Kingdom I. Rising: Getting What You Want

Transcription

1 Kingdom I. Rising: Getting What You Want I Samuel 7-12 Dr. Matt Cassidy --- September 17, 2017 I look forward to our time together. We re going to learn some neat things about God today. [Prayer] Lord Jesus, we lift up this event in history --- that we would be able to find ourselves involved in it in such a way that we might identify with this group of people, these Israelis, and find ourselves making some of the decisions they make and living the way they live; that we might understand You in a new way today; that we would find confidence in who You are and what You do for us. Lord, open our hearts and souls to help us seek the truth, hear the truth, and respond to that truth. You are a great God and we want to know You more and more. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen. Did you ever run away from home as a child? I know probably a lot of you did. When I was thirteen I came down the stairs --- and I think I woke up and I thought, I m going to be especially stupid today. And so I sat down with my father and I said, I want to leave here as soon as possible. And he said, Okay, let s get out a pad and paper and maybe a calculator and see what this looks like. And he just talked to me about the cost of living and what it takes to live out in the real world and how at thirteen it s especially difficult. One of the things I took away from that is that it s really hard out there being a grownup. And I also found out I had it pretty easy at home. I had an identity: I was a Cassidy and we have a pretty good family tree and it s pretty good to be part of that family. I had free food and free housing. It turns out my parents had an ambition, a plan for my life and they were going to finance most of it. And so sitting before me on that table that morning was this choice between my identity and my provisions and Kingdom.3.cassidy 1

2 my protection and my purpose; or I could go live in a fort down the street that I had built. And I was thinking, I m not going to live in the fort; I m going to stay here. But the fact that I even thought about it --- you have to be way past naïve. I mean, I was in a good house. But I d have to be past naïve to stupid, ridiculously insane to think that I would leave so much so that I might have the freedom to destroy my own life. I just wanted to stay up late, you know. Gotta live in a fort to stay up late. So the question today that we re going to look at is what happens when people run away from God? What does God do? What happens when a nation runs away from home? How does God respond to that? How is God going to deal with a group of people who are constantly trying to get away from Him and all the things He provides? That s what we re going to look at today. Now to be able to do that, to see the power of this attribute of God, we re going to have to study five chapters. So forgive me, we re going to blaze through these. I found what I felt like were the most effective passages to read, so we ll be reading this together and we ll see the big picture at the end of this. If you re a Bible nerd I want you to pay attention to this because there s something very significant when we get to the end. It s inductive and you ll see that maybe. Now to get us up to speed to where we are in our third week of our Samuel series --- that s what we re talking about --- we saw that Israel is in this transition period of going from being ruled by judges to be being ruled ultimately by a monarchy, or kings. This is a big transition period of their time and, like many transition periods, maybe teenage years, these people are stupid. They are having crazy thoughts. And so the new bad guy that shows up to town is a group called the Philistines, and Israel goes to war with the Philistines. We don t need your help, God. They lose. And then they think to themselves, We ll just use God. We ll use God like a lucky charm. They take the ark of the covenant of the Lord into war with them, thinking that if they rub the lamp, God will do whatever they tell Him to do. This time they lose in a spectacular way. They lose their entire army, they lose three priests, and they lose the ark of the covenant of the Lord. In the next chapter, what I would consider a very humorous chapter, God shows Himself able to beat these fearsome Philistines with no help from any human beings. It s just the ark of Kingdom.3.cassidy 2

3 the covenant of the Lord. And He decimates them and humiliates them and they send the ark of the covenant of the Lord back to Israel with a lot of gold and an apology. After this, chapter 7, this is where there s a great repentance and there s this season of sanity. We re not going to look at chapter 7. This is when the people of Israel say, You know what? Maybe we should stay with the Lord after all. And they allowed Samuel, who s the hero of these stories, to be the judge. And they just do what Samuel says and peace and prosperity break out everywhere. They enjoy it. It s great to be in the house of the Lord. for fifty years. For one generation. And then they wake up like they re thirteen years old and they say, Let s do something especially stupid today. Let s be crazy. Let s run away from home! Let s run away from the Lord and all that He is for us. 1 Samuel 8:5 They said to him, You are old, and your sons do not follow your ways; now appoint a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have. 6 But when they said, Give us a king to lead us, this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the LORD. 7 And the LORD told him: Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected but they have rejected Me as their king. And that s where chapter 8 picks up. And it says, All of the elders gather themselves together and sit down with Samuel and tell him the way it is. Here s what he says. And they say to him, You are old and your sons do not follow your ways; now appoint for us a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have. But when they said, Give us a king to lead for us, this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to Jehovah and Jehovah told him: Now listen to all the people and all that they re saying; it s not that they ve rejected you, they have rejected Me, says the Lord. 1 Samuel 8:9 Now listen to them; but warn them solemnly and let the know what the king who will reign over them will claim as his rights. Kingdom.3.cassidy 3

4 It continues in verse 9: Listen to them, the Lord says. But warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will claim as his rights. We ll come back to warn them solemnly. But I want you to see why this is such an insane action to ask for a king. It s not because they re asking for a king --- that was always the plan. Deuteronomy 17, maybe you could even read it into the Abrahamic covenant --- but God wanted them to have a king. They re not asking for a king that would be a righteous, good king that could lead them in a righteous way. They re not asking for a king that could speak to God for them or could speak for God to them. They re not asking for a king that would be a model of faith and surrender to God. They re in trouble because they want a king to be like everyone else. They want to be like everyone else. They want to give up the very things that make them separate, special, like no other nation that has ever existed. They want to give up their identity, they want to give up their protection and provision, they want to give up their purpose so they can be like everybody else. Deuteronomy 4:32-34 from one end of the heavens to the other has anything so great as this ever happened, or has anything like it ever been heard of? 33 Has any other people heard the voice of God speaking out of fire, as you have, and lived? 34 Has any god ever tried to take for himself one nation out of another nation, by testings, by signs and wonders, by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, or by great and awesome deeds, like all the things the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your very eyes? The very thing that they should be valuing the most is the thing they re discarding. Do you hear that? Look in Deuteronomy how special this nation is. There s never been any nation like this since then. In Deuteronomy chapter 4 God says this about their identity --- from one end of the heavens to the other has anything so great as this ever happened, or has anything like this ever been heard of? Has any other people heard the voice of God speaking out of the fire, as you have, and lived? They got to live through that. Has any god ever tried to take for himself one nation out of another nation, by the testings and the signs and the wonders and war and a mighty hand and outstretched arms, or by great and awesome deeds, like all the things that Kingdom.3.cassidy 4

5 Jehovah your God did for you in Egypt before your very eyes? That s never happened before. You are a very special people. You belong to God. There s not even any stories or rumors or folklore or mysteries about this kind of god for you, Israel. Deuteronomy 4:37-38 Because He loved your ancestors and chose their descendants after them, He brought you out of Egypt by His presence and His great strength, 38 to drive out before you nations greater and stronger than you and to bring you into their land to give it to you for your inheritance, as it is today. Not only are you unique in your identity because he did this for you, but also He protects and provides for you --- the very next set of sentences. He says, Because He loved your ancestors and chose their descendants after them, He brought you out of Egypt by His presence and His great strength, to drive out before you the nations greater and stronger than you and to bring you into their land to give it to you for your inheritance, as it is today. He protects them, He fights their wars for them, He provides for them, He gives them purpose. He gives them identity, He gives them protection and purpose. The purpose is to be God s nation on the earth where he can bless the rest of the world through this nation. He does it first in the context of Moses and Joshua, then he does it through judges, but ultimately through a monarchy, ultimately through Jesus Christ. The world, the nations will be blessed because of You. And Israel says, Naaaah, I don t want to do that. Can you imagine being the owner of the Hope Diamond, in fact, the only one in the world --- you have to use two hands to hold this thing --- who knows what it s really worth, because no one could pay for it. And then somebody --- that person who owns the Hope Diamond --- looks over and says, But everyone else has, I don t know, limestone and little gravel chips, and so I don t want this thing of infinite worth. I want to carry around a little pet rock that s made out of granite or something. That s what they re trading. They re trading down. And they re trading God s view of them and purpose for them to be like everyone else. Kingdom.3.cassidy 5

6 God s Vision for Us Does that sound familiar? What s God s view for us? How does God look at us? And are we willing to trade that to be like everyone else? God s view of us has to do with identity and it has to do with purpose as well. 1 Peter 2:9 For you are a chosen people. You are royal priests, a holy nation, God s very own possession. As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for He called you out of darkness into His wonderful light. I see this as a verse for the year here Peter chapter 2. For you are his chosen people. He s talking about us now, not Israel. We are the chosen people, a royal priest, a holy nation, God s very own possession. And here s our purpose: And as a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for He called you out of the darkness into His wonderful light. That passage says that we have a new identity and we re no longer common; we are God s very own possession. We are no longer stumbling along in trivia speak and shallow living, but we have the purpose of showing others the goodness of God. He took us out of darkness and into the light. And what do we want? We look over the fence and we see the way other people are living and we say, Wow, I wish I had what they had. And you can have it if you put down this identity and this purpose. All I want is a little freedom to destroy my life. That s all we re asking. When we want to be like others, there s a cost associated with that. The cost is what God has given --- if we believe in what God says about us, our identity and our purpose, why would we want to leave that? But this happens so often. Many of our financial experiences around the church, we sit down with someone and say, Please do not make this financial decision. Because this much indebtedness is going to change your whole life. It s going to invade your marriage, it s going to cause you to be more stressed out than you need to be and cause friction that you can t afford right now. It s going to change the way you parent because you ll be so angry most of the time. And it s going to torque you and it s going to keep you from being generous when you want to Kingdom.3.cassidy 6

7 be generous, and you ll be hamstrung. Please, don t make this financial decision. And the answer is, I want to be like everyone else. Where do I sign? The Cost of Running Away 1 Samuel 8:9 Now listen to them; but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will claim as his rights. It s so costly to run away; it s so great to stay at home. So he goes into the cost of running away. Let me just remind you, verse 9: Now listen to them; but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will claim as his rights. And so if you ll look carefully at this next paragraph, six times it s going to say he s going to take. And he s also going to take your very best. Because that s what it s like to live outside the house of God. Let me just read along and see if you guys want to pay this bill or not. It says, This is what the king who will reign over you will claim to be his: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and his horses and he will make them run in front of his chariots. Some he will assign as commanders over thousands and some commanders over fifties, and others will plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others will make weapons for him and equip his chariots. Wait --- he s going to take your daughters. He s going to make them into perfumers and cooks and bakers. He s going to take the very best of your fields, your vineyards, your olive groves --- he s going to give those to his attendants. He s going to take a tenth of your grain and your vintage to give to his officials and attendants. He s going to take your male and female servants and the best of your cattle, the best of your donkeys --- he s going to take all of them for his own use. And he will take a tenth of your flocks. You want to pay this? Do you want to live outside that fort? That s not all. Kingdom.3.cassidy 7

8 1 Samuel 8:17-18 He will take a tenth of your flocks and you yourselves will become his slaves. 18 When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, but the LORD will not answer you in that day. The next thing he says: He will take you yourselves and you will become his slaves. And when that day comes, you re going to cry out for relief from this king that you have chosen, but Jehovah will not answer you in that day. And they said, Oh my, thank you for telling me how much this costs because I didn t realize all that I was losing in identity and protection and purpose. They didn t say that; they said this. But the people refused to listen to Samuel. They said, No! We want a king over us. 1 Samuel 8:19-20 But the people refused to listen to Samuel. No! they said. We want a king over us. 20 Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles. Kingdom.3.cassidy 8

9 Then we will be like all other nations with a king to lead us and go out before us and fight our battles. That s what they say. No. We still want to be like everyone else. 1 Samuel 8:21-22 When Samuel heard all that the people said, he repeated it before the LORD. 22 The LORD answered, Listen to them and give them a king. And when Samuel heard what the people said, he repeated it before Yahweh, and Yahweh said, Listen to them and give them a king. And they do. They get the king. And it costs them. It costs them what was unique to them and what should have been valued by them, their identity and the protection and provisions, their purpose in life. It cost them everything. And here s what really hurts, if you understand the chronology of this. They tripped on the finish line. They waited a thousand years for a king since Abraham s promise was given. They d waited over 400 years since Joshua had inhabited the Promised Land and they actually gained some real estate. They waited about fifty years when Samuel, the last judge --- fifty years. All they had to wait was forty more years. David was supposed to be the first king. That s the king that God picks. And if they had just waited forty more years they would have made it. You never trade down when you follow the Lord. You always trade up. If they wouldn t have tripped on the finish line, if they would have held their breath for one more generation, they could ve made it. But instead they go all in and lost it all. This happens in a lot of premarital counseling around here. It s one of the famous ministries here at Grace. It s a premier ministry, premarital counseling. We d love to call it preengagement counseling because it s not uncommon for us to say, Okay, now you two back away from this. Okay, listen to me. I think you guys are scared and kind of lonely. But in two years when you find out what loneliness inside of marriage is like, you re going to look back at your singleness and long for that day. Because loneliness in marriage is incomparable to loneliness outside of marriage. Do not get married. Do you want to come to the wedding? Is that a no, you re not coming? Because we don t need to send you an invitation. Okay. We want to be like everyone else and all our friends are married, so where do we sign? Kingdom.3.cassidy 9

10 1 Samuel 9:1,2 There was a Benjamite, a man of standing, whose name was Kish. 2 Kish had a son named Saul, as handsome a young man as could be found anywhere in Israel, and he was a head taller than anyone else. There s a cost for being like everyone else. And they pay it. They get their king. That s chapter 9 and 10. Ladies and gentlemen, the king you always wanted. Chapter 9 introduces him as There was this Benjamite, a man of great standing --- he s wealthy --- and his name was Kish. And Kish had a son named Saul and he was handsome and he was young as could be found anywhere in Israel, and he was a head taller than anyone else. There he is, he s our guy! He s on the cover of People magazine. 1 Samuel 10: 24 Samuel said to all the people, Do you see the man the LORD has chosen? There is no one like him among all the people. Then the people shouted, Long live the king! Chapter 10:24 says Samuel said to all the people, Do you see the man the Lord has chosen for you? There s no one like him among all the people. And the people shouted, Long live the king! Chapter 11 is a story about how God in his grace gives this King Saul a push start by His grace. He lets him win a battle so that the people can enjoy what s it s like to have a king. But Saul will not mention God or God s word as a means of direction or following for him. It s a foreshadowing of things to come. We ve gone through chapters 8, 9, 10, and 11, and so they have their king and he s prettier and taller than anyone else s king. He capable and from a good family. Ehhh he doesn t go to church much. But hey, but he s better than anyone else s king. Kingdom.3.cassidy 10

11 And then chapter 12 is what this has all been leading up to. This is what I wanted to get to. Listen, you Bible nerds, listen carefully, chapter 12. Because this is a courtroom condemnation and a confrontation of Israel because they ve chosen this king for the wrong reasons. And so the question that s being answered in this chapter is: What does God do with a nation that wants to run away from him? What happens to the people who reject God and say We want to live our own way? What happens? How does God respond to His people that say We don t want Your people any more. We want to be like everyone else. That s what chapter 12 answers. 1 Samuel 12:7 Confrontation Now then, stand here, because I am going to confront you with evidence before the LORD as to all the righteous acts performed by the LORD for you and your fathers. First Samuel confronts the people. Picture all of us in a courtroom --- it will make more sense that way. So in chapter 12, verse 7 Samuel says, Now then, stand here --- see how it s a courtroom? --- Stand here, because I m going to confront you with the evidence before Yahweh as to all the righteous acts performed by the Lord Yahweh for you and for your forefathers. And so Samuel gives this long history of how God was a faithful committed lover and protector of Israel from Egypt all the way through the judges, all the way to where they are now. Here s all the things God s done for you. 1 Samuel 12:12-13 But when you saw that the Ammonites were moving against you, you said to Me, No, we want a king to rule over us --- even though the LORD your God was your king. 13 Now here is the king you have chosen, the one you asked for; see, the LORD has set a king over you. Kingdom.3.cassidy 11

12 And then in verse 12 it says, But then you when you saw that the Ammonites were moving up against you, you said to Me, No, we want a king to rule over us --- even though it was Yahweh, your God who was your king. Now here s the king that you have chosen, the one you asked for; see, Yahweh has set this king over you. And then he says, Can this king provide for you? Can this king protect you like King God could, Yahweh? Let s see. 1 Samuel 12:16-17 Now then, stand still and see this great thing the LORD is about to do before your eyes! 17 Is it not wheat harvest now? I will call on the LORD to send thunder and rain. And you will realize what an evil thing you did in the eyes of the LORD when you asked for a king. And then He says this. Now he s calling down judgment on them. Now then --- here it is again --- Stand still and see what this great thing that Yahweh is about to do before your very eyes! Is it not wheat season now, the dry season? I m going to call on Yahweh to send thunder and rain and then you ll realize what evil you have done in the eyes of Yahweh when you asked for a king. You got a big, tall, handsome king. You run away from God and His identity and His provisions and His protection and His purpose for your life ---- I m going to call on God to rain in the drought and see how your king stops this. And crack, the lightening and the thunder blaze through the place and the people are judged by this storm. And that s when they realized, Uhhh... whoops. Living in a fort is not what we thought. We just wanted enough freedom to destroy ourselves and this is what s happening. 1 Samuel 12:19 The people all said to Samuel, Pray to the LORD your God for your servants so that we will not die, for we have added to all our other sins the evil of asking for a king. Kingdom.3.cassidy 12

13 And now, verse 19: The people said to Samuel, Pray to the Yahweh your God --- your God --- for your servants that we will not die, for we added to all of our sins the evil of asking for a king. So here they are, covered in rain, watching their crops wash down the canals and they ve come to their senses. They re living with the consequences of rejecting God and His provisions and power and they realized, Uh-oh, and so they repent. What can we do? And Samuel says, Well, you ran away. So they repent because of the consequences. But sure, that s all true and fine, but what does God do? That s what we ve been talking about today. That s the big question --- what happens when we run away from God? What does God do? How are we supposed to live in light of what He s going to do to us? 1 Samuel 12:20 Do not be afraid, Samuel replied. You have done all this evil; yet do not turn away from the LORD, but serve the LORD with all your heart. Chapter 12, verse 20, Samuel says, Do not be afraid. You have done all this evil; but do not turn away from Yahweh, but serve Yahweh with all your heart. Turn away from evil and turn towards Yahweh. Here s what he s saying. He s saying, You guys ran away from home, but home never moved. You guys left, but God is still here. You come back to Him and He will receive you again. He s saying that God will open His arms to you, but you have to come back. And so why? They demanded a king four times and they finally get one. And God says, If you come back to me I ll take you. Why? What is the motive in God s heart that would take this rebel nation back again? What is God thinking that would help us make sense out of His reception if, according to Samuel, they repent? Why would God do such a thing? 1 Samuel 12:22 For the sake of His great name the LORD will not reject his people, because the LORD was pleased to make you His own. The next verse is going to give us two reasons and these two reasons are going to tell us a lot about God. Listen. For the sake of His great name Jehovah will not reject His people. Two --- Because Yahweh was pleased to make you His own. Kingdom.3.cassidy 13

14 What in the world in all of creation? Because of His great name He will not reject you. In other words, that phrase means because of who He is. Because of the very nature of God. Because He is the promise keeper and the promise maker and He s the one that does not move. And He is Yahweh. And for His great name s sake --- by the way, this is not an Old Testament value. 2 Timothy chapter 2, it says, While we were faithless, the Lord remained faithful. He s the rock. We left the rock, come back to the rock, and it hasn t moved. And the second reason it says because He loves them. The Lord is pleased to make you His own. He s pleased to make these guys His own. Why? Don t ever try to answer that question. Love is stronger than reason. Pascal said, The heart has reasons that the mind could never understand, and this is one of those. Outline of a Covenant Why? I don t know why. It s because of His name s sake, the nature of who He is, and He is pleased just to call us His. Now, Bible nerds, does this outline or language sound familiar to you at all? The language he s using, the outline, which is especially important, how he introduces the characters and then he goes through the history and then writes out the expectations and then has a miracle seal, and then has a signing? That outline is a covenant. And that outline is very pronounced in the minds of the people listening. The covenant is a very important thing. It s so important that we named our church after it. Because this is the grace covenant God, and so we named this church the Grace Covenant Church because covenants are the means by which people communicated to each other commitment. And this outline was used for centuries between kings and their people. It s called the suzerain vassal treaty. And everybody knew the outline. And so when they heard chapter 12 start rolling out, they re thinking, Wait a minute. You know some of you guys that are in communities --- love languages? This is the love language of God to His people. They knew this language, is what I m trying to tell you. I m trying to tell you that when they heard chapter 12 they thought, Wait a minute. This is a covenant renewal ceremony. And it makes sense that the same ceremony was used when they left the desert. It makes sense that it happened at the beginning of Joshua, before they entered the conquest. It makes sense that they did it at the end of Joshua when they finished the conquest. What doesn t make sense is that after we ve run away from Kingdom.3.cassidy 14

15 God and rejected His identity and rejected His purpose and rejected His provisions, He s making a covenant renewal right here. Let me put it another way. They show up to court. It says stand twice. Stand and listen to the judge. And what does the judge say? They re in this court of law and they re thinking it s a divorce court. And we left Him, we cheated on Him. This is it. Now read the decrees of the divorce. And then God starts repeating His marriage vows. I will never leave you or forsake you. For better or worse. For richer or poorer. That s what they heard. Because it was in the form of a covenant and God was renewing the Mosaic covenant at this time --- to this runaway nation. The Story of the Prodigal Son Some of you, if you re not the Bible nerd, you missed the punch. But hey, if it doesn t sound like a covenant renewal, could it possibly sound like another story that you might know? The most famous three-act story that s ever been told? There once was a man and he had two sons. And the younger son said I want to run away from home. I want as much money as I have coming to me. Give it to me now. And that young son, it says that he went off to a faraway land, because he wanted to get as far away from his father as he possibly could. And he squandered his wealth on wild living, it says. Act I, a little boy sick at home. Act II, a boy homesick. Because then it says that the young man ran out of resources and a drought hit and he found himself in need, living with the consequences in a fort. He hired himself out to work for a pig farmer. It s a Jewish story. Jews and pig farming --- the worst type of humiliations. And it says this. He s working with these pigs and he longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything. How long do you have to live in that fort before you start looking at pig slop and thinking, I wonder if there will be any left over for me? And then and then and then when he came to his senses Sick at home, homesick, home again. It says his dad was always looking for him and he saw his at a distance and had great compassion for him. And so the father ran. A gentleman walks, he never runs. And he ran and he grabbed his son and he hugged his son and the son said, You know, Father, I have sinned against heaven and I ve sinned against you. And I don t deserve to be called your son. I ve just Kingdom.3.cassidy 15

16 come back to look for a job. And the father said, Get me. --- See, when you re in the house of God, it s not about what you lose, what the king takes. When you re in the house of the Lord, you get. It says, Get me the best robe. And he puts the best robe around his son and a ring. You re not an employee. You have my identity. Get him some shoes. You re no slave. You can run the place. Kill the fatted calf. We are going to celebrate tonight, because this son of mine that was lost --- he s found. This son of mine that was dead ---- he s alive. That s what God does --- when runaways come home. Does that story sound familiar? God hasn t changed. That s the way He does things. These are Jesus words. He says there is so much rejoicing in heaven when that one runaway returns, more so than for the ninety-nine that don t repent, they don t do anything. And why does He do that? Why does the Father run? Why does He drape him in the coat? And ring, and the shoes? For His name s sake. Because that s the way He is. And He enjoys loving us. Don t think about that. Just drink it in. Chapter 12 in 1 Samuel is a covenant renewal ritual to remind us of the nature of God and the way He is. Does anyone want to remember a covenant today? That s what this is. This is a covenant. Not a renewal, but this is a covenant reminder --- communion, the Lord s table. And this is how we do it at our church, at Grace. If you re a believer in Jesus Christ, it s a family meal --- we d love you to dine with us. And if you don t mind ---- if you ll just hold your bread and drink until we all drink it together, because it is a communal event. Anybody need to come home? You guys can start passing out the bread right now. Three things in Israel, three things in the story of the prodigal son. You have to come to your senses. You have to see that there s a need you have and only God can meet that. You need to come to your senses. And two, you need to take responsibility for the decisions that you ve made. That you were insane, you were crazy, you made choices and used your freedom to destroy your life, and the lives of other people that you loved, I bet. And you take responsibility for that. That s what the bread will be in our time together. Coming to our senses and doing an inventory of what we might need to do to make things right. Come on home. Come on home. Kingdom.3.cassidy 16