CBFC Worship Service 9/6/2026

All right, kids can be dismissed.

Amen.

Good morning.

Welcome again to Community Bible Fellowship Church.

It is a joy, as always, to be with you, to gather as the people of God for his glory and to hear from his word.

In 1 Samuel chapter 30, we're gonna be in 1 Samuel 30 this morning.

1 Samuel 30 · chapter mention

If you would like to begin finding your way in a copy of God's word to 1 Samuel 30.

My mom was telling me stories the other day about my siblings and I when we were little and some of the ridiculous things we would do.

She was telling me about a time my sister, or one of my siblings, um, was about two and decided to cross this really busy street by herself to go sit on a stranger's porch.

And as you can imagine, my mom almost lost her mind watching that happen.

And she told me then about how my brother, when he was really little, would just insist on putting his shoes on himself when he was just tiny, and would sort of stuff them in halfway, usually on the wrong foot, and then jumble the laces into something resembling a nut, and then march confidently out the door like he had really done something for himself.

And then she told me that I, even I, as a toddler, uh, crawled into the front seat of our empty vehicle and drove the car through our backyard yard down into the playground.

And when she rushed to the car and opened the door, I turned to her and said proudly, I drive car, mommy.

I was just excited for what I had accomplished.

Lots of us as kids have this uh sort of natural, self-reliant, I can do that for myself mindset.

Right?

We we have this instinctive desire to take care of ourselves, to tie our own shoes, to cross the street on our own, to drive the car, even when it makes a mess of our lives and puts us in danger.

We naturally want to be self-reliant, not to depend on others.

And that can be funny in a three-year-old.

It gets less and less funny when it becomes the governing principle of an adult life.

And for many of us, um, maybe all of us in some ways, we we never really learn to grow out of our self-reliant, self-dependent, control-grasping childhood.

We become a lot more sophisticated at saying, I can do that, I can take care of myself, but we don't really stop saying it.

We we still live and act and think and worry and stress and save and suffer and plan and control and even pray like we need to be in control and can depend only on ourselves.

That's what David's been doing in 1 Samuel, um, really since chapter 27.

For months now, Saul uh is trying to kill him.

He's afraid, he's beginning to doubt God's promise that he'll become king.

And he says, All right, you know, I'm gonna need to step into this myself.

I can take control of this myself.

God might not help me, but I can do it.

And so he takes his life into his own hands, he runs to the Philistines, the enemies of God, uh, he makes friends with them, and for sixteen months he lives apart from the people of God that he was called to be king over, serving the enemies of God that he was called to destroy.

And the consequences of his self-reliance are disastrous, as everything in David's life becomes distorted.

David's relationship with God has been distorted.

He hasn't prayed or asked God for guidance or sought his will or talked to the priest, or so much as mentioned God's name in several chapters now.

It's in his self-reliance that David becomes distant from the Lord.

David's relationship with God's enemy has become distorted.

He's joined the violent, oppressive Philistines, and he was just about to go to war against God's kingdom, fighting on behalf of God's enemy.

It's in his self-reliance that David begins serving the enemy.

And David's relationship to the kingdom of God has been distorted.

And now, rather than serving God's people, he has abandoned them to flee, and the ones he had with him outside of Israel are now in grave danger because of his self-reliance.

So the problem with taking your life into your own hands in self-reliance isn't only that eventually your plans will fail and you'll crash the car, it's that even when they work, they slowly distort everything around you until you have completely distorted your relationship with the Lord, the enemy, and the kingdom of God's people, and you find yourself distant from God, serving sin and Satan and neglecting the people that God has given you to serve.

But when we get to chapter 30, we see here the astonishing grace of God through the unexpected darkness of David's suffering, bringing about a total reversal to the distortion of David's self-reliance.

Chapter 30 is what happens when grace gets hold of a man and restores what self-reliance distorts.

So let's read from God's word now in 1 Samuel 30.

I invite you to stand with me if you are able to honor the reading of the Holy Scriptures, the Word of God from 1 Samuel 30, beginning in verse 1.

Now, when David and his men came to Ziklag on the third day, the Amalekites had made a raid against the Negeb and against Ziklag.

They had overcome Ziklag and burned it with fire, and taken captive the women and all who were in it, both small and great.

They killed no one, but carried them off and went their way.

And when David and his men came to the city, they found it burned with fire, and their wives and sons and daughters taken captive.

Then David and the people who were with him raised their voices and wept until they had no more strength to weep.

David's two wives also had been taken captive, Ahinoam of Jezreel and Abigail the widow of Nabal of Carmel.

And David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him, because all the people were bitter in soul, each for his sons and daughters.

But David strengthened himself in the Lord his God.

And David said to Abigail, the priest, the son of Ahimelech, bring me the Ephid.

So Abhiathar brought the Ephid to David, and David inquired of the Lord, Shall I pursue after this band?

Shall I overtake them?

He answered him, Pursue, for you shall surely overtake and shall surely rescue.

So David set out, and the six hundred men who were with him, and they came to the brook Basor, where those who were left behind stayed.

But David pursued, he and four hundred men.

Two hundred stayed behind, who were too exhausted to cross the brook Basor.

They found an Egyptian in the open country and brought him to David, and they gave him bread, and he ate.

They gave him water to drink, and they gave him a piece of cake of figs, and two clusters of raisins, and when he had eaten, his spirit revived, for he had not eaten bread or drunk water for three days and three nights.

And David said to him, To whom do you belong?

And where are you from?

He said, I am a young man of Egypt, servant to an Amalekite, and my master left me behind because I fell sick three days ago.

We had made a raid against the Negab of the Cherithites, and against that which belongs to Judah, and against the Negab of Caleb, and we burned Ziklag with fire.

And David said to him, Will you take me down to this band?

And he said, Swear to me by God that you will not kill me, or deliver me into the hands of my master, and I will take you down to this band.

And when he had taken him down, behold, they were spread abroad over all the land, eating and drinking and dancing, because of all the great spoil they had taken from the land of the Philistines and from the land of Judah.

And David struck them down from twilight until the evening of the next day, and not a man of them escaped, except four hundred young men who mounted camels and fled.

David recovered all that he that the Amalekites had taken, and David rescued his two wives.

Nothing was missing, whether small or great, sons or daughters, spoil or anything that had been taken.

David brought back all.

David also captured all the flocks and herds, and the people drove the livestock before him, and he said, and said, This is David's spoil.

Then David came to the two hundred men who had been too exhausted to follow David, and who had been left at the brook Basor, and they went out to meet David and to meet the people who were with him.

And when David came near to the people, he greeted them.

Then all the wicked and worthless fellows among the men who had gone with David, said, Because they did not go with us, we will not give them any of the spoil that we have recovered, except that each man may lead away his wife and children and depart.

But David said, You shall not do so, my brothers, with what the Lord has given us.

He has preserved us and given us into given into our hand the band that came against us.

Who would listen to you in this matter?

For as his share is who goes down to the battle, so shall his share be who stays by the baggage, they shall share alike.

And he made it a statute and a rule for Israel from that day forward to this day.

When David came to Ziklag, he sent part of the spoil to his friends, the elders of Judah, saying, Here is a present for you from the spoil of the enemies of the Lord.

It was for those in Bethel, and Ramath of the Negeb, and Jatir, and Erower, in Sipmoth, and Eshtemoah, and Rakal, and the cities of the Jerehemielites, in the cities of the Kenites, in Horma, and Borah Ashan, in Athak, and Hebron, for all the places where David and his men had roamed.

This is God's word, you may be seated.

Will you pray with me now?

Holy Spirit, would you draw near to every individual in this room now, to open every eye to behold Jesus Christ, and to open every ear to hear his word and the truth of the gospel, and to open every heart to receive the good news of Christ, to rejoice in our salvation in him, and to glorify him, the Lord, our Savior, our friend, our God.

Lord, our one request is that you would lift Jesus Christ up in our hearts, make us more like him, and magnify his name among us this morning.

It is for the glory of Jesus Christ that we pray.

Amen.

Well, this morning I want us to see how the grace of God in David's suffering begins putting David's life back in order by restoring these three relationships that his self-reliance has distorted.

First, we'll see David brought back near to the Lord, no longer relying on himself, but finding his his strength and direction in God.

Second, we'll see David turned again against the enemy, fighting the battle that God has called him to fight, and receiving a victory only God could give.

And finally, we'll see David turned outward toward the kingdom, no longer living merely for his own survival, but freely sharing what God has given with him for the good of God's people.

So the Lord, the enemy, and the kingdom.

And in each of these relationships, we'll see that same truth that grace restores what self-reliance distorts.

So, first, the Lord.

David returns to Ziklag from initially going out to war with the Philistines, returns to his Philistine hometown, and he finds his home and his whole city burned to the ground.

All his livestock are gone, his possessions are gone, his wives are gone, the children of all the people are gone, his men are weeping until they physically cannot weep anymore.

And then, to add to all that, they start talking about killing him.

Because this is, you know, kind of his fault.

And so David has absolutely nothing left at this point, soon maybe not even his own life.

And then comes one of the most crucial sentences in David's whole story.

Verse 6 at the end.

But David strengthened himself in the Lord his God.

So the turning point of David's whole story in many ways comes with a returned intimacy and relationship with God.

It's not just that he strengthened himself in the Lord or some Lord abstract, but in Yahweh, his God.

For several chapters, David has been searching for strength basically everywhere else, in his plans, his lies, his military ability, his friendships with the Philistines, his ability to manipulate circumstances and keep himself alive.

But now God, in his grace and love for David, has allowed every one of those supports to collapse.

And David turns back to strengthening himself in the Lord, his God.

So what does it look like to strengthen yourself in the Lord your God?

Well, it's not some kind of quick fix gospel magic.

God is not a genie in a bottle that we can rub and get a few wishes in times of trouble.

He's not a spiritual pain reliever that you can quick take and start feeling better half an hour later.

Strengthening yourself in God is more complicated than that.

And it is not merely like opening up and venting.

That's fine and good.

David and his men do that in verse 4.

They weep together, right, in pain.

They cry out to the point of exhaustion.

But that doesn't lead to strength.

It leads to their exhaustion.

It does the opposite.

And again, that's not to say that it's bad.

Of course, we need to weep together and alone and cry out to God and pour out our sorrows to one another.

That's necessary.

But there's also often a temptation among Christians influenced by a world of secular psychology to see venting as a solution, to see mere expression of emotion as an active, productive help, or support, or means of healing.

Which even secular psychology is catching up and realizing that that's not the case.

And again, I'm not saying that we need to stifle our emotions or our struggles or conceal our hurt in any way.

But I'm saying that's not enough.

We need something more than that.

You know who else in 1 Samuel was burdened by deep distress, just like David was?

Actually, the same exact language used for David here.

You know who else wept and cried and poured out his sorrows to God and those around him?

Saul.

Saul feels burdened by his sin.

Saul feels burdened by his suffering.

Saul feels burdened by the world and he cries out to God for help, but Saul never strengthens himself in the Lord his God.

So it's not enough for us to vent or talk about our pain.

We need also to be strengthened, and to be strengthened in the Lord.

We saw this back in chapter 23, when David was afraid and broken and terrified.

Jonathan comes to him at great risk to himself and he strengthens his hand in God, the text says.

And he does this by reminding David of God's promise.

So he reaffirms and re-emphasizes God's word for his struggling friend.

But Jonathan isn't here anymore.

There are moments when God graciously gives you other believers to strengthen your faith, like your spouse encourages you, or a friend reminds you of truth, a mentor points you back to God's promises.

We need that.

We need the church, other believers gathered around us to strengthen our hand in God, week in and week out, day in and day out.

But nobody else can trust God for you.

And there will be moments when you have to take hold of the promises of God yourself and preach them diligently to your own soul.

God is faithful, Daniel.

God is sovereign, God is good, God is directing the universe for your good and his glory.

He hasn't abandoned you, he will keep every promise he has made to you.

That's how faith responds.

When everything that our eyes can see is screaming the opposite.

It turns us to the word of God, to the promises of God, to remind ourselves of what he has said.

We need the word of God and his promises in the Holy Scriptures to strengthen our souls in God.

And then notice what David immediately does next in verse 7.

He calls for Abby Athar, the high priest, who has the means of meeting with and communicating with God, and he inquires of the Lord through him, which he hasn't done in several months, maybe years, at least since chapter 23.

And church, God has given us something infinitely greater than Abia.

We have Jesus Christ, our true and great high priest, who has ascended into the heavens for us, through whom we now have direct access to the throne of God.

And Hebrews 4 tells us that because Jesus is our great high priest, it says, Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

So we who are united to Jesus by faith can go now to God Himself, enter the throne room of heaven through prayer at any moment and receive his gracious help.

He may not always give us clear answers to our questions, but he will give us grace to help in time of need.

Which we usually need more than answers.

Anyway.

So, believer, God's grace strengthens you primarily through his word and through prayer.

And it does strengthen you.

You don't always see it, but God's grace is given to you through his word and through prayer.

Take advantage of that.

You want to grow like spiritually strong, to endure temptation, to resist the devil, to conquer sin, to endure through suffering and persevere through brokenness.

You can't hit up the spiritual gym once a week.

You can't go to the gym once a week and expect it to do much.

I know because I've been doing that for months, and I swear I've somehow gotten smaller and weaker.

We need daily, daily spiritual exercise, daily strengthening in God's word and in his presence through prayer.

We have more than David could have dreamt of having.

We have direct access to the promises of God written down for us in Scripture, speaking to us whenever we open it, and we have direct access to God Himself in His presence through Jesus Christ in prayer.

And if you haven't opened a Bible in 16 months, if you haven't said a word of prayer in 16 years, you need no hesitation or delay.

David, a righteous man, had drifted far from the Lord in his self-reliance.

But look how quickly and how powerfully God's grace meets him, embraces him, and transforms him.

God gladly receives distant, struggling, drifting sinners back into his gracious arms.

He loves to do it.

It doesn't matter how long it's been or how far you've gone, Jesus is eager to welcome you back to himself again.

And look at what happens when he does.

Once David's relationship with the Lord is put back in order, notice what happens to his relationship with the enemy.

This is our second point, the enemy.

For the last 16 months, David has been living among God's enemies.

And literally three days ago, he was marching with the Philistine army into war against God's kingdom.

So the guy that killed the Philistine Goliath is now standing on Goliath's side of the battlefield, among his ranks.

Self-reliance had turned David's enemies into his friends.

But the grace of Jesus Christ puts the battle lines back where they belong.

God tells David in verse 8, Pursue, for you shall surely overtake and shall surely rescue.

And David doesn't ask questions here, he just goes.

And he doesn't really have much to go on.

At this point, he doesn't know who he's even asked after.

He doesn't know it's the Amalekites.

He doesn't know where the enemy is or which direction they came from or which direction they went.

He doesn't know how large their army is, or if he stands a chance.

And before he even finds them, a third of his own army is too exhausted to continue, and they stop and stay behind.

And on top of all of that, the ones he has just left in his army have just traveled 60 miles from Aphakh, where he was with the Philistines, and then they wept to the point of exhaustion.

Things aren't looking good for David.

The odds are not in his favor.

But David has something so much better than favorable circumstances.

He has the word of God, the promise of God Himself, to fight for him and to win the battle.

So he simply obeys.

David doesn't have a clue how this victory is going to be won, but he has God's word and God's promise and God's presence.

So he simply gets to work.

And as he does, God begins providing everything David needs in unexpected ways.

In the middle of nowhere, they happen to find this dying Egyptian slave who was abandoned by the Amalekites.

And David doesn't even know yet that this man can help him.

He simply sees a need and he shows mercy.

Gives him bread, gives him something to drink, and then this seemingly random act of kindness becomes the very means that God uses to lead David directly to the enemy.

Sometimes God's provision doesn't look like provision at first.

It looks like an interruption or an inconvenience, someone in your way.

And obedience then means simply doing the next faithful thing without yet seeing how God intends to use it.

There are no interruptions in God's perfect providence for our lives.

And God uses this beautifully as he leads David through this helpless slave straight to the Amalekites, who David's army finds drinking and dancing and partying in this arrogant pagan celebration of their assault on the people of God, likely praising their own false gods for their violent theft and enslavement of the weak.

And so, in a fierce, holy anger, David strikes them down in the hundreds, maybe probably in the thousands.

And verse 18 says that then David recovered all.

And verse 19 emphasizes it further.

Nothing was missing, whether small or great, sons or daughters, spoil or anything that had been taken.

David brought back all.

And even more than all, David also gained all of the livestock and all of the spoil and possessions of all the other Philistine cities and the other cities that the Amalekites had raided, and returned with an abundance of wealth.

So this is David at some of his best.

And as we've seen many times before, David at his best is given here in Scripture to show us a picture of Jesus himself.

We learn in the New Testament that 1 Samuel, like the entire Old Testament, is inspired by Jesus.

1 Peter 1, meaning written by Jesus to reveal the death and resurrection of Jesus.

That's what this is about.

So this is a picture of what God's king was always meant to do in the true King, Jesus Christ.

Jesus came into this world to fight enemies far greater than the Amalekites.

He came to destroy the works of the devil, to conquer sin and death, to bear the judgment of God against us, and to rescue a people from the kingdom of darkness who were helpless to rescue themselves.

So in his death and resurrection, Jesus broke the power of sin and death.

And as David recovered all, Jesus loses none of those the Father has given him.

Everyone he rescues, he will bring safely home, and then shower them with abundant blessings.

So listen, you and I are not David in this story.

We can learn from David, but we're not David in this story.

We're the bride, enslaved under the enemy's rule, and then delivered by our mighty King, the bridegroom, Jesus Christ.

We're the helpless sons and daughters, rescued from a kingdom of wickedness.

We're the weak and exhausted who stay behind and do nothing, but nonetheless share in the blessings of the king's victory.

We're the masses who once shouted for the king's death, but are blessed by him anyway.

We are the sick and starving slave who once worked for the adversary and aided the enemy's wickedness, but are now welcomed with kindness into the greater David's loving arms.

Welcomed into his ranks, given food and nourished by his presence.

And if you don't yet know Jesus, this true Jesus, the mighty, fierce, loving, gracious Jesus, if you don't yet belong to his kingdom by faith, you sit before him today, in his presence, right now, as that poor slave, helpless, hurting, and guilty of serving the wickedness of the enemy, with the opportunity to refuse the king's kindness and submit yourself again to the abuses of your evil master, or to change your allegiance, receive his kindness, and be welcomed joyfully into his victorious army.

Turn from your former sins and your former master, Satan.

Renounce your wickedness in your heart right now.

Acknowledge your need for Jesus and trust him with your life, and you will be saved.

You will be loved, you will be welcomed into his people with open arms, and you will share in the eternal blessings of his victory.

He offers you his kindness and mercy today.

Receive him.

And if you do belong to Jesus by faith, here's simply this.

But the victory of the king doesn't only change how we relate to the enemy, it changes how we relate to one another.

David returns from battle with far more than he left with, and what he does with the spoils of his victory shows us one more really important thing that grace has restored in him.

It's restored David's relationship with the kingdom.

Which is our last point, the kingdom.

David comes back from battle with an enormous amount of plunder.

But remember, two hundred of his men had felt too tired to fight, and when David returns, some of the men who fought say in verse 22, they didn't fight with us.

So they don't get what we earned.

Give them their families and send them on their way.

And honestly, their logic kind of makes some sense, right?

Like, we fought, we risked our lives, we earned this.

Why should they get an equal share?

They didn't do anything.

But listen to David's gracious but but firm answer.

Verse 23.

You see the difference?

They say, This is the spoil we have recovered.

David says, This is what the Lord has given us.

So they think in terms of merit.

David thinks in terms of grace, of gift.

David knows that these 400 weak, exhausted men didn't defeat this massive army on their own.

God promised the victory beforehand.

God led them providentially to the enemy.

God preserved them in the battle, and God defeated their enemies through them.

Everything they have is a gift.

And people who know, who truly know that everything that they have is a gift, become giving people.

They become generous people.

And so David says, they shall all share alike.

And then he goes even further.

He starts sending the plunder throughout Judah to the people of God all over the land.

Here, take this: share in the victory of God's kingdom.

None of them did anything, but here, share in the victory that God has given us.

Look at the change that grace has produced in this man.

For a year and a half, David has been living for David, protecting David, preserving David, securing David's future, saying, I need to take my life into my own hands.

But now his hands open to those around him.

God has been gracious to him, so he becomes gracious to others.

God has been generous to him, so he becomes generous to others.

And because of David's ridiculous generosity toward his people, verse 25 says that this becomes them the custom of the kingdom moving forward.

This is how these people live now.

And church, this is what happens when the grace of Jesus gets hold of a community.

After Jesus wins his victory through the cross and the resurrection, he ascends to heaven and pours out his spirit on his kingdom people.

And what do we see in Acts 2?

His people are together, sharing their possessions, selling what they own, lands and houses and possessions to provide for anyone who has need in their community.

It's a remarkable display of generosity as the immediate result of being filled with the Holy Spirit.

Acts 4 shows us the same thing, continuing later in the church, and says, there was not a needy person among them, according the commands of Deuteronomy 15, because people were laying whatever they had, whatever extra in their lives at the apostles' feet to be distributed to others who had need.

Why?

Why are they so lavishly generous with their possessions?

Because the grace of Jesus creates a new kind of people.

When you believe in self-reliance that everything you have is something you earned, you clutch it.

Right?

My money, my house, my time, my food, my abilities, I worked for this, not them.

But when you realize that everything you have is something God has given you, your hands begin to open.

And that's the kind of kingdom community I think Jesus wants to create here at CBFC, where somebody loses a job and doesn't wonder whether they'll eat, where an elderly saint needs help with their house and people show up, where a young family is overwhelmed and meals appear at the door where there are no more needy in our community.

Not because the church neglects and rejects them, but because we provide for them.

Where someone needs a car, a place to stay, childcare, encouragement, friendship, and the church begins asking, what has God given me?

What has God given us that we can give, that we can use?

Not because we're communists, not because possessions are evil, not because generosity earns God's favor, but because we've already received everything freely as a gift of God's grace, and none of it belongs to us.

But we have been blessed to be a blessing.

And please don't hear me talking down on you like this is something you need to do.

But I say this looking up to most of you because this is something our church does incredibly well.

So, yes, this is something our church has been gifted in, but no, we will not be content to stay here at this level of generosity, as excellent as it is.

When the church in Acts finally then lives with such radical, selfless generosity that there is not a single needy person in their community, the next thing we see in Acts 11 is that they begin extending their kindness further, outward, more.

They send money and resources and people to communities around the world to feed the hungry and provide for their needs across ethnic and geographical boundaries.

And that is not just some over-idealized fiction or a nice dream.

That is the expectation of how the church is meant to live in this world.

So, yes, well done, Community Bible Fellowship Church, with your selfless generosity.

But so long as there are needy people in our church, in our community, or in the world, we are not done growing into new heights of selfless radical generosity.

I don't care if they didn't work for it, I don't care if they got themselves into that position, I don't care if they don't deserve it.

The kingdom of God is built on people that don't deserve it and is now a community of people who give of themselves lavishly, abundantly, and with selfless generosity.

So we must resist the self-reliant spirit of our age and come with folded hands before the Lord our God, with fighting hands toward the enemies of sin and Satan, and with open hands toward God's kingdom people.

In a moment we're going to encounter Jesus in a subtle but truly powerful way in the Lord's Supper.

And maybe the best picture, again, of who we are as we meet with him is that starving Egyptian slave lying helpless in the wilderness.

He belonged to a cruel master who used him and abandoned him to die.

And when he was nothing, the king found him.

And before this man ever fought in David's army, before he ever did anything to earn a place among David's people, before he had anything to offer, David offered himself to him.

He gave him bread to eat, he gave him something to drink, he fed him until his strength returned, nourished him, and then welcomed him into the ranks of his victorious kingdom.

Church, that is us.

We were slaves to sin, servants to Satan, helpless to rescue ourselves.

But Jesus, the greater David, found us in the wilderness, rescued us.

Our King defeated our enemies through his death and resurrection, brought us out of the kingdom of darkness, and brought us into his kingdom of light.

And now, as God has always done for his chosen people, our king feeds his children in the wilderness.

He nourishes our souls with his presence.

That's what we remember and experience in this meal.

We don't sustain ourselves, we don't save ourselves, we don't strengthen ourselves.

We live by the grace of God offered to us in Jesus Christ, who doesn't just give of himself here this morning, but gives himself.

So come hungry, come broken, come needy, come with empty hands, and receive again the Lord Jesus Christ given for you in this channel of grace, remembering that he, the King who rescued you, is the King who will nourish you by his presence until he brings every one of his people safely home.

He's coming soon.

Let's pray.

Lord Jesus, you are good.

You are powerful.

You are vicious toward your enemies who hate you, sin and Satan and death, whom you have come to demolish and wipe off the face of this earth, but to restore your kingdom, people, and to bless us with abundant, everlasting blessings in you.

We praise you, Lord.

Not only for the blessings that are coming to us, but for the blessings that we have now.

Every spiritual blessing in the heavenly place is given to us now in Christ.

We praise you, Lord.

We ask that as we go from here, we would be revitalized in our relationship with you, to depend on you, strengthened in the fight against the enemy, and built up in our love for your kingdom, people, to show your kindness and generosity toward those around us until you come.

We long to see you, Lord.

We pray that you would come quickly.

It's in your name that we pray.

Amen.