50/50 Faith

opportunity comes from the Lord? Now have a scripture for you today that I think will be a great blessing in your life. It's in First Samuel, chapter fourteen, verse number six. The Bible says Jonathan said to his young armor bearer, Come, let's go over to the outpost of those uncircumcised men. He's talking trash about the Philistines. He calls them a derogatory name. He's talking about their uncircumcision. Wow, he must be fired up about something. He's a little belligerent.

He's getting bold now again. Afford to wait around and wait for something to happen from heaven when God has already given him a certain power on the earth. So he turns to who he has available at this point and says, let's go. It's just me and you, but touch somebody. Say let's go now. I want you to me a favor. If you're the only one on your row who praises God today during this sermon. I want you to go and look at somebody next to you

and say, well, you go with me. Amen, he said, let's go over to the outpost of those uncircumcised men. Perhaps the Lord will act in our behalf. Nothing can hinder the Lord from saving, whether by many or by few in this third installment of Maybe God. My subject in my lesson today is called fifty fifty faith. I want to teach you on this principle that has been so useful in my life as a leader, and it's useful for me as a husband, as a dad, and

just as a man. Fifty fifty faith. I believe this principle is going to set you free in some of the areas where indecision has imprisoned you, and you've been waiting around, and God is going to show you something today by the power and virtue of His word and spirit, that only He could show you about fifty fifty faith. Praise the Lord I celebrated my thirty ninth birthday this week. Appreciate your pity. You know that last one with the three in front of it. I'm owning it. I am

so owning turning forty. I am so owning these little gray whiskers that are popping up. I'm not dying them or anything like that. Uh huh. I'm gonna tell them to get a close up on these gray these great things on the camera. Just zoom right into the greyest pat you can find in this beard. I'm proud of it. I don't care what my kids say about it, and when they tell me that my jokes are cringy and stuff like that. One of my kids told me that the other day, and I just asked him a question back.

He said, your jokes are so cringey. And I just asked him a question. I said, how many people show up to hear you speak? Since I'm so cringey conversational parenting approach, you might want to try it sometime. But one of the things I think keeps happening to me and is really happening to me at this stage of my ministry in life, because I have been doing this as a pastor over thirteen years. Is that I feel so good saying that it felt cool. I've been doing

this over thirteen years. That's a long time to do anything. Amen. I've never been less certain and I've never been more confident, all at the same time, all at the same time. And it's a strange thing, how when you give up your need for certainty you can gain a true confidence that is independent of circumstance. Can I preach to somebody today right here in this back left section of Valentine? The passage that I read to you is one of

my favorites. If they were giving out an Academy Award for best Old Testament Narrative Scripture, I would want to nominate Jonathan is best Supporting Actor because he's not as famous as David, but he's a pretty good example for me, and it has helped me a lot. This passage has helped me a lot through the years. Every couple of years I preach it, and when I circle back to it, I see a different dimension of faith. I see a different dimension of the kind of confidence that we can

have in Christ and in his promises. But I also see all of the uncertainty and self doubt that it also entails and that my faith is not a formula, and it can never be. The more I try to make it into a formula, the less valuable it becomes to me. When life challenges all of my presuppositions, and all of my ideas about what kind of ways God wants to work collapse under the weight of real life, under the weight of real bills, under the weight of real medical reports. And I need the kind of faith

that is not dependent on my presuppositions. I need the kind of faith that can deal with some ambiguity. I need a faith, like Richard Rre says, that can be patient with mystery. I need a kind of faith that is not dependent on my plans to prevail. I need the kind of faith that can stand up against the worst thing that happens. I need the kind of faith that can shine when God goes dark, when I don't know, when I can't say it, when I can't see it, when I don't feel like I can make it. I

need a faith that can withstand these seasons. Now around the verse that I read you is a little episode, and if you've been tracking with the series, I've used a few different Old Testament passages from Judges and Samuel to try to give us some sort of arc, or to give us give us some kind of context for the way that transition creates opportunity for us to trust God. In this particular transition a negative one for the nation of Israel. King Saul has really lost his way and

he's abdicated his leadership because of this. The Philistines who would torment the Israelites all the way until the rule of David, remember Sampson began to deliver them. That's last week. And you need to go on and watch that message about the parentheses and the pivot and how there's a purpose even if I have to leave it blank right now, God is going to do something in this empty space

in these parentheses. And I'm gonna put the parentheses there and I'm gonna let God fill them because He's too wise to make a mistake in my life. And that message is online. It's on YouTube and Facebook and elevation app and MySpace, and if they still had my Space, we will put it up there. Roku all of it. When when I was preaching that it talked about the beginning of deliverance, are partial deliverance and the beginning of

deliverance happened through the judges. But now Saul the King was unable to commit himself fully to the ways and the will of the Lord, rather than to engage in a relationship with the living God, he has begun to manipulate. When he begins to manipulate and treat God as some kind of mechanism to get what he wants when he wants it, he loses that unique ability that we have

to hear the voice of God. When you lose the ability to hear the voice of God, you waste energy, you waste resources, you waste worry on situations that God didn't even want you to give your attention to. So that's why I need to hear his voice. Saul, having lost that ability, is now surrounded by his enemies, so much so that his people that he was responsible for

leading or hiding in rocks, in caves, in thickets. I just wanted to put the word thickets in there, because I don't get to use it on an everyday basis. But we're all hiding in places. Sometimes we find ourselves talked away in mindsets, in patterns, in isolation, away from people, away from life, away from joy, away from risk, away from opportunity. And this was the situation in Fir Samuel L. Fourteen.

Pick up verse twenty three from thirteen. Now a detachment of Philistines had gone out to the pass at mcmash. It's always helpful to point out that the enemy always attacks you at the passages. He always attacks you at the places of transition, from what you knew to what you don't know, from where you were to where you're going. And so when he can set up an ambush at the passage, he can keep you from moving forward in those transitional pivotal moments of your life. And then one

day somebody shout. One day, one day, Jonathan, son of Saul said to his young armor bearer, come, let's go over to the Philistine outpost on the other side. But he did not hell his father. Be very careful who you talk to about what God is doing inside of you. Be very careful who you communicate with about the impressions

that God is stirring inside of you. If you talk to the wrong people about the right idea, your idea will die before it has the opportunity to conceive and give birth to what God is doing in your life. How many know I'm right about that. Saul was staying on the outskirts of Gibea under a pomegranate tree, and migrant with him were about six hundred men, among whom was a Hijah who was wearing an ephod. He was

a son of Ichabod. He was a son of Ichabod's brother, rather Ahita, son of Phineas, the son of Eli, the lord's priest in Shiloh. No one was aware that Jonathan had left. On each side that Jonathan intended to cross to the Philistine outpost was a cliff. One was called Bozez, and the other sinnat. Bozez means slippery, Sinnam means thorny. Nobody told me it would be easy. God didn't promise me that his will would be convenient. Quit thinking that proof positive that you're in the will of God is

that it feels good to you. Quit thinking that proof positive that you're in the will of God is that everybody understands it. Quit thinking that proof positive that you're in the will of God is that it just falls into place. No, he had to go through a thorny place, a slippery place, an uncomfortable place, an uncertain place. And just because I'm in an uncertain place doesn't mean I

don't have a certain purpose. I'm gonna need somebody to shout on that right there, right there, right there, touch somebody, say I'm in his will. And one of the proofs that you're in his will is that you are experiencing warfare. It could be in terms of an internal resistance that you feel, or even if some things are going crazy in your life. And on each side was a challenge. On each side was a challenge. One cliff stood to the north toward Mickmash, the other to the south toward Gheba.

And Jonathan said to his young armor bearer, come let's go over to the outpost of those uncircumcised men. Perhaps the Lord will act in our behalf. Nothing can hinder the Lord from saving, whether by many or by few. God, I love your word. I'm gonna take a moment and just talk to him about it. Thank you for putting

that one little word in your word. Not the one where he said nothing can hinder the Lord, not the one where he said, come let's go over, But that one low word where he said perhaps because that word gives me hope It gives me hope for my insecurity. It gives me hope for my impossibilities and my uncertainty.

It gives me hope to know that sometimes, even in the midst of making progress in my life, even in the midst of obeying the revealed will of God, there are going to be moments where one minute I have great faith and the next moment I'm overcome by great fear. But watch the Armor Bearer, he says back to Jonathan, who had a crazy idea, do all that you have in mind. Go ahead. I am with you heart and soul.

And Jonathan said, come on then, since you're talking like that, come on then, since you want to do it too, come on then, since you don't think I'm crazy for wanting to move toward the enemy even though we're outnumbered, come on then, since you don't have any more brain cells or common sense than I do, come on, then, sometimes you need somebody who will help you, even though your plan sounds like a bad plan, to try to find God in it, just so you don't stay stuck

in standing still. Come on, then, I like how he talked to him. He's like, come on then, And then the Armor Bear is like, go ahead then, and he's like, well, come on then, and they're pumping each other up. They're chest pumping each other, you know, and they don't have anybody else because watch this, the people who should have

had faith have been overtaken by fear. Now, this is the part of the passage that's going to give me the contrast as we look at together two different ways that we try to figure out God's will, and everyone has a way that you try to figure out what the will of God is, even if you don't call it trying to figure out what the will of God is. You have a way that you make decisions that you

hope will be most advantageous. You have a way that you try to discertna wisdom, and you can't always get it from a book, and you can't always get it from a class, and you can't always get it. Here's what I figured out. We're all making it up as we go. This part of my sermon is meant to encourage you. All the people that are writing parenting books about fifteen steps to raise a perfect kid, they left out some footnotes, and the bottom line is they just

had good luck in the gene pool. Because God can give you a kid that can make you question all of your theories. I love my children. I'm just saying, all of us as parents are making it up as we go, all of us, all of us are trying to figure out with each child, and they're all different. I know Hollywood was faithful to me, but sometimes I'm like, how could they all be so different if it was

just a common factor of me and you? But I trust her, But sometimes they're so different, and I'm like, well, you respond like this, and you respond like that, and watch John Nathan's plan. This is the dumbest idea that you can find in the Bible. The only one I can think of as dumber is Moses stretching out his stick over the Red Sea. That's pretty dumb. Or maybe David throwing a rock at a giant who has a sword.

That's pretty dumb. Or maybe Jesus commanding the lunch from a little boy in the crowd and trying to feed fifteen thousand people with it. That's pretty dumb. Or maybe Mary going to Joseph and saying I'm pregnant but it wasn't another man, it was the Holy Spirit. That's pretty dumb. Or maybe it was a widow going around borrowing jars from her neighbors when she didn't have any oil and thinking something with That's pretty now that I come to

think of it. A lot of the stuff that God did in his word looked like a dumb decision to the people while they were doing it. Listen, how dumb this is. Listen, Listen, how stupid this strategy is. Somebody say, bad idea? All right, come on, then we will cross over toward them and let them see us. I thought you were supposed to sneak up on somebody if you wanted to kill him. But whatever, if they say to us, I'll watch us. He's making this up because I want

you to notice one thing about this passage. God gives Jonathan the victory, but God doesn't say a single word. The only people who speak in this passage are Jonathan, his assistant, and his enemies. God doesn't say a word. But Jonathan he makes up this this strategy. He's an innovator. He's like, all right, my dad's under the tree by the threshing floor, and the priest isn't doing anything, and so let's go over and show ourselves and expose ourselves

to our enemies. And if they say, wait there until we come up to you, we will stay where we are and not go up to them. But if they say come up to us, we will climb up, because that will be our sign that the Lord has given them into our hands. And just when it can't get any dumber, Verse eleven, both of them showed themselves to the Philistine outpost. Look, sat the Philistines. There's two of them and dozens of us. The Hebrews are crawling out

of the holes they were hiding in. The men of the outposts shouted to Jonathan and his armor bearer, come up to us, and we'll teach you a lesson. So Jonathan said to his armor bearer, climb up after me. The Lord has given them into the hand of Israel. How are you gonna speak in past tense about a battle you hadn't even fought yet? Because I know something that is greater than what I know with my mind.

I know with my faith. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seem so way it gets dumber. Jonathan climbed up, using his hands and feet. You know how vulnerable you are climbing up something dorny or slippery, using your hands and feet, quick thing just for you. I love y'all. Victory requires vulnerability. Victory requires vulnerability in anything. You have to make yourself

vulnerable to experience a great relationship. You have to make yourself vulnerable to step into a new dimension in your business. You have to make yourself vulnerable to connect on any meaningful level with the life that God has given you. And so in this position of vulnerability, Jonathan prophesies a great victory. I feel the Holy Spirit, And it says that his armor bearer was right behind him, and the Philistines fell before Jonathan, and his armor bearer followed and

killed behind him. In that first attack, Jonathan and his armor bearer killed some twenty men in an area of about half an acre, all because Jonathan turned to his armor bearer and said, I got an idea, you know, he said like that. But I'm at the place now where I don't really think that the value is in the idea. The value is in the courage to act on the impulse. When I put it like that, you got to realize how many people say things like this

every day. You know. I remember talking to somebody about Uber, and they said, well, I could have thought of that. You know, really, you think thinking of something is the key to success. It's something anybody can think of something. I mean today I was walking out the door and Abby turned me into a dog because of my fuzzy sweater and she said, you want your belly, Rob, Do you want your belly? Rob? I licked her face and I left and came to church to preach. That's what

dogs do. But she can think of stuff, I mean, thinking of it. Holly's telling me now they got like uber for photography. I really should find out the name of this and see if I could get a sponsorship. This message goes to a lot of people. But they said that you can go on and get a photographer anywhere in the world that you are, just like you can get a car from Uber, and you can get

a photographer anywhere you are. If you're off with your family and you want to get a family picture like that so that you don't have to ask some random stranger who apparently has never used a smartphone in their life and doesn't know the tap to screen to make it lighter, you can get a professional to come out and capture the memory you know, and when she said, I was like, why didn't I think of that? Well, there's a lot more to it than thinking of it. Huh.

People call me all the time and they'll be like, I heard this thing, there's a sermon in that somewhere, and so to that, I'm like, where like just because they could think of it? You know, I read this headline you should preach about that. You suhoul to write a song about that, and I'm like, you should shut up until you can write one of your own. I know you mean, well, but the hard part isn't thinking

of it. The hard part isn't thinking of it. And this is why when they give you advice sometimes in marriage, like be the first to say you're sorry. It's not the thought that counts. Can I upset conventional wisdom for a moment? One thing that was really really striking to me in the text was not what Jonathan did, but what the people who should have been leading were doing at the time when Jonathan had to act on something

that was partial and imperfect. When the Bible says that Saul was staying on the outskirts of Gibea under a pomegranate tree with six hundred men. I always skipped this verse because the names were hard to pronounce. I was preaching this passage when I was seventeen years old, and I didn't know how to pronounce these names, and I still don't. But then I figured out, you don't know how to pronounce them either, So if I just say

it with enough confidence, we'll move on. But in skipping it, I missed something that became very important to me about the ephod. It says that the Lord's priest was wearing the ephod under the pomegranate tree. Now, the ethod was more than just an article of clothing. It was an instrument for seeking the will of God. On the ephod,

the high priest would wear a breastplate. On the breastplate would be twelve stones with the names of the tribes of Israel, representing their special presence in the presence of God. When he would wear the breastplate into the most holy place to make atonement for the sins of the people so that they could be forgiven. Once a year, the instruction was given to the priest about what to make sure he kept close to his heart. It started with

Aaron in Exodus chapter twenty eight. If you could give me this text that he will bear the names of the sons of Israel over his heart on the breastplate of decision. In the literal translation, it's the breastplate of judgment. It was what he wore when the judgment of God was conferred on the sacrificial animal that took the sins of the people away from the camp. It was the breastplate of judgment. But here it has translated the breastplate of decision as a continual memorial for the Lord. And

here's why. Next verse, please also put Urrem and Themim, which are two special stones that would go not on the breastplate, but behind the breastplate. When the priest wore the ephant, which was like a kitchen apron where he would keep the vestments that were appropriate for his duty. And on that ephant was the breastplate, and behind the

breastplate was Eurrem and themm. Whether these were stones or some other sort of special object, we are dependent on the incomplete records of archaeologists to make known to us. But one thing we know. It was one of the ways that God spoke about his will to his people. He spoke through the prophets. He spoke through dreams, and he spoke through these stones. I'm gonna call them stones because that's the closest thing we can know to what

they were. One represented yes and one represented no. That was the meme. Eurreme was a little different. It was said to be a stone that would light up. And watch this. You are to put it behind the breast piece or in the breast piece, so that they may be over Aaron's heart whenever he enters the presence of the Lord. Thus Erin will always bear the means of making decisions. I love that little phrase, the means of making decisions in the presence of the Lord. Everybody has

a means of making decisions. Everyone has a way that they try to figure out, where is this going? Can I trust this person? And I like this method a lot because all the priest had to do was take out the stones the meme it stands for perfection or decision, and then he would take urreem, which represents light, which

always represents revelation, which always represents knowledge. And when God would speak through these stones, you would inquire of him, and if the answer was affirmative, Urreme would light up, and you would know God wants us to do it.

Like when David was facing a battle at zick Lag and he had to go back and recover his family and the families of his men, and he asked the priest bring me an ephod, because I need to seek the Lord, because if I go into this battle and God doesn't want me to go in this battle, if I do this venture, if I go after this thing and God doesn't want me to do this thing, I'll be defeated. But if he says yes, no power in Hell can stand against me. Nothing can hinder the Lord

from saving, whether by many or by few. So David said, bring me the ephod, because if God gives me light on this situation, I can fight this battle. If God gives me light on this situation, I can stand the trial, I can stand the test, I can pass it. I can do it if God says yes. But sometimes God would say no, and then sometimes the stone would do nothing. And what that meant was God doesn't want to answer this right now. In other words, if I can take you back to middle school, I love you, do you

love me? Check yes or no? And sometimes I would put a third box called maybe. And sometimes they would ask God, you know should we go? Should we stay? Should we do it? Should we not? And the son would do nothing? What do you do with them? Maybe because a lot of times in our life, don't you wish you had a urim and at the meme in your closet? Come on, right next to your belts. I'd rather have a urim and at the meme than a Rolex. I mean I'd rather have I would, I would love

if I could. What a what a what a blessing it would be? You know how many? You know, how many staff members I never would have hired to begin with? Come on, this is a big church. Can I be real with you? Do you know how many staff members i'd just be if I could have just had that special stone pull it out? Wouldn't that be cool? Can you imagine how many how many things would you have

done differently? And how helpful would it be when you're making decisions if you could just have a stone just to light up and tell you, yes, this is God. You know how your kids start hanging out with friends and you're wondering, like, I don't know about these parents. They seem kind of like, I don't know I smelled something on their clothes smell like it might have been weed, or maybe it was something else, but I'm not sure. Lord, should I let my kids hang out with these kids?

And God says yes, and you could get some sleep? Or you know, God, should I take this job? It's got more pay, but it's gonna mean more hours. I just think it would be so cool if it would light up and tell me. And yet, God, God, God knows something about me that I don't know about me. Is that even if He gave me the light to know what to do, a lot of times I wouldn't have the faith to do it. You're gonna make me preach by myself and sit there looking at me like

I'm an entertainer. You know, the truth is that even sometimes when you know what to do, even sometimes when you know this as God. And they had these stones. They had these stones. It was behind the breastplate, and the breastplate was under the pomegranate tree, and the priest was doing nothing with it. They had the means of making decisions to know the will of God, but their fear had put them in a place, and their complacency had put them in a place. Because when you have

the instruments, but you don't use them. How can God speak to you when you can't find this between Sundays? How can God give you his wisdom? And the important thing about it was Jonathan said, we don't have the ephod Ahijah has the ephoon. We don't have a complete clarity on this situation. But what he had that was so that's important. He had the right person to turn

to and talk about it. I need you to understand the value not only of what God says to you in your life, but about who you say it to. After God says it to you, the right people will give you the go ahead. The right people will say, you know what, I'm gonna help you as you do this. I know the addiction has got you about three different cycles now and it looks like this one won't be any different. But whether or not you make it, I'm

gonna be here with you on it. So let's go ahead and do this dumb thing, this impossible thing, this crazy thing. And then sometimes they got to turn and tell you that ain't got at all. But it's who you say it to and who you say it. It's a fifty to fifty thing. It's not just my relationship with God. It's my relationship with others, and a lot of us are suffering and in our relationship with God because we're living in bitterness with our relationship with others.

You can't hear God just like this. I guarantee you if Jonathan would have had an armor bearer who told him, you know what, man, let me know how that turns out. I'm praying for you signed the cross. I guarantee you the battle wouldn't have moved on beyond Bethe even that day like it did, and even for me. I can say this when people say, how did you know God wanted you to start a church? I read a book. I felt inspired. I got up and preached. It seemed to help people read a book. I got a wife.

We were doing our thing. One day she looked at me. In the mountains of Tennessee. We're at some youth camp. Carl CARTI was leading worship. We came back to the room. People say, when, how did you know? How did God speak to you it was time for you to start the church because I wanted to start it when I was forty. The church wouldn't even be here right now if Holly didn't turn to me, not God she was my yorem. God used her like that. She said, it's time for you go start this church. I said, when

I'm forty. She said, no. Now, look, JJ, if you hear me saying on this message, you know God's calling you to go. You know how many people I've seen go start coffee shops because they like coffee and they hear a message like this and abuse it and they think that the whole point of the message is just go do the dumbest thing you can think of that you have a halfway interest in, and then blame the

devil when it doesn't work out. Because it was spiritual warfare and attack and nobody believed in my dream and I'm nothing but Jesus on the cross some guard and I guess so many squeeze like the olives and the oils coming out. All of that is dumb because I'm not even talking about that. I'm talking about who you talk to, about what God is saying to you. And

now now I get to return the favor. I mean the other day she she turned to me and was like, Hey, I'm about to tell you something that I think God is speaking to me. Because it's always a fifty to fifty thing always always so. So I'm confident, but I'm not certain, you know. And she was like, don't laugh at me. I'm like, why would I laugh at you? Tell me? And what she told me, I said, not only have you got to do that, but you got to do this, this and this and this and this

because that's awesome. Then I think she was sorry that she told me because she didn't want to do this, this, this, and this and this. She just wanted to do that. But we started talking. You see how important it is not only what God says to you. It's not only this be of the cross. What is this one too? So I don't have uremn the meme, but I got Eugene. I needed a rhyme. It was it was a stretch at best, and Irene and I got people. Now this is so, this is so key. It's a fifty fifty faith.

It's a fifty to fifty. That means it is a divine partnership where Jonathan says, you know, there is something that God can do, and then there is something that God will not do that only we can do. Faith is fifty to fifty. James proves it clearly. Not only does Jonathan exemplify it. James explains it when he says, faith without works is it takes two? This is a fifty to fifty proposition. Why would God do for you you what he gave you the strength to do for you?

It is a fifty fifty faith. It is not my faith that saves me, and I'm grateful for that. How many are grateful that your faith in Christ for salvation is not fifty to fifty. Come on, because if it was, I would be in hell before Monday at three pm Eastern Standard time. But because he is my great High Priest, y'all,

I'm about to get happy on this sermon. And because he took the breastplate of his own righteousness into the most holy place and shed his blood on the mercy seat, I don't ever have to doubt if he wants to see me or hear me, or love me, or throw his arms around me. He is my Righteousness and I am his child, and he is my great high Priest. Come on, shout about it, like you got the good

sens to know. This thing doesn't depend on me. Foundational faith even that faith is the gift of God, so that no one can boast but watch this, Jonathan say, perhaps perhaps the Lord will it is fifty to fifty. I know he can. I think he will. Fifty to fifty. I know God is with me, and I think this is where he's leading me. It's fifty to fifty. I'm a fifty to fifty leader. I pull seventy staff into this Monday and say this is what I think God's doing.

And I can't put a bow on it. But we're gonna find out together why Because God won't reveal truth if I don't move toward it ever. And the issue is this experience is the friend of wisdom, but it can be the enemy of faith. You need me to run that back. Experience is the friend of wisdom, but if you get like Saul in a hyda and keep the e fot under the pomegranate tree, Jonathan said, We're going to have to be our own ethought. We're gonna have to put ourselves out there and see if God will.

And when Eugenie Peterson he had this idea, right, he was trying to preach the Bible. He's in heaven now, but he was trying to preach the Bible to his church. He realized that they weren't really getting it, so he sat down to write a translation of the Bible in a way they could understand. You know that little version on your Bible on your phone. I hope you got the Bible on your phone. I hope you got the Bible up above Facebook on your phone, because you need

that one to start your day. You really do, you really do. You'll need to know what's going on in Russia every second, but you need to know what's happening, what God intends for your life. And if you click on it, there will be one version that says MSG and it has nothing to do with the Chinese restaurant. Is the message translation. And it was written by a

man who was just see. He had an idea, what if I write the Bible in the language that's common to the people, and he ended up translating the whole Bible that way. The message translation all because maybe God will use this, you know, if you act on it. If you act, it's fifty to fifty. It's fifty to fifty. I'm not sure. I don't know. Look what he said when he translated for Samuel fourteen six, my favorite verse

about faith in the Old Testament. Look what he said that Jonathan said to his armor bearer, come on, now, come on, now, let's do it now. Not when the priest gets his act together, not when the government gets his act together, not when, but now, we got to do this now. Now, come on, now, let's go across to these uncircumcised pagans. And then he said the title of my series, maybe God will work for us. Maybe maybe faith is being able to move on a maybe.

And you know what that means. It's fifty to fifty. It might not work, but God is always working. I'm confident in the second, even when I'm not certain in the first. And it takes the time of faith church to say maybe maybe if I do this, maybe and maybe it won't and maybe God will use this thing that I think I'm supposed to do to lead to something that I was really supposed to do, so that even if the first thing fails, at least I'm sitting still in fear. But it takes faith to move on

a maybe. When Yurim has gone dark and Saul is under a tree and you don't know what to do but to move toward it. God says, move toward it. It may work. And even if it doesn't I will. It is the power to move on a maybe, to know that God is mystery, but he is revealed, his character is trustworthy. I can move on a maybe. Father. I don't want to do this, but nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done. So I'm gonna go see about

this and maybe somebody shout. Maybe maybe I've got a maybe faith enough faith to do it and not know the conclusion, but trust God in the process. It's a maybe faith. I'm confident. I'm not certain, but I'm confident. And you will find yourself many times in your life in a maybe moment. Some of you are there right now. It's a maybe moment for you. Maybe you are giving yourself to a marriage that you don't know if it

can live. Like Ezekiel in the Valley of Bones, you don't even know if anything's going to happen, but you're prophesying and speaking forth and believing God to send the winds, and you're living in the maybe moment. Maybe if we start a church, maybe maybe I know who God is and I know nothing can stop him. But it's fifty to fifty. Man, you want to do it anyway. Maybe the miracle is in the maybe. I wish I could preach this to every discouraged heart today. God lives in

a place called maybe. Faith lives in a place called maybe. So if you are in a maybe moment today, that's where God lives. Stand up when you're in that maybe moment, and if you are, you know it. And if you're not, you will need this message within the next six weeks because life is full of maybe moments. You will feel in that moment the coexistence of uncertainty and confidence, and you'll feel like you're making it up as you go. I like that image because Jonathan said, climb up after me,

climb up after me. I was thinking about how they made it up as they win. But I had to go. I had to. I had to do it. I had to I had to trust God in a in a maybe moment. Maybe moments are like the moment where you could look stupid. Maybe moments are the moments where you could be rejected. Most of us aren't facing philistines and thorny, slippery cliffs and geographical obstacles. Most of us are facing things that are on the inside of us that seem insurmountable.

And God is in the maybe moment of your life when you move forward. Anyway, when I stopped by my dad's house and gave him the letter on Father's Day after we had not spoken in months because I moved him to Charlotte when his health got bad with my mom, because he asked me to, and I told him, I said, Dad, I want to do this for you. You're my dad. I want to take care of you. And we didn't

know that he had als yet. We just knew that he was very sick, and because he was a self employed barber, I didn't know, you know, if he was just honestly, my dad at that point in his life was so illogical and irrational. I didn't know if it was a good idea or not. But I knew my dad was asking me for help, and I knew that something was wrong, and when he asked me to do it, I knew something inside of me knew like this could

turn out really bad, you know. Like I told my dad, I said, you live three and a half hours away from me right now, and that works pretty good for us. If you come up and we're all up in each other's face, you know, it might not be good. And he said, I need you to do this for me, and I said, I'll never forget telling him. You know, I don't even think this is a good idea, but I'm gonna do it. You asked me to, and I love you. But please, when you come up here, please,

when you come live in Charlotte. I knew my mom would be fine, she's great, but I was like, you, please, don't do any of this crazy stuff. And honest to God, no, sooner than I sent the moving company to give him an estimate, he chased the moving company out of the yard with his walking cane. I mean this guy, he was a good dad for a lot of my life, but by this point his medications as well as his physical condition, he was starting to really lose his mind.

But I knew I needed to move him anyway, and it didn't make sense at that point. In fact, when he got here, when he finally moved after running off the moving company, after he finally found a moving company that was fit to move him, and I went to go see him and check on him in the house that we had found for them. First thing he did when I walked in the door was complain about the house. When I tell you that, I said, some Hebrew words and some Greek words, some monks corner words, some compound

cuss words. And it was like, over the next few months, every bad thing that I thought was going to happen, if I tried to do the right, things start happening. And what was the weird contrast was my ministry was going so great and the church was growing, and my dad and the way he treated my mom, and eventually he left, he went to go live by himself. It was like culminated in this horrible thanks like the worst

Thanksgiving ever where we went to see him. The only place he would live was in this nursing home and they had him calling Bingo in the nursing home and yeah, it's okay, you can laugh about it, because it was like, how did we come to this? Like how can they not even live together? How do we spend all this money and all this time and he raised me all this time and coach my teams and all this, and then it's going to end like this. When we would try to talk on the phone, he would end up yelling.

I would end up yelling, and then I'd end up preaching. And then I go back and talk to my dad and I'd end up yelling and he would end up yelling. But when I went by his house on Father's Day, I thought, well, maybe maybe if I write down. I took a notebook and I told Holly, can you drive for me for a minute. We were coming back from a family trip, and I said, I need to do something real quick. Can you drive from me and can we stop by my dad's house. He was living all

alone at that time, by his own choice. And I sat there while Holly drove, and I wrote down a memory for every year that I had been alive of him being my dad. Because I knew we couldn't talk, but I thought, well, maybe if we could just communicate in writing. And when we showed up at the house and he opened the door, I kind of like threw the list at him, you know, like happy fun made a list for you, because maybe maybe this is a dumb idea, but maybe it could open a door for

us to have a relationship. It's the maybe moments, you know. If I'm going to tell you about my maybe moments that result in starting a church that reaches the world, I think I owe it to you to tell you about my maybe moments that were messy to it's not always so clear, it's not always so perfect, it's not always so brilliant, it's not always so strategic. Life has

lived in those maybe moments. And so I got to sit beside him as he breathed his last breath after three days that hospice had been in much later, after a progression where my mom graciously let him back in the house and cared for him until he died, and I got to be there, reading to him from Charles

Spurgeon sermon The Peaceful Sleep of the Beloved. After I sang to him the Old Rugged Cross, and I thought he was going to pass quickly, but he stayed around like three days, and I ran out of hymns and started having to sing James Taylor and Hoodie and the Blowfish. I mean, I was there for all of it in that moment because of moving forward with a maybe, I believe God sent me with this message today and I'm overtime.

I'm so overtime. It's going to be awful in the parking lot in the rain, give me and please smile at people on the way out and tell it's going to be worth it. But please listen to me listen to me. You're in a maybe moment. You're in a maybe moment, slipper on one side, thorny on the other. Don't have everybody with you thought you'd have with you, just got a armor bearer. Father, I pray today for the faith for your people to move forward on a maybe in this moment. You're the God of all wisdom.

You are the God who sees all, knows all, and can do anything. I thank you, Lord that there are miracles emerging even now as I speak, in bodies, in relationships, in careers, in families. God, I thank you that ministry is birth out of maybe. We thank you God for giving us the Holy Spirit inside of us. We thank you for giving us the finished work of your son, to let us know that you are good, and you do good, and all things work together for the good

of them that love. You speak over every maybe situation. Give your people now, by your grace the kind of faith that it takes to move forward and it maybe for we believe that nothing can hinder you from saving, whether by many or by few. Thank you for joining us. Special thanks to those of you who give generously to this ministry. Is because of you that this ministry is possible.

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