(This transcript was generated by AI. Apologies for any inacuracies)

The last few weeks we have been in Psalm chapter 23.

We're going to continue with that today.

And God is really speaking to us through Psalm 23 as a church family so that our faith can be strengthened because oftentimes we go through challenging times.

It's no news to anyone here today that there's a lot of challenges in our world today.

There's a lot of valleys, but what we're going to learn from Psalm 23 today is how to get through those valleys, those tough times.

Not to stay stuck in them.

A lot of times valleys can bog us down.

Maybe you've been through a valley or a mud hole with a vehicle and gotten stuck or bogged down, but God don't want us to get stuck in the valleys of life.

He wants us to get through those valleys, but he never says that we're not going to have those valleys.

But it does say as he leads us through those valleys, it's for his name's sake, it's for his glory.

So we're a church that wants to depend on God to do exactly what he says he'll do.

Take us through the valley.

If you have your Bibles with you, let's read through Psalm 23, and then we're going to talk about it a little bit today.

Psalm 23, David, the shepherd who became king of Israel, he wrote this Psalm and he says this.

He says, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

He makes me to lie down in green pastures and leads me beside the still waters.

He restores my soul.

He leads me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, not just to the valley of the shadow of death, but as I go through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.

For you are with me.

Everybody say with me.

With me.

How many of you know God is with us today?

Come on.

He is with us.

And we talked about how God works with us today, and he goes on to say, your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

We talked a little bit about that last week, how God is with us and how his rod and his staff, they can begin to comfort us as God walks with us.

He goes on to say in verse five, he says, you prepare a table before me.

How many of you know that God is not only with you, but God is also in front of you?

Come on.

He has great things prepared in front of us.

He prepares a table before me in the presence of my enemies.

David says, you anoint my head with oil, my cup, my life runs over.

Surely the goodness and mercy of God shall follow me or chase me.

Everybody say, follow me.

Follow me.

How many of you know God is following after you?

He's not only with you, he's not only before you, but he is following you and chasing you down.

He follows me all the days of my life.

And the writer goes on to say, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Now, when David penned this Psalm in Psalm 23, he had a vision of what the valley was all about.

And the valley where a sheep would go through was a very dangerous place.

It was a place where a lot of times there were a lot of rocks and cliffs and there were limited food.

But what the shepherd would do is the shepherd would walk with the sheep, coach the sheep through the valley and carry them up to a mountaintop or a tabletop where the grass was lush and green.

And then they would begin to feast on that grass.

In other words, the shepherd was carrying them somewhere.

The shepherd had laid something out before the sheep that the sheep wanted to run after.

And so David pens this Psalm and says, no matter what I face in the valley, I'm gonna keep on keeping on because I know who is with me, I know who is chasing me, and I know what is out in front of me.

Again, how many of you know God is with you today?

Here, yeah.

And again, if we're gonna get through the valley, we gotta remember that, that God is with us.

Psalm 23, verse four again.

David says, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.

Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

Jesus reminded his followers in his day and time, he says, go into all the world and make disciples.

And he says, remember this, I am with you until the end of the age, end of the church age.

I am with you.

God is with us.

It's a very comforting thing to know that God is with us.

How many of you have ever been doing something in life that was very difficult and someone come alongside of you and said, I am with you?

Come on.

That can bring a lot of comfort.

That can bring a lot of courage when we know people are with us.

And again, if they're not with us, then chances are they may be against us, right?

And many of us believe that everybody is against us, but what is important is people to be with us and we're headed in the same direction in one accord.

This is the beauty of the church.

The church is to be a unit.

It is to be unified, not uniformed.

And we're to be with each other, working the same vision, going in the same direction.

And when people are with each other, amazing things begin to happen.

But I find comfort in a church that's with the vision that God has given us, but I find more comfort in a God that is with me in spite of what is going on, in spite of the darkness in the world, in spite of the evil that's surrounding the world around us.

And again, there's a lot of evil, but God says he is with us.

Come on, church.

He's with us.

But not only do I need to remember God is with me, I'm gonna get through the valley, I gotta remember he's chasing after me.

Look what he says again.

He says it in Psalm 23, verse six.

He says, surely goodness and mercy shall follow me, some translations would say, or chasing me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

I don't know how many of you have ever played chase with somebody that don't get tired.

But the reality of it is, is the Bible says God's love and mercy never gets tired, and it's always chasing you.

And you know, back in the day, I used to play chase with my siblings, my brothers and sisters and friends and all that kind of stuff.

And it was exhausting to be run away from somebody that never got tired.

And I want you to know, some of you are exhausted in life because you're running away from God, and God's chasing you, but I need you to know today, he ain't gonna give up on you.

His goodness and mercy are gonna follow you all the days of your life, come on.

And he's chasing you down.

We used to play chase in the dark a lot of times when I was growing up, and I'm scared of the dark.

And so if I was the person that was it, and I was chasing the people, all they had to do was run into the dark spaces, and I'd stop chasing them.

Because I wasn't gonna run in the dark to find nobody.

All right?

But what I've discovered in my life is the darkness spurs God's good and mercy on.

In other words, God's not afraid of the darkest places of your life.

He's not afraid of where you'll run to.

He's not afraid of the evil in the world.

He's not afraid of the darkness that is plaguing humanity.

He's not afraid of those dark spaces, those deep places, those defiled places in your life.

My Bible says that, you know what, he is a God that'll get you through the valley, and he's chasing you all the days of your life because maybe that darkness is gonna leave you stalemate in the valley, and God's gonna chase you out of that valley with his goodness and his mercy, and he wants to run you out of that space where you're bogged down.

Come on, somebody.

He's a good God.

He's a good God, and David the shepherd boy knows how to get through the valley.

It's to remember God is with him.

It's to remember that God is chasing after him, and then it's to remember that God has set something out in front of him.

This is a motivator for David.

In other words, the table that God had set before him in the presence of his enemies was motivation for David to get through the valley.

He knew that God had set a space for David to come sit down and dine with him in the presence of his enemies.

In other words, he didn't deny that the enemies were there, but what he did understand, that there was a God that set a table for him to come to and dine with him in spite of the enemy.

Look back with me at Psalm 23, verse five.

The Bible says this.

David says, you prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.

Now, I wanna ask you a question today.

How many of you like the table?

Come on.

Well, you're not raising your hand.

So I can look at a lot of you and tell you like the table.

Come on, somebody.

Growing up, I loved my mama's table.

And my mama was a fabulous cook.

Hands down, probably the best cook I've ever experienced in my entire life.

And my mom typically cooked three meals a day, breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

And she would always invite our entire family, my dad, my two brothers, and myself to come sit down at that table.

And we knew when my mom called us to that table that something good was going to happen and something good was gonna be at that table.

Growing up, six or seven years old, we used to play a lot outdoors and we used to run around.

And whenever it was time for us to come to the table, no matter where we were, we could be miles and miles away, my mom had a whistle, with a very distinct whistle that she would blow.

And when she would blow that whistle, we would drop everything we were doing, run to the house, because we knew that it was time to eat at that table.

And again, I'm talking about my mom could cook.

She could cook some things that none of you know nothing about.

She could cook what we refer to here in the South as cat head biscuit.

Come on, somebody.

And what they were sure of, there's a big homemade biscuit.

So you stick a hole in the end of the biscuit and then you pour syrup over in that biscuit and you just bite into it and it was incredible.

It was like manna from heaven I'm talking about, come on.

It was phenomenal.

Country fried steak, gravy, mashed potatoes.

I mean, you name it, my mama could cook it.

My mama could take liver and make it taste good, come on.

It was awesome to go eat at my mama's table.

And that was always set before me and I never wanted to miss the table.

And literally what David is saying here, he says, I believe in my shepherd's table in such a incredible, incredible way that you know what?

I'm never going to give up in the valley because I know what his table looks like.

I know what happens at his table.

And I know that he's expecting me to come sit down and dine with him, my creator, come on somebody.

And he says, there's nothing, there's nothing.

There's no valley, there's no darkness, there's no bog.

There's no mire that's gonna bog me down in life in such a way that I'm not gonna keep running towards that table.

You know, we will typically run after something if it's worth running after.

And David knew that the table of the Lord was worth running after in such a way it would get him through dark moments.

In other words, David's table was bigger than his trouble.

I wonder if your table is bigger than your trouble or is your trouble bigger than your table?

Because there's a big difference.

And Jesus said, in this world, you're gonna face trouble.

You're gonna face troubles.

You're gonna have trials, you're gonna have tribulations.

You're gonna have difficult moments, difficult days.

Jesus never denied that evil was in this world.

Jesus says that I am with you always in this age in spite of the evil.

In other words, I'll work in you and work through you in spite of the evil, and no matter what valley you walk through.

He says, but you gotta be willing to trust me.

And so in order for you to be willing to trust me, I'm gonna set a table out in front of you.

You know, the Bible speaks of a great table, a banquet feast.

But I don't know what your dream of this banquet feast that God's word is, and does that motivate you to get out of your seat and do something with your life in spite of the valley.

But according to the Bible I read, there's a reward set at that banquet table, and that reward is worth running after.

And we're gonna be talking a lot about that in just a few weeks, because we're gonna do a whole series on heaven and what that's all about.

And I'm afraid that the reason a lot of people aren't motivated to get through the valley today is because they have a misperception of what heaven and eternal life is all about.

In other words, they begin to look at eternal life as we're all gonna be floating around with a bunch of wings and singing just a bunch of songs, and we're gonna be singing songs.

But I don't personally think we're gonna have wings.

But the reality of it is, is it doesn't matter what I think, it matters what God's word says.

And this is the beautiful thing.

If you dig into his word, God says some incredible things about the eternal kingdom.

He says some incredible things about heaven.

And again, if we can begin to get the mindset of what that is really going to be like, I believe we can keep pressing through the trouble and run after God's table.

But I wanna talk a little bit about why we don't run after the table today.

Because I really think sometimes we don't run after the table because of the things that we're surrounded with.

And David says, you know what, I know that God's with me.

I know that God is chasing me, but I know what God has set before me, and I'm not gonna let nothing get in the way of me running after that table.

What was David saying?

How did David live with this mindset?

And I really think it could change your life if you begin to operate the way he did as he penned this song.

So we're gonna look at basically how David run with this mindset, because there is a promise that God gave his people the nation of Israel, but there was one giant in the way that was keeping the nation of Israel away from God's promise, or let's call it God's table.

And David steps into that situation, and he's like, why are y'all letting this giant in the valley keep you away from what God has promised?

And it's an amazing story, because if you begin to dissect that, David's mindset was different from what everybody else's mindset was.

In other words, what was set out in front of him was bigger than what they saw.

They were seeing a giant, and David was seeing a God with a promise.

And I don't know where you are today.

I don't know how old you are or where you come from, but do you see God with a promise, or do you just see the giants in life?

Let's look at the story.

It's found in 1 Samuel chapter 17, and how David approached a giant named Goliath, which probably many of you have heard of before, but how he approached him was really incredible, because God had set a table in spite of the giant, and David was able to see beyond the giant.

1 Samuel chapter 17, beginning with verse 24, the Bible says this.

As soon as the Israelite army saw him, saw who?

Saw the giant, they began to run away in fright.

In other words, the entire army saw a giant, Goliath, step into a valley, and they ran away in fear.

And they said this, have you seen the giant?

He's horrible, the man asked.

He comes out each day to defy Israel.

The king has offered a huge reward to anyone who kills him.

I find that fascinating.

There's a king named Saul, and Saul said there's a giant in the valley that's stalemating God's people, and anyone who takes this giant out, I will give them a reward.

And the Bible says that David had come up to the battlefield to bring his brothers some sandwiches, and the king had said to anyone who takes this giant out, I will give them a reward, and the Bible goes on to say what the reward was.

He says, the king said I will give that man one of his daughters for a wife, and the man's entire family will be exempt from paying taxes.

Now I know some of you, if you could get exempt from paying taxes, you'd be able to get out of here.

But I'm not gonna get out of here.

I need y'all to repeat what was just said.

Say it again.

And what will the man get for killing the Philistine and ending his defiance of Israel?

Who is this pagan Philistine anyway that he was allowed to defy the armies of the living God?

And these men, they gave David the same replies.

They said, yes, that is a reward for killing him.

We skip down to verse 40, and then the Bible says this.

So David's like, okay, there's a reward for taking this giant out.

The giant's still mating all the people in the valley, but there's a reward, so I'm gonna run after the reward.

I'm gonna run after the table.

So he picked up five smooth stones from a stream, and he put them into his shepherd's back.

And then armed with a shepherd's staff and sling, he started to cross the valley to fight the Philistine.

And verse 45, it says that basically David begins to speak to him as the Philistine begins to say things to David.

David replies to the Philistine, you come to me with a sword, a spear, and a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of heaven's armies, the God of the armies of Israel whom you have defied.

Today the Lord will conquer you.

Not I will conquer you, but the Lord will conquer you.

And I will kill you, and I will cut off your head.

And then I will give the dead bodies of your men to the birds and the wild animals, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel.

And everyone assembled here will know that the Lord has rescued his people, but not by sword or spear.

This is the Lord's battle, and he will give you to us.

As Goliath moved closer to the attack, David quickly ran out to meet him.

Reaching into the shepherd's bag and taking out a stone, he hurled it with his sling, and it hit the Philistine in the forehead.

The stone sank into Goliath.

It sank in, and Goliath stumbled, and he fell face down on the ground.

So David triumphed over the Philistine with only a sling and a stone, for he had no sword.

In other words, David's table, the reward, what God had said, the promise, was bigger than the problem, bigger than the trouble, and so it made him run after the table.

His table was bigger than the trouble.

His hope, his vision, his vision for who God said they were as a people was louder than the enemy's voice.

And see, what I've discovered along life's journey is a lot of times it's the voice of the enemy and the distractions of life that keep you from hearing the voice of God and what he has promised to his people.

And these were distractions, and the voice of the enemy had distracted a whole army from living in the promise that God said they could live in.

They were stalemated because of a giant in a valley.

And David steps on the scene, and he says, no, no, no, this giant is not going to distract me from what God has said.

God is chasing me, God is with me, and God has set a table before me.

I wonder what's distracting you from running after what God said for you to run after.

From running after the promises that God has promised you as a believer in Jesus Christ.

From running after the great reward that God promises you as a believer in Jesus Christ.

I wonder what may have stalemated you and stopped you from reaching people with the good news of Jesus.

I wonder if it's something that's come into your own life.

I wonder if, you know, it's just, you know what, you got preoccupied with something else in the world, and it distracted you from what God said he has called you to do.

Did you know that God says his church, those called out of darkness into the wonderful light, are a holy nation?

A set-apart nation.

We're a priesthood of believers.

We're here on behalf of God, being priests to the people, being a bridge for people to connect with the living God.

I wonder if there's anything in your life that stopped you from doing that.

Because distractions come in a lot of ways, and David, he wasn't gonna be distracted by the busyness of life or the things around him.

David comes up to the enemy lines, and he's a young shepherd boy, and his brothers, his blood-ken brothers, looked at him and said, what are you doing here?

You know what, there's no place for you here to fight this giant.

But David, in his head, he knew what God had promised the people, and though his brothers were saying these horrific things to him and about him, he knew what God had called him to.

You know, Jesus once said that many will miss kingdom living because of the distractions of life.

Let me show it to you.

He says it this way in Matthew 22, verses 2 through 6.

He says, the kingdom of heaven, this is Jesus, can be illustrated by a story of a king who prepared a great wedding feast for his son.

When the banquet was ready, he sent his servants to notify them, those who were invited, but they all refused to come.

So he sent other servants to tell them, the feast, the table, the feast has been prepared.

The bulls and fattened cattle have been killed, and everything is ready.

Come to the banquet, come to the table.

He says that the king was calling people to the table, but the guests he had invited ignored them, those who were the messengers, and they went their own way.

One to his farm, another to his business, others seized his messengers and then stole them and killed them.

What is Jesus saying?

Jesus is simply saying that sometimes the busyness of life and the distractions of life can get in the way of what God wants to do in us and through us.

I wonder sometimes if the distractions are keeping us away from God's table.

I wonder sometimes if the distractions are keeping me away from God's table.

Do I get too busy doing things in life instead of trusting God's promise and running after it with all of my heart?

Do I get too occupied with the family farm and all that's going on with the family farm and in the family and in, you know, all that kind of stuff that I'm distracted from from God's table?

Lots of things can distract us in life, and I do believe that distractions keep people from running after the table and getting through the valley.

Another thing I wrote down is something that will keep you from the table because it keeps many of us from the nutrition and the good stuff that we need in life is junk food, and what I mean by this is the junk food or the junk food that the enemy feeds your mind.

The Bible says the enemy of your soul is a liar.

Slap your neighbor and say the enemy of your soul is a liar.

Go ahead and tell him that.

He lies to you.

He's crafty.

The Bible calls him a father of lies, and what he feeds you is junk.

He feeds you junk that you begin to think that's nutrition, and you fill up on junk, and then what happens is you get stalemated in the valley and you never make it to the table to get the nutrition that you need to keep on keeping on.

And again, Goliath is feeding David junk.

Look what it says here.

1 Samuel 17, verse 41, Goliath walked out towards David with his shield-bearer ahead of him, sneering in contempt at David, the ruddy-faced boy.

He asked him, he says, Am I a dog?

He roared to David.

Did you come at me with a stick?

And he cursed David by the names of his gods.

Come over here, and I'll give your flesh to the birds and wild animals, Goliath yelled.

But you see, David wasn't going to eat what Goliath was trying to feed him.

And I wonder if you're stalemated in a valley today and you're not moving forward with life and getting through the valley because you're stalemated with the junk the enemy's feeding your mind.

Because I can tell you right now, what goes on in here, gets in here, and eventually comes out here.

Oh, that's good preaching right there, but you missed it, all right?

What gets in here, gets in your heart.

What gets in your head, gets in your heart, and eventually comes out through your actions.

And if you are stalemated, and you're not feasting on the goodness of God, you're not feasting on gratitude, if you're not feasting on who God says you are as a believer in Jesus Christ, and the enemy has stalemated your soul, I'm going to invite you to begin to stop eating the junk food, so to say, in life, and begin to get the nurturing and the nutrition that God's Word says about you.

Yeah.

And again, the Bible says in Romans 12, do not conform any longer to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

And so I wrote this in my journal a long time ago whenever my mind was getting all clogged up with the junk food the enemy was feeding me.

I said, my mind needs an enema.

And maybe that's what needs to happen in your life today, too.

Maybe your mind needs an enema.

In other words, you need a mind dump.

You need something to be dumped out of your mind.

What you've been believing, the lies you've been hearing, because you've been in the valley, and you ain't been listening to the promise keeper, you ain't been listening to the one that says he sets a table before you in the presence of your enemies.

You've been listening to the enemy of your soul.

You've been listening to the one that says you are finished, that it is over.

And my friend, I'm here to declare on behalf of the living God today that God's not finished and it ain't over because he has a plan for your life.

It's a plan to prosper you and not to harm you.

It's a plan to do great and mighty things if you will so dare believe what God's Word says.

And some of us need to dump the old stuff out and begin to put the new stuff in.

It's an amazing thing.

The Bible says that you know what?

That God will do immeasurably more than we can ever think of or imagine.

My goodness!

What are you imagining?

Because the Bible says that God can do more.

And again, this is really speaking into eternity because God is gonna be doing more than you think or imagine.

And sometimes I think we're not running after that more because the enemy has satisfied us with the here and now.

See, there's more.

And again, I think it's really important for you to get in your heart and your head as a believer about something I'm getting ready to say.

It's most people think when we check out of this life that you know, again, we're all gonna kind of end up in the same place.

The Bible says that believers, believers in Christ and the gift and the gratitude that we have towards what God has gifted us, Jesus and that forgiveness of our sin, He's the way, the truth, and the life and no one comes to the Father except through Him.

In other words, God gifts us so we can enter into eternity with Him as believers in Jesus Christ.

Those who don't believe in Jesus Christ, the Bible says they're wasting away and they're gonna spend eternity apart from God.

But the reality of it is those of us who are spending eternity with God, there's also different rewards and different ways to live in the kingdom that is still yet to come.

Yes, the kingdom is here, but the kingdom is still yet to come.

And I'm gonna invite you to begin to focus on kingdom living, begin to focus on what it really means to live in the kingdom of God, the kingdom of eternity.

It's phenomenal.

And again, it's not everybody's just gonna be, you know, floating around with wings and with hearts and all of this kind of stuff.

It's a kingdom.

There's structure.

It's amazing.

It's phenomenal.

And if you think for one minute what you're experiencing, the goodness you're experiencing here on earth, it's a shadow.

It's a shadow of what is still yet to come is what the Bible is trying to tell us.

The good things you experience here are a shadow of what is still yet to come.

And I wanna invite you to embrace those good things and stop believing the lie of the enemy.

Again, taste the goodness of the Lord.

I do believe the reason God has allowed us to taste, sample a little bit of his goodness here on earth is so we can taste his goodness and continue to run after what he says.

I mean, I don't know how many of you have ever been to like a mall or something, and the little people are there with their little chicken on their toothpick, and they're like, taste, taste, taste.

You know what I'm saying?

You wanna taste?

Taste.

Teriyaki chicken?

Taste.

You know, or whatever else.

And again, what you do is if you're hungry, you're like, where's the samples?

Some of you go to Costco just to get the samples.

I know.

Okay?

I get it.

But why do they give those samples out?

The reason they give those samples out is because their hope is you will buy into what they're selling.

And then you'll go buy a whole freezer supply of what they're selling.

I think what God's telling me to tell you today is he wants you to taste his goodness here, a little bit of his goodness among the evil and the brokenness, so that you will have some want to in you to run after what is still before you.

Taste the goodness of the Lord and see that he's good is what my Bible says.

And again, let's look at this.

1 Samuel 17, verses 34-37.

The Bible says that Saul was like, no, David, you can't take this giant out.

His brothers were like, David, you can't take this giant out.

Everybody's like afraid of this giant.

And David's like, no, no, no.

I've tasted God's goodness before.

Look what he says.

He says, they said, David, you can't do it.

And David persisted.

I've been taking care of my father's sheep and the goats, he said.

And when a lion or a bear comes to steal a lamb from the flock, I go after it with a club and I rescue the lamb from its mouth.

If the animal turns on me, I catch it by the jaw and I club it to death.

I've done this to both the lions and the bears, and I'll do it to this pagan Philistine too, for he has defiled the armies of the living God.

The Lord who rescues me from the claws of the lion and the bear will also rescue me from this Philistine.

How did David have the audacity to say things like this?

It's because he had tasted and he had saw that the Lord is good and oh, the joys of those, the Bible says in Psalm 34, verse eight, oh, the joy of those who take refuge in the Lord.

So I wonder today, have you taken refuge in God?

I wonder today, have you tasted the goodness of God in your life?

Have you experienced any level of God's goodness?

Have you ever thought about it's just God being good to you because you sucked in that last breath you just sucked in?

Have you ever thought about it's God's goodness to you because we're able to sit here and we're able to be here to worship together?

Have you ever thought about God's amazing goodness and what God wants to do in your life and through your life?

God is a good God, my friend.

He is a good shepherd.

He is one who is with you.

He is one that chases after you.

He is one that sets a table before you, but you gotta trust in this great God.

And my friend, God is inviting you today.

I don't think God just sent you here or put you online today for you to listen to another Psalm.

And you know what?

I'm not the good shepherd.

I'm actually an imperfect shepherd.

In other words, I can want it for you with all of my heart and desire that you experience the goodness of God, but at some point in time, you have to make a decision to put your faith in the good shepherd.

And if you've never done that before, I'm inviting you into that.

Psalm 23 is an amazing Psalm if you'll begin to embrace what David's saying.

David's saying, don't you let no valley, don't you let no enemy, don't you let no evil, don't you let no fear stop you from the goodness of God.

It's amazing.

We're all gonna have hardships.

It is no alarm to anybody sitting underneath the sound of my voice today that evil fills this world.

It is no, no alarm underneath the sound of my voice that trouble strikes people at all different levels, in all different places, and at different times.

So how do we get through it?

Do we let the evil one take over our life, just continue to bring fear into our life, or do we trust God and we keep moving forward with the good things of God in spite of the evil one?

Because we have a belief in one who is setting a table for his people, and we're gonna dine with the king of kings and the Lord of lords, and the evil one will be put into abyss.

Come on, somebody.

I believe it with all of my heart.

I believe that in this time and in this space, God's inviting some of you to dine at his table.

So don't let the distractions, don't let the fear, don't let the brokenness keep you from the goodness of God.

My friend, he is for you.

He is not against you.

It's why he sent Jesus into the world to announce to humanity, for God so loved the world, that I'm giving my one and only son so whoever believes in me shall not perish, shall not waste away, but have eternal life.

Have you trusted Jesus today?

Have you trusted the good gift of Christ today?

If not, now would be a great time to do that.

Let me pray for you.

God, you're an amazing God.

And God, I thank you so much for your goodness, your mercy.

I thank you so much for grace.

God, I thank you so much for chasing us down by the power of your word and your spirit.

And God, if there is one here today that feels stuck in the valley, God, I pray today that you would speak to their hearts.

You would let them know that there is a table that you're setting in the presence of their enemy.

And God, you're inviting them to come sit down and dine with you.

You did it when you gave your son on that cross and he resurrected from a grave.

God, that was the great invitation.

It was an invitation for whoever would believe in him could have eternal life and sit at that table.

And my friend, if you've never trusted Jesus before in your life, maybe today's the day of your salvation.

Today's the day when you step into kingdom living.

Today is the day you begin to plow through the valley because your vision becomes greater than your trouble.

Maybe today is the day you want to say, God, I'm tired of doing life my way, and today I want to trust what Christ has done for me.

I want to trust the gift of salvation that he offered through the cross.

God, I turn from my sin and I turn towards the gift of Jesus, and I believe, God, he was resurrected from a grave so I could be reconnected to you.

My friend, the Bible says if you confess with your mouth and you believe in your heart that Jesus is Lord, you will be saved.

I believe that with all of my heart today.

So if you said that prayer today, just tell God, thank you for the gift of life, the gift of salvation, and tell him from this point forward you want to run after his table.

It's in Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.