2 Samuel 24
Good morning, Saylorville Church, and welcome, 11 o’clock service! My name is Colton Willey. I’m the Connections Pastor here at Saylorville. And if you’re new with us, I just want to say, welcome. Thank you so much for visiting us this morning. We’re super glad you’re here! And it’s my privilege and honor to open up with you our second to the last message in our current sermon series, David, the Man Who Captured God’s Heart. So if you have a copy of Scripture, you can go ahead and open up to 2 Samuel chapter 24 as we kind of close out the tail end of David’s story. And what a story it’s been, right? I mean, I have learned so much in the David series. It’s been super, super edifying for me. I hope it has been for you, as well. We’ve seen King David of the Old Testament be courageous. We’ve seen him be worshipful… but we’ve also seen him fail… in some pretty drastic ways.
And as I was studying for this passage that we’re gonna jump into this morning, I couldn’t help but be reminded, I feel like David’s life is a perfect picture of what the Lord tells us in Proverbs 24:16.
Proverbs 24:16, ‘Though a [righteous] man fall seven times, yet he will rise again.’
Just yesterday, March 21st, was actually the 470th anniversary of the death of a fairly prominent Protestant Reformer… you know, history nerds… so we gotta start with this, of course. Anyone know who it is? — not Calvin, not Luther, not Zwingli. His name was Thomas Cranmer. Thomas Cranmer. He might be a name that you have never heard of before. In fact, honestly, I didn’t even know who he was until I studied for this passage. So don’t feel bad if you don’t know who he is. But he was a British Reformer, so he was actually one of the central figures in the Protestant Reformation in the United Kingdom. I mean, he helped translate the Book of Common Prayer. This guy was basically the main Reformer in Britain. But then in 1553, a new monarch took the throne, Mary I, and she was a staunch Catholic. and she made it her mission to basically stomp out any signs of the Reformation in Britain. So what she did is she had Thomas Cranmer arrested for heresy. She threw him into the tower of London, into the lower dungeons. And the story even goes that every once in a while the guards that guarded Thomas Cranmer, they would actually march him up to the top of the Tower of London and force him to watch as his fellow Reformers were burnt at the stake. And Cranmer, out of fear and overwhelming exhaustion… he broke. While he was in prison, Thomas Cranmer, he signed some recantations saying that his entire teaching, all of his Reformed theology, it was completely false. He reaffirmed Catholic doctrine. He reaffirmed a works-based salvation. He resubmitted himself under the authority of the Pope. And in the eyes of all the other Reformers, Thomas was an utter failure. And yet Queen Mary of England, she decided to execute Thomas anyways to make an example. And so the day of his execution, March 21st, 1556, Thomas Cranmer was allowed by Mary, for whatever reason, he was allowed to give one final statement to the people of Britain. And you know what happened? Cranmer approached the platform and without skipping a beat, he declared that everything that he had recanted in prison was false! He reaffirmed his Protestant teaching, he reaffirmed all the tenets of the Reformation and he actually denounced completely a works-based salvation, that faith alone, by grace, through Christ was the means to heaven. But then amazingly, Thomas Cranmer, when he was put on… literally tied up at his waistline… to the fiery pyre that would kill him, that would end his life, Thomas Cranmer put his hand into the flames as they started to lick up against his body. And he said, and now I’m quoting:
“Because this hand had wrote the offense, (because this hand signed those recantations) this hand will be the first to be burned.” Thomas Cranmer
And Thomas Cranmer died a martyr of the Christian faith.
[Proverbs 24:16] “The righteous fall seven times, and yet they rise again.”
God in His mercy had actually used Cranmer’s failure to lead him into deeper worship than anything he’d ever experienced in his entire life. And this isn’t the first time that God has done this, nor is it the last.
If you remember when we first, when we last left King David, he was mourning the death of his son, Absalom, in [2 Samuel] chapter 18. If you follow along from [2 Samuel] chapter 19 through chapter 22, David is actually returning to form. He’s reigning as a strong, godly king. He’s restoring the kingdom of Israel. He’s putting down rebellions. He’s the king that he was meant to be. And that kind of all kind of bubbles up to [2 Samuel] chapter 23 where King David, (and you can see it in your Bibles in chapter 23) it says that he gives his last words to the people of Israel. And here’s what he says. David says of his rule:
2 Samuel 23:3-5, [ESV] 3-5,
3 ‘…When one rules justly over men, ruling in the fear of God,
4 he (that king) dawns on them, (dawns on his people) like the morning light.’ (And David says)
5 ‘Does not my house stand so before God?’
It’s an amazing final statement, right? And it’s true! David to this day, to this very moment, David is remembered for the rest of his life as a great king, as a great man of God, and rightly so. But there’s a problem. Second Samuel doesn’t end with chapter 23. It ends with chapter 24. So go ahead and join me, chapter 24, verse one.
2 Samuel 24:1-4, 9-13
1 “Again, the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he (that is, God, and He) incited David against them, saying, “Go number Israel and Judah.”
2 So the King said to Joab, the commander of the army, who was with him, “Go through all the tribes of Israel from Dan to Beersheba, and number the people, that I may know the number of the people.
3 But Joab said to the king, “May the LORD your God add to the people a hundred times as many as they are, while the eyes of my lord the king still see it, but why does my lord the king delight in this thing?” (Why are you doing this David?)
4 But the king’s word prevailed against Joab and the commanders of the army. So Joab and the commanders of the army went out from the presence of the king to number the people of Israel. (I’m skipped down to verse 9)
9 ‘Joab returns to David and he gives them the sum of the census that they were commanded to do. In Israel there were 800,000 valiant men who drew the sword and of the men of Judah, 500,000. ‘
10 ‘But David’s heart struck him. And after he had numbered the people, David said to the Lord, “I have sinned greatly in what I have done. But now, O Lord, please take your iniquity of your servant for I have done very foolishly.’
11 And when David arose in the morning, the word of the LORD came to the prophet Gad, (God talked through Gad. Kind of interesting) David’s seer, saying,
12 “Go and say to David, ‘Thus says the LORD, Three things I offer you. (God actually gives David a choice in what judgment he’s going to face. Three things I offer you) Choose one of them, that I may do it to you.’”
13 So Gad came to David and told him, and said to him, “Shall three years of famine come to you in your land? (and your people, three years without food?) Or will you flee three months before your foes while they pursue you? (something that David is already very used to) Or shall there be three days’ of pestilence (that is, plague, disease. shall there be three days of pestilence) in your land? Now consider, and decide what answer I shall return to Him (God) who sent me.”
So 2 Samuel, as much as we would love it to, it doesn’t end with David’s triumph. It doesn’t end with David on a high note. Instead, it ends with David’s failure. But I don’t know about you guys. When I first read this passage, I had more questions than answers, right? If you look at verse one, it says that the Lord’s anger was kindled against Israel, but it doesn’t even say, it doesn’t say, why. It just says it, and it’s implied that the reason why the Lord is throwing judgment on Israel is because of how they responded to David. I mean, this guy has had to put down not one, but two rebellions since he became king. But the real question, if you caught it, is how the judgment is dealt out. Look at verse 1 again. It says that He, (that is God) incited David against them. The word “incite” in the Hebrew, it can mean “alurement.” It can mean “enticement.” And if you know your Bible, you should like balk at this. This should stop you, this should arrest you as soon as you read verse one, because that verse seems to contradict what else is explicitly said in Scripture. In James chapter one, James says:
James 1:13, “Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and He himself tempts no one.”
And yet here He is… inciting David to do a sin that He then judges him for. How do we make sense of this? Praise God, there’s a parallel passage in First Chronicles. You can go there if you want to. It’s First Chronicles chapter 21, and it’s basically recounting the exact same story in David’s life. But I want you to see how the chronicler starts his narrative. Verse 1:
1 Chronicles 21:1, “Then Satan stood against Israel and incited David to number (them) Israel.”
So who is it? Is it God or is it Satan? The answer? — Yes.
When I was a kid back in elementary school, my best friend, his name was Nathan… super cool guy! But Nathan owned a dog named Ike. And Ike was about as close to a demon as a dog could ever be! This dog literally was missing an eye, and his other eye was like all weird colored. He was perpetually dirty. He was always covered in mud, and when you went up to him he was just drooling, and he was like… I was convinced that if I got close to Ike, he would literally rip me to shreds! But Nathan, I mean, he can just saunter up to the doghouse. He can pet Ike even though he’s filthy. He can feed him. He can give him water… because he’s his master. Listen, even when Satan is on the prowl, and he is, He is always on God’s leash.
My dear friends, we cannot truthfully say today, you and I, cannot truthfully say today that our God is sovereignly working all things together for our good and leave out Satan,…or our sin… or our failures. The Lord of hosts is over it ALL! All of it. But wait a minute. If God is permitting David to do this sin, if He’s the one that’s permitting Satan to tempt him, why hold David responsible? Is it just collateral damage? Is he just a pawn in God’s game? No. Another puzzling aspect, maybe for some of us… it was for me at first… is the sin itself in the chapter. I mean, why is God so angry about a census? That seems kind of weird, right? Like, why does this bring about wrath? — Because, honestly, Israel had had censuses before. Okay? Israel took a couple censuses in the wilderness with Moses back when they were wandering around. The difference is that each of those censuses were commanded by God. And in chapter 24, you don’t see any command. But we do see a window into David’s heart. Look at verse three in chapter 24. Joab, when he’s trying to get David to come to his senses, he says:
2 Samuel 24:3b, ‘… why, David, do you delight in taking this census?’
It’s not like… it’s not like people are trying to twist David’s arm. David delights in this. He wants to do this. But then look at verse four. Even though the Proverbs say that there’s safety many counselors, [Proverbs 11:14] even though Joab and literally all the commanders of the Army are saying, “Do not do this!” — David’s like, ‘Yeah, I’m going to do it anyways.’ And a quick side note. My dear friend, if everyone in your life, everyone in your life is telling you not to do something and you still do it, that is rarely, if ever, the path of wisdom. But look at verse 10. The narrator of Second Samuel, he says that:
[2 Samuel 24:10] ‘David’s heart strikes him.’
That is very, very visceral language. If you… you can translate that word for strikes in the Hebrew “to smite” or “attack.” It’s almost like David’s heart is literally attacking him in his conscience, and through that David comes to his senses. And this time, he comes to his senses about his sin… on his own. There’s no prophet that challenges him. David confesses his sin on his own. And what does he say? Again, notice, he’s not shifting blame here. He says:
2 Samuel 24:10b, “I have sinned… I have done foolishly.”
What’s he doing? He’s taking responsibility. One thing that David doesn’t say, he doesn’t say, ‘The devil made me do it.’ He doesn’t say that. He knows what James tells us in the book of James:
[James 1:14] ‘…that every single one of us, we are lured and enticed away by our own desires.’
Listen, Satan, he can put our finger on the trigger. He can. But, dear friends, we are always the ones that pull it. Always. And you know what I personally think Satan was probably whispering into David’s ear? — a line that David had heard before. ‘David, you’re the man. You’re the man…’ — not in the way Nathan said it where it was a challenge. No. I think, I think, I think the enemy of David’s soul, I think he was getting there and saying, ‘David, you‘re the man. You’re God’s anointed. I mean, come on… You slayed Goliath! You survived Saul and all of his assaults. Now, granted, you did struggle with Bathsheba, and Uriah and Absalom. I mean, that was a pretty big goof, but I mean, you’ve still got it! You’ve still got it! Look at all these followers! You know what you should do? You should count them. That way you can just… you can just relish in how much of ‘the man’ you are!’ I love the Message’s rendition of verse 10! Here’s what it says:
2 Samuel 24:10, ‘David was overwhelmed with guilt because he had counted the people replacing trust in God with statistics.’
Speaking of statistics, March Madness! And let me tell you, I have no illustration because I know nothing about March Madness! But I used chat GPT… (shows me how much of a sports fan I am!) Did you know that Duke, they have a 23% chance of winning the whole thing. It’s pretty good! You know what chance ISU has of winning? 4%. Sorry, Cyclones. But listen, if March Madness has taught us anything, It’s that statistics can never be trusted…which begs the question, are you counting anything? Our lives are full of statistics, are they not? The square footage of our homes, our kids’ grades, our “likes” on social media, our church attendance, or even the compliments that you and I receive… and the list goes on and on. What, my dear friends, are you counting right now? Are you counting on God’s mercies to you through the Lord Jesus Christ, or are you counting your own triumphs, your own trophies? — Because listen… for David, when he was young, all he needed to have was five stones in a river to kill a giant, not because he was ‘the man,’ but because he was God’s man.
And then this is where it attacks our sensibilities. It’s hard to conceive, that same God permits Satan to tempt David into sin. How do we make sense of this? How can we justify this? How can we reconcile this? And yet that very same David said in Psalm 145, he says:
Psalm 145:17, “The Lord is righteous in ALL of His ways and kind in ALL of His works.”
And David, even in his failure, chooses to trust that kindness.
Let’s return to verse 14 in our text.
2 Samuel 24:14-
14 “Then David said to Gad, “I am in great distress. Let us (let me and my people) fall into the hand of the LORD, (Why?” — because) for His mercy is great; but let me not fall into the hand of man.”
15 So the Lord sent a pestilence (the Lord sent a disease) on Israel from the morning until the appointed time.” (David says, ‘It’s far better if I fall into the hands of the living God for His mercy is great than if I were to fall into the hands of men.’)
But can you say that this morning? Can I say that this morning? After a long day of work, when you’re stressed, when you’re burdened, when you’re anxious… you know, if you’re a Cyclone fan when the Cyclones lose, okay?… when your day is rough, whose arms do you fall into first? — Because, if I’m honest, it’s usually my wife, Rachel. And those are some good arms to fall into as she basically just picks up the pieces at night, right? I mean, ugly crying and everything. Yet, what does Jesus say?
[Matthew 11:28] ‘Come to Me. Come to Me. Come to Me... all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest.’
If we’re honest, if I’m honest, people are often our first refuge and God is our last resort… But not David. The man who was once counting his troops is now counting on God’s mercy. In response, God sends an angel of pestilence, of plague, of disease. How do we make sense of this? You see, if God sent a famine, lack of food, then David could probably just get some supplies, get some food from his foreign allies. If God sends foes, if he sent armies to attack David in Israel, then David could just rely on those 800,000 troops that he just counted. The only way that David’s request can be satisfied is if God sends the plague. God sends an enemy that is outside of David’s own ability to fight. But look at verse 15. Here’s what it says.
2 Samuel 24:15, ‘And when this plague, when this angel of pestilence came, there died of the people from Dan to Beersheba, 70,000 men.’
Now remember God’s original plan of judgment was for Israel, because they were bellowing against David, okay? — And he is meting that out, okay? But then verse 16.
2 Samuel 24:16, “And when the angel stretched out his hand towards Jerusalem to destroy it, the Lord relented. (That is a beautiful word…) the LORD relented.” (The word “relented” in the Hebrew, it means the LORD showed pity. The LORD had compassion. It’s the same thing that King Jesus saw when He had masses of unclothed, masses of poor people come to Him. He had compassion on them. The same principle.)
“… the LORD relented from the calamity and He said to the angel who was working destruction among the people. ‘It’s enough. It’s enough. Now stay your hand.’ And the angel of the Lord was by the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.
17 Then David spoke to the Lord when he saw the angel who was striking the people, and he said, “Behold, I have sinned. I’ve done wickedly. But these sheep, (His own people) these sheep, what have they done? Please, let your hand be against me and against my father’s house.”
18 And Gad came that day to David and he said to him, “Go up, raise an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.”
Notice verse 17, notice David’s shepherd heart, right? He’s still a shepherd in his heart. Like my brother, Jason, said a couple of weeks ago:
“When the sheep hurt, the shepherd hurts with them.” Jason Jackson
But what David doesn’t realize is that the Great Shepherd, God Himself, had already decided to show mercy. But David follows God’s command. He goes to Araunah’s threshing floor, and Araunah, this farmer, sees the king of Israel coming to him, he does what any farmer’s gonna do. He bows down. But he actually takes it a step further. He says, ‘I mean, sure enough. Araunah has seen all the pestilence. He’s seen the 70,000 people dying. And he actually… in the next couple of verses he says to David, ‘Listen, I’ll give you my threshing floor for free. I’ll even throw in the oxen. I’ll throw in the wood. I’ll give you the whole sacrifice, the sacrifice kit to you. I’ll give it all to you for free. It doesn’t have to cost you anything.’ And what follows, how David responds, is one of the most important statements of worship in all of sacred scripture. And I want to read from it in 1 Chronicles 21, verse 24. Here’s what it says:
1 Chronicles 21:24, ‘But the king said to Ornan, (that’s Araunah. It’s just the same person. The king said to Ornan) ““No, but I will buy them for the full price. I will not take for the LORD what is yours, nor offer burnt offerings that cost me nothing.”
Another Reformer, one much more famous than Thomas Cranmer, he once said that:
‘A religion that costs nothing is worth nothing.’ Martin Luther
A religion that costs nothing is worth nothing. Very few people know better than David the cost of sin. Very few people know better than David, the price of atonement in his life, and so he will not sacrifice to God free of charge. Verse 25:
1 Chronicles 21:25-28
25 “So David paid Ornan (Araunah) 600 shekels of gold by weight for the site.”
(He buys the whole nine yards)
26 “And David built there an altar to the LORD” (as he was commanded) “and presented burnt offerings and peace offerings and called on the LORD, and the LORD answered him with fire from heaven upon the altar of burn offering.
27 Then the LORD commanded the angel, and he put his sword back into its sheath.”
28 At that time, when David saw that the LORD had answered him at the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite, he sacrificed there.” (And then we get this really interesting side comment)
29 For the tabernacle of the LORD, which Moses had made in the wilderness, and the altar of burnt offering were at that time in the high place at Gibeon…”
30 ‘But David couldn’t go there. He couldn’t go there to make the sacrifice or to inquire with God. Why? — Because he was terrified of this angel with its fiery sword.’
We covered this in previous sermons. If you remember, David had already taken the Ark of the Covenant… remember, the giant, gold-plated box that had, you know, Aaron’s rod that budded, 10 commandments and stuff like that. He already took that, the judgment seat of God, and he brought it to Jerusalem. Remember? That’s when he’s dancing in front. He’s like bringing it in with a parade? So it’s in Jerusalem. But the tabernacle… remember the tent that Moses and the Israelites made in the wilderness? The tabernacle wasn’t in Jerusalem, it was in Gibeon. And back then, that tabernacle was still the primary place of worship. That’s the place where the Jews would go and inquire of God. the place where they would go to give sacrifice. But David, out of reverent fear of this angel of judgment, and out of his concern for the sheep of Jerusalem, he decides by the command of God to offer a sacrifice on this humble threshing floor instead. And this is where it all comes together. This… This was so cool when I saw this! Why would a good God, the One who is kind in all of His works, incite David through Satan, a man after His own heart? Why would God do this? What is God’s end game? Here it is.
1 Chronicles 22:1, “Then David said, ‘Here (in this place of judgment, in this place of failure) here shall be the house of the Lord God and here, the altar of burnt offering for Israel.”
Brothers and sisters, when that angel of judgment touched down on that simple, threshing floor, when David gave that sacrifice to the living God and it was accepted, that simple threshing floor turned into holy ground, ground that David bought for 500 shekels, ground that would eventually become the temple of Solomon. That is so cool! I love that! Do you see what this passage is saying? God in His wisdom, God in His mercy, used David’s failure, not only to discipline his people, but to bring them to a completely new era of worship, one where they no longer worshiped in a tent, but they worshipped in a temple.
This last chapter of 2 Samuel screams to you and I today in 2026. God can use our failures, our failures!… to lead us into a deeper worship, a form of worship where we strive for dependence, not perfection.
Listen, I preached on David a month ago, and I preached a very similar passage. I preached when David repented through Nathan about Bathsheba. And I don’t know about you guys, but when I read this passage for the first time, I see a completely different David, right? Before, in chapter 12, he had to be confronted by a prophet to confess. In chapter 24, he’s confronted in his own heart. Before, he concealed his sin. He murdered to keep his sin concealed. And this time, he immediately confesses it. Before, he was willing to throw away the life of Uriah and a couple other Israelite warriors. This time David says, ‘I want to give my life that I might save the sheep of Israel.’ He’s a changed man. What changed? I’m reminded of what the Lord Jesus Christ said to His Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians.
2 Corinthians 12:9, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is perfected in weakness.”
Weakness. What changed for David? He failed. He messed up. He wasn’t the king that he was supposed to be.
Do you relate to this? — ‘Cause I do. Failure, messing up, falling short, making a mistake, messing up while I’m delivering a sermon? That’s like my worst nightmare! Why does the author of Second Samuel end his record with chapter 24? — To show you and I, my dear friends, that man or that David was not a man after God’s own heart because he never failed. David was a man after God’s own heart because of how he responded… WHEN he failed.
Christian, this might be the only thing that some of us have to hear. You will fail. “Yet, though the righteous man falls seven times, yet he still rises.” [Proverbs 24:16] Why? Because your righteousness, If you have put your faith in Lord Jesus, my righteousness, it’s not of yourself! You, my dear friend, have the righteousness of Christ! And just as He rose, you will always rise with Him. Our standing with God is not based on perfect performance. It’s based on desperate dependence on Jesus Christ. Some of you just need to sit in that… not performance, but dependence.
Secondly, God can use our failures to lead us in a deeper worship where we realize that you and I are not the main characters. Verse 17, David says:
2 Samuel 24:17b, ‘… These sheep, what have they done? If I could take their place, I would. I want to, God, throw out your judgment on me.’
But there’s a problem. David is a flawed sinner. He’s an adulterer. He’s a murderer. He can’t satisfy God’s holy standard. And brothers and sisters, we can’t either. For all of his accomplishments, for all of his courage, his military might, David, the man after God’s own heart, he actually needed a better king to take not just Israel’s sin… but his own… his own sin.
And the God of grace, a thousand years after David’s life, he would provide that better King, even the Lord Jesus Christ. God, Himself, came down into the form of man, the Lord, Jesus. Jesus lived a perfect life that David, and you, and and everybody else could never live. And while we were still weak, while David was still weak, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly on the cross. Not just the King of Israel, but the King of everything died for His subjects who rebelled against Him… me and you. What David could never do, Christ did. And even when He died on the cross, yet this King rose again in power. See, though David was an amazing man of God, he’s not the main character of the story. He’s just a supporting character that’s meant to reflect Christ to you and I today.
And regardless of where you’re at this morning, regardless of what you might think, I hate to break it to you. You are not the main character of your life. Colossians chapter one says of Jesus:
Colossians 1:16b, “… All things were created through Him and for Him.”
Like a mirror that reflects your face and you get up to brush your teeth in the morning, our whole life is meant to reflect Christ. But what do you call a mirror that doesn’t show any reflection? It’s broken. Are you broken? See, your soul yearns for one thing… to know and to be known by God. And if you don’t know God through Christ, then you’re broken. Don’t live for yourself. Live for Him.
And finally, God can use our failure to lead us in a deeper worship where you and I embrace costly love. David says to Araunah: “I will not offer a sacrifice that cost me nothing.” Why is this so important to David? I’ve already said it. David knows better than most of us ever will the full appreciation of the cost of sin. This man had lost two children… because of his sin. This man had to put down two bloody rebellions… because of his sin. He knows the cost. Do you wanna know the real reason why I think he has… he has to pay for the sacrifice himself? — Love… love… Love for God Who, in all of his failures, never left him once. F.B. Meyer once said that:
“Love is the costliest of all undertakings.” F.B. Meyer
Because… think about it. If you truly love someone, you’re willing to do anything for them.
I came to a saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ at UNI many years ago. And I had some faithful friends that loved me really well, and they would just constantly tell me the Gospel. They would constantly bring me to church, but it just wouldn’t click. I still felt like either I had to earn it or I’d feel like I could never deserve it, which was both true. But then one day, I watched the movie The Passion of Christ. It’s just a rendition, a rendition of Jesus. But in that moment, it clicked! And I saw this man. I saw this God… God/Man, Who not only was He willing to take my sin, but He took it in the full brunt of it. And when I looked at Jesus being scourged, and mocked, and crucified… for me, I realized this Man gave me everything and I can give Him nothing! And brothers and sisters, in that moment, I didn’t want heaven. I didn’t want eternal life. You know what I wanted? I wanted Him! I want Jesus! Do you want Him? Listen, duty and discipline can only get you so far, but let me ask you a question. Do you love Jesus? Do you love Him? — ’cause He loves you. You’ve been bought with a price, so glorify the Lord with your body. We all fail, but Jesus bore our failures. And just as He rose, we will too. Let’s pray.
Father God, Lord, thank You. Thank You, Lord, that Your entire Bible, Your entire Word is just a story of trophies of grace… men and women who, though they failed, Lord, they served a big God. They served a loving God Who had grace, and mercy, and compassion on them. And so Father, would You glorify Your name by letting Your saints in this room today, Lord, just rest in this great true, Lord, that You’re ready to accept those who are broken in need. May they throw off the bondage of perfection. May they throw off the bondage of being the main character of their story. It may just depend on the Great Shepherd of their soul. And Lord, I pray for those in this room that are broken mirrors who’re trying so hard, Lord, to fill that hole in their heart, and with money, or possessions, or status, Lord, nothing fulfills them. Lord, You want to fix that mirror that it might reflect Your glory. You wanna take broken pieces and turn them into a masterpiece. Father, would You do that today? Thank You that Your grace is sufficient for us, and that Your power is perfected in our weakness. Be glorified now. We love You, Lord, in Jesus name Amen. Let’s rise. [Music]