Randy Meeks, the horror film fanatic from the movie Scream, declared that “The horror genre was destroyed by sequels.” And while he may have a point (we’re looking at you, Friday the 13th: Jason Takes Manhattan), we beg to differ! Because sometimes a horror movie sequel breaks new territory, pushes its story into uncharted places, and, on rare occasions, is superior to the original. And that’s why this #SpookySZN, we’re creeping into our own scary sequel; once again learning what to do when we find out the movie of our life has become a horror flick. So grab some popcorn, turn off all the lights, and join us as we find out how following Jesus can help us survive the deadly mistakes and wrong turns that have taken the lives of so many others.

Have you ever noticed how cars in horror movies never work when they need to? Chances are the “Check Engine” light had been on for months, but the protagonist just kept putting off that trip to the mechanic. Honest question...do you do the same with your faith? Neglect it, but then hope it holds up under the pressures of life? If we want a faith that will survive, we need to be strengthening it before the killer is at our front door.

I'll tell you, man, I have so been looking forward to the series Who else has been excited about how to still survive a horror movie. I have been pumped for this series ever since we ended this series last year. This is the sequel to how to survive a horror movie that we did last October. And it was a huge hit. We had a lot of people who really enjoyed it. And as you know, big hits get sequels. So we're doing a sequel to this series. Now, if you were with us last October, let me kind of give you the cliff notes version of what this series is about what we're going to be talking about, most of us the movie of our life, if we could pick a genre that we would want it to reflect. Maybe we'd be like action-adventure, right? Like you want your life to have a little bit of spice in it, but you always come out on top and you know, things always roll your way. And it's kind of funny here and there. It's you know, a good action-adventure movie. Or maybe you want your life to reflect more like a rom-com, right? Like it's real. It's funny, and it's light, and people talk and witty conversation back and forth. And in the end, everything's fine. They get married and Yay, everything's perfectly wonderful. That's what you want your life to reflect. I don't know too many people who would say they want their life to reflect a horror movie. Like it's just, I don't know that many people like I just I don't see it right? U

nfortunately, therein lies the problem. Because for a lot of us, if we had to categorize our life into a film genre, for many of us, the horror might be it. We look at the things that we're going through in life, we're like, yeah, that's probably the closest thing when I look at my finances. It's a horror show. Like whenever, whenever I look at the way my relationships are right now, things are not going well. It's just one dysfunction after another one led down after another, if we're being honest, we see our life and we see a horror movie. Now here's the thing, we can survive the horror movie moments that life throws our way can we can survive them, we can come out on top. And whenever we find ourselves in the midst of them, we can actually see that God's word, scripture points out different truth for us on how to survive a horror movie. So whenever you find yourself these horror movie moments, which we've been using horror movie cliches, you guys know what I'm talking about, where they always, hey, let's split up, or, um, you know, I shot the killer once in his leg, he'll probably be dead, let me throw the gun away, and not actually finish the job, right? Like all these cliches. Whenever we take these cliches and we break them down, we can actually see there are some pretty good biblical truths at the heart of them, that we would learn a lot about our own life and our own situation, if we would take a cue from these situations, right. So that's what we did last year. And that's what we're continuing to do this, you're breaking down some of these horror movie cliches and seeing what scripture would say about it. Now, today's how-to advice that was kicking off this series with, I'm going to say this may be the most important advice that you'll hear all series.

This may be the most important talk of the entire series, what we're going to be doing, we're going to be jumping around between First Samuel, chapter 16, and 17. So if your Bible you want to follow along, that's where we're going to be today. First Samuel, chapter 16, and 17. But before we hop too far into that, I want us to start off with just a simple prayer, for humility today, from all of us, just a simple prayer of humility and vulnerability, because we're going to be looking at ourselves and in a very real way today, okay, that's what I want us to do. I want us to look and evaluate ourselves in a very real way. Because I fully and completely believe that if we want to experience transformation in our lives, the Holy Spirit transforming us, it only happens when we're transparent. We only get transformation when we're transparent. So we need to be real with ourselves. Today, we need to not try to kid ourselves today. We need to be honest about where we're at and where our faith is at as we evaluate today and ask ourselves if we find me in a horror movie moment, is my faith strong enough to survive? Is my faith strong enough to survive? Let's pray real quick, Father, God. We all want to faith that will survive. We all want a faith that will hold up we all want a faith that will get us to the end of the movie, and get us a well done good, and faithful servant from you. But God, it doesn't happen by accident. It happens on purpose.

It happens with intentionality. It happens when we work and when we partner with You that's what we asked for today that you would partner with us God that you would move in us that we would hear your word in a new and fresh way today and that we would take what we learned and apply it to our lives so that we would see the transformation that we so badly need. We love you Father we pray this in your name. Amen. Amen well hey, it's October 3, we're in spooky season right spooky season has begun. And what that means is if the spooky season has begun that means that wedding season is just about over with right like wedding season. It's May June, July, August some September some October you'll still see a few sprinkled here and there throughout the end of the year. But basically, wedding season comes to an end as we start heading in to fall in anybody go to weddings this year. Anybody shoot up the hands online, you go to any weddings this year. One thing that they do at almost every wedding reception I've been to and a lot of them I'm a pastor I've been to a lot I performed a lot at wedding receptions, one of the things I always do is you know, the DJ will Alright, we're going to slow down real quick and ask all the couples to come out on the dance floor for this next song and so then all the couples come out and then what do they do? The DJs like what we're going to do is I want to see how long we've had some married folks out here let's see who's had the longest marriage and so they start counting down right like if you've been married one month or shorter go ahead and sit down and they keep adding it and Okay, three months and one year and five years and 10 years until eventually, you get the last people standing right the people have been married the longest I've ever seen was 71 years. I

t's incredible, right? Like incredible and they were dancing I'm like this is nuts like they're there. Wow, kudos to you guys. Right? I'm 71 years that's just amazing. What I want to do since we're kind of transitioning from wedding season into spooky season, I want to take something from wedding season and incorporate it into what we're going to be talking about today. So this idea of like how long have people been married I want to do that but I want to do that in relation to something with a car Okay, so So here we go. And if you're watching online and watch from home I want you to join in the fun as well. What we're going to do real quick everybody is if you have a check engine or a maintenance light on in your car and it's been on for at least one month shoot that hand up there it is online I want to see how long if your maintenance light has been on for three months or longer keep that hand up. Oh, there they are six months or longer. One year that little light is starting to get dim because it's been so overused. A year and a half, two years. Five years there's still hands up you can't see it online there are still multiple hands up five-plus years Can we give a round of applause the people have been kicking the can down the road and just ignoring that light you just took a little piece of electrical tape and you just like taped over you act like it's not even there anymore. Like eventually the bulb will burn out and I'll never know right then it will be fixed at that point I'm right there with you.

My car is one bad thing away from just me having to Fred sent Fred Flintstone by but all around town like it's just one bad thing away. Actually, I'm lucky because my father-in-law is very handy with cars. We were out of town this last week. And so he said hey if you want to give me the keys we'll buy the parts that you need I'll do some stuff to your car and then you can just cash app us and get us back when you guys get back from vacation like that's beautiful that's perfect so he did a lot of stuff he changed out one of my belts in my car because it was kind of getting worn. He fixed it he got me a new alternator because my old one sounded like I was dragging a cat around town it just sounded like you heard me come in before you saw me come in right it was bad but the biggest thing was that he was like a huge help I kid you not he replaced my wiper blades they have not worked for over a calendar year that does not hype me being hyperbolic that's for real not like oh they don't work well no they didn't turn on like you do flip the wiper blade they just went like that. So basically I was able to know if I could do anything for the day I was watching weather reports in the morning like I'm a fisherman or something like what's it going to be like? What are the seas gonna be like today right? Am I gonna be able to get around or not? So he fixed all this stuff for me, which was great because I was realizing like I'm gonna have to get this stuff done because Winter is coming. Right? Winter is coming up pretty soon in winter is very unforgiving to cars. If you have an issue, winter will expose it. It will just it'll show you got a weak battery winter will explode. Your heater doesn't work winter will expose it you have mechanics in your car like the the the window motors are going bad winter will expose it winter will show all your problems. And I knew winter's coming.

So I'm like, well, man, I need to I need to get this thing fixed before the issue comes because the issue Winter is coming very, very soon. I can't keep ignoring these check engine lights. I can't keep ignoring these things that aren't working well. As I think about that, and I think about the fact that we see this happen all the time in horror movies, right? All these characters, their cars never work, right? Pretty much every I just talked with Oh, and one of the guys on staff here at the church to talk with him. And in between services. He's like, I've watched three horror movies so far this, this Halloween season, every single one, the car has not worked in every single one, right? That's it's so cliche, it happens all the time. These cars don't work. When a stranger calls the Evil Dead, Jeepers, creepers, all of these movies just off the top of my head, the all these movies, the main characters have issues with the car. Now chances are they're probably people like us, people who they've had a check engine light on for who knows how long, three months, six months, a year, two years, right? And then just kept kicking the can down the road saying, Well, one of these days I'll fix it one these days, I'll get to it. And then suddenly, they have a killer at their front door, breathing down their neck, and the car won't start. The car won't start, they go to turn it over and it won't turn over. Right? The car won't start. And as I think about that, it makes me think, how often do we treat our faith?

Like characters in these horror movies treat their car? Or maybe not even characters in horror movies, maybe just how we treat our car, right? How often is that us with our faith, we just kick the can down the road, I'll get to one day I'll get to one to at some point in time for right now. And then suddenly, there's a killer at our front door, breathing down our neck. And we want a face that works. But we've been neglecting it for months and months and years and years. And then are shocked when it won't start. that any of us that everybody online, I know that has been me more than I would care to admit. today's sermon title, if you're taking notes is get yourself a tune-up, get yourself a tune-up, see a lot of these people, these movies, they would have saved themselves a lot of trouble, a lot of hassle. In fact, some of them would still be alive, their heads would still be attached to their bodies, right? If they had gotten a tuna if they had just fixed their car when the maintenance light came on. If they had just addressed the tire when it started to leak some air. If they would have done these things ahead of time, they would have been in a much better place than they were when the crisis hit. But they didn't. They didn't prioritize their faith. Is that us? are we finding ourselves in a shaky marriage, in broken relationships in financial debt? And more wondering man where Why is my faith feel so shaky right now? Why is it feel like God is so distant? God's not listening to me? Is it because we haven't prioritized our faith for the entire build-up. And then suddenly, when a crisis hits when the killers at the front door, we're wondering why it's not working. We need a tune-up. We need a tune-up.

The scripture that we're looking at today shows us exactly what this looks like to be building our face to be prioritizing our face so that when the crisis does come, we're ready for it. The scripture we're looking at today is from First Samuel chapter 16 and 17. And what it's telling is the historical account of David, being anointed as the new king of Israel, the previous King, King Saul, he had started to do evil in God's sight, completely failing his oath of office, so to speak, and so God has rejected him. Scripture tells us that he tells his right-hand man, Samuel, the prophet Samuel, God tells them, hey, I've rejected soul as King. I have a new person in mind to lead the nation of Israel forward and I want you to go anoint this guy. I want you as my right hand, man, as my representative on Earth. I want you to go and anoint this new king.

And that's where we pick up in First Samuel chapter 16. Samuel goes on his way to a town called Bethlehem. sure you've heard of it before. And he's told that whenever he gets there, God will direct him to the young man that he is too annoying. So verse four of chapter 16 says this, Samuel did what the Lord said. When he arrived at Bethlehem. The elders of the town trembled when they met him. They asked Samuel, do you come in peace? Samuel replied, Yes in peace. I've come to sacrifice to the Lord, consecrate yourselves, and come to the sacrifice with me. Then he consecrated Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice. God had told Samuel Hey, the guy that I'm going to appoint as the new king is going to be one of the sons of this man named Jesse. So they all go to the sacrifice together. When they arrived, Samuel Saul le AB, Jesse's oldest son, and he thought, surely the Lord's anointed stands here. But the Lord said to Samuel, do not consider his appearance or his height for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things that people look at. People look at outward appearances, but the Lord looks at the heart. And so then Jesse starts looking at all the other sons of Jesse as they come forward, and Samuel is looking at him, he's gone. Well, man, if it's not him, then what about him?

God says, No, it's not him. Okay, well, what about him? No, it's not him either. He does this to all of Jesse's sons, who are present until eventually, they get to the last one. And Samuel is looking saying, this hit. He asked Jesse, are these all the sons that you have? No, there is still the youngest Jesse answered, he is tending the sheep. Samuel said, Go in for him, we will not sit down until he arrives. You see, I love that at this moment when all the other sons are present. All of the other guys are standing right here. David is right where we know to expect him to be you know where David is. He's out doing his work. He is just consistently doing what he is supposed to do. David didn't know this was going to be a big day. He had no idea that God was sending his right-hand man, the prophet Samuel to his house, to appoint a new king, David had no clue. All David knew was I'm just being faithful to what I know I'm supposed to do. I'm being consistent and being consistent. And in these next moments, we see that David actually ends up becoming the person that is anointed and appointed to be the next king of Israel. We see that throughout his life, he's referred to as a man after God's own heart. He's the greatest King in the history of the nation of Israel, and he is a forerunner to Jesus Christ, his ancestral Forerunner, all of these amazing things. T

o King David, to this young little shepherd boy who's just watching his father's flock and some little small, Podunk town on some back passed here somewhere. He's remaining faithful, in this small moment, having no idea the big things that were in store, and the crisis's that would be in store and the opportunities that would be in store, he had no idea about any of that all he was doing was remaining faithful to what was right in front of him. Which brings me to the first point for today, when we have consistency during the calm moments of our life. It will lead us to have confidence during the crisis moments of our life. When we are consistent in the calm whenever it's just a normal, mediocre day. And we're just dealing with the minutiae of what life normally throws our way, just that it was just a day, right just a day just woke up, went to work, came home, showered, just kind of ate dinner, or hung around the house. Those kinds of days. Those kinds of calm days, the consistency that we have during those days, the consistency that we build the habits and the disciplines that we formed during those boring, mediocre my Noosa days. Those are the things that will give us confidence when a crisis eventually comes to our doorstep. When the killer comes our way, it's what are we doing? What are we cultivating on a consistent basis during our life? David was consistent. He was consistent during the calm days you knew where to find him when Samuel says, Hey, do you have any other sons, Jesse instantly responds, I know where my youngest son is. He's out doing what he's always doing. He's out taking care of his work. He's out there being faithful. He's out there being consistent, doing exactly what I have asked him to do. David was consistent in that consistency.

David didn't know it yet, but man it was going to pay off huge for him later in life. That consistency was going to pay off for him when the crisis would come when killers would come. I see some Browns fans out there today. I feel good about the Browns today. I think it's gonna be a hard game but I think they'll come out with the win. They're going to Minnesota they're playing the Vikings today. Now the Vikings they're kind of a mediocre team, but they have a hard place to play because they play in a dome. And whenever you play in a dome, all of the noise from the crowd is amplified. It's like a tin can that noise isn't going anywhere. It's reverberating off the ceiling and it's staying there.

So the Browns coach Kevin Stefanski, what he's been doing all week is preparing the team to handle the loud atmosphere. what they've been doing in practices and walkthroughs all week is they have been pumping in louder than normal crowd noise, artificial crowd noise during their practices, and during their walkthroughs. They're just walking around in their shorts and T-shirts just kind of going over the plays and going over the calls. But they have the noise so loud, they can barely hear each other talk this far apart. Why are they doing that? Because they're trying to build habits. And they're trying to build disciplines and ways of communicating on Tuesday and Wednesday so that when the crisis comes on Sunday, at one o'clock, they'll be ready for it. They won't be taken off guard by how loud it is, they won't be thrown by man. We can't even hear each other talk. What was the signal again? What did he say?

There'll be able to say, No, no, we remember we've been preparing for this all week, we've been prepping for this. We know how to handle this, because we have been consistent on the calm days of practice, building up for the crisis that would come Sunday afternoon, we've been preparing for it. David had been preparing for this moment. He didn't even know he had no idea what God had in store for him in his life. And guess what? That's exactly the point. That is exactly the point. That's why you're supposed to be consistent in your faith block. Because guess what, you have no idea what's coming your way. You have no idea when Samuel with his horn of oil is coming to your house to appoint a new king, you have no idea what kind of opportunities or what kind of crisis is coming your way. You don't know if that's just the mailman or a killer at the door, you have no idea what life is bringing your way. So that's why you have got to be consistent in your faith walk. Because if you're not in, you're inconsistent, and you're building crappy practices, day after day, week after week, and the killer shows up at your door, you won't be ready, your car won't start, you'll be dead. That's not what any of us want. We want a faith that works. We want a faith that's functional, have faith that will be able to get us out of those moments of faith that will allow us to survive. And it only happens when we consistently build into it on the calm days. not wait for the crisis to hit and then wonder why won't Why won't my faith work? People get a terrible diagnosis. Oh, I don't know about God anymore. I just don't know about it anymore. Well, of course not. Because you didn't know about God, the months and the years before the diagnosis came.

And now you're wondering why your faith isn't strong enough. You're wondering, oh, man, that financial debt, I wasn't expecting it to be like, this is so hard as Of course, it's hard. You haven't been trusting God with your finances ever. Now you want to trust him with it when the crisis hits. That's not how it works. You have got to consistently build the practice of a strong faith before the crisis comes consistency during the calm leads to confidence during the crisis. That's what we see from David.

So how can we consistently build during the calm spiritual disciplines? It's a very traditional sounding thing a very churchy sounding thing, but it works. I'm telling you right now, you start regularly praying when you don't need to when you don't need something. Get on your face in front of God and say, God, I just want you to speak to me. I'm not here because I'm in crisis. I'm not here because I need something from you. I'm here because I want to get closer to you. I want to be more fully formed by you. That's why I'm here. That's why I'm on my knees listening to you today. Speak to me. That's why fasting is something you should do.

That's why regular prayer, regular journaling, listening to worship, music, all of these things, giving serving the church doing all of these things, to consistently prepare yourself during the call. Knowing crisis will hit. It's just like my car. I needed to get that stuff done because I knew winter was coming. like is this isn't like maybe Northeast Ohio won't have winter this year. It's coming. Like it is coming. Snow is coming cold weather. It's coming. Those things need to be fixed because it's on its way. And in the same way, you have a crisis coming your way. At some point. Maybe it's not tomorrow or next week or even next month or even next year, but it's coming. Make sure you have faith that can stand up against it. Make sure you have faith that is can stand up against an at Holy happens whenever you are being consistent. During the call days. David was consistent. He was consistent. He had consistent discipline in his life that allowed him to survive. My parents, my mom, and dad put together a dinner that we had my dad called the Bye Bye Birdie dinner. It was his Here's my mom, they took us out to dinner, they had a plan I'll put together for when they die. Like basically like, Hey, this is what we want to walk through this with you guys, this is what our services would look like this is where they would be at this, who would want to do them.

This is how we're paying for our burial fees is how we're paying for this is our life insurance is how all this works. They walk through all of that stuff with us. So we would be prepared. It was a beautiful calm day, we went to skyline chili and pounded some three ways like we, we were, it was a beautiful, just normal calm day, right. But because of that prep, at that moment, when a crisis hit and my dad died unexpectedly, we were able to just like, basically hit the first domino. And all of these things just fell into place. So that means we were able to properly grieve my dad when he died, and we didn't have to worry about how will we afford this? And what about this cost, and oh, we need to contact this person. That's all done. It was all done. And so we were able to just be in the moment. And the only reason that happened, the only reason was because of preparation, because of planning ahead of time because they got a tune-up. Before the check engine light came on. They were regularly maintaining things. And so when a crisis came, we were able to just coast as well as we could through it. You need to have consistent discipline in your life. David had consistent discipline in his life, and it made all the difference for him. So Samuel comes, he anointed David David is anointed as the next king of Israel. Here's the crazy thing.

This is a little sidebar. He was anointed, he was probably about somewhere between 10 and 15 years old. From what we know from historical evidence. He's probably about 10 to 15 years old when this moment happened with Samuel. He didn't actually take over as King though until he was probably around 37 years old. So that's about a 20 something year gap between his anointing and him actually becoming King which is pretty crazy. Another gap we see we read the Bible and we just think like, oh, the next page just means this instantly happened, right? That's not actually how it plays out all the time.

First Samuel chapter 16. Tell us about David becoming anointed, we just read it. The very next chapter First Samuel 17, happens about two to five years later. So this happens a long time down the road. And the next chapter tells us about David and his fight against Goliath. This is something that so many people know about. If you don't even have a background. In a biblical study or anything, you probably have some kind of idea about David and Goliath. So what happens is David's anointed king, Saul continues to rule Israel for a while. And then Israel gets into this conflict with another nation called the Philistines, the Philistines in Israel. They're going back and forth. They have battles, each side wins, each side loses. But eventually, the Philistines have this gigantic warrior on this side. Goliath through Scripture says he was probably between eight and nine feet tall, which is just ridiculous, right? Just a huge monster of a man.

And basically, he made this wager. He's like, you know what, we can save the bloodshed on both sides. And instead, what we'll do, is I will fight for my side, you guys pick a warrior to fight for your side, whoever wins, wins the war, as we call it then. So if I win, you guys will become our subjects. If you win, we become your subjects. But this dude's a monster of a man. No one wants to fight them. In fact, Scripture says that whenever they saw him and heard his words, heard the way he yelled out against them and against their God, it says on hearing the Philistines word Saul, in all the Israelites were dismayed and terrified. They're terrified. Is the dude huge? No one's going to be able to beat him. Well, he continues doing this day after day, trying to get them to send out a warrior. Well, one of these days, David over here is gulyas words.

David's brothers, all fought in the army, went to go give them some provisions to check upon them. On behalf of his dad, when he arrives at camp, he hears this guy shouting out against God shouting out against the Israelite nation. And he's like, Who is this guy? What is he saying they explain who he is. They explain the Hey, he's, he's saying if one of us fight him that that can that can just settle it. But no one wants to go out there because we know that we'll lose we know that he'll just take us out. So when he hears this, David is like, well, if no one else is gonna do it, I'm gonna fight him. If no one else will go up against him. I'm going to fight this what Scripture says in First Samuel 1732. David said to King Saul, let no one lose a cow lose heart on account of this Philistine. Your servant will go and fight him. Saul replied you're not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him. Every young man, he has been a warrior from his youth. Listen to what David says. But David said to Saul, your servant has been keeping his father's sheep, when a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, I went after it, and I struck it and I rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, and I struck it and I killed it. Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear. And this Philistine will be just like one of them because he has defied the armies of the living God in the Lord who rescued me from the power of the lion and the power of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine. Listen to that confidence that David had that unwavering faith that David had.

You see, his crisis moment had come. Is this a metaphorical killer at the door, this is an actual killer man who had just wait for lace to all of his enemies, this monstrosity of a man standing in front of him. And yet at this moment, David is not afraid. He's not scared. There is zero fear on his point. David was ready. And you want to know why he was ready. This is the first time I've ever done this. This is a point from my sermon last week that I copied and pasted into my sermon for this week because it applied so perfectly to it today. The reason David was able to have such confidence in his view of Goliath was that how God was moving privately in David's heart began to manifest itself publicly. God was doing something in David's heart whenever he was just consistently showing up and, and watching over his dad's flock, as David consistently did that God brought up these opportunities for David to trust in Him in David did, and David saying, hey, look, I've gone up against bears. I've gone up against lions, I've trusted in God, and he's seen me through in those situations. So I know that he'll do it again. I know he'll do it again. Because he has been doing things on my behalf. You all haven't seen it. It's been happening behind the scenes. But what God has been doing privately, I promise you it's about to manifest itself publicly. And everyone including Goliath is going to see what he has been doing on my behalf. I want to ask you guys a quick question. That the company Amazon Does anyone know? Does anyone know what Amazon is? Is? Anyone ever heard? A few people a few people heard? Amazon? They started in 1994. Do you guys want to know when they turned their first profit? When their books finally had a positive number for their total balance? You want to know when that was absolutely correct. Cassie Kane. She sat in for service. So she knows 2003. Nine years, like Ferris Bueller, nine times, nine years, think about that.

Nine years before they turn into profit. You know how much they changed their structure and how many people they fired and laid off. And while we got to upheaval and do everything differently, how often they did that during those nine years, next, and next to nothing, they change nothing about the way they operated. Because when they started Jeff Bezos, and the other people started that company, they set into process principles, systems, and structures that they believed would benefit them financially that would help them to grow a company. And even when things didn't seem to be going well, they're like, No, we know what we're doing is solid. We know it's going to work. You may not be seeing it publicly right now. You might not even see it publicly for years. But we promise you the day is coming when you will see it publicly what is happening privately the things that we're setting into place, it will come back, and boy hasn't come back. Amazon today is worth 1.7 trillion with a T dollar. trillion. That's incredible. That's incredible.

And it's because they knew you know what, just because everyone's not seeing it doesn't mean God's not doing something. And if I keep consistently putting in the work, if I set up the disciplines that I know I need to have, and I'm just consistent with it. A day will come where what God is doing privately will be manifest publicly and people will see it. That should both encourage and terrify you. Because that's not just the good stuff. Right? There will come a day if you are neglecting your faith, there will come a day if you're neglecting your walk with God when that that you've been neglecting privately will show up publicly and it will be well known and people will be able to see it clearly. Because you will get a bad diagnosis. You will have a relationship fall apart. You will have financial struggles. And when those days come, people will see the way you react and go, man ever since that happened, they just haven't been the same person. Ever since that person died, their joy is just gone. man ever since that diagnosis, and they got cancer, they have just been a shell of themselves. I wish they could have I just wished for them that they could have gone quicker because they're just they're not themselves anymore. Do you want that to be your story of crisis hits? Of course not. No one wants that to be their story. But what are you doing to avoid that being your story? What are we doing in the meantime, in the calm days to avoid that ending to our movie, because again, I promise you, there is coming a day where there will be a killer at your door, there will be a horror movie moment that you were subjected to in the faith that you were building during the calm days during the lead up to it. That's the faith that will either get you through or it'll be the faith that you neglected, and it will be why you didn't survive. I want to be like, David, I want to be someone who is consistently putting principles into my life that will see me not just survive, but thrive through whatever life throws my way. So the question is when the killer shows up, what will the crisis reveal about you? What will it reveal about me?

We're just we're less than a month out from September 11 and the 20th anniversary of that. That was a day when multiple people what kind of person they were, was revealed. We saw unbelievable heroism from just average people just normal people. Todd Beamer, his story a passenger on a flight, United 93 most of the people I can see the faces of recognition around the room you know his story, if not look him up online. His story's incredible. Just a normal man. He's a business accountant at Oracle systems is on a flight that got hijacked. And he along with a couple of other guys on the plane was the ones who bum rush the cockpit and force the plane to go down in Shanksville, Pennsylvania instead of its intended target in Washington, DC. I want to ask you a question. The courage that Todd had the courage that those men had to rush the cockpit, think about that. The courage to rush the cockpit to go after men with box cutters to go over there knowing they're probably as good as dead anyway, they had an idea of what was going on on the ground. The courage to do that. I'll tell you this much. He did not get that courage at that moment. The courage to rush the cockpit was not cultivated in a moment, just I guess, is what I'm going to do. No, no, no, no, no. That courage was not cultivated on flight 93 that courage was cultivated at Princeton Alliance church, where Todd and his family had attended for years where Todd served. He taught Sunday school. He volunteered in the youth ministry. His faith grew there in his life.

Such active participants in the church, not they were they gave their heart and soul to their church. He grew his faith there. And during those calm, normal Sundays, and Tuesdays and Wednesdays when he was just living life, those normal, mediocre minutia-filled days, he was cultivating and building a faith that would have the courage to rush a cockpit to save people's life. That doesn't happen in a moment. you cultivate a faith like that. You cultivate courage and confidence like that. I don't know about you, I want that. Don't didn't whenever you relive those moments from September 11. And you heard the stories about these people who as everyone else is rushing down the stairs, the tower, there are a few people who are running back up civilians even saying like, I'm not getting out of here until I see the people that work on my team get out of this building, just not doing it. Those people had the courage and confidence that was cultivated over time, not in a moment. And the same is true for you. Don't wait until the crisis hits. Don't wait until you're in debt. Don't wait until your diagnosis. Don't wait until your spouse utters the D-word that they want to divorce and then say, oh, okay, well, why isn't my faith in God? Where have you been? Where have you been? That is not how it works.

Don't let that happen to you. Don't let that happen to you. Don't let something throw you because a killer shows up at your front door. You can have faith that can survive it, no matter what happens, but man, you got to be consistent with it. And you got to cultivate it during the calm days. If you want it to withstand the crisis that inevitably is coming your way. You want to survive a horror movie moment, start building a faith that will do that. Now. That's exactly what we saw David do. He was building his confidence in Lord, he was building his faith and Lord, because he saw God come through for him time and time again, with the lion with the bear with all of the people who had tried to take his dad's sheep and try to do something to flock he saw God come through time and time again, he knew you know what, he'll do it again. He'll do it in this way he's gonna come through for me, again, David had a faith that held up.

And the only way you get a faith that will hold up is if you build it up. You got to build your faith up. One little win at a time. Just one little one at a time. Build it up as the worship team comes up, I want to tell you guys, my daughter eats and she loves playing video games, loves video games, and she has this one for Nintendo Switch called the weed luigis. mansion three. I love that game. It's a lot of fun. When we first got it, it's kind of confusing. Like it's got a lot of different controls on different options. Whenever we first got it. What Eaton wanted to do was just watch me play. Like she wanted me to play it. And so I played and I got pretty far I got to like the seventh floor of the mansion, or whatever. So I got to the seventh level of it. And then about that time, that's whenever she was like, can I try? Can I try it? Of course, I let her like I was like, no, it's my game. Now. Of course, I let her but I didn't let her just jump in. On the seventh level. She didn't understand at first she was kind of upset. She's like, well, I just want to I want to play this level because it looks fun. I was like, No, no, no, no. So I backed out of it. I went to the start, and we started a new game for her. And I was explained to him like honey, I don't want you to start playing on floor seven. Because this game gets progressively harder. There are bigger bosses, each level you get to the levels are harder, they're more challenging, you got to know how to do more things as it goes on. And Honey, I know your personality. If I would hand you the controller right now and let you start playing. You get frustrated. You feel like it's too hard, you wouldn't be able to beat this level because you wouldn't understand how it works, you probably wouldn't really want to play the game anymore. So no, I'm going to start it over, we'll go back to level one, you can start building the skill set consistently playing so you understand how it works.

And that's what we did. Man, whenever we got to level seven, she breezed through it quicker than I did. And she's better at the game than I am now. That's because she got some easy wins under her belt, on the calm levels, on the levels where the bad guy only takes one hit to die, right like the bad guy, you just do one thing and the poof explodes. Because she was able to build her skill build her confidence during those moments, she was able to handle the bigger levels, the bigger bosses with ease. The same is true for your faith. Don't try jumping in on floor seven. Don't wait until you get to the floor seven bosses and say, man, why isn't my faith working? God? Where are you? Why are you coming through for me? God's saying to me, I'm trying to show you stuff. And if you would have just started following me here, you would have seen me come through for you in small ways you want to trust me for a little bit bigger. And I'm going to come through for you there and then a little bit bigger, and how to come through for you there. They're a little bit bigger, and I would have come through for there. And before you know it. You'll be going through crazy things in your life. And you won't be as worried as you would have been because you'll know you know what God came through for me before and He'll do it again. You'll know that I come through for you. Because you've consistently built up your faith in me.

Pastor Brenda Holly says the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the second-best time is today. The same is true with your faith. The best time to have been investing in it and building it up was 20 years ago. But you're in luck because the second-best time is right now. Right now start trusting God in the small things. just trusting Him that He will come through for you. Watch him come through for you. And then believe that he'll do it again. Father God, we declare our need for you today. We know that life throws a lot of curveballs, our way curveballs we can handle on our own. killers show up at our door that leaves us paralyzed with fear. But God It doesn't have to be that way. Because you are a God who overcomes and if we put our trust in you if we start believing in you if we start truly activating our faith, we will see that you overcome That you come through for us and that you do it time and time again. And so then the next time life throws something our way we can have a different level of trust in you a different level of confidence in you, and that we can mirror King David, who was able to look at Goliath without fear because he knew you know what my God has helped me overcome the lion and the bear and he's going to do it again.

God help us to get a tune-up, helped us to get a tune-up of our faith. That we wouldn't ignore anymore that we wouldn't put it off that we would start trusting in you in real tangible ways today, truly trusting in you with our time with our talent with our treasure in ways that actually matter. Because then when we see you come through it, it will change things for us. It will change the way we see you will change the way that we see obstacles in our life. build up our faith God started today. We love you, Father, we pray this in your name. Amen.