is foreshadowing something or it's posing a question or a dilemma, is David simply going to follow in the same footsteps as Saul, or is he an entirely different sort of king altogether? What we see in both these men's lives is that they rise to this extraordinary level of greatness, they both accomplish enormous things for the people of Israel, they both win great victories for the people of Israel, and then both men experience enormous failure, and both men commit grievous sin. The difference that we see, the thing that makes all the difference between their lives actually can be boiled down to a single word, repentance. When King Saul encounters failure, when King Saul is caught in his sin, when he's exposed, when he's called out, he doubles down, he gets defensive, he justifies himself, he refuses to change or learn or grow. By contrast, when David is exposed, when David is called out, he confesses, he relents, he seeks forgiveness, and perhaps most importantly, he changes. That distinction between King Saul and King David, that is the basis of so much great literature, because that distinction, that shift, that dilemma, it's so relatable. It's the dilemma of the world, it's the dilemma of our lives, it is the dilemma that you and I face every single day, when we are exposed, when our contribution to the world is found wanting in some way, are we willing to humble ourselves? Are we willing to change course? Leo Tolstoy, one of the greatest creators of modern literature, the great Russian romantic, he once said this, everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. We all want to be significant, we all want to have an impact, we all want to leave a legacy that we can be proud of, that people will speak well of, but are we willing to become what the world actually needs? Are we willing to change when it's exposed that our great contributions to the world are in fact wanting? That is the literary context in which we pick up the story for today. All on the decent, David on the ascent, one man's refusal to acknowledge his sin, to learn or to change, provides a backdrop for the emergence of King David, will this new ascendant leader walk in that same folly? Or will David turn out to be a very different kind of king? Last week Mike did a beautiful job I thought of unpacking the aftermath of David's victory over Goliath, and this kind of rich friendship, this kinship that forms between David and Saul's son, Jonathan. Jonathan is attracted to David's courageous faith. David's faith in facing Goliath is infectious in fact, and what we see in today's text is that it's not only Jonathan who is profoundly attracted to David, it's in fact all of the nation of Israel, David's faith is magnetic. And as Saul's warriors return from routing the Philistines in the wake of David slaying Goliath, all of the women of Israel from all of the cities across Israel, they come out to greet this victorious army and they come out with singing and dancing and they're banging tambourines and they're playing instruments. And this is what they sing as they come to greet this army. Saul has struck down his thousands and David, his 10,000s. Maybe I should sing that. Nope, I'm not going to. Saul has struck down his tens, or his thousands, and David, his 10,000s. Ouch. Now before we rip into Saul too much, and we're going to rip into Saul today just so you know, can we acknowledge that this is a pretty lousy thing to sing when people return from battle? This is what choruses tend to do. This is what onlookers tend to do. They compare. They love to compare. A Caitlin Clark emerges on the scene, and the talking heads on television don't simply analyze the brilliance of her basketball. What do they do? Is she better than Cheryl Swoops? Is she better than Diana Tarasi, better than Sue Bird? They start to compare her to all the greats that have gone before, and great antagonism then emerges. The legends of women's basketball say, "Hey, wait a minute here." Before we anoint her the goat, maybe she could win something first. I remember when I was in sixth grade, I was the new kid at school, brand new school for me. But in the first week at that new school, we were given a writing assignment to write a personal narrative. And after we wrote our narratives, my teacher stood up in front of the class at the end of that first week, and she read my narrative out to the whole class. And then she said, "Class, it is our goal that all of you will write this well by the end of the year." I was feeling pretty good. I was on top of the world. I was the new kid, and suddenly I was famous. And the accolades sort of built from there. There came a time a little bit later in the year when my essay got read to the whole school, and I was sort of on top of the world. About halfway through the year, this new kid transferred in. Good kid, sweet kid, still Facebook friends, no bitterness here. But he was quite sharp. And we were given an assignment in the first week that he joined our school to write the closing arguments for this historic court case that we were studying. And I was given the assignment to write the prosecution's closing argument, and he was given the assignment to write the defense's closing argument. And so I went first, and I stood up in front of the whole class, and I read my closing argument, and I sat down, and I felt pretty good about it. And then this kid, this good kid, sweet kid, stood up, and he read his closing argument, and the class erupted into applause. And I could hear these three girls near my desk. They were whispering, they said, "He's better than Mark." I felt about that big, right? One lookers love to compare, and it can sting. When you're a sixth grade student, when you're a legend of women's basketball, when you're the king of Israel, it stung Saul. And the text tells us, his reaction, starting in verse 8, Saul was very angry. And this saying displeased him. He said, "They have ascribed to David ten thousands, and to me they have ascribed thousands. And what more can he have but the kingdom, and Saul eyed David from that day on?" David's star is rising, and it's so bright that it is outshining Saul. Saul's being reduced in his status by several notches, and he sees where this is going. If the people think David is greater, it is only a matter of time before he as usurped my throne, before they make him king, before indeed the entire kingdom is taken from my hand and put into his hands. Now remember, the prophet Samuel, several chapters earlier, had already told Saul that this was going to happen. Samuel had told Saul, "God is going to take the kingdom from you and give it to another." So Saul has already been on the defensive. He's already been looking for who this successor might be, and now his eye has landed squarely on David. Saul being angry, it's not all that surprising. It was a pretty hurtful song, right? I'm sure that the women of Israel had had kinder days, and that hurt, it often manifests in anger at first. If you've ever been hurt, and I'll hazard a guess that you have, you know that hurt often manifests in anger at first, because it's easier to get mad than it is to actually feel the hurt and begin the process of healing. So when we are hurt, we get mad. We're not ready to feel the hurt yet. We're giving our heart a little bit of time, but Saul doesn't get there with his heart. He doesn't let the anger go. He doesn't let it flash and pass through as a healthy person might. Instead, he broods in it. The text tells us that he eyed David from that day on. He made a villain out of David. He wanted him gone. Saul bends his heart into this kind of twisted iron knot of malice and rage. The text tells us in verse 10, "The next day a harmful spirit from God rushed upon Saul, and he raved within his house while David was playing the liar, as he did day by day. Saul had his spear in his hand, and Saul hurled the spear for he thought, 'I will pin David to the wall.' But David evaded him twice. Earlier in the book, we had learned that David's liar was a great balm to Saul. That Saul had actually appreciated the way that David played music. It had brought peace to his soul, but no longer the very thing that was once a balm has now become a source of fire. It heaps burning coals on this internal fire of rage inside Saul. Jesus speaks in the New Testament. I'm sure many of you familiar with this. He speaks in the New Testament of something that he terms the unforgivable sin. Jesus actually names that as the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. I think something like that is happening here in the heart of Saul. The spirit of God comes into the world the scriptures tell us to convict us of sin and to point us back to God. The spirit of God comes into the world to arrest us, to stop us in our tracks when we are wandering off into all kinds of folly, hurting ourselves and one another. And the spirit says, 'No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.' Repent, confess, admit wrong, turn, turn back to tender heartedness, turn back to the way of mercy, turn back to the path of love. What happens if we villainize the work of that spirit in our lives? What happens if the very thing that has the power to rescue us from our waywardness becomes just a source for more resentment, for more bitterness, for more waywardness? Do you remember when you were a kid and you would get really mad, I was talking about this with my kids at the breakfast table today, remember that? You would get really mad as a kid and then you always had that one friend who would try to cheer you up and they would tickle you or they would tell you a joke and you'd be caught in this dilemma because you're thinking, 'Maybe I'll break, maybe I'll smile.' But then you think, 'No, no, no, no, no, my anger is righteous. It is necessary, it is important to balance the scales of justice in the universe that I withhold that smile from this friend.' And so you double down on your anger. You get angry at the friend and now the only person that actually could pull you out of that dark place has become another source for darkness. Now you've really got yourself in a bind, now you're twice as angry and twice as stuck. This is a great danger in our hearts. This is what I believe Jesus was speaking to when he talked about the unforgivable sin. We can tie ourselves into such knots of bitterness that the work of the Holy Spirit would become immune to it. The Spirit's pleading, the Spirit's drawing simply becomes another source for anger and fire in our souls. We convince ourselves that God's Spirit is evil and that we have to hold on to our righteous rage. This is the sort of knot that Saul tied himself into. His anger was understandable at first, but he let it simmer. He cooked his own soul in it until the liar of David went from balm to burn. The text tells us that a harmful Spirit from God rushed upon Saul the next day. We're not given any more explanation about what's happening there exactly, but we shouldn't be at all surprised by this. We are spiritual creatures. Every single one of us was made for communion with another world. We weren't just made to interact with this world in the here and now. We were made for communion with another world. There are longings in us as C.S. Lewis says that point us to that other world. When we villainize the Spirit of God, when we reject communion with the living God, we open up a vacuum in our souls for all manner of Spirit's to enter. And whether this term here, this harmful Spirit term is referring literally to a demon or just a dark attitude like a spirit of rage or a spirit of anger, it doesn't really matter. Saul opens himself up to that and God gives him exactly what he wants. This is what Saul wants. Saul wants to be consumed with rage. He wants no check in his spirit so that he can run with it. And that's exactly what he does. He makes two attempts on David's life that text tells us with his spear, hurls his spear at David, David ducks, Bob's weaves, whatever he evades Saul twice. And then we read this in the very next verse, verse 12. Saul was afraid of David because the Lord was with him but had departed from Saul. The placement of verse 12, this is a literary master class. Hey, look at what happened in the text. We were just zoomed in on an action sequence. We resumed all the way in on an action sequence. David was under threat from King Saul. King Saul had his spear in his hand and we were so far zoomed in that we could actually hear the thoughts of King Saul. We hear him say, I will pin David to the wall. We can also hear him, almost hear him growling in rage. We're so zoomed in. As far as Saul knows, the only emotion he is experiencing is anger. And then we zoom out. We go directly from that action sequence. We zoom out and we get this narrator's point of view. We get the narrator's point of view giving us a summation of what's happening here. And the narrator introduces us to some new and rather profound information. The narrator tells us something that Saul isn't even aware of. He's afraid. He's afraid of David. If you had asked Saul in that moment, are you afraid of David? He would have scoffed. He doesn't know he's afraid. He's full of anger. So we get this zoomed in perspective, Saul's viewpoint, anger, envy, murder, rage. And then we get this zoomed out picture. The narrator's viewpoint, fear, loss, spiritual poverty. The narrator is giving us the real scoop. The narrator's giving us the truer story, what's actually going on in the heart of Saul. Saul thinks he's angry. He imagines he's suffering some injustice. And the solution, therefore, is violence and war. The solution in Saul's mind is something that makes him feel strong. I'll go to war to solve this. But in reality, he's just a scared little boy. It's no different than when he was hiding in the luggage several chapters earlier to avoid the calling on his life to become king. It's interesting. The ESV translation of the Bible, which is the translation that we use in this church, is this section of Scripture, Saul's jealousy of David, an apt title. But in our preaching cohort this past Wednesday, our very own Lene Cruz pointed out that nowhere in the passage is the word jealousy or even envy used a single time. In fact, the word that is used to describe what's going on in Saul on three separate occasions in this chapter is fear, that he's actually terrified. He's afraid of David, and the text tells us why. We read it because the Lord was with David and had departed from Saul. The brilliant investor Warren Buffett once said, "It is not greed that drives the world, but envy." He was certainly onto something. Lurking in the shadows of greed, he will often find envy fueling it. We don't just want more. We want more than that guy. We want more than her, or at least we want them to suffer as much as we are. Envy is often fueling our apparent greed, but the true driver of our broken world runs even deeper than that. Envy and its attending anger are mere anesthesia. Envy and anger are a preferred distraction from reckoning with our fear. Saul clings to his envy and anger. He won't let it go. He'd rather be devoured by it than face his fear. Why? Well, remember, what is Saul actually afraid of? The Lord was with David and had departed from Saul. Saul is terrified of what we are all terrified of, namely that we don't write our own story, that we're not in control of our lives, that we are suspended in the mysterious counsel of the will of God, and there's no way out. Saul doesn't want to see that. Envy is the smokescreen we use to shield ourselves from that. Envy is an accelerant for blinding anger that we very much want. We don't want to see. We want to be blind. We want to hold on to the illusion that we are in control, that we define our own destiny. We want to tell ourselves vain stories about my successes and my failures. We want to glory in one and wallow in the other. We want to define ourselves. We want to be God. And in our anger, it feels like we can. Anger makes us feel strong. The language of justice makes us feel righteous. It's anesthesia that hides our fear. Saul feels strong when he throws that spear. That's why he throws it again. It's like he has a say in whether the kingdom will be taken from him. He wants to pretend that he has a say in whether the kingdom will be taken from him but deep down, he knows better. He knows that it is not David who will be taking his kingdom from him. He knows it is the very same one who gave it to him in the first place. He knows it is the only one who has authority to set up the kings and to pose them. In his heart of hearts, Saul knows what Job knew. You know the story of Job, that greatest work of Old Testament literature when Job loses everything he owns and all of his children on a single day, the scriptures tell of a man who faces what Saul cannot. Job is the anti-Saul. Let me just read a section from Job, chapter 1, verse 20 through 22. "Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshipped. And he said, 'Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.' In all this, Job did not sin or charge God with wrong. The wisdom of Job, it is not meant to be some extraordinary one-off. Job is one of the earliest written books of the Bible. This is God's wisdom given to the ages. This is God's wisdom for all people. We don't have to pretend that we're in control anymore or convince ourselves that we're strong enough to handle our lives. What an exhausting delusion that is, to pretend that we're running things. God speaks, 'Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? What a gift.' God, when we are undone, he invites us, 'Come to me, I am God. You are not,' he says to us. You don't have to hold it all together. You don't have to figure it all out. You don't have to make sense of it all. Come rest in me, I made the stars sing, and I care for you. I know the story that I am telling, and it's not yours to tell. It's yours to live in. Saw like all of us, he knows all of this in his heart of hearts, but he refuses to face the reality of God. He refuses to accept that, he puts his fingers in his ears. He doesn't defy God, which is interesting here in the text. He doesn't openly defy God, he doesn't stand and sort of shake his fist at God. I think because he knows he would lose that battle. Instead, he distracts himself with a battle that has better odds. Could Saul kill David? Yeah, conceivably he could. He might actually be able to win that battle, or at least he could work himself into a lather trying, and for Saul, like many of us, that lather is preferable to facing the fear. I'll just keep pretending that I run my life. That lather is preferable to entrusting himself to the mystery of God's will. Why does God take good things from us? That's a terrifying question. Why does he give us our dreams, and then rip them out of our hands? Why is it that someone else always seems to have it better? More peace, more talent, a better marriage, a better story? Why does God withhold so much? Can I trust him? Can I receive good gifts in my life, do I dare celebrate knowing that they will fail? Everyone I know is going to die. My own body is going to betray me. That process is well underway. Saul makes his choice. He will not face his fear, he will not face God, he will not reckon with this reality. Every person in his life then simply becomes a pawn in his scheme to outwit David, to hold on to the kingdom, though God is clearly taking it from him. Saul appoints David to positions of military leadership in hopes that David will be killed in battle, he offers his two daughters, two of his daughters to David in hopes that they will become a snare to him and make him weak for war. Saul uses everything at his disposal, even the things he ostensibly should have cared about the most to try to hold on to the kingdom. He names a bride price for his daughter Michael of a hundred Philistine fourskins, different time, different culture, in hopes that David will die in the effort of collecting those fourskins. David goes out and gets 200 fourskins, that's a winning personality. But everything Saul does backfires because he's not fighting David. He's fighting the will of God and that is a fruitless struggle that accomplishes nothing. Let me ask you, when life turns dark, when loss or sorrow finds you, how do you respond in that? I wish that I could tell you that I respond with long endurance and quiet strength, but I don't. It is very difficult for me when I experience frustration, loss, pain. I tend to forget God altogether, I tend to think well I'm on my own at this point, I've got to make it happen, I've got to use whatever resources I have at my disposal, every last ounce of wit and strategy to maneuver my way through this and get what I want at any cost. My faith is real, but it is far from fully grown. It is far what I hope it will one day be. So what I've learned of late, I could say probably mostly over the last five years or so, is that that small real faith that is in me is just enough to chart another way. And I would hazard to say that the small real faith in you is enough to chart another way as well. Rather than aspire to long endurance and quiet strength, instead train to get there. Here's what that looks like for me, maybe you're like me. The sorrow comes when dark days come, rather than beating the air and clutching for control. I have found another course wherein I beat on the chest of God and beg him for help. I'm at my wit's end here, help, help. Lord Jesus, help is a great paradox of God's world, that when we are most undone, the thing that we need is not to feel strong. What we need is to feel weak. Who would have seen that coming? Saul was so sure that he just needed to double down on his strength. He was a man head and shoulders above all the men of Israel. He had to feel strong, so he went to war with David. What if Saul had gone to war with God? If Saul had wrestled with God, what if he had been willing to feel weak, looking into the face of God? Well, then he might have walked in the footsteps of his forefather Jacob, who wrestled with God at Jabek, and walked with a limp for the rest of his life. He might have followed in the footsteps of his successor David, who wrestles with God throughout the Psalms, and is brought to repentance and faith and the heart of God. He might have walked in the way of the man of Galilee, who wrestled with God and wound up with scars in his hands and in his feet. Jesus wrestled with his father with the very words of David from Psalm 22. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Jesus submitted himself to the mystery of the counsel of his father's will, not my will. Your will be done into your hands. I commit my spirit, he entrusted his life to his father. He became weak, though every strength was available to him, legions of angels at his beck and call, and he opened not his mouth, and like a lamb to the slaughter, gave himself over to death. Don't you see, God is making all things new, and he is beginning with us. He says, "Be like my son, and be weak and needy in the face of great sorrow. Be like my beloved, and don't fight to resist my will. Be like me, and become what the world needs, broken hearted, tender hearted, soft people of mercy, people of the way of God, of the way of love. The world needs the broken body of Jesus made manifest in his people." The world doesn't need more souls, doesn't need more strong men, doesn't need more people who lean into every resource of their own power to fight wars that God never invited us to fight. He says, "Live in the story that I am writing, and become the person that I made you to be. Bear my image. Become a starved person, a wounded person, a person deeply familiar with the pain of love. Then you will be what I made you to be. Then you will give the world what I made you to give the world. Then you will be a manifestation of my son." I want to pray for us, but I have a few questions for you before I do in our preaching court a couple of weeks ago. The preaching court is money, by the way. Susie mentioned that the questions at the end of sermons should push into the deep parts of our heart, and so it occurred to me that these should be more like journal prompts, so I'm going to give you some journal prompts if you're someone who journals, if you're not someone who journals, think about starting or reflect in whatever way you do, but I just have four journal prompts for you, each one leaning on the one before it. First what are three or four of the greatest gifts that God has given you? What are three or four of the greatest gifts that God has given you? Has he ever asked you to let go of a great gift or dream? Is he asking that of you now? And finally, what are you afraid of? Let's pray. Lord Jesus, we thank you that you have walked this road ahead of us, that we don't have to figure it out, but we don't have to guess what is the way, because you have shown us the way. So we pray for faith to walk in the way that you walked, to be weak like you were weak, to entrust ourselves to the Father like you entrusted yourself to the Father, or teach us to lean on each other, teach us to honor one another, teach us to see the glory and beauty in the weakness of one another. Make us into a people that embody your broken son for the sake of the world. We pray in His name. Amen. [ Silence ]