"Good News at a Great Cost" - 2 Samuel 18:31-33

What can you learn about the gospel from the good news of David's deliverance at the great cost of his son?

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Transcript

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It's so good to be with all of you. And if it's been a little while since you've been here or your first time here, we are in the midst of a sermon series in 2 Samuel. As you can see on the screen, it's entitled Faithful in Flaw. David has been teaching us a lot. We said that David is a man of great faith who ran after God's own heart, but also a man of great flaws who ran after God's amazing grace. So if you again, if you haven't been here, in the first 11 chapters that we looked at throughout most of the winter and the spring here, we saw all these wonderful things that David did to demonstrate for us what a man after God's own heart looks like. We looked at a man who grieved over God's kingdom, a man who was patient for God's promises, a man who had trials, but in those trials showed true worship and gratitude for God. He showed grace to others. And then all of a sudden in chapter 11, things go in the opposite direction. All right, we see that he has an adulterous affair with Bathsheba. And then he tries to cover it up and eventually is an accomplice to murder of Bathsheba's husband Uriah. And then we see this great judgment that comes down from the prophet Nathan. And all these things are happening in David's life, and now there's the downfall of his ministry as king over Israel. And yet we find that he's teaching us just as much in his downfall as he was doing in his prosperity. Last week we talked about how he surrendered in humility to God's discipline. You and I are not good at that. Remember what we said last week? When God reaches into our life and enables a trial, when he reaches into our life in his love and allows suffering physically, or suffering spiritually, or suffering relationally, or suffering financially, and we pray for God to remove it, and God says, No, I allowed that to happen because I'm doing some really good work through this. You need to surrender to my discipline. I discipline those whom I love. Well, David was receiving stones and cursing from Shimei. And instead of retaliating, and as the king, he could have wiped him out in a minute. He said, Let him. God is the one that is enabling him to do this. And in that he showed us incredible humility when God enables us to suffer, and we've done what we can to alleviate the suffering, and it's still there. Then we need to recognize God has a purpose for it, and we need to stop pleading with God to take away our suffering, and we need to say, God, teach me what I need to know in the midst of this suffering. Well, now we get to another level of suffering, and in the suffering that David experiences today, we see in this passage a crystal clear portrait of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Did everybody ever tell you that this is a hymn book? It's all about him, H-I-M? Every single book of the Bible points directly to Jesus Christ. If you're reading the Old Testament and you don't see Jesus, you need to look a little bit closer. Well, it is crystal clear here today as we look at 2 Samuel chapter 18, verses 31 through 33. The title of our message is Good News at a great cost. Good news at a great cost. Now, here at Cedar Street, and I know if you're visiting from other local churches in this area, we're all getting after the same goal. We typically stress different things in our mission statement, but here at Cedar Street, we believe in one message, a great message, an eternal message that has eternal power. And it's not just a cute marketing ploy for us to say every week. We believe that heads, hearts, and hands are being transformed through the gospel of Jesus Christ. When I say gospel, it is a message that you never get over. It is a message that you never get past. It's a message that never gets old. And if you've allowed it to get old, you don't understand the message. The gospel is not something you get over. The gospel is something that you go deeper and deeper and deeper into. So I want to say that as we talk about gospel today, and I'm going to explain it as if you've never heard it before, fight that urge inside of you to say, ooh, this is good. This person next to me that doesn't know Jesus, they really need this. This is a message for people in this room who've been safe for 50 years. And this is a message for some of you that are so lost you don't even know everything that Jesus did for you out of his great love. We're going to see the gospel according to King David today. It is a gospel call, and it's a gospel that comes at a great cost. The gospel, by the way, is a word that simply means good news. When I was a youth pastor here, I'm sure some of my former youth could tell you I used to drive them crazy because right, Kyle and I'd make you repeat it every Wednesday night. What does gospel mean? Good news. What's the good news? Jesus Christ, what did he do for us every Wednesday, over and over and over again? Because you don't get past this message. It's not a message to get saved, and then you just need to share it with other people. Of course you need to share it, but you also need to go deeper into it in your own life. And I'm going to show you how today, as we look at King David and something really amazing that happens in this very painful moment in David's life. So let me just, again, if you're new to 2 Samuel, let me just catch you up because of the length of the chapters, we can't read every detail. So here's where we are. All right, we see in the life of David that he commits the adultery with Bathsheba. Then we see that he commits adultery, he's an accomplice to murder with Uriah. Then Nathan says, the rest of your life, you're going to have discord in your family for what you have done. We saw that his son Amnon raped his half-sister. And then we see Absalom, his other son, goes and has Amnon murdered. So he's got one son murdering another. Well, as you continue to read on in chapter 16 and chapter 17, and then to chapter 18 where we are, his son Absalom is now trying to kill him. And why? Because he wants to take his throne. So he's stuck in this really hard, difficult place where he wants to protect his throne that God has put him on, and he wants to end the threats, but the threat is from his son. So he wants to be delivered from the threat of death, but he also doesn't want to see his son die. And we see earlier in chapter 18, his son does die. He's riding a mule, his hair gets stuck in the branches of an oak tree, and Joab, the military leader of Israel, he and others kill Absalom, his son, and that leads us right to where we are here at the end of chapter 18. And David finds out two things simultaneously. One, he's been delivered. Two, it came at the cost of his son. And as we think of him, we need to think of our lives. We have good news today. If you're in this room, you're watching online, you're listening to this podcast, whatever you're dealing with, God has offered you eternal deliverance. Oh, but it's coming at a great cost. At the cost of his son. So we're going to see the gospel according to David here today. And again, I want to say it one more time. This is not a message for those who are not saved alone. This is a message for you who've been in the pew 50 years. The gospel never gets old. There's always something new to understand about who Jesus is and what he's done. And by the way, the more you hear it, the better you ought to be at sharing it with other people. So here's the big idea as we get ready to look at 2 Samuel 18. David's good news of deliverance at the great cost of his son uniquely foreshadows the gospel of Jesus Christ. David's good news of deliverance at the great cost of his son uniquely foreshadows the gospel of Jesus Christ. So if you want to know more about how this good news comes at a great cost, would you join me by turning to the book of 2 Samuel? It's in your Old Testament. If you're new to the Bible, it's after 1 Samuel. It's before 1 Kings. If you don't have a Bible, that's okay. Grab the Pew Bible in front of you or beside you. We're on page 318 in your Pew Bible. And if you would stand at this time, out of the reverence of the reading of God's holy, infallible, inerrant, and fully sufficient word, we are in 2 Samuel chapter 18, starting in verse 31, as we get towards the end of the chapter, we'll look at verse 31, 32, and 33. Hear God's word to us starting in verse 31. It says, And behold, the Cushite came, and the Cushite said, Good news for my Lord the King, for the Lord has delivered you this day from the hand of all who rose up against you. The king said to the Cushite, Is it well with the young man Absalom? And the Cushite answered, May the enemies of my Lord the King and all who rise up against you for evil be like that young man. And the king was deeply moved and went up to the chamber over the gate and wept. And as he went, he said, Oh, my son Absalom, my oh, my son, my son Absalom, would I had died instead of you? Oh Absalom, my son, my son. Let's pray. Jesus, I feel a burden in this room right now. I feel a burden that we have made the gospel a common message. A message of salvation alone. And for those of us who are saved, we think it's for everybody else. Lord, I feel the burden of those hearing this word today. They want to gloss over it and their minds are already at lunch. Help us. Help our weary hearts. Help our distracted minds. Help our over-planned schedules. Help our idols that are getting in our way of worshiping you. Help our arrogance and our deceitfulness. Help our frustrations and our exhaustion. Bring us to this point where we are fully present with you in this room right now, Lord. I know we all have so much going on, but the answer is still the same. Jesus, you're the answer. Whatever we're dealing with, you're the answer. We don't ever get past this message. We just go deeper and deeper and deeper into it. Lord Jesus, you are our good news, who you are and what you have done, and what you have promised. Be with us right now. Fill every square inch of this place with your precious Holy Spirit. Open our hearts and minds and be with us, I pray. In your name, Lord Jesus. And all of God's people said amen. Just again, trying to share this in a way that everyone's going to come to this message with fresh eyes. We say that we understand what salvation is, but I'm going to tell you, as a pastor, I'm just being honest and being very transparent today. There are many, many times that people who've been in church 50 years come up to me and say, Pastor Bo, how do I really know? How do I know that I know that I know I'm going to heaven? And every time they ask me, I'm not angry with them, but I'm grieved. I'm grieved because it says there's an aspect of the good news that they've heard every Sunday for decades and they don't get it. They don't understand it. And then others that I ask, how do you know you're going to heaven? And the ones that are sure they're going to heaven, they smile and they give me the report of good morals. I've been raised in church. I've been in church all my life, as if somehow you were saved in the womb. We are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. This message does not change. And you are not saved because of how long you've been in church. You are not saved because your morals are better than the people you keep watching on the news. The news is a great way to make you feel really good about yourself. You'll always find somebody worse than you. But that's not how you get saved, by being judged according to the standards of the worst. You and I are judged by the standards of perfection. And we all fall short. So somebody had to be perfect for us. His name is Jesus. And this message is not only when we get saved, but as we grow in our salvation, we work that out with fear and trembling, it says in Philippians, and we begin to understand our sin. Can I tell you how you know you're growing in the Lord? Not your faithful church attendance. Your awareness of your sin, your sensitivity to your own sin is evidence that you're growing in the grace of God. And the more that you see your sin, and the more that you see how incapable you are to overcome it without his grace, that's when you know you're growing in the gospel. So hear the cry of a father and counting the cost of deliverance today, and hear it applying to your life. We all need to be delivered. The wages of sin is death. And we need to feel that for us right now. For us to be delivered, there has to be death for our sin. And one of two things has to happen: we need to die that death, or someone needs to die it for us. Think about that as we look at this. Now, as we look at chapter 18, David wanted deliverance. You and I want deliverance. We don't want to go to hell. We want to be with God. David wanted to be delivered in a different way. He wanted to be rightfully on his throne, being the king of Israel that God had anointed him way back when Samuel poured that anointing oil on his head as he was a shepherd in the field. He wanted to live out that mission. He knew he had failed. He knew there were consequences, but he wanted to take and live out the ministry on the throne that God had called him to. And he was being attacked, his throne was at risk, and it was his own son. And he wanted to be delivered. But he didn't want the cost of his son to die for that deliverance. So hear the cries of David as our cries. And see the cost that David paid. And see how it is Christ who paid this cost for us. So let's walk through this together. We're going to look at the call, the cost, and the cry of good news. Let's start number one with the call. The call of good news. I'm going to show you how this applies to David's situation, and then I'm going to directly apply to how it happens in your situation. Verse 31. It says, And behold, the Cushite came, and the Cushite said, Good news for my Lord the King, for the Lord has delivered you this day from the hand of all who rose up against you. All right, the Cushite is coming, and he's coming to proclaim good news. He's saying, I have good news. I'm calling you out, King David. I'm sharing with you that you have been delivered from physical death. Your enemies have been put down. Go back and take the throne in Jerusalem that is yours. I proclaim this good news to you today. Well, we have good news. Our good news is not that we've been redeemed from physical death. No, because of our sin, our nature, all of us are going to experience physical death unless Christ comes back first. No, the good news that we are told is that we have been given deliverance from spiritual eternal death, which is separation from God. And you know what? This gospel call is, again, not just for those who are saved, but for those who need to grow in their faith. And this gospel call has a human and a divine aspect to it. When you ever you hear the term gospel call, number one, it's the sovereignty of God drawing his people, but it also happens through human beings who are willing to share this message. And sometimes we emphasize one over the other, and either way, you fall off the donkey when you try that. Either A, we think it all comes down to our call and we don't realize God has to draw, or B, we say God is the one that does the drawing. We don't realize that we're responsible to be used of God, to share this good news with people that God is drawing unto Himself, the ones that trust sovereignty but don't do evangelism. You know, the common thread, they're closing their doors. Because God won't honor that. But at the same time, we have to share, trusting that God is going to do his work. My job is not to save anybody. My job is to give a reason for the hope that I have in Jesus Christ. My job is to testify in what he's done in my life. I've had many people ask me, how do you share the gospel? There's a lot of different ways. God's not concerned about technique, God's concerned about you being faithful. Being used. Your life is not your own. If he's your Lord and Savior, that means that you are to be used of God. I'm just going to give you one example. You know, I'm not the most gifted evangelist in the world, but I, on a weekly basis, I go to Food Lion. I never go unless I have two hours. Now, it doesn't mean I always take two hours, but if I only have 15 minutes to get something and get out, I don't go to Food Lion. Because when I go to Food Lion, I have an agreement with God, I'm there for Him. And I'll go up and down every aisle and I'll say hi to people. And I never, you know, I'm not the most aggressive person. I don't track somebody down in produce and say, Man, how's your soul? I don't do that. Enough people run for me anyway. But I walk the aisles and I say, God, use me. I'm going to tell you this: not one time, not one single time in the last few years that I've been doing this, has God not led me into a spiritual conversation of some kind. It happens every single time. And there's nothing special about me. I just am open to be used of God. Now, I love the days when people are getting close to accepting Jesus and they'll say, Can you explain to me what it means to be a Christian? Man, that's like a fastball right down the middle. But that doesn't always happen that way. Being ready to share the gospel doesn't mean you just vomit out all this theology on somebody. It means that you're fully present with them and you bring the presence of Jesus into the atmosphere and you share what God has done in your life and you're open. I can tell you there's a woman at Food Lion that I see every time I go and we talk. And she hasn't been in church for a year because the church she was attending, the pastor, turned it into a political rally. And she was told to leave because she didn't vote politically the way they did. And it made me want to throw up. So you know what that woman needs? That woman needs compassion. She needs guidance. She needs love. She needs patience. And it's like a garden that you water every time. Other people that I walk in and I see that they're struggling in so many other areas of life, and I want to be used of God. So let me just get back to this. There is a call on your life. If you are saved, it's because you responded to the gospel call. Two things happened. One, somebody shared good news with you, and two, in God's sovereignty, he began to draw you and remove the blinders that you could see. He took away that heart of stone and he replaced it with the heart of flesh. So as you see this messenger, the Cushite, giving good news to David, good news of deliverance, so it is with you. If you're in the pew and you're saved, you received good news that had a human and divine aspect to it. And I want to say there are people maybe in this room, and there are certain people in this community, they haven't received that call yet. Because God is waiting for you to be his mouthpiece. Will you be willing to be used of God? Don't be scared about what you don't know. Don't be scared about what you're gonna say. Just say, God, use me. In this conversation, let me be fully present to hear them. Let me be ready to give a reason for the hope that I have for what you've done in my life. And yes, if they're ready to receive him, let me share what he's done and what he's done for them. If they'll receive him as Lord and Savior. That's the call of good news. That's number one. Number two, the cost. As you look at verse 32, the king said to the Cushite, It is it well with the young man Absalom? David wants to know, is my son still alive? And the Cushite doesn't have a very polite or gentle way of announcing this, he says, and the Cushite answered, May the enemies of my Lord the king and all who rise up against you for evil be like that young man. Translation, yeah, your son didn't make it. And David experiences two things at the same time. He's been delivered at the cost of his son. Let me just say this salvation is messy business. Sin is messy. And salvation is messy. Now I'm sure many of you in this room have watched The Passion of the Christ. Every time I ask anybody that's ever seen that movie, The Passion of the Christ, they all say the same thing. It is the most gory representation of the agony and the passion of Christ that took place on the cross. I give, you know, I, for all my, you know, if you disagree with Mel Gibson on certain things, I think it was a pretty faithful representation of how gory and bloody the crucifixion of our Lord was. But can I just say this? There was something a lot more gory and disgusting than what happened on that cross, as far as the physical shedding of blood. It was the separation of the Father from the Son. Jesus was crying out on the cross, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He was treated as an object of wrath, and he did it for us. He was hanging on that cross hour after hour on Good Friday. And you know what was happening? Of course, it's a mystery. We don't know everything, but spiritually, hour after hour, God was punishing him, pouring spiritual wrath on him. And what was the wrath he was pouring? Punishment for your thoughts and my thoughts, your words and my words, your actions and my actions, your attitudes and my attitudes. Every sin you've committed, past, present, and future, was being punished on that cross. And the reason that you and I fall asleep when we've heard this message for the thousandth time is we don't see our sin on that cross. I want to say this a couple of years ago, I was reminded about this because of Memorial Day. A couple of years ago, well, many years ago, now I was a youth pastor here at the time, so it would have been over 15 plus years ago. We had this amazing military tribute at this church. I'll never forget this. And one of the men that was attending the service was a retired veteran who had seen active military duty. I think he had seen active warfare, active combat. And at the invitation, he came all the way down to the altar and buried his face in the carpet and he wept. I mean, he wept. And as I looked at that man, Miss Dixie knows this. Others that have been in the foxhole know this. That when you look at that flag, you can smell the smoke of the gun. You can think of Agent Orange. You can feel the pressure and the thought that you're going to die any moment. You can enter into that moment because you've been there and experienced it. I think one of the reasons that we don't get that emotional over the gospel, we don't get that emotion over salvation because we don't see our sin on the cross. We don't feel it. We really do think we're going to get to heaven because of our good morals. We really do think God saw something good in us. So he did us a solid. We don't see the disgusting aspect of our nature and our sin and God's amazing grace and his inexhaustible love that he would look at us and say, I don't want you to die. I want to die for you. I want to take this punishment on. We don't feel it because we think we're better than we are. My plea is let us go lower. Let us go deeper in this message today. Let us feel the weight of our sin. When his feet, his palms and his feet were nailed into that Roman cross, and you hear the nails go in. I want you to think about your thoughts that put him there. Your arrogance that put him there, your judgment over other people that put him there. Everything that you and I have done that has put him there. Let's feel the weight of it, the cost that he's done. I guess the more that I'm walking with him, the more that I'm feeling the weight of my own pride and my own arrogance and my own failures that put him on this cross. It was necessary because he's perfect and he's holy. But it's possible because he's loving and his grace is greater than all of our sin. And the ones in this room that recognize the need for his grace, whoo, they're the ones that are going to receive it. God opposes the proud, but he gives grace to the humble. Have you counted the cost of the gospel that was announced to you? Have you counted the cost? The Father and the Son were separated so that you could be reunited. The Son was murdered so that you could live. David recognized the cost of his physical deliverance, and he wept, as we're going to see next, over the loss of his son. So that brings us number three. We've gone from the call of the good news, the cost of the good news, the cry of the good news, number three. Verse 33, it says, And the king was deeply moved and went up to the chamber over the gate and wept. And as he wept, he said, O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom, would I have died instead of you? O Absalom, my son, my son. This was a cry for a sacrificial substitute for death instead of his son. He looked at his son and he said, Why had I died instead? Would I have died instead of you? Why can't it be me? Why can't it be me? Well, can I say something about Jesus? Theologians call this the covenant of redemption. It's an agreement that God made before the world was ever created. Sometimes we think that God created the world and then he was surprised by our sin, and then Jesus had to come and say, Well, didn't know this was going to happen, but since you messed it up, I might as well fix it. No, Jesus knew before there was anything that was created, that when he created people in his image and gave them the moral freedom to choose him as Lord and Savior or not, he knew that they would not choose him. He knew that Adam and Eve would eat of the forbidden fruit. He knew that they would turn away from him because they wanted to be their own God, and he knew they would need a savior. So he agreed before the foundations of the earth that he would come and offer that salvation. He knew. He cried out to the Father and He said, Let it be me. Let me be their substitute. It says in Galatians chapter 4, verses 4 through 5. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who are under the law so they might receive adoption as sons. When the fullness of time had come, the Father said to his son, It's time for you to go. It's time for you to become one of them. It's time for you to live perfectly the way they should have. It's time for you to die sacrificially the way that they deserve. It's time for you to rise supernaturally, making a way from death to life. And soon it'll be time for you to rise and come back to me so we can send down the Holy Spirit. And there will be a time where the Father says to the Son, Go and get your bride. And it's sooner than we think. This is the cry. David cries, saying, He wish it could be him, and Jesus cries, Let it be me. So let me just land this plane. Let me just make this as real as I can be. I'm going to be as practical as I can in these last few moments. Let me sum it up in one sentence and then apply this to our lives. In one sentence. Again, our good news comes at the great cost of Jesus seeing our condemnation and crying out, Let it be me. David says, I wish it could have been me. Jesus says it will be me. Romans chapter 5, verse 8 says, But God shows us his love for us, and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Jody chose a perfect song today, and those words were right in the lyrics. Jesus didn't come because you're a good person. He came because you're not. He didn't come because he saw something good in you. He came because he knew there would be no good apart from him. He came out of his great love. Yes, I do want to say this. Jesus loves you more than I could ever put into words. And you need to know his love. And you need to know his tenderness and his humility and his grace. But you also need to know why he came. Because you have no good apart from him. Now, up until this point, I've spoken in generalities. So some of you may be tempted to wiggle out of this, but I'm gonna apply this as we close. Now I'm not saying that everybody in this room is guilty of everything I'm gonna list, but everybody in this room is guilty of at least one of the things I'm gonna list. And I guarantee that's part of what put Jesus on the cross. So as the as the soldier that bowed at the altar wept because he could enter into that moment of warfare, enter into the moment of the cross at Calvary and see your sin that put him there. Hear these words. When we deserved eternal condemnation for thinking we are better than someone else because their sins are different than ours, Jesus cried out, let it be me. When we deserved eternal condemnation for thinking we are more worthy of grace than someone else because of our background, Jesus cries out, let it be me. When we deserve eternal condemnation for worshiping our children, worshiping our achievements, and worshiping our possessions more than worshiping God, Jesus cries out, let it be me. When we deserve eternal condemnation for dehumanizing others on social media because they don't hold our political views, Jesus cries out, let it be me. When we deserve eternal condemnation for ignoring the poor, the needy, the outcasts of society, because they are a burden and a distraction to us, Jesus cries out, let it be me. When we deserve eternal condemnation for justifying our racism by repeating the ignorant words of our ancestors, Jesus cries out, let it be me. When we deserve eternal condemnation for ignoring God completely until we have a crisis and we need his help, and then we come crawling back to him in desperation, Jesus cries out, let it be me. When we deserve eternal condemnation for believing we are a good moral person who can get to heaven without him, Jesus cries out, let it be me. You need Jesus. As much as the person you're sticking your nose up at on Fox News in our neighborhood, sitting on the other side of the church, that you think you're better than because your morals are better. You are not better, your family is not better, your generation is not better, your ethnicity is not better, your money is not better, your wisdom and intelligence is not better. God does not look at it that way. And if we're looking at it that way, Lord, tear down the walls of this church. Tear them down. If we think at any time we are more deserving of the grace of God than anybody, this is so heavy on my heart right now. It really is. Gosh, to see people weep over the things of the world, so disgusted with the news, and yet never shed a tear on your own sin. How can you be so happy with yourself? How can you fall asleep to this message and be so angry and disgusted at those people? When you look at them, see the mirror pointing right back at you, and hear the cry of Jesus as the cry of a king saying, I wish it were me. Jesus says, Let it be me. He did that so that you and I don't have to experience separation from God. You know, I'll close by saying this. The year after I got saved, I met a guy. What a sweet, sweet man. He had been in jail for many years. He had some drug issues, and he got saved in prison, and then he got redeemed. His name was Chuck. In fact, he came and spoke at Brotherhood like 10 years ago. And he has a ministry. He goes into the prisons and brings Gideon Bibles because he was saved with the Gideon Bible. And I had just gotten saved, but I didn't fully understand the gospel. And I went to a Bible study he was leading in Rinkin. And I said to him, in my ignorance, again, I'm a new believer, I'm not fully understanding this. I said to him, Chuck, I'm 27, that's how old I was at the time. I said, Chuck, I've given my life to Jesus, but you're telling me, according to this message, that even though I never really committed any crimes, even though I lived a good, moral, upright life, even though I, you know, I never went to prison, I never had these major issues that you had, you're telling me that if I had died in a car accident or if I something had happened to me, if I had died of pneumonia, if I had something had happened to me before I gave my life to Jesus at 27, you're telling me I would go to hell and be separated from God forever? And I'll never forget, without even having to scream it, he just looked at me and he shook his head. He said, Yeah. You would be going to hell. You and I don't realize this. We don't recognize how close you and I have been to being separated from God forever and how we would have deserved to be that way. But in his love, Jesus said, Let it be me. He said, Let it be me. So as we draw to a close, can I just say this? That's more important than whatever you struggle you brought into this room this morning. I understand we've got struggles in this world. I understand that we've got real issues, physical, spiritual, relational, emotional, financial. I'm not downsizing those. But the answer to all of those, whether he fixes those earthly issues or not, is Jesus because he's already taken care of what's most important. More of Jesus is the answer to whatever it is that you're struggling with. He may or may not do what it is that you ask him to do, but you don't need him to do something. You need him. Whether he does it or not. So as we pray, I just want you to enter into this moment. Do you see your own sin on that cross? Do you see your need for him? Do you hear the cry of a king that says, Let it be me? This is good news, but it's been offered at a great cost. That's the invitation to listen to the cry of the king here this morning as we pray. Jesus, I again I feel so inadequate, so absolutely inadequate.

SPEAKER_00 37:03

Help us to see it. Help us to feel it. Help us to say, I put him there. My arrogance put you there. My pride put you there. I am where I am in my life because of me, of my sin and my need for you, Lord. I put the nails in your wrists and in your feet. I did it. You said, let it be mini. Let it be the mini. I don't want you to be without me forever. Let it be mini. Lord, never let me forget this message. Never let me get over the gospel. Never let me think that my life is about me. Use me, Lord, use me. Use me to share this gospel. Make this church desperate, Lord, for you. And for those that are sleep, let them go to another church. They're the plenty of sleeping churches, Lord. They're not full of sleeping churches, Lord. Let us be one of them. Make a sup, Lord. Make us up for the wake of the sup for you. Oh Jesus, I hate you. I hate you, Jesus. Make me a fool for you. Make me a fool for you. I don't care what these people think of me. I will never be ashamed of you again, Jesus. I will never be ashamed of you again. Oh God, be with us. Oh God, be with us. Oh God, be with us. We're dead. We need to be alive. Wake us up. Wake us up. Wake us up. Oh God, wake us up.