Now we're going to read from the scriptures. This evening we are in 1 Samuel. I'm going to read chapter 16. As you're able, I invite you to stand to receive the reading of God's word. Now the Lord said to Samuel, how long will you mourn for Saul? seeing I have rejected him from reigning over Israel. Fill your horn with oil and go. I'm sending you to Jesse the Bethlehemite for I have provided myself a king among his sons." And Samuel said, how can I go? If Saul hears it, he will kill me. But the Lord said, take a heifer with you and say, I have come to sacrifice to the Lord. Then invite Jesse to the sacrifice and I will show you what you shall do. You shall anoint for me the one I named to you. So Samuel did what the Lord said and went to Bethlehem and the elders of the town trembled at his coming and said, do you come peaceably? And he said, peaceably I have come to sacrifice to the Lord. Sanctify yourselves and come with me to the sacrifice. Then he consecrated Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice. So it was when they came that he looked at Eliab and said, surely the Lord's anointed is before him. But the Lord said to Samuel, do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature because I have refused him. For the Lord does not see as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. So Jesse called Abinadab and made him pass before Samuel, and he said, neither has the Lord chosen this one. Then Jesse made Shammah pass by, and he said, neither has the Lord chosen this one. Thus Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel, And Samuel said to Jesse, the Lord has not chosen these. And Samuel said to Jesse, are all the young men here? Then he said, there remains yet the youngest. And there he is keeping the sheep. And Samuel said to Jesse, send and bring him, for we will not sit down till he comes here. So he sent and brought him in. Now he was ruddy with bright eyes and good looking. And the Lord said, arise, anoint him for this is the one. Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers. And the spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward. So Samuel arose and went to Ramah. But the spirit of the Lord departed from Saul and a distressing spirit from the Lord troubled him. And Saul's servants said to him, surely a distressing spirit from God is troubling you. Let our master now command your servants who are before you to seek out a man who is a skillful player on the harp It shall be that he will play it with his hand when the distressing spirit from God is upon you and you shall be well. So Saul said to his servants, provide me now a man who can play well and bring him to me. Then one of the servants answered and said, look, I have seen a son of Jesse, the Bethlehemite, who is skillful in playing, a mighty man of valor, a man of war, prudent in speech, and a handsome person and the Lord is with him. Therefore Saul sent messengers to Jesse and said, send me your son David who is with the sheep. And Jesse took a donkey loaded with bread, a skin of wine and a young goat and sent them by his son David to Saul. So David came to Saul and stood before him and he loved him greatly and he became his armor bearer. Then Saul sent to Jesse, saying, please, let David stand before me, for he has found favor in my sight. And so it was, whenever the Spirit from God was upon Saul, that David would take a harp and play it with his hand, then Saul would become refreshed and well, and the distressing spirit would depart from him. This is the word of the Lord. Let's continue now in our worship. We're going to sing this time from the Trinity Hymnal, number 125, My Heart Doth Overflow. We're at the point in the book of Samuel where we come to the life and the kingdom of David. And David, just by the amount of space devoted to him, he is the most significant Old Testament king of Israel, David gets more coverage than all of the other kings of Israel and Judah. Like, just consider the statistics. David is, he's just one of about 40 plus kings and a few queens of Judah and Israel. Scripture devotes 40 entire chapters of text to David, 40 chapters of text to David, but to all of the other rulers combined. All of them combined, scripture devotes only 46 chapters total. So like monarch for monarch, David gets nearly 40 times more coverage than every other ruler of Israel and Judah. But though the Bible gives so much space to David, it would be a mistake to think that David is the main focus. The main focus is God, and the main focus is on how God makes David significant. The main focus is on what God is doing with this man, this king, David. And so, beginning tonight and in the months to come, we will see what God's big plan is, what God's big plan is with David. So we're gonna start with the life of David, the kingdom of David, and as we begin, let's see what God shows us about himself, about himself in David's life. So three things from our chapter tonight. First of all, the God who sees the small, the God who sees the small. And then secondly, the spirit who fills the chosen, the God who sees the small, the Spirit who fills the chosen, and then thirdly, the Son who soothes the trouble. And so we'll go through each of those. First of all, the God who sees the small. We're looking at verses one through 12. And in this account, God sees the person that no one else notices, the person who's not even invited. God has searched for the entire country And he has selected someone that no one else sees. Verse one, it says, God rejected King Saul. And so Samuel's grieving. Samuel is mourning. He grieves for Saul. He grieves for what Israel could have had. But the Lord says, Samuel, get up. He says, get ready to appoint a new king. I've seen, I've selected who should be the new king. Now, from the human level, what God is instructing Samuel to do, from the human level, this would be treason. This is the beginning of a plot to remove the current administration. It would be, in human terms, a rebellion to replace the current king. But in this case, it's not. a human who's putting forward a new king. Samuel is not leading a rebellion. It's the Lord, and the Lord is the legitimate kingmaker, and the Lord is the legitimate kingbreaker. And so when you look back on human history, you can see nations rising, you can see nations collapsing, you see rulers taking power, you see rulers losing power. The Bible reveals that the hand of God is moving all of the affairs of state. You know this not only from this section, but also places like Daniel 2. Blessed be the name of God forever and ever, for wisdom and might are his, And he changes the times and the seasons. He removes kings and raises up kings. It's also in the New Testament, Luke 1. God, the Lord, has put down the mighty from their thrones and exalted the lowly. And so God challenges Samuel, God challenges us. Bring that interpretation into your politics. Like why is this party in power? Or why is this person losing office? God is sovereign in the affairs of government. And that has got to dial down your anger, your agitation, your anxiety about politics. But not just politics. Bring that interpretation, bring that recognition of God's sovereign hand, bring it into your personal life. Like maybe you're moving up in the world, you're moving up on your team. Maybe your investments are gaining and growing. God raises up. But maybe it's going the other direction. Maybe your marriage is starting to crumble. Maybe your health is eroding. Well, God who raises up is also the God who brings down. But if you know If you know that God is at work, whether it's in drought or it's in rain, whether it's in poverty or it's in plenty, you know where to direct your concern. You know where to direct it. You know where to direct your complaint. You know where to take your fears. You know where to bring your gratitude. Can you rise in the morning and can you say, thank you, Lord. Thank you for another day. Lord, you give. Lord, you've taken away, blessed be your name, Lord. And so the Lord has taken away the kingdom from Saul, and the Lord is giving the kingdom to another. And the Lord tells Samuel that the time for tears, it was appropriate, but now the time for tears is over, it's through. Take your anointing oil, go to the man who will be the new king, and Samuel is scared. Verse two, he says, if Saul hears it, he will kill me. This looks like rebellion against the crown. And so, verses two through five, the Lord tells Samuel, conceal the truth. Conceal what your mission is. Give only part of the truth to the people. The Lord tells Samuel to camouflage his anointing mission. Now, you might be thinking, is God telling Samuel to tell a lie? Like that's a valid question because we know that God says lying is a sin. It's a ninth commandment violation. Now, we're not gonna get all spun up in this. We're not gonna dig deep in it, but just let me say there's a difference between deceit and concealment. There's a difference between deceit and concealment. To deceive someone, that means you speak false words. You present something untrue as true. Like you say, I'm late. Guys, sorry I'm late. It was because of traffic. But there wasn't traffic. You just didn't plan well and it's a lie. It's deceit. Lying is wrong. God is not a man that he should lie. We know that. Numbers 23. But let's distinguish lying from Concealment, and what Samuel's doing is concealment. Concealment is when you do not give all of the truth to someone. For instance, you arrive late. And perhaps the reason you arrive late is because you and the other person in your car, your spouse, you were having a quarrel. You were having a quarrel about Thanksgiving plans or something like that. And that quarrel meant you were sitting in the parking lot or sitting in your driveway hashing things out, trying to come to some kind of reconciliation, and that's why you're late. Now, here's where the concealment comes in. If you come in late, and people are like, oh, you're late, you don't have to reveal all the reasons I mean, you can, you can reveal it, you can reveal that you were quarreling, you can reveal that one of you was being a fathead, but you can also conceal that information. Not everyone, not everyone has a right to all of that information. It's appropriate, it's good, it's okay to conceal things in these kinds of situations. So here, the Lord tells Samuel to conceal the truth from Saul. Saul does not have the right to know all of God's plans or all of Samuel's actions. Now, in verses six through 12, Samuel interviews all of Jesse's sons. He knows God has said, I've selected one of the sons of Jesse. God sent Samuel to this father, Jesse. From Jesse, I've selected the man to be a king, one of these sons. And one by one, from oldest to youngest, Samuel sees a son of Jesse and thinks, well, this is the person. Like one son is tall, and he's strong, and he's handsome, and Samuel thinks, this guy looks like a king. Verse seven is the key verse to this chapter. Verse seven, but the Lord said to Samuel, do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, because I have refused him. For the Lord does not see as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. Do you see what the Lord is saying here? He's saying we only see people superficially. Like a person might be looking for a marriage partner, and maybe you're taken up with a person's figure. Maybe you're taken up with a person's great hair, or their style, or their financial holdings, or their position in the community. The Lord says people look at the outward appearance, but the Lord does not look at the things that people look at. The Lord sees things that people don't see. The Lord values things that people don't value. People look at the outside, but the Lord looks at the heart. Now, isn't it easy to judge people too quickly? I mean, I know that I do, but it really does seem like the further that I go in life, I've come to expect that there is more to a person than what I see. And if I'm impressed with a person, I know that there may be unpleasant surprises to come. And if I meet someone and I'm just initially very put off by them, I expect that they probably have a hard story that's worth hearing. Samuel, as As old and as experienced as he is, he's still learning this lesson, and so we wouldn't be surprised if we also continue to learn this lesson. Seven times, the next son of Jesse stands before Samuel. The Lord says, this is not the one the Lord chose. But Samuel reviews every son of Jesse who comes to this service. None of them are the Lord's anointed. And so Samuel asked Jesse, are these all of your sons? So verse 11, Jesse says, well, there yet remains the youngest. He's away, he's keeping the sheep, and it's David. This is when David first comes into the Bible. He's the youngest son, he's a shepherd, he's caring for the sheep so that the rest of the family can be at this town gathering that Samuel has summoned. And so they send for David. And the NIV translates verse 12 this way. So he sent for David and had him brought in. And then it says, then the Lord said, rise and anoint him. This is the one. Now the scriptures emphasize that David is the last. Like there's all this buildup in the narrative. It's rising to this dramatic point. David's the last. He is the youngest son in a culture that prized the eldest. He's the youngest son in a society that gave the highest respectability, the highest responsibility, the highest honor to the eldest. Well, David's off at the very end of the line. He is the last. So the dramatic escalation of the text makes this point. God chose the low person. God chose the last person. And not just that, God sees the low person. God sees the person who isn't included. God sees the person who was not invited. Have you ever had a situation, maybe even recently, where people were doing things? They were getting together. They were having a Halloween party, and they didn't invite you, but you found out, and you thought, well, you invited them. I wasn't invited, I wasn't included. God sees the person who wasn't invited. God sees the person who's at the back in the fields taking care of things so that everyone else can go to town. You know, if the organization was audited, and the auditor came to the people and interviewed all the people, and the interviewer asked all the different people, who is the most significant person in this organization? No one would have said David. His own father didn't include him. No one considered David to be significant. And so, are you at the bottom of the list? Maybe you're not even on the list. Are you the person? who doesn't get invited. Are you the person who serves, but you have this sense that you've been serving, and you've been serving for a long time, but you've got this sense that you've got little significance. You've got very little significance to everyone else. You've got very little honor. What the text is saying, and what I want you to hear is this. God sees you. God sees what you're doing. God sees who you are. And if you're a follower of Jesus, Not only did God select David, if you're a follower of Jesus, Jesus selected you, God selected you, and that gives you an importance, a recognition, an honor beyond what people in the rest of the world see. People all around in the world used to talk a lot about self-esteem, about developing a healthy sense of self-image and self-worth and self-love, but that can only get you so far. Because sometimes the truth is, you aren't so great. You aren't notable. The truth is, in so many ways, we're all average. That's why it's average. And few, if any, people will see something that they notice about you. But if you are chosen by God, This is your value. If you are chosen by God, this is how God esteems you. 1 Corinthians 1, the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty, and the base things of the world, and the things which are despised. God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in his presence, But of him, you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, that as it is written, he who glories, let him glory in the Lord. That's where you can glory. That's where your glory is. It's in the Lord. And so don't you see, You may just be a humble Christian boy, a humble Christian girl. God sees the small and he makes them great. He gives them glory. And so that means you can serve in a position, in a place, in some ministry or some obscure place that probably will never get recognized and called up to the podium. That means you can serve in a position that gets little recognition. You can serve in a ministry that seems like it only touched a handful of people, maybe a few over the years, decades, only a few, like a dozen or so people. You can have gone as far as you will ever rise in the organization, and that's okay, because God sees your faithfulness, and God sees you, and God saw how you endured hardship with contentment, and God saw how you stayed in relationship with people who were slow, and just so trying, and you kept the heart of compassion all those years. Now we see the God who sees the small. Next, let's look at the Spirit who fills the chosen. The Spirit who fills the chosen. 1 Samuel 16 verses 12 and 13, the Lord said, arise, anoint him, for this is the one. Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers, and the Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward. David is, he's the anointed one. Samuel anoints David with oil. He pours out oil on David's head. It's a symbolic act. It says, this is the person God chose. This is the person God placed. So it's like when they anoint many other significant people for a significant work. They anointed Aaron, the first high priest. And so the anointed one, especially when we're talking about the monarchy, The anointed one is frequently the designation for the king who is appointed by God, the person selected, installed into office by God for that work. And the oil that was poured on the person's head, it identified the person who was chosen by God, and the oil flowing over the person's head, it symbolized a divine spiritual action. The oil symbolized the spirit of the Lord upon a person. So all through the Holy Spirit, this divine spiritual action, the Spirit coming on a person for a work, when the Spirit comes upon a person, this divine power and this divine presence, it's like it infuses the person with the power to do the work that God gave them. So the Spirit of the Lord comes over a man, and now he's got the power to rip the gates off of an ancient city wall and carry them miles away, or the spirit of the Lord comes over a man and suddenly he's got this fighting power and he's able to defeat a thousand enemy warriors with only the jawbone of a donkey in his hand. And the Spirit of the Lord here comes over David. It's a spiritual anointing to give David power and wisdom to be the king of the nation. The Holy Spirit comes upon David from that day forward. And in the Old Testament, the filling of the Spirit, it was occasional. It was unusual. It was rare. But one of the great surprises when you go from the old covenant into the new covenant. One of the great surprises in the New Testament is that for every person who believes in Jesus for salvation, that same Holy Spirit is poured out in fullness on every child who believes, on every man who believes, on every woman who believes. Places like Acts 2, It shall come to pass in the last day, says God, I will pour out my spirit on all flesh. Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. Your young men shall see visions. Your old men shall dream dreams. And on my men servants, and on my maid servants, I will pour out my spirit in those days. Every believer, young and old, male and female. So here's the principle. That's part of the theology, the biblical theology of the Holy Spirit, but here's the principle here, another principle. Those God selects, he equips. Those God selects, he equips. Those whom God calls, he supplies. So as a follower of Jesus, Jesus calls you to take up your cross daily and to follow him, to obey him, to enter into the life of being changed into a person who loves Jesus and who keeps his commandments. And so he calls you, he calls you, and those who he calls, he equips. One of the ways that he equips you to take up your cross daily, to enter into this whole person transformation He gives the Holy Spirit in fullness to you. That call to imitate Jesus, that would take a miracle, wouldn't it? How can you change from being a bitter and resentful person to becoming full of compassion? How can you change from being addicted to being self-controlled? How can you become a godly parent when all that you ever had modeled for you was horrible parenting? How can you deny the desires of the flesh and put on the new person? How can you enter into this new calling he's given you, whether it's college, or a new career, or a new avenue of ministry? God calls you to do all that, but God will also supply the power and the fullness of the spirit that you need. Jesus says in John 15, When the Helper, that's the Holy Spirit, when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, he will testify of me. Jesus is saying, for what I've called you to do, to preach and declare the gospel, I'm going to supply what you need. I'm gonna supply the Holy Spirit, and he's going to do the testifying of me through you. And so, believer, you have in you, the dynamic life inside to do, to be all that he calls you to do and to be. And so you can be grateful. You have not been sent on a journey without any fuel in your tank. And you can labor and you can plow in whatever small part of the vineyard God has set you. You can labor and plow with hope. The Holy Spirit, divinity, dwells in you. And you can, by God's grace and by His Spirit, you can overcome temptation. You can, by God's grace and by God's spirit, you can overcome the flesh, and you can, by the spirit, overcome the world and the devil. You know, sometimes we approach our sanctification, sometimes we approach our responsibilities. Maybe it's just your job, your studies. Sometimes we approach our responsibilities with this kind of pessimism. And we say, well, I'm just being realistic. But we approach them with pessimism, like, I can't be a witness. My outreach is probably just going to fall flat on its face. When I get together with relatives this Thanksgiving, I'm probably going to get into the same stupid feuds that I get into every year. I will probably never get rid of my porn problem. The doctrine of the indwelling Holy Spirit means you've got hope. You've got hope by the Spirit, in the Spirit. Your ministry really does matter, and it may bear enduring fruit. And by the Spirit, your fractious relationship with your mother, it can deepen in love, even if it's only just on your side of things. And in the Spirit, your dependence your dependence on whatever it is, whether it's shopping or video games or food, it can shift. It can shift into a dependence on the Lord, a delight in the Lord. Where in your sanctification, this is my question for you, where in your sanctification have you lost hope? Where in your parenting have you lost hope? Where in your discipleship or in your dating Where in your good works that you're attempting to do day by day, where have you lost hope? The Lord supplies the spirit to those he chooses, to those whom he calls, to those he appoints into these various responsibilities. The Lord supplies his spirit to you. So nurture that, draw on that, hope in that. So we've looked at the God who sees the small. We've looked at the spirit who supplies those who are chosen. Finally, the son who soothes, the son who soothes the tormented. And here we're looking at verses 14 through 23. In this part of the passage, who's tormented? Who is tormented? It's King Saul. And why is Saul so tormented? Well, Because of his disobedience, the Lord has taken the kingdom away from Saul, but there's more. Not only has the Lord taken away the kingdom from Saul, the Lord has taken his spirit from Saul. Verse 14, the spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and a distressing spirit from the Lord troubled him. Not only has Saul lost his hold on the crown, Saul has lost the spirit. The spirit of the Lord departed from Saul. Saul would have experienced a profound sense of abandonment. The Lord was with me, but now the Lord has left me. And Saul's gonna find himself capable of some of the most horrendous acts of abuse and murder. And not only has the spirit departed from Saul, it says, verse 14, a bad spirit from the Lord torments him, tortures him. This scene, it recurs repeatedly in the chapters ahead. We're gonna look at it more in the weeks to come, and you might have all these questions about, about God's culpability in all this. Like how could God permit or even send a spirit of torment? But just for this week, I just wanna look at the effects of this bad spirit. Saul is troubled. Saul is just bound up with despair. Saul isolates himself from other people and he starts feeding thoughts of paranoia and jealousy. Saul's living in this personal hell. It's a dark place of inner agony and dread, even though the sun is shining. even though the kingdom is still in his hands today. And even though everyone else around Saul wakes up in the morning, they all go to work, they eat supper, they walk around in the sunshine, but verses 14 and 15, God has sent a troubling spirit upon you, Saul. And so Saul's emotional and spiritual anguish, as you read this, it's almost palpable. Saul's a troubled, troubled man. And people pity him. And in one of many ironies, they look for a musician to soothe Saul when he goes into the dark place, and they select David, verses 16 through 19. Like first, this is just what's one of the ironies here. First, Samuel selects David, and now for a second time, David's selected, Saul selects David. Now prove two brief observations. First of all, what we see here is sometimes non-spiritual acts gives spiritual relief. Sometimes non-spiritual acts give spiritual relief. Like Saul has a spiritual problem. Saul has a bad spirit from God tormenting him. And Saul becomes paranoid, suspicious of his friends. And Saul becomes murderous and despairing. And largely, his troubled state is spiritual, it's caused by a spirit, not by mental illness in his case, not by a thyroid disorder in his case. There's a difference. But even in the case of this particular spiritual problem that Saul has, a non-spiritual action gives Saul relief. What gives Saul relief? Music. When a skilled person plays music, Saul gets relief. from the troubled spirit. It's temporary, but it is effective. The dark moods return, but the music gives Saul temporary relief. This illustrates, this is one of the many points that illustrate the doctrine of common grace. The doctrine of common grace, it's a teaching that God gives a grace. It's a grace that's common for all people, not just believers. God shows grace and can even produce good from all people. Christians and non-Christians. God's common grace includes discoveries in medicine, in science, beauty, in the arts, in technology. Believers and unbelievers, because of God's common grace, can learn and do and produce things that work good in this groaning world. Even something like music. can give a troubled soul like Saul temporary relief from his spiritual trouble. And so maybe doctors, maybe medicine, maybe a walk in the sunset could help someone who is troubled. Now, second, this is another one of the ironies. We see this. David shows kindness to this man David shows kindness to this man who will one day try to kill him. You probably know the rest of the story with David and with Saul. Saul's now king, but David has been anointed to be the king, to follow Saul. And when Saul finds out, he gets this fixation. He becomes so jealous, so insecure, so destabilized, he tries to murder David many times. For David, Saul becomes this nightmare in law. But look at just this scene. David, he's identified repeatedly as the son of Jesse. David soothes the tormented King Saul. Verse 23, and so it was. Whenever the spirit from God was upon Saul, David would take a harp and play it with his hand. Saul would become refreshed and well, and the distressing spirit would depart from him. A more wooden, more literal translation could read, when David played music, Saul would become good, and the evil spirit would leave him. When David played, Saul would become good, and the evil spirit would leave him. By David's skill, Saul, wracked with evil, became good. All of this is a picture that's just a developing picture across the big story in the Bible. It's the big story, not really about David and Saul, these kings. It's the developing big story in the Bible that shows the goodness and the wonder of the true King, Jesus Christ. David is just a historic prototype of the great son of David who is to come, Jesus. Like first, look at the wonder of the smallness of Jesus. David was the smallest, David was the lowest. Well, Jesus Christ came as a small man. Jesus Christ came as the forgotten man. Jesus Christ came as the uninvited man. Isaiah 53, he, Jesus, was despised and rejected by men. We did not esteem him. But Jesus is the one who also not only became the small man, Jesus is the one who sees the small person. And Jesus is the one who invites those who no one else would invite. Jesus surrounded himself with those who were small, not those who were big. Jesus surrounded himself with those who were poor, not rich. He surrounded himself with those who were unrighteous, not the righteous. Isn't Jesus wonderful? Like who else is like that? The great people in the world, they surround themselves with other stars. They surround themselves with people who are great and big, not with tiny people, not with insignificant people. But that's not what Jesus is like. But see not only the wonder of the smallness of Jesus, see the wonder of the comfort of Jesus. Jesus is the comforter. The Spirit's the comforter, but Jesus is also the wonderful counselor. David was the only son who could soothe the torment of the king. Jesus is the son who soothes the tormented. Jesus is the wonderful counselor, the great physician, the comforter of troubled souls. He says, come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest for your souls. How did Jesus do this? How did Jesus become so small and yet become the greatest comforter? How did Jesus do this? Jesus became the most troubled person. Now my soul, he said, is troubled. And what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour. but for this purpose I came to this hour. He said, like Saul who was tormented, he became the most tormented. He said, my soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. As he faced the cross, Jesus lost all composure of his heart. He got all the torment that our sin deserved, but Saul feared losing the throne. Jesus lost his life. Jesus lost his peace with God. Jesus got the wrath of God that we deserve. Jesus lost his peace with God so that we can get the comfort of God and the love of God and the certainty that though the spirit left Saul, Jesus will never leave us. Jesus will never forsake us. Jesus became small. so you could become great. Jesus become a shepherd so that you who are lost could be found. Jesus became the comforter in your troubles. He sends you the spirit of comfort. My question to you with all of this and this description is, does Jesus appeal to you? Is there any beauty in this of Jesus? Is there anything lovely in him to you? Is there anything worthy of your praise? If so, can you comfort the troubled? Let's pray. Jesus, you came to us and you gave up all your comfort and became troubled so that we who are troubled and evil could be comforted, so we who are evil could receive your goodness. And Jesus, if you did that, and your ways and your priorities are just completely unlike anyone else, anything else we see in the rest of the world, we think you're great. We think you're beautiful and worthy of our adoration. We love you. We think you've done all things well. And we pray in your name, amen.