This recording is from Christ Kingdom Church in Avalon Park, Orlando. Visit us online at ChristKingdom.org for our calendar, driving directions, and more audio recordings. You know, I don't care what age you are. There's enough child left in each of us that we all enjoy a story, especially when it's told well, like that one is. You know one of the things that makes stories so powerful, too, is that oftentimes, if we look closely, sometimes you don't have to look too hard. Sometimes you have to look a little harder, but we can often find ourselves in the exact same stories, things that remind us of ourselves. We can find characters that think, ah, that's kind of like me, or characters that remind us of other people that are in our own stories, whatever the case might be. The story of Gideon is one that, as we talk about here this morning, Joe began last week, we'll even spend next week talking more about Gideon. There's a lot about him in the book of Judges, but we're going to look more about him. And I bet if you look closely, in fact I bet you don't have to look that hard, because I didn't. I bet you're going to see little glimpses of yourself in the story and the life of Gideon. Now before we jump into that full speed ahead, let's remind ourselves one more time, and we're going to do this all the time, because I want you to realize that every book in the Bible has a purpose of why it's written. And we've got to look at this. This is the last verse in the book of Judges, even though this point is talked about several times. It says, in those days, there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. And the point of Judges, as we've talked about here, is that God is through his unfolding of a much greater, the universal story of life. God is bringing his people, for them at the time they were living in it. For us now, we're looking back at it, but to remember and to know that there is a need for a king in Israel. And you know what, there's a need for a king in your heart and your life. And without that, you're in trouble. Now I want you right now to scan back and some of your kids that are in world history and things like that, this should be a little bit easier. But for some of you bigger kids who don't remember those days as well, scan back. Can you think of any culture, any country, throughout history that ever had two kings reigning at the exact same time over the exact same area? Can you think of any? Now there were a few times in history where two claimed to both be king, two powers that wanted to at the same time. But what would always happen very soon after those two claims were made? That someone died. There was a battle. You see, you just don't have two kings reigning at the same time over the exact same area. It causes problems. Now we don't have kings here in the United States of America. We're a little more sophisticated than that today. We believe in the voice of the people, but it wasn't too many years ago, but we almost had two presidents, at least for a few weeks, right? So that got sorted out. And we saw the turmoil that began to happen just here. There is a problem when you have two kings in place. You can have two to many. And by the way, two is always too many. King wise. Let me give you some examples here. When is two to many? Look at some of these pictures here. When is two to many bowling? Bowling is a solo sport, okay? Now this lady has got to be on frame number one because she's smiling because I guarantee you by frame 10. She doesn't have a smaller face when she's got a bigger weight on her back than on her hand. Okay? Not a good idea. Look at this next one. Surfing, although you could have two on the board, it's usually better done with one. Two to many. Next one. All right. Motorcycles are fun, okay? Asked a real hard. But you know, when you're doing motorcycle stunts, okay? Probably let's limit it to one. I mean, doing this has three. But not a good sport when you have multiple people involved. Next one. I must don't need to say anything with this one. The faces say it all, doesn't it? If there are two brides in one gram on the same wedding day, doesn't work too well. And this next one really doesn't need any words at all. There are some very obvious times in life that two is simply just too many. But another example of that is in this guy, Gideon. You see Gideon is about to go into a battle because God's calling him to. He's already had several judges that God has raised up as we've already talked about. But he's raising up Gideon to go into a battle. But there is not enough room for more than one person to really be the deliverer, to be the one that guides his people through. In fact, if you look at chapter seven, verse two, I mean, if you have your bobbles over looking at the story in chapter six and seven picking up there, but chapter seven, verse two, the Lord even says this, he says to Gideon, you have too many men for me to deliver medium into your hands in order that Israel may not boast against me that her own strength has saved her. God in this story, in this particular battle, wanted to make a very clear point, although he has delivered Israel and will down the road with great armies, God does not need it. And there is only one king, only one true ultimate deliverer, and it's God, he doesn't share it with anybody, any more than any king has ever shared his kingdom with another king. And that is what the story is really pointing to when it's really about here. And interestingly, Gideon and God, being too too many on this here, God needed to show this to Gideon. Because Gideon thought, hey, it's me and God, it's a tandem. We can ride this surfboard together. And God's saying, no, there is not enough room for two at the helm. There's only room for one, and I'm going to make this clear to Gideon, and I'm going to make it clear to my people that although I will, and I have, and I still will choose to deliver them through all of them, and through their numbers and through their might, it is ultimately my hand, and my hand alone, that is always delivering them. In fact, Judges 6, back in verse 14, we read there, and that section, actually, oops, oh, I got right here. The Lord turned to him and said, after he had told Gideon to go, he says, go in the strength that you have, Gideon, and save Israel out of Midian's hand. Am I not sending you? Now, we already know because we read ahead in chapter 7 that God is really, what he's really about is trying to show how he's the one that deserves all the glory, but he sets Gideon up. Because Gideon doesn't get it, and he says, all right, Gideon, go, go in the power of your hand, go in your strength. In fact, go in your strength, you have, and save Israel out of Midian's hand. But as he sends him, he's going to strick away, layer after layer, of what Gideon thinks is his strength. Or, in some cases, what Gideon thinks are the reasons why he's not the right man for the job, because he doesn't have that strength in his bank account. Let's look at some of those. As we look here at number one, pointing your outline, too many deliverers in Israel. This is what God was trying to get across to us, people into Gideon, there are too many deliverers in Israel. That's what goes in the blank on number one. Let's look at the top 10 reasons why there are too many. And this is coming straight from the story that was paraphrased here, and then we're going to look at number one, Gideon's family heritage. This was the first excuse that Gideon gave. What does he say? Chapter six, verse 15, the first part, but Lord, Gideon asked, how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manessa. It's the family card. It's like, hey, God, I'm not the right guy for the job. Look, my clan out of all the clans in Israel, and there was a bunch of them, it's the weakest. Why are you picking me? But we know the story, right? God's like, you're exactly the guy I need, because the proof's got to be that it wasn't because of the strength of your clan. Do you see a little bit of yourself sometimes in this? How many of us have felt like, gosh, my family tree, my family heritage, it's a pretty tough one. I didn't have a great family growing up. We didn't have a lot of wealth, we didn't have a lot of resources. I had a parent that was an addict, or this or that. I bet some of you sitting here right here today can talk about Bank of the City, this is my same story of looking at how, how could God use a person like me? Well, Gideon raises up, but Gideon didn't realize that too is too many. All he needed was God and God's strength. Number two reason, Gideon's position in his family. Gideon goes on and says, in fact, in the second half of that verse, he says, I, in the least, in my family, I'm the least. Hey, not only is my clan the smallest, but guess who's at the caboose of the family? Me. No, we're not sure exactly what he meant. He probably meant he was maybe the youngest, we're not exactly sure. But whatever he meant, he knew that he was the least in his small little clan, the last person you would have picked if you picked this clan. And God knew that's exactly why I'm picking you Gideon. It's because the people around you are not going to go, oh, that was the biggest clan. And Gideon was the main guy in that clan. God's setting it up. He's setting the deck in his favor. And maybe some of you have asked yourself similar questions about you, not for your own family reasons, you know, feeling least in your family, whatever reason. Well, number three, Gideon's father baggage. Now, this has become, in the last recent decades, we've got lots of counselors that are helping people over lots of issues. Whether it's your mommy baggage, your daddy baggage, the things you've grown up, you didn't have a dad, you had a bad dad, you didn't have a mom, you had a bad mom, you had a bad both parents, whatever the case is here. Hey, Gideon had it too. How bad was his baggage? Well, if you look at verses 25 and 26, God tells them to. He says, go tear down your father's altar to bail and cut down the asterisk pole beside it. Then build a proper kind of altar to the Lord your God on top of this height using the wood of asterisk pole that you cut down offering the second bull is a burnt offering. God comes and says, hey, your dad, who's an idolater, that's how bad his father baggage was. I'm going to raise you up, getting in, to come, and by the way, go and mess with dad's stuff. How many of your dad's out here? Raise your hand. Now, you dad's out here. What if one of your kids comes and starts messing with your stuff? Like one of my favorites is when they start messing with my cell phone and want to change the ringtones to something obnoxious. We can't have that. You'll mess with dad's stuff. Every one of you here has been a kid. Did you ever mess with dad's stuff? Did you ever kind of go in and tinker with something? You know, we were out there working off for fusion on Saturday picking up stuff on the pop water field and after we're out there for two hours, Grace, he was out there after a little bit. She got tired. So let's go ahead and just get out of the sun and rest in our car. So she was in the car resting hanging out. But as soon as I started the car, went to your wife, there's going radio's on, everything. I was like, hey, don't mess with the car. Especially if you're a six-year-old. You don't mess with it. Here, here, Gideon is going and he's messing with dad's stuff. And guess what? His dad is a idolatrous worshiper. God, the one true God is raising up the sun whose father is at the heart a part of the problem here in the community. There were father issues. There were father baggage. And I bet many of us here have our own stories of struggles, a baggage of scars, of wounds. It's impossible not to, by the way. It's just varying degrees. You might have a lot of baggage. You might have a little bit of baggage. But we live in a sinful world. And even if you grew up a Christian parents, they're not perfect. And they make mistakes. And their choices are influencing you as children. Whether you're young now, or whether you're much bigger and older now, they're in print. Their fingerprints are still in your life. And when some of us know the deep pain of that, that we can feel. Well, let's go on. Gideon number four. Gideon's fear of others. Verse 27 of chapter 6 says this. So Gideon took ten of his servants. Remember God's holding him to go cut down. Get rid of dad's idols. Took ten of his servants and did as the Lord hold him. But because he was afraid of his family and the men of the town, he did it at night rather than in the daytime. Now, there was no electricity back then. It wasn't like, oh, it's going to be really hot cutting down that thing with a student at night when it's cooler. No, it would have been a lot harder to do at night. But because of his fear of others, because he didn't want him to find out, because he didn't want anybody to see him doing it, he goes off and he does at night. He had a fear of others. And we see that prevalent here. Two is too many. Number five. Gideon beyond that. We're told he had a curse name. Verse 32 goes on and says after they, by the way, the next day they found out who did it. Now, we always, we always get found out right eventually. He got found out. It was Gideon that tore down dad's idols and stuff and the community wanted to come up. The community wanted to kill him. But his father comes to his defense and says now let, let bail take care of Gideon. So they give him a name. So Gideon, so that day they called Gideon, according to verse 32, Jeroobale saying what it means interpreted let bail contend with him because he broke down bail's altar. They changed his name. They gave him a name that was in essence a curse. And we're not going to call you Gideon anymore. We're going to call you Jeroobale. We're going to call you, hey, the one cursed by bail. Now imagine if that was your name walking around and people as they greeted you said, hey, you're the cursed one. Lightning zone. Let's back up. You know, I bet many of you have felt cursed. Whatever the reason was growing up, the struggles, maybe even as an adult, you felt the bear, the weight of that. Gideon felt it. That's exactly what he felt in his life. Number six, top three, Gideon's personal doubt. Verse 36 of chapter six says this, Gideon said to God, if you will save Israel by my hand as you have promised. And he goes into the story of the fleece. I'm going to stick this fleece out. Let the dewfall are on the ground and not on it. And next night, all right, let the dewfall on it and not on the ground. But you know where at the prom again right there, the very first word of that verse. If you will save Israel, Gideon had his own personal doubt whether God really meant what he was going to say. And by the way, parenthetically here, because a lot of people think about this, you know, when do you use something like a fleece analogy? When is it okay to kind of test God and do that? Let me clarify this for you. When you know what God has told you to do. Because in this story, by the way, the fleece example is not a popular one. It's not one that's being elevated as a good thing. I'm giving you some of the reasons and I got more to go about why Gideon is not the guy. And the last person you would have expected would have delivered his people. And next week we're going to talk about even more while he wasn't the right guy, but God still used him. So this story is not about the right way and the best way to do it all. If God has told you to do something, the fleece, the asking God to show you or give you a sign is never appropriate. Because it's the same one that begins with if, if God, you really mean what you say, but if you're asking God to show you something, if you need wisdom and direction and he hasn't already revealed that, it's nothing wrong with asking you to say, hey, God, show me. Give me wisdom. Give me a sign. So understand the difference. When God has told you, you don't question. You don't ask for more. You go and believe. That's why Thomas was rebuked by Jesus himself in New Testament. Blessed are those who have believed that haven't seen. Thomas, rather than you, that had to come and see the scar yourself. Blessed are those that believe without seeing, just on the Word of God alone. That's why the centurion was exalted by Jesus and said, look, the centurion said, look, Jesus, just say the word. You don't have to come lay your hands on my daughter. Just say the word and she'll be healed. God honors that kind of faith because he knew who Jesus was. And he knew all he had to do was ask. And if Jesus said, yes, I will, it was going to be done. So be careful how we use the example of things with the fleece example. When God has told you, when he's spoken clearly, if you're asking God, you know, should I be in a moral relationship? Well, he's already answered that question. Don't dare ask for a sign about that. But God, you know, where should I move? What jobs should I take? What classes should I take? Those are places where you look for God to come and speak and intervene in your life and to talk to you. And he wants to give you wisdom. He wants to lead you and guide you. So be careful with that. Just a little parenthesis there. Top 10 reasons, number seven. Gideon's lack of help from others. His lack of help from others. Remember the story here. He starts out with 32,000 men. Now, we're not told how many men the enemy have, but we are told that when he dismisses those that are scared, okay, that he's going to lose, what, 22,000 of them. So we have a pretty good idea that they were probably outnumbered. Okay, because if they way outnumbered the enemy, why would 22,000 of them have been scared? They would have been saying, like, how's the time? But 22,000 of them, when they're given the opportunity to say, hey, if you're afraid about what we're about to do, you can go, you're fine. Poof, they're gone. Two-thirds like that. Because they were probably outnumbered big time. Here, Gideon thought he had his army with them. It was still probably less than what he thought they needed, but God dwindles it down. And it's not just 10,000 he's going to go into sin, Gideon with, right? Because then he's going to go through and God's going to weed out even more. God's going to weed it down from 10,300. Now, some people think here that there was this, some scholars have thought, maybe there's this really proof test here that when they came down to drink from the river, some lay down and drank apparently, some stayed kneeled and scooped it up and drank from it. And maybe those were the ones, because those are the ones that God ends up picking, the ones that were lacking it up from their hand. There's some scholars that think that's because they were the ones that had their ready to pull their armor out. These were the more able-ready best warriors. But the context of this story is that God's not looking for any reason that Israel would boast, according to chapter 7, verse 2. He's trying to knock down every reason why Israel would think, hey, we're the ones that be praised. We're the ones that get the glory in this situation. He's trying to take it down. A better interpretation in many scholars believe, hey, this is probably just a random way to dwindle the group down from 10,300. It'd be just like saying, hey, all those who are left handed, you stay, and everybody else go. All those who's heritage is from such-as-such a clan. It was probably just a random way to select the people out. That's probably the best interpretation. But whatever the reason, we go from 10,300. And notice, we started with 32, and now we're at 300. It's almost a picture here, too, of a reverse type. God commands us to give our 10% to him, realizing that all of it belongs to him. It's our discipline of that. God's looking at God. He's going to switch it around on us. He's saying, I'm going to only use your 10%. I'm going to show you what I can do with that. Gideon's lack of help from others. He had that reason for doubting. Number 8, Gideon's lack of courage. Looking in, chapter 7, verse 10 through 11, he's about to come up to the place of battle. And what God comes, and he speaks to him, and he says, Gideon, if you are afraid to attack, go down to the camp with your servant, pure. And listen to what they are saying. Afterward, you will be encouraged to attack the camp. So Gideon said, man, I got him good. I'm fine. We're just going to hang out. We're with you. We believe you're with us. That's what happened, right? Right? Or wrong. 50-50 chance here. Right or wrong?
Wrong. What does he do? He's like, okay. All right, he's not like, no, I'm good. He wasn't like the Centurion for Jesus. Just say the word. We're good. He's like, if I'm afraid, okay, yeah, yeah, we're going to go down. They sneak down the camp because he is afraid. He is afraid. Gideon lacks courage at the point where they're about to attack. He himself, the leader. It's bad when the leader lacks courage. He's about to lead the mighty force of 300 against tens of thousands. But he goes down to the camp. As you heard, our storyteller shared with you earlier, he hears them talking about a dream they had. And he is encouraged, finally. But it was his lack of courage. Number nine, Gideon's lack of equipping. Have you heard the story you read and thought about? How are they equipped? Sores, shields, chariots, spears, right? Thank you. No. What are they equipped with? Chapter 7, verse 16. Dividing the 300 men into three companies, he placed trumpets, empty jars, and hands all of them torches to put inside. All right. They got a trumpet, 300 trumpets. They've got empty jars, and they got torches. Not the way you equip your army to go out and do a battle. And by the way, there's no place to carry the sword or carry the shield. They've already got three things. They've got the empty jar. They're going to put over their torches to keep it dark for the right time. And they've got a trumpet hanging on here. There's no room for anything else. These guys are going out and what looks like a suicide mission. With no preparation, no plan to pull out a sword or to pull out a shield. We have no reason from the text to even think they carry it with them when they go up there. They could certainly say we were not equipped for it. And I bet you thought similar things in your own life having you. I don't have the courage. I don't have the equipment for what God's calling me to do. I've got personal doubt. I've got fear of others. The last one here that Gideon's struggle with number 10 was Gideon's pride. Verse 18 says this. When I and all who are with me blow our trumpets, this is Gideon talking, and then from all around the camp blow yours and shout for the Lord and for Gideon. Because Gideon had a lot to do with this thing, didn't he? I've just given you nine reasons of why Gideon had hardly anything to do with it. Except he was there. He showed up. Now God's going to deal with this whole pride issue next chapter. And we'll look at it more next week, how that plays out with Gideon. But I want you to see a picture here of why there are two many deliverers in Israel. There was only one and God wanted to make it clear that was going to really deliver his people. And Gideon is the perfect picture of that. Now I want you to think about briefly here how this applies to us number two. Are there two too many deliverers in you? Do you share the same struggle with Gideon like me? Do you come in and think about how, do you, one, you start off by getting with your excuses of why Gide couldn't possibly forgive you for those that struggle in that area? Possibly use you? Gosh, look at my family background. Look what I've come up from. Man, I'm so screwed up. I'm so messed up. Or our excuses. I've said, Gideon, what are you talking about? I'm not equipped to do what you're calling me to do. I don't have the support around me of an army of 32,000 to do what you're calling me to do. Gideon, to live the way you're calling me to live. You can't be calling me to do that. Do you see the same struggle as the same similarities that we have here today that, just as much as God wanted Israel to know, hey, you can't do it. You can't deliver yourselves. It's ultimately me. And how you need a king, God is also saying, speaking to His people today, you and me that we can't do it on our own, that we, no matter what excuses we might give, or how inadequate we might feel, God's saying, look, you're missing the picture. If you think it's about you in the first place, you're already God off to a wrong start. What was whole, what God's whole point with this is He didn't want Israel to be able to boast in themselves.
And if you think things are going difficult in your life now here, and you think God's got you in a hard spot, and you're like, how's He going to deliver me through this? And why is He doing this? It could be, and very likely is at least part of this reason, that He doesn't want you to get the glory through it. He doesn't want you to be able to boast about it. He wants you to be able to say, look, when you hear my story, you're going to be like, only God could save a person like me. Knowing the stuff I've done in my life, the things I thought in my mind, only God could deliver me in my situation, because say my finances were messed up, because I'd take my relationship, but my spouse was so wrong. My bitterness towards a parent was so deep. You pick the example, God wants you to know He is your deliverer, and there are two main enemies that He delivers us from here today, that He wants His church to know. Briefly, number one, the enemy of sins guilt. Next slide. Do you know the power of guilt? Do you know the power of shame associated with guilt? It is so powerful. It is so powerful that we have world religions that have been formed over the years, that are solely for the point of dealing with guilt and shame. Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, just to name the big ones. Do you realize that the base of all other world religions, other than Christianity, at the base of what's happening going on there, is that people are seeking to self-righteously satisfy a God who they know is greater and has a holy standard. Their religion foundation is based on trying to please God, trying to be good enough, trying to be faithful enough. Greg and Vanessa were just telling me about a trip, and I'm planning to have a chance to talk to a Muslim on the thing and understand correctly, he was talking about that. Again, as long as all your good things outweigh, you guys were asking questions about what about terrorism? But as long as all your good things outweigh all your bad things, am I getting this right? He point blank told him that you'd go to heaven. The foundation of other world religions is the attempt to deal with guilt and shame. So don't be surprised at other world religions, but here's the other technique. It's not self-righteous religion, it's self-righteous comparison, because there's a whole group of people that think religion is a stupid. You might heard of a guy named Bill Mayer, new movie out, as I read about him this week and talked about him. You know, it is interesting, right, that his father's Catholic, his mother's a Jew, as I understand it. Here's a guy that has grown up with some deep traditions of faith, and I don't know what his home life was like. I bet there were some struggles there, but he has totally rejected it. But he and other secular humanists, or other atheists, whatever you want to call this group, that's a non-religious group, also has a standard and a way to deal with guilt and shame. And it's called self-righteousness through comparison. Bill Mayer comes down right out and says that he thinks religious people are idiots. He's not embarrassed to say that. And let's be honest, we do look like idiots sometimes. It can seem like foolishness. Jesus even said so, to believe the gospel. But his standard is people ought to be smart enough to see through the problems and see through the lies of it and see through the hypocrisy of it. They ought to be smart enough. His standard is a standard of comparison. Are you smart enough to see it? Are you intellectually independent enough to handle it? I'm not just picking on one guy, but you can name it. If a person is not religious that you know, and it's not a Christian, I guarantee you their way of self-righteousness in dealing with guilt and shame is through some way of comparison. Well, I'm more sophisticated, or I'm not like those people. It's some form of that that they have a way to justify themselves and to cover over. And all it does is covering over the reality of sin and guilt that's not ever dealt with. You know, it's kind of like, I didn't hope Congress might be sharing the stories. It's kind of like your hamster cage, Connor. All right. Because after a few weeks, you know, I don't like to go in Connor's bedroom because it smells like a hamster cage. Now, you can mistake it for the football equipment over in the corner. Okay. You could spray lice all and do stuff all around. You can do all kinds of things to cover it up. But until you deal with the core, the heart of it, until you clean out the hamster cage, you're not getting rid of the problem. And by the way, it's time. You've got to deal with the source. Self-righteous religion, self-righteous comparison, are not dealing with the heart of it. It's covering over, it's glazing it over it. But Jesus comes in the gospel and he says, you know what? I'll deal with your sin problem. And I'll do it through the gospel. You know what? You're not good enough. And you know what? You know how you keep feeling insecure like you can't measure up. It's because you can't. Don't let some other world religion think that you can be good enough. Don't let some sense of comparison. Well, I'm not as bad as that neighbor. Make you feel better and be justified. Jesus is saying very clearly, God is saying you can't be good enough. You can't live up to the standard. Please acknowledge it. But there is hope. And the hope is that Jesus was good enough. Jesus was perfect enough. And Jesus comes and says, even though your bank account has a negative balance and you owe money, in mine has an infinite amount, I'm going to swap accounts with you. You take my account. Your name gets written in my book of life, my account book. And my name will be the one that's the debtor. That's the gospel. Jesus says, look, my righteous will be credited to you if you believe and trust it and walk in it. That deals with the problem of sin. Or God says, you know what? I'm going to forgive you for the guilt and the shame that you have that you rightfully have because you have to fight a holy God. But I will grant forgiveness because I love you because I want a relationship with you. And the second thing that God defeats the second part of the enemy, not just of sin's guilt but of sin's power. Because let me tell you, every other world religion is still about how you've got to try harder. You've got to be better. And if you're not a religious person who's not a Christian, you've got to compare more. You've got to find other people to feel better about. I mean, why does a show like the Jerry Springer show continue to survive? Or the other ones that have replaced it? Because people like feeling like I'm not that bad. My wife's not that messed up. Don't they? Don't we? You pick it. Self-righteous religion, self-righteous comparison. It's one of the other. And you've got to do more of it to feel better about it. But that's not real power. That doesn't change your life. It doesn't change you from inside out. But Jesus does. Jesus says, hey, quit trying to stop sinning. Quit trying to stop doing wrong things. And start believing that there's a real creator God, who created all the beauty you see around you, who loves you intimately, enough to send his own son to die and to cross. Trust in that. Believe in that. Invite that forgiveness and acceptance into your life. And as Colossians 2.6 says, just as you received him, so walk in him. Don't receive him by grace and faith and then try to live a good life best you can, white knuckling it out. Doing it for Jesus. No, just as you received him, so walk in him. Trusting in his forgiveness. Continuing to remind yourself that you're not good enough, that you still don't measure up in and of yourself. But you're not trusting in that anymore. If you're a true Christian, you're trusting that Jesus measured up. He is the king. And where there would be two kings in your heart, which we've already said is not possible, you balcony, and you exalt Jesus as king. If not, there's too too many in your heart, just like there was in Israel. Are there too too many delivers in your life? Who is your deliverer? Is it ultimately really you? Or is it ultimately really Jesus? And are you experiencing that more and more every day? One is enough. He is enough. And Jesus has to make that very clear. On the night that he was betrayed. He said, let me give you an example. You eat this stuff every day, talking to his 12 disciples. In essence, that's what he was doing. There's no basic commodity that they have for daily nourishment in this. And I'm like, bread, that you need this every day. And I'm the one that will be broken and receive your guilt and shame. I'll be the one that becomes broken and torn. I'll be the one that God will pour out his wrath on. The one ripped apart. I'll do it. If you take it and eat this as my body. If not, it's just a neat little picture. It's a fairy tale. Jesus, look, you got to eat it, though. You got to trust in it. You got to let Christ be your daily sustenance and what your hope is in living for. He's got to be king. That's what this is a picture of. When Jesus goes on after that, he takes the cup. And he says, this is the new covenant of my blood ship for many for the remission of sins, drink from it all of you. People back then knew that this is what we do today. This is the life-giving part of our lives, the blood. It carries nutrients through our bodies. It is the life force in our physical bodies. You just say, you got the picture. I've got to be the life force. I've got to be the one that's setting you free from the power of sin. You've got to let my life by my spirit control you and live in you and flow through you. That is what changes from the inside out. Not trying harder and harder to be good. Jesus is basically saying, aren't you tired? Aren't you tired of self-religion? Self-righteous religion? Aren't you tired of self-righteous comparison? Come home and rest. And some of you may be here this morning and you're saying, this is an interesting concept maybe. And hopefully you thought it was interesting. And if you're not ready to make that decision to walk with Christ here this morning and you know you haven't, don't encourage you. Don't come and partake. I've already told you what this represents. It represents that this is what you're believing. You're still invited to come and let us pray for you. We'd love to do that. Pray for God to reveal Himself to you. Don't be afraid to still come and let us pray for you. We'd love to do that. Even better. Come and say, Jesus, I'm ready to eat. I want to make it king. Ask Him to forgive you. Ask Him to come into your life. Ask Him to transform you. And come and eat for the first time. If you're here and you're a follower of Jesus Christ and you know you've made Him king and made that choice, but whatever reason, you are have your own who's going on in a certain area of your life where you refuse His Lordship. I'm not talking about an area where you continue to struggle. I'm talking about an area where you refuse His Lordship. And if you are not willing to turn from that here today, those scriptures tell me that I should warn you that you shouldn't come and eat and drink lightly of this. You should come and examine yourselves. And if you're unwilling to turn from that, it'd be better if you're not to partake but ask God rather to bring you to place of brokenness where you would turn from that. Still come for. Let us pray for you. We'd love to do that. But if you're here this morning and you're ready to say, come and be king in that area. And you're ready to forsake it. Jesus says, eat. Be satisfied. Be filled. Come and experience His forgiveness here this morning. And my hope is that most of us are here knowing our need for this. Having been reminded of it. Come, partake. Experience His forgiveness and His power and come. Invite Him to be king. And greater ways of your life here. Even this morning. So use this time to reflect and meditate to come forward. Remember we have one prayer counselor in each side. We have Mark. We have Debbie. Feel free to come. You want to share specific needs. Let them pray for you. They'd love to do that. That's available. So use this time now as we continue to respond to God's word.