OCT 27 2019 | Son of Anarchy S1E5 | Conspiracy Theory

Sea Change Church · Son of Anarchy · "Conspiracy Theory" Pastor Adam Stadtmiller · October 27, 2019
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

Hello, I'm Eden, and this is, sorry, I'm Devin, and this is Eden. We're together, though, we're married, so. And we are the Bryants. We're going to be reading on 2 Samuel, chapter 15, 1 through 14. In the course of time, Absalom provided himself with a chariot and horses, and with 50 men to run ahead of him. He would get up early and stand by the side of the road leading to the city gate. Whenever anyone came with a complaint to be placed before the king for a decision, Absalom would call out to him, What town are you from?

He would answer, Your servant is from one of the tribes of Israel. Then Absalom would say to him, Look, your claims are valid and proper, but there is no representative of the king to hear you. And Absalom would add, If only I were appointed judge in the land, then everyone who has a complaint or case could come to me, and I would see that they receive justice. Also, whenever anyone approached him to bow down before him, Absalom would reach down, would reach out his hand, take hold of him, and kiss him.

Absalom behaved in this way toward all the Israelites who came to the city asking for justice. And so he stole the hearts of the people of Israel. At the end of four years, Absalom said to the king, Let me go to Hebron and fulfill a vow I made to the Lord. While your servant was living at Geshur in Aram, I made this vow. If the Lord takes me back to Jerusalem, I will worship the Lord in Hebron. The king said to him, Go in peace.

So he went to Hebron. Then Absalom sent secret messengers throughout the tribes of Israel to say, As soon as you hear the sound of the trumpets, then say, Absalom is king in Hebron. Two hundred men from Jerusalem had accompanied Absalom. They had been invited as guests and went quite innocently, knowing nothing about the matter. While Absalom was offering sacrifices, he also sent for Ahithophel, the Gilanite, David's counselor, to come from Gilo, his hometown.

And so the conspiracy gained strength, and Absalom's following kept on increasing. A messenger came and told David, The hearts of the people of Israel are with Absalom. Then David said to all the officials who were with him in Jerusalem, Come, we must flee, or none of us will escape from Absalom. We must leave immediately, or he will move quickly to overtake us and bring ruin on us and put the city to the sword. The word of the Lord.

Every time Devin sees me, he always says, What'd it do? I love that. How you doing, Adam? What'd it do? If only I were judge over all of the land. What an awesome thing to say. Don't you wish you had friends like that? Wouldn't that just be amazing? You know, if only I were friends. If only I were the judge. Now imagine that Absalom, the son of the king, says this after he goes and gets a chariot that he can ride in.

And then 50 dudes to run in front of him. I mean, can you imagine that? Like, what a kook, you know? Like, does anybody just look at that and go, Really, bro? Like, 50 dudes? Now this was a thing that they did back in the day. It kind of means I'm someone. It's kind of like, you know, some people have Instagram followers. What you want back in the day is you don't want Instagram followers. You don't want to have, like, this awesome platform.

You want 50 dudes to run in front of you with your chariot. So you can let people, people will start looking at you. And you can kind of rise above everyone else. And then also to start making statements. Absalom had become a legend in his own mind. And he actually makes a statue of himself because he didn't have any male sons to follow after him. So he goes on to do these things to raise himself up in other people's opinions.

And the key thing that we're looking at today in regard to this relationship with him and his father, and this entire series has been about human relationships. It's been about family relationships. And where do we see ourselves in the story? It's easy to point at David. It's easy to point at Absalom and say, yeah, that's a long time ago and aren't they horrible people. It's a lot more difficult to hold the Bible up to ourselves and take a look at it and say, what does this have to say about me?

Who am I trying to influence? Where am I influencing people? And am I using godly means of righteous leverage, like would be prayer, worship, things like that? Or am I using manipulation? Now, I'm specifically speaking to my, you look terrified when I just said that, Jordan. You had big eyes. But specifically speaking to my high school students because I think they understand, they live in the world of seeing this on a way more raw basis than we see in regard to backbiting, people with gossip.

Remember in high school how it was? As you get older, we get much better at doing the exact same thing that you see in high school. We're just way better at it, so you can't tell as much. But you are still honing the skills of manipulation. Goss, well, maybe you're not. But it is easy to see that people try to gain influence. They try to gain popularity. We gain popularity in a very different way than you do in middle school and you do in high school.

And perhaps through like the Instagram influencers or different people, people are finding ways to have influence in society. Not only does Absalom want to have influence and he will do any means necessary to make it happen. He wants influence. He wants the hearts of mankind to love him. He wants to be popular. He wants to be known. And not only does he want to influence people, he wants to be a judge. Matter of fact, he thinks that he should be the judge of all the land of Israel.

Let's take this scripture and once again turn it around and use it as a mirror. How invested are you into trying to win over the hearts of mankind? Jesus, it said, would not entrust himself to man. And that includes you ladies. It's anthropomorphic. It's not anthropomorphic, but it's in regard to the word means anthropos, which means men and women. He would not give himself or search for the hearts of mankind because it says that he knew what was in the human heart.

We live in a society today that is seeking to gain as many human hearts as possible. As a matter of fact, if you have Instagram or Facebook, I know none of our high schoolers have Facebook as anathema to them. And that's, I think my daughter told me what old people have. Fine, fair enough. I will own it. I'm not saying that was you that said that. But you can actually have this thing where people hit a little heart. You put something up there.

You put that fake thing on your face that makes you look younger than you are. And it actually just makes it look blurry. But nonetheless, you know what I'm talking about, right? That like fake filter that it looks really good on your phone. But when you share it to someone's computer screen, it makes you just look like a fuzzy mess. You know what I'm saying? Like no one gets that, how that works. And they actually, have you ever done that?

You look at something on your phone and it looks amazing. You're like, this is such a good picture. And then you're horrified four hours later when you see it on your computer because you go check to see how much social swag you have. So you go back and your face is all like funky, but it looked amazing on your phone because, no, no one does that. You're the only person that does that. Okay, fair enough. They actually have, my daughter's like, what are you doing?

They actually have this thing now. When you go check, they can just start hitting the hearts, all these little hearts. And all these little hearts can come up and you can see how many hearts you have and how, you know, when you like it, it's actually, what is it when you like something? Especially, you know, on, I think it's next to Instagram, one of the social media platforms. It's a heart, right? You get their heart.

They love it. They like it. And you're looking for it. This is something Absalom wanted. He wanted the hearts of man. He wanted the hearts of man for one reason. Because they could give him social influence. They could give him clout. And they could get him to where he wanted to go. Now, once again, with my high schoolers who have stayed in here the whole time. I thank you for taking so many notes. I think it's amazing.

You guys are all taking notes. That with my high schoolers in here today, one of the things we understand is this idea, this battle for popularity. The battle to be known. The battle to do whatever it takes to get to where you need to get at the top of the social hierarchy. This is what Absalom was all about. But make no mistake. High school has a way to follow us all the way into life. High school has a way to, you know, perhaps you're a soccer mom.

But you just want to be the coolest soccer mom. You know what I'm saying? You got the Escalade, you know. You had time to get your nails done, your hair done. You show up. The house is always clean. Whatever it is. Or the man has the same thing. You got your nails done. You got a manicure. You got a mani-pedi. Whatever it is, your business is amazing. Your kids are going to the best colleges. Even if you cheat to have their tests paid for.

No shade. No shade. Okay, fair enough. It's all about the manipulation of the human heart. Here's the thing about God. You can't manipulate God's heart. You cannot manipulate God's heart. The heart of God is a heart that is searching for people who want to have a heart for him. And as we look into the notes today, we're going to see some vast differences. We've been very critical of David. And we have a right to be critical of David because God was critical of a lot of things he did.

But there's a couple things that I think stand out in the scripture. And I encourage you to read scripture slowly so that you don't miss little things. And ask yourself lots of questions. Jordan, quit talking to her in my sermon. Oh, I called her out. Sorry, guys. This is my peeps. Spirit of Absalom is one of power, pride, manipulation, deceit, and judgment. The spirit of Absalom. Now, the spirit of Absalom. What do I mean when someone has a spirit?

Because we have the spirit of Jesus. We have these different spirits. What are you talking about when you have a spirit? Why do they call alcohol a spirit? Because, you know, why do they use that kind of language? When the Bible talks about a spirit, it is talking about the supernatural spirit that rides upon our human actions. So when you do things that are in alignment with God's nature, God's spirit comes and it sits upon those things.

And it actually gives more power to what you do. So when you perhaps give forgiveness to somebody and you are in the stream of God, the blessing of God, the spirit of God, it agrees with things going on in the supernatural. We're going to be talking about supernatural. The Bible is very clear that there is a natural and that there is a supernatural. One of the things it says the purpose of the church is actually to proclaim not only to the world, but also to the powers in heaven of who Christ is, that there is something happening.

Whatever actions you have, all open up doors for the spirits that are not of the natural world to come and inhabit or to let's not say inhabit, to come and bring momentum in a deeper way. For instance, when you love somebody, God's spirit comes and not only do you get the results of a loving action, but the spirit of God rides upon that and makes it exponentially a greater work of love than it ever could have been because the spirit of God sits upon it.

Absalom also had spirits. And when the Bible speaks about spirits, I'm not speaking so much about like, you know, he's demon possessed or any kind of, you know, craziness, you know, or things happening like that. Although Jesus did deal with the demoniac and we'll talk about that in the next sermon series, but that he acted in ways that were manipulative, that were jealous, that were angry, that were, you know, the lack of forgiveness.

And basically the spirit of God did not bless him for this, but he did open himself up for the enemy to come and to have this spirit. Now, the reason I say that is actions beg an open door and leave an open door for a spirit. The Bible says that we do not want to give the enemy what? A foothold. Why? Because a foothold gives a, it gives it some leverage into your actions. All of our actions have supernatural and then we won't go on any further, but have a supernatural ability to basically all of our actions have Velcro.

And when you do something, you either Velcro the things of the spirit of God that lead to life or the spirit of the flesh, which the scripture says lead to death. Now, here's a question for you. Whose heart are you after? David was a man after God's own heart. Absalom was content with the hearts of men. This is a really key point. David, we never see David ever trying to win over the hearts of mankind. I don't know anywhere in scripture that I have seen.

And I'm, David has kind of been one of my main studies. You know, I spent a lot of time in these books. We never see where he's trying to influence the people to like him more. He never does that. This is all Absalom does. All Absalom cares about is his social clout, his social swag, and where it can take him because he knows that he is trusting upon people to put him up and to make him king. Remember, they tried to make Jesus king.

And it says that he walked through the crowd. He did not want to be king because he knew that crowds are fickle. One moment, the crowd will make you king. The next minute, they will shout, crucify him. And crowds are very fickle. I'm never very comfortable in a crowd because I've been in some crowds before that have gone the wrong way. And if you have ever been in a crowd that goes the wrong way, you will become less, you will stop trusting crowds as much.

And I think as churches, we need to be careful not to trust the crowds either. And a lot of times we're just going for crowds. We need to be careful of that. Acts 13.22. Now, this is some powerful stuff about David. And we have been critical of David. But here's some positive things too. And some things that I found very interesting. After removing Saul. Now, this is in Acts. Looking back when the testimony is being made about the past and the history of the Jews.

One of the apostles in Jesus' time says, He made David their king. God testified concerning him. Now, I love that God has a testimony about us. In Revelations, we have seven churches. They are not just regions, although they are regional. But there are seven specific churches where God has a testimony. He basically says, Oh, I know that church. Let me tell you about that church. I believe today that God still knows individual churches.

He knows the church as a whole in America. He knows the church as a whole in Africa. But he also knows the Hoya Christian Fellowship. He knows all the good stuff we do. All the benevolence that we do. He loves the fellowship. And if God were to speak about our church and write a letter like he did to Laodicea or these other churches in Revelations, what does God say about our church? What does it look like? Are we a church that is benevolent?

Are we a church that cares? Are we a church that cares for the poor? Are we forgiving? Do we have lust? Do we have addiction? What are these things? And what does God say to us as a church? God testifies. Now, God also testifies about us as human beings. This isn't meant to scare you. Because if we are under the blood of Jesus, obviously, you have the grace of Jesus. And we get Christ's work. It is traded for ours. And so when we go to heaven and stand before the judgment seat of God, or before you go to heaven, you stand before the judgment seat of God, if you have asked Christ to cover your sins, when all that enemy accuses the brethren or accuses you, perhaps before God, you can just say, I believed in Jesus for what he did, and the blood of Jesus washes and covers you, that doesn't mean that God doesn't know what you're doing with your life right now.

It doesn't mean that the Father doesn't know exactly who you are and has a testimony about you. I know about, we'll just use a name, so it isn't somebody's name, it's Malchizedek, okay? Because I doubt any of you are named Malchizedek accidentally. I know about Malchizedek, and I know that they try really hard, but I also know that they're lying and deceitful. And I know this and this, and this part of their life has a tremendous amount of blessing, and it has the spirit of love and joy and peace, but there's lust as well, and they're opening themselves up to a foothold, and they are getting much of the death that comes with on and on, and Jesus has a testimony.

Jesus has a testimony, and what we want to continue to do is be very open with God, and not have hidden things from God. You can't hide anything from God anyways, although I try really hard. I don't know. Do you try really hard? I go to prayer, and I'll be like, amazing God, we're not going to talk about that. I love you, but the whole time, something's going like, God, just don't go in that room over there, Jesus. You know what I'm saying?

Like, there is an ability to not want to have a conversation, and I'm working really hard to be super honest with God, just to tell God, hey, this is where I am, this is who I am, and I need you to change me. After David's huge mistake, you know what he says? Created me what? A clean heart, oh God. We are in the business, Christianity, Christ following, is in the business of heart transformation. We want to see hearts and minds changed, and so asking that we can have a change of heart, and so we see that David was constantly redefining what his heart was, the heart that was a heart after God's own heart.

So it says that he has a testifying concerning him. I have what? Found David. Now this is interesting. Does God ever need to find anything? Like, why does it use the word find? You know, does God ever lose his keys? God doesn't need to go get that thing that you put in your key that you can find it with your phone, which I need to have, because I lose my keys, I don't know how many times a day. I actually have this, maybe some of you do it as well.

I have that where like, I lose my keys and my wallet, but I need my keys to find my wallet, because they're connected, but I can't find either of those, so I have to get on the computer to find my keys, and then once I find my keys, I can use that thing to find my wallet. No one has that, that little chain of like, find your stuff. Am I the only person that does that? Oh, yeah, it's a tile. Yeah, it's a tile. That's what it is.

God doesn't need a tile. God doesn't ever lose anything. It's like, oh, where I was in heaven. Holy Spirit, you see my keys? Where are they? You know what I'm saying? So why does it use the language that he found? Well, because it shows that God is actively seeking, that he is, let's just say it's this, God is very interested, interested in people that are gonna go after his own heart. And he is looking over and over in the scriptures, I look for someone who would stand in the gap.

I look for someone. Even when David becomes king, right? Samuel goes, and he sees all these other sons. What it also shows is that God is willing to bypass people until he finds somebody that'll do it. You know, I do believe, the way I read scripture, is that God has a plan that we can't change, and you might be the person he uses to do it. I believe that there is a predestined plan by God, but the parts often are interchangeable.

And then God can also, if you miss something, so if you're all terrified, well, I missed it because I had this big thing in my life and I must have missed it. God is amazing at restoring the years that have locusts have eaten away, and he can take you if you miss chapter two, and he can basically bring you back and fulfill the thing that was missed because he's God. So if you feel like you missed it, know that God can redeem that and actually fill in the years that the locusts have eaten away.

He's amazing, but the reason I say that is because he's looking for somebody, and if you are not a person that actually wants to go, you know, fully after God, then God will wait on you. He will just wait on you and say, I'll just hang out and I'll find someone who wants to do it because I have a plan and I might use you. He says that he's found, and if you want to be used by God, one of the best things you can do is just put that SOS in the ground.

You know, people get lost. They just found a woman in Australia in the desert, right? She made the SOS thing and they found it, and they said because of, you know, they actually, some rancher had a camera for his cows, and he saw the SOS thing on that when she'd have it, but she was desperate to be found. You know what? I want to be that person. I want to be desperate to be found by God, not trying to hide things from God.

There's a big difference. Jumping up and saying, God, use me. Hey, look, God, look, if there's no one that you have used before in this, use me to change the city. Use me to change my school. God, use me. The reason we don't want to ask that is because there's a cost. We all want to be used by God, but following God is a cost. There's not, you know, it hasn't been free for me, and maybe it hasn't been free for you, and it might cost you some of those likes.

It might cost you some of those little hearts. It might cost you somebody, you know, what people think about you. David never cared. Now, the next thing in this scripture that's really powerful is it says, and he, David, will do what? Everything I want him to do. Now, we're critical of David. God didn't look over, but he paid consequences, but God forgave him for many things, many difficult things that he did, but could this be said of you?

Before we judge David too quickly, could this be said of you? That, yeah, maybe they did something, some stuff I didn't want, and David did some things that God didn't want him to do, but could it be said of you that you did everything God wanted you to do? That is a pretty awesome testimony. That everything, I probably got nine things I can think of right now that God wants me to do that I haven't done. I don't know, you know what I mean?

If you were to sit and think, and God's been tapping on your shoulder, but it's not that big of a deal, and, you know, on, or whatever it is, to say, and the scripture says, and I tend to take it literally here, that everything that God wanted them to do, every time God said, hey, David, you're my boy, go do this, David did it. What a testimony. Someone after the heart of God. God wanted to be that man that was found by God, and he was willing to wait to become that person.

He waited in a field, and God took him from the back and put him on the stage, but he never sought for the stage. Here's the tangible differences between father and son. David was content a shepherd boy, while Absalom was discontent being the king's son. Discontent being the king's son. And probably, God might not have allowed him to become the king, but probably the first in line to become king. He was the one that David liked the best.

If David was going to give the kingship to anybody, he was going to give it to Absalom. But Absalom wasn't willing to wait for his time. He wanted what he wanted when he wanted it, and he wasn't willing to wait. David never did that. David never tried to ascend. David always believed that if God wanted you to be there, that if he had a heart after God, that nothing can stop him from being there. Nothing can, look, your purpose, this whole idea of purpose, your purpose, if you just obey God, seek ye first the kingdom of God, and all these things will be added unto you, will chase you down and fall at your feet.

There is no way you can miss your purpose if you just put God first. Matter of fact, a great thing would be to say, God, you know what? If that thing I really want never happens, it's okay. Can you allow it to happen in my life if you want it to happen? I'll tell you a little story. First book I wrote. It's called Give Your Kids the Keys. I was talking to God about a year beforehand, and I said, God, I want to write a book.

And I felt distinctly, I got this thought, and sometimes I get these thoughts, I thought, well, that's kind of a weird sideways thought, so I don't know. It sounds like, it seems like it's from God. We all learn how to hear from God different ways, and we mature, and I pretty much at this point have a good sense of when God's telling me something, at least for sure. So I felt like the Lord said to me, well, if you want to write a book, how come you haven't been practicing writing?

I'm like, that's a good point, God. You know, I just think I can just like start writing, and like, it's good enough for your kingdom, and you should just publish it everywhere, just because I want to do it. So I had this story about this rat that lives in London that I made up, and I told my daughters a story. It was called Raskin, and I decided to write it down. It ended up being 88 pages, and they helped me write it.

It's a cool little fun story. And I remember I said, God, I'm just going to write, and I'm not going to do anything to manipulate to make this happen. I am not going to call anybody, because I knew people in the church. I'm not going to call any book people. I knew people that had published. I said, I'm not going to do anything. I'm just going to write, because I'm going to write for you, and when I'm done with this, I'm going to write a screenplay.

And so I finished my 88-page book, and I pressed save, and I said, Lord, I wrote. You asked me to write. I wrote. If you want anything to happen with this, you want me to write in a bigger arena, then just let me know, and I'm going to take a three-day break, and then I'm going to start writing my screenplay. Two days later, I get an email from the vice president of Regal Books, and he says to me, hey, I met you at a conference.

I used to work with a guy named Matt Redman, and I was carrying boxes, is what I would do. I'd carry Matt's, if you know him, he's a worship leader, and I would carry his little boxes of music around, and I remember thinking to myself, why can't I be doing something cool like them? And I would just carry the boxes and go back to the car and take his cool, and then he'd show up and sign autographs, and I would carry the boxes back to the car.

Right. Right. That was my life, and I just, I said, I ended up meeting the president of the company. In between, they had a little autograph session, and we had five minutes before Matt got there, all the cool people got there, and I talked to the president of the company, and I said something that he liked, and it was like two years later, and I get this email, my name's Bill Denzel, and I'm the vice president, and the president, Bill Grieg, asked me to contact you, would you be interested in writing a children's book for us?

On children, on parenting, and I was like, well, we could meet, sounds good, and within less than 10 days, I'd signed my first contract for a book. I want to continue to try to live that way. Right now, when it's been five years since I wrote my last book, and I'm thinking to myself, window's closing, everyone's forgot you, oh, man, you're 50, dude, they like 35-year-old millennials with snakeskin shoes, and really good teeth, but not hair like that, right?

Boom. My wife hates it. I don't care. Look, I promise me, I'm only going to grow it another four inches. Party in the back, business in the front, you know what I'm saying? Do we trust God to move us to where we need to go? I had to get to my, I had to get to my flow hawk. All right. David trusted God for his ascension. Absalom sought to forge his own path. I have to say, it's incredibly difficult to do this. It's incredibly difficult for me to right now to be like, God, I'm not going to go call anybody.

If you want me to do something, I'm content where I am, and you can open up. That doesn't mean that sometimes you need to go for an audition. I'm not saying it's one way or another. I just know me. I know me and my desire to manipulate and my desire to, for these things. And I just, I got to know it's God. And I just, I guess I'm to the place in my life, where it's just like, I just got to know it's you God. And in that situation, I knew it was yours.

And I want to continue to stay in that place. Because once I did start writing, I found myself just doing things. I remember, I think I told you guys like the second year is like 2011. I went and bought like 20,000 Twitter followers. You know what I mean? Like, really? I bought, everybody looks at me all shameful. Like you can go buy them. Back in the day, you could just buy Twitter followers. So I bought 20,000. I'm like sick.

Now I got 20,000 Twitter followers. Check me out. Like now I look back. I'm like, Oh, what a dork dude. What are you thinking, dude? It's like Absalom with 50 dudes running in front of him. You know, I thought that's not who I want to be. I don't care. But I started worrying. I won't get another book deal. I won't get another one unless it looks like, you know, and it's just dishonest and whatever. And so now I just think it's funny, but nonetheless, I want to go back and I want to stay in that place.

Where are you in regard to making your future happen? That's what I'm saying. David trusted God for his ascension. Absalom sought to forge his own path. David would never touch the Lord's anointed. Well, Absalom was willing to kill his own anointed father. Some pretty big differences between those two guys. Pretty solid differences. Turn it over if you would, and we'll come in for a landing. The spirit of Absalom is the spirit of judgment.

Judgment. Do you wear the black robe? The little funny, you know, hair and the curls, you know, from back in the day. Are you that judge? You know, here comes the judge when you're in it. You're real good at judging your spouse, your kids, the leaders in the world. You're just, you're good. You know, your opinions are just forthright. It's forthright and true because you know the heart, you know, the depths of everybody's heart.

You know, the depths of your own heart and your own motives. You know, the scripture says in Proverbs, I think 16 or Psalm 16, I think it says it in Proverbs, that you don't even know the motives of your own heart. In a person's heart, the scripture says, they always think what they do is right, but they don't even know their own motives. That always kind of freaks me out a little bit. That you think you're doing something with good motives, but there is something, I guess the human heart is, and the soul is, it's, it's, it's the soul's eternal.

And to think that you know the motives behind everything you do, we have to be so counting on the grace of God, and so in prayer when we make big decisions. I'm not telling you to be, you know, never make a big decision, or to be afraid of making decisions, but be very careful in the decisions we make, in the judgments we make. To sit before the Lord and say, God, I don't know about this. Can you soften my heart? Can you let me know what you think, and just give me a different way of thinking?

Have you ever been mad at somebody, and then you spend time praying for them, and then you get compassion for them? And all of a sudden, you just, everything changes, it just gets washed away. It is so easy in our culture today, to just judge and discard. And, you know, David never did that. You know, he had a relationship with God. Read the Psalms, over and over again, this depth, where he is not judging. Spirit of Absalom is the spirit of judgment.

If only I were appointed judge in the land. Do you ever feel that way? Romans 1 and 2, you therefore have no excuse. Wow. When you pass judgment, it says. It's like, you stand before God, and he's like, you know, you judged a bunch of people that I loved, and you had no clue what they were doing. And I actually called them to do that, and you actually just judged them for it. And you're like, but, but he says, no, no, no, no excuse.

Yeah, but the reason, no excuse. But, but, but, no excuse. Dude, that would shut you up real quick, wouldn't it? To start thinking, why do I judge? What's the purpose about judging? Now, there was a big hashtag, don't judge thing, eight, ten years ago, right? We can't judge anybody of anything. Just, everyone should just do whatever they want. We shouldn't be able to say anything about it. It's not what the scripture says.

Scripture says, you don't create the judgments, but we understand the judgments of God, and we are in agreement with the judgments of God. When I see somebody speeding and going 110 miles an hour, and I say, they shouldn't speed and go that fast. Am I judging them? Did I make that rule up? No. I know the rules of the land. I am in agreement with the rules of the land, most of the time when I drive the speed limit. And, I want, and I, and I am not being the judge.

I am living in accordance to the judgment. As Christians, we are called not to judge. But, even within the church, Paul says that we are to judge, but not to judge the outside world. You know, in the scripture, it says, don't judge the outside world. He says, within the church, of course, we're supposed to judge. And, there's a lot of people on the outside of the church right now, that are trying to force the church, to have different judgments about our things within the church.

When they don't even care about the church. But, we don't judge, and make up judgments. We know the judgments of God, and we try to live according to these judgments. When we do that, then we do have an excuse, because, what God has judged is right and pure. Continue on with this. You, therefore, have no excuse. You, who, what? Pass judgment on someone else. For, at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself.

Wow. If we really understood that. Because, you who pass judgment do the same things. Now, this is a powerful verse. Now, we know that God's judgments against those who do such things, is based on truth. You want to know why? Because, God is the creator of, of that person. He's the creator of the rules. He understands the motive, and the deep motives that we don't even understand. He understands all the nuance. He understands everything that happened to a person.

He understands it all. And, not only that, he has never sinned. He, there is no fault in God. There is no sin in God. And, when he makes a judgment, it's straight up, true, 100% pure. But, when we make a judgment, based on a million calculations, which you'll never understand, we immediately make snap judgments, based on what we think. And, we become a slave to our opinion. I am working really hard. My daughter, Lily, knows that I am working very hard, not to be a slave of my own opinions.

Because, I find that the, the more tied I get to my opinions, you know, which I hope there's only a few things I really know, like Christ died on the cross, I love my wife, on and on. that when I become a slave to my opinions, I become less kind, I become less caring, I become less forgiving, I become less everything. And, what I want to do, is I really want to spend time with God, so he can shape and change my heart.

This is a heart transplant that we want. We want to have a heart for God, and not live according to these judgments. You see a headline now, make a judgment. You see a person do something, boom, make a judgment. You have no idea. Remember there's a story, Stephen Covey in the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, tells a story, that he got onto a train, and there was a father there, and there was these kids, and they were just going crazy on the train, and he was sitting there thinking, it's, look, we're on the train, can't you control your kids?

What's the problem? And the dad wouldn't say anything, and the kids were just going crazy, and he thought he was going to take matters into his own hands. He was going to say something. Maybe you remember this from the book. He was going to say something. So he was gentle and kind, and he said, hey, would it be possible if you could just, perhaps, you know, maybe reel your kids in a little bit, and it says the dad looked up, and he was kind of disheveled, and he kind of shook his head, and said, oh, I'm so sorry.

I guess I should. We just left the hospital, and their mom died of cancer. She just died, so kids, come over and sit by me, and all of a sudden, his judgment changed. Snap judgment changed. When you realize the situation, why people act the way they do, why they do what they do, we don't want to be judgmental. We want to have some defensive space in our judgments. You know, if you look about in fire right now, when you're trying to stop fire from hitting your house, let's say you live in the countryside, and there's fires right now.

One of the best things you can do is create a defensible space, so that your house, what does that mean? It means chop down all of the, you know, the brush, clear it out, so that the fire doesn't have any fuel. With our judgments, do you have any defensible space anymore? Or are you just super good at being a judge? Like, you've got 50 people running in front of you. You are so good at judging your husband, your wife, your kids, your congressperson, whoever it is.

You're just, you know, we're being told that whatever you think is right, by the way, in judges, that whatever you think for the most part is right, and you should have a judgment about it, and then just spew that judgment straight out. Is there any defensible space where you have a moment to sit? There was a person who, you know, I was talking to one of my kids about, and I'm like, you know, I'm struggling with how that person acts.

And, you know, my daughter said, well, there's this little bit of a background story. And I was like, oh. And then I found myself throughout this week praying for that person. All of a sudden, they didn't bug me anymore. Defensible space. Do you have any defensible space between your emotions and your judgment and prayer? Is there, before you make a judgment, is there a day of prayer? Two minutes? One minute? When you get a judgment, do you ever just stop and ask God, like, hey God, I got this opinion about this person, or this thing, or this event, or this law.

What's your take on that? Or about this situation? Is there any defensible space? Or are you just a slave to the moment? I'm a slave to the moment way too much. And this is why we want to spend time with God, so we can have a soft heart. We want a heart that brings us to reconciliation. God's judgment, it says that mercy triumphs over what? Judgment. Margin. God created himself defensible space. He put a defensible space of his son.

His son died on the cross, so we don't have to sit here and make all these judgments. Why did God give us a law? Because he knew that we couldn't create a law. He knew that it was, you know, everybody says God's a buzz kill. God gave us a righteous law that we might know how to live. And so, do you have defensible space? Or do you have the spirit of being an unjust judge? And that's what Absalom was. Look in verse 3.

Then Absalom would say to them, look, so Absalom would, not only did he go to Hebron, where David became king, because he knew that all the people in Jerusalem were David's people, the city of David, they called it. So he's probably not going to get a lot of swag going there. So he would go outside the city, you know, maybe in, you know, the Kidron Valley or something like that. But he would go outside of the city before one of the main gates.

There's gates all around Jerusalem, probably less gates in the old city. And he would meet people as they came into the city. Now, he knew that he couldn't win the, you know, you're probably not going to win the hearts of the people of the city of David. But anybody else in the 11 tribes ever come, he had a good shot at that. So he would go and he would meet them along the way. And he would get to them before the king got to them.

And then he would just basically, you know, they would come and they would, they would bow down because he was the king's son. And then he would immediately reach to them and pull them up and be like, no, no. Like, you know, imagine how you'd feel if the king's son, you know, you're in England, you know, and, and, and, you know, William was there and you like, you know, I don't know, shake it, whatever it is, you bow down or whatever.

I'm probably not going to bow down to him, but nonetheless, you know, and he said, no, Hey, I'm so glad you're here. Just meet Kate. She's awesome. You know, give her a hug, you know, and that, you know, and they just bring you into the family. We're having you over for dinner. You'd be like, Oh, and then he would tell them whatever they told him, whatever they told him, he'd go, you got a good point there. You're right.

You know, I wish, I wish, don't you? I wish there was someone that would, that would help. I'd help you out if I could, but I can't. But I mean, I wish I could. Look what it says. Verse three. So manipulative. Says, then Absalom would say to them, look, your claims are valid and proper. This is every person, everyone who came to him. There wasn't anybody that said that he said, you know what? You're whack, dude. No, that, no, no, no, we can't have that one.

Anybody. Yeah, that's right. You just tickle their ears. Tell people what they want to hear. Does that sound familiar? But there was no representative of the king to hear from you. And thus he stole the hearts of the people. But the hearts of the people are fickle. And when Absalom lost his way and lost his life, all of them ran home. Because who was coming back? David, the man after God's own heart. Spirit of Absalom finishing is the spirit of manipulation.

Manipulation is the opposite of faith. And if faith leads us to salvation, the manipulation leads us towards death. Romans 16, 18. When he talks about such people are not serving the Lord, but they serve their own appetites. Stop there. Do we serve the Lord? Do we serve the spirit of God? Or do we serve our own appetites? Appetites are very strong. The appetite, the need for fame, you know, whatever these appetites are, they're so strong.

But to develop a different palette, one that seeks to be known by God, that is saying, God, may you find me, may I be that person, and I'm willing to pay whatever costs God. By smooth talk and flattery, they deceive the minds of naive people. Today you have an opportunity to ask yourself, do I want to be the person that God's looking for? God, am I willing? Will you at least make, give me a heart that is willing to change my campus, to change my work, to change my home?

God, I want to be found by you. Or, make the tough decision to say, I want to continue to follow my appetites. You know, sometimes we live with one foot in one camp, and one in the other. But the complete fullness of God's spirit, because even when we're in sin, Christ still blesses us. Even as Christians, we can continue, you know, we have sin in our lives, he continues to be patient, continues to bless us, he doesn't smite us off the face of the earth.

But the more we get in alignment with God, the more momentum of God's spirit will be upon your life, the more blessing. God blesses things that are in agreement with him. He doesn't bless things that are not in agreement. So if you were under the blood of Christ, you are going to have an inherent blessing, that you get, just from being a member of Christ. But if you start getting your behavior, your attitudes, your time, the things that you do in alignment, all of a sudden, the power of God is going to chase you down.

And your purpose, and all these other things will come lay at your feet. And you'll begin to walk in power, and walk in a way that changes the world. And hopefully we have a church, where God testifies about us, where if more and more of us that start doing that in this church, God can raise up this tiny little David. We're just a little church in the field. That's all we are. We're not known all over the world, whatever it is.

We're just a little remnant of people, that are coming to a corner, that's been here 90 years, where generation after generation of believers have said, we will not let this work of God cease, and not on our watch. And over and over again, they have passed it on to the next generation. That is us. Let's pray that God testifies to us, as to what we're going to do, and blesses us that we might do more. Amen? Chris, come lead us in a song, and then we will eat together.

Let's ask you to extend your hands. I'm going to pray a blessing, that you would have a deep desire to be that person chosen by God, to do that thing that he wants to partner with you, that he wouldn't say, I'll come back later, and we'll get back to that when you're ready. Lord Jesus, I pray over this congregation, God, I pray over us as a church. First of all, all of us represent the Church of Christ at La Jolla, on Draper and Genter, Lord God, and we ask that you would just remove us from our addictions, our sins, God, the things that we look upon, Lord God, the attitudes of our hearts, unforgiveness, Lord Jesus, and you'd forgive us as a church, God, we want to have a great report, we want you to further this church, because it won't be long until none of us are here, and we pray that there's another generation behind us, God, still walking in the truth of their forefathers and mothers, Lord God, that have come before them, and so we pray for this church, we pray, God, as a church, God, that you would bless us, bless the children, all those that are being baptized in the next couple weeks, Lord Jesus, bless us as a church, we want this little church to be part of a greater choir of churches that hold to the truth no matter what the world says, Lord God, and now I pray each individual, for each individual here, that you would give them a hunger to want more of you, God, the hunger to ask for more of you, Jesus, and that the word of God, when they do open it up, would come alive in such a powerful way, that worship, they would feel the transcendence of the worship, Lord God, that thanksgiving would come to their lips, Lord Jesus, that judgment would pass away in the name of grace, Lord God, and Jesus, that you would bring miracles, Lord God, we pray for this church Lord Jesus, that in this season, we pray for miracles over that six week period that's coming up, we want to begin to seed the ground with prayer requests for miracles of healing and faith and finance, God, and relationships and salvation, most of all, Lord Jesus, so we pray for miracles on each of these lives, Lord Jesus, God, you would bring good into their life, God, not harm, let them know that you love them, God, and let them walk in your power and grace, so we send them out now, we anoint them, God, to walk in your power of love and healing and goodness, peace of mind, peace of heart, peace of soul, and that you would find them, God, in your mercy and love, in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.