Made for the moment

Introduction

In 1937, a man by the name of Neville Chamberlain took office as the prime minister of England, and at the same time, it was a man who was leading Germany by the name of Adolf Hitler. And Hitler had been armamenting the German forces. He had been breaking many of the accords that had been outlined for the German people to keep them sort of defenseless because of the issues that led to World War I. Neville as well as all of England and France saw these things happen and yet they didn't really do much to address those issues. Finally Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia and at that moment there was a real need for a talk and so they sat down, Neville Chamberlain and Adolf Hitler, minister of France as well, and they came to a treaty and an agreement to sort of pacify Germany and get them to sort of behave at this moment. Neville came back to England and declared it is peace for our time that it was peace and yet at the same time it was wrong because what Neville did not understand, what he constantly failed to understand, is the aggression and the desire and the passion of the German people to expand throughout Europe for world and global domination in many ways, and this idealism that they were going to carry forth was something that the English people needed to prepare for.

Well, eventually Germany invaded Poland and in 1939, Britain declared war on Germany. But in that meantime, they had not prepared their forces or their armies or their defenses for a war that was coming. And even then, as Neville got his cabinet together for war and they began to make plans, Neville was so passive, always seeking consensus among these people in his cabinet, never deciding and giving direction and orders to the people. And so through this passivity, there were blunders and the German forces began to advance and they were not addressing these issues fast enough. They were not preparing for the war that was at their borders quickly enough. And finally the English people as well as Parliament lost confidence in Neville, he resigned from his position, and one of his greatest critics, a man by the name of Winston Churchill—who had long critiqued the passivity, who had long critiqued the underestimating of the German forces, who had long said we need to be doing more, we need to be preparing for war, we need to be active in this, we need to be engaged in this, we need to do something—finally he took lead as the prime minister of England and it changed everything quickly and decisively. England began to prepare and armament for war in a way that was almost too late. But that activity, that action actually wound up saving the English people because it was just enough, just enough of the time to rescue them. Secretly, even before Chamberlain had become the prime minister, Churchill had already been building relationships with other global leaders including FDR in America. He had already been preparing for ways that he could get supplies and other things that they were so not prepared for at that time.

If action leads to a kind of salvation, passivity can lead to destruction and tyranny. Action, taking action in doing something, can lead to a kind of salvation. And a passivity and an indecisiveness to do anything allows evil forces to continue to advance, for their kingdom to continue to build and to grow strong. Today we're going to be looking at that same sort of story as we pick up in 1 Samuel 11. And we're going to see in the time in the day that there was some passivity going on leading up to this moment. And yet the call is for people to step into the moment to answer God's call to bring his salvation, to promote and advance his kingdom. And the people of Israel definitely carried that call. They were a unique kind of people that their justice and their ordering of society and the ways that they worship were supposed to impact all the lands around them. And the more that that kingdom began to grow and grow strong, the more that it would influence and bring goodness and peace into the lands around it. It would show them who they should be, who they were created and who God wanted them to be and how he wanted them to live.

Scripture Reading: 1 Samuel 11

So let's take a look here as we look at 1 Samuel chapter 11. We're going to be reading the whole chapter. It's not a long chapter this morning.

"Then Nahash the Ammonite went up and besieged Jabesh-gilead. And all the men of Jabesh said to Nahash, 'Make a treaty with us and we will serve you.' But Nahash the Ammonite said to them, 'On this condition I will make a treaty with you, that I gouge out all your right eyes and thus bring disgrace on all Israel.' The elders of Jabesh said to him, 'Give us seven days' respite that we may send messengers throughout all the territory of Israel. And if there is no one to save us, we will give ourselves up to you.' When the messengers came to Gibeah of Saul, they recorded the matter in the ears of the people, and all the people wept aloud. Now behold, Saul was coming from the field behind the oxen. And Saul said, 'What is wrong with the people that they are weeping?' So they told him the news of the men of Jabesh. And the Spirit of God rushed upon Saul when he heard these words, and his anger was greatly kindled. He took a yoke of oxen and cut them in pieces and sent them throughout all the territory of Israel by the hand of the messengers, saying, 'Whoever does not come out after Saul and Samuel, so shall it be done to his oxen!' Then the dread of the Lord fell on the people, and they came out as one man. When he mustered them at Bezek, the people of Israel were 300,000, and the men of Judah 30,000. And they said to the messengers who had come, 'Thus shall you say to the men of Jabesh-gilead: Tomorrow by the time the sun is hot, you shall have salvation.' When the messengers came and told the men of Jabesh, they were glad. Therefore the men of Jabesh said, 'Tomorrow we will give ourselves up to you, and you may do to us whatever seems good to you.' And the next day Saul put the people in three companies. And they came into the midst of the camp in the morning watch and struck down the Ammonites until the heat of the day. And those who survived were scattered, so that no two of them were left together. Then the people said to Samuel, 'Who is it that said, "Shall Saul reign over us?" Bring the men, that we may put them to death.' But Saul said, 'Not a man shall be put to death this day, for today the Lord has worked salvation in Israel.' Then Samuel said to the people, 'Come, let us go to Gilgal and there renew the kingdom.' So all the people went to Gilgal, and there they made Saul king before the Lord in Gilgal. There they sacrificed peace offerings before the Lord, and there Saul and all the men of Israel rejoiced greatly."

Recognizing the Need Around Us

What we see in this chapter, there's a few things I just want to take a macro look at this. First off, we see an army that is growing. One of the things to make you know is that Jabesh-gilead is in probably the upper northeastern part of Israel. It's actually on the other side of the Jordan River. It's in a frontier town. So, it borders on an enemy nation. It's on the outskirts right there. And as you know in all times that's kind of a dangerous place because you're on the verge of these other armies who don't always like you, these other nations that don't like you. And this is a really important time for the people of Israel to understand because on the west coast they have the Philistines who have been looming large and who have been causing wars and problems all of a sudden. And now the Ammonites to the east have begun to advance and move into Israel on this side. And there's a pressure creating to happen. There's an activity by these warring nations. And this threatens Israel. This threatens their way of life. This threatens their survival. And so it's not just the people of Jabesh-gilead that need salvation. Israel needs to not underestimate the armies. They were just like Neville Chamberlain underestimated Germany. It can be very easy for these people to underestimate.

But we also in this chapter have a people—and we can so easily forget—there is a sin-sick people surrounded, in need of rescue and help. They are getting terrorized by an evil king who wants to essentially kill them, but on a bargain to gouge out their right eye, and what's salvation from there? And so there's a need for someone to come, and so they somehow bargain for a 7-day sort of reprieve and send messengers out. And that's what we're getting picked up as we look at this today. As we look at this chapter, this is really about answering God's call to bring salvation to a people. And it's going to focus primarily on Saul and Saul's role and the people's role who will join him in this. But it's ultimately that the people are called to action, not to passivity. They're not called to watch the armies around grow strong while they do nothing. They're not called to say, "Well, that's another city. It's not in my neighborhood, so it's not my problem." They must stand and bring the salvation of God to the borders and to the people around them. If action, as I said, leads to salvation, passivity will lead to tyranny and to destruction.

And as we look at this movement of how we answer God's call, we're going to see the need and the response and the result that comes from this. The first thing that we look at right here is the need. Salvation starts by recognizing the need, recognizing it. And it's so easy to underestimate or ignore or be unaware of the needs that are going on. Saul right here, this is a very interesting thing. So there's been terrorization. The Philistines are growing strong, now the Ammonites over here are threatening this side of the country, there's all sorts of things happening. And we saw in the last chapter that Israel had anointed a king to rule over them, to lead them out to fight their battles. And so as we zoom in on this chapter, where do we find the king? He's out in the field. What was he doing? Is he out there building his kingdom? Is he getting the military forces ready because of the threats that have already been brewing? It's not like this just happened yesterday. Has he been preparing the nation? Has he been reviving the nation and their religious worship in the land which had been really thrown off? Is he working with Samuel for reform in the nation? No, he's farming. He's not being king. He's not being active.

Now, Saul in a minute is going to respond. But I want you to know this about Saul. This is one of the things that as I study this book, I've begun to see: one of the problems with Saul is a constant indecisiveness, a constant passivity that's found in Saul. He doesn't want to be king. He doesn't want to step out of his world where he's comfortable, where he's wealthy, where things are going good. Because to step out, you see, you have to serve. You have to build the infrastructure of the nation. You have to enlist forces. You have to be responsible for making all kinds of calls. And Saul does not rise to the occasion so many times. He won't stand to the occasion when Samuel says, "You need to wait for the sacrifice." He's like, "Well, I need to pivot, I need to do something." He won't stand when his son thinks, "We need to go attack the Philistines, and I've just got an armor bearer and one sword, but I'm going." And Saul, meanwhile, is sitting under a tree trying to figure out what to do. He won't respond when this giant Philistine threatens the armies of Israel. Here's Saul: "I don't know what to do." And a boy shows up with a slingshot and says, "I know what to do." Saul is plagued by indecisiveness all of his life. He underestimates the need of his time so often. But in this moment, because the Spirit of God rushes upon Saul, He brings awareness and helps him to see the need of his time. And it's so important for us to realize the need of our time because that's the only way salvation will begin to advance.

And one of the things I want to also point out about this is just the imagery. Saul's not just farming. He's behind—the text literally says he's behind the oxen, he's after the oxen. So you've got to get this mental picture. Who's leading Saul? Is Saul a man of action? Is he a man taking charge? No, he's walking behind oxen. He's being led around by these farm animals. He's not standing and being the king that he's called to be and has not recognized up to this moment the need of his time. Part of recognizing the need is also though to just inquire. Even for us, you know, Saul says, "What's the problem? Why are the people weeping?" And this is an important thing. As I've really meditated and thought about this, I thought about our own culture of individualism and how we sort of don't want to get involved. And this is just the brokenness of our culture that's so individualistic. We feel that we're going to intrude on people's lives, so we stay quiet, instead of saying, "How are you doing?" Leaning in a little bit. You know that when there's brokenness, when we see the brokenness in people's lives, we think, "Well, I don't want to get involved, I don't want to offend, I don't want to make you uncomfortable, I don't want to ask a question." And yet, there's something about that that makes us unloving and unaware of needs. And sometimes just by inquiring, just by leaning into that uncomfortable space and saying, "Are you okay? Do you really need to talk?" Because our culture isn't wired to do that. We don't lean into one another's lives. We think mind your own business.

One of the questions that the scriptures ask at the very beginning of the Bible, when Cain kills his brother, he turns to God and says, "Am I my brother's keeper? Am I responsible for my brother? Should I be looking after and inquiring into his life?" In other words, the answer of scripture constantly is yes. Yes, you are your brother's keeper. You see the needs in people's lives. You can't just pass by and act like you didn't see it or you didn't notice or you don't want to ask them because you're afraid that it might make people uncomfortable. Ask the question. It's one of the most loving things that you can do, and it helps you to then realize the need around you by just inquiring into the need of our time.

Like the Ammonites, there is an enemy in our way. Now we can mystify the enemy, we can see it wrongly, we can think that it's the people around us that are the enemy. It's not the people. There is ultimately a darkness and there is an evil power, these supernatural powers of Satan and his kingdom that are advancing. And yes, they are working through people and institutions and all sorts of things to move their efforts forward. But we must never forget: it's not the people. The church is in the saving business. We should see the people as in need of rescue. Ultimately, it's the dark forces that are advancing these agendas. They're the ones that we need to be fighting against. We need to see the need of our time: the enemy that's redefining the family, the enemy that's redefining identity and what it means to be human or man or woman or any of these things, the enemy who is taking evil and making it good and good and making it evil and distorting justice and distorting morality in ways that we don't even know, saying "you just decide for yourself what it is." We need to recognize how everything is being turned over in our time. We need to recognize the need. A generation of children are growing up and don't even know the Bible. They don't even know who Moses is. Talk to some teachers, they'll tell you. They don't even know the Bible characters. There is a need in our time. We should see the pain and the sorrow and the depression and all of the things that are rising in our time. And will we do anything about it? Will we not inquire? Will we not investigate? Will we just stay in our own safety, in our own realms, doing our own thing, just praying and hoping the world does better? Now, don't get me wrong, prayer is a good thing, petition is a good thing, but let that move you into action. Just let that make you available. Lord, like Isaiah said, "Send me, I'll go. Put me somewhere, show me where." And allow the Lord to direct and to take that need and to move you forward.

And so much of the need—I'm just going to pull this out for just a second—so much of the need is just recognizing the time around you. Colossians 4:5 hits on this. Colossians 4:5 says, "Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time." If you read that in Greek, it says making or redeeming or purchasing in the Greek, purchasing or redeeming. And then that word for time, it's not the regular word for time, which is chronos. It's kairos. It's an appointed moment in time. And as you look around the world that you are placed in, you have to ask yourself, has the Lord put you here for such a time as this? To meet some of the needs around you, to not be looking to the future or the next day or the next things on the horizon, but looking around in your neighborhood, looking around in your community, looking around in your home and your family and saying, "What is the need of this time and what am I called to do to make the best use of that time in my life?" God, show us.

Responding to the Need

But it begins by recognizing the need. The second thing that we're going to see, because the challenge is not just recognizing the need, but responding to the need—not just shrugging it off or feeling bad about it. And so we see that there is the need for the response. The need requires a response. It doesn't just require empathy, it doesn't just require, "Oh, isn't that too bad?" or sorrow or tears. It doesn't require just prayer. Like I said, though, it should require some prayer because we fight with weapons not of this world, and God moves through the prayers that we utter up to God because God will use those prayers to activate us as well as the people around us. God will move through our prayers by his Spirit just like he does in this text. What does he do with Saul? The Spirit of God—people probably wept and prayed right before that, right? As Saul's out there in the field doing his thing, God hears those things, and in that moment when Saul hears that news, who moves first? The Spirit of God moves and he compels Saul to step in and to act.

Now notice this as well: Saul cuts those oxen up and he sends them throughout the land. He throws down the gauntlet. In other words, it's time, we've got to do something about this. We've got to go bring salvation to the borders and the ends of our country. We need to fight for our way of life, we need to fight and proclaim our kingdom, God's kingdom, into this land around us. And it says the fear of God fell upon the people. God prompted their hearts. They could have shrugged it off, they could have said, "Don't listen to Saul, that guy's a farmer, he's no king." The fear not of Saul, but the fear of God moved the people to respond. And so it's not just Saul in this moment that rises up, but because Saul stands up, the people also join him in this effort to be conduits of God's salvation in the land. And so we see here the response: Saul stands and takes action because passivity does not bring salvation. The Ammonites and the Philistines will not relent.

The response must move you to step out, to step out of your comfort zone, to step out of your own domain in life. For Saul, his life is comfortable. Life is good where he's at. Jabesh-gilead is on the far borders of Israel, across the Jordan. That's not his problem, that's not his prerogative. Why does he need to worry about that? He doesn't even want to be king, right? Because life is good exactly as it is, and there's no reason for Saul to want to step out and deliver some people. Couldn't he just sort of minimize the need? We can rationalize things in all sorts of ways. And God oftentimes will call you, he will show you the need, and he will call you to respond. And you can so easily rationalize that thing in your life: "Oh, it's no big deal. Oh, you know, it's out there on the borders, why are we worried about something like that?" Because we know the cost to respond. It is always costly to respond to the call of God in our life, to step out into these places and say, "I'll be obedient, I'll go." And that alone means sacrifice, it means sometimes discomfort, it means being available in ways that you don't always want to be available. That's what the response calls for, and you see Saul right here step out of his own domain, his own world, to go answer and address the problems of the world around him. And the call is the same for you and for me to do that same sort of thing, to step out of our comfort zones and our comfortable places of life and put it behind us.

And what does Saul do in this moment? I want you to see this: Saul is behind the oxen, he's a farmer plowing the fields. And when he hears this news, he walks over, and there's all sorts of commentary and debates about what does this mean. Here's what I want you to know: when he kills those oxen, he is putting to death that whole way of life. He is leaving his farm life behind. "I'm done, I'm moving on. I am going to now step into the person, the man, the woman that God called me to be. I'm sacrificing this and I'm done, I'm moving beyond." And so the oxen are gone, the farm life is gone, the kingship for Saul—he's stepping into the man that God's called him to be. And the same for you and me: we are to put aside these things in life, our comforts, sometimes our way of life, the things that we hold dear, and say, "No, the things that I love, I now put those things aside to embrace and to respond in the ways that God calls us to respond," to show up, to let the need drive us to respond.

And you know what? You may hesitate in those moments. You'll say, "I'm not prepared, I don't know anything about being king, I'm not good at this." And yet we see that throughout scripture. People could have said the same thing. Moses said, "I'm too old, I'm ill-equipped, I can't do this." Sarah laughed when she heard the news that she would have a baby at 90 years old. Gideon said, "I'm the least in all the tribes of Israel, what can I do?" People are constantly giving God excuses about why they shouldn't have to go. And yet God takes a young girl in a foreign nation named Esther and uses her to bring deliverance for her people. God takes a shepherd boy and brings him to face a giant and uses him to be the deliverer for his people. God always equips you for what he calls you to. He is with you in the battlefield. That's the thing that David understood. David's like, "I'm not alone, I'm not alone." And it's so important to understand that when you step out, when you put aside the old life and you embrace what God has for you, he is with you. He will raise up people and he will use that. The Spirit of God is moving through Saul, he's compelling him, and you are joining God. God is not joining you. Saul is joining what God is doing. God is the one that is pushing this thing forward, and Saul is just being obedient to that. And as we are obedient, God is moving through our lives to bring his salvation, his kingdom, his purposes into the land.

There is a need for leadership, there is a need for each of us to step into our calling for God's people in some way, to take a stand and to join the effort. We simply cannot look at the needs of the world, the growing oppression of the enemy, the destruction of families, the distortion of morality, and do nothing. The enemy forces, Satan and his forces, are rising. Will the people of God recognize the need of their time? Or will we be like Chamberlain and take that passive approach? Or like Saul, just keep plowing the field, tending to our own lives, seeking our own comfort? When we look at the needs of the world around us—a generation growing up that knows nothing about the Bible, the culture shifting into further ungodliness, people who long for hope but live in captivity—the church is called to answer that need, to bring hope to the hopeless, to bring the message of the gospel to those who so desperately need it, to proclaim freedom to the captive, sight to the blind, healing to the sick and the lame, to realize that we are not called to be out of the world, we're called to be in the world, not of it, to step into God's kingdom and his plan, to enter into his ways of loving our neighbor, loving our King, living out the kingdom, seeking the common good. And God will open up doors in places where we live and work and play, and use us in those ordinary spaces, redeeming the time to bring his salvation.

The key is to be aware of the needs around you: to wake up, to not underestimate the enemy, to not hesitate, to not live in our own bubble, but to recognize that our neighbor, the teen at the cash register, the woman or man in the workout group—ask God to give you eyes to see the need of the people around you, to love the unloved, to engage in the world around you, to talk to your neighbor, to show care for the lives of the people around you, to seek ways to draw people into our lives so that we might present the gospel to them, to identify those in spiritual or physical poverty or bondage and tyranny, and bring God's grace and truth into those places, to bring the good news of life, of healing, identity, purpose, and peace into this world. In a nutshell, to let our light shine. And we can't do it by sitting on the couch idly doing nothing, binging Netflix, doom-scrolling on our phone. We can't insulate our life from the world around us. We must respond. Respond to the needs and the growing aggression of the evil one. We must fight—not for ourselves, but for our families, for our neighbors, for our enemies, for the unborn, for the enslaved in the sex industry, for the prisoner, for all who need salvation. And if we will step into these places, we will become that conduit of God's salvation.

The Realized Salvation

The final result is that salvation is realized by the response and the obedience of people. For some reason, God works through people. Now, God delivers—sometimes he called the people of Israel to just show up on the edge of the battlefield so they could watch the Lord bring deliverance, but it still required them to show up, even if it was just to stand and watch what the Lord might do. And at times we'd be amazed if we will just stand and show up in places and see how the Lord will open up doors for us. A few months ago I was sitting in a restaurant and a waitress came up, and I just felt like in this moment the Lord said, "Ask how you can pray." So I just said, "Hey, can I pray for you? I don't know your background, but is there anything I could pray for?" I was having lunch with a guy and asked to pray for her, and she just started crying, and all of this stuff was going on in her life, all this brokenness, and it was just an opportunity. I didn't do anything, I just asked, "Can I pray?" But God had set it up—it was kairos time. It was a time that God had ordained in this moment to meet with her, to let her know that he sees her, that he invites her into relationship with him. It was a moment for the gospel. But God did that when we just become available and then we become conduits. It's just the obedience and the action of being willing to say, "Send me, Lord," that makes us available, and then God brings the deliverance.

Saul steps up and the Lord begins gathering the people of God around him. Good leaders don't bring salvation themselves; ultimately, they connect people to God's salvation. Good leaders connect people to God's salvation. They order the kingdom the way that God wants it done, they promote justice in the land, and live out the virtues and characteristics and worship and submission to God as King. That king points to the ultimate true King, God, and ordering the land in that manner connects the people to God's salvation. So often in the scriptures, God says, "If you will just live before me and worship me and obey me, I will bring blessing upon you." And as I've talked about before, that word blessing is this idea of God bringing life and healing and goodness and provision and protection, all these things that the people need, meeting their deepest needs. That's the blessing. It's not just growing your pocketbook, it's causing you to thrive in him, to connect you to his life-giving power. That's ultimately what a good king does as he is obedient to the word of God in his own life. A good king will connect people to God's salvation.

And even Saul recognizes this in the moment. It wasn't his salvation. He says it in the text: "It's the Lord that has worked salvation today." He just stood up and said, "We need to do something," and God gathered the army around him and delivered the people. The Lord worked salvation. We build the kingdom by calling people to love that true King, to live the kingdom, and to seek the common good in the world. That's what leaders do, that's what you and I do, because each and every day as we are obedient to God, we live out the kingdom. Think about what Jesus constantly called us to do. We're living out the ways God called us to live, and that light shines in this world and it impacts the people around us. It will change them, and it will save them and heal them. The kingdom expands through our obedience to God. His salvation will come through that, and that salvation leads to a response of worship in our life. We come and respond and obey because once we realize that we have been saved, God brings about that salvation for us.

Romans 12:1—I'm going to flip there for just a second. "I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship." That word for worship in the Greek is not the typical word for worship; it's actually this word for worship as service, as work. It's like a work-ship. That's why it's translated as spiritual service. To order your life, to submit your life, and through that activity, that showing up—that's our worship to God. That's our ordering of our life and being submissive to him and carrying out his callings and his purposes for our life. That is our response in worship. Once you receive that in your own life—when you realize the salvation of God in your own life, it will lead you to a response of worship. It will lead you to a response of loving the King and the kingdom at the end of the day, so that you will give your life to serve him, to be completely turned to him.

Forty years later, after Saul has saved this city, Saul goes into battle and dies, and the Philistines take his body to hang on the wall to mock him. And do you know what happened? It says that the men of Jabesh-gilead went across into Philistine territory, and they fought and took Saul's body off that wall so they could give him a proper burial, because they remembered the man who 40 years before had brought them salvation. In that same way, when we realize how King Jesus has brought salvation to us, it makes us devoted. Our whole life is for him. We will do anything for him. And so it calls us to live for him and see what he might do through us.

Summary

So where does that leave us in this story? Are we called to answer God's command and calling and prompting to serve our world? Yes. But you know what's ironic about the story? No one really starts off playing the role of the king or the savior. Saul was literally walking behind oxen. The people were sitting around waiting for somebody else to stand up and do something. No one is going to step up and lead without the prompting of God. Even the people only respond because the fear of God falls upon them. God is moving and prompting people. And so what we see on this day is that God brings salvation. He raises someone up. But ultimately, I want you to know that without God, there is no salvation. Without him doing the prompting, setting people up, and going before them to fight the battle, without him anointing and equipping the people for the day, there is no salvation.

You know, Saul brings salvation today, but tomorrow he's going to cower. He's going to become self-seeking. He's going to, like so many kings, falter. He's going to be indecisive at times, disobedient to God, abusing his authority, promoting his own kingdom. And so we constantly see that we need a better king. Our human kings fail us. And you know what? We fail ourselves. We sit like the people of Israel, waiting for something to happen, waiting for some sort of salvation, but we're passive. We long for something better, someone who doesn't fail us. So God sends us a true King. He sends us the true champion we really need. And he's not just a human king—he is God, fully God and fully man. Jesus is the King and the champion that we all really long for. In a dark world, when our leaders fail us, when we fail ourselves, we need someone. Human kings bring salvation for a day, but then they falter and fail. Even in the movies, the Supermans and Captain Americas falter, fail, and lack something. They lack what the true champion provides—one who does not fail, one who has not sinned, one who does not falter or stumble, one who shows us who we were really called to be, who God made us to be, and he goes out before us and fights for us.

And so this creates an act of worship in our own hearts as we see King Jesus go and bring about a deliverance for us that we all need, to heal us, and he calls us to himself. All that we long for is found in him, and then he changes us and shapes us. Think about this for just a second: Christ did everything for us, just like for the men of Jabesh. He acted for us and brought the salvation we so desperately needed. And that loyalty begins to rise up in us, that worship rises up in us. And through that worship, he changes us to make us new by the power of his Spirit—not to make us like Saul, but to deliver us and to give us his Spirit that enlivens us, quickens us, and makes us reflect the values of the kingdom and reflect the King himself.

And ultimately, one day, we will reign with him. In Revelation 5:9-10, because of what Jesus has done: "By your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth." God builds his kingdom—his eternal, everlasting kingdom—the kingdom that you and I are destined for, and the kingdom he is already building and proclaiming and releasing in this world. Each time that the church takes shape and loves and lives and worships as a community, she becomes an outpost of the kingdom in her community and in these little pockets of the world all over. We have this kingdom expansion making these kingdom pockets in the land of darkness, fighting against the forces of evil in the land around them. It's already happening now. But ultimately, one day, as he transforms us, as he heals us, as he makes us more and more like our true King, his kingdom will come in its fullness, and we, like ambassadors of Christ, like mini-kings and mini-queens reigning in his kingdom on earth, become these regents of royalty. How do we do that? By living in accordance with how God wants us to live, reflecting our true King. Do you see the link there? We see our true King, we become like him, and then he deposits us into this world to spread his way and his rule in the land.

So where are you in this story? Are you following the oxen, living in your own world where it's comfortable, not wanting to see the need or to respond? Are you passive, waiting for someone to tell you what to do? Or are you in need of a Savior? God is here to meet you where you are. He is the King that sends his Spirit, and he calls and equips us to step out and to bring about his kingdom. But you know, some days you do find yourself like the people of Jabesh, surrounded by an enemy army. It's hard, you feel cornered, you feel enslaved to a sin, you feel alone and isolated. So be reminded that he made a King for us who brings us salvation, who will deliver you from whatever is holding you, who will heal you from whatever brokenness you're going through, who never leaves, who never forsakes, and who ultimately calls you alongside him to bring his salvation to the world when you receive him as your King.

Closing Prayer

Let's pray.

Lord, we just thank you for the holy calling you call us to. You didn't just save us and leave us inactive in this world, but you saved us and called us to form a community of people who will ultimately bring God's peace, justice, love, grace, power, and healing into this world. That we would become an outpost that shines your light, that proclaims and lives out your kingdom in the ways that we love, in the ways that we pray, in the ways that we befriend, in the ways that we serve. Even within our church, God, we form a community—we become something in this world that other people need and love. In a world of isolation and individualism, the church and the people of God, through their activity, service, and love, become that kingdom outpost that you've called us to be. We thank you that we also have a better and true King who does not fail, who doesn't just give us salvation for the day, but a salvation that does not end. And we rejoice in that. In your name we pray, Amen.