Who will?

How bad is it?

I was making a salad for my wife and I to share. I also happened to be making food for and serving my kids lunch. While multi-tasking I had a sarated knife I grabbed to cut the leaves of the salad and my fingers were stuck in the salad and you couldn’t see them, but I’ve done this before, many times, without any issues, however, today was different. I cut into the laves once, twice, and on the third time I turned my head to answer a question and while doing so I cut into my thumb.

There was a moment of hesitation and dread, feeling the slice, but not seeing my finger, I didn’t know how bad it was. The knife was duller, so my hope was that it wasn’t too bad, but I grabbed my finger all the same and pulled it from the salad, took it to the sink and cleaned out the wound and then looked to assess the damage.

Already too long story short, it wasn’t as bad as I expected it to be, however I tell you this story to start off this sermon by focusing on one moment of the story, the moment of uncertainty, mixed with dread. The moment where you are now aware of something that is wrong.

Friends, although many have been aware of the idea that there is something WRONG with the world, it SEEMS to us as though we are becoming all the more aware that things are not right in the world. Like the veil is being lifted OR maybe the curtain is being drawn and we, even some of the world is at least being given the chance to see some of the perverse nature of human kind. Our default is not holiness or godliness, our default is a sin nature in this fallen world, and as that becomes more evident, we will have an opportunity to see the damage that has and will be done through perusing our own kingdom rather than the kingdom of God.

It is much easier to lose hope, lose control, lose our peace, lose our sanity when what those things are tied to things that are not of God.

So the main question is, what is your ___________ in? or better yet, WHO, so the question might be “who is your ________ in?” or maybe even “what is your ________ in?”

Part of this battle we’ve been talking about over the last month “spiritual warfare” that we haven’t looked at is to take a look at ourselves and ask this question. Its an important question BECAUSE, sometimes we are caught off guard WHEN the thing that we have put our hope, trust, time, faith, peace in is damaged because it was put in the wrong place or given to the wrong person or entity.

Maybe your trust has been placed more into your finances?

Maybe your hope is in your retirement, or your dog, or your kids, or your house, or your car?

I don’t think its by chance that I got in a wreck recently, it was a wakup call for me.

Even accidentally cutting myself, I realized there was a moment where I kenw my flesh was hurt, but I didn’t know and COULDN’T know until I was willing to look/inspect how bad it really was. Luckily, this time, It wasn’t as bad as I thought.

In America, our blindside is where our trust, hope, peace lies. We are so individualistic. Our culture is prideful in our identity of our might, prosperity, and “worldly success” that has been given to us and it has made us less reliant on God’s provisions and the Body of Christ AKA “the church.”

Asa was the king of Juda, the Southern Tribe of Israel from 911BC to 870BC -

1 Kings 15:9–24 KJV 1900

9 And in the twentieth year of Jeroboam king of Israel reigned Asa over Judah. 10 And forty and one years reigned he in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Maachah, the daughter of Abishalom. 11 And Asa did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord, as did David his father. 12 And he took away the sodomites out of the land, and removed all the idols that his fathers had made. 13 And also Maachah his mother, even her he removed from being queen, because she had made an idol in a grove; and Asa destroyed her idol, and burnt it by the brook Kidron. 14 But the high places were not removed: nevertheless Asa’s heart was perfect with the Lord all his days. 15 And he brought in the things which his father had dedicated, and the things which himself had dedicated, into the house of the Lord, silver, and gold, and vessels. 16 And there was war between Asa and Baasha king of Israel all their days. 17 And Baasha king of Israel went up against Judah, and built Ramah, that he might not suffer any to go out or come in to Asa king of Judah. 18 Then Asa took all the silver and the gold that were left in the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king’s house, and delivered them into the hand of his servants: and king Asa sent them to Ben-hadad, the son of Tabrimon, the son of Hezion, king of Syria, that dwelt at Damascus, saying, 19 There is a league between me and thee, and between my father and thy father: behold, I have sent unto thee a present of silver and gold; come and break thy league with Baasha king of Israel, that he may depart from me. 20 So Ben-hadad hearkened unto king Asa, and sent the captains of the hosts which he had against the cities of Israel, and smote Ijon, and Dan, and Abel-beth-maachah, and all Cinneroth, with all the land of Naphtali. 21 And it came to pass, when Baasha heard thereof, that he left off building of Ramah, and dwelt in Tirzah. 22 Then king Asa made a proclamation throughout all Judah; none was exempted: and they took away the stones of Ramah, and the timber thereof, wherewith Baasha had builded; and king Asa built with them Geba of Benjamin, and Mizpah. 23 The rest of all the acts of Asa, and all his might, and all that he did, and the cities which he built, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? Nevertheless in the time of his old age he was diseased in his feet. 24 And Asa slept with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in the city of David his father: and Jehoshaphat his son reigned in his stead.

2 Chronicles 14:7–9 NASB95

7 For he said to Judah, “Let us build these cities and surround them with walls and towers, gates and bars. The land is still ours because we have sought the Lord our God; we have sought Him, and He has given us rest on every side.” So they built and prospered. 8 Now Asa had an army of 300,000 from Judah, bearing large shields and spears, and 280,000 from Benjamin, bearing shields and wielding bows; all of them were valiant warriors. 9 Now Zerah the Ethiopian came out against them with an army of a million men and 300 chariots, and he came to Mareshah.

2 Chronicles 16:7–9 NASB95

7 At that time Hanani the seer came to Asa king of Judah and said to him, “Because you have relied on the king of Aram and have not relied on the Lord your God, therefore the army of the king of Aram has escaped out of your hand. 8 “Were not the Ethiopians and the Lubim an immense army with very many chariots and horsemen? Yet because you relied on the Lord, He delivered them into your hand. 9 “For the eyes of the Lord move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His. You have acted foolishly in this. Indeed, from now on you will surely have wars.”

41 years of reign over the Southern kingdom of Juda.

Started off strong, tossing out idols and returning the nation toward TRUSTING in/on God, and later turning toward trusting in alliances with others.

In different seasons of my life I’ve trusted in different people or different things or even places.

When I was a kid, my WORLD surrounded a place in Columbia, my people, and a farm

When I moved around a lot, my trust was in the consistency of my family.

When I was in a relationship with someone I thought I was going to and was willing to marry, or at least ask them to marry me, I worshipped a human, rather than the Trinity.

I redirected my hope into my ministry and the relationships with the people of the church in which I served. My identity became entangled with what I did more than whom I served. This season ended and it wrecked me when it ended. Identity crisis.

The Lord humbled me in my

Through all these small glimpses into my life’s journey, parts of my testimony, I stop to think about all these things from a little cut from a serrated knife and wonder, how bad is the wound right now, both in the place and community where I live AND in my own life?

What am I trusting in, who am I looking to, what does my peace depend upon, my faith and trust in redemption through Christ or ...._______? The great I Am and I will from God or any of the counterfiet of the enemy?