KINGS | Week 3 | Full Service

But speaking of that, it's been interesting. I'm a grandfather now. And most of you say, you don't look like a grandfather at all. You look like a great grandfather. I get that. But when

you watch grandkids, I feel now instead of being like a parent in this scenario, I feel like a researcher out on the Serengeti Plain watching the animals. I can I can watch how it works, how they act in their natural habitat?

And I go, oh, that's sad that that that that that that, you know, animal's getting attacked, but I'm not gonna do anything about it. I'm just gonna watch. You know, I get to do that.

And and it's interesting watching my oldest grandson. He's three and a half. And he's at that age now. I've talked about this before where where he asked his parents for something, but he'll want something that he they go, no. You've had enough. I've talked about this before. He likes cookies.

But that's all he'll eat all day. And so he keeps wanting cookies and watching cartoons. Know? And they they go, they've learned at this age. We control the screen time. You can watch a little bit of stuff that we approve of, but and and and and no more cookies. And so when they bring him over to our house

and and and we end up watching them, mom will often say, hey, he's already had enough. Don't give him any more sweets and and no cartoons. And earlier on when he'd come over and mom would still there, he would ask for something. I'd hear her say no. You know why? You've already done this. Blah blah blah. You gotta wait. And then he'll go, where's Lolly? Which is my my wife's grandma name. I'm pops so together we're Lolly Pop. Ain't that sweet?

Well, really just makes us suckers, doesn't it? And so then he'll go, and early on it worked because there was a communications void in this battle to to raise him. So he would catch the communication loophole, and and she would say yes, not knowing. Well, they've closed that gap now.

And so now Lolly will support mom and say no, and then he'll get frustrated, and he'll finally just go back to his mom, and he'll get mad, And then he'll start saying, you're not listening to me. Anybody have kids that do that? A spouse that does that?

And and what's interesting about that is when a kid says you're not listening to me, is that really what the problem is? It's not that we're not you're not listening. It's they're not listening to you. And what he really means when you're not listening to me is he's saying, you're not telling me what I wanna hear.

And so that's why he goes to to grandma. He goes he goes to another semi authority figure to try to hear what he wants to be told. And in other words, he's he's not respecting and and submitting to his parents.

And even he goes to another one. And and what he's really doing is he treats mom and dad and then by extension grandma as as a as a consultant. They're they're not really well, I heard your idea,

but I don't like it. So I need to go to another person until I find someone that tells me what I wanna hear. And and what's really funny in all this is he's kinda dumb. He should just come to me. Because I fold. I don't care.

And it's not because I I thought it was you know, there's a little bit of that that I just don't wanna fight it or give in. But the reality is I I found out that I I I think the reason I just give in is I'm not really giving in, is I I am actively trying to undermine my daughter's parenting as as as as payback

for her undermining mine. And and and so that's why they never leave them alone with me for very long. The one time they did, she said, hey, no cookies, no cartoons. They came back two hours later, cartoons were on and our shirts were covered with cookie crumbs.

He just said, can I have a cookie? Yeah. As long as you bring the whole bag over here so we can share. So I'm basically Satan in this role. And with that being said, let me give you some truth from God's word about what we're gonna talk about today.

But no. The the whole the the whole idea there is is it's funny how when we think three year olds do that, you're not listening. And then they look for someone to tell them what they wanna hear. I don't think we really grow out of that like we think we do.

Especially when it comes to listening to God in our life as the authority in our life. A lot of us, we treat God as a consultant. I wanna come here, you come to church. I go, hey, I wanna come here what this guy has to say. He's pretty successful. He's well known. He wrote a bestselling

book. So come give me some of your advice and then I'll decide if I'm gonna take it or not. And we act like God is a consultant. But the reality is that'll never work. If you come here and you only listen to some of what God says and reject the part you don't like, then he is not your king.

And the truth is this. The big idea we're gonna see today is simply this. God is king, not a consultant.

And I hope you can I pray that you will understand what does this mean in your life? I know in your life, are you treating God as a consultant and not as a king? Because we've been in the series called Kings where we're looking at Saul and David, the first two kings of Israel, and how

Saul started off strong. He actually looked more like a king than David, but he ends up rejected by God. David, on the other hand, gets called a man after God's own heart, and he's in the lineage of Jesus. And and the difference is not that David didn't sin or didn't have failure. They both do.

It's what do they do in this moment? And it's really how do they view God in the first place? And what we see is Saul always looked as God like a consultant. Saul was king. He wanted to be king. So sometimes he listened to God, sometimes he didn't. David, on the other hand, became king, but he always knew he had a king.

So every time he was confronted, things go different. So they both end up with failure. They both end up in what I call points of desperation. We have this desperate point of it's kinda stressful. You don't know what to do. And a lot of times in both of these scenarios,

in Saul's scenario, he 100% brought it on himself. David is kind of an unfair scenario, but he did help stir that pot. We're gonna see. But I wanna look at how they both act so we can see what does it mean? What does it look like when you're treating God as a consultant versus what does it look like when God is your king? And we're gonna start with Saul. And we're gonna start in

first Samuel 28. And what I'm gonna do is I'm start reading verse three.

And and what's happening is Samuel, you know, we've seen, he he kinda rejected, wouldn't listen to God, would kinda listen to God all along, was impatient, all these things. God had already told him at one point, you are not gonna be the king. David is. He then then refused to to obey God and treat him like king because he continued to try to kill David.

Even though God said don't do that. He was gonna I'm gonna stop your plan. I'm gonna stay king.

And and and and so then he keeps doing that. Well, comes to this point that God already told him, your your kingdom is gonna end and it's getting to that point now. This big Philistine army's lined up against him and he's freaking out. So it's coming to the end of line. What God said is gonna happen is gonna happen now.

And he's trying to do something about it. And he he says, he guides to look for someone else who will give him a cookie. Okay? Here we go. Verse three. Meanwhile, Samuel had died. So at this point, Samuel the prophet that he would sometimes listen to some the guy he knew to be the spokesman for God,

he's dead. And all of Israel had mourned for him. He was buried in Ramah, his hometown. And Saul had banned from the land of Israel all mediums and those who would consult with the spirits of the dead. So no mediums. You can get smalls, you can get larges, but no mediums. Dad joke.

A medium is someone who would talk to the dead.

And Saul had already been that. That's when he was trusting and listening to Samuel a little bit. He's like, this is bad. The Israelite people are going after these things that are from the pit of hell. And the reality is most of these mediums were charlatans. They just took your money. But some of them would deal with the demonic. And he says, you gotta separate from that. So Saul did the right thing. He banned it. So get this. Listen to this. It gets crazy. And that's what happens when we treat God as a consultant.

It says the Philistines stepped their camp at Shunom and Saul gathered all the army of Israel encamped at Gilboa. When Saul saw the vast Philistine army, he became frantic with fear. He asked the Lord what he should do. But the Lord refused to answer him either by dreams or by sacred lots or by the prophets.

Saul then said to his advisors, find a woman who is a medium so I can go ask her what to do. So he knew to ban from listening to that, but since God's he's not listening to me. I'll go find someone who will, who will tell me what I wanna hear.

His advisers replied, there's a medium in Endor. So Paul disguised himself by wearing ordinary clothing instead of his royal robes. He then went to the woman's home at night accompanied by two of his men. I have to talk to a man who has died, he said. Will you call up his spirit for me? And she's like, are you trying to get me killed? The woman demanded. You know that Saul has outlawed all mediums and all who consult with the spirits of the dead. Why are you setting a trap for me? She says, I think this is a sting operation.

And then this is where it shows that when God becomes a consultant and you end up in a point of desperation, we often start acting like a little kid. It's about I want my cookie and we will do the most disobedient weird things, even calling ourselves a follower of the Lord.

Because look at this, this is one of the most bizarre sentences in scripture. He says, but Saul took an oath in the name of the Lord and promised as surely as the Lord lives, nothing bad will happen to you for doing this.

So I know this good Lord. I've rejected him. He's finally said this is how it's gonna end. I'm trying to get him to talk to me about what to do when he's already told him what is gonna happen. And so then he goes to this medium and says, I'm gonna violate the very thing that scripture told me not to do and everybody. And I actually set up a ban against this in action. And now I'm violating the very ban of the thing that God said to do, so I can get advice from God on what to do.

That sounds really stupid. But as we take it apart, many of us in this room, this is called your life right now. This is what we do. And and and and so he says, don't worry, man. You nothing's gonna happen. So the finally woman said, well, whose spirit do you want me to call up? I don't do they have a phone?

But call up Samuel, Saul replied. When the woman saw Samuel, she screamed, you've deceived me. You're Saul. You notice it says, call up and she hadn't done anything yet.

And all of a sudden, Samuel shows up. People was that a demon? Is that no. This is Hamlet by what he says, what he's and the fact that she didn't actually do anything. And and and why is she screaming? Probably one of two things. It's probably both him. One, she probably half the time had her tricks and was a charlatan took people's money.

And so when something actually happened and she hadn't done her trick yet, she's like, holy cow. What's going on? But I think the deeper reason is she probably had dealt with demonic things before. And she knew this wasn't of demonic origin. It was of the Lord, which scared her.

Because she hadn't seen it. She's like, oh no, what's going on? And then she knew why would this person wanna talk to this guy? So she screams

and he says, don't be afraid the king told her. What do you see? I see a God coming up from the earth, she said. Now that word for God, it's a it's a Hebrew word that meant like she

wasn't saying it was God. That was her way of how a pagan would say, how do I say something spiritual? Cause you're one of the you know, you're one that believes in this one true God. He's like, it's something spiritual. It's something of your God.

It was it was basically she's screaming because the Holy Spirit enacted this moment and allowed Samuel to come back and it terrified her. And so God in his wisdom says, Alright, you think you're gonna get someone else to give you a cookie? Fine. Talk to Samuel and let's see what happens.

And so it says, what does he look like? Saul asked. He's an old man wrapped in a robe. She replied, Saul realized it was Samuel

and he fell to the ground before him. It's funny. Now he's showing respect and honor for this man of God who's dead as he's doing everything the opposite of what God told him to do in order to get advice on how to avoid what God said would happen. He's not making any sense anymore.

And I love what Samuel says. Why have you disturbed me by calling me back, Samuel asked? Why are you bothering me? He's like, man, I was playing pickleball with Moses. You know how hard it is to get a pickleball court these days?

And it says, because I'm in deep trouble, Saul replied. The Philistines are at war with me and God has left me and won't reply to by prophets or dreams. So I've called on you to tell me what to do. Really? Or are you seeking an ally? I want you to tell God, I want him to talk to me and give me a way out of this.

That doesn't involve me surrendering. I just wanna stay king. But Samuel replied, why ask me since the Lord has left you and has become your enemy?

Like you fought him so long that now he's already told you what's gonna happen. You won't listen. So now you're fighting him and you go you know what? Just because you come to church, you could be God's enemy right now because you will not to surrender to your king. You want Jesus the consultant buddy

instead of the king of all.

He said, The Lord has done just as he said he would. Meaning he doesn't need to talk. He's already answered you.

He has torn the kingdom from you and given it to your rival, David. The Lord has done this to you today because you refused to carry out your fierce anger against the Amalekites. There was a moment he was supposed to that was the final straw. What's more, the Lord will hand you and the army of Israel over to the Philistines tomorrow and you and your sons will be here with me. The Lord will bring down the entire army of Israel. So he says by tomorrow,

you're not only it's done. It's exactly what God said. The end of the line is gonna be you're gonna die and you're gonna get a couple of your sons killed in the process as well, which is sad. When we treat God as consultant, sometimes we don't even think and then we don't even care about the collateral damage we caused.

He was so twisted. He went into this fight anyways and gets his sons killed. I'm telling you, if you are sitting here and you treat God as a consultant, you're not just hurting yourself in your own luck. You are causing collateral damage. You are.

It's affecting your family. When I don't obey what God says to do to be a part of a church, you're affecting the church.

And if that doesn't bother you, tells you that God is a consultant to you because it's more about your win, not his victory. It's more about what you love, not his love for you. In other words, you're saying, I can't trust that God has my best interest in this Sarinar, I can't listen to him. God

understands our interest in what we need more than we do. And so when we refuse to listen out of fear out of whatever, it's really I don't believe God. I don't trust him. So he's not my king. I'll listen to what he has to say, but then I'll decide what I think the best way is. And we end up crazy like this.

So there's two things in here that I wanted to point out to give us a practical thing. How do you know when you're doing this? You see God as a consultant when? Two things. First, you seek a good thing in a bad way.

That's exactly what he was like. I want advice. I want spiritual counsel. He even wanted to go to a man of God who was known to be a man of God. That seems like a good thing, but how is he doing it? He's already dead. God's already told me what to do. I don't like the answer. I'm trying to avoid something. I'm gonna use a medium. I'm gonna do everything in disobedience to God's word in order to try to get godly advice to do a good thing.

Do you try to do a good thing in a bad way? You know what a good thing in a bad way is? Is coming to church, sitting here saying I'm worshiping Jesus, and then refusing to be a part of the body of Christ.

Is bouncing this church and that church and there, and you like to listen to good sermons. You like to celebrate your hands. That was so powerful. That was great. But you don't actively get involved.

God's called us to use your gifts to serve, to share, to use your resources, give financially to your church, to move to another service if we can reach people for Jesus. He said he was gonna be nice.

So you're coming, you're doing a good thing. I wanna worship God. I know he died for me. I love him. But I'm not gonna actually let him lead me. I'm not gonna do what he said to do. You're trying to do a good thing in a bad way. And and and God won't honor that. He

You're not gonna get where you think you're gonna get when you do it.

And closely tied to that is the second thing is you seek counsel on things God's word is clear on. This is another thing we do. You seek counsel on things God's word is clear on.

You're like, I'm just asking for some advice. I went to some of my trusted spiritual mentors and I talked to them about this. I get this all the time. People come up and ask me questions. Hey, wanna ask you a question. And and and and and it's valid if you really are seeking

the clear of what it means. Like you have no idea what God's word says. And I answer those questions all the time. The weird one to me is how many times Christians come to you that you've been in church for a long time and they say, hey, I'm really struggling whether I should do this or this. And it's usually like

my wife's busy all this and as yet as should I serve? Should I not? Should I give? Should I not? Then Then they're asking me questions and I go, well, you know what God's word says? Yeah, I think so. I just wanna make sure. And I go, it says this. And so I say it very clearly in case you were just maybe confused on what it said. I gave you the clarity on what it said. And then they'll say, yeah, but

If God's word clearly says like like for now, I am telling you, you don't have to ask God whether if I go to church, should I find out my gifts and serve in my church? The answer is yes. It's but yeah. Not yeah, but. Should I financially support? Should I get do work my money and my resources and my time

to put it in intentionally into the agenda that God has for me as a disciple? You don't have to ask 500 people. If you're studying scripture to find out, well, does it have to be this much or that much, right? You're looking for loopholes. You're like, but I can't get as many cookies if I do that, and I want my cookie.

The answer is yes. This is where it gets serious. I'm gonna challenge this room. If you're a Christian, this is your church, start doing those things.

Otherwise, you're playing a game and God's just a consultant in your life. You're like, but you don't know my story. I don't have time. If you don't have time to serve God, you're spending your time on something God doesn't want you spending your time on.

Most of the time the people said, don't have time is you have kids in 1,400 different activities. Trust me. I'm on the other end of it. All those activities does not change their life as much as you pouring into them and getting them to see what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. I'm just telling you,

save yourself a lot of money, a lot of frustrations, and way too many drive throughs, and you'll have plenty of time to do what God wants you to do. But I want my cookie.

Trust God first and see what happens in your life. Quit seeking counsel on something God's word is already clear on. That's what Saul did. And that's what we need to avoid. A matter of fact, in James chapter one, you can go read it.

He talks about this idea. It says, if you need wisdom, ask God and he'll freely give it to you. But he says, but don't ask with a divided heart. Otherwise, expect nothing. What he's saying is you're too stuck in the world. You're stuck in he's like, if you go to God and ask for clarity on what to do, but you haven't already committed to do what he says, he's not gonna tell you nothing.

So some of us sitting here, I just feel like God's quiet. I'm struggling. I'm at this point of we're like Saul, you're sitting there and I don't hear an answer. You know why? Because even in your life, you've already been doing this and you're gonna continue I wanna hear what he says so I can decide what I'm gonna do.

And God says very clearly in the New Testament, I don't play that game. You're gonna hear bupkis from me if that's how you're playing. So maybe the reason you feel abandoned by God is because you've abandoned your submission to God. And you need to go back and surrender to a king.

A king has the right to tell you what, where, and how. Is that how you approach God in your life?

Because he wants us to get to victory, not just our wins. We'll talk about that.

So where are you at on that? So now let's look at David. David has another He's in a point of desperation. Some of it brought on by himself, but he acts a little bit different. Hear me on this. He sins just as much. Matter fact, last week, what he does is to me more horrible than anything Saul ever did.

So it's not about what you do. It's about what you do with God in the process. How do you view God? How do you respond when you're presented? Like right now, I'm saying some of us, some of you in this room are Sauls right now. God is a consultant.

All of us do that at moments. And all of us can slip back to that. I do it, you do it, we all do it. It's not that you're doing it. It's what are you gonna do with it right now now that you're aware of it? That is what'll separate you. Is how do you act right now? Because here we have in in this story with with David,

you know, Saul's been trying to kill him whenever he's off with the Philistines and and and and, you know, well, now he's king now. So he come back. He's become king now. He is king. And he made some mistakes as a father, as a husband, and all these things. And some of this comes back to haunt him as his son rebels against him.

Now his son's responsible for his own actions. He has rebelled against the anointed king. He's done something David would never do to Saul even though David was told he's supposed to be the king, not Saul. So he's in this tough situation where he's in Jerusalem and he finds this out. So in in

second Samuel 15 starting verse 13, it says this, a messenger soon arrived in Jerusalem to tell David, all of Israel has joined Absalom in conspiracy against you. That's an exaggeration. I don't think everybody, but he had a huge army, way more men than David had. And he's marching towards Jerusalem.

So here's what David says, this warrior king who his son is actually just rebelling against him and trying to take his throne. He says, Then we must flee at once or it'll be too late, David urges men. What? Why would he do that?

Because what he says next, hurry. If we get out of the city before Absalom arrives, both we and the city of Jerusalem will be spared from disaster. He's contemplating the collateral damage of staying and fighting. He is the anointed king. He kind of has the right to stand.

But he knows if I do this, he has a big enough army. He will encircle the city and siege it. We will not win. And lots of people are going to starve to death. There's going to be chaos and it's going to be a disaster. And I'm not going to do that to my people just so I can stand and make myself still be king.

He was willing to take the loss to preserve the victory. And the victory was, I will stay right by my God. I'm going to trust God in this scenario. And specifically something later on. If you skip down to verse 23 as he's leaving the city,

it says, everyone cried loudly as the king and his followers passed by. They crossed the Kidron Valley and then they went towards the wilderness. Zadok and all the Levites also came along carrying the Ark of the Covenant of God. They set down the Ark of God and Abiath Ark offered sacrifices until everyone had passed out

had passed out of the city. Yeah, they didn't pass out. They went out of the city. Then the king instructed Zadok to take the ark back into the city. Wait. What?

So they brought the ark out. They carried it out. And what the ark was, it represents was in the most holy places, the holy of holies in the tabernacle later in the temple. And it had the, you know, the 10 commandments were broken in there and some stuff. And it represented God's presence. They put it together, and what God instructed them to do is, hey, carry this into battle in leading the way as you follow and trust me. This is a symbol of my holiness, my righteousness, and my presence. You carry this out. So they would have these people would have saw that as a symbol. If you have that ark out in front of you, God is with you. And

if you're the king that should be the rightfully king by God, anointed by God, why wouldn't he take it with him? Not taking it with him would almost make more people maybe stay on Absalom's side. Like, didn't fight. He bailed. He left the ark. May does he know something we don't know? Should he not be king?

But he's like, no. You gotta take that back. You're not coming with. It's gotta stay here. Why would he do that? Why would he do that? You know why? Because the difference between David and Saul when it comes to obedience is we all fail. We all sin. Saul sins. David sins. But the difference is David

would learn and turn. That's what repentance is. What am I talking about? If you've been reading through the Bible with us, you already read second Samuel six.

And early on when David was king and he captured Jerusalem, the holy city of God. Was supposed to be their capital and made a holy city of God. He's like, you know, we're putting up the tabernacle here now in a permanent spot and we need to get the ark and put it in its rightful place. See, the ark had been gone for a while.

Because what David understood now and knew was back then is like the ark represented the presence of God. We win just because we have it. But they didn't say just because we're lined up behind the ark doesn't mean we're following and trusting God. So God proved a point to them. They went into battle with the Philistines. They get routed, and the Philistines took the ark.

He was trying to teach them, it's not about having the ark. It's about following me. And so then in that process,

the ark you know, the Philistines tried to do stuff with, and it wreaked havoc amongst them. They freaked out so much. They left it on the wagon they had it, and they just slapped the donkeys behind and let it take off. Go take it anywhere but here. It stopped in front of some dude's house, and he's had it in his garage the whole time.

And David knew it. He goes, we gotta go get it. I've actually driven right through the area where it was. And and and so he what he did was back then, he had this victory. He goes he said he consulted his generals. This is a great idea. We need the ark where it belongs. A good thing.

But what he did was he did in a bad way. He didn't consult the priest. He didn't say how. He didn't pay attention to scripture. Scripture said, the only way you're supposed to move this is with these special built, the poles that glide through, and only the Levitical priest can do that. And if anyone touches it, they die.

And that was because God says this represents my holiness. I take my holiness serious. And you need to understand that even though I love you and and I and and and and he dies, grace is all over the old testament. But you need to understand that the reason we're sinners is we stand in front of a holy righteous God, and he takes his holiness serious. Do not disrespect his holiness.

So what he did is he just had his men go get it. They dragged it on the same way the Philistines were moving it, improper way. And when they got it back, it wobbled, Started to fall. One of his men reached out to keep it from falling, which seems like a good thing, and God smote him. It's the only way you can say it. He was smoted

because God said this was gonna happen. David got collateral damage by disobeying God. He got a man killed just because he had the wrong idea. I need the ark because the ark is the presence of God.

But he goes, but the presence of God is about trusting me and serving me as king and following me. It's not putting this piece of this representation in front of you. It's actually you lining up behind me.

And what we know now is he learned his lesson.

You ain't doing that again. The ark belongs in the tabernacle. And I don't care if it'll make me be more popular. I don't care if it'll make me look like I'm the anointed one. I don't care if these most of these people will believe as long as I have the ark, they'll follow me.

I don't care. That seems like the practical thing to do, the guaranteed victory thing to do. But he's like, but it's not the obedient thing to do.

And he even says it. He wanted to be king. He talked about what his win was. He he says he goes this. He goes, take it back to city. He David said, he will bring me back to see the ark and the tabernacle again. But if he is through with me, then let him do what seems best to him.

He's like, I wanna be king, and I think that's what God wants because he told me that. But I know I'm not gonna remain king by disobeying the king. How about you? What in your life, even if it's a good thing, you feel like the only way I'm gonna get that is by disobeying God's word.

Doesn't work. In other words, two things that you can look at and do to know if you're actually treating God as king, not consultant. The first one is you seek to handle a bad thing in a good way. It's the opposite of the other one. He's in a bad situation, but he handled it right.

He handled it in an obedient way to God. How? By failing forward. That's what he did. He learned from his message. He learned and turned. Failing forward is we're all gonna fail. We're all gonna sin. But what do we do while we're down there? Do we fail forward or do we fail backwards?

We fail forward and failing forward is you own your failure and you seek obedience. What I mean, a lot of us when we sin as Christians, we know Jesus died for the cross on the cross for us. We have grace. So when we sin and we failed, we'll own it. We'll say, God, I'm so sorry. We'll take communion. And you know, and when we reflect at that time, you remember all your sins. God, I I

did it. I didn't trust you. I'm sorry. And he does forgive. That's great. But that's where it stops. We learn, but we don't turn. See, God died to give us his grace so we can get past those moments. But that grace isn't just to say, okay. No harm, no foul. You're forgiven.

That grace is comes with the power to actually repent. Repent literally means to turn and go the other way. Failing backwards is the idea of of sitting there and going, okay. I messed up. I'm sorry, God. I'm sorry. But you stay in this moment.

Yeah. You're not doing it. You're one step back, but you're still looking at it. And then you think that you're just gonna stop doing this. You don't stop doing wrong actions. When I live my life wrongly, it's because I'm not living it rightly.

It's like I wanna eat better because I used to just work out to support my eating habit. But now as I got older, that don't work.

And and and and I got told you, you might be pre diabetic. Your blood pressure is too high. And I go, you work out all the time. You gotta change the way you eat. Alright. I gotta stop eating bad stuff.

But imagine if how this is how I did it. You know what? You're right. I can't eat that anymore. I need my health. Fine. I'm not eating anymore. And I just stopped eating. How long would that last? If you know me, that lasts five minutes.

And since I'm only facing this, I'm not going the other way. I have one choice. Don't eat or start eating that again. The question is you gotta replace it. The only way you stop eating bad is by start eating healthy.

The only way you truly repent is by taking your time, your money, your resources, your attitudes, the the way you you you act in your marriage, the way you are doing things that is wrong and going, what's the right path? And turn around and start doing the right thing.

Too many of us wanna be forgiven and just said, I'm sorry that I did it, but you refuse to step, turn around, and go the other direction. See, that's the difference between living for God's love and living from it. Some people say, well, I gotta do that so he'll love me. No.

You get to do that and have the power to do that because he loves you. Because he already died and forgave you. David understood that. He understood grace.

He said, I know I've blown it, but I can learn from that and I can turn and by the grace of the Holy Spirit and the power go back. That's why he cried out in one of his songs, take not thy Holy Spirit from me. He knew that was the most critical thing.

So we need to do that. And how? What does that look like? It means taking the obedient path, not the obvious path. This is what catches most of us up on obedience. Because the Bible says over and over in the book of Proverbs, there's a way that seems right to man, but the end that leads to death.

In the New Testament, it says, wide is the road that leads to destruction, but narrow is the road that leads to life. What do think that's talking about?

It's it's connected. It's saying there's a way that seems like it's the better way to go. There's a way that seems like it would work. Why can't God why do I have to do that? Why do I if if you wanted me to do that, why did you give more time? You wanted me to do that, why didn't give? Or or why is you making it so hard? Or why did you do this? Why can't it seems easier. Why don't we just do it this way? Why don't we take that road? Like, you're trying to get somewhere. You pull up maps, and someone's like, I think we should take this street. And it's this narrow dark you know, it's like the the Apache Trail up there. And you're like, but why don't I just take the highway that goes to Payson? Why would I go that way? Because you know why? Because the the the map says that's quicker.

But God says, but that won't actually get you there. This scarier road, bumpy, more inconvenient,

looks like it's gonna take you more time and be harder and you're probably not gonna get the stops you want. You're not gonna get the activities. You're not gonna get the hotel you want. You're not gonna get the things you want. But what he says is that road will actually get you there. You know why?

Because he built us to want more. The problem in our life is not as Christians that we want more stuff. The problem is what we want more of. See, in the book of Ecclesiastes, it says God planted eternity in our hearts. You know what it means? He built us for an eternal relationship with him.

Yet it says we don't understand what he does from one point to the next. You know why? Because in our temporal world where we've sinned, we keep trying to fill that longing for attorney with temporary fixes.

And it doesn't matter how wide that road is. It doesn't matter how many things. It doesn't matter how much more money you get. It doesn't matter how much more of a better house you get. It doesn't matter how much better your kids are. It doesn't matter how successful you are. It doesn't matter how much fun you have. It doesn't matter how much sex you have. It doesn't matter how much. It doesn't matter if your political party starts winning. It doesn't matter if it doesn't matter. You will never get enough of that to get true contentment.

That road will never get you to what God designed you to really want. And what he's saying is this dark dangerous road that seems like a loss. I could put I'm walking away from it, but I want the cookie. And he's like, but you don't understand. What you really need to really want is down there, but that looks scary.

I don't get it. It obviously seems better to go here, but we weren't called to the obvious path. We were called to the obedient path. And you have to make up your mind.

And if you're gonna do that, you need to remember this last thing here. Victory and winning are not always the same thing.

That's the key to it all. You're like, what do you mean? Winning? What I mean by defining is winning is our idea of blessing. God does bless us when we're obedient. The problem is we define blessing as what is my win? What's my cookie? A lot of us, that's your view. That's every religion's view of God.

I appease this angry God or whatever and then he gives me the cookie I want. That's called a prosperity gospel. That means I serve God and then I get all the riches I get. Like you think we always think of his blessing in that mind as temporal things.

My marriage gets better. I get a better car. I get a better house. I get a better job. I get better kids.

And then you play this game, and that's not how it works. Blessing is not defined as just temporal blessing. Those are what we consider our wins, and we think we're playing this game to get our wins. But just like what David did in this moment, sometimes you got to take the loss in order to get the victory.

Because the victory is being in right relationship with God. It's being in that right moment. It's living out what he's called you to. And the weird thing is you might get lost if you're lost and you're gonna realize victory feels better than wins.

Just ask the Phoenix Suns. They're one of the winningest franchises of all time and they've never got a championship. Do you think all those wins feel any better? No. God is offering us the championship life, and we just want individual wins. We wanna be a good regular season team. We don't care about the playoffs.

And the problem is you gotta be willing to sacrifice that. David even said, he goes, my win is I would like to be king. And I think God still has that for me. But even if he doesn't, that's not that obvious path is not the way. I'm gonna go the obedient path. I learned.

And here's the beauty about how God loves us. There are so many times that when we are obedient to him in victory, we do get a lot of those wins. A lot of times we are blessed with those things, but that's not the point. And if you have to have the win all the time, when God gives you a loss, even though you're obeying him,

you start to question God and you get frustrated and you start to act like Saul. And you will walk away. And then what you'll do is you'll look for someone who will give you the advice that you want to hear. You say, I'm seeking advice when you're really just seeking allies.

We do it in marriage all the time. You go gossip about your spouse. You say you're seeking prayer requests and godly counsel. You haven't even talked to them about the problem. That's called gossip, by the way. Why would you treat your spouse worse than you would treat one of your friends?

If you talk to every friend about that one friend for advice and then that friend finds out you've been talking about them and never went to them with your problem, Aren't they gonna be mad? Why do you think then that it's okay to do that to your spouse who should be your best friend?

You know why? Because you really aren't seeking advice. You want allies. You just wanna win. I need to win and they need to lose. That's the way I'll be happy. But that's not how it works. Matter fact, let me sum this up with a real life story from my marriage that kind of applies to this whole thing.

It kind of goes with this. I heard a comedian once say, in marriage, you can be right or you can be happy. I think the more spiritual way, the truthful way say is you can be right or you can be in right relationship. Because they're not often the same thing. Winning and victory are not the same thing in marriage.

When you get into win mentality, that means I have to have a win on this. And that means if I win, you have to lose. And we become a win lose lose win. And every conflict becomes about who's gonna win, who's gonna lose. And then the advice seeking and all this, the you're you're getting your allies

so you can come up with your battle plan and your strategy to go invade and get the other person to surrender and give in to you. And now you won this day. I won today. Well, wait till tomorrow. They'll come a day. Oh, the tables will turn my friend. And that's your marriage.

It's always someone has to win and someone has to lose. You're not supposed we we are gonna have fights. We're gonna have conflict. But what what happens in in in a marriage when it stops being conflict, which is happens. It's going to. We're people. And wherever we go, there we are.

But what makes it bad is when that conflict doesn't become about fighting for our relationship, it becomes about fighting against you. And that's where it's a problem. And I had this happen this last week. Ironically, while preparing this sermon, I got into a discussion with my wife.

And she told me I could say this so I'm not throwing her in the bus. At the beginning of this, I was absolutely right. I was the aggrieved party. She said something insensitive. She did something that hurt my feelings and she was wrong. And so I started out right. The emphasis on I started out right.

So as I tried to address said situation,

I went into that trying to explain my hurt feelings, but I kind of went in with a little bit of an attitude and said, Oh, I am 100% right this time. She just needs to throw the white flag up and surrender right now. This battle should be over. She should be doing a diplomatic her foreign ambassadors

should be telling me, we're sorry. That was a mistake. The problem is the way I said it was a little bit aggressive. Who? Me? Apparently, I'm like a lot of people, especially guys. I process a lot of my emotions through the tone of anger.

Like right now, you think I'm angry with you with some of the stuff I said. I'm not angry. I'm rattling your cage so you can see you're in one. I love you desperately. I want victory for every one of us in this room.

I want us to accomplish the mission God has given us. I want us to experience the true contentment that comes from the more of a relationship with a God who loves us. I just give it like a locker room speech and a sergeant that's gonna take this hill.

And I realize some of y'all think I'm screaming at you. I'm pleading with you. And apparently my wife takes it that way too sometimes. And

so I triggered a response because if you just start hollering and hurry, surrender now. I've got you surrounded. You're completely in the wrong. I've got you outgunned. You need to give up and and beg for mercy at the bargaining table of this peace treaty. How do you think she responds to that tone? Not not well.

And so she's like, bam. We're right back into this battle. We're fighting now.

And now it's like and and and and, you know, it doesn't matter the content of what we're fighting about. Our fights are who cares about the content? It's the construct. It's always the same when we get into a fight. Same thing. The outline. No matter what the content is, it goes into this outline. One of us genuinely is hurt or the person stepped over. Instead of working on us, we declare I have the right to have victory. You must surrender. Can we do this? And we you get the tone wrong, but the other one reacts. Now we start fighting. Now it's all guns. And then I start being overly aggressive. I start saying stuff. I'm not right anymore. I lost the high ground. You know? And and and then it's it's terrible, and it turns into World War one. That's what our fights turn into. Trench warfare.

You dig a trench. You dig a trench. We're staring at each other across no man's land, and we are fighting over inches. No one's gonna surrender, but we will send our forces up over the top, and we will get chewed up by the verbal barrage of machine gun fire, and then we'll crawl back into our into our

bind our wounds and then wait till it's our chance to shoot at them. And then nothing moves. An inch here, an inch there, an inch there, and neither one is gonna surrender.

And in this particular fight, as he thought about it, she finally says, I'm out of here. And she went to the other room. She literally went to sleep in another room.

And I I said, you know what? I feel as a leader, I think the only thing I can fix this, if I wanna fight for us, I probably need to calm down and just own what I did wrong to get her to calm down. So then maybe she'll listen to me and we can I'm not saying ignore what what she did, but I'll go first.

Somebody's gotta do that. And guys, I think it's you. To be honest, you should go first. That's what it means to be a leader. So I thought that's what I'll do. But then I thought about it. I go, but not this time.

But not this day. I was giving myself the bizarro world Lord of the Rings speech, but not this day. You know, not today. You know why? I felt like I was so right. I wanted my cookie. I wanted my win. And she left and gave me the better trench.

When I'm down on the couch, I'm like, I gotta make this right. My back is gonna go out. She left. I have the my trench doesn't have rats and water in it. I can outlast her. I will sit here till The United States gets in this war and then we'll win.

If you laughed, know history. If you didn't, it's sad. You should know history.

And I resisted that. And then you know what finally throat punched me? My outline appeared in my head of what I just prepared. I just wrote down winning and victory are not the same thing. And sometimes you gotta take a loss in order to get the victory. That's how relationships work.

So I walked out into no man's land with my flag and said, please, I hope I don't get annihilated right now.

But my wife calmed down. And once I apologized, she gave me an opportunity to really explain what was bothering me in a more calm way. And she apologized because we stopped fighting with each other and started fighting for each other. When it comes to God, he never has to apologize.

But we do that to him. We want to win more than we want victory. I want what I think is blessing more than I want obedience to my king.

How about you? Where in your life right now is God a consultant, not King? And here's the scary part of that. What Saul finally learned at the end. If he is a consultant, not king in any area of your life, then he's not king at all in your life.

Because if you choose when he's a consultant and when he's king, you're king.

You're king. It's just sometimes you listen to his consulting and sometimes you don't. What would happen if when we leave here, you simply just said, God, whatever, whenever, however, I'm gonna trust you. I'm gonna trust you. Father God, I thank you, Lord.

I thank you that you are the greatest king ever. You are the king of kings. And I thank you that you give us your word and you make it very clear. So God right now, pray a simple prayer for myself, for everyone in this room, for anyone watching. Examine our hearts

and reveal to us any place in our life where we are just treating you like a consultant and looking for allies out of fear, out of frustration.

And may we surrender to you as our king. May we would be willing to take what looks like the loss in order to experience the victory. I pray this in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen. Amen. Hey. I love you guys. Thanks for being here.

Thanks for joining us online this weekend. Let us know if we can help you in any way. Make sure to follow us on social media and connect with us on the We Are Rock Point app for prayer and everything happening here at Rock Point. Doctor.