When the Truth Feels Lonely: Micaiah

Well, good morning again, those of you who don't know me. My name is Brian, lead pastor here, and excited to be in week 12 of this summer series that we've been calling Cloud of Witnesses. And so we've got one more week of this, and then we're starting the Gospel of Mark, which I'm really, really excited about. We usually spend, like, one week doing, like, an introduction to a series like that. I think I might need to do four. I just been nerding out in the Book of Mark already, and I'm having a lot of fun, so hope you enjoy my nerdiness when it comes to that. In the meantime, let's nerd out with this passage we're gonna be looking at today. But the series, though, comes from a passage in Hebrews chapter 12 where we read, therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, right, there are other people around us who have either gone for gone before us. They might have even been followers of Jesus, but they can still point us to Jesus, maybe by a way that they should have lived or a decision they should have made or fill in all the blanks. But this is here, though, those specific cloud of witnesses of people who have gone before. Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance, the race marked out before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter, the author and the author and finisher of our faith. For the joy set before him. He endured the cross scorning and shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God, sat down in a position of victory and power and authority. So consider him. Let's look to Jesus and everyone around us points us to Jesus, who endured such opposition from sinners so you will not grow weary and lose heart. Does anyone have any idea what I mean? Very specific, what this picture is from? Does anyone know? You'd know if you were, like, a weird sports fan. Let's go say it. Super Bowl. Well, it's not a Super bowl, but it's close. This is the infamous Tuck rule called. Those of you football fans are like. It's still very obscure, but it is. But this changed the landscape of the NFL. Okay, this is what happens. You've got the Patriots. A lot of you are like, I don't care. I know you don't care. That's okay. I've got a point to this. It's got nothing to do with football, okay? Just hold with me. You got this, team. The Patriots, right? Tom Brady, who's here. I think this was before they would have gone. They went on to win their first super bowl that year. This kind of started the Patriots dynasty, if you will. But if this wouldn't have been called, maybe this never would have happened. This changed the course of history in the sense of this rule. And basically what happens is Tom Brady's going and he's acting like he's gonna make a pass, but he goes and he tucks it. And then Charles Woodson, like the actual goat of football, not a quarterback, comes in and he forces a fumble. And. Well, and that's what it was initially called, was a forced fumble. But then they go back and they review and they say, oh, no, he made this motion, even though he was coming to tuck it back in. And that's when it slipped out. It's an incomplete pass. Okay? Wild, wild change of events. Okay? So the refs come out, initially called a fumble, and they make the change, the call, right? Now, they were at home. They were at Foxborough, right? In New England, in the region of England. I don't know what state it's in. Doesn't matter. And so they're up there in one of those states, and while they're. But they're at a home field. But can you imagine if that ref would have come out and said, no, if the call stands, it's a fumble, right? Maybe originally they would have said, it's a tuck rule. It's actually an incomplete pass. They change it, right? The crowd would have lost their minds. And then Tom Brady, we wouldn't even know who he was if that call wasn't made. That's probably not true, but that's probably a stretch. But here's the thing. Here's the whole point, okay? Okay. Do we have courage maybe, like this referee, to stand up with an unpopular opinion when you know it's right and you know it's good and you know it's true? And so that's gonna be the sermon today. When the truth feels lonely. We're gonna be looking at a very, very obscure character, Micaiah. I'm probably gonna pronounce his name five different ways this morning, so just hold with me. We're gonna be looking specifically at 1st Kings 22, 1, 28, kind of a longer chunk of scripture. And you can also follow along in 2 Chronicles 18. That's the same story that's recorded there. And so that's what we're gonna be looking at. There are gonna be times where it seems like everyone and everything is against you. And I seem to be the only one that's standing up for this thing. And even in that, when you say, man, I feel like this is what God's word says and I'm gonna stick with it. But then everyone's against me, and then now I'm quite questioning my deepest convictions. This is confusing me. How do we deal with that? So let's get a little bit of context. I know it's really hard to jump around. Like, we've been this summary without really digging in into context. Let me just very briefly give a little quick thing. And so you have this kingdom of Israel, which was started. The first king in Israel was Saul. He loses his kingship and his line, and it is passed on to King David. So even if you're not familiar with church or Christianity or Israel at all, you've probably heard of King David or you've heard of his statue that Michelangelo. I was 50, 50s in the yeses and nos. And maybe I don't know. So I gave three things. 50, 50. All right, anyways, Solomon, his son. Now we've got Rehoboam and Jeroboam. Immediately four generations. And the kingdom already splits Rehoboam and Jeroboam, and it splits into what's called the Kingdom of Judah and the Kingdom of Israel, which can be a little confusing, but Judah is kind of where the main kings are. And the Kingdom of Israel. It's very confusing. But you have Rehoboam, Abijah, Asa, and then Jehoshaphat. Jehoshaphat is going to be in this story today. So I just kind of wanted to give a little bit of a. What's going on? So he's the great, great, great grandson of King David. Okay, there's also then. But he's the king of Judah. Specifically, today we're going to be looking at the king of Israel. Who is Ahab. King Ahab. When I was a kid, I used to sing a kid's song about King Ahab. Does anyone know that one? The poochie lip disease? Anyone? Huh? No. I grew up in a cult. It was a little weird, all right? But King Ahab went a walking in royal garments, blue. All right? And then Chad's like, keep going, keep going. You got it. You got it, right? The poochie lip will get you if you don't watch out, right? That's the thing, right? This poochie lip disease, right? And that's King Ahab. He is this way. He just acts like a child. And you're gonna see that in the passage today. And what's interesting, it's probably some literary device, I don't know, but King Ahab is actually never named until after he dies. So he's always referred to in the text. We're gonna be looking at this morning as the king of Israel. And then once he dies, then they start calling, then they start naming him. Okay, so there was a little bit of angst there between the chroniclers and the scribes and King Ahab here. So let me. Let me just start reading. This is again, a little bit more of the context here. For three years, there was no war between Aram and Israel. But in the third year, Jehoshaphat king of Judah, went down to see the king of Israel. He went down because it was geographically down, not south. Doesn't matter. The king of Israel had said to his officials, don't you know that Ramoth Gilead belongs to us, yet we are doing nothing to retake it from the king of Aramis? So they're saying, hey, we've got this land that's ours. We should go get it. So he asked Jehoshaphat, will you go with me and fight against Ramath Gilead? Just this tiny region kind of right between those two spots that we saw on that map. Jehoshaphat replied to the king of Israel, I am as you are. My people are your people. Your horses. My horses are your horses. So let's look at the context of community. So here we have Jehoshaphat, not necessarily a bad king, but not necessarily a great king or a good king. And the way, when you read old Jewish literature, a good king is one who follows after the teachings of God and obeys the laws of Moses. And a bad king is one who ignores what God says. So he's kind of right in the middle, Ahab bad. Right. So Jehoshaphat said to the king of Israel, Ahab, first seek the counsel of the Lord. So the king of Israel, Ahab brought together the prophets, about 400 men, and. And asked them, shall I go to war against Ramoth Gilead, or shall I refrain? Go, they answered, for the Lord will give it into the king's hands. Okay, so what's happening here is this guy Ahab has 400 prophets that he pays basically to say, tell me what I wanna hear. Okay, that's what's happening. They're not real prophets of Israel. They're just. I don't know. These people are like, oh, King Ahab, you are the greatest. You are. Yeah, we'll do what you want to do. That sounds great. Yes, God, yes, God wills it. Let's go do it. And so maybe just something that I know, that I've learned in my time on this, in this world is don't surround yourself with just yes men or yes women. We should have people around you who seek clarification that when you present an idea, do they go, huh, that's really interesting. Let me chew on that a little bit. Can I just take that and let me think about it and then I'll get back to you. And when you hear that, you immediately go, oh, man, they hate me. They don't like me. You don't trust me, right? I've thought about this, I've prayed about this. This is what I want to do. You're telling me you're not comfortable with this decision. And listen, when I say this, I'm preaching to myself. So if you're like, oh, he's thinking of me right now. I'm not thinking of anybody. I'm thinking of myself. Okay? I promise you, I don't have time to think of you. No, that's not, that's not what I meant. Right. Can your friends say, hey, let me chew on that for a minute. Right. Actually help me understand that point of view. I'm just not seeing it that way. Can you show me and describe to me in scripture what you're seeing and can we talk about, can we dialogue about it? If you're unable to have people around you who can give opposing viewpoints, who are always just like, oh, yeah, that's a great idea. If that's all. If you never have anyone give opposing viewpoints, you might be a dictator, right? That's like, that's what it is. If no one is willing to stand up, or you're just the type of person who's just volatile, where they're just afraid to give some kind of contrary, contradicting advice to you because you might bite their head off, they don't know what you're going to say. Jesus actually talks about this in Matthew chapter 18. This is a, a well known passage. If you grew up in the church, you would have heard this. I heard it all the time at these prayer meetings or prayer gatherings. Jesus says, where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am, there with you. Right. That's a great verse. Great verse, right? This is a great point of right doctrine, wrong text. Because the question is, if I'm with a few of you and we pray together, is God there with us? Yes. He is. If I am alone in my closet, in my room and I am praying, is God there with me? Yes, he is. Right? So is it just. Is that what this. Is that what Jesus is saying? This big battle cry, hey, we're two or three together. When you're praying together, I'm there with you? No, in the context of Matthew 18, he's actually talking about excommunication. He's talking about kicking people out of the church. He's talking about cutting people out from among us. And what does he say then? Get two or three people around you trusted voices to speak into it. We're not yes men. We're not yes women. We need to analyze and figure out what's going on. This has always been the case. It's even why back in the big ten and the Ten Commandments, where one of the Ten Commandments is, thou shalt not bear false witness. Being a true voice of testimony is really important, right? You can get someone in a lot of trouble for bearing false witnesses. And that's exactly what Jesus is saying in Matthew, chapter 18. And we see that I. Last night or early this morning, my brain's kind of in a fog, but I was reading. I was on a flight last night, getting back real late. So that's why I wasn't like just up in the middle of the night for fun. I was reading, though, this essay on intellectual powers of man. I know it's really nerdy, but just stick with me. This guy, though, Thomas Reid, this just popped up because listen to what he says. This has nothing to do with religion. This has nothing to do with faith. Listen what he says. Suppose a mathematician. And this. It's old language. Just read it. Suppose a mathematician has made a discovery in that science in which he thinks important, that he has put demonstration in just order, and after examining it with the attentive eye, has found no flaw in it. Okay? So he comes up with some new mathematical equation. He's like, wow, this is great. I love this. It says, I would ask, will there not be still in his breast some diffidence? Diffidence. Some jealousy, lest the ardor of invention may have made him overlook some false step. This must be granted. Okay, I think what he's saying here is saying, hey, if I cannot check this with other people around me, then I'm just left to my own devices. And so it's saying, even within a mathematician, I've got to check this with two or three witnesses. So he goes on to say, if he commits his demonstration to the examination of a mathematical friend whom he esteems a competent judge and waits with impatience the issue of his judgment. Right. Hey, hey, check this out. Could you tell me. And they say, yeah, let me look at it. Let me see if this fits. Let me see if this checks out. This is what we should do here. I would ask again whether the verdict of his friend according to it has been favorable or unfavorable. Favorable. Will not greatly increase or diminish his confidence of his own judgment. Most certain it will and it ought right to say, hey, you're my trusted voice. You know this mathematical equation. Check it out. And they say, yeah, this does not work. Ah, man, it's kind of a bummer. I thought very sure of this thing. And then he ends here. If the judgment of his friend agrees with his own, especially if it be confirmed by two or three able judges, he resists the cure of his discovery without further examination. If they say, yep, this checks out, awesome, great, we're good. But if it be unfavorable, he is brought back into a kind of suspense until the part that is suspected undergoes a new and more rigorous examination. Okay, hope that made sense. Speak the truth of God's word. It's the third point here. Speak the truth of God's word. Because yet there are sometimes, even when trusted voices might disagree, even when people we say, man, I look up to you, but I believe that you have my best interest in mind. But we're really clashing on this thing that we disagree. And that is where we have to go back and stand on the eternal, trusted, tried and true word of God, logos. In John 1, it says, in the beginning was the word, this Logos, and the Word was with God. And the Word was, was God. And so when God shows up in his Word and says, this is the way it is, are we okay with that? Are we okay to stand by that even when it makes us uncomfortable or maybe an unpopular opinion or a tuck rule? First, Kings, continuing. In this text here, it says Jehoshaphat said, again, this. This king of Judah is there no longer a prophet of the Lord here who we can acquire of, right? So he hears all these voices, these 400 prophets, and he's like, wait a second, is there, like, an actual prophet we can go to? And the King of Israel answered, jehoshaphat, there is that one prophet, though, whom we can through whom we can acquire the Lord. But I hate him because he never prophesies anything good about me, always bad. He is Micaiah, son of that guy the king should not say such a thing, Jehoshaphat replied. So the king of Israel called one of his officials and said, bring Micaiah, son of that guy. At once, dressed in the royal robes, the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, were sitting on their thrones at the threshing floor by the entrance of the gate of Samaria, with all the prophets prophesying before them. Now Zedekiah, one of Kenaniah, had made iron horns, and he declared, this is what the Lord says. With these you will gore the Arameans until they are destroyed. All the other prophets were prophesying the same thing. Attack Ramoth, Gilead. Be victorious, they said, for the Lord will give into the king. Give it into the king's hand. The messenger who had gone to summon Micaiah said to him, look, the other prophets, without exception, are predicting success for the king. Let your word agree with theirs and speak favorably. But Micaiah said, as surely as the Lord lives, I can tell him only what the Lord tells me. And when he arrived, the king asked him, Micaiah, shall we go to war against Ramoth, Gilead, or not? And I would have loved to have been a flying wall, because I don't know how in the world Micaiah replies here, but he lays on the sarcasm thick. And this is what he says. He just says, attack and be victorious, for the Lord will give it into the king's hand. So he says word for word, verbatim what these other prophets are saying, all right? And then he said, the king said to him, this is Ahab. How many times must I make you swear to tell me nothing but the truth in the name of the Lord? The king's like, I want the truth. And he says, you can't handle the truth. Get it? It's a reference from a movie. I forget the name of the movie. Then Micaiah answered, I saw all Israel. So he's like, all right, you want it? You want it? You want to. You want me to tell you what God told me? All right. I saw all Israel scattered on the hills like a sheep without shepherd. Without a shepherd. And the Lord said, these people have no master. Let each one go to home in peace. And the king of. Of Israel, Ahab said to Jehoshaphat, didn't I tell you that he never prophesies anything good about me, but only bad poochie lip disease. Micaiah continued, therefore hear the word of the Lord. As I saw the Lord sitting on his throne with all the multitudes of heaven standing around. Him on his right, on his left. And the Lord said, who will entice Ahab into attacking Ramoth, Gilead and going to his death there? One suggested this and another that. And finally a spirit came forward, stood before the Lord and said, I will entice him. By what means? Asked the Lord. I will go out and be a deceiving spirit in the mouths of all the prophets, he said. You will succeed in enticing him, said the Lord. Go and do it. So now the Lord has put a deceiving spirit in the mouths of all these prophets of yours, and the Lord has decreed disaster for you. All right, what? What? Okay, because I mean, seriously, right? Like a deceiving spirit. God's sending a deceiving spirit. What is happening here? Right? And so some of you might have had this, I don't know, moral, theological brain itch and that just as you read that, like, oh, man, I don't think I've ever. I know I've read that maybe before, but I don't ever remember reading that. What is happening here? Right? And so I just briefly maybe want to just spend a little bit of time in this, but I don't think that that is story. The throne room is the main point of the text. So. But I don't also just want to just skip over it and act like nothing just happened there. And let me. I think this is. This was where my brain went initially as I read this. And then I went and checked it with other people and they agreed. They concurred. So, all right, this is when you go back to 1 Kings, chapter 18. So go back four chapters. First Kings, chapter 18. Elijah, like this big time prophet, he goes to King Ahab and says, king Ahab, you need to stop worshiping BAAL and you need to worship Yahweh only. You need to only worship Yahweh. And he's like, ah, I don't know. These parties at the BAAL temple are pretty lit. I think we're gonna keep doing this. And he completely ignores what Elijah says. Chapter 19. And then we get to chapter 20, same thing. Another prophet comes to King Ahab and he says, hey, there's been these people that have been attacking you and oppressing our people. I want you to go and attack them. And he's like, I don't know. They've got more troops than we do. I'm not gonna fight that fight, right? He just says, no, that's not what I want to do. And he ignores again the word of the Lord. And so here we have this third time. The third time's a chance. But in that throne room scene, it sounds like God just like, oh, no, he's just gonna die. We're done. We're done. But he doesn't, because Micaiah still tells him that he's got a third chance to say, you know what? This time, I actually think I will listen to what Yahweh has to say. But he doesn't. He just wants to hear what he wants to hear. As we can see from the text, just from this one aspect, right? God, you never give me the news that I want. And as I hear myself say that, is that. Is that Ahab that says that, or is that me? God, you just don't ever do what I want you to do when I want you to do it, and you don't do it how I want you to do it. So what is this enticing spirit? If I could just briefly go there, maybe my mind immediately went to Romans chapter one, where God is basically saying, oh, you want that thing? You want that? All right, why don't you have it? Go ahead. Let's just see if that gets you what you really think will be satisfying to you. Romans, Chapter one, we read. Furthermore, just as they did not think that it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind so that they do what they ought not to be done. He says, you want that bed? Go ahead and lie on it. I have told you over and over how to live, and you keep saying no. All right, go ahead. I remember when I was a kid, we had a little bottle of apple cider vinegar. Anybody else do this when you're a little kid? You see the apple cider vinegar, you're like, oh, I want some apple cider. Mom's like, that's not apple cider, Mom. It says apple cider right on it. It's not apple cider. It's apple cider vinegar. Yeah. I don't know what vinegar is, but I know what apple cider is. I want some apple cider vinegar. All right, go ahead. Right? You know. Yep. I do not want apple cider. Yeah. I told you. This is what a loving father does, is they say no to their kids sometimes. Well, I really want that thing. No. Then sometimes you go, all right, all right. See what happens. All right, Let me get my phone out. Let me videotape. Play it at your wedding someday. Right? God shows up and he says, I've explained to you over and over, and I've put trusted voices, I've put other people around you to speak truth and counsel to you, to show you that this is best for you, but you still reject it. The obligatory CS Lewis quote kind of popped in my mind as I was going through this. And this is the quote that I can't read from back there. It says, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half hearted creatures fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us. Like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud piles in the slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by an offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. In what ways do we do this? Write yourself into the story, but not as the good guy, not as Micaiah here. At least not yet. Where are we, Ahab? Where are we? Hearing the voice of God and we go, yeah, but God, I know you say not to do this thing, but do you know how good this thing makes me feel when I do this? I know that you say, don't do this thing, but do you understand if I do that, if I throw that person under the bus, I will get a promotion and then I can give more money to the church because of what I did, the way I wanted to do it. Just write yourself in a little bit. First, kings going back. Then Zedekiah, son of Kenai, went up and slapped Micaiah in the face. Which way did the spirit from the Lord go when he went from me to speak to you? Right? So he's saying. So basically he's like this. Okay, so you're saying this evil spirit deceived me, but then he went, deceived you, huh, huh, huh. I'm rubber, right? I'm glue. You're sticks, whatever. Remember, sticks and stones break my bones. Words can. Yeah, whatever. Remember that. Remember the whole thing. All right? Okay, we're gonna keep going? He asked. Micaiah replied, you will find out on the day you go to hide in an inner room. And the king of Israel then ordered, take Micaiah and send him back to Ammon, the ruler of the city, and Joash, the king's son, and say, this is what the king says. Put this fellow in prison and give him nothing but bread and water until I return safely. But Micaiah declared, if you ever return safely, then the Lord has not spoken through me. Then he added, mark my words, all you people. I want to look just in the remaining time here, this kind of difference between conviction and Stubbornness. This is just. I don't know, I need this because there is a difference. There's a difference between God given conviction and something that I'm reading and studying. And then just. I'm just being stubborn on this and I'm going to fight about it. I may have shared this before, but I used to, back in my rebel days, listen to 30 seconds of Mars Jared Leto, and I don't remember. There's a song, it's actually ironically called Savior. And in this song, there's this kind of recording, like they must have been doing the recording of the songs. And they just had this track recording and then it caught them having this. The band having this conversation. So they got the people in this band, it says, you always do that. I don't know who's talking or who's saying this, but it says, you always do that, too. And then they reply, I know, I know. I don't know why. And then the other band member turns the other band member and says he's always so sure about something. Then he turns to the guy who's convicted about it. He says, you have conviction, and I appreciate that. Sometimes conviction can lead to stubbornness. And I've heard that a million times, you know, as a rebellious teenager in my car, you know, my CD player. And I remember hearing that. But there's truth to this, that sometimes if we're so strong on our conviction, so what's the difference? How do we discern between conviction and. I just got a couple little points here. Conviction is rooted in God's word, whereas stubbornness is about my ego. Because if it's in God's word, if I say, hey, I think I should do this, or I think I should teach this, or I should approach this this way. And then you say, I don't know if that's how we ought to do that. And I go, well, let's examine the scriptures together. Let's talk about it. If I'm in error here, let's repent and let's move on. But if it's about me, oh, man, no way. You don't tell me how to preach. You don't tell me how to do my job. You think you can do it better than go do it? That's ego pride. It's one litmus test. Maybe another one is, am I open to correction or am I closed off? Am I willing to have a dialogue and a conversation with somebody about it, or am I just. No, no, no, no, you don't understand. I've studied this. I'VE talked about this, I've prayed about, I've lectured about this. I know what I'm talking about. I'm not here to get reprimanded or reproached or anything. I think that can be one third one is one that conviction produces fruit versus friction of stubbornness. I think fruit, though it might not be something that we see. It might not be something tangible. It be. Might not. It might be something eternal that we never even realized was happening. And are we okay with that? Conviction, even when costly, when it costs me relationships and friendships, produces fruit. But stubbornness tends to create unnecessary division and resentment and harm. And some of us, some of you in this room, we have this. I have a conviction, and you have a conviction. And I open up God's word and you open up God's word and we go, yeah, man, I'm just not seeing it that way. Let's talk about it. But we can dialogue calmly about it. I can still be passionate about something and be calm about it. That it doesn't require fighting. Fisticuffs. All right. In the old, old English. I don't know why I said that. The fourth point here. Is this God's glory or is it self justification? Really? If I am convicted by this thing, that. That means that this thing is what God said. And the reason why he said it was ultimately for his honor and for his glory. Not for me, not for my pride. But when it's just my stubbornness, no, no, I'm gonna hold to this thing and I'm just not ever gonna give in. This is just the way it is, and I'm never gonna turn my back on that. That might be conviction, but is it just about me looking, looking good? Am I just defending my personal pride? Another thing I think that we need to do is. Which is a proverb, is that we need to consult a multitude of counselors, again, who aren't on my payroll. I need to consult people that aren't yes men that aren't yes women. Right. I talk to my wife. I talk to my friends. That's why we have a plurality of elders here at Hope. Because it's not just me. I don't want that job. Sounds miserable. I don't want it. That's why we share that. That's why we can disagree with one another. I know you've never been. A lot of you have never been to one of our elder meetings. It's not like. Yeah, all the time. All right? There's a little bit of friction. There's a Little bit of back and forth and there's a little bit of tabling. Let's talk about that next time. Let's pray about it, let's study it. We'll get back to it, because we're not just gonna do this right now. So that's a good thing not to say that we're perfect, because we're not. That's not the way I meant that. One last quote here. The judgments of others constitute an important. This is from another Cody nerd about philosophy study. Anyways, the judgments of others constitute an important, indeed perhaps the most important test of whether my own judgments reflect a reality independent of my subjectivity. If I am hallucinated even then, standardly, the testimony of others will establish that fact, despite my firm convictions to the contrary. We need to be surrounded by a cloud of witnesses. That's what we've been looking at all summer long. And so I would ask you identify who your trusted voices are. It might be your parents. It might really not be your parents. It might be your pastor, and it might really be your pastor. All right. No, no, no. I hope I'm a little bit of a trusted voice in some of these things. I hope that. But I hope that we can dial. A lot of us have. We've dialogued, we've had our disagreements and those things, but it's a good thing. We can have disagreements, but we can major on the majors. We take the gospel seriously. We don't take ourselves seriously. We take the gospel seriously. That's what's important. Jesus and him crucified. Lastly, here we are not sheep without a shepherd. Right? That was the thing, Micaiah, when he says, I see the people of Israel a sheep without a shepherd. Right? In verse 17. Then I saw Israel scattered on the hills like sheep without a shepherd. But then we get to John, chapter 15, and Jesus says, I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and it scatters. The man runs away because he's a hired hand and cares nothing for his sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my sheep, and my sheep know me, just as the Father knows me. And I know the Father and I lay down my life for the sheep. We're not alone in this. We have the Word, the Logos, who was in the beginning and was there, and he laid down his life for us so that we could have life and have it more abundantly and be free in that. And be free to be wrong. Be free to be a minority voice, whether I'm standing up for truth or whether I'm consulting with my friends. And I'm the only one in a particular position. So there's not really like a. Like a black and white. All right, well, how do I know if I'm. If it's a conviction or if it's stubbornness? That's why the community is so important. That's why friends and family and those trusted voices are so important. So just finally hear gospel application. You are not alone. You're not. When you feel the need to take a stance, ask the good shepherd first and foremost. Right, because maybe a little tangent real quick. We are not prophets of old. We no longer say, thus saith the Lord. Unless I'm opening up his Bible and saying, this is what the Lord says. I don't get direct words from God to say, I'm gonna communicate this to you. He's not dictating something to me that I dictate to you or dictate to a king. I am not a prophet in that sense. None of us are, because I have his word. So when I say, thus saith the Lord, I'm going to consult his word. We're not in this alone. And so when you do feel the need to take a stance, we ask the good shepherd, we look at the scriptures, and then you check it with your community. We're faulty. We might have problems, but we can talk about it and dialogue about it. You might need to hold to an opinion, and it might be unpopular. It might be a conviction. You might be one against a thousand like Micaiah. But like Micaiah, we need to seek the Lord, right? He's in this cloud of witnesses saying, hey, let's look to Jesus, let's look to the shepherd, the good shepherd, and let's do what he says. First and foremost, we're gonna have a time of communion. We do this every week at Hope Lowertown. And so we've got the juice that represents the blood of Christ that was shed for us. We've got this wafer that represents the broken body of Christ. All it is is just a way to remember what Jesus did for us on the cross. The good shepherd who laid down his life for us. We get to go up here and we get to tangibly taste and remember what he did. We get to and consider him going back to Hebrews 12, the one who was abandoned, the one who was betrayed by his closest people, that he stood alone against everybody saying, no, this is what the Savior must do. I must suffer and I must die. And then the third day be risen again. And everyone around him says, may it never be Lord. He says, no, this is exactly what has to happen. And there are times we might need to take a stand like that. But no, you're not alone in it because he already went through it. He sees you, he hears you, he knows what you've gone through and what you are going through. And we get to do that in community. And that's what's beautiful. The word is communion. Right? We get to communally do this together as a body of Christ. So you don't need to be a member of this church or any church. But if you say, I am a follower of Jesus, I love Jesus. I love that he died for me, that he is the good shepherd. I know his voice and I want to follow after him even though it might cost me friends, relationships, families, promotions, fill in the blank. I want Jesus. If that's you, I'd love for you to take these elements with us this morning. If you have questions about that, feel free to talk to me afterwards. The worship team is going to come up, they're going to play two songs. So feel free to grab these elements as you see fit, pray, confess, repent, whatever maybe you feel like, feel led. Stand and sing whenever you feel led. Let me pray. Father, thank you for just our time to gather again together this morning. That as we now commune with one another, as we take these elements that represent Jesus Christ's body that was broken for us, the juice that represents his blood that was spilt for us, that he from the cross is abandoned and naked and alone. And so he can look at our situation and say, I get it. I know what you're going through. So God, would you help us this morning, whatever, regardless of what we're going through, to consider you, would you help us and maybe just bring in trusted voices into our lives, whether it's in this church or someplace else that we could just be honest with and get an honest opinion back. And would we not be so stubborn and self righteous and prideful to admit whatever we've been wrong? God, we love you. I pray now that you just be honored and glorified now as we lift up our voices to sing and as we reflect on the finished work of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, these, these elements. And it is in his name that we pray. Amen.