Mark Buckley 3/21/21 Mark Buckley 3/21/21

What I Learned from the Kings

Well, good morning, Living Streams. It’s a joy for me to be with you guys today. I want to say a special hello to the Grand Canyon students, because it’s a big weekend, you guys having your team at the big dance. We’re proud of you. It was a little difficult yesterday but to get into the dance is one thing. But actually, dancing is a whole different ball game, right?

Series: A Kingdom Divided
March 21, 2021 - Mark Buckley

I also want to say hi to the online community. I’ve been part of the online community for the past year. My wife had a heart transplant and we had to keep a big social distance. But there’s nothing like being back in live church! It’s a whole different ball game.

I was literally weeping this morning as we prayed before the first service. The Holy Spirit was ministering in a powerful way. We’ve got an awesome team of people in this church. If you don’t know the pastors personally, Veronica Morrison, Faith Cummings, Kurt Cotter, Arthur Le, some of these guys and gals are wonderful. And our elders are wonderful men of God. If you have a chance to get to know them, you’re going to find even more of God’s kingdom in this place than you’ve ever experienced before.

I’m going to be talking today about What I Learned from the Kings. At the end of the service we’re going to have communion. If you’re online, go get your bread, go get your cup. If it’s too early for wine, get some juice, whatever. We’re going to take communion. It’ll be good.

I’m going to give you lessons from three different righteous kings—things that have stuck with me over the years. Even the righteous kings were flawed. The first part of this message is going to be a little bit dark at times, a little bit politically incorrect at times; but if you stick with it, it’ll be worth it in the end,

First lesson from the kings:

1. Immorality has consequences for everyone.

Looking at the life of Solomon. Solomon was a king who pleased God from the time he began. He was a young guy. He knew that he needed wisdom. He asked God for wisdom and the Lord said, “I’m going to give you wisdom. And because you weren’t asking for much more than that, I’m going to give you wealth, I’m going to give you power, I’m going to give you more than you ever anticipated.”

Then it says in 1 Kings 11,

King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women besides Pharaoh’s daughter…

which was his first wife.

Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians and Hittites. They were from nations about which the Lord had told the Israelites, “You must not intermarry with them, because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods.” Nevertheless, Solomon held fast to them in love. He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray. As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father had been.

Let’s pray:

Father, I ask that you’d help me speak this word with clarity and power and that your grace will minister and that your kingdom will come more fully in our lives than ever before. In Jesus’ name.

So Solomon went from being this wonderful young guy with a heart for God, who gained wisdom, who gained understanding, who understand how flowers worked and plants grew, and how cities should be built, and aqueducts, and how an army should be formed, and his palace had such great order that people came and were amazed at what God did through Solomon. He built this magnificent temple and overlaid it with gold. It was a phenomenal place.

But as he wanted, in the lust of his heart, more and more women—it wasn’t just one wife that was beautiful, it wasn’t just two, it became seven hundred wives, three hundred concubines, which were basically sex slaves. There’s no other way to put it. It occupied his heart. His heart became dark. And his latter years he did not leave the legacy of blessing. The kingdom got divided because his heart was dark, and his son followed his dark ways and took unwise counsel.

I have a deep concern for our society today. I watched my own dad’s life turn dark because of immorality. I watched my pastor’s life become dark because of immorality. I saw the consequences in our family. I saw the consequences in the ministry I was part of when I was a young guy. It grieved my heart.

And today we’re having an explosion of immorality that is like none other. Now, in the sixties, we had free love, sex, peace, rock ’n roll and partying, basically. But the media, for the most part, was trying to warn people that it wasn’t going to end well. If you go to Height Ashbury and see the fruit of the hippie movement, you’ll see the burned out skeletons of people, those who are still alive. You see the bad fruit of that lifestyle.

But today, Kristina and I were watching Netflix the other day. And, a quick aside, thank you for those who have prayed for my dear wife. She’s doing much better. She’s getting stronger. Her transplant is working really good and we really appreciate your love.

So we were watching Netflix and it says in the upper corner “Language and Smoking,” you know, so keep your eyes out. If somebody smokes, that could really infiltrate your heart and make you want to go smoke or something like that, or you might say a bad word too. It says absolutely nothing about the fact that one guy after another in this show is sleeping with whatever woman he can get his hands on. And women are in bed with other women. The whole thing is rampant immorality. That’s normal. It’s being promoted in our society.

And then people act shocked when a guy down in Atlanta goes and kills eight people. Now that is tragic. And you know, if you do the back story on the guy, he was part of a bible-believing church. And he took a very Old Testament approach to try to get rid of his sin. You know? He was enslaved by his sin. He called himself a sex addict. Well, Jesus said that those who sin become slaves to sin. There is an addiction factor, because it doesn’t provide fulfillment. It provides degradation. So he took an Old Testament approach, kills eight people, which spreads fear and grief and pain.

Whether you try to gain a political solution through violence, a moral solution through violence, or you’re just being an angry person, that does not produce the righteousness of God. We’re here to proclaim the kingdom and to invite people into the kingdom. And we all have urges. We all have temptations. We all have desires that we have to say no to. The New Testament is about saying no to that which corrupts so you can say yes to the kingdom. There is something better that God has for each and every one of us that we don’t want to miss out on.

In 2 Kings 18, another king that you might not know as well as Solomon, his name is Hezekiah:

In the third year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, Hezekiah son of Ahaz king of Judah began to reign. He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem twenty-nine years. His mother’s name was Abijah daughter of Zechariah. He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, just as his father David had done. … Hezekiah trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel. There was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before him or after him.

He was pleasing to God. He did what was right. He believed God. Yet we’re going to see in a moment that Hezekiah had all kinds of trials. Some people erroneously believe that, if you love God, if you do everything right, then you’re going to have a shield of protection, a hedge of protection, some kind of invisible bubble that’s going to prevent any bad news from actually affecting you, either from the outside or any kind of personal crisis. But that’s not the story of the Bible. That’s not the truth, folks.

What I would really urge you all to do is study, not just the New Testament, but the Old Testament, because you’ll get a more full picture of who God really is. So let’s look at what happens.

2. Even the righteous face crises.

In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah’s reign, Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them. So Hezekiah king of Judah sent this message to the king of Assyria at Lachish: “I have done wrong. Withdraw from me, and I will pay whatever you demand of me.”

So here is this righteous king and he still gets attacked. Major army of Assyria. Hundreds of thousands of people marching against Judah, capturing the outlying cities. And it says:

…the king of Assyria exacted from Hezekiah king of Judah three hundred talents[c] of silver and thirty talents[d] of gold. So Hezekiah gave him all the silver that was found in the temple of the Lord and in the treasuries of the royal palace. At this time Hezekiah king of Judah stripped off the gold with which he had covered the doors and doorposts of the temple of the Lord, and gave it to the king of Assyria.

He made two false assumptions. One assumption was that it was because he did something wrong that he got attacked. He didn’t get attacked because he had done something wrong. He got attacked because there is evil in the world, and evil has a tendency to want to destroy those who are trying to do right. It says in the New Testament that all who live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. It goes with the territory. Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers. They will be sons of God.” We need peacemakers because there’s conflict. There’s conflict because men have fallen.

So another false assumption he made is that, if he goes into a treaty with the king of Assyria, that the king of Assyria is going to honor his word. It’s like trying to make a pact with the devil. You try and make a pact with the devil for your success or for your protection or whatever, and it’s a temporary deception that leads to further bondage.

Neville Chamberlain, in the late 1930’s, tried to make a pact with Adolph Hitler. The pact was this: we will let you have Austria, we will let you have part of Czechoslovakia, but that’s as far as you go. And Hitler goes, “Yeah. That’s as far as I want to go. We just want to reclaim the German-held territories from these other places and we’ll be good to go.”

Well, Chamberlain comes back to Great Britain, claims to the world, “We have a peace treaty. Hitler’s going to be fine.” And what happens? Within months Hitler’s invading Poland and then he goes after Russia and the whole world is inflamed in war. Why? Because he had an intent from the beginning to dominate and control and make the Aryan race the predominate force on the world.

So, what happens to Hezekiah if you get into the story is that, after he gives the gold, after he gives the silver, the king of Assyria still attacks. He’s got the gold but now he wants complete and utter control. He’s a picture of Satan in the Old Testament.

Now, by the grace of God, Hezekiah and the people of the Lord are delivered from that. But that’s not the end of Hezekiah’s challenges. In 2 Kings 20, it says this:

In those days Hezekiah became ill and was at the point of death. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz went to him and said, “This is what the Lord says: Put your house in order, because you are going to die; you will not recover.”

Now we don’t know what his problem was. We don’t know if it was some kind of cancer, some kind of an infection. All we know is that sickness was a sickness unto death and Isaiah the prophet recognized it and said, “Buddy, make sure your will is good. Make sure you kiss your wife goodbye and say what you want to your kids, because this is the end.”

Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord, “Remember, Lord, how I have walked before you faithfully and with wholehearted devotion and have done what is good in your eyes.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly.

I know a little bit of what this feels like. In 1979 I was a young pastor. I had a wife and two kids and a growing church in Northern California. We had a day of fasting and prayer. I’m fasting on my own, in my office, kneeling before the couch in my office, and I heard a voice in my heart. The voice said, “I’m going to take you home.”

It totally caught me off guard. You’re going to take me home? This is God speaking? I’m going to die? What the heck is going on?

I literally got up off my knees, sat down on my couch, a few minutes later I left my office. I’m walking around, I’m jumpy. I’m irritated. Am I going to die? Was that God? Was that the devil? What happened,

Well, four days later my wife, Kristina, and I left on a trip. We borrowed a Volkswagen camper van. We left our boys with my brother and his wife. We were up in Northern California to go trout fishing, The Volkswagen camper dies and we have to push-start it. I had to gather a bunch of campers together to help me push-start it. Kristina’s in the driver’s seat. We push it to get it going and and it doesn’t start. Then it turns out she had the key off, which was a little embarrassing. So we push it again. There were about five of us. We push it as hard as we can. She pops the clutch and it doesn’t start, because she had it in reverse.

Now, my wife is usually very mechanical and very responsible. It was very irritating. And four of the guys helping me push the van walked away in disgust. So they leave and it’s just me and one other guy. Now we’re pushing with all our might. We push and she pops the clutch. It starts. And I’m hit with this massive headache. I mean, massive. And within a moment or two I’m literally laying in the dirt, throwing up. It was a bad scene. Kristina gets out of the van, says, “What’s happening?” I said, “I think I’m going to die, and you’d better get me to a hospital.”

She takes me to the hospital, where they do a spinal tap when they see the mess I’m in. They say, “You’ve got a brain bleed” They fly me in a private air evac down to Marin County, and basically said, “We don’t know if you’re going to live or die, but 90% of people that have this kind of brain bleed die.” Obviously, you know how that part of the story ends. I don’t die, by the grace of God.

But I had been in my office praying, I had been in my office crying after hearing that word that I was going to die. What comforted me is what happened to Hezekiah. This is what I want to say in my third point:

3. The mercy of God is amazing.

Isaiah said in verse 4:

Before Isaiah had left the middle court, the word of the Lord came to him: “Go back and tell Hezekiah, the ruler of my people, ‘This is what the Lord, the God of your father David, says: I have heard your prayer and seen your tears; I will heal you. On the third day from now you will go up to the temple of the Lord. I will add fifteen years to your life. And I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria. I will defend this city for my sake and for the sake of my servant David.’”

In other words, what God is saying is, “I have a plan bigger than you, Hezekiah. The way you were living your life, you might have ended in death. But I have heard your plea for mercy and I’m adding fifteen years to your life.”

So when I had remembered that story, it really encouraged me. And when you’re twenty-nine years old, fifteen years sounds like a long, long time.

Let’s go to our final king. In 2 Kings 22, it says this:

Josiah was eight years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem thirty-one years. His mother’s name was Jedidah daughter of Adaiah; she was from Bozkath. He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord and followed completely the ways of his father David, not turning aside to the right or to the left.

So Josiah, at eight years old he becomes king. As he grows up, turns a teenager and into his twenties, he is the most dedicated king in the history of Israel. He tells them to rebuild the temple. The temple had fallen into disrepair. He finds the law of God in the temple and they begin to practice the law of God. They have it read to all the people. They begin to humble themselves. They reinstitute the Passover. They reinstitute the festivals. They reinstitute obedience to God. They finally rebuild the army. They rebuild the cities around Judah. And he has done a phenomenal job. Great guy. There’s about four pages of the Old Testament written about him. Then something happens.

4. Getting overextended has serious consequences.

2 Kings 23:

While Josiah was king, Pharaoh Necho king of Egypt went up to the Euphrates River to help the king of Assyria. King Josiah marched out to meet him in battle, but Necho faced him and killed him at Megiddo.

What’s happening? Josiah finds out that the arch enemy of Israel, which is Assyria, is going to be helped by Necho, King of Egypt. Josiah says, “I don’t want anybody helping Assyria. We hate those guys. They took the gold out of our temple years ago and we hate those guys.”

So he marches out in battle. He gets into a battle that God had not called him into. He gets overextended. I deal all the time with guys who are believers who get overextended and it’s not pretty.

So, 1994, Kristina and I are in a cabin in northern Washington. Kurt Cotter and I had flown up there because a young man in our church was in a coma. He had rolled his car over at a Christian camp. It had settled to the bottom of a pond. He was almost brain dead. He had been in a coma for several days. We went up there to pray for him, to ask God to heal him.

Two years before that, our oldest son had drown. Now, this kid, Daniel Murrow, we had helped raise for three and half years while his dad was in prison. So he was really close to our family. He was the oldest of six kids who lived next door to us. They were in and out of our house all the time. We loved these guys. We were praying over Daniel, asking God to heal him.

On the way up there, I had told Kurt, “I’m in trouble.” I had been in Alaska, trying to minister to some pastors whose kids were killed in a car wreck. I had been in California at a missions conference, where the churches were having a battle with each other. I had been on a bunch of trips that left me very drained, one right after another. I had nothing left in the tank. Now I had an emergency. I was living my life right on the edge, trying to please God by serving him with all my strength all the time, every day, and leaving nothing behind. Now an emergency comes and I’ve got nothing to give. I’m so wound up I couldn’t even sleep.

When the elders found out about that, they literally had me sent to a mental hospital for two weeks. Then to a treatment for another two weeks. I want to just tell you, if you’re the senior pastor of a church and you get sent to a mental hospital, it does not look good on a resume. Do you know what I mean? It’s not something you want to brag about to your friends or put in your newsletter. You’re hoping nobody’s going to find out. Yeah. Good luck with that.

“Where’s Mark? I haven’t seen him for a few weeks.”

“Well, you know how those things go, don’t you?”

Nobody ever gossips or anything. Nevertheless, I was out of the pulpit for four months. And our church held together. Living Streams held together because of love and because of mercy. They loved us. We loved them. And the fruit of the church has been better than ever. But I had to learn a really painful lesson.

I want to tell you how I ended up in that mental institution. I ended up there because, one night when we were at that Christian camp after we had prayed for Daniel all day long, I was trying to go to sleep. David Stockton’s parents were sharing this bungalow with us They were asleep. Kristina was asleep. My son, Phil, was in there. He was asleep. And I feel like my heart is starting to race and beat so fast that I’m having a heart attack. I’m thinking maybe I’m dying or something like that. I hear fireworks going off in the distance and I realize it’s Fourth of July and there’s fireworks. It’s 1994. And, oh, by the way, 1994, the last time I thought I was going to die was 1979, that’s fifteen years ago, and that happened to have been on the Fourth of July weekend. My fifteen years is up! I’m not paranoid. I’m about to die. Literally, that’s what I thought. That’s what flipped me out.

So the mercy of God is amazing. I did not die. But…but the reason I had the mercy of God is because I am part of a really loving, supportive community. Not everybody has that benefit. A lot of people, when they have a breakdown, which is what I had, it takes years and years to recover from. And some people have a hard time ever recovering.

The Body of Christ is a healing place. Don’t ever let people tell you, “I don’t really need church because I’ve got all I need from God.” Well, you’ve got all you need from God until you have a crisis. And if you’re a believer, you’re going to have a crisis, believe me. You’re going to get attacked. There’s going to be health issues. There’s going to be stuff happen. There is no magic protection that’s going to guarantee that your family is always going to escape through the trials of life. You’re going to need your brothers and sisters, and they’re going to need you, too.

Now I want to close this message by talking about the King of kings and the Lord of lords, and a little contrast between the limitations of the righteous king and what Jesus does in our life.

In Revelation 19:11 & 16, it says:

I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and wages war. On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written: king of kings and lord of lords.

King of kings and Lord of lords. Heaven was open and the apostle saw Jesus, the Word of God, alive and well and true. The Eternal Word through which all things are formed, all things are made, that which established the universe, literally became flesh and dwelt among us, he said, “And I got to touch him. I got to feel him.”

A couple of weeks ago, maybe a little less than that, I was over at a golf course, and I run into a guy who is a judge, who I’ve known for a long time, who was part of our church. And I said, “How’s it going?” And he said, “Well, did you know my golf clubs got stolen?” And I said, “No, I didn’t know that. Did you get any new ones?” And he goes, “No, no, as a matter of fact, one of the detectives caught the guy. He was fencing my golf clubs. And because he was fencing my golf clubs and they’re worth so much money, he’s got a class 4 felony. He’s going to prison.”

And then I’m like, “Oh, really?”

And he goes, “Yeah, but my driver, he gave away to somebody. So he’s making restitution. He’s paying me $17 a month for my driver.”

Now under normal circumstances, I’d say, “Yeah, they got the bad guy!” You know what I mean? We can’t let people steal golf clubs. What would become of people like me that like to play golf, if you just let them take golf clubs? You’ve got to send them to prison.

But that very day, I had heard about a lady taking a very different approach. We had a memorial service for Celia Clifton, the mom of Adriana Gruber, who is part of our staff. Celia Clifton heard from Adriana, when Adriana was a teenager, that when Adriana went on a particular day to get her car washed, somebody at the car wash stole a bunch of stuff out of her car. So she goes home and tells her mom right away, “Mom, I realized that somebody stole my stuff.”

Her mom says, “Which car wash?” She goes right down there. She marches down there. She’s this fiery little Mexican lady who loves Jesus. She tells the manager of the car wash, “I want to talk to all of your guys!”

“All of my guys/]?”

“Yeah. Someobody stole stuff out of my daughter’s car. I want to talk to all your guys.”

The guy literally shuts down the car wash, gathers twenty employees all together. And Celia begins to preach the gospel. She tells them that she knows that they’re sinners because we’re all sinners. She knows somebody’s a thief, but Jesus Christ came to die on the cross so thieves could be forgiven, so immoral people can be transformed, so people can enter the kingdom of God.

During the course of her message, one of the guys starts weeping and he confesses that he had stolen the stuff out of the car. And she leads him to the Lord and twenty of those guys pray to receive Christ. Then she goes to the manager of the car wash and says, “I do not want you to fire him. I want you promote him. You hear me? I do not want you to fire him. I want you to promote him because he’s honest and he’s going to be a man of God.”

So I wanted to say to my friend, the judge, “Hold on a second. There’s a better way than just sending the bad guys who steal your golf clubs to prison. There’s a better way. There’s a more powerful way.”

He can take those of us who have fallen and make us new. Jesus said, “there’s somebody more powerful than Solomon here.”

Solomon had people come from all over the world to hear his wisdom. And Jesus said what he could do was better. You know why? Because Solomon in his wisdom could find out which of the women is lying. But Jesus, in his power, can turn the liar into a truth teller.

Moses with his authority could have the adulterer put to death. But Jesus, with his authority, can turn the adulterer into a covenant keeper. There’s somebody more powerful than Moses here.

And here’s what Jesus had to say. Last point here.

5. The King of kings makes simple great.

Matthew 11:11

Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

Greater than John the Baptist. Greater than Moses. Greater than Solomon. Who? Whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven. You may be least in the kingdom of heaven. You are aware that you don’t think right sometimes. You don’t act right sometimes. But you’re not to be disqualified because you weren’t qualified. None of us are qualified because we’re always thinking right we’re always acting right. We’re qualified by what Jesus has done for us, by his gift for us. And if you’re least in the kingdom, you’ve got an awesome gift. An awesome gift.

My sister is visiting from California this weekend. The last time she came here was over thirty years ago. Living Streams had about fifteen people. I was going door to door. I was doing everything I could to try and reach people. I was going to the parks. I reached a few people and brought them to church.

She came when she was having trouble. She stayed in our house with our four kids. She invited a friend to our church. And her friend brought her boyfriend, Ben. Robin brought Ben. Ben brought J.B.. J.B. brought his parents, Ewell and Betsy. Ewell and Betsy brought George and Mary Ellen. George was the head of surgery at Good Sam Hospital. Ewell was the head of the Shearson Leemon Hutton brokerage. Ben brought Steve Ontiveros, a pitcher for the Oakland A’s.

I had been exhausting myself, trying to do whatever I could. Katey shows up, starts inviting somebody and the whole church starts to grow. She had a gift from God. I don’t even know if she knew she had a gift from God.

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Guest User 8/4/19 Guest User 8/4/19

Keep Chasing Jesus

Good morning, friends! It’s good to be back. I got all my family in a big, white van and we conquered Texas. Drove across the belly of the beast. It was fun. We hung out with some friends. And now we’re back.

We’re going to finish up our Generational Blessing series today. Hope you enjoyed some of my pastor-preacher friends the last couple of weeks. And this is John Youngstrom. He has been our executive director over everything, administration, facilities. Facilities is what he’s one a lot with us.

David Stockton
Series: Generational Blessing

We’re going to finish up our Generational Blessing series today. Hope you enjoyed some of my pastor-preacher friends the last couple of weeks. And this is John Youngstrom. He has been our executive director over everything: administration, facilities. Facilities is what he’s done a lot with us.

As you noticed, we had videos of people sharing what the Lord has done over the seasons of their lives. John is too macho for videos. He doesn’t believe in that stuff. Not really, I’m just making that up.

But he’s going to give us a little taste The Lord is stirring some stuff in his heart. He’s going to share that and what the Lord has done over the generation of his life.

John Youngstrom:

When I was twenty years old, I was newly married to Amy. We were in the Air Force. We both became Christians about a week apart. The thing that really burned in my heart was to know Jesus, to hear his voice. Throughout the whole Bible, we can see the Lord talking to people and directing people. And I’m like, “I want that for me.”
We’re no different than anybody in the Bible. Jesus says in John 10:27 that, if we’re his sheep, we’re going to hear his voice. And then we run from him, right? No. It says we will follow him. That’s my heart’s desire.
Being in the military, about every four years or so, we had a decision to make about reenlisting or taking a new assignment. We would always pray about it. There were times when we said “no,” and times when we said, “yes,” and different things like that.
So, after around thirty-three years in the Air Force, we were retiring. We were vacationing here and met with the Buckleys. The Buckleys are the founding pastors. We had gone here in the 1980’s and we had a relationship with them. He said, “Hey, you should come work for us. You should come be our facilities director.”
Our hearts leaped. It was something we were praying about, what we were going to do. And the Lord led us out to Phoenix. We just plunged in. We didn’t put our toes in to see what Living Streams was like. We just did a cannonball in here. And this place has been so gracious to us—you guys and all the people we work with. Just wonderful. And we’ve grown a lot. My wife has blossomed. I’ve blossomed in just all kinds of ministry.
About a year ago, I started getting stirred in my spirit. I’m like, “Lord, what are you doing?” Kind of like in the Old Testament when the cloud would start to lift. You know, there were like a million Israelites. East, west, north and south. And the cloud would start to lift, and they’re like, “We’re moving again. Go through the stuff. We’re going to have to start back.” And they’d take all this time to get everything together. And they’re putting together the poles, put it through the ark, you know.
And the cloud hadn’t left yet. Well, about three weeks ago, we were visiting my parents in Missouri and it became pretty clear to her, then me, that my parents are in their nineties. They need some help. We feel called to go assist them. You know, older people are not like kids. You know one day your kids are going to get potty trained. It goes the other direction. And you’re like, “Mom’s never going to get it back.”
And that’s a big task, but we feel like the Lord’s leading us back there. So that stirring and getting ready, which we didn’t know as I watched the Lord add pieces to Living Streams, raise up people out of the congregation, raise up people that work here to help me do different things. And it’s like there’s a person involved in everything I’m doing. So, it’s not like there’s going to be a big hole. There’s going to be like tug-of-war, you notice when someone’s not pulling, but it’s not going to be a rout or anything. The Lord’s really good.
So, we’re moving to Missouri when we sell our house. So we’re going through our stuff. It’s one of these deals. I say, “Can I throw this away, honey? You don’t need this anymore.” And she says, “Can I go through your tools?” And I said, “Keep it.” That’s where we’re at. And you guys are a real blessing to us.

David Stockton:

All right. Thanks, John. Amy, will you come on up. John and Amy have been awesome in a million different ways. They have really invested, like he said. It’s neat to see what they’ve done. John, on the practical side. He’s obviously cared for the facility—saved us lots and lots of money. Got a lot of systems up to date. And Amy, first service, when I said, “Amy, would you come up here,” she went “gasp.” It’s not her favorite thing. But she has definitely taken up the torch for us in prayer and prayed for us, and sends me emails all the time to encourage and tell me what the Lord’s been saying.

It’s going to be a gap, for sure. But when they were telling me this, and when I was thinking about what God’s trying to cultivate in our hearts through this sermon series is exactly this. Not that everyone is supposed to move—please don’t! But just that they would hear the call of the Lord to something like this and feel like God cares just as much about this as he does, maybe doing some big mission or church plant. There’s all these great things, but I think this is beautiful as well in the economy of heaven, that they are going to go care for John’s parents and be there for them.

We’re going to pray a blessing on them and obviously you can talk to them after the service about any of that stuff.

Lord, Jesus, I thank you so much for these two. I thank you for what they have placed in our hearts. I thank you for this last five years of assignment that they’ve had. And I thank you that you’ve given them a new assignment. I thank you that, in retirement, they’ve received more challenging assignments from you than not in retirement. And I just think that’s beautiful, Lord. And I pray that they would continue to have the strength, the hope and the patience to keep chasing you, to keep chasing your presence, chasing your glory. And I pray that there would be a great, big, generational blessing that is imparted to them and all the people they care about as they go on this task. And I pray that there would be a lot of joy in it. I thank you for them, Lord. And keep changing our hearts into the hearts that please you. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Thank you, guys. I think it’s so honorable what’s going on there.

The Bible is very clear that we’re all going to die someday. And there are a lot of people who don’t believe the Bible tells the truth. But on this one, it’s not that hard to go with the Bible because everybody dies. It’s been going on for a while. And yet, the Bible has a different perspective about death that I think it fits with our Generational Blessing. Psalms says that it’s precious in the eyes of the Lord every time one of his faithful servants dies. Paul said, “To live is Christ and to die is gain.”

We all know this kind of Easter verse that says, “Where, O grave, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” Because Jesus has come to take all of the darkness, danger and sting and pain out of death, when he rose from the dead. And our life here in this context, in this season, in this frame, is very short and small and brief. In James, it says that our lives are just a vapor. There it was. Gone. In light of eternity. In light of the life that God has planned for us after this life—the next life. If that is everlasting, and you compare that to what these seventy, eighty, ninety years are, this is so brief, so small. And death is actually a graduation.

What the Bible also teaches about death is that it is appointed once for a person to die, then after that comes judgment. And the grace of God, and the cross of Christ, hopefully, is permeating enough to where we’re starting to understand that, when God talks about judgment, he’s actually wanting to judge you so he can find the good in you, so that he can reward you. That’s God’s primary reason for judgment. To get you from Kindergarten to first grade, or wherever you might be at. That’s what the judging is. That’s what the testing is. He’s wanting you to bring you to the new next place.

And yet, it is true that God’s judgement does come toward wickedness, rebellion and sin, no doubt about it. And it’s heavy and painful. But if we’re really honest, we actually want God to do that, as well. Just like when I was driving across Texas with my family, and, yeah, I was camping out in the fast lane a little bit. I was going too slow, I wasn’t paying attention. And I was getting passed by one car, and then I got passed by a second car. It was the second car when it dawned on me that I should probably get out of that lane.

They didn’t know I had been driving forever. And the second guy that passed me, he was right to kind of like, “Hey, man, you shouldn’t be in that lane.” I get that. I’ve done the same thing. He was not right to say those things and to show me those fingers and all of the other things he did. I had gotten the message. I didn’t need all the exclamation points.

I was right to not say anything or to do anything with my vehicle. I don’t know if I was right about the things I was thinking inside my mind and heart. But I can tell you that there was a great moment when, all of a sudden, he realized that there was a police car about five cars ahead of us and he slowed down really quick as he got up to them. I’ve never seen this before, but the cop slowed down, more than him, popped right behind him, pulled him right over. And I didn’t say anything or show him anything as I drove by. Which was great. Which was really great.

Again, that is a joke or whatever. But the truth is that we want God to punish wickedness, rebellion and sin. We don’t want him to punish it whenever it’s us. But when there is real evil in this world, which there is, devastating, breath-taking evil, we want God to rise up. We want him to do these things. So the judgment of God is actually something that is a good thing. And it’s something that, if we’re going to have the right perspective for generations of blessing, we’ve got to understand this broader perspective.

In the first message, I kicked it off, I talked about Psalm 90, where it says Moses is teaching and saying, “Lord, help us to number our days so that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” And teaching us to number our days is coming to that humble reality of understanding how finite, how brief our life is. When we’re young, it’s just a joke. You say your life is brief and it makes no sense at all. But everyone you talk to that is in those latter years of life, they consistently tell you, “I don’t know where the years have gone. It makes no sense to me how quickly it has gone.”

It is so brief. And so we’ve got to gain this understanding. We’ve got to find a way to believe what the Scriptures say—hear about life and the way the Scriptures teach it so that we can make sure we’re not missing the blessing in the generation right here and right now.

When I say “generation,” we have to define that word, too. We’ve kind of defined it three different ways. If it’s been confusing, then now you know why. The three ways different ways we define “generation” is like Jim Watkins taught in the first video. Zero to twenty seems to be a generation of our lives that is different from twenty to forty. Twenty seems to bring a big change. And then forty seems to bring a big change.

I was looking at the lines on my forehead as I was driving to church today. I was just like, “Those are deep, man. Oh, no. I’m just going to get more of those all the time? Wow.” Stop staring at them right now. Look over here or over there or something. Don’t stare. But then, sixty, I’ve heard, seems to be a big shift in life. And then eighty a big shift in life.

So we have generations in that. You want to find what is danger and what is the curse and what is the blessing in those seasons that God has planted there.

We’ve also talked about generation as far as your age demographic. There’s the different generations. There’s one of them that we make fun of all the time. What’s that? Millennials. Sounded like millennials were saying that. Come on, we make fun of Millennials. It’s fun to do, for whatever reason.

But we actually make fun of everybody. I mean, the Generation X kind of snuck in there. I think there weren’t as many of them, or they’re just not very loud, so they didn’t get made fun of as much.

But, Baby Boomers? Give me a break. They’re all crazy.

And then you’ve got the Traditionalists, who we don’t make fun of anymore because we want to honor them and they’re old. But they can’t hear you anymore, so feel free. And even if they can hear you, don’t worry. You can just outrun them if they get mad. They’re not going to catch you.

And then there’s the Generation Z that’s coming up and we’ll make fun of them too, once they figure out what’s wrong with them.

But that’s another way to define generations. Each generation has been passed down some sort of idolatry, some sort of problem; but then they also create their own problems. And yet, there’s also a blessing in each one of those. I believe the Millennials are going to be the greatest missionary generation there ever has been. And I’m saying that with truth, but I also can make fun of them in the same way. Because they love to live off of other people’s money, and they don’t want to work for their jobs. No, just kidding. But no, I’m saying that seriously. And see, I can’t tell a joke because it takes away. But I really believe it’s true and I hope our church is totally going to be a part of that belief and we’re hoping to see it happen here.

The third way that we defined generations is your family legacy—hat has come before you and what you’re passing on to those coming after you, whether that be in society or in your actual family tree.

I heard a quote from John Adams last week. He said, “The best time to start raising your children is five generations ago.” That’s a good time to start. And that’s a very biblical perspective. That’s a “teach us to number our days” perspective. That’s what we’re trying to get into our hearts in this fast-paced, youth-worshiping culture that we’re living in, that is so different from the way the Bible teaches.

With that being said, we want to make sure that we are finding the blessing, and the Lord is teaching us how to use our days wisely. With that, I want to go to 2 Kings 18, and then we’re going to go to 1 Kings 15 and 2 Kings 12. The reason I’ve just taken a selection, it’s actually this reoccurring kind of thematic way the Bible talks about the kings of Judah and Israel. I want to read this to give us some perspective and then we’ll run from there.

1 In the third year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, Hezekiah son of Ahaz king of Judah began to reign. 2 He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem twenty-nine years. His mother’s name was Abijah[a] daughter of Zechariah. 3 He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, just as his father David had done. 4 He removed the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles. He broke into pieces the bronze snake Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites had been burning incense to it. (It was called Nehushtan.[b])

5 Hezekiah trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel. There was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before him or after him. 6 He held fast to the Lord and did not stop following him; he kept the commands the Lord had given Moses. 7 And the Lord was with him; he was successful in whatever he undertook. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and did not serve him.

So it’s a description, an accounting, 1 Kings, 2 Kings,1 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles are recounting—they’re telling the story of the kings that came and went in Israel, those who ruled. So they’re talking about Hezekiah, and they’re saying he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, according to his father, David. And then it goes on with a list of how that went. 1 Kings 15:33-34

33 In the third year of Asa king of Judah, Baasha son of Ahijah became king of all Israel in Tirzah, and he reigned twenty-four years. 34 He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, following the ways of Jeroboam and committing the same sin Jeroboam had caused Israel to commit.

So here’s a second one. Hezekiah did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, according to his father, David. Baasha did what was evil in the eyes of the Lord, according to the sins of Jeroboam. He followed in that line. And now, we’ve got this third one. You didn’t think there could be a third category, but there is. 2 Kings 12

12 In the seventh year of Jehu, Joash became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem forty years. His mother’s name was Zibiah; she was from Beersheba. 2 Joash did what was right in the eyes of the Lord all the years Jehoiada the priest instructed him. 3 The high places, however, were not removed; the people continued to offer sacrifices and burn incense there.

So here is another category. Joash did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, however, he didn’t remove the high places, the idolatry of his day. He didn’t follow the Lord as David, his father, a man after God’s own heart.

So there are these three categories, which I think are interesting. As we’re facing judgment and we’re trying to figure out, “Lord, where’s the blessing? How can we be the biggest blessing?” I think this is what we need to understand, that God is wanting us to do what is right in the eyes of the Lord, and to remove idolatry from our lives.

Now this chart—I love this chart—first the kings of Judah and Israel, look at this and get a perspective. We’ll get it bigger in just a second. Saul, David and Solomon are the top three. Those are the kings of all twelve tribes of Israel, when they were all united. Then you have the kings of Judah, which are the southern two tribes, and the kings of Israel, which are the northern ten tribes. Because after Solomon, the nation was divided. Not as a civil war, but just not together anymore. They did fight each other later on, but it was just kind of a sepration that happened.

So we’re going to go through those kings.

This is 1 Kings, 1 Chronicles, 2 Kings, 2 Chronicles all in chart form. So here on this side we have the kings of Judah. I don’t know if you can see it, but there’s a thumbs down, thumbs down, thumbs down, thumbs sideways, thumbs down, thumbs down, thumbs down. I love this chart. This is so good for me.

Up here you have Saul with the thumbs down, David with the thumbs up, Solomon with the black thumbs sideways. Then you have like a white thumbs sideways. Then, on the kings of Israel over here you have thumbs down, straight up, every one of them. Way to go. Awesome

Now pop up the next slide, which is the bottom half.

Over here on the kings of Judah you have thumbs sideways, thumbs sideways, thumbs sideways, thumbs sideways, thumbs up, thumbs down and down bedoop, bedoop…..

Then over here on Israel you have thumbs down.

Now, those thumbs mean something. The key that they did on this chart, and again, I love this chart. Thumbs up means they did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, according to their father, David. Thumbs sideways means they did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, but not as their father, David, had done. They did not completely rid the land of idolatry. And then, thumbs down means they did evil in the eyes of the Lord, which, again, they did not remove the idols from the land.

So there you have it. We just conquered 1 Kings, 1 Chronicles, 2 Kings, 2 Chronicles. That’s it. But we have these three categories. We have these three different ways that we are doing our life. Sad to say, in these stories, the way that the king went was usually the way the people went.

The way that the father went was usually the way that the son went. And they’re using David as this kind of mark because he was not the father of all of these people, but basically, he was the king that all of them followed after when they became king.

And Jeroboam was the king that took over the northern ten tribes and basically, all of them that followed Jeroboam as king of Israel did wicked in the eyes of the Lord. And they say, according to the sins of Jeroboam. They connected to him. It was the generational curse that he passed down.

And there are a couple of different things here. It says they did what was right in the eyes of the Lord. And did they remove the idolatry. I want to unpack those things real quick for us.

Doing what is right in the eyes of the Lord. This is so important to me, that we understand that doing right in the eyes of the Lord is not just staying away from evil. We, as Christians, as the church, have spent way too long saying righteousness is just staying away from bad things. That is exactly what the Pharisees were doing. Jesus said, “Unless you have a righteousness that surpasses the Pharisees, you will not inherit the kingdom of heaven.”

The righteousness that God is trying to produce in your life is not just something that will keep you away from wrong, but it will empower you to go into the places where there is wrong and make it right. That is the righteousness of God, where Christians, where the people of God are righting wrongs. That’s what the righteousness of God is all about. Not separating ourselves so much from anything could potentially be wrong in culture, and being this kind of isolating thing on this side. I’m not saying that we don’t have to remove sin from our lives and watch out for certain things. Definitely. But if it stops there, you haven’t yet found the righteousness of God. You’re on your way but you’re not there. And Jesus had a lot of words for the Pharisees who were in that mode. We have to do the things that God asks us to do.

That’s what I love about John and Amy, and their move right now. They are righteous. The’ve been made righteous by Christ. They’ve been walking a life of purity. They’re in this place, but they know that’s just the beginning. God gave them righteousness so that they can go into the unrighteous situations and—boom—make righteousness. And they’re going into a situation back home where things aren’t quite right, they could be more right. And they’re going there to make right happen. And they’ll do that, not just in their own family, but they’ll do that everywhere they go, as well.

We’ve got to understand that we’ve got to do what is right in the eyes of the Lord. Actually, the way the Bible describes sin is “to him who knows what to do, and doesn’t do it, to him it’s sin.” It’s just such a different way than thinking sin is just don’t do the things that are bad. It’s doing the things that God is asking you to do. That’s what he’s really looking for.

It’s like with my kids. I can’t stop them from doing wrong things. They’re bad kids. And they’re not even meaning to do wrong. They’re just breaking things all the time. I never taught them to do the wrong. They just know how to do it. And they love it. They think it’s so fun.

And what we’re trying to teach them is, “Hey, look. You’re going to do wrong. You’re going to make mistakes. Sometimes on purpose, sometimes not on purpose. But the most important thing is that you learn how to make a wrong right.”

And so we’re trying to do that. Like, “Let's go apologize. And then, if you broke something, let’s try to figure out how you can fix it. Let’s try to make it right. Because you’re never going to win the battle of never doing wrong.”

The other day, my daughter had made my wife mad, real mad. And all I know is I was in my room one time and she had put all these instructions for how to have a really nice peaceful evening, she had bought all these things. She had done all these things for my wife to kind of say, “Mom, I want you to go do all of these things, because I think you’ll love these things.” So, she knew she did wrong. Instead of just saying, “Sorry,” she actually figured out how to make this thing. And my wife went in there and she said, “This is amazing!” And whatever was wrong now didn’t feel so wrong and it was made right.

That’s the goal that God’s trying to get us to do. That’s what these kings were judged on. Did they do what was right in the eyes of the Lord? And it doesn’t matter if you’re seven or seventy, God has an assignment for you. And if you walk in it, not only will you be walking in righteousness, but you will be imparting a blessing to everyone around.

The second thing that they were judged on was whether ornate they tore down the idols of their day, tore down the Asherah poles, remove the high places, cut down a grove. I don’t even know what that is. But basically, they had to go and find the things in their lives that were not of God, or that were set in the same plain as God, and remove those things.

I remember being in Belize, in this town called Gales Point, where things move very slow. And I ran into a guy named Brother Hugh. And he was seventy years old. He was really the only adult male in the village that knew Christ and followed Christ, that we knew of. I remember him sitting me down one time in this very sleepy, slow village, and he said, “I want to tell you some things.”

And I was like, “Okay.” I mean, just being there, I’m already, “Why is everything moving so slow?” And then, when you talk to the seventy-year-olds in the village—whoa! It was like, “Hi…David…I want to tell you…about my life.”

I was just like, “Okay, man. Let’s do this thing.” But, whatever. I had time. And so he started telling me. And it was so interesting. I’ll never forget what he said. He started to talk about how, when he first started following Christ as, like, an eighteen-year-old, he said at that point he thought he was going to follow Christ. And the Lord would keep adding things to his life and building him up, strengthening him.

But he said what he has realized as he looks back, it was almost like he was carrying this wheelbarrow, and as he walked with God with this wheelbarrow, Jesus kept pointing to one thin in the wheelbarrow and saying, “I want to talk to you about that.” And they would talk about it, and eventually, it would be, “Okay.” And he would take it out of his wheelbarrow. And as soon as he did that, Jesus would be like, “Now what’s that thing over there?” And he would be like, “Well, it’s this.” Jesus would talk to him about that.

And he said, what he’s realized now that he’s seventy years old is that, following Christ has been a lot more unloading things than adding things. And he said, “First it was selling drugs. I felt like Jesus told me to stop selling drugs.”

I’m like, “Okay. I’m listening.”

And then he said, “I was supposed to stop gambling. Then I was supposed to stop smoking.” And then he continued on and on, talking about the things that he was supposed to offload, or remove. And I’ve never forgotten it, because I think that is such an accurate picture of walking with Jesus. In two ways.

One is, if you’re not perfect, just keep walking with Jesus. If you’re having struggles, just keep walking with Jesus. You might be in more of a hurry than he is. Now, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t hate sin and he doesn’t want to remove these things. Absolutely. But it’s got to be him or it’s never actually going to happen. You have to really walk with him to find out what he’s wanting to do in your life. Because he’s the one who can actually get anything done. He’s the one that can change the leopard’s spots.

And the second thing is just that God is always going to have something that he wants to remove from you. You’re never going to get to a point where, all of a sudden, “Hey, the wheelbarrow is empty!” That’s when we move on to the next stage of life. Heaven.

I’ve kind of come up with this short, little thing. It might be helpful, or not. It’s not biblical but it’s been in my heart so I want to share it with you. It’s this concept of surrendering. As I’ve tried to put some generational blessing idea to some of these Scriptures, I’ve noticed that it seems like, and this is generalization, that God’s asking us to surrender our plans around twenty. “I wanted to be this, and now I feel like I’m going this way.” Or, “I was going to be this and this injury.” Or, “I was going to be this, but now she’s pregnant and I need to adjust.” Whatever it might be.

And this happens more than just at that time. But that seems to be a real big moment. And I don’t want you to miss what God’s doing there.

And then, when you’re forty, you surrender your power. You have to start realizing that you’re not going to grow in strength anymore. I think this is what midlife crisis is all about. We keep saying, “Oh, yeah, throw that job responsibility on there.” “Oh, yeah, throw that bigger job on there.” “Oh, yeah, throw the car on there.” “Throw the house on there.” “Throw the boat on there. I got it.” “Oh, yeah, throw marriage, throw a kid, why don’t throw another couple ofkids? Why don’t we throw on some foster kids?” “Why don’t we try this?” And we just keep going.

And then, eventually, our strength starts to go down, but our mentality keeps adding it, and then all of a sudden, for a guy or a lady, you’ve got all of this weight and you don’t have the strength to carry it. And you don’t have the humility to unload things one at a time; so you just run. And it all comes crumbling down. That’s not the way of God. There’s no blessing in that.

And then when you’re sixty, you surrender your position. And I’ve been watching some people that I really love and respect go through this. It’s painful to not be seen for what you know you have been and are capable of. Even though God still sees you that way. It’s a humbling thing. And you can fight it, but you’ll probably lose the blessing.

And then, surrendering your possessions, which is interesting. I had to talk to some eighty-year-olds for this. I think you possess physical abilities, and you’re surrendering to those, and having to adjust, come to terms with it. You surrender mental capabilities. Not quite as quick as maybe you were. And there’s blessing in that, if you can surrender. Surrendering whatever possessions you might have—a house, home, finances, clothes, I don’t know.

But there is constantly surrender happening. There is constantly this humility that we need to have as we approach the brevity of life, if we want to find the blessing and pass on the blessing.

I love what the ninety-five pieces that Martin Luther nailed to that church in Wittenburg, the ninety-five things that need to be corrected—ninety-five idolatries that he felt like needed to be removed in the Catholic Church. But the very first line on top of those ninety-five high places that needed to be torn down, he says, “All of life is repentance.” All of life is surrender to the mighty hand of God.

The one idol that I feel that God has brought to mind—obviously money, sex, recreation, that guy you’re with, that girl you’re with, an image that you have of yourself, comfort, possessions, food—we can make an idol out of anything. You can make an idol out of church. It happens all the time. But the idol that I felt God was highlighting and wanted me to say to us is the idol of convenience.

Because, ultimately, that’s what Jeroboam’s sin was all about. Up in the northern ten tribes, Jeroboam didn’t want all of the people to go back to the southern tribes, to Jerusalem where the temple was, because they might want to move down there. So what he did was, he made a temple in the northern ten tribes, and made a system of worship there so there was more convenience for all the people. But the presence of God wasn’t there. And all of the kings that followed him did what was evil in the eyes of the Lord.

We’ve got to watch out for convenience. Convenience looks like this:

Prayers where we say, “God will you bless my plans? I really want to do this job.” Or “I really want to go to this place. God will you bless me there?” That’s not the way he works. He’s not a genie that we can just rub and say, “God, I want this, this and this.” So often, that’s what our prayer life is like. Just a bunch of rubbing on a lamp.

Another way it looks is, we try and make Jesus fit into our schedule. That’s a big joke, because he’s huge. It’s like trying to find the right time to have a baby. When it fits within your schedule and plans. No, that baby comes and—kaboom. All the plans and schedule, everything is gone and you just reorder from there.

We want God to bless us here and now, instead of saying, “God, take me to the Promised Land. Bless us here in Egypt, O God.” And God says, “No, I’m not going to bless you Egypt. I want to lead you to the Promised Land.”

And that’s what I love about John and Amy and what they’re doing, too. They would much rather just have God bless them here and take care of their parents over there. Burt God never asks us to do something that doesn’t require faith. We’ve got to learn those lessons so we don’t miss out on anything in this life.

Let’s pray:

Jesus, we do thank you for teaching us, for caring about our souls even more than we do. For being the author and perfecter of our faith. For being the one who is in charge of our spiritual formation. The one who is leading us from glory to greater glory, in ever increasing measure, as we just take your hand and walk with you. Lord, please, in this moment, as we quiet our hearts before you, show us the idols in our lives right now—the idols in our families. The idol in our age demographic. The idol in this season of our life. Help us to tear those things down.

As you’re listening for the Lord to bring some things to mind, I’m going to read some definitions of idols from Tim Keller:

“What is an idol? It’s anything more important to you than God, anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God, anything you seek to give you what only God can give. A counterfeit God is anything so central and essential to your life, that, should you lose it, your life would feel hardly worth living at all.”

So, Lord, search our hearts. We want to walk in what is pleasing to you. We want to tear down the idols so that the blessing can be passed on. We want to keep chasing you, even if it’s inconvenient. Amen.

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