Restored

[SPEAKER_01]: And what I want to talk about today is probably one of the most famous parables, which is really very popular, and it's in Luke chapter 15, and it's going to be the prodigal son.

Luke 15 · chapter mention

[SPEAKER_01]: Being Father's day I thought it was fitting, we'll go ahead and read it.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is Jesus talking, and he says, a man had two sons.

[SPEAKER_01]: Give me the share of the estate that I have come to coming to me, so he distributed the assets to them.

[SPEAKER_01]: Not many days later, the younger son gathered together all he had and traveled to a distant country, where he squandered his estate in foolish living.

[SPEAKER_01]: After he had spent everything, a severe famine struck that country and he had nothing.

[SPEAKER_01]: Then he went to work for one of the citizens of that country who sent him into the fields to the pig to feed pigs.

[SPEAKER_01]: He longed to eat his fill from the carapods, the carapod is the carapod is the carapotries.

[SPEAKER_01]: They look like little beans come like green beans almost.

[SPEAKER_01]: So he was longing to eat those.

[SPEAKER_01]: From the care positive pigs were eating, but no one would give him any.

[SPEAKER_01]: When he came to his senses, he said, how many of my father's hired hands have more than enough food.

[SPEAKER_01]: And here I am dying of hunger.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'll get up, go to my father and say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven.

[SPEAKER_01]: and in your sight.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm no longer worthy to be called your son.

[SPEAKER_01]: Make me like one of your hired hands, so he got up and went to his father.

[SPEAKER_01]: But while the son was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion.

[SPEAKER_01]: He ran through his arms around his neck and kissed

[SPEAKER_01]: The sun said to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, I no longer worthy to be called your son.

[SPEAKER_01]: But the Father told his slaves, quick, bring out the best robe and put it on him, put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.

[SPEAKER_01]: Then bring the fatten calf and slaughter it and let's celebrate with the feast.

[SPEAKER_01]: Because the son of mine was dead and his life again.

[SPEAKER_01]: He was lost and is found, so they began to celebrate.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let's pray, Father, thank you for this word, Lord, to thank you of this wonderful image of your grace, mercy, Lord, who just pray that you would open up your people's ears in the heart today, Lord, to receive this message in Jesus' name, amen.

[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, this is the first time I've used the iPad up here.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, forgive me, I usually write an old school on paper.

[SPEAKER_01]: Um, so today, the title of my message is simple.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's just called Restored.

[SPEAKER_01]: The story has always been one of my favorites, not just because of the picture it shows of God's grace, the mercy and love, but because it reminds me so much of myself, and I'm sure a lot of you can relate to that same thing.

[SPEAKER_01]: Some of you have heard about my past about 20 years ago, all of the completely different different person than what you see today.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I want to take some time today and share a little bit of my testimony with you guys because I think it's important to understand that me being up here as a leader, I want you to understand where I've come from and what God has done in my life.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I just think that's important.

[SPEAKER_01]: My prayer is that it will bring some hope to someone, maybe one of you that is struggling, whether it be with your struggle with the same things that I did, or maybe your parent or a friend of somebody that is.

[SPEAKER_00]: Um, so if it's okay, can I share a little bit of my story with you guys today?

[SPEAKER_01]: All right, so, um, again, my name is Robert, got in there.

[SPEAKER_01]: Start real easy.

[SPEAKER_01]: Um, no, I had a pretty normal childhood.

[SPEAKER_01]: both my parents divorced when I was five.

[SPEAKER_01]: My dad moved to this area.

[SPEAKER_01]: We were from Ablin, Ablin, Texas.

[SPEAKER_01]: My dad moved to this area when I was probably seven or eight years old.

[SPEAKER_01]: I was still with my mother.

[SPEAKER_01]: I decided to follow him here.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I came to live with him.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think I was in fifth grade or so.

[SPEAKER_01]: And man, one of the, my dad was awesome.

[SPEAKER_01]: He would take me to do all kinds of things, football, cowboy games, ranger games.

[SPEAKER_01]: He was my baseball coach for so many years.

[SPEAKER_01]: But really, my problems began whenever I stopped playing CD League baseball, and I went to high school.

[SPEAKER_01]: I had a try out kind of for baseball and they kind of told me one of the teams already fooled and that was really my first bout with rejection and it really kind of did something to me and I was kind of like you know it was baseball something I love if you guys don't know me I love baseball.

[SPEAKER_01]: Um, so it kind of just turned me away and then I just kind of started hanging with the wrong crowd.

[SPEAKER_01]: So by the time I was in, I was 13 years old and I was great, but by the time I was 13, I was just smoking cigarettes.

[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, then I started getting into, uh,

[SPEAKER_01]: 10th grade, I was starting to use marijuana by 11th and 12th grade.

[SPEAKER_01]: I was doing hardcore drugs.

[SPEAKER_01]: Kids are here, but I'll keep it PG.

[SPEAKER_01]: But the hardcore drugs you can think of.

[SPEAKER_01]: But

[SPEAKER_01]: After I graduated, which I barely made it, I spent a lot of time in Saturday's school, by time I graduated, I was pretty much a full-blown drug addict.

[SPEAKER_01]: I was still living at home to time, and then I got really bad into crack cocaine.

[SPEAKER_01]: Around that time I met Jen.

[SPEAKER_01]: I was around 1999 when we met.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was a long time.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we're old y'all.

[SPEAKER_01]: If y'all didn't know, I'm about to bust out my readers here in a minute.

[SPEAKER_01]: You'll know how old I am.

[SPEAKER_01]: Um, so about a year after that, um, we got pregnant with our, with our oldest son, Jen had two kids, um, before that she had, um, uh, our oldest daughter and then, uh, son, our son Vincent.

[SPEAKER_01]: Um, but our son together was, uh, was born about a year later.

[SPEAKER_01]: Around that time, this kind of really kind of sent me down the wrong path was when my grandmother died.

[SPEAKER_01]: I was really close to my grandmother.

[SPEAKER_01]: And she never got to see any of my kids born.

[SPEAKER_01]: She passed away right around that same time.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think a couple of weeks after Jacob was born.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that really just kind of sent me down this spiral.

[SPEAKER_01]: I was mad at God.

[SPEAKER_01]: I Didn't understand why you would take my grandmother Accounting used that as an excuse just to get high That's that's what just what I did By 2002.

[SPEAKER_01]: I was introduced to meth and fedemines and It really became my drug of choice from then on

[SPEAKER_01]: 2003 we had a list of Marie back there, even with all these, you know, with the kids coming and stuff, you know, I couldn't, I could just couldn't dig myself out of this whole of addiction.

[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, to be honest, I don't know if I really wanted to be out of that whole.

[SPEAKER_01]: I just enjoyed what I was doing at the time.

[SPEAKER_01]: But within that year, I had lost my job and just only one thing you do when you're a drug addict and you lose your job, you start selling drugs to support your habit and to get whatever money you can.

[SPEAKER_01]: One of the biggest things that I regretted from back then is that that was around the time where Jen had asked me, hey, what's it like?

[SPEAKER_01]: So in order so she wouldn't be on my case about us, I let her try it and that was a bad decision because we both of us using at the same time was just not good.

[SPEAKER_01]: from then we moved on from apartment to apartment.

[SPEAKER_01]: I couldn't stay clean and went from job to job, just kind of floated around, got made enough money, sometimes to get back into selling dope.

[SPEAKER_01]: In 2005, I tried to get clean a little while, and we decided to get a house with my dad in Grand Prairie.

[SPEAKER_01]: Around that time, my youngest son, Matthew, was born.

[SPEAKER_01]: I get a good job, and I stayed clean for the most part.

[SPEAKER_01]: There was a lot of weekend using, a lot of drinking, things like that.

[SPEAKER_01]: By 2009, I started using meth again, those little weekend parties would turn into more and more and more, and then by that time I was back on meth.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's a scripture in Matthew 12 where it talks about an unclean spirit that comes out of somebody and then sees that you clean up your act, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: And then it sees that the house is clean and then the unclean spirits come back and they bring a lot more of their friends.

[SPEAKER_01]: So that's kind of the same thing with addiction whenever you get clean but you don't replace it with anything good then those those spirits they come back but they come back worse and that was my problem.

[SPEAKER_01]: So again the cycle starts I start selling again this time it's different becoming a little more successful making a little more money like a lot more money doing it actually

[SPEAKER_01]: And then the lifestyle started to take over.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, everything's Garface.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I thought it was Garface.

[SPEAKER_01]: I really did, man, because I thought it was that cool.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let me get into a little part of the story.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's very sensitive to me.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, probably as a gen.

[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't really ask her if I could do this, but I'm sure she'd be right with her.

[SPEAKER_01]: If it around this time, I started seeing other women.

[SPEAKER_01]: There was a time where she was actually seeing someone else as well, one of my good friends at the time.

[SPEAKER_01]: I had a car that was in the shop and I brought the car home because my dad had pretty much been done with me He told me to come get your stuff.

[SPEAKER_01]: He had that all my stuff lined up in the foyer So I get there with the girl To pick up my stuff while we're inside.

[SPEAKER_01]: They come take the car.

[SPEAKER_01]: I just got out of the mechanic shop and took off and

[SPEAKER_01]: The only other car that was there at the time was my dad's work truck.

[SPEAKER_01]: I grabbed the keys, I grabbed my pistols, put them in the truck, I followed them, or tried to follow and find them, I found them on a traffic light, pulled up next to them, I pulled my gun out, and walked up to the window, and

[SPEAKER_01]: Jin was sitting in the passenger seat.

[SPEAKER_01]: I was ready to shoot them both, so I looked in the back of the car and I saw my kids sitting back there.

[SPEAKER_01]: Later on that day we wind up both back at our back

[SPEAKER_01]: destroyed my dad's door and his room, so I bet that didn't, and then I leave.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, the cops were called.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now they're, now I've got a warrant out from our rest for assault.

[SPEAKER_01]: So after that, I just kind of,

[SPEAKER_01]: I just kind of made my own way and did my own thing.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I had two or three different apartments that were all paid for with drugs.

[SPEAKER_01]: I stayed in one, she was kind of in one, because my dad had gotten tired of her stuff and put her out as well.

[SPEAKER_01]: So for the next year or so, I'm out there selling, robbing, going in and out of jail.

[SPEAKER_01]: By the end of 2010, I'm pretty much sick of it.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you've ever been in that lifestyle, you know how it is.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, it's constant watching your back, constant looking over your shoulder, and I was just tired of it.

[SPEAKER_01]: People just take in stuff from you, taking advantage of you all the time, because you're the guy who's got the dope.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I was missing my kids with all that fight that we had, our kids were taking away from us because the CPS was called.

[SPEAKER_01]: I thank God my dad was able just to keep them in the home there and take care of our kids for us while we tried to get ourselves together, which really at the time we weren't.

[SPEAKER_01]: We would get randomly drug tested and we would fail.

[SPEAKER_01]: So the future of my life and her life and our kids lives, which is kind of up in the air, just because of our poor decisions.

[SPEAKER_01]: Say the least our lives were a complete mess.

[SPEAKER_01]: On February 3, 2011, probably maybe some of you guys remember this time, but, man, it was real bad ice storm that night.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was so bad, like, I mean, inches of ice.

[SPEAKER_01]: Earlier that day, I had this big deal going down where I was buying over a pound of methamphetamines and I was getting rid of a bunch of it to one person and then the rest of it was going to be mine to distribute.

[SPEAKER_01]: That day was also the first day that our kids were allowed to come.

[SPEAKER_01]: By this time, me and Jen had kind of reconciled a little bit.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're trying to work things out.

[SPEAKER_01]: We had an apartment together.

[SPEAKER_01]: Again, trying to get our lives back together.

[SPEAKER_01]: But I just couldn't leave that lifestyle.

[SPEAKER_01]: But it was the first day our kids had come to visit us in our new apartment.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I remember being there and after all those deals had gone down and Jim was begging me not to leave and I was like, I just gotta go get rid of this stuff real quick, I'll be right back.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, little did we all know that I wasn't gonna be right back.

[SPEAKER_01]: I would drove, made a couple of deals and it was only me and one other car on the road that night and that car happened to be a cop.

[SPEAKER_01]: This cop, and I had a pretty good relationship.

[SPEAKER_01]: We knew each other very well.

[SPEAKER_01]: He used to come to my apartment, looking for information on people.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I'd be like, oh, man, I don't know.

[SPEAKER_01]: I ain't seen them in a long time, but it was a regular thing.

[SPEAKER_01]: So remember, I had a warrant out for my arrest for assault that I never took care of.

[SPEAKER_01]: I had another one out for my arrest for having a prohibited weapon, which I was supposed to have.

[SPEAKER_01]: I got busted for previously.

[SPEAKER_01]: He kept telling me, man, you need to go take care of those warrants.

[SPEAKER_01]: You need to go take care of those warrants.

[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll take care of him one day.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, that night, it was just me and him on the road.

[SPEAKER_01]: I was in this beat up single cab Chevy truck, half of the side was smashed, you couldn't even get on that door, but he pulled me over, like, two blocks from the police station.

[SPEAKER_01]: And he walks up to my window, he's like, man, what are you doing out here?

[SPEAKER_01]: His flashlight went right to where I hid my dope.

[SPEAKER_01]: And he said, you got any dope on it and said, nope, he said, all right, we'll get out of the car.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's like, well, who's this?

[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, I don't know, man, it's not my, you know, that's the thing you say when you get buses, y'all seem copyrighted.

[SPEAKER_01]: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

[SPEAKER_01]: sitting there and I'm like, what am I doing?

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like begging this guy's like, man, you know me, you know I'm gonna take care of it.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's like, man, I can't let you go.

[SPEAKER_01]: You got, I got busted with just over three grams of math and three grams of cocaine.

[SPEAKER_01]: And thank God, because that early that day I had over a pound, that's all I had left.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I would have been ruby trouble.

[SPEAKER_01]: But I remember going into that cell that night, they put you in a holding cell before they get you all, transferred into the jail.

[SPEAKER_01]: I remember sitting in that cell at night.

[SPEAKER_01]: And when I was all alone, man, I cried out to God.

[SPEAKER_01]: And like the sun in that story, I realized that my condition was directly related to my choices that I've made.

[SPEAKER_01]: This thing turned out to anyone's again.

[SPEAKER_01]: verse 18 it says, Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.

[SPEAKER_01]: See, I had to finally accept responsibility for my own actions.

[SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't my circumstances, it wasn't my friends, it wasn't none of those things, but my own fault.

[SPEAKER_01]: I finally manned up and said, God, I messed up and I need your help.

[SPEAKER_01]: All the times of my mother and my sister, it's my sister over there, you'll say hi to her.

[SPEAKER_01]: Had a parade for me and tried to tell me about Jesus and she had just kind of been newly saved and was trying to tell me the good news about Jesus, man, I just didn't want to hear it.

[SPEAKER_01]: There was a lot of times where she would bring her pastor over, he'd ministered to me and he'd ask me if I want to accept Jesus, I'm like, nah, I'm not ready yet.

[SPEAKER_01]: There was probably a couple of times with that happen, but those two months, I spent two months in jail.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'll tell you what happened.

[SPEAKER_01]: I haven't really told this part of the story, because it's not really right for your street wise person, but

[SPEAKER_01]: The detectives came in with full mask on and everything that took me into this room.

[SPEAKER_01]: They said, we know what you're doing, we know what you've been doing, we know everything about you, we want you to make three different buys of one pound each.

[SPEAKER_01]: I was scared, I was like, okay, I'll do it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let's say, OK, well, we're going to take those dope charges.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to make them disappear.

[SPEAKER_01]: And when you get out of jail for your other rewards, you're going to come, you're going to help us do this.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I said, all right.

[SPEAKER_01]: So that kind of began my process of jail went from Grand Prairie, jail to the Dallas County, jail, that's where I got saved a couple weeks later.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's a wonderful woman there that was ministering to a bunch of men.

[SPEAKER_01]: There was probably a 15 men in there.

[SPEAKER_01]: She would come do it on her own time.

[SPEAKER_01]: And she told us a story about her son.

[SPEAKER_01]: And now he was addicted to crack.

[SPEAKER_01]: And he was out on the street.

[SPEAKER_01]: But there she was ministering to a bunch of men who were in jail.

[SPEAKER_01]: And she was

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, she didn't even know where her own son was or his condition and they just reminded me so much my mother and I just started crying and she gave the altar call and I put my hand up and I was bawling in there and you don't you're not supposed to cry and Jill right I was just bawling in there and

[SPEAKER_01]: Man, after that day, like I went, I remember going back to myself and I called my mom and I told her I just accepted Jesus and I was crying on the phone like this in the corner, you know.

[SPEAKER_01]: Mama just accepted Jesus and crying and trying not to let anybody see me on my eyes all puffy.

[SPEAKER_01]: Anyways, those two months and jails where I came to my senses, just like the guy in the story here.

[SPEAKER_01]: I met some great men in there that God used to teach me.

[SPEAKER_01]: I began going to church in there whenever they would ask who wanted to go church.

[SPEAKER_01]: I put on my hand, I was first one there.

[SPEAKER_01]: I would read my Bible.

[SPEAKER_01]: One of the excuses I always used about not reading my Bible was that I didn't ever make sense to me.

[SPEAKER_01]: So they made sure I got an easy to read Bible, which I started reading and it could make complete sense

[SPEAKER_01]: I began learning about being a good father, being a good husband, being a good son, loving and forgiving.

[SPEAKER_01]: We've been learning about doing a God's way this last month or so, and man, that's exactly what I was learning in there.

[SPEAKER_01]: I remember riding a letter to my dad asking for his forgiveness.

[SPEAKER_01]: Um, I was doing like the 12 steps, you know, but I didn't know I was doing the 12 steps, but I was just kind of doing it God's way, but I knew if I was going to make it back and know when I when I made it back in the world, I was going to need my dad.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think I remember telling them something in the letter like I need you on my team, the reports guys, and that's the language I knew he would know.

[SPEAKER_01]: Remember when I saw him for the first time after I got out, it's just like the father in the story.

[SPEAKER_01]: He looked at me.

[SPEAKER_01]: He saw that there was something different inside of me.

[SPEAKER_01]: He hugged me.

[SPEAKER_01]: He told me something that I'll never forget.

[SPEAKER_01]: He probably did, but I didn't.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not sure if it's because I was working out every day in there for like two months or if it's because he saw something different in me.

[SPEAKER_01]: But the same way my dad and the father in this story reacted is how God reacts when you come home.

[SPEAKER_01]: He runs to you, he embraces you, he kisses you, all of heaven celebrates.

[SPEAKER_01]: He puts a ring on your finger, that ring is a sign of full restoration of honor and of family identity.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's saying, hey, here's your ring.

[SPEAKER_01]: So maybe today, you see yourself in this sun.

[SPEAKER_01]: But maybe you're the father in this story.

[SPEAKER_01]: Your child is lost their way in as far from God.

[SPEAKER_01]: I want to encourage you with two things today.

[SPEAKER_01]: Josh, you can come up with this little short today, guys.

[SPEAKER_01]: The first thing is going to be this.

[SPEAKER_01]: No one is ever too far from God's grace.

[SPEAKER_01]: No matter how bad I was, all the bad things and I can tell you stories, guys, of all those stupid bad things I did.

[SPEAKER_01]: God still gave me his grace.

[SPEAKER_01]: Just like we talked about earlier when we're doing commune and we deserve, we don't deserve.

[SPEAKER_01]: But because Jesus is so good, he gave his life up for us and we could have that grace that we could be reunited with the Father.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm so thankful.

[SPEAKER_01]: You see, after I got out of jail, I stopped over yet.

[SPEAKER_01]: I've been in there for two months, and gotten all built up, and in the Lord.

[SPEAKER_01]: My wife was still using.

[SPEAKER_01]: So that day I got out, she came to pick me up, and I could tell she was high.

[SPEAKER_01]: So we went to a back-to-art part, made it.

[SPEAKER_01]: I found out some things I didn't want to hear.

[SPEAKER_01]: I got angry.

[SPEAKER_01]: I found a pipe that was behind the picture of us and the kids I believe.

[SPEAKER_01]: I grabbed that picture and I threw it out of her.

[SPEAKER_01]: I hit her in the back of the head, splitter head, wide open.

[SPEAKER_01]: Just got out, Joe.

[SPEAKER_01]: called my awesome sister to come get me she came to pick me up and took me back to her house

[SPEAKER_01]: The next day we had, she took me to church, she was a Wednesday night, and the pastor was talking about live some of the husbands, so I put my hand up and I said, how do you get them some men?

[SPEAKER_01]: Right?

[SPEAKER_01]: And he goes, brother, come up here, they know anything about me, he just started praying for me, and that night I got baptized in Holy Spirit.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's a wonderful woman in her name as Mary.

[SPEAKER_01]: She's from the, she's from the condo.

[SPEAKER_01]: She was praying and over me and French.

[SPEAKER_01]: And, uh, man, I could just feel all that anger.

[SPEAKER_01]: Hey, all that stuff just came out of me.

[SPEAKER_01]: So again, never too far from God's grace.

[SPEAKER_01]: Never too far gone and he doesn't matter.

[SPEAKER_01]: Number two is this.

[SPEAKER_01]: No failure is beyond God's forgiveness.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's just like the sun in the story.

[SPEAKER_01]: He thought he was going to go off and do his own thing.

[SPEAKER_01]: And he realized that man he messed up.

[SPEAKER_01]: See, sometimes the enemy likes to lie and tell you that, hey man, you messed up so bad that you don't deserve forgiveness, that's a lie, I'm here to tell you that God doesn't care how bad you've messed up, how far off in the wilderness you've been, see something

[SPEAKER_01]: The son was in the father's graces, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: He was already there.

[SPEAKER_01]: So even if you've been saved already, but you find yourself far away from God, he's just waiting for you to come back.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's been times after, you know, I've gotten saved that, you know, I've kind of felt that way, you know, far away from God.

[SPEAKER_01]: But every time when you realize, hey, it's not God, like Eric was saying earlier, it's not God.

[SPEAKER_01]: He doesn't change, it's you, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: When you come back to that realization that man, and far away, I need to get back to my father.

[SPEAKER_01]: Something beautiful happens.

[SPEAKER_01]: Those same things are he, he comes running to you.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, I don't know some of you might be dealing with.

[SPEAKER_01]: Those lies that the enemy tries to tell you that you don't deserve it, that you're not worthy.

[SPEAKER_01]: I know I used to get those a lot.

[SPEAKER_01]: not worried to even stand here and talk to you guys about this.

[SPEAKER_01]: Lord doesn't, Lord doesn't care about that.

[SPEAKER_01]: He gives you a story for a reason and he wants you to share it.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's been a while since I shared my story.

[SPEAKER_01]: I hope some of you guys can catch something.

[SPEAKER_01]: But really, I really just wanted to publicly say thank you, my father, say that thank you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for listening to today's message.

[SPEAKER_00]: We pray you were inspired, challenged, and marked by the word you heard.

[SPEAKER_00]: If this message blessed you today, we encourage you to subscribe to the Church of the City podcast.

[SPEAKER_00]: There you can find more faith-filled messages to uplift you and help you on your journey of faith.

[SPEAKER_00]: For more information about Church of the City, head on over to www.cotcdfw.com.

[SPEAKER_00]: And until next time, remember this, the best is yet to come.