>> All right, good morning church family, happy Lord's Day. We will begin now by praising his name and worshiping our holy God. >> Amen, you may be seated. >> My name is Priscilla Chen, and I'm a freshman in the college ministry, and today I'll be sharing my testimony with you all.

Before attending Berean, starting in high school, I grew up in another church that was really like a second home to me. I knew all the other kids and their families. My parents were both leaders in the church, and my siblings and I were very involved in church activities. I was convinced that my Christian-like deeds and shallow knowledge of God and the Bible were enough to prove that I was a Christian, and in 2017, I got baptized.

A month after I was baptized, our youth pastor passed away unexpectedly at a young age, and it shook the youth ministry and church as a whole. What a fragile illusion of faith I had was completely shattered as I turned in anger towards God, questioning why he had cut short the life of a man so dedicated to the church and his ministry.

I soon began to doubt the existence of God altogether, refusing to believe that this could be part of the plan of a God who truly loved his people. As I dwelt on past memories, I was consumed by overwhelming guilt about the reflection of Christ's love my pastor had shown to me all those years that I had taken for granted and casually dismissed.

Guilt, coupled with my growing unbelief, quickly drove me away from the church and Christianity, as I tried to run as far away from God as I could. I got a job and began to hang out with bad friends who introduced me to all the evil things this world has to offer.

For every empty void that I felt in my life, I found a sin to indulge in, to find temporary satisfaction and self-worth. In a worldly sense, I never felt more free. I had the means to buy and do the things I wanted, and friends to reassure me that this was right and that I was happy.

During the summer after my sophomore year of high school, my sister sat down to talk with me about the concerns my parents had voiced about my rebellious behavior and refusal to attend church. She invited me to visit Berean with her, and when I joined the youth group, I saw believers who were my age or even younger who had genuine faith and lived a life that truly reflected that.

Instead of being encouraged at the time, I felt ashamed that all the years I'd spent growing up in the church had led me to this point of living a double life, feeling guilty and turning on my Christian act every Friday and Sunday, yet returning to my self-serving, sin-ruled lifestyle every day in between.

My pride and unwillingness to accept the challenge of rebuilding my faith led to a long period of struggle between wanting to hold on to this newfound worldly freedom and the salvation I knew I dearly needed. During a youth retreat in February of 2020, Pastor Nate spoke on cultivating a hunger and desire for the Bible.

He said, "A hunger and thirst for the Word can't be artificially generated. Only the believer truly cherishes his Word. And if you say, 'I need God,' and don't immediately turn to the Bible, you don't believe you truly need God." I remember him reading John 11, 25 to 26, in which Jesus says, "I am the resurrection and the life.

He who believes in me will live, even if he dies. And everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" For the first time, I felt truly confronted with the question, "Are you a believer?" Up until then, I had never even considered that I might not be saved since I had done all the right things.

I went to church since I was young, memorized Bible verses, served, and even got baptized. But as I considered the lifestyle of an unbeliever reflective of complacency and unrepentant sin, there was a moment of realization when I finally accepted that despite all the years of playing the part of being a Christian, there was no gray area.

I had no relationship of God and nothing of Christ in me. The weight of this realization and recognition of the consequences of my status as a transgressor against the holy God had set in, and I understood for the first time why the good news truly is good news to a sinner like myself.

Looking back now, it was truly only possible by God's mercy and grace that my hardened heart of unbelief was softened and my eyes were opened to see the utter sin and depravity in my life. I was convicted of countless sins as I began taking baby steps as an infant believer and reading the Bible, praying, and making my relationship with God personal for myself.

As a result, my life began to change as I let go of the worldly things I had held onto so tightly in light of this newfound treasure that had been revealed to me. Since then, I've still fallen into sin and no doubt will continue to until the day I die.

But I trust that I am being sanctified through each and every trial and triumph in life, all for the glory of God, as I strive to live out the calling of all Christians, having received and being a steward of God's grace. Thank you. >> All right, if you can turn your Bibles with me to Hebrews chapter 11.

We'll be looking at verse 32 to 35. And again, thank you, Priscilla, for the testimony. And again, Priscilla, because she was a friend of my daughter, Faith, we're able to see her since high school grow and mature and then come to church and really give her life to Christ.

So, you know, hearing her testimony just, again, personally, it's been a great encouragement to see her grow. If you can, again, look at verse 32 to 35, reading out of the NASB. "And what more shall I say, for time will fail me if I tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets, who by faith conquered kingdoms, performed acts of righteousness, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, from weakness were made strong, became mighty in war, but formed armies to fight.

Women received back their dead by resurrection, and others were tortured, not accepting their release so that they might obtain a better resurrection." Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we pray for enlightenment. We pray for your Holy Spirit to guide us, not only to understand the content, but your very heart. Help us, Lord God, that we may see a glimpse of your glory through this text.

In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. You know, now that the pandemic is slowly releasing, obviously we're not there yet, there's quite a few other things that need to happen, but there's more and more talks, especially in the church, of what the church is going to look like when it does finally open up.

Open up meaning like fully open, and we're back to whatever we were doing before, without the concern of being distancing and wearing masks and, you know, having group pictures without wearing masks. I mean, we're going to get back to that at some point. But now that we're headed toward that direction, there's more and more conversations among churches, what is the church going to look like?

Because according to statistics, half of the millennials, half of the millennials, if you don't know, are somewhere around 39 to 40 and under. And then I don't know where the next generation starts, but that's the millennials, which is a big part of our church falls into that category. And they said that over 50% has either dropped out or moved away from their church.

I'm not exactly sure what the statistics for the other age groups, the X generation and the boomers and then the younger generation are, but, you know, because that's kind of like the demographic that our church is in, at least a large number, there's a lot of conversations. What is the church going to look like?

Are the people ever going to really come back? And I've had conversations with a few of my friends in other places who are just starting to open up, and they're having a hard time getting their church people to come back out. And so that fear is going to linger for a while.

And so within that conversation, there are talks about having churches completely different going forward, that in order to accommodate what has happened, that maybe we should just be online. Maybe they don't need to physically gather. In fact, there are more and more conversations about church planting that's happening only online.

There is no physical gathering in order to kind of roll with the punches and to accommodate what's going on in order for us to reach this new generation of people who are fearful of gathering together. Maybe we don't need to gather at all. So the concern that we have now going forward is what is the church going to look like in the next two to three to four to five years because of this?

Obviously, we are concerned about that going forward, you know, but this is nothing new. I remember when I was back in college and maybe come in seminary, one of the biggest questions that they were trying to deal with at that time was the X generation, right? The X generation, right after the boomers, you have the X generation, and they were saying that the X generation was having a mass exodus away from the church.

And we were hearing statistics that for every two people that converted, three people were backsliding. In particular, in the Southern Baptists, for every one church that was planted, two churches were shutting down. And so they were losing that generation rapidly. You know, I was a youth pastor at that time, and I started to see the exodus, and I started to see that the statistics was, at least in the community that I belonged to, about 80% of them attended church until high school.

But by the time they got to college, that 80% turned to 40%. And by the time they graduated college up until they became young adults, they said somewhere around 87% that attended church in high school by the time they became young adults were no longer going to church. So because of this fear, there was this stir.

If the church doesn't do something, within the next generation, we're going to lose the church. And that's where the Seeker Friendly Movement came in, that maybe we need to do church differently. Instead of having the traditional church, since it doesn't work, maybe we can make the sermon shorter. Maybe we can make the praise more vibrant.

Maybe we can have maybe more skits, just like we are attracting children. Maybe we can attract adults this way. But the fundamental reasoning behind why the church started to change was because there was this great concern that we're going to lose this generation. So as a result of that, they started challenging everything.

Do we need to have a sermon? Couldn't it just be a gathering? Do we need to have worship on Sunday? Couldn't it be on Wednesday or Saturday? Do we need to do this? Do we need to do that? So anything that wasn't absolutely crystal clearly nailed down in Scripture, everybody wanted to test the borders and just kind of, "Let's have a new church to bring a new generation." And this method, physically, humanly speaking, worked.

It worked because they started coming back. Large churches started popping up, left and right, where prior to that, the churches were dying. And we're in seminary being trained, and we're going into a field where people are leaving the church instead of coming. But now all of a sudden, you have churches that are popping up, and you have hundreds, not just hundreds, and thousands, tens of thousands of people are gathering together.

And so all of a sudden, people started to copy that model, and that seeker-friendly movement started to spread all over the world. We're in a similar stage right now where everything is being questioned. Do we really need to gather? Do we really need to physically meet together? Now, before anybody gets confused, let me make that crystal clear.

The very word for church means "to gather." That's the very essence of the word. So you can't call it a church without a gathering. Obviously, temporarily, because of what was going on, we had to go online. And the reason why we got together as soon as we were capable of getting together, because this is essential.

The gathering of the believers is essential. Not just hearing sermons, right? Not just participating on Sunday morning for that one and a half hour, just sitting in front of the television and watching this. For a period, we had to do that because of what was going on around us.

But the very essence of what a church is, is to gather. That's why we want to encourage, at some point, you have to get off online and need to come to church physically, because it is not the church you are experiencing online. It is temporary. But when we look at what is happening, whether it was back then, fear of losing the church, and whether it's now, where my guess is, in the next two to three years, you're going to see churches just solely online, in order to accommodate the fear of people.

This is nothing new to church history. In fact, if you studied church history in the last 2,000 years, you might be shocked to think, "How did we get here?" There was a period in church history where the top leader of the church was selling salvation for money. And anybody who wanted to read the Bible or translate the Bible, they were the ones who were persecuted, burned at the stakes, and had their heads chopped off for questioning the church.

And we're not just talking about one period. In 2,000 years, we can pinpoint many, many times where we would have humanly said, "There's no way that this church is going to make it outside the first century." But if anything that church history teaches us, is that despite the failing of man, despite man's sins, despite man's fears, God is faithful to His promises.

Chapter 11, as much as we highlight these men and women, these heroes of faith, the cloud of witnesses that have gone before us, the real power behind what he's saying in Chapter 11 is not that God found these faithful men, these few faithful men, and that He raised them up and did powerful things but He found quality people in the midst of all these people who are falling out.

In fact, Chapter 11 isn't about that at all. Chapter 11, that's why he says it is by faith, by faith, by faith, by faith. By faith, Gideon did this. By faith, Jephthah did this. By faith, Samson did that. If we look carefully at who these people are, in fact, I'm going to discourage you instead of encouraging you today because it's much easier to find faults in people than to highlight their strength.

That's just true in life. You ask somebody, "What do you appreciate about that person?" You have to sit there and think a little bit. "What do you think they're going to work on?" "Well, I've got a whole list. I've been waiting for the opportunity to tell you." Because it is easier.

What he says in Hebrews 11, verse 32, we have three sets of people. We have the judges. The judges lasted during the period when Israelites came into the Promised Land and they didn't have a formal government yet. So God would raise up these judges and this cycle of judges that would come.

And then it was about 200 years of that. And after that, we come to the kings and prophets. Where kings are established and prophets are sent by God to constantly warn them and tell them that they're going the right direction. So we're moving away from the patriarchs. We're now talking about the period of the judges.

And then he summarizes all of the kings and prophets by David, Samuel, and the prophets. So it's like a very broad brush that he uses. Now, all of these things he kind of summarizes. He's been going into detail about what these men and women did. But now he just summarizes by saying, "Who by faith conquered kingdoms, performed acts of righteousness, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, and on and on and on." They did powerful things in God's kingdom.

So our natural tendency is to look at what was it about Gideon? He conquered an army of over 100,000 with 300 men. What did he do? What was it about him that God would allow him to use? Samson single-handedly delivers Israel from the Philistines. What was it about Samson and his hair?

So maybe we should grow our hair. You know what I mean? And our natural tendency is to want to see what is it about their character? What is it about their background? What is it about their upbringing that God was able to see their faithfulness and use that for his glory?

But if you take a closer look at who they are, I think you'll agree with me. You'll come out with a bigger question than answer. These are the people that God used. So I want to start with Gideon. Gideon was a doubting conqueror of the Midianites. That's really what the title should be.

Gideon was a doubter. So Gideon, basically during that period of Judges, the theme in the Book of Judges is they all did what they thought was right in their own eyes because they didn't have a king. So as soon as they started to do their own thing, they started straying away from God and disobeying the commandment.

And as a result, the Midianites and the Canaanites and the Philistines, they would come and conquer them. And after they are conquered, they are oppressed. And in their oppression, they would cry out to God, just like they did when they were in Egypt. And God would be merciful to them and raise up a judge, and through that judge would deliver them.

And so this is a constant cycle in the Book of Judges. It's repetition over and over again. And so, with the Gideon, the Midianites took over, and they were being oppressed by the Midianites. So God calls Gideon and tells him that he's about to deliver the nation of Israel from them.

And this is how Gideon responds. Judges 6, 13, Gideon said to him, "Oh, my Lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all his miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, 'Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?

And now the Lord has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian.'" You see, Gideon's response when God says that he's going to deliver them isn't, "Thank you, Lord. We've been waiting for you." He says, "No, if you're really going to deliver us, why are we in this situation to begin with?" You know, I think a shortened version maybe of this is, "Yeah, right." I think there's a long way of saying, God says, "I'm going to deliver you." He's like, "Yeah, right.

You're going to deliver us? Why are we in this situation to begin with? I heard of what you did in the past, but I haven't seen anything recently." But God is patient with him. "The Lord looked at him and said, 'Go in your strength and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian.

Have I not sent you? Have I not sent you?'" You remember that? He says exactly the same thing to Moses. It wasn't you. I'm sending you. Gideon says to the Lord, "Oh, Lord, how shall I deliver Israel?" Stop right there. That's arrogance already. As if God was waiting for Gideon to be born, and the Israelites were so weak until Gideon came.

Finally, we have our deliverer, Gideon, and then God coming to Gideon, "Would you please deliver Israel for us?" "Lord, how am I going to deliver Israel? Behold, my family is the least in Manasseh, and I am the youngest in my father's house." Maybe you got the wrong guy. Maybe the guy down the street, his father's wealthy.

Maybe the other guy who's well-connected. "But the Lord said to him, 'Surely I will be with you, and you shall defeat Midian as one man.'" Now, I mean, think about the patience of our God. "Oh, yeah, yeah, right. I heard of you, but I haven't seen anything recently. But I will be with you.'" He's like, "I don't know.

I don't know if I'm the right guy." And he says, "No, I will be with you." "So Gideon said to him, 'If now I have found favor in your sight, then show me a sign that it is you who speak with me.'" In other words, prove yourself. The arrogance.

He's talking to God Almighty. You would think God would say, "Okay, let me move on. Go to the next guy." And we wouldn't know who Gideon is. Gideon is the guy who talked back to God, and he died. The end. But he's patient with him. He said, "Well, I'm going to set out a fleece, and then make the due on everything except for the fleece." And he would keep that.

I mean, even the proof that he asked for is so trivial. "Keep it dry. Then I'll believe you." The fact that he delivered Israel from Egypt and all the plagues that he's been hearing, sustaining this nation, conquering of Jericho. He said, "You prove yourself. Keep this thing dry. Keep it dry." And then so, God's patience, he keeps it dry.

Okay, okay, okay. All right. That's a good trick. One more. "Make just that wet, and everything else dry." I mean, think about even what he's asking for proof is so trivial. God, in his patience, actually answers his prayer, answers his request. But he wanted to make sure, because he knew what was in his heart.

He knew what was in Israel's heart. As soon as he delivers them from the Midianites, that they're going to say, "Oh, maybe I was the right guy. Maybe I wasn't. Maybe my sin was I didn't have a high view of myself." And so God says in verse 2, chapter 7, "The Lord said to Gideon, 'The people who are with you are too many for me to give you into their hands.

For Israel would become boastful, saying, 'My own power has delivered me.'" So in order to keep them humble, letting them know it was God who delivers them, despite Gideon, despite the sins of the Israelites, he dwindles down an army of 32,000 men, going against 135,000 Midianites. He dwindles that down, and he says, "Well, anybody afraid, you don't need to stay." And only 22,000 of them leave, and then eventually he dwindles them down.

And so you go to the water, and only the ones who drink and lap up the water, the ones that put their mouth into the water like a dog, let them go home. And the number dwindles down to 300. Can you imagine Gideon watching that? He's like, "No, no, no!

Don't put your face in that! Oh, we lost another one!" 300 is left after all of that. And obviously God miraculously delivers them because he wanted to make sure that God was being faithful to his covenant promise, despite Gideon's weak faith. Look at Barak. Barak is... his name is not known very well because along with Barak is Deborah.

And her name is the one usually posted up. It's like, "Oh, how come we don't have a woman pastor? What about Deborah?" Well, Deborah was the judge at that time, and God tells Deborah that he's going to deliver the Israelites from the Canaanites. And so Deborah calls Barak and says, "You know, God wants to establish you as the commander, and he's going to deliver you." And this is what Barak says to Deborah.

Then Barak said to her, "If you will go with me, then I will go. If you will not go with me, I will not go." God told you to go. It's not enough that God says he's going to go with you. He said, "Well, okay, but I need you to go." This is what Deborah says, verse 9.

"I will surely go with you. Nevertheless, the honor shall not be yours on the journey that you are about to take, for the Lord will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman." Because you couldn't be man enough to trust in God, and you need a woman to lean on, so the honor is not going to go to you.

It's going to come to me, right? Ultimately, it's going to go to God. Barak, in his fear, despite his fear, instead of crushing Barak, Barak makes it onto this list. You're almost kind of like, "Why is Deborah not there? Why is Barak there?" Because the point of it was not Gideon and Barak to begin with.

Samson, man, this guy, it's hard to believe he's on this list of all the people. I think most people, Christian and non-Christian, know who Samson is because he's a guy, single-handedly, who conquered the Philistines. But I remember the first time preaching through judges, and by the time I got to Samson, I read this story over and over and over and over again because I thought I'd missed something.

But I did not. So I want to show you what I saw. Samson was a Nazarite who was dedicated to be set apart for God's use. And so there were two particular vows that a Nazarite was supposed to have, to never touch wine and to never cut his hair.

Well, he broke that not touching wine. I don't know when he broke it, but according to what we see, it looks like he broke it as soon as he was able to drink because this guy is known as a drunkard. Every opportunity we see him, he's drunk. And he was a womanizer.

The only vow that he, at least that we see that he kept, was he didn't cut his hair. That was the only thing that kept him to his vow was he didn't cut his hair. And my guess is it was probably because he was lazy. If you look at his character.

So in that situation, the Philistines have conquered Israelites. God has mercy on them because they're crying out. And so he is going to use this man. I think the best way to describe what Samson was like, he's a frat guy, went to college. You know what I'm saying? He's going to be the cool guy on campus.

He's going to drink it up and he's going to have plenty of stories to tell. That's how he comes out. So if you're curious, go read it for yourself. But I'm just going to highlight the point where Delilah shows up. So he's a womanizer. Delilah must have been really pretty because the Philistines choose her knowing that he's a womanizer to get the secret out of this guy because he's been causing so much trouble for the Philistines.

Find out the source of his strength so that we can bind him and kill him. So Delilah is deliberately sent to him and he falls in lust. And this is what happens. Verse 6, "So Delilah said to Samson, 'Please tell me where your great strength is and how you may be bound to afflict you.'" He should have stopped right there.

What did you say? You want me to tell you how to kill me, right? No. If he was a normal person, that would have been enough. He's like, "I don't know. I know my mom, my friends warned me about Delilah, but here it is." "But Samson said to her," in verse 7, '"If they bind me with seven fresh cords that have not been dried, then I will become weak and be like any other man." Obviously, he wasn't telling the truth.

He wasn't that dumb, at least not yet. Verse 8, "Then the Lord of the Philistines brought up to her seven fresh cords that had not been dried, and she bound him with them." She did it. She didn't even just get the information and move out. She actually binds him with the information that he gave her.

And then now she had men lying in wait in the inner room, "And she said to him, 'The Philistines are upon you, Samson.' But he snapped the cords as a string of toe snaps when it touches fire, so his strength was not discovered." You would think by now Samson was like, 'I told you the secret, and you bind me, and then you call the Philistines?

What are you doing?'" That's not what happens in verse 10. "Then Delilah said to Samson, 'Behold, you have deceived me.'" She must have been really pretty. "Behold, you have deceived me and told me lies. Now please tell me how you may be bound so I can kill you." "He said to her, 'If they bind me tightly with new robes which have not been used, then I will become weak and be like any other man.' So Delilah took new robes and bound him with them and said to him, 'The Philistines are upon you, Samson.' For the men were lying in wait in the inner room, but he snapped the robes from his arms like a thread." First time it's unbelievable.

Second time, are you kidding me? How pretty was Delilah? You would think second time, 'I didn't get away with the second time. Maybe I should run by now.'" Verse 13, "Then Delilah said to Samson, 'Up to now you have deceived me and told me lies. Tell me how you may be bound.'" "You're not treating me right, Samson.

If you say you love me, show me how to kill you." Basically, that's what she's saying. "And he said to her, 'If you weave the seven locks of my hair with the web and fasten it with a pin, then I will become weak and be like any other man.' So while he slept, Delilah took the seven locks of his hair and wove them into the web, and she fastened it with a pin and said to him, 'The Philistines are upon you, Samson.' But he awoke from his sleep and pulled out the pin of the loom and the web, and then he conquers them." Doesn't stop, right?

Unbelievable. If any of your friends were in that situation, you would probably beat him senseless and drag him out of that house. But that's not where it ends. Verse 13, "Then she said to him, 'How can you say I love you when your heart is not with me? You won't let me kill you.

You have deceived me these three times and have not told me where your great strength is.' It came out when she pressed him daily with her words." Daily. "Pressed him daily" is another word for "nagged him to death." That's what that means. "She nagged him to death daily with words and urged him, and his soul was so annoyed to death." They were both about to die.

Her with her nagging, and he just couldn't stand it anymore. "So he told her all that was in the heart and said to her, 'A razor has never come on my head, for I have been a Nazarite to God from my mother's womb. If I am shaved, then my strength will leave me, and I will become weak and be like any other man.'" So you know what the story is.

You can tell him he shaves his head, he becomes weak. And we look at that, well, was the strength really in his hair? No, that was the vow that he took. That was the little connection that he had with God. And then when he told her the secret and his head is shaved off, that little connection that he had with God, he lost.

And I think that's why he lost his power. And then they drag him in, and then he repents and comes before God, and he has one more chance, and that's how he conquers the Philistines. Yeah, that's Emson. That's the guy that's in this hall of fame. Now you say, "Well, did I miss something?

Was there something that I missed?" Maybe after all this, that something great happened, he redeemed himself. No, that's how it ends. That's what he did. That's what he did, and then God used this drunkard who was womanizing, to bind to what Delilah was doing, and then he conquers and then he dies.

These men do not come out as heroes, at least not when we read them. Jephthah, there's not a whole lot, but Jephthah, during his time, the Ammonites take charge, and God says to Jephthah, and he pleads with God, "If you would deliver Israelites to me, then I will dedicate whatever comes out of my house, the first thing that comes out of my house, as a burnt offering." Well, they end up conquering the Ammonites, and he comes back, and his only daughter, he only has one daughter, one child, one daughter that he loved and cherished, and she's the one who walks out.

And he keeps his vow, and so if you read the commentaries, people are trying to twist this. Now, maybe it wasn't a sacrifice. It was just a dedication to the temple. But if you read the story, it looks like he sacrificed her. And I remember I was studying through that.

It's like, "Oh, God, how did this happen?" What's interesting is during that period, human sacrifice was part of the pagan worship. So it could have been, again, this is my take on it, that Jephthah was already so compromised that human sacrifice was a part of their practice. The only thing that he regretted was not that he gave human sacrifice, but that it was his daughter.

But what's also interesting about Jephthah's story is God is never mentioned in his story. God never speaks to Jephthah. God never intervenes. God doesn't say it's right, it's wrong. It just happens at the end. So at the least, Jephthah, even he is questionable, a big question. Well, it doesn't stop with the judges, right?

After all of this cycle, Samuel comes in. And Samuel, the reason why he's prominent is he's the last of the judges and first of the prophets during the king's era. Samuel is the one who anoints Saul and then anoints King David. So it says David, Samuel, and the prophets.

They're all mentioned in those two names. But if you look at how they transition from the judges to the kings, it's not a happy transition. This is what it says, 1 Samuel 8, 1 through 9. "And it came about when Samuel was old that he appointed his sons judges over Israel.

Now the name of his firstborn was Joel and the name of his second, Abijah. They were judging in Beersheba. His sons, however, did not walk in the ways, but turned aside after dishonest gain and took bribes and perverted justice." So the people of Israel got tired of them, this family, for what they were doing.

"And as a result of that," in verse 4, it says, "then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel and Ramah and said to him, 'Behold, you have grown old, and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint a king for us to judge us like all the nations.'" So it wasn't God's idea.

It was Israelites. And so they started seeing all these problems in Israel. And so their solution was maybe the reason why we keep getting into this trouble is because we don't have a king like the other kings. Maybe we need a king like the Philistines and the Ammonites and the Midianites.

And so their solution was a human solution, not realizing the reason why they kept on going into this cycle is because they kept on disobeying God. They did have a king. God was their king. But just like all humankind, they choose to worship the Creator rather than the creation.

So they thought maybe if we had the king that our destiny will change. Verse 6, "But the thing was displeasing in the sight of Samuel when they said, 'Give us a king to judge us.' And Samuel prayed to the Lord. The Lord said to Samuel, 'Listen to the voice of the people in regard to all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them.' God saw them asking for a king, saying that maybe you're not enough.

Maybe what we need is what they have. And so the era of the king starts as a rejection to God. The next person that comes up on this is David, because Saul obviously was not a believer. He gets rejected. That's the guy that he chooses. But David's the man that God chooses himself.

He's a young man who is after his own heart, he says. So of all the kings that existed in Israel, they will say the greatest of the king was David. In fact, the majority of the kings in Israel led the nation astray. David was the man that they would lift up and say, "He's our true king." Only if we had King David again.

But of all the kings that committed sin, David's sin was probably the most heinous from a human point of view. You know what happens in 1 Samuel 11, when all the kings were going to war, David was just kind of enjoying his success, and he sent his soldiers out, and he was just kind of perusing on the rooftop, and he saw Bathsheba taking a bath, and again, he falls in lust.

He's the king. He can do whatever he wants. So he commands her to come, and he sleeps with her. And basically, after that, she gets pregnant. And in order to hide his sin, he has an idea. He's going to call her husband back from war. He was a commander, so he said, "We're going to give you a special privilege," pretending like he's doing him a favor, and asked him, "You want to come back and sleep with your wife?

I'm going to give you a break before you go in because you did such a great job." But Uriah, being an honorable man, instead of going in and sleeping with his wife, he says, 2 Samuel 11, 11, it says, "Uriah said to David, 'The ark and Israel and Judah are staying in temporary shelters, and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are camping in the open field.

Shall I then go to my house to eat and to drink and to lie with my wife? By your life and the life of your soul, I will not do this thing.'" Because Uriah was an honorable man. Even though David was trying to trick him to cover his sin, he wouldn't go into his wife.

"My men are out there fighting. How can I go in to do that?" And so that didn't work. But David hardens his heart, and he needs to cover his sin somehow. So he lets Uriah go into battle, and he tells the other commanding officers, "When he's at the front of the battle, withdraw all your men so that he's by himself, and so that he will be killed, and so that in history books it will say that he died fighting for Israel.

But in reality, David murders him." This is the best king of Israel. This is the man after God's own heart. A loyal man, a faithful man, a godly man, simply because he wanted his wife, and simply because he was the king, and he was able to do it. But you know what makes it even worse?

Uriah was not any ordinary man. He wasn't a commander among many commanders. There were in the Bible a listed 30 men who were called valiant warriors for David, for the nation of Israel. So these were the guys, if they went to battle, and if every other person died, these are the 30 men that would surround David and take the sword for him.

These are the men who would sacrifice everything, that they came up the ranks and were known to be loyal to David, who loved David. Uriah was such a man because in 1 Chronicles 11, 26-47, those 30 men's names are actually mentioned. That's how prominent they are. And in this list, without reading all of it, if you get to verse 41, Uriah the Hittite, his name is on the list of 30 people who committed to die for David in battle.

And it was that guy's wife that he took. It was that guy that he murdered. And he is on this list. We look at that and say, "How can God choose this man? How can this be a man among heroes that we're to emulate and follow?" Because the point of redemptive history are not these people.

The point of redemptive history is by faith, by faith. Despite the weakness of their faith, despite their fear, despite their moral shortcoming, despite murder, God kept faithful to his covenant. The only reason why you and I are here is not because God found potential people to keep the church alive.

The only reason why you and I are here is because God was faithful to his covenant, that if you confess your sins, he is faithful and just to forgive you of all your unrighteousness, because he keeps that promise. As long as we have faith to believe that Christ forgives us and causes us to continue to repent and seek after him, he remains faithful to that promise.

You and I are not here because we were more disciplined than others. You and I are not here because we were more faithful than other people, that we were more talented, we had better character, we had more morals than other people. It's by faith, by faith, by faith, by faith.

That's why Paul, when he describes himself in 1 Timothy 1, 15, 7, it is a trustworthy statement deserving full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners among whom I am the foremost. Yet for this reason I found mercy so that in me as the foremost, Jesus Christ might demonstrate his perfect patience as an example for those who would believe in him for eternal life.

God didn't choose him because he was famous. God didn't choose him because he was a Roman citizen. God didn't choose him because he was being educated above all his peers. He said the primary reason why he was chosen, so that when people see his salvation, they say, "God can save him?

That guy was a murderer. He's responsible for the first martyr in the church, Stephen. He was beating up our friends, our father, our children. And if God can save him, what does that say about the gospel?" He was chosen because he was unworthy, because he was the greatest of sinners, in order to demonstrate that it is by faith and by faith alone.

And it is that same message all throughout the Old Testament, all throughout the New Testament, all throughout the end times. By faith, by faith, by faith, by faith. Anytime you and I begin to have confidence in our flesh, that's when you're in trouble. That's when you are in trouble, because you're one step away from the Israelites saying, "We don't need him." Go through the motion, the desperateness, the sense of urgency to cling to him has gone, because pride has come in, and we think somehow we can.

In 2 Timothy 2, 11-13, it is also a trustworthy statement. "For if we died with him, we will also live with him. If we endure, we will also reign with him. If we deny him, he will also deny us. If we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself." I mean, what he says here is a perfect example of Israel's history.

God made a covenant, a unilateral covenant, with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And when they sinned, they saw the consequences. The enemies came and conquered them. And so when they denied him, judgment came. And yet, they were faithless. God still remained faithful, because he made that covenant. So the only thing that keeps us connected to this God is by faith.

By faith. Do we believe this God? Are we connected to this God? Are we abiding with this God? Because the only strength that we have for us to persevere is by faith. That's why our confidence is not in man. That's why we don't run to human resources. That's why we don't simply copy what we think is successful out there.

We just do what the Word of God says, in season and out of season. And let God's children hear the voice of Christ, and those who are his will follow him. That's our ministry philosophy in a nutshell. Because it's not in me, it's not in you, and it's not in them.

It's in Christ, and Christ alone. So my prayer is--again, I ask the praise team to come up, to take a few minutes to pray. That we would take some time to reflect and pray, where is your confidence? Who do you run to when things go wrong? Where do you find your greatest comfort?

What are you seeking? Are you asking God? Are you seeking him? Is he your refuge? Is he your ultimate hope? Have we put our confidence in man? So again, as our worship team takes some time to lead, let's take some time to reflect and to pray and recalibrate our hearts, where Christ and Christ alone will be exalted.

So let's take some time to pray. As we sing our closing praise, would you please stand with us again? I once was lost in darkest night, yet thought I knew the way. The sin that promised joy and light had led me to the grave. I had no hope that you would own a rebel to your will.

And if you had not loved me first, I would refuse you still. But as I ran, my help and grace, indifferent to the cost, you looked upon my helplessness and led me to the cross. As I beheld God's love displayed, you suffered in my place. You bore the wrath, you served for me.

Now all I know is grace. Hallelujah! Hallelujah! All I have is Christ. Hallelujah! Jesus is my life. Hallelujah! All I have is Christ. Hallelujah! Jesus is my life. Now Lord, I would be yours again and live so all might see the strength to follow your commands could never come from me.

Oh Father, use my ransom lap in any way you choose. And let my song forever be my only boast, it is you. Hallelujah! All I have is Christ. Hallelujah! Jesus is my life. Hallelujah! All I have is Christ. Hallelujah! Jesus is my life. Hallelujah! All I have is Christ.

Hallelujah! Jesus is my life. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we come before you humbled, in desperate need, Lord God, of your grace. Lord, as you promised, that your grace is sufficient for us. Help us, Lord God, to come to you before we seek family, friends, leaders, to recognize, Lord God, that you are truly our only hope.

Help us, Lord, to build a church, build families, Lord God, build relationships, centered around the only hope that we have in Christ. So we pray, as you send us, help us, Lord God, to open our eyes to see the darkness around us, that we would not covet the world and what they have, and the experiences that they experience.

Help us, Lord God, to covet eternity, to covet what Christ has, so that we would spend our days longing and waiting for the coming of Christ. So wherever you send us, help us, Lord God, to be a light, especially, Lord, as you have given opportunity now, that so many people have their eyes opened in asking, there must be something more to life than this.

Help us to stand between that gap and to be a witness to them, wherever you send us. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. God sent his Son. They called him Jesus. He came to love, heal, and forgive. He lived and died to buy my pardon. An empty grave is there to put my Savior in.

Because He lives, I can face tomorrow. Because He lives, all fear is gone. Because I know He holds the future. And life is worth the living just because He lives. All right, again, if I can have this side of the room go out that door, and then this side this way.

Thank you.