277 ~ REKINDLED ~ LASTING LOVE ~ PART 9

We welcome you to the VI Zion Sermon Podcast.

We are a church based out of Chennai, India.

We are thrilled that you tuned in today and hope that you will

be refreshed, revived and energized by what you hear.

Our desire is that you will live life with a renewed sense of

purpose that stems from a vibrant faith in Jesus.

The year 2025 is 1 where we will be positioned by God to possess

our promise. We start a new sermon series

called Rekindled where we look closer at our own lives and ask

the Holy Spirit to revive and restore things that have gone

dormant in the dry seasons of our souls.

We pray that this series will help you dive deeper into

yourself and see where you need more of God.

God has been very faithful during this series of rekindled.

I know for a fact many in our in person service have been saying

how they have been touched by different aspects of these

message is not because you know, that the message was so great.

Not at all. It's because of the fact that

they were walking through something and a part of their

faith or their hope had died. And God has been so faithful in

reviving those parts of our lives where it's felt like the

embers were starting to die down.

He's brought back a fresh fire and we are so grateful to God

that he has done this. And today we're looking at the

last part of the series. It's called lasting love.

We look last week at what it looks like to have a lived love,

a love that displays the hands and feet of Jesus in the in

person service. Pastor Geshwan gave each of us a

nail that was painted red as a take away, as a keepsake to ask

ourselves if we are living cruciform, to live in a way that

actually invites people to experience Jesus from our lives.

And it was amazing because each. Week.

It's literally like a puzzle that fits in, and today we're

going to be looking at lasting love.

Last week we looked at how when we begin to live the love out

that God has poured into us, it literally splashes on to others

and it's hard to keep it to ourselves.

But when we look at a lasting love, we're living in a time

when everything seems so temporary.

Things are done mostly for the short term, not for the long

haul. I was reading this interesting

story about this young, this old couple.

They've gone to a diner where they both sat at this table.

They looked well over 85 years old.

And when they walked into the diner, they sat together, they

ordered together, and then their order came, which was one plate

with burgers and fries and one milkshake with two straws.

And so the people in the diner were watching and especially

interested in them was this other couple sitting at a close

by table and they were watching the whole thing.

So this old. Gentleman cut the burger neatly

into two halves, and then he put the two straws in the milkshake.

He split the fries down the middle and then he proceeded to

watch as his wife ate her share. And so the whole diner was

quietly watching. And, you know, this particularly

this young couple was so intrigued and so touched at how

this old couple were obviously so in love still and making room

for each other. So they were watching him watch

her. And this young man suddenly felt

a pang of conscience. So he said, Sir, if you don't

mind, I'd like to buy you a separate plate of burger and

fries. You know, why do you have to

wait for ma'am? I could buy you something

yourself. And the old man laughingly

looked at him and said, son, it's fine, you know, don't worry

about it. I'm just waiting for her teeth.

So they were sharing dentures. Now as as weird and a little

gross as it sounds, love like that is hard to come by

nowadays. You really don't see a love that

has lasted 5060 years. Now the the statistics on

marriages ending are much very alarming to be to be honest.

And there's also these relationships.

Now my husband and I were reading an article about

homosexual relationships and what are these?

Basically is people coming together to be in a sexual

relationship just for food and shelter.

So one person needs a place to stay and they come and live with

someone else. In layman terms, they mooch off

them for food, for bored and all of them but and they pretend to

be in a relationship, but it really isn't.

It's an illusion of a relationship.

This is the time we're living in.

We're living in a time when nothing seems permanent.

Marriages are on the rocks. Relationships are so

conditional. There are strings attached,

sometimes very invisible strings that people don't know about.

Connections and networks are so temporary.

Lasting love seems a distant possibility.

It seems a distant reality. And yet in the midst of that,

the reminder is that God's love lasts forever.

Like the psalmist repeatedly says, his love endures forever.

Now what are the implications of this?

What does it look like for God's love to live forever, that his

love endures? I think there are two

connotations to it. The first thing is that this

eternal God, El Olam, everlasting God, a God who out

last time lives outside of time. His love doesn't change.

He's like the rock. He doesn't move, he's immovable,

He doesn't change. His love is not conditional.

So no matter how far we wander, His love for us and magnitude.

Stays the same. That's the first implication.

The second implication is it doesn't end with me, but it

follows the generations after me.

Should I choose Jesus and should I choose to?

Pour my love on him. He remembers this love and pours

it out over generations. That's what it looks like when

we talk about a lasting love. And in Deuteronomy Chapter 7

Deuteronomy 7:9

verse 9, we read a little bit about it.

It says know therefore that the Lord your God is.

God. The faithful God who keeps

covenant and steadfast love with those who love Him and keep His

commandments to 1000 generations.

We plan, you know, companies, we plan our organisations, we train

our children for 1-2, maybe 3 generations.

God is saying I will be faithful to you for 1000 generations.

Should you show your love back to me to those who love Him and

keep His commands. Isn't it amazing?

And today we're going to be looking at the life of David and

his descendants to understand the actual practical outworkings

of such a love. You have to understand in Second

2 Samuel 7 · chapter mention

Samuel Chapter 7 God is speaking to David when David wanted to

build a temple for him for his worship.

First Nathan the prophet says go ahead.

But that night God appears to Nathan and says no, I don't want

David to do it. I want David's son to do it.

And that's when this conversation ensues between God

and David. But God tells David, I promise

my way of demonstrating my love to you is that I'll make a

covenant that every son from each generation from your family

will be sitting on the throne of Judah.

That was the week God ratified it.

God said, this is my promise to you.

That's how you'll know my love endures.

Whatever. That's why David could

confidently say that even though David didn't see the outworking

of it, he believed God and God was true to his word.

So we're going to look at David's life and sometimes, you

know, looking through Second Samuel and kings, there's a lot

to read. So I was reading through the

different kings of Judah. You know, what happened was that

David was faithful to God. He did have his mess ups, he did

go off track, but he kept coming back.

And then his son Solomon takes the throne and Solomon deviated

quite a bit. He started out really well, but

he deviated quite a bit. And then when it came to Rehu

Boam, the apostasy was at its heights.

And So what God did was he ripped.

The Kingdom away from David's family, he gave them just one

tribe to govern over that was just Judah.

And then they were they formed the southern Kingdom and then

the northern Kingdom was given to another ruler called Jeroboam

and he got to control 10 tribes. The Levites were not considered

in this. 10 tribes were given to Jeroboam, one was given to

Rehoboam to rule. Because of the waywardness of

the king, this split happened and God had promised to do this,

and we're going to read it not from the Book of the Kings.

We're going to read this from Psalm chapter 89, and as we read

Psalms 89 · chapter mention

it, I just want to start with to give you the background of what

the promise was. Psalm 89, verses 3 to 4.

Psalms 89:3–4

This is what the psalmist writes.

He says, I heard the Lord say my covenant has been made and I'm

committed forever to my chosen 1 David.

I have made my oath that there will be sons of David forever,

sons that are kings through every generation.

So this is the promise of God to David that the psalmist is

recollecting and bringing to the table, right?

But when you go further down, I'm going to read from verses 19

to 37 of Psalm 89. You understand a little bit more

of why God chose David and why he was a man after his own

heart. He says this once you spoke in a

vision to your faithful people. You said, I have bestowed

strength on a warrior. I have raised up a young man

from among the people. I have found David my servant

with my sacred oil. I have anointed him.

My hand will sustain him. Surely my arm will strengthen

him. The enemy will not get the

better of him. The wicked will not oppress him.

I will crush his foes before him and strike down his adversaries.

My faithful love will be with him, and through my name his

horn will be exalted. I will set his hand over the

sea, his right hand over the rivers.

He will call out to me. You are my Father, my God, the

Rock, my Saviour, and I will appoint him to be my first born,

the most exalted of the King's, the earth.

I will maintain my love to Him forever, and my covenant with

him will never fail. I will establish His line

forever, His throne, as long as the heavens endure.

If his sons forsake my law and do not follow my statutes, if

they violate my decrees and fail to keep my commands, I will

punish their sin with a rod, their iniquity with flogging.

But I will not take my love from him, nor will I ever betray my

faithfulness. I will not violate my covenant

or alter what my. Lips have uttered once for all,

I have sworn by My Holiness, and I will not lie to David that his

line will continue forever and his throne endure before me like

the sun. It will be established forever,

like the moon, the faithful witness in the sky.

What a beautiful, poetic, you know, way of talking about what

kind of favor David enjoyed with God.

But the interesting thing that we have to look at here is that

God is reiterating again and again his faithfulness.

He's saying, no matter what David's sons do, I will punish

them because I'm righteous. I'm just, but I will not take

away my love from them. And I feel like that's a good

thing to remember for all of us, even in the midst of our

harshest discipline. When God needs to discipline us,

when God needs to course correct for us, he will do it.

But his intentions are so pure because he's so righteous.

He's so just, and he's so loving.

His motives are always spurred on by his love for us.

And the truth is that when you look at this thing he says, he

talks a lot about adversaries, about his enemies, about his

foes. The truth is that you and I are

going to face so many adversaries in the spiritual

realm, on the natural realm as well.

We're going to face so many adversaries.

But the beautiful thing is, the whole gist of it is that God

promises to give victory. God promises to lead you

through. He promises to bring him through

safely. And God did that for David.

When David lay down in death, finally, he had faced every

enemy he had to many times. The enemy was himself.

He had to come clean with God. He had to move forward and take

up the next thing that God entrusted to him.

So this journey I have to give you the statutory warning is

going to have it's ups and downs, but God's unfailing love

never ever gives up on you. You're never too far.

For God's love to reach you and pull you back.

And as I was studying the the stories of the kings of Judah.

Right, you look at the. Different kings, the sons of

David. So David's son was Solomon,

Solomon's son was Rehoboam. Rehoboam had a heja.

And it went on. And every king that came in,

they were human, they were frail, they were flawed.

But when they sought God, if they sought God, God was

faithful to deliver on his promise.

God was right there to help them when they went astray.

God and his goodness brought them back if they repented, if

they changed. He used every situation for good

for his people. That's the beautiful thing.

And you know, it's it's interesting that so many of

those things, starting with even David himself in his sin with

Bathsheba killing an innocent man like Uriah, and then what

happened with his son Amnon raping his daughter Tamar, the

way he overlooked it. These were huge mistakes that

David had. They were flaws in his

character. And yet.

God called him a man after his own heart.

And then you look at Solomon. Solomon was led astray from God.

He was known to be loved by God, Jedediah, and yet his love for

women superseded his love back for God.

And those women led him astray, because he began worshipping the

gods of his wives, and that triggered God's anger towards

the generations that came. I want you to read 1 Kings

1 Kings 11 · chapter mention

Chapter 11 verses 11:50. Although he had forbidden

Solomon to follow other gods, Solomon did not keep the Lord's

command. So the Lord said to Solomon,

since this is your attitude and you have not kept my covenant

and my decrees which I commanded you, I will most certainly tear

the Kingdom away from you and give it to one of your

subordinates. Nevertheless, for the sake of

David, your father, I will not do it during your lifetime.

I will tear it out of the hand of your son.

Yet I will not tear the whole Kingdom from him, but we'll give

him one try for the sake of David, my servant, and for the

sake of Jerusalem, which I have chosen.

When you look at this whole thing, what happened?

God's grace even covered the king who would take over the

northern Kingdom. The guy was Jeroboam.

He was a subordinate to Rehoboam.

He was in charge of the forced labour.

He was, he was an overseer and God told him, called him out and

said I want you to take up 10 tribes, big task.

And in the midst of that, God says to him if you are faithful

to me, if you love me, if you honour me with your life, I will

enable your dynasty to grow as well.

Your lineage will grow. Unfortunately, Jeroboam had a

huge faith issue. He was afraid the people would

turn away back to Rehoboam. So what he did was he led the

whole of Israel into idolatry. He created 2 calf idols, called

all the people to Dan and Yeshiva and said you know what,

worship these, these are your gods.

And so, right from the get go, Jeroboam LED Israel into

idolatry, but on the side of Judah.

There was that spark. Of a.

Flame that David had left with them there was a passion in many

of the kings to know God There was a passion to do that which

was right and please God There was a passion to lead their

people towards God. Majority of the kings were good

kings. Were they human absolutely good

in the sense that they desired to know God a little bit more

good in the sense that you know what they knew where they were

sinning. They knew their frailty.

And today we're going to be looking at how God's enduring

love, His lasting love, is demonstrated in three ways to us

many times. You know when as a mum of three

children, I found that the way each child receives love is

different. For one, it's words of

affection, of appreciation, telling the child, you know

what? I'm so proud of what you did.

Thank you so much. Being grateful.

That's that child's love language.

The other child's love language is gifts.

I can raise the child all the live long day.

It will not go past the armor. But the minute I get the person

a gift, I have the person's heart right?

And there's this other one who's heavy on physical touch, needs

hugs because that's how the child feels affirmed.

And I realized that as God's children.

Each of us have a certain language or a frequency at which

we absorb God's love. And many times we miss out on

His love for us because we're looking for something different.

But today I want to give you 3 broad categories so that as you

go through the coming weeks, the last few weeks of this year, you

begin to identify God's love for you.

Because His love is so evident, we just sometimes miss it

because we're looking for something else.

We're so used to receiving love in a certain way.

We miss that His love is everything that's holding our

lives together. We miss that His love is like

oxygen to our souls. We miss that it's because of His

great love that we have not perished.

And I want to bring us today to this place of saying that this

love, that enduring love is so big.

It can handle your frailty, it can handle your weakness, it can

handle your mess ups. And not just that, when you

begin to reciprocate that love to God, it starts to trickle

down through generations, 1000 generations.

So the first way in which God's lasting love is demonstrated is

by unusual outcomes. You know, many times you ask an

earthly parent for something for your birthday.

You expect them to get you exactly that.

Recently we were having this conversation with my daughter

and her birthday is coming up. And so she was asking us, you

know, what are you guys going to get me?

So I asked her, you know, I know how she would prefer certain

things, So what would you like? You tell us that and she said

this interesting thing. She says.

I tell you guys one thing, but you guys.

Get something completely different for me.

And here we were thinking we were pampering this child, we

were spoiling her. But.

Her point of view was was right, she says.

I ask you for something, you get me something totally different.

But it's OK. I know you guys love me, you

care for me, I get it. But could you this time give me

exactly what I asked for? And I realized.

That this is a problem that all of us have when we come to God.

We're like, Lord, I need this miracle.

I need this miracle in my job. I need this miracle in my

marriage. I need this miracle in my

health. Do it like this for me.

This is how I foresee the miracle unfold.

This is how I foresee me meeting my future life partner.

This is how I foresee my boss behaving and giving me this

promotion. But the beautiful thing is I've

surrendered. Life enables us to actually

trust God's love to such a degree that the outcome, as

unexpected as it is, is in effect God's showing us.

I love you this much. Look at what I'm doing in you.

When you look at Psalm 989, you realize what I read was just the

beginning. It's a lot of verses after that.

And one of the the themes of the Psalm is actually a lament

because he first reminds God of his covenant to David and then

says, but God, you've let us down.

He says, you said all this about David, but what?

You've not done what you said. Now we're in ruins.

We're in exile. We our walls have fallen down.

We don't have protection. Our foes have overrun us.

Where are you, God? Did you keep your covenant?

You haven't kept it. You've forgotten us.

But what the psalmist didn't have was the New Testament

perspective that we have. Because the beautiful thing is

that while it looked like God had gone back on his word when

he sent them into exile, what was happening was the setup for

the coming of Jesus would be in the lineage of David.

He's called Jesus son of David. When you look at the lineage

both in Matthew and in Luke, you find that there is such a

connection that Jesus came from this line.

God was not done. The exile was not it.

There was so much to come. And while the psalmist is

writing it, in his moment of hardship, he didn't have the

view that we have. He didn't have the view of

redemption. He didn't have the view of a

whole whole thing of, you know, oh wow, these are the things

that God is doing while he's working on my miracle.

He's doing all of these things around me.

Jesus was the fulfillment of that covenant to David, because

when Jesus came to earth, when he died, when he rose again and

ascended into heaven, he sits at the right hand of the Father.

He's the king of kings. He's the Lord of Lords.

He's the king of a Kingdom that never fails.

His throne is never vacated. He's the permanent king, a king

forever. It's the fulfillment of the

covenant with David. The psalmist missed it, but we

get to look at it and say, wow, this Kingdom never ends.

The king is on the throne. I want to ask.

You What is your struggle with receiving an unexpected outcome?

You've been praying for this, but this happens.

And then you dismiss it as if you know what God, you don't

know what I really need. But.

What if God knows exactly what you and I need and therefore

gives us this? I want you to put down a

tabulation of your life over the past one year, over the last six

months even, and look at unexpected, unusual outcomes.

You know, things that you didn't anticipate happening.

You looked for this job, but you got this opportunity.

You will. Standing outside, there's one

open door, but he opened another door for you, which was way

better. Or maybe he closed the door.

You were disappointed but then you realise you were able to

accomplish so much more in this place.

I love unusual outcomes. At the moment I don't like it

because I'm thinking, well this didn't fit in with my storyline.

As a writer, I'm always storyboarding, I'm always

scripting. This didn't go according to

script. Lord, you went off script.

But I'm finding that a surrendered life is one that

prays. Lord, let your will be done.

I have started making it an everyday practice.

When I start to threat, when I start to worry, when I start to

micromanage, I quickly shift my my focus and say Lord, I'm

taking my hands off this. I have no control of this, but I

know that you love me. I know that you see the

situation. Let your will be done.

That's how you actually begin to experience this lasting love

because then you start to accept those unusual outcomes.

You start to see it for those God opportunities, and then you

begin to see the the sliver of heaven on earth.

So that's the first thing. Practice praying, let your will

be done. Those prayers are so important.

Remember Jesus in the garden. He was afraid of what was

coming. He knew how much he was going to

suffer. He, he said, Lord, take this cup

from me, yet not my will but yours be done.

What is it you're so afraid of? Do you think maybe you'll come

to this brink and sing Lord, what if I never get married?

Lord, what if that medical baby never happens?

Lord, what if my parent and I never I can say?

What if my finances never get better, yet not my will yours be

done? And you'll be surprised at the

miraculous outcomes that come out of it.

It will look nothing like you imagined it, but it will be

evidence of a faithful God. It will be evidence of a God who

is interested in the smallest details of your life.

The second thing is that lasting love, the demonstration of it,

lasting love brings undeserved favour.

When you look at these stories through the Book of Kings and

Chronicles, you find that many of these kings didn't deserve

God's grace and favour because they did such terrible things.

And yet throughout their stories is woven this beautiful thread.

Thomas seems invisible, but it's the thread of grace, it's the

thread of favour. The king Jehoshaphat, he had a

son called Jehoram, and he married a daughter of Ahab,

Atalia, and two kings. Chapter 8, verse 18 to 19 says

Jehoram followed the ways of the kings of Israel as the House of

Ahab had done, for he married a daughter of Ahab.

He did evil in the eyes of the Lord.

Nevertheless, for the sake of his servant David, the Lord was

not willing to destroy Judah. He had promised to maintain a

lamb for David and his descendants forever.

Look at that. Jehoram was evil.

He was doing nonsensical things. He was married to the wrong

person. He had married into the worst

family possible, Ahab and Jezebel's daughter, and yet it

said for David's sake, God showed him grace.

You look at 2 Kings chapter 19, verse 34.

2 Kings 19:34

Hezekiah is faced with his army that looks like an ocean.

Senek Rib, the Assyrian king is standing ahead of him and he

attacks them, lay siege. They are threatening them, and

this is what God says through Isaiah to him.

He says I will defend the city and save it for my sake and for

the sake of David, my servant, enduring love.

He made the promise to David, but for David's sake.

He preserves it. Even though many of these kings

were not 100% devoted to God because of the promise to their

ancestor. He stuck on his faithfulness.

He never let them go. He came through for him.

I want to encourage you. You can walk in your humanness,

you can party favour with people, you can create

situations where you set yourself up for favour, but it

will not last. But when you stand completely

submitted to the King of all kings, when you come to this

place of saying Lord I, I trust that you love me.

I trust that even this hard situation is from you.

You are, you are working in the midst of it.

I invite you in. There's something beautiful

which shifts because then grace unmerited favour.

You don't deserve it, but it's given to you.

That's the evidence of God's love for you.

When we were still sinners, Christ died for it.

If we were saved by grace through faith, it is grace.

Grace is a gift. You and I can do nothing to earn

His love. He loves us irrespective of

ourselves and the beautiful thing is that when we begin to

receive His lasting love, we realize that this undeserved

favour just follows. You walk into rooms, you have

favour with people you never thought you would have favour.

You walk into hospitals for treatment, you have favour in

the eyes of people. It's unbelievable how God will

set things up so that He can bestow His favour upon you.

You would not have earned it. You would have not planned it.

You didn't account for it. You walk in scared and God just

shines his face upon you. It's amazing.

You are never too far gone for God's grace.

But the mistake many times we make is when you look at these

kings in in the line of Judah, many of them messed up so bad.

King Manasseh was one of the worst.

His father was Hezekiah, and yet somehow he went off track and he

did the worst things. And yet in the midst of that,

Manasseh turned to God. It says that Manasseh repented

so so completely that God's heart changed towards him and

restored the throne to him. Like I said about Jehoram,

Jehoram married Italia, and after his time, Italia took over

the land and she almost ruined it, like the way her parents

were ruining Israel. And yet in the midst of that,

God raised up with Joash, and Joash restored so much of

worship and, you know, so much of morality into the Kingdom.

And then there was Josiah. This was a time when the land

was about to go into exile. The land was prepping for it

because of the amount of idolatry and paganism and all of

that. God was getting ready to punish.

When Josiah and his men discovered the temp in the

temple, the book of the Law, the temple had been closed down.

They discovered it and Josiah, it's amazing.

He takes it, reads it and. Makes the whole.

Nation listen to it. And even though punishment was

not stopped completely, did eventually come.

He tried his best. There's grace evident constantly

and I want you to look back at your life so far, however old

you are. 20 years. 40 years, 70 years, look at that thread of

grace. The very fact that we are in the

spaces we are at with work, with family, with friends, just in

the spaces that we get to enter. It's only God's grace.

It's undeserved favour. If you've been thinking you

earned it, I would urge you to think again.

Because many of the things we enjoy today are not because of

our goodness, not because of our hard work, because someone

breathed life upon it. Someone loved you enough to open

those doors ahead of you. Lest we forget.

Lest we forget. And so I believe that there's a

requirement of us to experience this undeserved favour.

It's a gift. But in order to experience this

grace, there has to be a lifestyle of repentance.

So as much as we need to pray that pray Lord, let your will be

done. I need to also have a regular

time of spending time with God and repenting coming before

humbling himself because it says God gives grace to the humble,

which means when I go lower, he lifts me higher.

When I go lower before him and say, Lord, everything I have is

yours, everything I am is yours, Everything I I do is because of

you. As I humble myself, he lifts me

up. And it's unbelievable how

sometimes our pride keeps us from experiencing this favour of

God because we somehow think we are responsible for our success.

We somehow think we opened all the doors for ourselves.

We sometimes think we're responsible for opening doors

for people and God says no. I gave you the grace to have a

voice in those rooms to open it for others.

God opposes the proud, but He gives grace to the humble.

I would urge that you develop a daily habit, even if it's just

before you sleep. You just kneel beside your bed

or lie on the bed. You're looking up at the

ceiling. And if you could just say a lot.

I repent of the things that hurt you today.

I repent of pride. I repent of self righteousness.

It's a good daily habit. It's much like flossing.

You know, many times we just brush our teeth.

We don't floss. But sometimes the the the build

up of sins blocks off our recognition of God's grace.

His grace never stops. His favor doesn't stop.

Like His love, it's enduring, but the recognition of it gets

blocked up when there's no repentance.

God is calling us to bear fruit in keeping with repentance,

which means you repent and you move forward in fresh faith,

able to recognize His love again for you.

The third way in which lasting love is demonstrated is unending

transformation. And I find it interesting when

someone says, oh wait, you know, I went, you know, you know,

they've done something silly and then you, you give them a little

time to change and then they come to you in 2-3 weeks and see

what changed completely. That is not possible.

We are in the work of being transformed every day and to

eternity. Each of us, parts of our lives

that we have thought we have dealt with, we're completely

transformed. We're good, give it a month,

you're back and just have to have one trigger in that

direction. It goes downhill.

Transformation is a lifelong thing.

That's what I'm finding out. I may have dealt with something

in my 20s. It could pop up in my 40s.

It's just life. That's how life is.

But the beautiful thing is that the Holy Spirit, the agent of

transformation, never gives up on me.

He doesn't leave me in the 40s thinking you can handle it now

you've got it. He's.

More. Active in my life as I get older

because He has greater plans for me and He needs me to be in a

mold of being transformed and conformed to the likeness of

Jesus, the Son of God. And the fact is, when God, we

see God is eternal El Olam, he doesn't just transform us in the

now, He's transforming us for the future so that generations

are impacted. And when something impacts

generations, it actually doesn't end anytime quick.

So as much as our transformation is a lifelong thing, we are

getting better. We might regress we, but we

keep, you know, stepping forward.

We're changing, we're doing well.

It doesn't end there. It starts to impact those around

us. Someone said this.

Everyone needs a call and everyone needs a Timothy, which

means you have someone younger to impact and you have someone

older to learn from. And I'm not just.

Talking about you having children or having parents that

you learn from or impart to. I'm talking about your community

who is around you that you're receiving wisdom from, you

gleaning from and that you're pouring onto because the lasting

love, the love of God brings unending transformation.

It can't end with you. It can't begin and end with you.

You can't be a holder of God's love.

It has to be be getting splashed on everyone around you so that

their lives are being transformed as well and so that

this transformation power of God never ends.

I was reading the story of Jonathan Edwards.

He's a he was a revivalist. He was a preacher.

He was instrumental in bringing such a revival in Christendom.

And there's this interesting website where they had made a

comparison between the legacy of Jonathan Edwards, who was a

preacher, and the legacy of Max Jukes was a career criminal.

He was a criminal for his whole life.

And so the records in one of the, you know, these heritage

records had actually made a record of all their ants, all

their descendants. And this is what they said.

I'm reading it out. Jonathan Edwards was an

outstanding preacher and Christian.

Out of Edwards descendants came one US vice president, 1 Dean of

a law school, 1 Dean of a medical school, three US

senators, 3 governors, 3 mayors, 3 college presidents, 30 judges,

60 doctors, 65 professors, 75 military officers. 80 public

office holders, 100 lawyers, 100 clergymen and 285 college

graduates. On the other hand, Max Jukes

family included illegitimate children, 7 murderers, 60

thieves, 190 prostitutes, 150 other convicts, 310 poppers, 440

were physically wrecked by addiction to alcohol.

Of Jukes descendants that were studied, 300 died prematurely,

at least 67 suffered from syphilis, and over 100 spent an

average of 13 years in prison. The crimes and care of the Duke

family cost the state of New York over $1 million, a lot more

in present dollars, while Jonathan Edwards never cost the

government a single penny. Instead, he and his family made

contributions of incalculable worth.

Now if someone wants to find fault of this legacy and say, Oh

well, you know, you're promoting one over the other, I don't have

anything to say for that. But the the record speak for

themselves. Our legacies matter.

The choices you make today don't just impact you, they impact

generations to come. Who you marry is very important.

How you bring up your children is very important.

What you imbibe as a family, the culture that drives your home,

the presence of God in your lives, the the commitment you

show to attending a community of faith and and being involved

there. All of that, all of that.

Mark my words, affects your legacy.

Too many people in today's life think that you know what?

Sunday church. It's optional.

If my kid has sports, I'm probably going to pick that.

You think that that's the day to brunch with Jesus.

You sit in a coffee shop with a journal.

But I would urge you, all of that can wait.

You need to be in the House of God, worshiping corporately like

the psalmist says, to raise your voice with the congregation.

Because the beauty of the body of Christ is that is where you

receive from the previous generation, and that's where you

impart for the next generation. Your commitment to the community

matters. How you plant yourself and are

in this position of receiving from God, not just for yourself

but so that you can pour out over others is all important.

If you are a family person, you you have a home, you have a

spouse, you have children. What is the legacy that you are

leaving? Have you been living in such a a

freeway where there is no guardrails?

Are your children watching you dishonour your marriage vows or

do they see you uphold it? When we got married, the person

who was the MC left this with Geshom and me.

He told Geshom, Geshom, the greatest gift you can give your

children is to love their mother.

Well, I ask you, is that what you do for your spouse?

Is that the legacy you're leaving for your children?

Or have you left a legacy of divorce?

Have you left a legacy of quarrelsome being quarrelsome?

Have you left a legacy where you will be bitter against God and

His people, the Kingdom? Have you live?

Are you leaving a legacy where you live for yourself, for your

safety, for your benefit, without even looking outward to

the need of a suffering world? What is the legacy you are

leaving? It's a question that I have been

reckoning, being reckoned with. I it's been wrecking me.

God, what is my legacy if I close my eyes tonight?

God, what is the legacy I leave my children?

What is the legacy I leave the young people that I mentor?

What is the legacy that I leave that my husband would carry on?

Your legacy matters. It's not about you.

It is not about you. Many of us are making our

problems about ourselves. Maybe you've been so self caught

up in the things that have been tearing you down.

Maybe it's your mental health, maybe it's your physical health

and you've just been so caught up in your own little bubble.

But I would urge you, ask God in the midst of the struggle, God,

how does this help someone else? How can what will come of this

that will bless someone else? How does this become part of my

legacy which will honor you? My legacy cannot be.

That I was caught up and bound down by this ailment or this

disease or this situation. But my legacy has to be that I

was an overcomer. She walked, she ran with horses,

she accomplished the things that God had marked for.

That should be the legacy we leave behind.

When I look at David's legacy, this at his genealogy, many of

the things that David started off which were a little off

track, Solomon magnified it. Saul had I think 2 wives.

David comes in. David has eight wives.

Solomon comes in and has thousand wives.

These wives LED Sol LED Solomon astray.

David overlooked the rape of his daughter.

He didn't stand up and fight because, it says he'd never

corrected Amnon in his life. It said that his sons were so

beloved by him. David assassinated Uriah

publicly, but it was through a private stealth ploy.

Everything that David tried to cover up, Absalom did in public.

Absalom slept with his father's concubines in the presence of

all Israel. If you don't deal with the

things in your generation, it'll magnify in the next generation.

And they have to fight it. And if we have not given them

Jesus, if we have not shown them the love of God, if we have not

allowed them to experience it for themselves, they will be ill

equipped to fight the giants that will face them.

There are some giants that we have to fight in our generation.

I love this verse from Acts 11. I think it says that when David

had completed his assignment for his generation, he slept with

his father's. And I pray that that is what is

put as the epitaph on our gravestone, that when Christine

finished her assignment for this generation, she slept with the

Lord. I pray that we will be people

like David who love God so passionately that God comes to

us and says, I love the way you love me.

And I want to promise you the 1000 generations of you guys

will follow me, that I will cover you, I will protect you.

My question is, do we love him as passionately as David did?

David was like us. This is not a calling where you

get nervous and say, well, I'm nothing like David.

But David was ordinary. He was the youngest son.

He was probably a child who was illegitimate.

He was left with the sheep alone.

He was left to fend with wild animals.

And yet God saw him on those fields of Bethlehem.

He saw him and called him out. He anointed him for something so

big. You may be as inconspicuous as

David was. You may be the one the runt of

the litter. You may be the one that nobody

wants in a group. But God sees you where you are

and is calling you out. Would you respond?

Would you respond? Will you start to see God's love

for what it is in those interesting outcomes that He

starts bringing? Would you begin to recognize the

undeserved favour in your life? Would you start seeing this

unending transformation? Would you start to see that as I

close, I want to leave these three things I want you to?

There has to be something tangible we take away with us

because it has to start somewhere, correct?

Yes, we can recognize gods about.

What do I do with that, right? If I want to be someone like

David, that God, someone who God will come and make a covenant

with and say, hey, guess what? You don't need to build the

temple. But I want to promise you that

your people will sit on the throne, right?

And it extended up to Jesus. If you and I need to be like

that, I want us to. Go back to our theme verse for

the year, Hebrews chapter 6 verses 11 to 12.

Hebrews 6:11–12

It says we want each of you to show the same diligence to the

very end so that what you hope for may be fully realized.

We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who

through faith and patience inherit what has been promised.

The beautiful thing about a generational God and an

intergenerational church. A multi generational church is

just walking beside people who are in different parts of their

journey with faith. I love interacting with those

who have gone the roads ahead of us.

Married 50 years, 40 years, walking through the season of

having grandchildren, then walking with peers were a little

older and then the peers were exactly the same age, and then

the younger ones were just having their babies and then the

singles. The beauty is that we can spur

each other on and say don't give up.

Your miracle is coming, your promise is coming through.

He is faithful. But then the onus is on each of

us individually to stand our ground, to possess what is

promised. That can't be a community

effort. We can only encourage each

other, edify each other. But it's on you.

David had to position himself correctly in order to seize the

promise. You have to understand he was

anointed in front of his brothers and yet for about 14

years he didn't even get to sit near the throne.

He had to serve Saul as his personal armour bearer.

He had to play music for him when he was, you know, being

oppressed by an enemy. He had to go into battle with

him only as the armour bearer until he took that position of

killing the the giant. But even then, that spurred up

greater hatred and Saul against him and eventually they were at

loggerheads still. Saul died with his sons in

battle and David had to wait. David couldn't take a shortcut.

There were many chances when his men said, he's right there, why

don't you kill him? David was a skilled man of war

and like Saul, and yet David never rushed it.

So three simple takeaways that I want to leave with you.

The first thing from this was Hebrews 611 and 12.

First thing is be diligent to the end.

Too many of us are lazy. When it comes to the things of

that, you know, concern us, our mutual funds, our investments

and, you know, making sure all our ducks are in a row.

We're very careful about that. When it comes to the things of

God, when it comes to pursuing God and and, you know, you know,

standing and fighting with the enemy to reclaim the things that

we have been lost, we get lazy. We're like, that's OK.

God is calling you to be diligent to the very end.

You have to understand, David was waiting 14 years and then he

was made king after Saul's death and he ruled in Hebron.

He was there for seven years. And then he decides that he

needs to move to Jerusalem and make it the city of David.

But in Jerusalem we're living the the occupants, the original

occupants of the land with the Jebusites.

They're not actually the original ones, but OK, they were

living there. Now David goes there to take the

citadel, to take the fortress, but these guys are living in the

land still. And they say to they're so

insulting. They know this is the king, but

they don't acknowledge him as the king.

They don't acknowledge the promise on his life.

And they say, you know what? You can never take the citadel.

Even the blind and the lame can protect it from you.

And the word that comes there is nevertheless, David took the

stronghold and lived in Jerusalem.

And I want to ask. You Are you that diligent about

standing your ground, fighting for the things that the enemy

has stolen? Your marriage?

Your health, your joy, your peace.

Some of you have just given in. You're like, you know?

What? This addiction anyway, gives me

temporary relief. Let me just stick with that.

This relationship, as terrible as it is, it gives me some

comfort. I'll stick with it.

God is calling you to rise up, awaken.

Put off your slumber. Get diligent.

Laziness will not cut it in the Kingdom.

Kingdom people are diligent to the very end.

David had to push the Jebusites out and take up space.

What space have you allowed the enemy to overrun in your life?

What place have you said you know what, He can coexist with

me. God's calling you to be

diligent. Don't be lazy.

The second thing that I want to leave is to be patient.

You cannot short circuit your way to the promise.

If God has promised something, there's a process, There's a

work that He does within us before the promise is reached.

Many of us short circuit that. We say, you know what, I need it

now and I'll, I'll do anything. The problem is that when we

engineer our promises, the fulfillment of our promises,

it's not permanent. You get a lot more pushback than

you anticipate. David had to wait 14 years.

He could have killed Saul prematurely because Saul was

unrighteous. He was not a good king.

He was all about himself. He was demon possessed many

times, he was unreliable with his people, He went through ups

and downs, He was temperamental. He had every reason morally to

have dethroned him. But he said this is the Lord's

anointed. I dare not touch him.

The fear of God helped him stay patient.

If you have short circuited God's plans, it doesn't.

Matter. His grace is sufficient, but

would you come back into in alignment with his process?

Because the promise has a process.

And for David, there was a promise that he was going to be

king. He was anointed in public, but

the weight involved being in desert spaces, running in the

wilderness, hiding in strongholds, being in the

Philistine camp and then taking his place on the throne.

He didn't short circuit it. Your promise will be fulfilled.

That's a given. But the process, would you have

patience for it? And the third thing that I want

you to notice from this is it says imitate those who through

faith and patience inherit what has been promised.

Who are you imitating? Who is in your community?

Who is around you? Our community matters.

The people we surround ourselves with matters.

Who are you learning off? Maybe you've made mistakes in

who you are leaning on, who you are gleaning off, who you are

dependent on. And God is asking you to watch

carefully who you will imitate. When you look at David's life,

he surrounded himself with people that were mightier than

him. He was a mighty warrior himself

and somehow because of that courageous spirit and this

indomitable spirit in him, it attracted like minded people.

So people were coming from around the land, even from other

parts, not just from Judah, from other parts of Israel.

They were rallying to him because they found that there

was something about him. An anointed king makes all the

difference. And they began to come.

And then he was able to unite the Kingdom.

And the beauty of this was that he had 30 mighty men.

He had a mighty three. These were the guys who

surrounded him, who went with him into battle, who conquered

lands, brought back the plunder. These were the guys that were

around him. And then he had his inner

circle. His sons were priests, I said.

But it also had he had a seer, he had a prophet, he had a

priest, he had a friend. Who is in your inner circle.

They have to be distinctly those God has placed in your life,

those who play a role of encouraging, correcting, holding

you to account, walking with you through grief, through the

highs, the lows. Who are you imitating and who

are you impacting? Like I said, everyone of us need

a Paul and Timothy. Who are you imitating and who

are you impacting? You can't live like a silo.

You are a fountain. That is blessing.

All those around. If you are a person who's an

overcomer, you will attract overcomers to you.

If you're a person who is fearless for God and the

pursuits of the Kingdom, you will attract such people.

But if you are inward focused, if you are bitter of soul, if

you are envious you have iniquity, you will start

attracting people at that, and you'll think that's the best

community you could find. But I encourage you to go into

this deeper place to sing. Lord, I pray that You would

cleanse what is not of you and bring the right people into my

life, the ones that I can imitate so that my faith grows

stronger, my hope is more seated in You and my love overflows

people who will help me identify God's love in my life.

I have a couple of friends like that, amazing girls, way more

gifted than me, incredibly secure, and who God has called

them. Their identity is hidden in

Christ. They will hold me to account.

They will remind me even if I'm in the midst of a bitter

complaint, they will stop me and say, oh, wait a minute, that is

God's blessing right there. You need people who will help

you identify lasting love of God.

You need people like that. Kingdom people.

As I close, it's your choice whether you want to leave a

dynasty or a legacy. A dynasty is basically you set

up a business, you say, well this is for me, my son, after

me, then his son, then his son. It becomes like the straight

jacket for whoever steps into that role.

But a legacy is so much wider. A legacy is where you are

inviting people to that table that God set for you, where at

this place you are blessing others who are not just your own

physical children, but spiritual children, spiritual friends,

those who come alongside you and you are able to bless them.

You are able to leave leave them.

Who are the ones that you are actually impacting in such a

beautiful, God honouring way that a legacy is being left

behind? Too many of us are concerned

about a dynasty. We want control, we manipulate

people into our circles, but God is saying, would you let me

bring those people in alongside you so you can run this journey

so beautifully that you leave a lasting legacy?

You have to understand you can be intentional about leaving a

legacy, but the one who actually creates the legacy, who leaves

that effect behind is the Holy Spirit in you.

It's Jesus. He's the one who enables us to

leave a legacy. If you're living without Jesus,

if you have been trying to do this journey without Jesus, can

I just quickly lead you into prayer?

If you are interested in accepting Jesus into your heart

because this journey we've been talking Hebrew 6 talks about

this life we live with a goal ahead where God promises these

things to us. But it requires that we be

diligent and hard working. It requires that we be patient.

It requires that we're careful who we imitate.

But as we run this race, the one we keep our eyes on is.

Jesus. He's the author of our faith,

the one who treated us for a greater purpose, the one who

calls us into our life's purpose.

If you say I want Jesus because I can't do this life anymore but

myself, can I just lead you in this quick prayer?

Heavenly Father, I submit myself to you.

Forgive me of all my sins. I repent and ask that your Son

Jesus would come into my heart today.

I ask that you would. Help me live with faith because

I believe that Jesus is the Son of God, that he came to earth,

he died for my sins, he rose again and he lives in heaven.

Today I ask that the Holy Spirit would fill me so that I can live

a life that is worthy of Jesus. In Jesus mighty name I pray,

Amen. Amen.

This is the single most important decision of your life,

not anything else. Accepting Jesus in.

If you pray that prayer, I want to welcome you into the family

of God. You are now a child of God.

You can come before him with boldness and as you grow in him,

ask God to bring you the people that you must imitate and then

he will start giving you people that you can impart to.

Even as we close, I want to pray for all of us.

If you've been seeing, I have been finding it hard to receive

God's love. I don't see it lasting.

I'm a first generation believer. I don't know.

I don't have a generation before.

Maybe you're someone who is older and you're saying I don't

know if I'm leaving a legacy behind.

I want to just ask you to rest in the presence of God.

There is no proving of yourself necessary.

His love floods your life, whether you accomplished.

Anything or not but what I do want to ask you is that you

would be mindful of God's invitation.

You will see God I'm here. Let your will be done that you

would come into this place of daily repentance and that you

would keep going back to him for that transformative power

because it cannot happen on our own.

So can I just pray for your Father.

I just pray that you would help your people receive your love.

Lord so many times our frequency doesn't match yours.

We don't realize that the favour of our lives is from you.

We don't realize that those outcomes, those unexpected

outcomes are actually from you, and they're so good for us.

Lord, we thank you that you go go off script so often to do

your thing. And we're so grateful that you

are so creative. You're so wonderful.

And Lord, I just pray that you will continue to transform us

and conform us into the image of Your son.

I pray that you would help us to be patient, Lord, while you work

through us. That like David, we would be

called people after your own heart.

That our love for you would motivate you, Lord, to make a

covenant with us. God, we pray that we will not

build dynasties, but we will leave legacies behind.

I pray for those who are fretting that they don't have

their own children, that Lord Isaiah 54 one would be theirs,

that they would sing out loud knowing that the spiritual

children that they will birth will be way more than the

natural children of those who have them.

I pray that they will. Pour into people's lives as you

direct them. Continue to watch over each of

us. We pray, O God.

That you'd help us to be diligent to the very end, taking

the territories that are marked for us.

And that, Lord, we would be mindful of who we imitate.

And we'll be careful, Lord, to impart people, impart to people

the things that you have shared with us, the things that you

have taught us. We pray all of this in your

precious name, Jesus, Amen. Amen.

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