It all started that shocking Sunday morning when 183 Japanese warplanes attacked America's Hickam Field. The devastating results were 2,433 deaths, the destruction of 18 U.S. warships and 188 airplanes. The fateful December 7, 1941 surprise attack on Pearl Harbor left the nation stunned as President Roosevelt called the United States to war.

The work force quickly diminished with American men enlisting. Who would "man" assembly lines in factories to produce the needed items for the war? Filling a gross shortage of manpower, through the factory gates flooded an army of woman power.

Throughout the war, articles and ads placed in magazines by our government caught women's attention. One of the most popular ad launches is one where a woman in a short-sleeved work shirt with some muscles most of us wouldn't want to mess with carries this caption, "We can do it!"=

That poster launched in 1942 when Pittsburgh artist J. Howard Miller was hired by the Westinghouse Company's War Production Coordinating Committee to create a series of posters for the war effort. Miller based his "We Can Do It!" poster on a United Press photograph taken of Michigan factory worker Geraldine Doyle.

In addition to Geraldine Doyle, more than six million female workers helped build planes, bombs, tanks and other weapons that would eventually win World War II. These "Rosie's" stepped up to the plate without hesitation to accomplish what only men had done before them. They heard the call, and, in response, became streetcar drivers, operated heavy construction machinery, worked in lumber and steel mills, unloaded freight and much more.

 Although many of the jobs held by women during WWII were returned to men after the war ended, the U.S. workforce would never be the same again. Sybil Lewis, who worked as a Lockheed riveter during those years stated: "You came out to California, put on your pants, and took your lunch pail to a man's job. This was the beginning of women's feeling that they could do something more."

Inez Sauer, who worked as a Boeing tool clerk in the war years, put it this way: "My mother warned me when I took the job that I would never be the same. She said, 'You will never want to go back to being a housewife.' At that time I didn't think it would change a thing. But she was right, it definitely did. At Boeing, I found a freedom and an independence that I had never known. After the war I could never go back to playing bridge again, being a club woman . . . when I knew there were things you could use your mind for. The war changed my life completely. I guess you could say, at thirty-one, I finally grew up."

As we talked about in our Father's Day sermon where we used the illustration of how we relate to our earthly fathers as children, thinking 'daddy knows everything." A few years later, as teens and young adults, we name our dads as out-of-date or old-fashioned, and, as we mature, we recognize how much our fathers did know and, regardless of your age, it's time, as Inez Sauer shares about her work at Boeing, for us all to grow up. It's time, isn't it, for all of us to embrace today's scripture? It's time, isn't it, to catch the prevailing 'yes, we can' attitude, and let this two-month series on discipleship really take hold? It's time, isn't it, for those who've experienced Jesus pick us up off the road be of action?

To embrace this 'yes, we can' attitude, given to us from the Samaritan, first, stop doubting. That's the first of your sermon notes this morning. Stop doubting.

Like our Rosies, that Samaritan on the road that our scripture describes, had no room in his heart for doubt. He had no room in his heart for worry. And this is significant because he wasn't an EMT for our ambulance company with specific training in how to care for the wounded (and the wounded, as you read this correctly, is any of us at any given time).  No, the text says, he (the lowly Samaritan, the unreligious of the three) was on his way as were the two before him. But his way, unlike those before him, included God. His way said, "There is something I can do." His way said, "I have a heart and hands." His way said, "I can."

Too often today our way says, "I can't." I'm only one person. I can't. We're a small church. We can't.

So enough! Drop doubt. As Inez spoke of change a moment ago with what her mother warned her about, you too, when you take the job, you will never be the same.

Take the job. You're big enough to handle this.

Prominent evangelist Leighton Ford tells the following true story of himself and Billy Graham, a man he has worked with for some thirty years. Ford says, "I was speaking at an open-air crusade in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Billy was to speak the next night and had arrived a day early. He came incognito and sat on the grass at the rear of the crowd. Because he was wearing a hat and dark glasses, no one recognized him. Directly in front of him sat an elderly senior who seemed to be listening intently to my presentation. When I invited people to come forward as an open sign of commitment, Billy decided to do a little personal evangelism. He tapped the senior on the shoulder and asked, "Would you like to accept Christ? I'll be glad to walk down with you if you want to." The old man looked him up and down, thought it over for a moment, and then said, "Nah, I think I'll just wait till the big gun comes tomorrow night." Billy and I have had several good chuckles over that incident. Unfortunately, it underlines how, in the minds of many, evangelism—helping someone on the road—is the task of the "Big Guns," not the "little shots."

But this isn't how big you are, or how powerful you are. This is about your doing what you're not only called to do, but equipped to do. When asked, as these Rosies were asked, the response is yes, you can.

So stop doubting. There's no room for it. Instead, love the Lord with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind. That's our second point. Love the Lord with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind.

If you did that—and, let's be honest, you are not doing that—or you're not doing enough of that yet—you'd give God the chance he's asking for. Consider the possibilities! If you gave God your heart, your soul, your strength and your mind—and that includes all the minor and truly petty misgivings you have about this church and its true growth potential—then you've busted through this whiney, self-depreciating, self-destructive, church destructive mentality, and honestly, yes, it's time for that.  Honestly, yes, having seen where God has taken you so far, if you see where God has taken this church so far, then it is time to trust God more.

I mean you sit here, week after week. You name and claim God in your life, you rely and rest on God in your times of joy and in struggle, but ultimately you don't trust this. "Oh, no, no, no," too many think as we waddle on down the road. "I can't help that one, and I can't do that. There's no time, no money, no interest." And when you do that, when you think that, you're saying, truly now, that God won't provide.

Catch the dichotomy. You know in your soul that God provides, but you haven't been the agent to help God do what God does, and what God does is give people what they need.

It's time today, on our road to discipleship. Embrace the "yes, we can" attitude.

The only vantage I have from this place in the church versus where you are is that I can, in one sweep, see more easily the whole group. In seeing this group today and in weeks and months past, I know what you want, and what you want is already here. It's God. And God loves you, and in a myriad of different ways, you love God. Fact. Now, with this love, and here's our final point this morning, with this love, go and do the same. It's the very last part of our scripture today. Find it in your Bible or on the scripture sheet. It's the end of verse 37. Go and do the same.

Go and do the same.  Don't stall. Don't hem. Don't haul. Go. To go, set down your doubt, and, with your whole heart, your whole soul, your whole strength, and your whole mind, go. Great because you are small; and small because you are great in that you are giving—go. Remember Leighton Ford and Billy Graham. Remember Geraldine Doyle, the first model of the first Rosie poster, and Inez Saur, that worker at Boeing, for both women who, like the Samaritan didn't doubt, they did! You can go. We'll hear more inspiring stories next week of more Rosies, and you'll relate to them more fully when we gather here next week not if you sit back, not if you boo hoo through the week, but if you take this: love the Lord with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind.

Our government asked for help in the darkness of World War II. Your God is asking for help with the darkness in the world today. Now go.

Oh, and yes, with God who never leaves your side, you can do it.