Saul stood on a ridge at Gilboa looking down at more Philistines than he had ever seen, and he did the thing you would want him to do. He asked God. Dreams, Urim, prophets, three ways God had spoken to the kings of Israel, and all three went quiet inside a single verse (1 Samuel 28:6). Then watch what happens next.

One verse later he tells his servants to go find him a medium (28:7). That is the whole gap. One verse between asking God and looking somewhere else.

Now remember what Scripture says about the very same night. "He did not seek guidance from the LORD" (1 Chronicles 10:14). Both are true. Saul asked. And God says he never sought Him.

That is a diagnosis, and it is not aimed at the person who never darkens a church door. Saul knew the vocabulary. He had enforced God's law on other people. He swore an oath by the name of the LORD in the middle of breaking the law of the LORD, and it never once occurred to him that there was a problem.

Every religious instinct was intact. There was just nobody home.

Here is the uncomfortable part. A man can want an answer without wanting the One who gives it, and you find out which one you have been doing by how quickly a second option shows up when the first one goes quiet. You prayed about it on Sunday. By Tuesday you had called the person you already knew would agree with you. You kept gathering opinions until somebody finally said the thing you were hoping to hear. You had the plan drafted before you ever bowed your head.

So ask a harder question this week than the one you have been asking. Do I want God in this, or do I just want out of this? Then go after Him instead of the answer. Open the Book with nothing to gain from it. Pray past the request and stay a while.

And if that exposes something in you, it is meant to. There was One who never asked God for an outcome instead of God, who never prayed a prayer that was not perfect, and in the dark on a cross He asked and God did not answer Him. He took the silence Saul had earned. He took it so that you will never have to hear it.

This Sunday the text sets two men side by side in the same week, on the eve of the same battle, asking the same God the same kind of question. One of them gets a wall and one of them gets a promise, and the difference between them is not that one was the better man. Read 1 Samuel 28:3-30:31 before you come, and watch for the sentence the whole passage hinges on: "And the LORD answered him."

Critically Think

1. Read 28:3-6. Before the crisis even starts, the narrator sets down two facts: Samuel is dead, and Saul himself had put the mediums out of the land. Then Saul asks God and three channels go silent (28:6). Name all three. Why does the narrator want you to know Saul had already outlawed the very thing he's about to go looking for?
2. Read 28:6-7. Count the verses between Saul asking God and Saul sending servants to find a medium. How long is that gap, and what does the size of it tell you about what Saul actually wanted?
3. Read 1 Chronicles 10:13-14 alongside 1 Samuel 28:6. Chronicles says Saul "did not seek guidance from the LORD," and 1 Samuel says plainly that he inquired of the LORD. Both are true. What is Chronicles diagnosing that 1 Samuel 28:6 does not say out loud?
4. Read 28:8-20. Saul disguises himself, travels at night, and swears "as the LORD lives" (28:10) in the middle of breaking the LORD's law. When Samuel finally speaks (28:16-19), how much of it is new? Compare 28:17-18 with 1 Samuel 15. What is the only new piece of information Saul receives?
5. Read chapter 29. Four times in eleven verses the Philistines tell David to go back (29:4, 29:7, 29:11). Now look for a prayer, an ephod, or anyone inquiring of the LORD anywhere in the chapter. Who actually gets David out of that battle formation, and who is the one man in the chapter who says the name of the LORD (29:6)?
6. Read 30:1-6. Read the tally slowly: the town burned, the families taken, six hundred men weeping until they had no more strength (30:4), and David's own men picking up rocks (30:6). Then the verse turns. Notice that the sentence is not "David strengthened himself." What are the last four words, and why does everything depend on them?
7. Read 30:7-8 and think back to chapter 22. Who is holding the ephod in front of David, and why is that priest alive and in David's camp instead of Saul's? Then read God's answer in 30:8. How many times does He say it?
8. Read 30:3 and 30:19 back to back, word for word. Then read the ruling in 30:22-24. On what ground does David refuse a merit-based split of the spoil, and what does he call the men who wanted one?

Prayerfully Meditate
Saul knew the vocabulary. He enforced God's law on other people, he swore by God's name, and in 28:14 he bows his face to the ground. Every religious instinct was intact. Which of your own religious instincts is running fine while your heart has quietly gone somewhere else?
He asked God for something. He never once asked for God. When you pray this week, are you after Him, or after an outcome with His name on it?
In the dark on a cross, Jesus asked God a question and heaven was a wall (Matthew 27:45-46). He had never turned away for a second, and He got the silence anyway. He got it for what you did. What changes about your praying if the silence Saul met has already fallen somewhere else, on Someone who did not have it coming?
David did not strengthen himself. He strengthened himself in the LORD his God. Saul could no longer say "my God." David could, and he had not earned it. Where would you go, out loud, at two in the morning, if everything you had were gone by sundown?
Some of us are on the baggage detail this year, too tired or too new or too weighed down to cross the brook, and we've quietly concluded we get a smaller share of God because we contributed less. Read the ruling again in 30:23-24. What would it look like to actually believe it about yourself?

Intentionally Act

1. Read 1 Samuel 28:3-30:31 straight through before Sunday. Sixty-five verses is a lot, but the contrast only lands when you see both men in the same week.
2. Stop asking God for the answer this week and go get the Answerer. Set aside one block of time where you ask Him for nothing at all and just seek His face.
3. Decide now, before you need it, what strengthening yourself in the LORD will look like on your worst night. Pick the psalm. Pick the promise you'll preach back to yourself. Write down the name of the person you'd call.
4. Find someone on the baggage detail, someone worn out or grieving or newly here, and share with them what the LORD has given you. Time, a meal, a ride, a seat next to you on Sunday.
5. If you've been in church your whole life and have never once turned, don't wait for a better morning. Turn to Him now, and tell one believer you did.
6. Learn the songs below before we gather, so on Sunday you can sing them instead of read them.

Songs for Sunday
Firm Foundation 
In Christ Alone 
Worthy
It Is Well

Beginning Sunday, September 13, our first worship service moves from 9:00am to 8:30am.
Here’s the reason: We want to give Sunday school a real hour.

Under the current schedule, the 9:00 service lets out just about the time Sunday school is supposed to start. So classes begin late. Teachers race the clock. More than one good conversation has been cut off in the middle because the room had to clear for 11:15. Anyone who has taught a class knows exactly what that does to it. You skip the discussion. You shorten the prayer time. You get through the material and hope somebody caught it.

Thirty minutes fixes that.

Beginning September 13:

8:30am Worship
10:00am to 11:00am Sunday School
11:15am Worship

The 11:15 service does not change. What changes is that the hour in between belongs to the classes, start to finish, with a few minutes on either side to get where you are going.
We are doing this because the teaching hour is not filler between services. It is one of the few places in the week where a believer sits down with an open Bible and other believers and is actually taught. Where a question gets asked out loud and answered.

Where somebody notices you were not there last Sunday and asks about it on Tuesday.
This church is here to worship, to disciple, and to send, and we fear we have been shortchanging the middle one by handing our teachers forty-five minutes and calling it an hour.

Nursery and children’s classes run at both worship hours and during the Sunday school hour. If your class has been meeting in a room that is hard to get to in a hurry, talk to us; we have some flexibility now that we did not have before.

This Sunday David gets a second chance to kill Saul, and he won't take it. Then, one chapter later, with Saul finally off his back and a fresh blessing still ringing in his ears, David walks straight out of the land God gave him. Read 1 Samuel 26-27 before we gather, and watch how a man can obey God beautifully at midnight and talk himself out of trusting Him by morning.

Critically Think

1. Read 26:1-5. Who tips Saul off this time, and how many men does he bring? Where have you met the Ziphites before in this series (23:19)? What does the narrator want you to notice about Saul lying "within the encampment" with his army around him?
2. Read 26:6-8. David asks who will go down with him, and Abishai volunteers. How does Abishai read the moment in 26:8, and what exactly does he claim God has done? Does his sentence sound like faith to you?
3. Read 26:9-12. David gives three reasons he will not touch Saul (26:9, 26:10, 26:11). What are they, and what does 26:10 say about who settles Saul's account and when? Then look at 26:12. Why does nobody in a camp of three thousand men wake up, and who does the narrator credit for that?
4. Read 26:13-20. David shouts across the valley to Abner first and then to Saul. What does he accuse Abner of failing to do (26:15-16)? In 26:19 David says he has been driven out from the heritage of the LORD. What does he say his enemies have told him to go do?
5. Read 26:21-25. Saul says, "I have sinned," and, "I have acted foolishly, and have made a great mistake." Set that next to his words in 24:16-21. What is different this time, and what is exactly the same? Keep in mind that these two men never speak again after 26:25.
6. Read 27:1-7. Watch the phrase "David said in his heart." What conclusion does David reach, and how does it square with what he had just told Saul in 26:23-24 and what Abigail told him in 25:28-29? Who does he go to for safety, and how long does he stay?
7. Read 27:8-12. How does David actually survive those sixteen months in Philistine territory, and what does Achish come to believe about him in 27:12? What is the cost of a plan that works?

Prayerfully Meditate
Abishai said: "God has given your enemy into your hand this day." It sounded like faith. It was really just an open door with a spiritual accent on it. Where has an opportunity lately been talking to you like it was a word from God?
David told Saul that the LORD rewards every man for his righteousness and his faithfulness, and then, a handful of verses later, he told himself he would die by Saul's hand. A man can refuse the spear at midnight and still lose heart by morning. What true thing did you say out loud last week that you are no longer living like this week?
Notice where the collapse happens. Not in an argument, not under torture, but in his heart, alone, in one sentence (27:1). Nobody talked David out of trusting God. He did it himself. What sentence have you been rehearsing privately that God has never once said to you?
David's plan worked. Saul stopped hunting him, and sixteen months of relative quiet followed, paid for with raiding and lying. God does not need your shortcut to keep His promise. Where have you been calling something a blessing mostly because it made life easier?

Intentionally Act

1. Read 1 Samuel 26-27 slowly before Sunday. Mark every place David speaks about the LORD's hand, and every place he reaches for his own.
2. Write down your own 27:1 sentence, the thing you keep saying in your heart about how this is going to end. Then find one promise in Scripture that answers it, and carry that verse with you this week.
3. Name the Abishai voice in your life, the counsel that sounds spiritual and points straight at the shortcut. Say it out loud to someone who will tell you the truth.
4. Pick one person you have every right to strike back at, and do something kind for them instead before Sunday.
5. Learn the songs below before we gather, so we can sing our confidence back to God with one voice.

Songs
'Tis So Sweet
Trust in God  
Gratitude
How Deep the Father's Love For Us

One chapter after David spared the king who was hunting him to kill him, he strapped on his sword to wipe out an entire household over an insult. Same David. Same sword. The difference was not the size of the wound. Saul had hurled a spear at him and hunted him for years, and David walked away. Nabal, a rich man he had never met, was merely rude to his messengers, and David rode out ready to kill every man in the house by morning (1 Samuel 25).

Here is the strange thing about the human heart, and it is worth being honest about. We survive the great wounds and come apart at the small ones. You have forgiven a deep betrayal, the one that should have been unforgivable, and then lost your composure over someone who cut in front of you in line. You can take the blow. It is the snub that gets you. The tone in the text message. The credit that went to someone else. The name left off the invitation. Pride does not measure the size of the wound. Pride measures the size of the
insult.

And when the insult lands, something in us reaches for a sword. Maybe not a real one. The message we draft and redraft. The account we keep warm for months. The thing we plan to say the next time we see them. Abigail had a name for that reach. She called it "saving with your own hand" (25:26). When you rear back to settle your own score, you are not simply getting even. You are firing the Savior and taking the job yourself.

You do not have to. David's grievance was real, and God settled it. The LORD struck Nabal about ten days later, and David never lifted a finger (25:38). Your grievance is not being ignored. It is being handled. There is a Judge who sees every bit of it, who is never too soft and never too harsh, and who repays on His own schedule. When you grab the sword and settle the score yourself, all you do is trade their guilt for your own.

So take your hand off it. God struck Nabal so David would not have to. And on a cross, God struck His own Son so you would never be struck. The account against you is settled. Not by your hand. Not on your head. On His.

Preparing for Sunday - 1 Samuel 25

This week we come to one of the sharpest turns in David's story. Last Sunday he stood in a cave and would not lay a hand on the king who was hunting him. This week a rich fool is merely rude to him, and David straps on his sword to kill every man in the household by sundown. Same David, same sword, one chapter later. Read 1 Samuel 25 slowly before Sunday, and let the narrator hold those two scenes side by side. The question the chapter puts to you is simple: when somebody wrongs you, whose hand is going to settle it, yours or God's?

Critically Think

1. Verse 1 opens with a single line: "Now Samuel died." Why might the narrator place the death of the prophet who anointed both Saul and David right before David nearly becomes a murderer? What has gone quiet under David?
2. Look at how the narrator introduces the two main characters in verse 3. Abigail is "discerning and beautiful"; Nabal is "harsh and badly behaved," and his name means "fool." How does setting wisdom and folly side by side prepare you for everything that follows?
3. Trace David's request in verses 5-8. How courteous is it? Then read the servant's testimony in verse 16 ("They were a wall to us both by night and by day"). Was David owed something real, or was this a shakedown?
4. Read Nabal's reply in verses 10-11. Count the possessive pronouns ("my bread... my water... my meat"). Notice too that "the son of Jesse" is the exact sneer Saul uses. What does Nabal's answer reveal about the kind of fool he is?
5. Now read David's vow in verses 21-22. Was David's grievance legitimate? And yet what was he about to do? How can a person have the facts exactly right and the heart exactly wrong at the same time?
6. Abigail does three things in verses 24, 26, and 28-29: she takes the blame, she names the real danger ("saving with your own hand"), and she lifts David's eyes to God's promise of "a sure house." How does each one work to get David's hand off the sword?
7. Watch who finally settles the account in verses 37-39. David swore to do it by morning; what did God do, and how long did it take? Whose hand stayed clean?

Prayerfully Meditate

1. David could take the king's spear and not the fool's snub. Where in your own life does a small insult undo you faster than a real injury? What score are you keeping warm right now, rehearsing the moment you finally get even?
2. Abigail's word for revenge is not merely "getting even." She calls it "saving with your own hand." When you reach to settle your own score, you are not simply getting even. You are firing the Savior and taking the job yourself. Sit with that. Is there an account you are holding that belongs in God's hands, not yours?
3. God kept David from bloodguilt by sending a person, at the last minute, willing to get down in the dirt and tell him the truth. Who have your Abigails been? Have you thanked God for the friend, the spouse, the brother who got in front of you?
4. It is a greater mercy to be kept from a sin than to be forgiven one. Where has God recently kept you from something you fully intended to do? Have you called it what David called it, not luck, but the LORD's restraint with a face?
5. The deepest mercy in this chapter is that God struck Nabal so David would not have to, and at the cross the wrath your sin deserved fell on Christ so it would never fall on you. How does knowing your account is already settled free you to stop guarding your own honor?
   
   

Intentionally Act

1. Name the sword. Write down the one grievance you have been rehearsing, the message you keep drafting in your head, the thing you plan to say next time you see them. Then, in prayer, hand that account to God and leave it with Him.
2. Be an Abigail this week. Is there someone up on the horse, about to do something they will regret? Ride toward them, gently, and turn their eyes back to God rather than trying to fix their circumstances.
3. Thank one of your Abigails out loud. Tell the person who once got in front of you that you now see it was God keeping you, not an interruption.
4. If you are the Nabal, comfortable and unreconciled, do not wait. Nabal had about ten days and did not know it. Come to Christ while the door is open, and receive the mercy His blood bought.
5. Come ready to worship. Learn this week's songs below so that on Sunday you can sing them from the heart as the truth of a settled account is set in front of you.

Songs for Sunday
We're excited to have the Jason Lovins Band with us in both our Sunday gatherings this week!

Yesterday we stood in a cave with David.

Saul had hunted him for years, and now the man who wanted him dead was right there, alone, close enough to kill. Every voice in the cave said the same thing his own men said: "Here is the day of which the LORD said to you, 'Behold, I will give your enemy into your hand'" (24:4). The throne was one sword-stroke away. And David wouldn't do it. He cut off a corner of Saul's robe, and even that wrecked his conscience.

I've been thinking about that all morning, and here's what I don't want us to lose.

David didn't keep his hand off because he was a naturally gentle man. He kept his hand off because he was sure of something. He was sure the outcome wasn't in his hand at all. Saul "sought him every day, but God did not give him into his hand" (23:14). And when God finally put Saul in David's hand, David handed the whole thing right back: "May the LORD judge between me and you... but my hand shall not be against you" (24:12).

So let me ask you the question the passage asked us. Whose hand does your future belong to?

Because most of us have a cave moment somewhere. Something within reach that we could grab by one act we know is wrong. A vindication. A relationship. A way out. The score we've been keeping warm, rehearsing the moment we finally get even. God will not leave you to secure yourself by a sin. Keep your hand off it, and trust His.

Here's the part I hope followed you out the door. You are not mainly David in this story. You are Saul, the one who warred against the LORD's Anointed and got mercy instead of the sword he deserved. David spared one enemy and waited for one throne. Jesus did more. He "did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped" (Philippians 2:6), refused the shortcut, and received the kingdom from His Father's hand through a cross. He opened His hands and took the nail so you'd be spared.

One more thing from the last verse. Saul wept, confessed beautifully, and went home unchanged. Emotion that does not turn a life is not repentance. Don't just be moved this week. Be turned.                    

Preparing for Sunday - 1 Samuel 23-24

This Sunday we come to 1 Samuel 23:1-24:22. Saul hunts David every day and can't lay a hand on him, and when God finally puts Saul in David's hand, David won't close his hand on the kingdom. Read the passage this week and sit with one question it keeps asking: whose hand actually decides your future? Work through the questions below to get your heart ready before Sunday.

Critically Think

1. Read 23:1-5. Keilah is under attack and it's Saul's job to defend it, not David's. What does David do before he acts, and how many times does he inquire of the LORD (23:2-4)? What does it tell you that the hunted fugitive is shepherding God's people while the crowned king hunts him?
2. In 23:7, Saul says, "God has given him into my hand." Look back at 23:4, where God told David, "I will give the Philistines into your hand." Saul borrows God's own words. How is Saul reading an open door (a trapped enemy in a walled town) as God's approval of his agenda?
3. Read the narrator's verdict in 23:14: "And Saul sought him every day, but God did not give him into his hand." Why is this the hinge sentence of the whole chapter? What's the difference between Saul's determination and actual authority over the outcome?
4. Read 23:15-18. Jonathan comes to David one last time and "strengthened his hand in God" (23:16). Jonathan can't rescue David, change his circumstances, or even stay. What can he do, and what does that show you about the ministry of pointing someone back to God's promise?
5. Read 23:24-28. Saul is closing in at Maon, one mountain away, "closing in on David and his men to capture them" (23:26). What breaks Saul off the chase, and who arranged the rescue? Why do you think they named the place the Rock of Escape (23:28)?
6. Read 24:1-7. Saul walks alone into the very cave where David is hiding. David's men call it the promise cashing in (24:4). Yet David only cuts the corner of Saul's robe, and even that makes his heart strike him (24:5). Why does David say, "The LORD forbid that I should... put out my hand against him, seeing he is the LORD's anointed" (24:6)?
7. Read 24:8-15. Notice that David spares Saul but still tells him the truth to his face ("you hunt my life to take it," 24:11). How does David hold mercy and honesty together? What does he mean when he says, "May the LORD judge between me and you... but my hand shall not be against you" (24:12)?

Prayerfully Meditate

1. David could keep his hand off his enemy and off the throne, not because he was strong enough to hold back, but because he was sure enough that the outcome was in God's hand and not his own. Where in your life are you trying to secure yourself by an act you know you shouldn't take?
2. God did not leave David to engineer his own safety by cutting a corner he knew he should not cut, and He will not leave you there either. Do you believe the hand that kept David out of Saul's grip is holding you?
3. Jonathan strengthened David's hand in God when he couldn't fix a single circumstance. Who has been a Jonathan to you? Whose hand could you strengthen this week with a word about God and His promise?
4. There's a moment in the cave when everything David wants, the end of the running and the throne God promised, is one sword-stroke away, and taking it means one act he knows is wrong. Is there something within reach right now that you could seize by a sin, a vindication, a relationship, a settling of the score?
5. The account is not yours to settle, because the Judge who sees all of it will settle it in His time and His way. What would it look like to hand your case to Him and take your hand off the sword?

Intentionally Act

1. Before you act on a decision this week, do what David did: inquire of the LORD first. Bring the specific choice to Him in prayer and ask Him to keep you from securing yourself by sin.
2. Be a Jonathan to one person. Go out of your way to point a friend in the wilderness back to God and His promise, even if you can't change their situation.
3. Name the "cave moment" you're standing in, the thing you could grab by one wrong act, and decide ahead of time to keep your hand off it. Write down the score you're tempted to settle and hand it to God as Judge.
4. Remember that you're not mainly David in this story. You're Saul, the one who has warred against the LORD's Anointed and been met with mercy instead of the sword. Thank Jesus, the true Anointed, who would not grasp the crown by a shortcut but received it from the Father's hand through a cross.
5. Come Sunday ready to worship. Take a few minutes this week to learn the songs below so you can sing them with your whole heart.

Songs for Sunday
His Mercy is More 
Christ Be Magnified 
Yet Not I But Christ In Me
Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone)

A tired, frightened man showed up at the tabernacle in Nob with no bread, no sword, and no story anyone would like. He was the most famous soldier in Israel, and he was completely alone. When Ahimelech the priest came out to meet him, Scripture says he came "trembling" (1 Samuel 21:1). Something was off, and the old priest could feel it.

So David gave him a story. The king has sent me on secret business, he said. It was not true. No one had sent David. He was running for his life, and he needed food and a weapon, and instead of telling the priest the truth and letting him decide with his eyes open, he handed him a lie.

It felt like survival. For David, it probably was.

But watch what it did to the man standing in front of him. A few days later Ahimelech is dragged before Saul and accused of treason, and listen to how he defends himself: "Who among all your servants is so faithful as David?" (1 Samuel 22:14). He is still vouching for David. He has no idea there is a war on, no idea the man he helped is now a fugitive, because no one told him the truth. He defends the very thing that gets him killed. That day Saul put the whole town of priests to the sword.

Here is the hard part for us. You are not plotting some elaborate deception this morning. That is not what you are doing with your life. But you know how to shade a story so it lands the way you need it to. You know how to protect yourself with a version of events that is not quite true. And it feels like survival.

The trouble is that a lie you tell to keep yourself safe rarely stops with you. It puts the people closest to you in danger they never signed up for. The refuge you build out of a half-truth does not just fail you. It wounds whoever is standing next to you.

There is one King worth running to who never did this. The true Son of David never lied, never ran, never spent someone else's life to save His own. He told the truth all the way to a cross, and there He took the guilt that was ours, so we can stop covering our own. Stop managing the story. With Him you are safe, and so is everyone beside you.

Preparing for Sunday
This Sunday we follow David out of the palace and into the wilderness, running with no bread, no sword, and no one beside him. Before you gather, read 1 Samuel 21-22 slowly and watch one town, Nob, turn from a place of mercy at the front door into a graveyard at the back, and watch a hunted, empty-handed man become the one thing he could not find for himself: a refuge. Come ready to hear the King in the cave say to the last survivor, "With me you shall be in safekeeping."

Critically Think
1. Read 21:1-6. David comes to Ahimelech alone, and the priest meets him "trembling" (21:1). What does David tell him, and what does he ask for first? Why does it matter that the anointed king is now living off "the bread of the Presence" (21:6)?
2. Read 21:7. The narrator drops in one sentence about "Doeg, an Edomite, the chief of Saul's herdsmen," who was "detained before the LORD." What does it tell you that a man on a religious errand, at the house of God, is the one who will later hold the sword?
3. Read 21:8-9. Of every weapon in the sanctuary, the only one is "the sword of Goliath." How is God still providing for David even in the middle of David's fear and his lie?
4. Read 21:10-15. David runs to Gath, Goliath's hometown, and to save his life he pretends to be insane, letting "his spittle run down his beard" (21:13). What does that low point reveal about where David's trust has drifted?
5. Read 22:1-2. When David reaches the cave of Adullam, who gathers to him: "everyone who was in distress, and everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was bitter in soul" (22:2)? What kind of king is being formed in that cave, and who does he turn away?
6. Read 22:3-5. Before David secures anything for himself, he shelters his parents "till I know what God will do for me" (22:3). Where is his security actually coming from?
7. Read 22:6-18. Saul sits under the tamarisk tree "with his spear in his hand" (22:6). How does Doeg turn a priest's prayer into treason, and what happens when Saul's own guards "would not put out their hand to strike the priests of the LORD" (22:17)?
8. Read 22:19-23. Sit in the horror of verse 19, then watch verse 22, where David owns his part: "I have occasioned the death of all the persons of your father's house." What does he do with that guilt when he turns to Abiathar in 22:23?

Prayerfully Meditate
David's first move when he was afraid was to manage his own safety with a lie, and that lie helped leave Ahimelech defending David blind, with no idea it would cost his life. Where has a "small" self-protecting story of yours put someone standing next to you in danger you never counted on?
Doeg was "detained before the LORD" and still walked out a murderer. Religious proximity is not a changed heart. Where have you mistaken being near the things of God for being surrendered to God?
Look at who filled the cave: the distressed, the indebted, the bitter of soul. That is still the exact crowd the true King gathers. You do not clean up and then come to the cave. You come to the cave, and the King cleans you up into one of His mighty men. Do you count yourself too much of a mess to belong to Him, or have you believed that this is precisely the company He keeps?
David could not undo the massacre or raise the priests, but he could tell the truth about the damage and still open the door to the survivor. The true King took the guilt that was ours and gave us the safety that was His. What guilt have you decided disqualifies you from coming near Him?

Intentionally Act
1. Read 1 Samuel 21-22 before Sunday, and read it twice: once watching David, once watching Saul. Ask God to show you which king your reactions imitate when you feel cornered.
2. Name one place fear has been pushing you to shade the truth or protect yourself with a version of events that is not quite honest. Confess it specifically to God, and if you need to, to one trusted believer.
3. Do the Adullam thing: find one person this week who is in distress, in debt of spirit, or bitter in soul, and make room for them the way David made room. A meal, a call, an afternoon.
4. If you are carrying guilt, over something you caused or grief you did not, stop keeping your distance from God as if He were coming to settle a score. Take Him at His word in 22:23 and come get under the guard of the King who was hunted in your place.
5. Learn the songs below before we gather, so that on Sunday you can sing to the King who welcomes the hunted and the guilty with your whole heart.

Songs for Sunday
Death Was Arrested
Lord I Need You
O Come to the Altar
Rock of Ages

He was five years old when everything ended.

The news came from Jezreel that Saul and Jonathan were dead on Mount Gilboa, and the household went into a panic. A nurse snatched up Jonathan's little boy and ran, because when a new king takes a throne, the old king's grandsons do not usually live long. She ran, and somewhere in that flight she fell, and the boy fell with her. He never walked right again.
His name was Mephibosheth, and he grew up in a place called Lo-debar, which sat east of the Jordan, well out of the way. He had a roof over his head and someone else's table to eat at. What he did not have was a future. He was the last of a fallen house, lame in both feet, living quietly and hoping the palace never remembered his name.

Then one day soldiers came for him.

Picture that walk. Every step toward Jerusalem is a step toward the man your grandfather hunted for years, the man your family tried to kill. You cannot run. You cannot fight. You rehearse what you will say, and nothing you come up with sounds like it will save you. When they finally set him down in front of King David, he did the only thing left to do. He fell on his face.

And the king said, "Do not fear."

Then David told him why. "I will show you kindness for the sake of your father Jonathan, and I will restore to you all the land of Saul your father, and you shall eat at my table always" (2 Samuel 9:7).

Here is what Mephibosheth did not know. Years before he was born, out in a field while a king sharpened his hatred, his father and David had cut a covenant before the Lord. Jonathan had asked one thing: when you are king, do not cut off your steadfast love from my house. David swore it. And now, with Jonathan long dead and the boy grown and broken, the king was keeping a promise the boy had no idea existed.

He was given land he had not earned, and a seat he had not asked for, at a table he had no right to approach. Scripture closes his account this way: he "ate always at the king's table.

Now he was lame in both his feet" (2 Samuel 9:13).

Both things stayed true. He never walked again. He never ate anywhere else.

That is what covenant love does. And it is the reason there is room at another King's table for people like us, who come with nothing, on the strength of a promise we did not make and cannot break.    

This Sunday we're in 1 Samuel 20, and it's the chapter where David's old life ends. Two men swear a covenant out in a field, in a hurry, while a king back at the palace sharpens a spear for one of them. Read the chapter before you come, sit with the questions below, and come ready to hear what holds God's people to His Anointed when everything else is being torn away.
Critically Think

1. Read 20:1-3. David fires off three questions without stopping for breath. What is he looking for, and what does Jonathan's reply in verse 2 tell you about what Jonathan still believes about his father?
2. In 20:5-11 the two of them set up a test around the new moon feast. What exactly are they trying to find out about Saul, and why would an empty seat at the table make a good test?
3. Look closely at verse 8. On what basis does David ask for Jonathan's help? Notice that he doesn't appeal to their friendship or to how they feel about each other. What does he appeal to instead, and why would that matter more in a moment like this?
4. Read 20:12-17 slowly and count how many times Jonathan lands his words on the LORD. What does Jonathan admit out loud in verse 15 about who is going to win, and what does he ask for in return? Remember who Jonathan is in line to become.
5. Read 20:24-34. Saul won't say David's name, calling him "the son of Jesse" in verses 27, 30, and 31. What does verse 31 show you about how clearly Saul understands what God is doing? How is Saul's response to that news different from Jonathan's response to the very same news?
6. In verse 33 the spear that has been flying at David all series long turns and flies at Jonathan. What does verse 34 say Jonathan does, and why? Add up what his loyalty cost him in a single evening.
7. Read 20:35-42. The two of them built an elaborate system of arrows and code words so they'd never have to be seen together, and then the moment the boy is gone they throw the whole system out. What do they do instead in verse 41? And in verse 42, who does Jonathan say is keeping this promise?

Prayerfully Meditate

1. Jonathan rested this covenant on the Lord on purpose, because he knew he might not live long enough to keep it himself. He didn't. Where have you been resting a promise on your own strength instead of on God's?
2. A covenant is a promise strong enough to outlive the people who made it, because its keeper is God. So where does your assurance before God actually sit this morning, on the firmness of your grip on Him, or on His grip on you? Be honest about which one you were leaning on this week.
3. Saul and Jonathan sat at the same table, heard the same news about David, and went in opposite directions with it. When God visibly blesses somebody else in this church, the ministry you don't run or the family everybody's excited about, which way does your heart move first?
4. Jonathan's faithfulness to God's anointed cost him a meal, a spear, and a father in one night. What has following Jesus cost you? Have you been tempted lately to quietly soften your allegiance to get that seat back? Loyalty you can keep for free was never truly tested.
5. Some of you are walking through a parting you could not prevent. You did everything you could and it ended anyway. Where do you need to hear that you lost the nearness and you did not lose the covenant?

Intentionally Act

1. Read 1 Samuel 20 straight through before Sunday, and then read 2 Samuel 9 right behind it. That's where this covenant finally pays out, and it will change how you hear the sermon.
2. Pick one person in this church and act like you're in covenant with them this week, not just attending alongside them. Send the text, make the call, show up.
3. If somebody is being talked about or piled on and you're in the room, open your mouth on their behalf. It'll cost you something. Do it anyway.
4. If God is blessing someone in a way you had wanted for yourself, bless them out loud this week. Say it to their face rather than swallowing it.
5. If you've had a familiar seat at the feast but you've never bowed the knee to the King, don't carry that into another Sunday. Talk with me or with one of our shepherds this week.

Then learn the songs below, so you can come Sunday ready to sing them with the whole room instead of catching up on the second verse.

Songs for Sunday
Standing on the Promises
Holy Holy Holy
The Solid Rock  
Trust & Obey

Sunday we watched one victory split two hearts. Jonathan heard the same song Saul heard, and Jonathan took off his royal robe and handed it to David, while Saul started watching him. "Saul eyed David from that day on" (1 Samuel 18:9). Envy is grief over the grace God gave somebody else, and God carved His verdict on it into stone at Sinai: you shall not covet anything that is your neighbor's.

So here is the week's assignment, and it has two halves. First, watch for the sting. It shows up small, in a scroll past somebody's good news, in a name you can't hear praised without something tightening in your chest. When it comes, call it what verse 9 calls it. You're eyeing somebody. Second, make the robe move. Pick the person whose blessing has been hardest for you to watch, and celebrate them this week, out loud, on purpose, to their face.

Pray for Honduras
One more robe move is open to all of us this week: our team is in Honduras serving among children who need what every child in the Tri-State needs, the good news of Jesus.

Praying for them is not a lesser assignment while they do the real work. It is the work. Paul, the greatest missionary in the New Testament, begged the churches for it: "Finally, brothers, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may speed ahead and be honored" (2 Thessalonians 3:1). The word speeds ahead on the prayers of the people back home.

So pray specifically this week. Pray that the word of the Lord speeds ahead in Honduras and that our team speaks it boldly and clearly (Ephesians 6:19). Pray for their health, their stamina, and their unity. And pray for the children by name where you know names, because Jesus said, "Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God" (Mark 10:14). Ask God to let a generation of Honduran children meet the Anointed One this very week.

Associate Pastor Search Update
Thank you for praying with us through this season of searching. Your shepherds have kept bringing candidates before the Lord, and we've sat down with several godly men. At this point, though, we don't sense the Lord leading us to move forward with any one of them for the posted position, and we'd rather wait on His timing than get ahead of it. The position is still open, more resumes came in this week, and we're reading through them prayerfully. We're also thankful for the staff God has already given us, and for their faithful work this summer, much of it the kind nobody sees. Keep praying with us as we trust the Lord to provide the shepherd He has for us.                  

Preparing for Sunday - 1 Samuel 18-19

This Sunday we step into the long middle of the story, where Saul turns his whole strength against the man God has chosen and keeps missing. Before you gather, read 1 Samuel 18-19 slowly and watch a single sentence surface again and again: the Lord was with him. Come ready to see what God's presence does to every weapon raised against His anointed.

Critically Think

1. Read 18:1-4. One victory over Goliath, two hearts headed opposite directions. What does Jonathan hand David in 18:4? Remember who Jonathan is when you answer that.
2. Read 18:6-9. Which line of the women's song lights the fuse for Saul? And when the narrator says Saul "eyed David from that day on" (18:9), what's he telling you about Saul?
3. Now watch how fast Saul slides in 18:8-11. Angry, then watching, then a spear in the air. How long is the trip from a feeling to a weapon?
4. Twice the narrator tells you why David keeps winning (18:12, 18:14). What's the reason? And back in 18:12, who is Saul actually afraid of?
5. Read 18:17-25. Saul keeps saying "not my hand." How is he trying to get David killed without getting any blood on himself? And what does he call his own daughter in 18:21?
6. Read 19:1-7. Jonathan calls David "innocent," killed "without cause" (19:4-5), and Saul swears a real oath not to touch him (19:6). How long does that oath last (19:9-10)?
7. Read 19:11-24. Count everyone God uses to keep David alive: a son, a wife, a window, even a death squad that ends up preaching. And where does the manhunt finally leave Saul (19:23-24)?

Prayerfully Meditate
Saul heard David's name in the street and something in his chest went tight. Whose blessing can't you hear praised without that same sting? And what have you been calling it, so you don't have to call it envy?
Envy is just grief over the grace God gave someone else. Where is that grief hiding in you right now?
The man God is with cannot be stopped by the man God has left. If that is true of you in Christ, what are you still so afraid of?
Saul meant that oath when he swore it. It didn't survive the next spark. What sin have you been managing for years that God has been telling you to kill?
An experience of God is not the favor of God. Only a surrendered heart is. Are you leaning on something you once felt in worship, or on the Anointed who died and rose in your place?

Intentionally Act

1. Read 1 Samuel 18-19 before Sunday, and every time you hit "the Lord was with him," stop and let it land.
2. Make the Jonathan move. Pick one person whose blessing has stung you, and celebrate them this week out loud, to their face.
3. Name the sin you've been managing instead of killing. Confess it to God in plain words, and if you need to, to one believer you trust.
4. Go thank a Jonathan or a Michal in your life, someone God used to protect you or speak up for you when you weren't in the room. Tell them you can see God's hand in it now.
5. Learn the songs below before we gather, so Sunday you're not just hearing about God's presence but singing it over whatever fear you walked in with.

Songs for Sunday
Yes I Will 
In Christ Alone 
Build My Life
How Great Thou Art

Associate Pastor Search Update
Thank you for praying with us through this season of searching. Your shepherds have kept bringing candidates before the Lord, and we've sat down with several godly men. At this point, though, we don't sense the Lord leading us to move forward with any one of them for the posted position, and we'd rather wait on His timing than get ahead of it. The position is still open, more resumes came in this week, and we're reading through them prayerfully. We're also thankful for the staff God has already given us, and for their faithful work this summer, much of it the kind nobody sees. Keep praying with us as we trust the Lord to provide the shepherd He has for us.

Yesterday we stood in the valley of Elah and watched a shepherd drop a giant with a sling and a stone. And we learned that the battle is the LORD's. Israel did not win that day by being brave. Israel stood frozen on a hillside while a champion fought in their place, and the champion won, and his victory became their victory. That is the shape of the gospel, and it was there in the dirt of Elah a thousand years before the cross.

Now here is the question 1 Samuel 18 and 19 answer: what happens the day after the giant falls?

The army marches home. The women come out of every town with tambourines, singing: "Saul has struck down his thousands, and David his ten thousands" (1 Samuel 18:7). And that one song lands on two hearts and splits them in opposite directions. Jonathan, the crown prince, the man with the most to lose to David's rise, loves him, makes a covenant with him, and hands him his own royal robe. Saul, the king, hears the same lyrics and starts counting. "And Saul eyed David from that day on" (18:9). By the next morning there is a spear in the air.

From that day forward, the anointed becomes the hunted. That is where our series title stops being a preview and becomes the plot.

As you read these two chapters this week, watch for three things. First, follow the narrator's refrain. Three times he explains everything that happens with five words: "the LORD was with him" (18:12, 14, 28). Every scheme Saul runs crashes into that sentence. Second, count how many people love David. Jonathan, all Israel and Judah, Michal, even Saul's own servants. Then notice the one man in the kingdom who cannot, and ask why. Third, watch who God uses to keep David alive. A friend who speaks up. A wife who thinks fast. A window. God usually keeps His people through people, and most of them have no idea they were the rescue.

And keep one eye on Jesus as you read, because this pattern is bigger than David. Another beloved Son would one day be loved by the crowds, hated by the throne, and hunted without cause. Pilate himself could see "it was out of envy that the chief priests had delivered him up" (Mark 15:10).

One question to carry into Sunday: whose name is hard for you to hear praised? Be honest about the answer. Scripture has a name for what happens in that moment, and Sunday we will hear what God says about it.

Preparing for Sunday - 1 Samuel 17

This Sunday we come to one of the most familiar stories in the whole Bible, David and Goliath, and it's a story we almost always tell backward. Before you gather, spend some time in 1 Samuel 17 asking a different question than the one you're used to. Not "how do I beat my giant?" but "who wins the battle God's people cannot win?" Come ready to meet the Champion He sends.

Critically Think

1. Read 17:1-11. Notice how the narrator piles up Goliath's height and his bronze armor in verses 4-7. What effect does all that detail have on the way Israel, and you as the reader, sees him?
2. What exactly does Goliath propose in verses 8-9? Whose fate rides on the outcome of a single fight between two champions?
3. Look at 17:11 and 17:24. How do Saul and all Israel respond to the giant, and how long had this standoff already dragged on (17:16)?
4. In 17:23 and 26 David hears the very same words Israel had been hearing for forty days. What does he hear in them that everyone else had stopped hearing? Notice that for David this isn't first a military problem but a blasphemy problem.
5. Read 17:34-37. When David explains why he isn't afraid, what is his confidence actually resting on, his own record, or something else?
6. Why does David take off Saul's armor in 17:38-39, and why do you think the narrator lingers over the staff, the sling, and the five smooth stones in 17:40?
7. Read David's words in 17:45-47. In whose name does David come? According to verses 46-47, what is the whole point of this battle, and who does David say the battle belongs to? Then notice 17:50, "there was no sword in the hand of David." Why does the narrator want us to see that?

Prayerfully Meditate
Israel measured the giant against themselves and despaired right on schedule. Where in your own life are you measuring what you face against your own strength, and coming up short?
Israel counted the giant's height. David counted on the living God. What would change this week if you started measuring your trouble against the greatness of God instead of the size of the threat?
David's confidence wasn't nerve, it was memory. He reasoned from the God who had already delivered him. What has God already done for you that you've quietly stopped remembering?
The temptation in every crisis is to suit up in Saul's armor and fight the threat on the world's terms. What borrowed armor are you tempted to trust instead of the Lord Himself?
You do not win this battle. You follow the One who already won it. Where are you still straining to fight a battle Jesus has already fought and finished in your place?

Intentionally Act

1. Read 1 Samuel 17 all the way through before Sunday, slowly, watching how often the text points away from David's strength and back to the Lord who saves.
2. Name the giant you keep measuring against yourself. Write it down, and next to it write one true thing about the God that giant is up against.
3. Take an honest inventory of your Saul's armor, the securities you reach for when you're afraid, and deliberately lay one of them down before the Lord in prayer this week.
4. If you've never trusted the Champion who walked into the valley in your place, don't wait. Come Sunday ready to follow Him, and bring someone with you who needs to hear that the battle belongs to the Lord.
5. Learn the songs below before we gather, so that on Sunday you're not just hearing about the victory but singing the one that's already been won.
   
   

Songs for Sunday

• Glorious Day 
• Abide
• Victory in Jesus

Preparing for Sunday - July 5, 2026

This Sunday we start something new: Anointed and Hunted, our walk through the back half of 1 Samuel. Chapter 15 ended with Saul rejected and Samuel grieving him till the day he died. Chapter 16 opens right there, in that wreckage, and that's where we're picking up.
Here's the question I want you carrying into Sunday. What does God see when He looks at you, all the way down, past the part you curate? Could you survive being seen like that?
Work through these before you sit down in the pew, on your own, with your family, or with your group.

Critically Think

• Read 1 Samuel 16:1-5. God interrupts Samuel's grief with a question: "How long will you grieve over Saul?" What had God already done before Samuel was even sent (v. 1b)?
• Read 1 Samuel 16:6-7. Samuel takes one look at Eliab and thinks, "Surely the LORD's anointed is before him." What does the LORD say instead?
• Verse 7 is the sentence the whole chapter turns on: "man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart." What's the difference between the way we see and the way He sees?
• Seven of Jesse's sons pass in front of Samuel, and seven times the answer is no (vv. 8-10). Who finally gets sent for, and what's he doing when the message reaches him (vv. 11-12)?
• The moment Samuel anoints David, what happens to him (v. 13)?
• Read 1 Samuel 16:14-23. In the very next verse, what happens to the Spirit of the LORD in relation to Saul? What comes on him instead?
• David is already anointed, though nobody else knows it yet. How does he end up serving inside Saul's own house (vv. 17-21)?

Prayerfully Meditate

• Sit with verse 7 again. Where are you focusing on an image, a reputation, an accomplishment, that God isn't? What would it look like to bring Him your heart instead?
• David is anointed king in verse 13. By verse 21 he's still just a shepherd running errands, walking straight into the house of the man who will hunt him. Being chosen by God did not buy him an easy road. Where have you expected His favor to guarantee ease when Scripture never promised you that?
• The Spirit rushes on David in verse 13 and leaves Saul in verse 14, back to back, in the same breath. It's possible to keep going through the motions of faith when your heart is running from God? Does that describe any part of your life right now?
• Read Jeremiah 17:9-10 and Isaiah 53:2 alongside this chapter. If the LORD looks on the heart, none of us holds up under that kind of look on our own. So how does this chapter point you to a King whose heart was, in the end, wholly His Father's?

Intentionally Act

• Name one specific place you've been polishing a surface God isn't looking at. Bring Him the heart instead this week.
• If you feel overlooked, passed over at work, at home, in this church, remember that David was the one nobody even sent for. Let that shape your prayers this week.
• If you recognize Saul in yourself, going through the motions while your heart has drifted, turn back this week while the turning's still open.
• Ask the Lord for a new heart (Ezekiel 36:26), not because yours passes inspection, but because Christ's did, in your place.
• Learn the songs below before Sunday.
  
  

Songs for Sunday

• Holy Forever 
• Behold Our God
• O Praise the Name (Anastasis) 
• Come Thou Fount

This past Sunday we closed our series on the rise and rejection of King Saul. But here is something worth noticing. We did not close the book on Saul. He does not walk offstage when the series ends. He stays in the story for a long time yet, clinging to a throne that has already been taken from him and hunting the very man God chose to replace him. He does not leave. He just stops being the one the camera follows. From here on, the spotlight belongs to someone else.

So where does it turn? It turns to go looking for a heart.

Saul looked like a king. He was tall, chosen, capable. He swore oaths in God's name, built altars, and fought the LORD's battles. And God rejected him anyway, because underneath all the religion, Saul kept back the one thing God actually wanted. His heart. To obey is better than sacrifice, and Saul never gave God his obedience. He gave God a performance.

So God went looking elsewhere, and He found a shepherd. His name is David, and the moment he steps onstage, God says the sentence that will hang over this whole next season of our study: "Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature... For the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart" (1 Samuel 16:7).

Sit with that, because it is good news and searching news at the same time. God is not impressed by the things that impress us. He is not counting your attendance like trophies or weighing your reputation. He is looking past all of it, straight at your heart. David is not chosen because he is the strongest or the most polished. He is the overlooked shepherd boy whose heart belonged to God. He will sin, and sin terribly. Saul managed his image. David, when he fell, broke and ran back to God.

So here is the challenge as we turn the page. Do not come to the David series as a spectator collecting Bible stories. Come as someone willing to be seen. Pray the prayer David himself prayed: "Search me, O God, and know my heart... and see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting" (Psalm 139:23-24).

There is a moment fear loves. The situation is pressing, the clock is running, and a voice starts up inside you. Do something. Anything. You cannot just sit here.

Saul knew that voice. In 1 Samuel 13 the Philistines have massed an army he cannot count, his own soldiers are hiding in caves, and Samuel, who told him to wait seven days at Gilgal, still has not come. The deadline is almost up. And with the seven days not yet finished, Saul gives up waiting and offers the sacrifice himself. The moment he finishes, Samuel walks in. "I forced myself," Saul says. He felt the line and stepped over it on purpose, and it cost him the kingdom God would have established forever.

Here is why this text lands in our pews. Most of us are not in open rebellion against God. We are doing something more subtle and more reasonable. We are making the exception. We know what God has said about the relationship, the money, the conversation we owe, the habit we keep in the dark. But the pressure is real and the waiting is long, so we force the moment and build a tidy explanation for why we had to.

Notice that Saul's defense was completely true. The people were scattering. Samuel was late. None of it moved the verdict an inch. Our circumstances do not rewrite the command of God.

So name your Gilgal this week. Find the one place you have stopped waiting on God and started handling it yourself, and bring it back to Him. Do the thing you have been putting off. Trust that He has not forgotten you and He is not late.

The heart God is looking for follows His word, not its own fear. You will never manufacture that heart by trying harder. It was found whole in Jesus, who knelt in His own garden with the cross only hours away and said, "Not my will, but yours, be done." He obeyed where we force the moment, and He gives that heart away to everyone who comes to Him.

Sunday we stood with Israel at Gilgal, a people who had failed and knew it, standing in the rain and certain they were about to be swept away. And we watched Samuel do something remarkable. Before one word of rebuke, he told them to stand still and look at the record of what God had done. That same word is for us this week.

Look at the record. When fear shows up on your doorstep the way it showed up on Israel's, your instinct is to scramble for something you can see and touch. Stop and look back instead. Start writing down the times you cried out and God answered, with dates, so you have something solid to reach for in the next hard season. Then tell those stories to your children, because the record of His faithfulness does not pass down on its own.

Take His word seriously. Name the one area where you have been treating God's word as optional, whether it is a relationship, a habit, or a marriage you stopped working on, and obey there this week. The consequences are never as distant as they feel. And if past failure has you convinced the verdict is already in, hear verse 20: "Do not be afraid." The welcome belongs to everyone who turns around. Turn today.

Rest in who He is. When your assurance wavers, stop checking your own performance and preach the two grounds back to yourself: His great name and His own pleasure in choosing you. The ground is not you. It is Him. Bring your failures to the cross, where the "swept away" already fell on Jesus, and turn from every empty thing you keep running to, because the One who feared God perfectly in your place now lives to pray for you.

So this week, fear the Lord and serve Him faithfully. We do it for one reason, the same reason Samuel gave Israel: He is the kind of God who is worth it. Consider what great things He has done for you.

There is a moment in the life of a growing church when the question stops being can we afford to hire? and starts being can we afford not to? We have reached that moment.

Over the past few years, First Baptist Kenova has grown in ways that are genuinely encouraging. Our average weekly attendance is now around 450, and that number reflects real people who have been added to our fellowship and need to be cared for. That kind of growth is a gift from God, and we do not take it lightly. But growth brings responsibility, and one of the most important responsibilities a church has is making sure its members are genuinely known and cared for by their pastors.

Here is the honest reality: we have not had a full pastoral staff since before COVID. The disruptions of those years affected staffing at churches everywhere, and FBCK was no exception. We have been leaning hard on a smaller team than a congregation our size actually needs.

Churches that run in the 350 to 500 attendance range typically need four or more pastoral leaders to sustain the kind of shepherding, teaching, and leadership development that healthy church life requires. We currently have three full-time ministry staff. That gap is not a criticism of anyone. It is simply a description of where we are and what we need.

The Associate Pastor we are working to call will strengthen our capacity in several specific ways. He will provide pastoral oversight for our worship ministry, developing the leaders within it and helping ensure that everything we do on Sunday morning is shaped by a genuinely pastoral vision. He will join the preaching rotation and share the teaching load. He will sit with our shepherds, participate in elder decisions, and carry a portion of the pastoral care that our congregation needs. And over time, he will help us build the kind of discipleship culture that produces future leaders from within our own membership.

This is not an ambitious expansion. It is a restoration of something we lost, and a commitment to shepherd this congregation with the care it deserves.

And that is exactly why we need your prayers. Calling a pastor is not a hiring decision. It is a spiritual one, and we want to get it right. Please pray that God would make the right man clear to us, that he would prepare that man's heart before he ever walks through our doors, and that our congregation would receive him well when the time comes. Pray for wisdom for the shepherds as we lead this process, and pray that what God is building here would be built on more than good intentions. We are trusting him with this, and we are grateful to be trusting him together with you.

The sermon Sunday named a pattern. We crown things beside God, ask God for them, and discover they cannot save us. The bottom line was simple: the king you ask for is not the King you need.

On a Sunday morning that sentence lands. The harder work is doing something with it on a Tuesday.

Here is one exercise for the week. Take ten minutes, get a piece of paper, and finish this sentence three different ways: "If I am honest, I have been asking God for ___, and I have been treating it like it would finally fix me." Career advancement. A specific relationship outcome. A health concern resolved. A child making the choice you want them to make. A particular feeling about yourself.

Anything you have been bringing to God repeatedly, with intensity, as if the arrival of it would settle the deeper restlessness underneath.

Now read what you wrote. That is your list of lesser kings. Not your sins. Not your idols in the dramatic sense. The things you are asking God for that you are also crowning beside him.

The next step is not to stop wanting those things. Most of them are good things. The next step is to add a sentence to each one. "Whether or not you give me this, you are still the King I need." Say it out loud over each item. If you cannot say it without flinching, that is the diagnostic. You have been treating the gift as the King.

This is the discipline of asking without crowning. It does not mean you stop asking. Saul was the answer to a prayer God yielded to. Asking is not the problem. Asking with the wrong expectation is the problem.

If you are walking with a child or a spouse who is asking God for things and getting the silence that feels like no, the same exercise works for them, said in the second person: "Whether or not God gives you this, he is still the King you need." Pray that over them.
 
Repeat it.

And on Sunday, come back ready to confess what you have crowned and ready to receive the only King who is not a disappointment.

The king you ask for is not the King you need. The King you need is already provided

Some of you left Sunday with something sitting on your chest. You know what it is. You have known for a while.

Maybe it is a pattern you keep returning to. Maybe it is something you have been carrying alongside your faith for so long that it almost feels normal. Maybe you cried at some point in the service and then drove home and were not sure what to do with that.

Here is what I want you to hear this week. The crying is not the problem. The grief is not wrong. Israel lamented for twenty years, and the text does not call that fake. It calls it incomplete.

Lament is real sorrow over real loss, brought honestly before God. It is not nothing. But it is not repentance, and the Bible never treats it as though it is.

Repentance has hands. It puts something down. It is not a feeling you have in a church service and then carry home unchanged. It is a turn, and turns have a direction. You move away from something and toward someone.

So here is the question I want you to sit with this week: Is there something sitting on your shelf next to Christ that needs to come down?

Not a vague sense that you could be doing better. Something specific. A habit. A relationship. A pattern of control. A grudge you have decided is justified. A version of yourself you are protecting.

Name it. Out loud if you can. That is what Israel did at Mizpah. They did not say we wish things were different. They said we have sinned against the LORD. Plain, specific, directed at him.

And then here is the good news, and I need you to hear it as good news and not just as a next step on a list. You do not come to God cleaned up. You come through a mediator who is already interceding for you. Christ is not waiting for you to have it together. He is at the altar right now, and he has been there every moment you were walking away.

The Israelites at Mizpah had nothing to bring but a confession and a lamb. That was enough.

Put the idol down. Come through the mediator. Name your Ebenezers.

The hand that helped them is still on you.

Two nations. Two chapters. One truth.

The Philistines thought they could own God. They put the ark in Dagon's temple like a trophy and went to sleep assuming their god had won. By morning, Dagon was face-down on the floor. They picked him up and put him back. The next morning he was face-down again, this time in pieces. They never asked what it meant. They just kept stepping over the evidence and calling it fine.

Then they tried to contain him. Seven months of routing the ark from city to city, looking for somewhere it would stop causing problems. There was no such place. You can pass the problem along. You cannot pass God along.

Then the Israelites tried to approach him on their own terms. The ark came home, the people rejoiced, and then seventy men looked into it and were dead before the wheat harvest was over. These were not pagans. These were Levites. People who knew exactly what the law required. Presumption cost them everything.

Both nations ended up at the same question. Who is able to stand before the LORD, this holy God?

Here is what I want you to sit with this week.

That question is not just a line in an ancient text. It is the most honest question any of us can ask. And most of us spend a significant portion of our lives trying to avoid answering it directly.

We own him. We put him on the shelf beside everything else we have decided to keep and expect a peaceful arrangement. We contain him. We stay religious enough to feel okay without being submitted enough to have actually changed. We approach him on our own terms. We assume that familiarity with holy things is the same as standing rightly before a holy God.

The text says otherwise.

But here is what the text also says, if you follow it all the way to Christ. Romans 3:25 puts forward Jesus as the mercy seat. The lid of the ark. The one place in the world where the holiness of God and the sinfulness of man were addressed together, through blood, once for all.

The ark killed people who mishandled it. Christ died for those people.

Standing before God on your own terms is impossible. Standing before him through Christ is the whole gospel.

So this week, ask the question. And this time, stay for the answer.                      

There's a question most religious people never think to ask. It's not a comfortable one, but this past Sunday it was the one the text forced on all of us.

Is it possible to do everything right on the outside and still have the glory of God absent from your life?

Israel thought the answer was no. They were wrong. And the hard lesson of 1 Samuel 4 is that religious activity without genuine repentance will always end in Ichabod. The glory has departed.

Here's what makes this so unsettling. The glory didn't leave in a moment of obvious rebellion. It left subtly, gradually, while the priests were still showing up and the sacrifices were still being offered. The form was completely intact. The heart was gone. And nobody noticed until a dying woman named her baby after it.

That's the diagnosis this chapter puts on the table for all of us this week. Not whether you're attending church or reading your Bible or serving somewhere, but whether any of that has become a substitute for actually dealing with God. Israel asked exactly the right question after their defeat: why has the Lord done this? But instead of repenting, they reached for the Ark. They took the right object and used it to avoid the honest answer.
We do the same thing. We wake up earlier. We sign up for more. We add another visible layer of religious activity. And none of it is bad in itself. But when we use it to avoid the harder conversation, the one where we actually name the sin, confess the pattern, and stop managing our way around God, it becomes our version of the Ark.

So here's the question worth sitting with this week: is there any area of your life where Ichabod is written over the door and you've been pretending not to see it?

The good news is that chapter 7 is always available. The same people, the same land, the same enemies, but this time they fasted and confessed and sought God. And He showed up completely. The difference wasn't strategy. It was repentance.

The God who turned Ichabod into Ebenezer is the same God in the room with you right now. He's not waiting for you to bring Him something. He's waiting for you to come back to Him.