May 9, 2024 • 15 mins
Ask a question here. 🙋🏻♂️ Make a comment.
Have you ever pondered the depth of being called 'A Friend of the King'? Journey with me, Pastor Brandon, as we venture into 1 Chronicles 27, and uncover the rich spiritual tapestry connecting us to those who sought assurance of God's presence after the Babylonian exile. We explore the meticulously organized Israelite army and the vital roles individuals played in the grand scheme, leading us to a powerful realization about our own significance in the eyes of God. Engage with our community to discuss how, like Hushai the Archite, we are cherished by God and can embrace the title of 'the king's friend' in our everyday lives.
Feel the embrace of divine companionship in our latest episode, where we dissect the transformative love God extends to each of us. As we navigate through life's varying stages of friendship, from schoolyard bonds to adult alliances, the one constant is our enduring friendship with God. Through prayer and scripture, such as 1 Chronicles 29:17, we affirm that God values the truth in our hearts, solidifying our place as friends of the king. Let's share in the revelation that our biblical guidelines are not chains, but keys to a life of freedom, bathed in the love and acceptance of our supreme Friend.
SOAP Bible Study Method- https://www.brandoncannon.com/soap/
Bible reading plan- http://www.experiencerlc.com/the-bible/
Free weekly newsletter- https://www.brandoncannon.com/
Social:
Facebook: https://facebook.com/thebrandoncannon
Instagram: https://instagram.com/brandoncannon
Twitter: https://twitter.com/brandoncannon
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@theBrandonCannon
The More You Dig. The More You Find.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Well, everybody, welcome back to the Bible
Breakdown podcast with your host, pastor Brandon, today.
1 Chronicles, chapter 27, andtoday's title is A Friend of the
King.
A Friend of the King.
I love something that's goingto happen at the end of today's
chapter.
We've got more names and morestuff, but I hope you've noticed
(00:21):
a theme in this and that, evenin all of these different names
and things tucked away, there'sthis really interesting point to
each chapter, and at the end ofthe chapter there is like one
of the greatest titles I thinkI've ever heard in my life, and
I hope that it will bless yourheart the way it has mine, as
I've read this.
We're going to get into that injust a moment, but before we do
(00:41):
that, as always, if you likewhat we're doing here, help us
build this community, and youcan do that by liking, sharing
the podcast and the YouTubechannel.
Make sure you're leaving uscomments on the YouTube channel.
We've had some people who willlisten to the podcast, but then
they'll go over to the YouTubechannel to leave a comment on
that same chapter because theywant to engage other people.
I love that.
I think it's awesome, eventhough, because you're a podcast
(01:03):
listener, you will always be myfavorite.
But also we all gather togetherat the Bible Breakdown
Discussion.
On Facebook and, man, they aredoing such a great job over
there.
If you are not going to theFacebook page or the Facebook
group every day and readingthose posts, man, you are
missing out.
They do so great and I lookforward to reading it every day
and I hope you do too.
We have your Bible.
(01:23):
You want to open up with me to 1Chronicles 27.
We're getting close to the endof the chapter and, as you can
tell once again Ezra most likelyhe was a priest and he was
reminding these people who werecoming back from Babylonian
captivity.
You know they're wondering willGod be with us?
What claim do we have to Godand to the presence of God and
to all this?
And he's saying no, you arefirmly established right here.
(01:45):
And what we're reading about isthis is our spiritual family,
many generations removed, andwe're finding out about who they
are and what they're all about.
And I love at the end of thischapter there's a title for
somebody that I think perfectlyspeaks to what maybe God wants
to say to us today.
So let's read this and thenwe'll get to that at the end of
(02:06):
the chapter and I look forwardto talking about that together.
So here we go, if you have yourBibles with me.
1 Chronicles 27, verse 1 saysthis this is the list of
Israelite generals and captainsand their officers who served
the king by supervising the armydivisions that were on duty
each month of the year.
Each division served for onemonth and had 24,000 troops.
(02:28):
Joshua, son of Zebediel, wascommander of the first division
of 24,000 troops, which was onduty during the first month.
He was a descendant of Perezand was in charge of all the
army officers for the firstmonth.
Jodiah, the descendant of Ehoah, was the commander of the
second division of 24,000 troops, which was on duty during the
(02:51):
second month.
Mechoth was the chief officer.
Benaiah, the son of Jedidiah,was the priest and the commander
of the third division of 24,000troops, which was on duty
during the third month.
This was Benaiah, who was thecommander of David's elite army
group, known as the 30, and hisson, amazabad was his chief
(03:11):
officer.
Ashehel was the brother of Joaband was the commander of the
fourth division of 24,000 troops, which was on duty during the
fourth month, and Ashehel wassucceeded by his son, zebediah.
Shammah was.
Azahite was commander of thefifth division of 24,000 troops
and he was on duty during thefifth month.
Ira was of Ishkesh and Tekoawas commander of the sixth
(03:37):
division of 24,000 troops, whichwas on duty during the sixth
month.
Helez was the descendant ofEphraim from Pelion and was the
commander of the seventhdivision of 24,000 troops during
the sixth month.
Helez was the descendant ofEphraim from Pelion and was the
commander of the seventhdivision 24,000 troops during
the seventh month.
Zebekiah was the descendant ofZariah from Hushesh and was
commander of the eighth division24,000 troops which was on duty
(03:58):
during the eighth month.
Abizer from Enthoth was in theterritory of Benjamin and was
the commander of the 9thdivision, which had 24,000
troops, and he was on duty inthe 9th month.
Ahariah was a descendant ofZerai from Zephath and was
commander of the 10th divisionof 24,000 troops and was on duty
in the 10th month.
(04:18):
Benaiah from Peroth of Ephraimwas a commander of the 11th.
It had 24,000 troops and was onduty in the 11th month.
Heliad was a descendant ofOthnel from Nephoth and was
commander of the 12th divisionof 24,000 troops and was on duty
in the you got it 12th month.
(04:39):
The leaders of the followingwere the tribes of Israel and
their leaders Reuben, the leader, was Eleazar, son of Zichri,
simeon, the leader was SephethNow that is not how you say that
name, but I'm not going to tryagain Son of Machah Levi.
Hishbahath was the son ofKithmel and Aaron, the priest,
(05:01):
and his son.
His leader was Zadok Judah,which, by the way, the way to
say that in Hebrew there is no J, it's just Y.
So Yehudah was his leader wasElihu, the brother of David,
Issachar, the leader was Amri,the son of Macho Zebulon, the
son with the leader was Ishmael,the son of Obadiah.
Then you had the tribe ofNaphtali, and the leader was
(05:24):
Jeremoth, son of Ezrael.
Then you have the tribe ofEphraim, and the leader was
Hosea, the son of Azaziah, forsome reason that won't come out
of my mouth.
So the next one is Manasseh wason the west, and the leader was
Joel, son of Pedahiah.
(05:45):
Then you have Manasseh andGilead.
That was on the east side ofthe Jordan River, and the leader
was Edo, the son of Zechariah.
Then you have Benjamin.
The leader was Jezael, the sonof Abner.
And then you had Dan, good oldDan, and his leader was Azrael,
which is also the cat and Smurfs, but this was a dude and he was
(06:05):
the son of Jerohoam.
These were the leaders of thetribes of Israel, verse 23.
When David took his census, hedid not count those who were
younger than 20 years of age,because the Lord had promised to
make the Israelites as numerousas the stars of the heaven.
Joab, the son of Zeruiah, beganthe census but never finished
it because the anger of God fellon Israel.
The total number was neverrecorded in King David's
(06:30):
official records.
Azmaveth, son of Abedel, was incharge of the palace treasuries
.
Jonathan, son of Uzziah, was incharge of the regional
treasuries throughout the towns,villages and fortresses of
Israel.
Ezri, son of Kelub, was incharge of the grapes Just keep
(07:03):
the grapes going right andsycamore trees in the foothills
of Judah.
Joash was responsible for thesupplies of the olive oil.
Shittri from Sharon was incharge of the cattle in the
Sharon plains, and Shaphat wasthe son of Edilai, was
responsible for the cattle inthe valleys.
Obel, the Ishmaelite, was incharge of the camels, and Jedai,
(07:28):
from Maranoth, was in charge ofthe donkeys.
Jaziz, the Higgurite, was incharge of the king's flocks of
here we go.
Here's the one I love this.
(07:50):
Ahithophel was a royal advisor,and Hushai the archite was the
king's friend.
Ahithophel was succeeded byJehodiah, son of Benaiah, by
Abathar.
Joab was commander of theking's army.
All right, there's a lot ofnames there, but I'm going to go
back to verse 33.
It says Hushai the archite wasthe king's friend.
(08:13):
Can you imagine you have allthese people, all their jobs,
all their things, all the thingsthat made them famous and
important, and all this stuffand I know we looked at certain
things, but back in the day,what made people powerful and
wealthy a lot of times were thethings that they owned, like
cattle.
If you had a whole lot ofcattle, it'd be the same thing
as owning a million-dollar home.
Or if you had a whole bunch ofcamels, a whole bunch of donkeys
(08:38):
, same thing as having aMaserati in the garage.
The more you had like that,that was a symbol of your wealth
.
These people who were in chargeof it.
They were thought of assomebody special.
Their names are written in thischronological record because
they were of importance.
And can you imagine, just thinkabout it for a moment.
Can you imagine walking aroundand people are saying, well,
what makes you special?
I'm in charge of all the king'ssheep.
(08:59):
So let's put it in moderncontext.
I'm in charge of the king's $5million home Wow.
Well, what about you?
I'm in charge of the king'sfleet of expensive sports cars
Wow, I'm in charge of all thisover here.
I'm in charge of teaching theking's sons, the next kings.
I'm a kingmaker.
(09:19):
That's what I do.
What are you in charge of?
I'm the king's friend, and no,no, that's my job.
Is he likes me?
I'm here because I make himsmile.
I am the king's friend.
Whoa, that makes you importantAbsolutely.
Do you know?
One of the things I love aboutthe kingdom of God is we have
(09:42):
absolutely nothing to offer God.
You ever thought about that?
Like God doesn't need anything.
We talk about how God needs ourworship.
Do you know?
Actually he doesn't.
He doesn't really need ourworship.
He's, he's God all by himself.
He is pure actuality.
His personhood is completelyokay by himself.
(10:03):
You know that God has nopotential.
You know what I mean by that isis like potential is something
that is untapped in you, likeit's something that you hope for
, but isn't there yet.
Potential it's.
It's not yet actualized.
God is fully actualized.
Other words, we're not waitingfor God to become something.
So you think cause we think nowwe go, well, you have no
(10:23):
potential.
That's considered a bad thing,like like I have to have hope
for the future.
God has no hope for the futurebecause he has it right now,
like he's already okay.
You know what I mean.
So when you think about thecomplete, total actuality, the
complete, total personhood, godis omnipresent, omniscient,
omnibenevolent, all the things.
He's fine.
He's God all by himself.
(10:44):
He needs nothing from us, buthe wants us to be.
We have nothing to offer him,yet he says I want you.
That's amazing to me.
It reminds me of someone whotold me a story one time.
He had grown up as an orphanand he would watch these
(11:04):
families.
And growing up in an orphanage,he had to constantly fight for
attention, fight for respect,fight for all these things, and
he would watch these families.
And one of the things thatwould strike him so much about
these families is that thesechildren automatically assumed
that they had value.
They didn't have to proveanything.
There were no expectations onthem, they just knew their
(11:26):
parents loved them.
And for some of us who grew upin a home even if it was a
challenging home and achallenging thing for many of us
and not for all.
I understand that, but for manyof us there was an assumption
that at least one person in yourlife loved you just because,
and as an orphan.
This friend of mine said he hadso much trouble understanding
(11:48):
that.
And he said, even when he waslater adopted he went through a
season where he still struggledto realize he didn't have to
earn the love of his parents.
It was freely given.
They wanted him.
And can I tell you, as a childof God, that is exactly how God
feels about you.
You don't have to earn his love, it is freely given.
(12:12):
The Bible says that because ofwho we are, in Christ, we are
already fully loved by him.
Now he loves us too much to letus stay broken, so he will
slowly go to war with all thosebroken places in our life, and
so we can't say that we come toGod just as we are and God lets
us stay that way.
No, no, no.
The Bible lays out for us whattrue freedom looks like, and so
(12:37):
in the context of that, thatmeans God has a plan for our
sexuality.
God has a plan for thedifferent things that we do in
our life, the different way wego about things, because that's
where freedom is.
God knows where all thepotholes in life are, and so the
Bible is not a book full ofrules to take away our fun.
It's a book full of guidelinesto bring us freedom, and it's
(12:59):
because he wants us to be free.
But you don't have to do any ofthat before God will love you.
We do these things because Godloves us and in him we are
already fully accepted.
In him we are already fullysecure.
In him we are fully significantand in him we are the king's
friend.
And so today, if somebody wereto ask you what your title is,
what is it that makes youspecial?
You know what you could say Isyou could say man, just call me
(13:21):
Hushiah the archite.
What does that mean?
I am the king's friend.
Can I tell you I don't knowright now what your life is like
.
You may have a thousand friends.
You might be in a season whereyou don't have any.
Maybe you're a student rightnow that's listening to this
podcast.
Maybe you're in elementaryschool, middle school, high
(13:43):
school.
Maybe you're in college.
You're going through a seasonright now where you don't really
know who your friends are.
Can I tell you that's hard.
God's your friend.
God loves you.
I tell you that's hard.
God's your friend.
God loves you.
I know you can't see himphysically right now, but he's
more real than the air you'rebreathing and he loves you.
Maybe you're going through aseason and you're an adult right
now.
Maybe you're an empty nester.
You feel like life is changingand things are happening and you
(14:04):
don't really know where you'restanding anymore.
Your footing doesn't feel assecure anymore.
Can I tell you You're theking's friend.
He loves you.
And you may not be able to seehim with your eyes right now,
but he's more real than the airyou're breathing.
You have got value in your life.
You have a title and it is youare a friend of the king.
(14:25):
Let's pray together.
God, thank you so much that youlove us more than we could ever
understand.
And I know, god, that we'regoing to go through different
seasons and different things inlife.
But we've never been more morethan we could ever understand.
And I know, god, that we'regoing to go through different
seasons and different things inlife, but we've never been more
loved than we are right now.
I pray today you will help usto feel some of that love and to
know, god, that you are with us, and because you are with us
and you're for us, all thingsare possible.
(14:45):
I celebrate that today InJesus' name, we pray Amen, amen.
Well, god's word says in 1Chronicles, 29, 17,.
I know, my God, that youexamine our hearts and rejoice
when you find integrity there.
God knows us, god loves us andhe is for us more than we can
imagine.
I love you.
I'll see you tomorrow.
1 Chronicles, chapter 28.
Well, everybody, welcome back to the Bible
Breakdown podcast with your host, pastor Brandon, today.
1 Chronicles, chapter 27, andtoday's title is A Friend of the
King.
A Friend of the King.
I love something that's goingto happen at the end of today's
chapter.
We've got more names and morestuff, but I hope you've noticed
(00:21):
a theme in this and that, evenin all of these different names
and things tucked away, there'sthis really interesting point to
each chapter, and at the end ofthe chapter there is like one
of the greatest titles I thinkI've ever heard in my life, and
I hope that it will bless yourheart the way it has mine, as
I've read this.
We're going to get into that injust a moment, but before we do
(00:41):
that, as always, if you likewhat we're doing here, help us
build this community, and youcan do that by liking, sharing
the podcast and the YouTubechannel.
Make sure you're leaving uscomments on the YouTube channel.
We've had some people who willlisten to the podcast, but then
they'll go over to the YouTubechannel to leave a comment on
that same chapter because theywant to engage other people.
I love that.
I think it's awesome, eventhough, because you're a podcast
(01:03):
listener, you will always be myfavorite.
But also we all gather togetherat the Bible Breakdown
Discussion.
On Facebook and, man, they aredoing such a great job over
there.
If you are not going to theFacebook page or the Facebook
group every day and readingthose posts, man, you are
missing out.
They do so great and I lookforward to reading it every day
and I hope you do too.
We have your Bible.
(01:23):
You want to open up with me to 1Chronicles 27.
We're getting close to the endof the chapter and, as you can
tell once again Ezra most likelyhe was a priest and he was
reminding these people who werecoming back from Babylonian
captivity.
You know they're wondering willGod be with us?
What claim do we have to Godand to the presence of God and
to all this?
And he's saying no, you arefirmly established right here.
(01:45):
And what we're reading about isthis is our spiritual family,
many generations removed, andwe're finding out about who they
are and what they're all about.
And I love at the end of thischapter there's a title for
somebody that I think perfectlyspeaks to what maybe God wants
to say to us today.
So let's read this and thenwe'll get to that at the end of
(02:06):
the chapter and I look forwardto talking about that together.
So here we go, if you have yourBibles with me.
1 Chronicles 27, verse 1 saysthis this is the list of
Israelite generals and captainsand their officers who served
the king by supervising the armydivisions that were on duty
each month of the year.
Each division served for onemonth and had 24,000 troops.
(02:28):
Joshua, son of Zebediel, wascommander of the first division
of 24,000 troops, which was onduty during the first month.
He was a descendant of Perezand was in charge of all the
army officers for the firstmonth.
Jodiah, the descendant of Ehoah, was the commander of the
second division of 24,000 troops, which was on duty during the
(02:51):
second month.
Mechoth was the chief officer.
Benaiah, the son of Jedidiah,was the priest and the commander
of the third division of 24,000troops, which was on duty
during the third month.
This was Benaiah, who was thecommander of David's elite army
group, known as the 30, and hisson, amazabad was his chief
(03:11):
officer.
Ashehel was the brother of Joaband was the commander of the
fourth division of 24,000 troops, which was on duty during the
fourth month, and Ashehel wassucceeded by his son, zebediah.
Shammah was.
Azahite was commander of thefifth division of 24,000 troops
and he was on duty during thefifth month.
Ira was of Ishkesh and Tekoawas commander of the sixth
(03:37):
division of 24,000 troops, whichwas on duty during the sixth
month.
Helez was the descendant ofEphraim from Pelion and was the
commander of the seventhdivision of 24,000 troops during
the sixth month.
Helez was the descendant ofEphraim from Pelion and was the
commander of the seventhdivision 24,000 troops during
the seventh month.
Zebekiah was the descendant ofZariah from Hushesh and was
commander of the eighth division24,000 troops which was on duty
(03:58):
during the eighth month.
Abizer from Enthoth was in theterritory of Benjamin and was
the commander of the 9thdivision, which had 24,000
troops, and he was on duty inthe 9th month.
Ahariah was a descendant ofZerai from Zephath and was
commander of the 10th divisionof 24,000 troops and was on duty
in the 10th month.
(04:18):
Benaiah from Peroth of Ephraimwas a commander of the 11th.
It had 24,000 troops and was onduty in the 11th month.
Heliad was a descendant ofOthnel from Nephoth and was
commander of the 12th divisionof 24,000 troops and was on duty
in the you got it 12th month.
(04:39):
The leaders of the followingwere the tribes of Israel and
their leaders Reuben, the leader, was Eleazar, son of Zichri,
simeon, the leader was SephethNow that is not how you say that
name, but I'm not going to tryagain Son of Machah Levi.
Hishbahath was the son ofKithmel and Aaron, the priest,
(05:01):
and his son.
His leader was Zadok Judah,which, by the way, the way to
say that in Hebrew there is no J, it's just Y.
So Yehudah was his leader wasElihu, the brother of David,
Issachar, the leader was Amri,the son of Macho Zebulon, the
son with the leader was Ishmael,the son of Obadiah.
Then you had the tribe ofNaphtali, and the leader was
(05:24):
Jeremoth, son of Ezrael.
Then you have the tribe ofEphraim, and the leader was
Hosea, the son of Azaziah, forsome reason that won't come out
of my mouth.
So the next one is Manasseh wason the west, and the leader was
Joel, son of Pedahiah.
(05:45):
Then you have Manasseh andGilead.
That was on the east side ofthe Jordan River, and the leader
was Edo, the son of Zechariah.
Then you have Benjamin.
The leader was Jezael, the sonof Abner.
And then you had Dan, good oldDan, and his leader was Azrael,
which is also the cat and Smurfs, but this was a dude and he was
(06:05):
the son of Jerohoam.
These were the leaders of thetribes of Israel, verse 23.
When David took his census, hedid not count those who were
younger than 20 years of age,because the Lord had promised to
make the Israelites as numerousas the stars of the heaven.
Joab, the son of Zeruiah, beganthe census but never finished
it because the anger of God fellon Israel.
The total number was neverrecorded in King David's
(06:30):
official records.
Azmaveth, son of Abedel, was incharge of the palace treasuries
.
Jonathan, son of Uzziah, was incharge of the regional
treasuries throughout the towns,villages and fortresses of
Israel.
Ezri, son of Kelub, was incharge of the grapes Just keep
(07:03):
the grapes going right andsycamore trees in the foothills
of Judah.
Joash was responsible for thesupplies of the olive oil.
Shittri from Sharon was incharge of the cattle in the
Sharon plains, and Shaphat wasthe son of Edilai, was
responsible for the cattle inthe valleys.
Obel, the Ishmaelite, was incharge of the camels, and Jedai,
(07:28):
from Maranoth, was in charge ofthe donkeys.
Jaziz, the Higgurite, was incharge of the king's flocks of
here we go.
Here's the one I love this.
(07:50):
Ahithophel was a royal advisor,and Hushai the archite was the
king's friend.
Ahithophel was succeeded byJehodiah, son of Benaiah, by
Abathar.
Joab was commander of theking's army.
All right, there's a lot ofnames there, but I'm going to go
back to verse 33.
It says Hushai the archite wasthe king's friend.
(08:13):
Can you imagine you have allthese people, all their jobs,
all their things, all the thingsthat made them famous and
important, and all this stuffand I know we looked at certain
things, but back in the day,what made people powerful and
wealthy a lot of times were thethings that they owned, like
cattle.
If you had a whole lot ofcattle, it'd be the same thing
as owning a million-dollar home.
Or if you had a whole bunch ofcamels, a whole bunch of donkeys
(08:38):
, same thing as having aMaserati in the garage.
The more you had like that,that was a symbol of your wealth
.
These people who were in chargeof it.
They were thought of assomebody special.
Their names are written in thischronological record because
they were of importance.
And can you imagine, just thinkabout it for a moment.
Can you imagine walking aroundand people are saying, well,
what makes you special?
I'm in charge of all the king'ssheep.
(08:59):
So let's put it in moderncontext.
I'm in charge of the king's $5million home Wow.
Well, what about you?
I'm in charge of the king'sfleet of expensive sports cars
Wow, I'm in charge of all thisover here.
I'm in charge of teaching theking's sons, the next kings.
I'm a kingmaker.
(09:19):
That's what I do.
What are you in charge of?
I'm the king's friend, and no,no, that's my job.
Is he likes me?
I'm here because I make himsmile.
I am the king's friend.
Whoa, that makes you importantAbsolutely.
Do you know?
One of the things I love aboutthe kingdom of God is we have
(09:42):
absolutely nothing to offer God.
You ever thought about that?
Like God doesn't need anything.
We talk about how God needs ourworship.
Do you know?
Actually he doesn't.
He doesn't really need ourworship.
He's, he's God all by himself.
He is pure actuality.
His personhood is completelyokay by himself.
(10:03):
You know that God has nopotential.
You know what I mean by that isis like potential is something
that is untapped in you, likeit's something that you hope for
, but isn't there yet.
Potential it's.
It's not yet actualized.
God is fully actualized.
Other words, we're not waitingfor God to become something.
So you think cause we think nowwe go, well, you have no
(10:23):
potential.
That's considered a bad thing,like like I have to have hope
for the future.
God has no hope for the futurebecause he has it right now,
like he's already okay.
You know what I mean.
So when you think about thecomplete, total actuality, the
complete, total personhood, godis omnipresent, omniscient,
omnibenevolent, all the things.
He's fine.
He's God all by himself.
(10:44):
He needs nothing from us, buthe wants us to be.
We have nothing to offer him,yet he says I want you.
That's amazing to me.
It reminds me of someone whotold me a story one time.
He had grown up as an orphanand he would watch these
(11:04):
families.
And growing up in an orphanage,he had to constantly fight for
attention, fight for respect,fight for all these things, and
he would watch these families.
And one of the things thatwould strike him so much about
these families is that thesechildren automatically assumed
that they had value.
They didn't have to proveanything.
There were no expectations onthem, they just knew their
(11:26):
parents loved them.
And for some of us who grew upin a home even if it was a
challenging home and achallenging thing for many of us
and not for all.
I understand that, but for manyof us there was an assumption
that at least one person in yourlife loved you just because,
and as an orphan.
This friend of mine said he hadso much trouble understanding
(11:48):
that.
And he said, even when he waslater adopted he went through a
season where he still struggledto realize he didn't have to
earn the love of his parents.
It was freely given.
They wanted him.
And can I tell you, as a childof God, that is exactly how God
feels about you.
You don't have to earn his love, it is freely given.
(12:12):
The Bible says that because ofwho we are, in Christ, we are
already fully loved by him.
Now he loves us too much to letus stay broken, so he will
slowly go to war with all thosebroken places in our life, and
so we can't say that we come toGod just as we are and God lets
us stay that way.
No, no, no.
The Bible lays out for us whattrue freedom looks like, and so
(12:37):
in the context of that, thatmeans God has a plan for our
sexuality.
God has a plan for thedifferent things that we do in
our life, the different way wego about things, because that's
where freedom is.
God knows where all thepotholes in life are, and so the
Bible is not a book full ofrules to take away our fun.
It's a book full of guidelinesto bring us freedom, and it's
(12:59):
because he wants us to be free.
But you don't have to do any ofthat before God will love you.
We do these things because Godloves us and in him we are
already fully accepted.
In him we are already fullysecure.
In him we are fully significantand in him we are the king's
friend.
And so today, if somebody wereto ask you what your title is,
what is it that makes youspecial?
You know what you could say Isyou could say man, just call me
(13:21):
Hushiah the archite.
What does that mean?
I am the king's friend.
Can I tell you I don't knowright now what your life is like
.
You may have a thousand friends.
You might be in a season whereyou don't have any.
Maybe you're a student rightnow that's listening to this
podcast.
Maybe you're in elementaryschool, middle school, high
(13:43):
school.
Maybe you're in college.
You're going through a seasonright now where you don't really
know who your friends are.
Can I tell you that's hard.
God's your friend.
God loves you.
I tell you that's hard.
God's your friend.
God loves you.
I know you can't see himphysically right now, but he's
more real than the air you'rebreathing and he loves you.
Maybe you're going through aseason and you're an adult right
now.
Maybe you're an empty nester.
You feel like life is changingand things are happening and you
(14:04):
don't really know where you'restanding anymore.
Your footing doesn't feel assecure anymore.
Can I tell you You're theking's friend.
He loves you.
And you may not be able to seehim with your eyes right now,
but he's more real than the airyou're breathing.
You have got value in your life.
You have a title and it is youare a friend of the king.
(14:25):
Let's pray together.
God, thank you so much that youlove us more than we could ever
understand.
And I know, god, that we'regoing to go through different
seasons and different things inlife.
But we've never been more morethan we could ever understand.
And I know, god, that we'regoing to go through different
seasons and different things inlife, but we've never been more
loved than we are right now.
I pray today you will help usto feel some of that love and to
know, god, that you are with us, and because you are with us
and you're for us, all thingsare possible.
(14:45):
I celebrate that today InJesus' name, we pray Amen, amen.
Well, god's word says in 1Chronicles, 29, 17,.
I know, my God, that youexamine our hearts and rejoice
when you find integrity there.
God knows us, god loves us andhe is for us more than we can
imagine.
I love you.
I'll see you tomorrow.
1 Chronicles, chapter 28.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Nikki Glaser Podcast
Every week comedian and infamous roaster Nikki Glaser provides a fun, fast-paced, and brutally honest look into current pop-culture and her own personal life.