Are You Spiritually Pure or Messy?

but it's like how do we share God's truth in this way we need to share God's truth and not be apologetic When it came to speak he didn't water down the message He didn't add disclaimer He shared exactly what God had said Church this is so relevant to our culture today When we are speaking biblical truth it is often seen as intolerant It's often seen as judgmental And we need the courage to speak God's truth in love Not being weird about it not being rude but also not apologizing for what God has said in his word and what his truth truly is But hey we are so glad that you are here As you can tell it is VBS week Uh we are kicking it off tonight So it is all things kids and you'll probably get hit with a tree or something by the time you leave today But we are so excited for what God is going to do in these next couple days And with that uh we've been going through this series all on family and talking about the messiness of our families We've looked at messy moms and women and we started that on Mother's Day and somehow they kept us let us keep preaching this message as we went Uh we continued on and looked at kind of the messy parenting in our lives and and we're going to get to the messy finances in a little bit But today is one we can probably all relate with and agree on the most is messy children Oh yeah I heard a small amen but we can try that again We're going to talk about some messy children All right Yeah And you're not going to like where we're going to go with it but children are just messy Uh my one-year-old daughter Alice uh she is walking now and she's been walking for a little over a month and she is a terror like in the cutest way She just goes in she gets in cabinets she just starts dumping everything on the floor Then she goes into another room We just close doors like keeping her contained like a little animal like a rabbit animal But wherever she goes like my wife just sent me a Snapchat today of her in her room just taking diapers off and throwing them around the room And why cuz she's cute and she thinks it's fun But we know like Hurricane Alice has just kind of passed through the house I think I'm going to talk to our disaster relief team and see if on off seasons they can just deploy to my house instead and clean up after her But children can be messy Children can be hard But if you were here last week we already kind of talked about parenting and we talked about how we need to do the right things to build the right children And so you might be wondering today as we talk about kids and children and 90% of the people in the room and watching online you consider yourself an adult of like what are we going to talk about with kids well today here's what we're going to see is that all of us are a children or a child to a degree We see this actually in scripture in John 8:44 Jesus saying this it says "You are of your father the devil." You would not want to be the audience that Jesus is talking to right here right he's saying to someone "Your father's the devil." He said "You want to carry out your father's desire He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in truth because there's no truth in him When he tells a lie he speaks from his own nature because he is a liar and a father of lies." We see one type of child that Jesus addresses here is a child who does not follow him A child who is instead a father of their sin or ultimately of the devil But in first John chapter 3 we see a different child and it says "See what great love the father has given us that we should be called God's children." And we are The reason the world does not know us is that it didn't know him Dear friends we are God's children now And what we will be has not yet been revealed We know that when we appe appears we will be like him because we will see him as he is And verse three I love this And everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself just as he is pure Here today we're going to see our biblical options that we come to And when we talk about children today we're not just going to talk about physical children although there are principles that apply here but we are going to talk about all of us are spiritual children in some way And as we get into this this is the biblical option we get is we are all spiritual children on this side of eternity The only question is is if we are messy or we are pure spiritual children You see scripture overall makes very clear that we are a child of something Are we a child of God who is reigning in heaven who is our heavenly father who purifies us who guides our path who raises us up in maturity to continue on a path that one day will bring us into something or are we a messy spiritual child who is enslaved to our sin whose father is the devil himself and how does that affect how we live our lives you see all of us are spiritual children And the question isn't whether we'll grow up We will grow up But it's what are we growing up into what are we maturing into i mentioned my one-year-old daughter Alice She is adorable but she's also an imitator And and she is much more adorable when she imitates my wife than she imitates me cuz I'm just less adorable than my wife Okay But she when people clap she claps When people smile she smiles When people start singing she babbles along And all of us have this spiritual mentality When we are imitating something the question becomes what so today if you have your Bible we're going to answer the question today through our text So we're going to ask this question and answer it is how can we be spiritually pure children and if you have your Bible we're going to be in 1st Samuel starting in chapter 3 And as we ask this question how can we be spiritually pure children here's the first thing that we're going to see that's just going to jump out of this story and that's going to cut to the heart of not only our physical children but us as spiritual children that are growing in this way is we need to organize our schedule for hearing God's voice 1st Samuel chapter 3 starting in verse one It it gets right into this It says this "The boy Samuel served the Lord in Eli's presence." In those day the word of the Lord was rare and prophetic visions were not widespread One day Eli whose eyesight was failing was lying in his usual place Before the lamp of God had gone out Samuel was lying down in the temple of the Lord where the ark of God was located Then the Lord called Samuel and he answered "Here I am." You see as we jump into this story and we see this story of this boy named Samuel who is growing up literally in the house of God He's growing up in the temple His parents had dedicated to him and they came and they visited him and they'd give him provisions and give him new clothes But he was growing up as this priest inside God's temple And as he's growing up I I I love some of the verbiage we get That's just these little clues in this text It first says here that the word of the Lord was rare that prophetic visions were not widespread Is not a lot of people were hearing from God at this time This wasn't a time when when God was speaking to his people frequently because his people were actually going down some wicked ways The the spiritual leadership at this time was corrupt If you were with us last week when we talked about parenting it is Eli was actually parents of two boys and his two boys were wicked men in chapter 2 And it showed what terrible of a father was And they infected the church by being these wicked priests and not following what God had for him And in all this with the leadership wrong with the religious system broken God seemed distant Yet despite that Samuel positioned himself to hear God's voice Check out this Where was Samuel sleeping he was sleeping in the house of the Lord And where the ark of God was which was the literally the presence of God So here it begs this question for us because we don't have an ark of the covenant All right I think Indiana Jones tried to find that and he didn't find it He wasn't successful or maybe was I don't know It's been a long time since that movie came out Um but it's not here right so how do we get close to the presence of God how do we make sure that we are in a position to hear his voice today well here's I think the first way is we need to hear by his word You see Samuel was in God's house with God's ark For us that means we need to have regular time spending reading scripture where we know God's voice has already been spoken Recent statistics show that according uh uh to uh to the church and looking at Christians only 19% of Christians people who profess to be Christians read their Bible regularly That means eight out of 10 people do not read this book outside of showing up to a church service And here's the deal You will not know your God if you do not hear him speaking to you And I hear this from people all the time like "I don't know what God wants from me I don't know where he's leading me I don't know what he's doing." It's like "Are you reading his word and letting him talk to you and have a conversation with him?" One of the hardest realizations I had to have as an adult is for years I would refer to my childhood friends as my best friends cuz they were they were my best friends and we did so much together We had stupid memories together I could recall them together And my wife was like "When was the last time you talked to them?" I'm like "Uh like eight years ago." She's like "Are they still your best friend?" And I'm like "Here's the deal If I don't talk to someone in 8 years I can't call them my best friend anymore." And here when we talk about being a child of God hearing God's voice being close to him if we're not reading his word that relationship is going to grow more and more distance But you see not only do we hear God's verse by when we get to hear by his word but also we hear by his prayer time You see Samuel was in the place of prayer and worship And we need consistent times when we're quiet before God Not just asking for things but listening to him I find one of the most convicting things in my life is is when I do not have regular prayer rhythms in my everyday life What that shows is that I have become too busy for God If I can't carve out 10 to 15 minutes to be quiet to praise God in my prayer life to thank him but also to listen to how he's speaking through my prayer life If I can't do that 10 to 15 minutes a day I am too busy And the other thing that has coupled with that is that I am relying on my own strength too much We need to hear by his word We need to hear by his prayer time when we can talk to God And lastly we hear by his people Here's what I love It is Samuel in this story is connected to God's people even imperfect ones like Eli It is Eli who was the spiritual leader He was a priest and he was a broken man He was a terrible father He even made some mistakes in how he led as a priest but he was still a godly man in other rights And God speaks through other Christians in conjunction with his word Now this is why it's so important because when I say that and God speaks through other people with his word is God will never have someone tell you something that contradicts what's in this book And and this is why it's important that this is the third thing when we talk about how do we hear God's voice is we hear by his word we hear by our prayer life But what is so amazing is then when a someone else in your life comes and confirms that whether that's a pastor whether that's a leader in your life whether that's just someone that's part of your church family it kind of puts the stamp of approval that God is directing you in some way that he's telling you this is the path to go down And the beautiful thing is what we need to do is we need to position ourselves spiritually so we can hear God's voice A couple weeks ago we had Mother's Day And during Mother's Day we did child dedications and we had 22 children that we dedicated in our church And we're going to have more We're going to have a ton next year too Maybe more There's babies like I'm hearing about every week I'm pregnant I'm pregnant I'm pregnant As long as my wife doesn't say it I am good Okay That's a more complicated question Anyway um but it's it's so awesome And here's what was so cool about child dedication is what these parents were up here saying "We're going to dedicate to raise our kids in in the in the truth of God." But then our church came and said "We're going to commit to walking alongside you." And here's the beautiful thing is you can't push a salvation into your child's life But you can raise them in a way that when they hear the voice of God they know it's the voice of God and they can respond And when we see Samuel's life he was positioned to hear God's voice And we need to do the same thing in our lives and the lives of our children But we also see we need to be open You also need to open up yourself to taking risks Keep going in verse 5 He ran being Samuel to Eli and said,"Here I am You called me I didn't call." Eli replied "Go back and lie down." So he went and laid down Once again the Lord called Samuel Samuel got up He went to Eli and he said "Here I am You called me I didn't call you my son." He replied "Go back and lie down." Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord Samuel was in position to hear God's voice But he didn't even know who God was yet because the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him Once again for the third time the Lord called Samuel He got up He went to Eli and he said "Here I am You called me." Then Eli understood that the Lord was calling the boy We see the wisdom someone else has in Samuel's life Verse 9 he told Samuel "Go and lie down If he calls you say "Speak Lord for your servant is listening." So Samuel went and laid down to his place And the Lord came stood there and called as before Samuel Samuel Samuel responded "Speak for your servant is listening." Here's what I love about this little part of the story as it unfolds is Samuel was in the right place but then Samuel also was ready to take some risks In this story Samuel kind of doesn't look like the smartest kid in the world All right He he gets up in the middle of the night multiple times to respond to what he thought Eli was saying and calling And here to be fair to Samuel it is hard Me and my wife will be laying in bed and we'll hear someone yell and we're like "Which kid was that was that Archie no that sounded like Arlo Was that Alice or was that Arya?" And then we just hear until he yells a little bit more and then it's like following it through the house like which kid was it that's yelling at us and and Samuel hears this and he runs to Eli and he's like hey you called me Nope Go lay down You called me Nope Go lay down And Eli's probably like what's wrong with this kid he he's risking looking dumb in this moment He's risking being foolish and being wrong But he kept on responding As spiritual children we need to take some risks in our life And here's the first way when we talk about this What does it mean to take risks because this can be going the wrong way Here's where what we'll first start here is when we take risks we need to be risks that are not reserved Here's what I mean by this is too many Christians live such safe predictable lives And I should probably say too many Christians in the West live safe predictable lives that that God would never need to call them to anything because they provided everything they need But Samuel here he was open to interruption He was open to the unexpected in his life And here's the danger when we go too far down this path And the danger for both for ourselves and for our children Uh one of the best books out there right now modern kind of parenting books and talking about what we're facing as parents right now is anxious generation generation by Jonathan hate And and in this book it talks about how the rising rates of anxiety and depression and mental unhealth is happening within children and within kids And one of the things that pinpoints too is the reason that kids are not growing up and are more anxious is because as parents we haven't made them take enough risks as children Instead we've bubble wrapped them We've protected them We've made them live these nice safe lives so that when they become an adult they're calling you asking how to pay their mortgage and how to pay their bills and you're just like "Grow up You're 45 Get over it." Okay that was too harsh wasn't it all right I'm sorry That was not scripted I didn't put that in my notes This past week I was proud of my wife Um she went to uh uh what's that um Mormon place called twisted Sugar Okay Um if you didn't know all those soda mix places they're all owned by Mormons cuz they can't have coffee So anyway um but she loves them And so she went there and was picking she wanted to order a drink So she stopped outside and she sent in my kids with cash money and an a piece of paper with a drink order and said "Go talk to the grown-ups the eight and the seven-year-old and say "Go order my drinks Go pay with the money Get the change back and make sure it's the correct amount of change and then bring my drinks to the car." And now you're like some of you are like "Hey I'm used to jumping my fence when I was a kid and go in the alley They put shut things on TV saying "Do you know where your children are?" cuz my parents were asleep at that time But today in 2025 that's kind of a big deal having kids just order for you know going into Twisted Sugar But one of the things my wife and I have talked about is like how do we like put our kids out there how do we not reserve them to a life of safety but how do we continually to put them out where they're doing things that are outside of their comfort zone because if we're honest we have gotten to a point where we are too comfortable If you have a child who is unable to talk to an adult that's a problem because they will become an adult who is unable to talk to other adults and we are limiting our kids But here's the thing is we need to make sure when we're taking risks we're not reserved But here is the other side of this to balance it We also need to not be reckless You see this is so important is when he had this is he didn't assume every voice was God when Samuel was hearing it Instead when he was hearing this voice who did he go to he went to his spiritual mentor his pastor for wisdom and discernment Samuel went to Eli You see we need to move back from taking no risk to taking some risk But that doesn't mean that we be stupid We still live in a broken world of terrible people We still And maybe like stranger danger had an important thing right but maybe we need to move stranger danger a little bit closer and just go to like stranger discernment And we need to teach our kids that they need to take some risk but they need to not be reckless in doing it And we need to do the same in our spiritual lives But you see we're not reckless We're not reserved but we are in risk-taking radical You see I I love this When s when Samuel finally understood that it was God who was calling him this is what he says He said "Speak for your servant is listening." He was ready for whatever God might ask He didn't say "All right oh God hey I have some caveats All right if you're going to say some things like here's what I'm willing to do Here's what I'm not willing to do." Like Samuel didn't give that He said "Speak I'm here." I think of the New Testament when Jesus was calling disciples one of the guys he tried to call he said "Come and follow me." And the guy's like "No I got to go bury my father first." And and Jesus responds and here's the context of that because Jesus says responds He says "Let the dead bury their dead." You're like "Wow that is not the warm and fuzzy Jesus that I thought was through the Bible." Right and you're like "That seems harsh Like this guy's dad is about to die." No no no What the guy was saying is "Let me stay at home for however many years it takes until my dad dies Let me bury him and then I'll move on with life." And Jesus is like "I don't got that time to wait You follow me now or you don't follow me at all." And and Jesus here he's saying "Lay down your life Give it up and come follow me." And here I think we see through the story of Samuel how we can take some risk to get out of our comfort zone as we've talked about this whole year to be uncomfortably hospitable to do things that are not fun all the time that are for the greater kingdom But we continue on and we see how do we become pure children We also see our third thing is we need to operate with boldness and sharing God's truth Pick up in verse 11 It says "The Lord said to Samuel I'm about to do something in Israel that will cause everyone who hears about it to shutter On that day I will carry out against Eli everything I said about his family from beginning to end I told him that I'm going to judge his family forever because of the iniquity and knows about His sons are cursing God and he has not stopped them." This was in chapter 2 that we read last week He says "Therefore I have sworn to Eli's family The iniquity of Eli's family will never be wiped out by either sacrifice or offering Samuel," and he's giving Samuel instructions "Lay down until the morning." Then then he opened the doors of the Lord's house He was afraid to tell Eli the vision but Eli called him and said "Samuel my son here I am," answered Samuel What was the message he gave to you eli asked He said ' Don't hide it from me May God punish you and do so severely if you hide anything from me that he told you So Samuel told him everything and did not hide anything from him Eli responded "He is the Lord Let him do what he thinks is good." Let's break this down a little bit Is Eli or I'm sorry Samuel is ready He's saying "Lord speak." And then what God says is "I'm going to wipe out Eli's family I'm going to destroy them all I'm going to take all his wicked sons I'm going to erase his line his legacy I promised him." And he he says this judgment more fully in chapter 2 He's like "It's gone It's done And you're going to step in that place and instead I'm going to work my priestly line through you." Now when Eli then goes to Samuel and says "Hey what' God say?" I don't know about you but Samuel like I want to be like "Hey you know spiritual mentor pastor guy I love that you've helped to raise me you've been there for me Um God said he's going to destroy everything you love and your whole legacy is going to be gone." That's not an easy message to give but when pressed he didn't hold back and he shared the complete truth And as spiritual children when we share God's truth I think there's some ways we need to do it When we talk about operate with boldness and sharing God's truth this is what this means Is the first way we do this and this is going a little bit outside the text but I think in the biblical corpus overall is the first way we do this is we need to not be weird All right you weren't expecting that one at all I love it when people try to guess the blanks You probably guessed wrong on that one All right is we need to not be weird Here's where I mean this is we don't need to be strange or off-putting Samuel here what didn't like beat around the bush He didn't say this in a we weird way He didn't try to rephrase what God said Instead he was respectful and he was appropriate in how he communicated We have a little saying we say here at cross church is we just need to love Jesus and not be weird because honestly sometimes Christians can be weird Sometimes you go somewhere and you're like I don't know if I want to go to that church They're kind of weird or like why did someone like open you know like why are they giving me all these little tracks and things that uh tell me I'm going to hell or whatever in if you give out tracks that's not a total indictment I'm just not a fan all right but it's like how do we just love Jesus and not be weird how do we show our community we are relevant that we are speaking their language as Paul talks about that we prioritize as a value here and not put them off in odd ways but here's what goes along with that cuz I think you're like man I'm not weird I'm great at this like let me go talk to some people about the truth of Jesus Here's the second one is we need to not be rude This is one I think people struggle with cuz sometimes we can be rude in how we deliver And we look at Samuel he didn't enjoy delivering bad news to Eli I I'm sure it hurt him to deliver this bad news He didn't act superior and be like "Dude I'm going to replace you I'm so happy about this." It pained Samuel He was gentle but he was truthful And And here's the thing is like I I love these first two because this is exactly the kids I want to raise This is what I strive to be like is I want to raise kids who aren't weirdos and aren't jerks And I think I followed somewhere in between that Some people might argue either way That's okay But it's like how do we share God's truth in this way and this is the last filter on this is we need to share God's truth and not be apologetic You see when it came to speak he didn't water down the message He didn't add disclaimers like "This is what God said but I don't believe it." He shared exactly what God had said And you see church this is so relevant to our culture today When we are speaking biblical truth it is often seen as intolerant It's often seen as judgmental And we need the courage to speak God's truth in love not being weird about it not being rude but also not apologizing for what God has said in his word and what his truth truly is Which leads us to our last way that we spiritually purify us as children that spiritually pure children What road does God lead us down in our last ways we need to orient our life to be used by God Check out verse 19 In verse 19 it says this Samuel grew I love that That's a lot a lot to happen Like how much did he grow do we have like how many inches he grew was this maturity what was this anyway he just grew Okay Um but Samuel grew and the Lord was with him and he fulfilled everything Samuel prophesized All Israel from Dan to Beeba knew that Samuel was a confirmed prophet of the Lord The Lord continued to peer in Shiloh because there he revealed himself to Samuel by his words And we see an addendum in chapter 4:1 And Samuel's words came to all of Israel You see Samuel's life became characterized by God's presence and by God's power His words carried weight because God was truly with him He became known throughout Israel as the true prophet of God Now how did this happen does this just happen by accident does Samuel just fall into this did it just like overnight all of a sudden this happened no Instead he oriented he scheduled he moved his entire life around being used by God And I I think there's a few things this means for us today of how do we uh uh mimic to do this h how do we make sure we're in the same position spiritually to be spiritual children of God pure before him just like Samuel was well I think the first thing we knew is we need to be ready You see Samuel here he was always prepared for God to use him He was available He was attentive And he was willing And and all this is so important because I think at times if we're honest we're not ready for God to be use us Like God you know I I want to do your will but like give me the summer It's really hot here Like I'm not going to respond right now Like nobody wants to do ministry or like go talk to people or invite people over It's like summer Let it pass Everyone's on vacation It's fine Or like God like this season it's just really busy for me Like like I got a lot of kids right now They're all young Preach I can hear that right and it's like all this like just let this season pass Then you can use me But Samuel he was just ready And God calls us to be ready Not when it's convenient for us but when God is ready to move But not only ready but but be flexible You see God used Samuel in ways he probably never expected Samuel went if you just look at his life he went from a temple servant to a prophet to then a kingmaker because he anoints both Saul and David And and he adapted to whatever role God called him to I think of this in my own life as I was called to ministry at 15 years old and and from whatever reason God's path was "Okay now go get your bachelor's degree in business Go work HR management at Target for 5 years." And I'm like how is this related to my ministry uh I learned to be more patient with people Okay that's one thing it taught me And then he's like go be a church planter for 10 years and have no idea what you're doing um as the campus pastor of Phoenix and just fall on your face a lot And then he you know somehow brought me into this role And God in that he was just like "Hey be flexible It's not going to look how you paint it." And sometimes I think we have this grand idea of how God wants to use us And it might not be the same way that God sees your story But lastly we need to be faithful I I love in this where it talks about Samuel and how he grew up into everything And it says he fulfilled everything Samuel prophesized Some translations say that none of Samuel's words fell to the ground Meaning everything Samuel prophesized came to pass because he was reliable He was trustworthy He was faithful to God I think about this in the context of our church here in Surprise And as I was writing this and as I was thinking through this and praying through this all I could do is picture faces of people here at Surprise of people like uh of Carol and Sandy who serve so faithfully here week in week out Larry and Martha Ron and Mona Brian and Alyssa Don Stevie Heather and I could spend this whole section just naming people in our church who show up who are ready who are available who don't always know how nice it's going to be or work but just faithfully serve where God is leading And here's the amazing thing about this passage that as we look about this and we see that when we are like Samuel and we kind of move our lives to be used by him to hear his voice it starts to change everything Now just take a step back for a second and start to take all this in because isn't this just the type of child you want to be that you want in your family isn't this the type of kid or grandkid or niece or nephew that you want a child who organizes their schedule to hear God's voice Wouldn't that be nice a child who opens themselves up to taking more risks but taking risks in a godly way A child who uh operates with boldness and sharing God's truth not as a jerk not weird but without apology and with boldness and a child who orients their life to be used by God And you see this is the picture we see here in 1 Samuel But we also see it's a picture that we see throughout scripture of ultimately what God wants to do in our lives It reminds me of Romans chapter 8 in verse 14 I I love this verse because I think this is how God starts to use us when we live a life like Samuel saying "God use me." And we take on the call that he had And this is how it plays out in Romans chapter 8 looking in verse 14 it says this "For all those led by God's spirit," listen to what they're described are God's sons For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear Instead you've received the spirit of adoption by whom we cry out "Aba father." The spirit himself testifies together with our spirit that we are God's children That is who you are if you are a believer in Jesus Christ Verse 17 And if children also hes of God and co-airs with Christ if indeed we suffer with him so that we also may be glorified with him You see at the start of this we talked about the choice we have that we're all spiritual children The question is if we are messy or if we are pure If we have followed our flesh We've let the father of lies Satan himself overtake us Lead us down paths that are not right Paths that our culture may celebrate but that in the depths of them are simple lies and empty promises that will never move our lives forward Or will we be pure children who we can call God reigning in heaven our father because he loves us because he's called us and because he's provided a path to get him Here's ultimately when we think about these choices we have the options that we can choose our sin or we can choose our savior Here is the biblical choice that this presents to us today And I want to ask of you today as we begin to wrap up our time is have you declared yourself a child of God it's so simple Have you declared yourself a child of God and here is the second part of that that Romans tells us and an heir to his kingdom No longer do you have to be a messy child that leads to more mess but you can be a child of the creator of the universe He can call you beloved He can call you son He can call you daughter He can call you his because of the choice that you have made And you see here's how this choice is available that Samuel had God calling out to him He said "Yes Lord move me." When we see the word of God it is called out to us And the fact of it has shown us who Jesus Christ is that he died on a cross for us That he raised again so that when we say "I want to be a child of God." Here's how we do it We do it through Jesus Christ our co-air And we say "I believe that you died for my sins I believe you came here to take my mess away I believe that you raised again to defeat those sins so that no longer I have to be marked by them And I believe that I can have a better life I can be an heir to eternal life through Jesus and Jesus alone When I was preparing this sermon I did not think that bridge was going to be there But as I'm looking at this bridge this weekend and this morning and I you cross this bridge you go from one side of a river to the other side And it's almost like when you cross all of a sudden what is on this side is available That wasn't if this bridge would not be here Now some of you thinking that's not that far of a river I could jump that Just pretend it's a lot wider But this river is like our mess Our sin We start on this side We start in our sin in our folly in our mess We try to do everything our own way We are messy spiritual children And it leads to depression and anxiety It leads to hurt It leads to heartache It leads to all these wrong paths And Jesus is this bridge that lets us cross over here to freedom to an inheritance to something greater than our life has to offer So we don't have to dwell and go play in the mud and in our mess but we can experience the life that God has called us to So this morning if you're here and if you've never said yes to the calling God has for you if he is calling your name if he is speaking out to you just like he did to Samuel he's saying "Samuel Samuel." And you feel this tug on your heart throughout your life You feel like maybe you've been saved from things that should have got even worse you feel like you're here for a reason And God is knocking on the door of your heart My prayer my plea is that you answer that call today That you don't put it off any longer You don't say "You know what i I think I can figure this out on my own I think I can get it right." but that today you say yes to Jesus Today you say "Here I am Lord Do with my life what you will." If that's you today we're we're going to wrap up and we're going to kind of talk about how we remember that as believers But I want you in this moment to stay right there and you can grab either that new or that next card And I want you to write your name on that I want you to write Jesus on that And I want you to either come give that to us or drop in our box later and we want to pray with you We want to celebrate with you We want to hear the messiness of your life We want to hear what that looked like and help walk alongside you as you cross this bridge to show you how this side is so much greater Cuz God will change your life He will use you He will purify you as a child of God just like he did in the life of Samuel And for those of us who have answered that call in our life who have said yes Lord here I am Maybe we need to say that again over and over again But we need to remember why we say that