Against the Odds

Samuel Prime · Tidal Church Moncton · June 14, 2026 · Elijah series

Samuel Prime preaches on Elijah's showdown with the prophets of Baal in 1 Kings 18. He invites us to stop sitting on the fence, plant our feet in the Lord's camp, and trust that when we go all in, He will prove Himself true.

More from Samuel Prime · The Elijah series

Topics: Faith, Prayer, Discipleship

Transcript

[0:00] Can we say together, amen? Amen. Amen. That's good. Before we continue in our series here on Elijah, we just want to take a moment and have a moment of commissioning for our high school graduates that are from Tidal Church. And so, if you are graduating grade 12, can you do me a favor? Can you just stand up for me? I know there's some of you in this room. I know you're shy. Drew, I see you in here. Stand up, buddy. You guys look good. And there's some photos up on the screen as well. This isn't an exhaustive list of all of our students that are graduating. Stay standing for just a minute, guys. But we just want to take a moment and say that graduation stirs up a lot of emotions for both parents and students alike. For parents, maybe it's the first time you're going to be an empty nester. Maybe you're super excited to get your kids out of the house.

[0:47] Whatever it might be, we acknowledge that it stirs up. And for you guys as students, it also is a journey to what sometimes feels like the unknown. And so, we just want to acknowledge and celebrate you guys as you step in and continue to trust the Lord. And so, what I want to do is I just want to take a moment and pray over you guys that are standing. If you're sitting next to or close to a graduate, or there's a graduate in the room that isn't standing, would you just do me a favor and put your hand on them? And if you're sitting around them and you don't know them, maybe just put your hand forward as we pray over our graduating class of 2026. Heavenly Father, I just thank You for these group of students, Lord. I thank You for the ways that You have equipped them and called them, Lord. I thank You for the way that their parents have poured into them, Lord, how the parents have taught these students about You.

[1:37] And Father, I just pray that as they go into the workforce, as they go off to college and university, as some of them take a year to figure out what they're supposed to do and where they're supposed to go in this life, Father, I pray that You would guide them, that You would lead them, that You would protect them, Lord. That they would remember that You are Lord, that You are good, that You are faithful, Lord. I pray that You would bless them and keep them as they go. And Heavenly Father, I pray again that You would just bless them, Lord, that when they're put into situations that challenge them, Father, I pray that they would choose You. And God, I pray that they would know, not just know, but feel and be encouraged by the fact that there's a church family who loves them, who cares for them, that's praying for them, that want to see them grow in their faith and their love with You.

[2:24] Heavenly Father, we love You, we worship You, and we praise You, all in the powerful name of Christ Jesus. Amen. You guys can go ahead and grab a seat. Before we jump in this morning, I want to give a call or just take an aside for just a moment and speak to two groups of people. The first is, if you are here and you have not yet made the decision to follow Jesus, if you're on the fence, if you're not even fully maybe even sure why you're here, before we jump in this morning, I just need you to know something. I need you to know that our Father, that your Father in heaven, loves you, that He cares for you, that He's pursuing you, and that in His goodness and in His graciousness, He is seeking you out. And my hope and my prayer is this morning that this morning would be the morning that you make the decision to go all in for Him.

[3:18] We're hoping and we're praying for that, that you would go all in. And our Heavenly Father, who loves you, who is far greater and bigger than any of us can ever imagine, that holds the galaxy and the universe in His hand, that despite how big and how large He is, that He pursues us in His graciousness and His goodness. The second call this morning as we turn to 1 Kings 18 is for those of us in the room that are followers of Jesus. We're going to see a very clear call, and we're going to hear this term, "sitting on the fence," quite a lot. I would encourage us that those that are followers of Jesus would consider maybe in what areas we are sitting on the fence instead of having our feet firmly planted in the camp of the Lord.

[4:05] And I know it can feel like and seem like maybe I talk about this a lot, and we're going to uncover why this morning, why I believe this is so important, why it's so close to my heart, why I believe it's important that we make a decision to follow Him every single day of our lives. And it goes far beyond just knowing about our scriptures and reading to check off a box and praying to check off a box. A relationship with the Lord is so much deeper than that, and it leads to, when you know and love Him, to what we as followers of Jesus and the scriptures refer to as the abundant life. Now, the abundant life is not health and wealth. The abundant life is living in the fullness of what the scriptures talk about, the fullness of the goodness of God, the fullness of the fruits of the Spirit.

[4:59] And I believe that when we sit on the fence, we miss out on the life that God has for us to glorify and bring glory to Him. I strongly believe that this morning. And so, if you missed last week or our first week in our series of Elijah, I'm just going to get us caught up here before we jump into the scriptures in 1 Kings 18. We're going to start in verse 20. If you have your Bibles, you can follow along in just a second. It'll also be on the screen behind me. But what we need to know is that there's a king and a queen, King Ahab and Queen Jezebel. Now, I need to tell you something. These guys are like the worst king and queen that Israel has ever had. Like, the worst. And so, what they did is they made worship to this idol called Baal. They made that the official state religion. And what she's actually been doing is they've actually been hunting down God's prophets and killing them on sight. And so, what Elijah does, this character that we're going to be reading about this morning, is he shows up and he tells King Ahab that there's going to be a drought among the land as judgment upon what is happening. And then Elijah disappears for three years. And then God tells Elijah, "Go back.

[6:14] It's time to settle this thing once and for all." And that's where we find ourselves in 1 Kings chapter 18, starting in verse 20. Again, if you have your Bibles, please follow along with me. If not and you would like to, it'll also be on the screens behind me. "So Ahab sent to all the people of Israel and gathered the prophets together at Mount Carmel. And Elijah came near to all the people and said, 'How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow Him. If Baal is God, then follow him.' And the people did not answer him a word." Elijah is saying here, "Look, guys, you're living a miserable existence because you have not chosen one or the other.

[7:03] You're living in the middle, and in the middle, there's just this chaos that is taking place here." You're grabbing ahold, Israel's grabbing ahold, which Israel at this point had become kind of a syncretistic society where essentially what they did is they're like, "Well, we still kind of belong to Yahweh, the Lord, and we kind of have adopted some of these other ideas by these Canaanite gods, and we're trying to kind of do both because this Canaanite god is supposed to be good for fertility, and this god over here is supposed to be really good for bringing rain upon our land." And there wasn't irrigation in this time, and so they depended on rain for their crops. And they were kind of picking and choosing and grabbing a little bit of everything, hoping that one of these things would work.

[7:50] And so Elijah enters into the scene, and he says, "It doesn't work that way." He says, "Why are you hobbling between two different opinions? Why are you hobbling between two different gods?" He says, "If the Lord is God, then follow Him. If Baal is god, follow him. Make a decision." And the Hebrew word that is being used here is the word limping. The text actually says that people did not answer a word. What's being said here is they're halting or they're limping. They're not walking. I don't know if you've ever injured an ankle before or a leg. When you limp, it is really hard to get somewheres, first of all, without pain, but second of all, effectively, right? Like playing rugby, I sprained my ankle probably one too many times, and every time hobbling along that field, it was not productive. They were spiritually lame and unable to commit. It's not talking about physically lame.

[8:47] It talks about they were spiritually lame and unable to commit. And what you have to understand is that under Ahab and Jezebel, Baal worship had become the official state religion, but most Israelites hadn't fully abandoned Yahweh either. They were trying to worship both, essentially hedging their bet, and Elijah's challenge forced a binary choice upon them, a black-and-white choice. And I'll tell you something. We live in a world that loves to have options. We live in a world that adores options. Having options is a good thing, right? Me and my wife went on vacation not terribly long ago down South, and when we went down South, the amount of choices with everything that there is blows my mind. We walked into the aisle, and I was looking for peanut butter, and there was like 50 different options, and I'm like, "How is this even possible?" We love choices, and Elijah draws a line in the sand, and he says, "You have to choose one or the other." And that's uncomfortable for us.

[9:46] It does something within us when we're told that we have to choose, where it causes this anxiety and this panic within us, and he forced a binary choice that they weren't ready to make out loud. And I'm a big believer, and I don't know about you, but I'm a big believer that everything communicates something, spoken and unspoken. And I think that their silence actually says a lot. And so when we look at the story, Elijah was looking at and addressing people who were literally bowing down to these physical idols. And you know what? Probably not too many of us are doing that. I mean, maybe one or two, but most of us aren't doing that every day. And when we look at this story, the choice for us isn't as much between physical items or wooden statues.

[10:35] It tends to be, if I can contend something this morning, it tends to be ourselves. It tends to be ourselves, what we get out of things, what we get for pleasure, what we think, what our opinions are, what we feel, what we think we can get from God. And when I look at my life, again, it's not between some wooden figure and God Almighty. The choice in idol tends to be myself. And if God is saying, what He's saying is, He's saying, "Hey, follow Me. Trust Me. Am I not good?" And the temptation and pull for me is to follow my own desires, my own thoughts, my own opinions, and oh, my word, am I opinionated. My mom and dad will tell you that growing up, especially my dad, my dad would speak, and I would take that as an invitation to offer my opinion. Didn't matter what it is.

[11:29] He would say, "The sky's blue," and I would jump in, and I would offer my opinion. "Well, actually, the sky..." And I would go on and on and on, and my dad would eventually say, "Junior," he called me Junior, although I'm not. "Junior, your lips are moving." And my response to my dad would be, "Yeah, that's what happens when you talk. Anyways," and then I would continue going. And the question then becomes, am I going to allow my feelings, what I think, my own opinions, myself, to become my God, my idol? And man, I think for a lot of us, if we're being truthful, we do that with our feelings. And I'm not saying that God doesn't use our feelings and our emotions in worship to make us aware of something that He's doing in His presence, but I want to say something this morning: God is so much deeper than that.

[12:25] God is so much deeper than a spiritual high or heightened emotional experience that you have in worship. Those are good things, but when all our relationship with the Lord is, is a feeling that we have in worship, a heightened moment, and it's not rooted in any meaningful community like what we see in the scriptures in the early church, when the storms of life come, the house is going to fall down. When we get a diagnosis, when a loved one maybe gets sick, when our kids fall away, whatever it might be, when those storms come into your life, the house is going to fall down. And so I believe that God is calling us back to not just feelings and emotions, but the deep, historical, theological Father who is in heaven, who loves us deeply and wants us to know what it means to be in His presence, not only in corporate worship, but in our private places with Him.

[13:29] Because I'm going to tell you something, the abundant life does not flow when our only engagement with Him is in corporate worship and not in our prayer closets. Both are important, but when we neglect one or the other, to not have a meaningful community with one another, when the storms come, when questions or doubt creeps in, our foundation will not be solid enough to stand. And so my encouragement for you would be, if you don't have a meaningful community, somebody to challenge you, to speak life into you, to encourage you, my encouragement to you would be to find one. And you can find it here. You just have to look for it.

[14:14] And so when we look at this, when we wrestle with this, when it comes to feelings and having that be the god of our lives, we follow a feeling of God and we neglect the obedience He calls us to and the historical and theological depths of who He is, because I do believe that as we follow the Lord closely and faithfully, we experience a new level of depth and understanding of the Father's heart for us. I believe that to the center of my being and to my core. What about our habits, our opinions, our thoughts, how life works? Are we going to allow Yahweh, God, to be the Lord of our life, or are we going to straddle the fence a little bit and say, "I actually like some of the things that God says about how I'm supposed to live and know Him, but I don't like other things, so I'm going to pick up these things from the world or from culture, from family, for whatever." But the truth is that the God of the scripture calls us to leave everything and to follow Him.

[15:11] And I think much of our lives, if we boil it down, and this hurt for me to write, this hurt for me to evaluate in my own life. I just want to say that before I say it here this morning. I think so much of our lives can be asking Jesus to follow us instead of us following Him. We pray these prayers like, "Man, this dude is being a jerk. Just take care of him for me, Jesus." Instead of maybe praying and listening to the voice of the Holy Spirit, who maybe put this person who you think is unlovable in your life to teach you what it means to love somebody who is completely different than you. Maybe it's, "I've got this thing, God. I've planned it. I know where it's going to go. I just need You to bless it." And I think some of us have done the same thing.

[15:57] We invite Jesus to follow us and be our little blessing instead of going all in for Him and saying, "Jesus, I'm going to follow You Your way, not my way, Your opinion, not my opinion." And there's this battle, and God comes in and says, "My son, my daughter, you have to choose. You have to choose. Which are you going to follow?" Now, we look at the story and it's really easy to be critical of Israel. Right? They're like, "Well, they're bowing down to idols and statues, and I don't do that." And we have to understand the predicament that they're in. There's a pressure and a tension to move and to do what the king and queen asked. And so they were worshiping these false gods. And Israel at the time, as I said earlier, had this wicked king and queen. For context, Queen Jezebel, you know you're pretty not a great person when there's a demon in the New Testament that takes its name after you.

[16:52] That might be a red flag of something that's not so great. And so they have this pressure of this king and this queen that have the tension to move them into the direction of worshiping these false gods, and what's happening is it's terrible. There's temple prostitution, which is basically child sex trafficking. There's also child sacrifice, and so you take your newborn baby, him or her, and you throw him into the fire in hopes that it would appease these false gods, you could actually get something out of it. It's absolutely horrific. And sometimes we go, "Man, they're so dumb. We've progressed so much. Look at how far we've come." And the truth is, there's nothing really new under the sun. We look around and there's still a lot of lost, hurting, broken things that happen in our world today.

[17:44] You don't have to look far to know that maybe we don't do some of the things that we see here in this passage in our everyday lives, but stuff like that still happens. There's a spiritual world that happens all around us. And so what they were doing is they were sacrificing things to get things that they wanted. And so they'd sacrifice their kids and their babies and do terrible things in hopes that it would somehow appease this god and they would bring crops or provision or rain or whatever it might be. These Canaanite religions were horrific. I would encourage you to go and study them if you don't believe me. And there's all this pressure that comes from the king and queen and the whole religious and political system to do things their way. And so if you wanted favor with the king and queen, you had to do things their way. You had to do religion their way.

[18:36] You had to worship their way. If you wanted your family to be safe, you had to do it the king and queen's way. If you wanted to find favor in this city, you would have to do it the king and queen's way. If you didn't want to stir up trouble for your job or for you, you had to do religion their way. And so Israel, it wasn't like, "I'm going to pick one." There was this whole tension towards, "I can still mix in the things of Yahweh, and I can take on these Canaanite gods, and then everybody's kind of happy." And Elijah comes into the picture and he says, "No, you need to stop straddling the fence." And it made me think about this a little bit, of how do we discern whether or not we're on the fence? How do we discern whether or not something is good or something is not good? And it made me think of something that we, as followers of Jesus, call discernment.

[19:26] And I need you to understand that discernment, we have a tendency to think that discernment is the ability to tell what is right from what is wrong. But I want to tell you that that's not actually entirely true. Discernment is the ability to tell what is right from what is almost right. And that's a really big distinction when it comes to straddling the fence, to figure out what is right and what is almost right. And so they have this tension, not only because the king and the queen are kind of pushing him, but I also believe, truly, that they had a little bit of the fear of the Lord in them. And so these Jewish people who knew all the stories of Moses leading the people out of Egypt, and they knew the story of the Red Sea and the Egyptian army, and they knew the stories of David and Solomon building and dedicating the temple to God. They knew these stories, but the question they were asking was, "God, are You going to prove Yourself to me true today in the same way that You did back then?

[20:23] Are those just stories or are they a reality in which I can experience here and now in this life?" And truthfully, the more that I think of this, I think that it's the same question for us. We have all these tensions pulling on us. The things of the world, the, "It's going to be easier. You can't say that. You can't do this. You can't stand up for that. You can't stand up for Christ in this area." Like, there's so much, but because what's going to happen? And there's this tension and this pull, and this question is, "God, if I put it all on the line for You, if I step squarely in Your camp, are You going to prove Yourself true to me? If I put myself and step squarely in Your camp, are You going to prove Yourself true?" And so the story continues, and Elijah basically says, "Hey, you know what? We're going to have a battle.

[21:20] We're going to have a showdown. You're going to build an altar to Baal. I'm going to build an altar to the Lord, and we are going to see which god is the true god." And so what they do is they said, "We're going to sacrifice some bulls, and you aren't allowed to light the match." Now, keep in mind, they didn't have matches, but you kind of get the point. And so what happens is Elijah says, "You're going to call upon your god. I'm going to call upon Yahweh. And whatever one calls down fire on these altars and burns this offering is the one true God." And so Elijah, being a gentleman, he lets them go first. And they're calling out, and they're dancing around, and they're screaming out, "Send fire." And they're working themselves up into a frenzy, and they cut themselves, and there's blood gushing everywhere, and it's gross. And Elijah's watching them for hours, and he gets to the point where he's laughing.

[22:09] And then in verse 27, it says this: "And at noon, Elijah mocked them, saying, 'Cry aloud, for he is a god. Either he is musing or relieving himself...'" As a youth pastor, I have to say, yes, he did say he's on the toilet. It is what it is. "'... Or he's on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep or must be awakened.' And they cried aloud and cut themselves after their custom with swords and lances until blood gushed out upon them." And man, I just want to say, this is why I'm so passionate about this. This is the way of the enemy. This is the way of the enemy. The enemy wants to bring destruction upon your life. The enemy wants to bring destruction upon your life.

[22:55] I'm not talking about stuff and decisions that you made that you live in the consequences of. I'm talking about the enemy wants you to believe certain things that are the opposite of the things of the Lord. The enemy wants to make you live in such a way that has you convinced that this is all there is to life, that you live, and you work, and you earn some money, and you die. But I'm here to tell you that that is not the way of the Lord, that the way of the enemy brings destruction upon you and generations to come. But the way of the Lord brings fruitfulness to your life, brings joy, and patience, and gentleness, and kindness, and forbearance. And I can't imagine, I can't help but think our Father in heaven is asking us to step firmly in His camp and to trust Him.

[23:53] To firmly plant your feet and to trust Him. Paul says it like this: "For the mind set on flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace." This is not some religious saying or a cliché. This is the purpose of life itself. It's the most real thing that there is. And you see all these prophets, and it's almost like Elijah's looking at these people of Israel, and they're going, "Really, like this is the god that you want to choose? Like the god that makes you dance around and work up into a frenzy, and cut yourself, and bleed all over the place, and sacrifice life itself for something that's going to turn back null and void and isn't even going to provide for you what you're looking for it to provide for you?"

[24:40] I can't help but think that maybe that's true in our lives, too. That there's things that we chase and we pursue that the Lord isn't actually in, that there's things that we chase and pursue and go after that the Lord is like, "Would you just slow down and know My heart?" I can't help but imagine. And so something that I forgot to note that I need to note, Baal was said to be the god of rain. And so they were sacrificing that Baal, essentially how he would strike was with lightning, and so when they're crying out to him, how the thing would've got ignited is there would've been lightning, and it would've lit on fire. And so, sure enough, that doesn't happen. And in verse 36, the scriptures say, "And at the time of the offering of the oblation," Elijah says, "Let's step back into our normal religious rhythms for a moment. Let's step back into the way that God has set things up so we can experience for a relationship with Him." Now, Elijah had an altar set up with 12 stones to represent the 12 tribes of Israel, and he dug a trench around it, and he poured water, and more water, and more water, and more water, and more water on this altar until the odds were stacked against him.

[25:54] And I can only imagine that in this battle, because what would've happened if Yahweh didn't send a fire down and prove Himself true is Elijah would've been killed. He was outnumbered, by the way. There was hundreds of Baal's followers and one guy whose odds were stacked against him, and he stacked the odds against him, I believe, to not only prove that God is true, but so that God could get all of the glory and the credit. Said, "Look at what our God has done." And so Elijah, the prophet, came near and said, "O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel," or Jacob. Now, I love this. Why did he say those three names? He's saying, "Yahweh, the God of Isaac, of Jacob, of Abraham." He said all those stories that we grew up hearing, all of those things that we've heard about are not just stories.

[26:46] Let that be reality that breaks into this moment of what's happening right now. And the scriptures continue to say, "Let it be known this day that You are God in Israel, that I am Your servant, and I have done all these things at Your word." That's just an aside. I think that's so important that he put his life on the line, that he put everything that he had out to follow Jesus. And why did he do it? Did he do it so that he got the glory? No, he did it so that people would know that God is the Lord. I think that's beautiful. And so he says, "Answer me, O Lord. Answer me, that Your people may know that You, O Lord, are God and that You have turned their hearts back." A few things I want to point out here.

[27:33] The first is this, is Elijah says, "Come through, Lord, so that people may know." And some of us have grown up in religious churches or backgrounds that maybe say something that's a little bit opposite to this without knowing it, or maybe they did know it. For some of you, the concept of knowing that God will actually come through for you is a foreign concept. Truthfully, I believe that for some of you, it's a foreign concept. For some of you, you've grown up in backgrounds where you go like, "No, no, no, you can never be certain that God is going to show up for you." Like God wants to keep you on your toes so that you kind of have to trust Him, and He'll always keep you guessing whether or not He's going to show up, and you don't know if you can trust Him or not, because that's how God's going to get you to behave. And I'm here to tell you that that's not true.

[28:18] Elijah says, "No, God, I want You to prove Yourself so they know that You are their Father in heaven." Yes. And the second thing that He says here is, He says that, "You will know that You're calling them back to Yourself." I don't know about you, but to me, that sounds like a relationship that's taking place. This whole thing is about relationship, not just checking a box of, "Oh, I read my Scriptures today. Oh, I prayed today." And we'll talk about that in a little bit. That this whole thing is about God's people being distant from Him, trapped in lies, living unfulfilled life, hobbling spiritually. And he's going, "God, prove Yourself true so that all these people may know You and know that it's about a relationship with You," and this is what God is calling you back to. This is what God is calling me back to.

[29:10] This is what He's calling His church back to. God goes, "I don't want you to have one foot here and one foot over here without actually knowing Me, knowing My goodness, knowing My faithfulness, knowing My fruitfulness, knowing what this means and looks like for your life to the point where you walk into a workplace or a place that you used to be in, where people go, 'Man, there's something different about them.'" We heard about it last week, being the salt and the light in the world. Yes. I'm going to tell you something. Being the salt and the light in the world does not happen being on the fence. I hate to tell you, it doesn't happen being on the fence. You have to have your feet firmly planted in the camp of the Lord.

[29:55] And what's beautiful about this is this is why Christ came and died. God wasn't like, "Well, I guess I'll be really nice and send Jesus so that these people, so they don't have to go to hell, and then I don't have to deal with them anymore." No, He sent His one and only Son that whoever believed in Him shall not perish but have everlasting or eternal life. And Jesus says that, "This is eternal life, that they may know You and the one whom You've sent." The whole story of Christianity or Christ is about relationship, and that's why God has created and is calling you and is going, "Stop straddling the fence, my son. Stop straddling the fence, my daughter. Stop straddling the fence, because first of all, it's uncomfortable for you." It's uncomfortable to be going back and forth and on the fence and off the fence and in this camp and in that camp.

[30:45] It's exhausting. It's uncomfortable. And two, it's moving you from a greater relationship with the Father. And he continues in verse 38, "Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt offerings and the wood and the stones and the dust and licked up the water that was in the trench." And I'll tell you something, I love this. I love this. It shows the Father's heart. It shows the Father's heart. I want them to know that I'm drawing them back to Myself. If you don't hear anything that I've said this morning and you only hear this one thought, I want you to hear this. This is the main idea. When the odds are stacked against you, when you choose to go all in for the Lord, He will prove Himself true.

[31:33] When the odds are stacked against you, when you get off the fence and go all in for the Lord, He will prove Himself true. And here's the thing, I believe that on a macro level, we have this sense of, "Hey, I'm receiving Christ, I'm dedicating my life to Him. I believe He is who He says He is, that He came, that He walked this Earth as fully man and fully God, and He lived a perfect life, and He died on a cross, and He didn't stay dead, and He ascended to be seated at the right hand of God the Father, conquering sin and death for me. I believe that if I receive Him with my life, then I'll have salvation and heaven to look forward to and a relationship." And truly, that's good. That's the macro sense. I hope we are all there. But what you'll begin to realize is that almost daily, the Lord has these micro areas in your life where He's pointing out, "Hey, you're straddling the fence right here."

[32:26] Like, "Hey, with this one thing, would you be willing to go all in for Me? Let Me prove Myself true to you in this one area." And I think most of us in this room who would consider ourselves followers of Jesus would be very quick to say when asked the question, "Would you die for your faith?" You'd be like, "Let's go. I'd die for my faith. I'd be happy to." And that's great, but if you'd be willing to die for Him, then why is there an area of your life that you're not willing to get off the fence for? Why is there maybe an area of unforgiveness that you're not willing to step firmly in His camp and forgive as Christ has forgiven you? Why is there an area of life of bitterness, maybe, that you hold towards another person that you're not willing to step off that fence and step your feet firmly planted on the ground for Him?

[33:21] And I know that's tough, but as I was talking with the Lord, He was like, "Man, if we say that we would die for Christ, and yet we won't even do the simple thing and forgive somebody or step out of bitterness or give up our time to have a conversation with somebody who doesn't yet know the Lord, then would we really die for Him? Would we really risk it all for Him? Would we really put it on the line for Him?" And an example of this from my own life was back in Halifax when I made the decision, the Lord called me very clearly to go into full-time ministry. I did my internship and my first ministry job. I had the contract slid across to me, and I looked at it, and I get back to my car and I'm sitting there, and I call my dad and I was like, "Man, I don't know if I want to do this."

[34:13] And he's like, "Well, let's talk about it, son. What's going on?" And I was like, "Man, I knew I didn't do this. I'm not doing this for the money," but I was like, "Man, this is not what I expected." And my dad and mom challenged me quite a little bit, and essentially what they said to me after letting me weigh my opinion for probably a little bit too long, is they essentially imparted in me, "God has called you. He's made it clear. He's spoken to you. He's spoken to you through other people. Now let Him prove Himself true." They asked me the question, I don't know if they would remember it. They asked me the question that I've asked you, "Is your Father in heaven trustworthy?" And I'll never forget that.

[34:58] And the truth is, if you ask something of the Lord and He doesn't answer you in the way that you think that He should, like if you ask something of the Lord and He answers you, but in a different way, so that still means that He has proved Himself true. Maybe we just didn't like the answer because He still answered. Like, "God, answer me. Prove Yourself true." And sometimes He will, but He won't do it in the way that we expect or that we think that He should, but then He has still proved Himself true. And there's a ton of micro areas in our lives, whether it's finances or relationships or forgiveness, and this is a tough one. We go back and forth between trying to forgive and forgiving and holding on because it feels like maybe you have ammunition someday to fire back at somebody when you need it, and the Lord is giving you an invitation, "Will you go all in with Me? Will you plant your feet firmly on the ground so I can prove to you that I am true?"

[36:01] And we have all these things, and Elijah prayed, and fire from heaven fell down, and the Lord said, "I am here to prove Myself true, a lightning or a fire from heaven." And we have those moments where we just get it, and we realize where we've been straddling the fence and we plant our feet firmly on the ground, and then another fence comes up and you're like, "Ah, how did I get here again? How did I get into these positions?" And you go through these seasons where it's like, "Oh, I'm perfect" and "Oh, what happened?" And I truly believe that it's the mercy and the graciousness of our Lord. Because if He showed us every fence that we were ever going to straddle from now until the point that we die, I believe that we would curl up in a ball and give up. I believe that. If He showed us every fence that we're straddling and will straddle from here until the day that we die, that we would just curl up and give up. Because what is happening is when we follow the Lord and we listen and we spend time in His presence, there's something that we call the process of sanctification that's happening in our lives.

[37:05] Day by day, season by season, the Lord will reveal a couple more fences to you that maybe you need to give to Him. And I have a hunch here this morning that God is going to show you one thing, a micro area of your life in which you've been straddling the fence. Maybe for some of you, you started a business and it didn't work out the way that you wanted it to, and because of that you're like, "Man, I'm sitting on this fence of bitterness towards God because I did this for Him and it didn't work out the way that I thought it to." Maybe that's the fence that you need to say, "God, maybe You were teaching me something in that moment to humble me before You." Maybe for you, it's a relationship that you got into and it didn't work out the way that you thought it was going to, and it all fell apart, and you go, "God, I'm angry at You. I'm angry at this person because of the way that You've hurt me and they've hurt me." And God is going, "My son, my daughter, give it to Me.

[37:59] Lay it down at My feet. Trust Me." I can't help but imagine that there's something that the Lord has revealed to us where He's just asking us to plant our feet firmly in that area. And what would happen if we just gave Jesus our yes to the areas of the fences that we're straddling? Of our families, of our schools, what would they look like? Of our city. Could you imagine what would happen if 5,000 people, like we saw in the Colosseum, all said, "You know what? There's a fence that I've been straddling that I'm going to completely give to the Lord. I'm going to plant my feet firmly in His camp so that He will prove Himself true, not just to me, but to those around me who don't yet know me." What would our city look like? What transformation would happen?

[38:45] Because I do believe that when we go all in for God, that He will prove Himself true. And I think of my grandparents, to be truthful, because maybe you're sitting here and you're like, "I don't have a micro area that I'm on the fence on. Or if I have one, I don't really know it." And I'd like to just put forth that our relationships with the Lord is not just about how much scripture we read or how much we pray, or if we prayed, or if we read a scripture. Those things are important, and we need to do them. Please don't hear that I'm like, Sam's saying that we throw the Bible out and don't pray. That's not what I'm saying. That's not what I'm saying at all. Please do those things. But our relationship with the Lord is so much more than that.

[39:31] I believe that our Father in Heaven wants us to spend time with Him and sit in His presence. Because I think that there's a lot of people who know a lot about the Lord, but don't actually know what it means to sit in His presence. And I believe that that's where true transformation happens, is when we know, experience, and allow the presence of God to transform us and shape us like clay. And so, a perfect example of this is my grandparents. My grandmother and grandfather, they probably wouldn't remember this if you were to ask them, but growing up, my parents, when they'd go away to Halifax or would go somewheres, what they'd do is my parents would take me to my grandparents' house and we'd stay overnight. And first thing in the morning when they woke up, they would sit there with their Bibles and they would open and they'd read, then they'd close them. They'd spend some time in prayer.

[40:28] And then they'd just sit there with their cup of coffee. And I took note of this. After several times of this happening, eventually being young and curious, I asked my grandfather, I said, "What are you guys doing? You read your Bible, you pray, and then you sit there with your cup of coffee. Get on with your day. You got stuff to do, make breakfast, go somewheres, do something." And my grandfather, and just being good and showing me grace, he stopped me and he said, "Son, there are some things the Lord will only impart in you when you spend time with Him." And I was like, "Yeah, but what does that mean?" And he's like, "I just sit with Him." He's like, "I pray a simple prayer. I say, 'God, I give this time to You. Whatever it is You want to do, I'm not going to talk.

[41:13] I'm not going to ask anything of You. I just want to be with You.'" And I was like, mind you, I'm like eight years old. I'm like, "I can't wrap my head around that." And he's like, "Let me put it this way." He's like, "If I didn't spend any time sitting with your grandmother, not just talking, but just sitting with your grandmother, we're probably not going to like or know each other very much." And it dawned on me that we're really not the best at relationships sometimes. But I think sometimes we go to the Lord and we just ask things from Him, and our Father in Heaven is going, "I just want you to be with Me. I just want to show you the depths of My heart.

[42:02] I just want to show you the depths of My love for you." And maybe this morning, the reason that you don't have a fence that comes to mind or that you're straddling, maybe one, because you haven't asked Him, maybe two, because you don't actually know what it means to sit in His presence. And I would encourage you to take that time, to take time in the morning or before you go to bed, to sit there with your cup of coffee or your tea or whatever it is, and to simply pray, "Lord, I give this time to You. I'm not going to ask anything of You. I don't expect anything from You. I just want to be with You." And see what the Holy Spirit does. See what things He points out. See what He asks you to lay down at His feet.

[42:48] See how He encourages you. See how He shows you His love. See how He pours into you. And I can promise you that when you do that, He grabs a hold of you and He says, "My son and my daughter, I love you and I care for you, and I want you to know the depths of My heart." But I want you to slow down. So what I'm going to do is, maybe you know that thing, that micro area of your life, and we're going to pray that you give that to the Lord and that you're going to take a step off the fence, that you're going to plant your feet firmly on the ground. If you don't know that area, I'm going to pray that maybe the Lord in His graciousness and His goodness would reveal that to you, and if you don't know what it means to sit in the presence of the Lord, I'm going to pray that He would show you what that means and what that looks like in your rhythms. And so let's pray.

[43:46] Holy Father, gracious God, our wonderful Counselor, I thank You for the ways in which You move. I thank You for who You are, God. We don't love You for the miracles. We don't love You for the words. We don't love You for any other reason than You being You. And Lord, forgive us for what areas we've come to You expecting things from You and not even really caring about You. But forgive us for that. And so, God, we come before You humbly this morning asking that You would show us those micro areas in our lives where we are living on a fence and not having our feet firmly planted on the ground for You.

[44:36] Heavenly Father, would You show us the areas in our lives and the things and the people that we need to go and forgive, the camps that we need to jump the fence over to have our feet firmly planted in Your ground, God. I ask for the people that don't yet know You, that You would show them Your graciousness and Your goodness, Lord, and Your gentleness in spirit. That they would know the God of the scriptures, not what culture says about You, not what people online say about You, God, but what You say about You. And Heavenly Father, I pray for those that don't know what it means to sit in Your presence, God. I pray that they would give it a try. And God, as they sit there in Your presence and as they ask You to be with them and to spend time with You, God, I pray that You would impart in them such a grace and such a peace, Lord, that maybe they've never experienced before, they've never understood before.

[45:29] And Father, I pray that You would show them Your heart, You would show them the depths of Your love and Your graciousness for them. Father, we love You. We worship You. We praise You. You are the Lord. You are the God Almighty. You hold the universe in Your hands, Lord. If You decided to place Your feet on this Earth, God, we would be blessed. God, we love You. We worship You and we praise You. All in the powerful name of Christ Jesus. Amen.