Breaking the "Generational Curse"
The Rest of The Story Pt. 502 Kings 8:16 - 2 Kings 10:36 & 2 Chronicles 22:7-9Breaking The “Generational Curse”
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good morning welcome if you're new here among us my name is gene and i serve here at c3 church as your lead pastor and i wonder is there anyone here who is or let's just say considers themselves a well-rounded athlete and all the spouses are like no that is somebody who can do a lot of sports good right so if you're that person you are absolutely nothing like me if you know my history i was good at certain sports i was a martial arts professional for a while so you got to be kind of athletic to do that but there are certain sports that i am absolutely horrible at it's been proposed that we start a golf ministry here at c3 church and so the idea would be is that you'd get everyone suffering from let's say depression or lack of self-confidence and they would just go golfing with pastor gene i feel wonderful we're not going to do 18 holes i have too many bibles to read too many people to counsel we'll just go to the driving range right is that what it's called the driving we go there it'll be about five minutes you'll feel wonderful cut down on my counseling time and everything don't golf one thing though you definitely don't know about me probably only my close family knows is that i'm also horrible at baseball and that can be dangerous like absolutely horrible at baseball as a kid it's hard for me to recall ever hitting the ball ever that's kind of depressing but in my defense the professionals if they get it right one third of the time they're doing really good i can't think of another job where you can do that imagine that i come in gene you're doing great you're doing your job as a pastor about a third of the time really well right imagine that one so that's in my defense but my dad used to get really frustrated with me he'd be like come on he was one of those parents he's trying to coach me and i'm sure he was really embarrassed and i'm positive he tried to trade me in i'm sure of it i'm totally sure he tried to do that but he'd be coaching me like over coaching and one of those parents are really annoying over coaching me over coaching get really frustrated i'm striking out and you know it's like dad it's not my fault you made me this way right so i'd blame him speaking of blame you know i get to a story right i heard a story about a center fielder is that the right position that's in the middle right center center fielder and he was just messing up royally just not getting it right at all so finally the coach gets really frustrated with him he says you know what i'm going to do this and the team's like huh you know they're practicing not a real game like he's an older guy and they're like you sure coach you want to do that yep puts on the baseball hat the mit gets out in the field you sure yeah so fine batter up boom pops the ball up and it lands at exactly the right angle and distance to pop up and hit him right in the mouth so now he's like missing a tooth or something and they're like whoa get the coach off the field this is no good anymore he's like no he's like tough old guy i'm gonna keep playing okay next guy gets up crack line drive right at his eye he falls down they think he's dead he gets up can't even see out of the eye anymore he's like no i'm gonna keep going like you're crazy now i can relate to every single one of these things in the story just to let you know had them all happen especially the next one really embarrassing crack the ball goes up comes right down at the guy but now he can't see out of one eye the sun's in his eyes and it goes right over the glove and hits him in the other eye how'd that happen right so the sun is always in your eyes when that happens and now they take them off the field they're like forget this so he they get him back to the dugout and he can see well enough to approach the center fielder grab him and say you idiot you've messed up center field so bad that even i can't fix it uh we're going to talk about blame a little bit this morning if you're new if you haven't been watching online we are in a series called the rest of the story and we're going to be in it forever okay i'm just there's there's a lot of bible to read right but we are about honoring god's word here at c3 church it's very very important to us and what we have going on in the world a lot especially the church world is we kind of like hit the fast forward button on god right or we interrupt jesus a little bit we're like oh we'll really like this part but then not that not that not that not that oh this this story is cool everybody knows it but not that not that you know and we draw the simplest applications that won't bother anybody on a sunday morning in fact they flip it the other way they want to make you feel good about how you're messing up right so you're striking out great job you know one third of the time you're a christian awesome so that's what people want to hear but that's not how the bible reads it all so we honor god's word we honor the text and a part of this series is developing a culture of that which is important which is taking a look at all the parts that people don't want to look at all the time and we're seeing some great things especially at bible study light bulbs are going off people are really starting to get it imagine that when you honor god's word good things are going to happen wow so that's what we're all about here that's what we are doing so to recap we've been seeing the fulfillment of elijah's prophecies and so if you've been in church for a while you've probably heard of elijah right he gets taken up into heaven and the whirlwind the chariots all that stuff so that's him that guy you can go back and you can watch the messages you can catch up it'll take you like about a year and a half or so and watch all the videos and catch up to this point so what we're seeing here and this is why it's important to look at larger parts of the text so we can get the story we know what's going on and it makes sense because it's been a while but this is all connected so it's important to like get the full picture here i've given you that illustration the way most people read the bible would be like watching like one minute of a movie once a week yeah by the time three years went by you would totally forget the beginning and that's really what happens so this is a fulfillment of elijah's ministry it's really important he's going to do that through elisha so now he's already been taken up in the in the whirlwind he's anointed elisha to succeed him and then elisha will begin to fulfill some of this stuff so he's going to appear today too there's king hazel who's kind of annoying to israel in judah and now we're going to run into the third person fulfilling this so we looked at hazel of arum two weeks ago he killed ben haydad now we're gonna get to a part in the text that's kind of confusing normally i'm like oh it's simple guys and then i try to make it simple for you that's usually what i do and everyone's like no you don't at all but but anyway i try my best to make it simple here i'm going to give everybody a pass the names are ridiculously confusing and bible translators do nothing to help you in that at all whatsoever so when we get about half-ish through second kings eight that's where we left off last time we start to get introduced to some people one of them is joram or jehoram depending on what bible translation you read wait a minute there's also one of those in israel so we're going to get a little teaching today but it's okay i'll get back to preaching i want to show you a chart here and i just kind of ripped this one off the internet i can't take any credit for it at all so uh where it's dark those are like oh this king's better or this king's worse so don't pay attention to that also they don't line up with one another in parallel on a timeline it's not like you can look at it and go okay straight across that king is the king north south is like a civil war we're having but if you notice and i don't know my glasses on so i can't read that but you'll see that joram appears in judah but in israel there's also a king joram then there's an ahaziah in judah but then there was and asia in israel they're different people not the same king so it gets terribly terribly confusing and so some bible translations will say oh jehoram joram says in the chart same guy they try to change him sometimes try to make it less confusing but then it gets more confusing so you get a pass it's really difficult to keep it all straight so here we are talking about the kings of judah now we had jehoram in judah also quick note this one i did make not the drawing though i explained to you why inside joke you have different books of the bible running in parallel and that gets really confusing they're detailing the same account but they'll give different details today we get a lot more in second kings so that's where we're gonna stay robert you could advance that slide thank you and he'll leave it up dude he's very kind this morning normally he leaves that there just for a little while to torture me all right so here we are second kings eight starting at verse 25 ahaziah son of jehoram or joram began to rule over judah in the 12th 12th year of the reign of king joram or jehoram son of ahab remember the wicked king of israel ahaziah was 22 years old when he became king and he reigned in jerusalem one year his mother was athaliah a granddaughter of king amri of israel that's the guy who founded samaria if you've been following along ahaziah followed the evil example of king ahab's family he did what was evil in the lord's sight just as ahab's family had done for he was related by marriage to the family of ahab ahaziah joined joram son of ahab in his war against king haziel of aram so there's that guy who is appearing here at ramoth gilead when the arameans wounded king joram in the battle he returned to jezreel to recover from the wounds he had received at ramoth because joram was wounded king a haziah of judah went to jezreel to visit him sometimes judah and israel are at war sometimes they're not so that is one of these times they're making these alliances and they get worn through the prophets yo don't make these alliances they're wicked so if you noticed on the chart we won't go back that most all of the kings of israel are evil and then every once in a while in judah you get one who's like good-ish kind of so if we turn the page we're gonna get introduced to this person we'll see elisha appearing back in the account so these prophets weave their way through these accounts of the king second kings 9-1 meanwhile elisha so hang on to everything we just read elisha the prophet had summoned a member of the group of prophets get ready to travel he told them and take this flask of olive oil with you go to ramoth gilead and find jehu son of jehoshaphat son of nimshi call him into a private room away from his friends and pour the olive oil over his head say to him oil over his head it is probably olive oil say to him this is what the lord says i anoint you to be the king over israel then open the door and run for your life okay get what's going on here right joram is the king and so elisha by the lord is going to anoint jehu he's like this army commander to be king instead so this is going to be kind of crazy right so he goes and does it so ramos gilead will get there in a minute this is kind of on the border of israel and abram so they're just fighting here so that's where the army officers are jordan got taken away to just real because he got wounded so the prophet does it he goes into the room where jehu and his friends are hanging out and he says i have a message for you jay who says who you brings him into a private room does exactly as he's told pours the oil over his head anoints him king but he adds some stuff was that a bad thing no elisha could have told him he is a young prophet so he's speaking on behalf of the lord and he gives them these instructions you are going to kill all of ahab's family ahab's family and this includes jezebel the wicked queen you're going to kill all of them so that's his mission and then he reiterates a prophecy that we've heard a little bit before dogs will eat ahab's wife jezebel the plot of land in jezreel there's a city where he's going to go to and no one will bury her then the young prophet opened the door and took off he got out of there jehu goes back to his friends and they're like what did that crazy person say because he's just running around with olive oil everywhere pouring on people's heads and so jehu at first and it reminds me of the anointing of saul jehu at first doesn't fess up to it he's like ah you know how a crazy person just babbles on like that so similar to saul and his and his uncle when he asked him what's going on but different because they don't believe him they're like no you're hiding something what did he say and he says he anointed me king and so immediately their reactions to spread out their cloaks it says on the bare steps blew the ram's horn and say jehu is king so now he goes out on his mission and he tells the guys there hey don't tell anybody he's going to do so kind of covertly but then it doesn't make any sense because he's rushing at them all right so he has this whole i guess company with him of of his soldiers his officers and he's going towards jezreel so he's coming off the battlefront going to jezreel where he knows jay who is and also a heziah's visiting with him jezebel's there too so he's racing toward them watchmen on the wall sees him and says hey there's a company of soldiers coming all right jerome says send a messenger a writer out to find out what he wants the writer approaches them says to jehu do you come in peace jehu says what do you know about peace fallen behind me and absorbs the messenger so they said another one same exact thing happens what do you know about peace falling behind me now the guy on the watch tower is watching and he's like they're absorbing the messengers and he's driving like a madman it must be jehu and so this kind of gives us a window into his personality he's fairly aggressive and people know it so he's coming at the city now strange thing to do but joram and ahazaya get in their chariots and they go out to meet them now joram and asia they go out to meet jehu so they get there same thing do you come in peace jay who says how can there be peace when your wicked mother jezebel's around with her idols and her witchcraft now joram knows he's in for it so he spins his chair around tries to flee jehu shoots an arrow gets him right through the back and through his heart so she reminds you of how ahab died remember the random aramian soldier shoots the arrow and finds its way in a [ __ ] in his armor so he dies then he goes to his officer and he says because all this is happening now in the area of like let's just say naboth's vineyard if you remember that account and so he recalls the prophecy and he says throw his body out here and fulfill that so this is joram leave it here so it fulfills that nabas vineyard prophecy then king ahaziah of judah notices what's going on he tries to take off too jehu says shoot him so he gets shot he kind of lasts a little while longer to megiddo and then he dies and he's given an honorable burial okay so now here's what it says second kings 9 30. when jezebel the queen mother heard that jay who had come to jezreel she painted her eyelids and fixed her hair and sat at a window when jehu entered the gate of the palace he shouted she shouted at him have you come in peace you murderer you're just like zimri who murdered his master so she's recalling what happened king omri was after him which was her grandfather so jehu so she's like this kind of wicked cruella de vil kind of character right she's got to be classy and everything when she's about to die so jehu looks up and says who's on my side there's a couple of eunuchs there and so they look at her and they throw her out the window she falls down dies blood spatters everywhere that's not enough for jehu he tramples her body with his horse then he goes and gets a bite to eat what else would you do right so goes inside gets something to eat and when he's done eating he goes you know what go get that cursed woman bury her for she was a daughter of a king they go out to find her and this is gruesome but all that's left are hands her feet and her skull and it fulfills the prophecy of elijah and shall die there they won't there won't be anything left to bury so if we turn the page second kings 10 1 ahab he's dead already jezebel his wife dead had 70 sons busy guy living in the city of samaria so jehu wrote letters and sent them to samaria to the elders and officials of the city and to the guardians of king ahab's sons he said the king's sons are with you and you have at your disposal chariots horses a fortified city and weapons like you can fight as soon as you receive this letter select the best qualified of your master's sons to be your king and prepare to fight for ahab's dynasty just one more chart map thing okay give you a visual so you see how jehu is traveling along so he is writing from jezreel to samaria which is the capital city so this is kind of his path he's not quite there yet but the 70 sons are in samaria and so he's telling them he's writing a letter from jezreel to samaria saying get ready you're ready for war we're going to fight this guy likes to fight a lot so they freak out when they get the letter they're already killed two kings we can't handle this guy so they send her a letter of peace we'll do whatever you say we won't make a king be nice he goes um well i'll leave you alone if you send me the heads of all 70 of those sons this time tomorrow basically so they do they put them in baskets and they bring them to jezreel and present them so one of the messengers sees it jehu they did it he's like pile him up in two heaps at the entrance of the city gate he goes out the next morning and he does something kind of clever as brutal as he is he says listen this whole conspiracy is on me i conspired against my master i decided to do it i'm taking the blame for that but who killed all these so now they're joined with him in this conspiracy continues killing ahab's whole family now and now the 70 sons if you've been paying attention if you remember gideon's son abimelech how many brothers did he kill 70. so recalls these things it's nice to stitch them together so now here's what happened second kings 10 12 jehu set out for samaria along the way he was at betheke of the shepherds he met some relatives of king ahaziah of judah who are you he asked them they replied we are relatives of king a heziah dead we are going to visit the sons of king ahab and the sons of the queen mother dead take them alive jehu shouted to his men and they captured all 42 of them and killed them at the well of beckethen none of them escaped a hezias family so here he's going a little above he wasn't told to do that above and beyond he's very very zealous likes violence some would say a little out of control now just as a side note if you go to second chronicles 22 you're going to see some of this there but again we're not going to do that the account's much shorter but this is where they're running in parallel there now a really interesting thing happens which is kind of worth noting i want to point this out to you because it really shows you the value of being in the word or like knowing it really well because now a guy named johanna dabble just popped into the story and you're like where did he come from and what's the point it doesn't seem to make much sense jay who's like are you as zealous for the lord as i am he says yeah sure so come on up into my chariot he's basically saying let me show you something it doesn't seem to make much sense you're going to see him in the next scene johanna dad but who is this guy where does he come from if you're in the word a lot it'll sound familiar and you'll say oh i think that's somewhere in jeremiah like jeremiah chapter 35 because they're talking about the faithful reckobites right so that's his dad's name recap and they mention him as being very zealous right so you think about it these prophets are not there to deliver good news they're saying to judah in israel you're bad they're pronouncing judgment on them so they make a special note of the ricobytes and so johannadev is dead at this point in the story but he's used to highlight how faithful these people are so they basically do what i would call like a nazarite vow they're not drinking any alcohol and also says they live in tents so they just live in tents and they're just very faithful and they're following jahanadab's example so this is in the story to tell you look how incredibly zealous jay who is even in the face or presence of this guy this faithful recobyte so that's why that's there if we keep reading though second kings 10 18 then jake so he gets to samaria then jehu called a meeting of all the people of the city and said to them ahab's worship of baal was nothing compared to the way i will worship him what keep reading therefore summon all the prophets and worshipers of baal and call together all his priests see it to it that every one of them comes for i'm going to offer a great sacrifice to baal anyone who fails to come will be put to death but jehu's cunning plan was to destroy all the worshipers of baal so make that story short he's in samaria sends out the messengers they come the temple of baal the false god is filled with all kinds of people so he tells like the keeper of the wardrobe essentially put these robes on all the worshippers of baal then he furthermore says make sure there's nobody who worships the lord here get him out of here so then he makes a sacrifice and after the sacrifice he orders all his men to kill everyone so that was going to be an alternate name for the sermon jay who kills everybody almost likes killing so he kills all the worshipers ability they destroy the whole temple they throw their bodies out they level the place so that it becomes a toilet this is a public toilet even to the time of writing this account second kings 10 28 in this way jehu destroyed every trace of bel worship from israel he did not however destroy the gold calves at bethel and dan so those are the ones that jeroboam son of nebat had caused israel to sin with so that was a doubling down of aaron's sin in exodus 32. nonetheless the lord said to jehu you have done well in following my instructions to destroy the family of ahab therefore your descendants will be kings of israel down to the fourth generation but jehu did not obey the law of the lord the god of israel with all his heart he refused to turn from the sins that jeroboam had led israel to commit now if you're just popping in jeroboam is the first king of israel that appears there so if we jump down we get a summary second kings 10 34 the rest of the events in jehu's reign everything he did and all his achievements are recorded in the book of the history of the kings of israel when jehu died he was buried in samaria then his son jehovah has became the next king in all jehu reigned over israel from samaria for 28 years so we see a lot of things all coming together right so right from elijah it all comes full circle right here elijah's prophecies we have mentioned as i said of the jeroboam's calves the gold calves that they're worshiping and bethel and dan the prophecy and punishment going all the way back to naba's vineyard the punishment of ahab his sons his family his son dies like ahab does his entire family is wiped out at this point so we see here that the family of ahab and jezebel pay the price for the sins of their parents now some of these things we can understand we get it some of them are really hard to understand really ahab's whole family has to get wiped out because of this i don't get it some of you might even be thinking well what if some of these people were innocent that's kind of strange it's a little hard to swallow and indeed jehu as we saw he went a little too far killing people he should not be killing and next week we're going to see it has consequences you'll get introduced to a queen and again really did jay had did uh ahabs mixing two people jhab and did ahab's whole family really have to die there's an application here where we can acknowledge that yes some of the things that parents do will fall on their kids can have a negative effect on future generations but in order to understand what's going on here from a biblical perspective i want to draw your attention back to some of the verses that we looked at i want you to notice something and i'll explain this to you biblically and draw out an application and just in case well if if your application today your take away from the message was gee i really need to stop murdering so many people this might not be the best fit for you so we're gonna talk about something else second k uh i might get myself killed second kings 10 starting at verse 28 in this way jehu destroyed every trace of baal worship from israel he did not however destroy the gold calves at bethel and dan with which jeroboam son of nebat had caused israel a sin nonetheless the lord said to jehu you have done well in following my instructions to destroy the family of ahab therefore your descendants will be kings of israel down to the fourth generation where is he getting that from i want to explain a little something to you we don't really talk about it a lot here it doesn't really come up a lot here in this church but i've heard it in christianity this concept of generational blessings or curses you guys heard of that generational curses and it took me a while to really hear about that it wasn't until i ran into some like crazy christians that i started hearing about this but generational curses so it comes from the old testament right but i'm going to show you we're not under that anymore it's not really a thing but i'll explain to you kind of its origins and then help you get there so this is basically we can be cursed because of something our family did maybe down to the fourth generation so if we go back to exodus a lot of you know the story of the giving of the ten commandments so this is the initiation of the giving of the law so you get your ten commandments and then basically everything else is like an extrapolation from that a continuation from that so big important event what they celebrate on pentecost remember that so in that context he's given them out have any other gods but we get to 2 exodus 24 you must not make for yourself an idol of any kind or an image of anything in the heavens or on earth or in the sea you must not bow down to them or worship them for i the lord your god am a jealous god who will not tolerate your affection for any other gods i lay the sins of the parents upon their children the entire family is affected even children in the third and fourth generations of those who reject me but i lavish unfailing love for a thousand generations on those who love me and obey my commands now in the old testament the torah in particular it's kind of important because it's repeated it's about rejecting god numbers 14. remember they scout out the land and only joshua and caleb want to come back well the same type that type of thing is said in there it's reiterated again deuteronomy 5 reiterated it's important now here's the thing some people it took me a little bit to figure this out when i came into christianity because i didn't get raised into non-denominational christianity so i'd see different things happen and i didn't get it right away but when i became a pastor i caught on a lot of people will use this to go beyond normal consequences that their parents did like they got my family into trouble or something like that well beyond it to excuse their sin i didn't realize that that was its purpose and reasoning so they'll say things like i'm cursed that's it my parents sinned i have this generational curse uh-huh that's interesting so they use it for all sorts of things all kinds of sin and shortcoming the biggest one might be addiction right so my father was an addict and he never recovered so that's why i just can't recover from this interesting well i have these sins oh you know everybody in my family they all went to jail so that's why i went to jail all right they're thieves or whatever so i just i have this curse this generational curse it's just something that i do and you can extend it even to other things all kinds of other things that i've heard like why you might not have achieved certain things well you know it's my parents or my parents are stupid i'm stupid whatever it is but that's not what god says about you that's the thing right i'm not good-looking that's not what god says about you i'm not smart that's not what god says about you oh i'm just a sinner no you're a saint did you know that in the new testament when you see the word when paul's writing things like to all the saints you read that holy it's the same word in greek idea holy saints that's what he's calling them that's you the church i'm just a sinner that's not what god says about you read it in context again before you use those verses romans 3 we have all sinned it's not what god says about you furthermore these curses they're in the context first of all of the old testament we're not under the law anymore that's where they are back there in your past where you got to put all that garbage behind you it's in the past i thought the law is garbage but they're in the context of not obeying god of idolatry so think about it it's what it is in exodus idolatry ahab and jezebel what does jay have jay what does jehu call her i was getting serious there too jay who calls her what jezebel a cursed woman that cursed woman that's not you now as it relates to other sins well actually see if we keep reading the bible says the opposite it's kind of interesting we're actually going to get there quick in second kings 14 we're going to see an interesting thing messiah there's assassination attempts his dad's assassinated assassination attempts against him and he forgives it and he says the opposite the children don't get punished for the sins of their parents well that's interesting do we have a contradiction no as we've learned we need to keep reading right it clarifies as we go further so if we jump ahead to another prophet we get to ezekiel ezekiel's doing the same type of thing jeremiah is doing he's pronouncing judgment on them but something interesting happens there's this dialogue in ezekiel 18 and it basically explains this whole thing in long form ezekiel 18 and the basic point to make it short is well you know just because a father does something if the sun turns from it and corrects it i'm not going to punish the son for that and then it says this because the audience might be confused what you ask doesn't the child pay for the parents sins no for if the child does what is justin right and keeps my decrees that child will surely live the person who sins is the one who will die the child will not be punished for the parents sins and the parent will not be punished for the child's sins righteous people will be rewarded for their own righteous behavior and wicked people will be punished for their own wickedness if we keep reading we get some more clarification ezekiel 18 30 therefore i will judge each of you o people of israel this is who's being talked to now according to your actions says the sovereign lord repent and turn from your sins don't let them destroy you put all your rebellion behind you and find yourselves a new heart and a new spirit for why should you die o people of israel i don't want you to die says the sovereign lord turn back and live ah if we keep reading we get something very important ezekiel 36 25 then i will sprinkle clean water on you a future time he's talking about here and you will be clean your filth will be washed away and you will no longer worship idols and i will give you a new heart and i'll put a new spirit in you i will take out your stony stubborn heart like the tablets of stone the law was written on and give you a tender responsive heart how and i will put my spirit in you so that you will follow my decrees and be careful to obey my regulations and indeed that is what happens in acts on pentecost on that celebration tablets of stone in the past heart of flesh a spirit-filled heart if we go one more book further paul writes romans he's talking about struggle with sin in chapter seven a lot of people get that wrong i can explain that one to you at bible study and excuse away sin with that but if that was the point chapter 6 and 8 would make no sense he's talking about a new life and the spirit romans 8 1. so now there is no condemnation for those who belong to christ jesus and because you belong to him the power of the life-giving spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death it's freed you from it he gives this illustration about being a slave to sin previously the law of moses was unable to save us because of the weakness of our sinful nature so god did what the law could not do he sent his own son and a body like the bodies we sinners have and in that body god declared an end to sins control over us by giving his son as a sacrifice for our sins he did this so that the just requirement of the law would be fully satisfied for us who no longer follow our sinful nature but instead follow the spirit see if you didn't read that whole thing you could have plucked out a little bit there couldn't you it's important to read the whole thing you see jesus breaks the curse we're not under these generational cycles or curses anymore we're free by the power of the holy spirit free now just a quick note when we tend to look at these things i'm going to share something personal with you when we look at these things we tend to look at the negative right and some people relate to the negative well he did it i do that too but negative negative we can't miss the positive all the good that's in here the fulfillment of these prophecies what i just read to you don't stop on the bad read to the fulfillment keep moving forward we tend to do that even in our own lives don't we we look at the negative we don't move forward we spend our lives looking in the rearview mirror you're going to crash if you do that you've got to move forward and learn to see if you do analyze your past and this is something i've learned as i got older this took me a long time i want to save you some trouble if you're older than me sorry but i want to save you some trouble if you're doing this like i used to do this i didn't have a good relationship with my family especially with my father it was really hard really hard i used to say of him as i started to like mature the best thing i could say was he was like fine wine in a paper cup wonderful thing great advice sometimes but horrible delivery and that delivery would seem to cancel out all the good advice horrible i became angry hateful i was a very angry young so angry i had to lift a bunch of weights and become a martial arts professional that's how angry i was right left a career in music for that but i was angry angry blaming him for everything i could only see the paper cup that's all i could see was the delivery but when i came to christ he showed me the good i started to see some of the good in there i started to see some of the actual intentions going on there and realize that the anger the hate the blame had blinded me to the wisdom that was inside there we get blinded to wisdom by all this blame so through even the bad sometimes we can see the good jesus helps us with that we need to forgive we need to move on that's how it's done jesus's way leads to permanent restoration through christ we can clean house through christ we get a clean slate as i close you'll be told how you can connect with us we try to make it really easy so you can do that through our app you can do that with like paper connection cards at the tables or you can imagine this talk to me and we try to make that easy too we're going to have fellowship right after the service today but if that's you you've been like man i am looking in the rearview mirror too much if you're ready to move on connect with us we're not program church we're people church we love people we do it by building one-on-one relationships and so yeah you'll actually get a meeting with me or you'll get a meeting with carolee or heather or somebody here we want to develop a relationship with you that leads to christ person to person so that's why we have fellowship after the service i encourage you to do that come up see one of us you will shy fill out a connection card or online you might want to renew your commitment to christ you might not have known jesus before today you're all important we want to talk to each one of you let me pray lord i thank you for every single person who took the time to come in here today everyone watching online i pray that you just stir up hearts today i pray that you lead people to turn to surrender so that they can receive your holy spirit and they can begin to live lives of joy peace love kindness patience and self-control through you lord we're just so grateful for your sacrifice that has made this all possible we thank you we love you we ask these things in jesus name amen you