Someone asked me tonight as I was coming in, they said, 'Do you still get nervous before you preach?' I said, 'Yes.' And he said, 'Does it ever go away?' I said an explanation, but what I kind of felt like saying was, 'I hope not.' Nervousness means I'm not yet an expert. When you're an expert, you do not rely on assistance. If you're the professional, you don't need a consultant. If you're the one in charge, you turn it around. But when we call on God, we say, 'Lord, I'm not the expert. Not my preaching, not my singing, not my good tries of Christianity. Only you can turn it around.' Could we ask the Lord to do that tonight? Lord, we come simply to say you are God and we are not. You are Elohim, El Shai, Yahweh. You are most high. We don't have the ability to turn anything around. And there are represented here in this house tonight, and those that may watch online now or later, situations, circumstances, bondages of the enemy. They can't deliver themselves. But Lord, we look to you, and in the name of Jesus, we ask you turn it around. Freedom come now in Jesus' name. For healings, God, that we cannot perform. Oh, but God, we look to you, the great physician, in Jesus' name, you turn it around. God, for souls that are hard, and God, they don't want to be, but they're numb on their own. They need conviction, Lord. Only you can do that work of the inner person. In the name of Jesus, you turn it around. Lord, you take our lives going down wrong paths, errant directions, and turn us around for your glory. For you are God and we depend upon you in Jesus' name. And everybody said, 'Praise the Lord.' Praise the Lord, Hallelujah, Amen. You can be seated. Thank you, worship team. Glory to God. It's so good to be here tonight in Seattle. Last night I was preaching just in the Greater Los Angeles area at an American church for their camp meeting. Before that, I was at my youth camp that the Lord laid on my heart to start three years ago in Florida, Winter Fire. It was our third year hosting that. Phenomenal, 254 campers and leaders, and we saw devils cast out and divine healings and salvations and young people filled with the Holy Ghost. It was Book of Acts chapter 2025. Praise God. And we are here tonight to see the Lord turn some things around again. If I need to change microphones, you let me know. There's a bit of a ringing. I don't know if I am holding it too close or too far. You just instruct me. Thank you so much. Praise God. We'll also be back Sunday night. I'll be here in service, Lord willing, Sunday night for the Passion for Christ Sunday service at 5:00 p.m. unless the Rapture takes place before Rachel and David get married. Oh, that's the fear of every Christian young person. They'll get right to their wedding day and Jesus will say, 'Rapture!' In which case, any of y'all that missed the Rapture, you come to church here Sunday night. But I'll be in heaven. Praise God. Amen. If you have your Bible, let's go to the book of First John. I am so honored to be here and thankful for this opportunity. I'm thankful that you're here. First John. We're going not to the Gospel of John but to the Epistles of John. First John chapter 2 and verse 15. First John chapter 2 and verse 15. Thank you, brother Michael, for that exhortation. Powerful. First, our minds want to know what does it mean, but then our lives need to make a decision: what am I going to do about it? Amen. Let's stand to our feet for the reading of God's word. The Bible says, 'Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. For if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world passeth away in the lust thereof, but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.' Would you now turn with me to 2 Samuel chapter 3. 2 Samuel chapter 3 and verse 2. 'And unto David were sons born in Hebron. His firstborn was Amnon of Ahinoam the Jezreelitess. And the second, Chileab, of Abigail the wife of Nabal the Carmelite. And the third, Absalom the son of Maacah the daughter of Talmai king of Geshur.' Has any babies been born in this church recently? Are there any little toddlers, infants? Two baby dedications. Something excited about babies, isn't there? Naming the baby. I get excited when babies are born. I want to know how many pounds, how many ounces, how long was it, how high. I just, I'm excited. You know, can you see the excitement in David? A son, he names him Amnon. Another son, Chileab. Another son, Absalom. 'Ab' is the prefix for 'the father of.' Abba. Ab Shalom. Ab Shalom. Absalom, the father of peace. He's naming his son something that he could see one day. Maybe this son will reign after me. I'm not sure which one will reign, but if it's him, I hope he becomes one that there is peace in his days. Can you see the excitement of him holding baby Absalom? But that is not to be the story of Absalom. I want to preach something very fresh on my heart tonight. I pray that the Lord would open your heart to receive from him on this word. I've titled it, 'I Am Absalom.' Father, we ask you to speak to us now as only you can. Past our ears, down into our conscience. Let your word work and draw people unto yourself in Jesus' name. And everybody said, 'Amen.' Amen. You can be seated. There's something about getting older that makes you want to have more control about the variables of the situations you find yourself in. When I was a young teenager before I had my license, it did not matter what the hangout was. If someone thought me worthy of an invitation and said, 'Yo, Robert, we're going to go,' yes, I'll go. Yes, pick me up. Yes, I'll be there. Yes, I want to go. I'll be outside. I'll be dressed. I'll have on some Axe Body Spray. I will be ready to go. You remember when you were 13 and you were just glad somebody invited you? Remember that? And then you get a little bit older. Remember when you got your license and it was like, 'Wow, the Emancipation Proclamation of your adulthood. I have freedom. I can go.' And then you still have a curfew and you have certain limits and those kind of things. And you get a little bit older and if you've got the car, now people are hitting you up because you got a car. 'Hey, we want to go hang out. Can you pick us up?' And still, you're just glad to be included. And then you get a little bit older and they say, 'Hey, so-and-so's got a car. Let's just carpool.' And you're like, 'Yeah, sounds like fun. Let's do it. Let's go on a road trip. Let's do whatever. I'm down. It all sounds like a blast.' And then you get a little bit older and you have been held hostage places you did not want to stay. And so when people say, 'Do you want to go?' you say, 'Who's driving? How long are you planning on staying? Who's going to be there?' Because I've got PTSD of that one person with chronic halitosis. Amen. That's a big word for bad breath that wants to corner me and talk my leg off. That's an American expression. I don't know if you have it. And I ended up spending more time fellowshipping with the house's puppy dog than I ended up hanging out with you guys. You know what? I'll go, but I'm going to drive. Anybody else like that? You're not at that age yet. Maybe that's later 20s, mid-30s. But the older you get, you get more set in your ways. Maybe not you. I'll just... we're going to have confession. This is going to be therapy for me tonight. I have control issues. 'Robert, that's obvious. We know that. That's why you're still single.' Okay, just pray for me. I have control issues. I want to drive. I want to drive so that I can leave when I'm ready to leave. I want to drive because if it's my car, I control the thermostat. Now I have big issues because even if it's dual thermostat, if you got the heat on too high and it's counteracting my AC on my side, I'm going to press that sync button and I'm going to control both sides. You can have the seat heater on, but you're not controlling the AC that's going to be wafting in my direction. I'm controlling the playlist. Don't get in my car and ask for the aux or ask to plug in. No, the answer is no. It's my car. It's my temperature. It's where we're leaving when I'm ready to leave. Or you can take an Uber if you're not ready. We're playing my songs. I'm just confessing. I'm not saying it's right. I'm not saying it's good. I'm just... do I have anybody else struggling with that here tonight? Anybody else coming to the altar to pray beside me tonight? Control issues. I don't mean to jump into something so heavy so quick, but control is the response of fear. That if I can't have it my way, I'm afraid that that says something about my lack of value as a person. I am amazed by people that can just go with the flow. Brother Jonathan Perad went with me to Romania and Ethiopia, and we were playing some worship stuff and he was loving it. And one day I got up and I said, 'I feel like going old school. I'm going to listen to some old southern gospel stuff I was raised on.' He was loving that. He was just loving it. He's just like a human version of a golden retriever. He's just happy. And I'm saying, how many were here when he testified about the trip? He called me a stone-cold killer from this pulpit, and I'm calling him a golden retriever. That's the way that relationship works. I'm amazed by it. John is in his old age when he's writing these, and he's saying, 'Love God, love one another.' And if you love the Father, loving God is going to make you exclusive against loving other things. If there's a time to love, there's a time to hate. If you love children, you hate pedophilia. If you love truth, you hate dishonesty. And if you love God, you hate the things of the world that want to pull you away from the love of God. And so he says, these are the things that are in the world that will pull you away, that will squeeze the love of God out of you. And the first one of the three is the lust of the flesh. All three of these are wrapped up in the forbidden fruit, the original temptation in the garden. The lust of the eyes, Eve saw that the fruit was good and to be desired. The pride of life, if you take it, you will be like God. But the first one, in my opinion, is the strongest. All three of these categories are also the categories of sin that Jesus is tempted in the wilderness and overcomes each one, not just by quoting scripture, but by quoting scripture that draws him back into relationship. 'Man shall not live by bread alone,' but I'm going back to my Father's voice. I'm not going to tempt my Father. It's a love for my Father, not just a rigid obedience to scripture. It's a love relationship with him. If you love him, you'll keep his commandments. And so he overcomes all three categories. But the first one, the one I struggle with every day of my life, is the first one: the lust of the flesh. What is the lust of the flesh? Wanting your own way. Wanting to be in control. 'I can't believe you asked us if we had control issues and now you're going to smack us with that.' Listen, I had my hand up too. Yeah, that's what preachers do. They sneak attack it on you so they got proof that you need to be in the altar too. Listen, we all, every single one of us, we are more comfortable if we get it the way that we want it. And we happen to be in a generation now where we have devices that if we cannot control anybody in the house and we cannot control our friend's response and they're leaving us on red, and our latte is taking 12 minutes too long from the barista, I can't control this, I can't control that. At least when I tap my screen, it does what I want it to. And so I'll live in a video game console where I hold the controller. I'll live in front of a screen where I hold the remote. I'll live in front of something I can scroll. There was actually a guy at a church in a galaxy far, far away. Don't try to locate where this person is at, but I'm going to put him on blast right now. He liked a girl. How many know that when somebody who's not from around here shows up to a church and they're like in marriageable age and they love God, all the people of the opposite gender in the church are like, 'Fresh meat! Who is that? Where are they from? Are they married? Are they talking to anybody?' All right, so he's crushing hard on this young lady that is coming to the church, and he's not said anything though. And we're five guys in a car, and one of the guys in the back of the car starts talking about, 'Oh, y'all saw so-and-so? Man, I was talking to her last night. I think she's going to go out with me.' And while this person is flexing that he had made some headway with a new girl that showed up, the guy who is crushing on her, who hadn't said anything yet, he's getting red in the face. He's getting nervous like he's losing the opportunity. He's the one driving, but because he cannot control who this girl likes and he cannot control this guy to stop pursuing her, he pulls out his phone on Instagram and he starts scrolling so fast it is not a human possibility that he was able to see any of the posts he's scrolling by. I don't think that's even doom scrolling. I think that's another level. That's like, somebody give me a word for that. That's like suicide scrolling because he's driving and scrolling. What was happening in that moment? He wasn't scrolling to entertain or distract himself. He was scrolling to be in control of something since all the other ingredients of life he was not in control with. That's not the worst sin in the world that's going to destroy your life, and yet it is a picture of what we go after when things are outside of our control. David had a son named Amnon, and in 2 Samuel chapter 13, the Bible says Amnon began to lust after his half-sister Tamar. He forced her into a physical relationship whereby he defiled her. When David found out, he did not execute justice immediately. We don't know what he would have eventually done. David at the end of his life told Solomon, 'I let this go on. I let this go on. I let this go on.' But when you get on the throne, Solomon, judgment day is coming. Take care of Joab. Take care of Shimei. Take care of all these situations. I don't know why David had to delay in justice, but he didn't do anything in that moment. And so the Bible says in 2 Samuel chapter 13 that when Absalom found out, Tamar was his immediate sister, not his half-sister, and so he took her into his house. 2 Samuel chapter 13 and verse 20: 'Absalom her brother said unto her, Hath Amnon thy brother been with thee? But behold now, thou peace, my sister, hold thy peace. He is thy brother. Regard not this thing.' So Tamar remained desolate in her brother Absalom's house. Verse 22: 'And Absalom spake unto his brother Amnon neither good nor bad. For Absalom hated Amnon because he had forced his sister Tamar.' Verse 28: 'Now Absalom had commanded his servants, saying, Mark ye now when Amnon's heart is merry with wine, and when I say unto you, Smite Amnon, then kill him. Fear not. Have not I commanded you? Be courageous and be valiant.' He bided his time, the chapter says, and he waited two years. Man, the Bible is graphic, isn't it? Incest. I mean, horrible things happening. And Absalom doesn't make a big show. He tells his sister, he says, 'You just stay safe in one of the rooms of my house.' And two years, he lets that fester. I need you to hear me tonight. I'm not up here just to hear my own voice. God's going to speak to some of you tonight, and it's not going to be about easy things that have happened in your life. I do not pretend to know the trauma that you have survived through. I'm not going to ask for a show of hands. We will not know till we get to heaven some of the atrocities that you have come through, some of the abuses that you have survived, and no one knows. But hear me tonight. What can start as resentment, or even something that seems as innocent as disappointment. Disappointment. How could that lead down the wrong road? The book of Hebrews says, 'Be careful that a root of bitterness doesn't spring up because it defiles many.' It means it starts small as a root. Unforgiveness. 'How dare you tell me that I can't hold on to my other unforgiveness? You don't know what was done to me, Robert.' Now I want you to notice something. He's not operating in unforgiveness for himself, because many of us have the ability to forgive people who hurt us directly, but we cannot forgive the person who abused our mom, or abused our child, or abused our sister or our brother. We can take easily the offense of another and allow that to fester and to grow inside of us until our desire is not for justice, our desire is for vengeance. When you allow unforgiveness, resentment, deep-rooted disappointment to grow bitterly inside of you, listen, what you're essentially saying is, 'I have the right to demand something be returned to me that was taken away.' Who can you demand that of? Who is sovereign over all the things of the universe? All resentment, all toxic disappointment, all unforgiveness is eventually an accusation whereby your soul points its finger at God and says, 'You owe me an apology. You should repent to me.' That's why self-pity and a victim mentality is not just, 'Poor little you, I'm sorry you had it bad.' No, no, no. It becomes some ground whereby you take your victim mentality. Listen, I'm not decreasing the pain you went through, but if you allow that hurt to give you the ground to say, 'God, you repent to me,' you're on the wrong side of the situation and it will not go well for you. His offense on behalf of his sister, it grew. And while he bided his time, going to temple, going to family gatherings, he never said good or evil. See, sometimes we feel like the people that are faithful are the ones that everything's going all right. This is the Friday night crowd. Brother Robert, don't you know we're the most sanctified people in the whole county? Don't you know that we're the most saved people in the Pacific Northwest? You know all them other heathens, they're out there getting drunk and high and at the club. We're here at the Ignite Youth Night. Sometimes it's the quiet ones that have hidden resentment that's festering silently inside of them until he was impatient no more. See, impatience doesn't just mean that you enact justice on your own behalf and you murder your half-brother. No, impatience is just saying, 'God, I don't want to wait for your time. I don't want you to be God of my life.' The lust of the flesh is this: I want my own way. I'm going to use a word that when I use it sounds like I'm talking about something horrible that the most sinful people in all the world do, and yet it is actually something that most of us are tempted with in some small degree every day of our life. It's rebellion. Rebellion is simply saying, 'I will be God of this situation.' When I'm praying on what to preach, I got an iPad full of notes. I got an iPad full of sermons where some of y'all would be like, 'Wow, that was so encouraging.' Don't you think I'm tempted to do what I want? And yet I'm trying to seek the Lord. Lord, I don't know. Your ways are not my ways. Your thoughts are not my thoughts. You're God and I'm not. I'm not on the throne. You're on the throne. I don't want the taste of forbidden fruit. I want to obey you. If I obey God, then I'm not abiding in the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. I want to obey you because I love you and because you're God and I'm not. But we're all tempted to say, 'I don't know how long it's going to take God to do this, but it's taken too long.' I'm using this metaphor of David because he's on the throne, and that throne is a symbol of authority. But the throne in your heart and mind is not the place for David. It's the place for God, obviously. You're tracking here with me, right? And so Absalom said, 'The throne should have done something about Amnon, but if the throne's not going to do something about it, I'm going to do something about it.' And so impatience out of a root of disappointment caused him to enact justice on his own. I don't know if anybody's taking notes tonight, but this might be worth writing down for the rest of your life to remember: God is not fair. God is just. How is it that he gives one man five talents and one man two talents and one man one talent? We're not talking about giftings or skills. We're talking about amounts of gold. How is it that he pays everybody the same wage although some worked all day and others only worked for one hour? How is it that one child is born with Down syndrome and another person is born with the ability of a high GPA and a high IQ? How is it that one person is born into a wealthy family in North America and another person is born into a communist dictatorship in North Korea? How is it? Because God is not fair. Fair wants equity, that all things be equal in our estimation. Fair is built on the ground of, 'I have rights and I demand that my rights be heard.' You cannot come to God and say, 'I have the right that you do this for me.' When you say it's not fair, God's response is, 'No, it's not. Life is not.' But he is just. And justice means that you have to come to him not on the basis of your rights but on the basis of your trust in his character. If he's the judge and I am not, then I have to say, 'Lord, I don't know why it happened and it hurts and it's disappointing, but I trust you. I trust you that you do all things well. I trust you like Job, though you slay me, yet will I trust you. I don't know how it's going to turn out, but you are God.' This is why Jesus teaches us to pray like the woman with the unjust judge. He says, even if she goes to someone who's not just, what does she cry out? 'Avenge me of my adversary.' Why? Because she's saying, 'I'm too weak to take vengeance, but you're the authority. You make that person who's robbed me of my property, you make him give it back. You make him do something about it.' Jesus says, if she's doing that with an unjust judge, how much more our Father in Heaven who is just? When you go before him and say, 'Lord, I don't want to do it on my own.' I don't know if you know this about English. English is not an indigenous language to anywhere. What does that mean? It means in the lower part of Great Britain, England, that's not the actual language they spoke there for thousands of years. They spoke some form of Celtic, some Druidic language. English is actually an amalgamation, a blending together of the Anglo-Saxons bringing Germanic tribal languages from further west, and then Latin coming up through France, mixing in some French, and coming into England. Why does this matter? Because when we say things in English, we actually have two words for things. We say 'smell,' which is more of a Germanic word, and then we have 'fragrance,' which is more of a Latin word. People say, 'Should we say Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost?' It doesn't matter. It's just pneuma hagion in Greek. But the translators, they went back and forth. Sometimes they use the Germanic word 'ghost,' sometimes they use the Latin word 'spirit.' So we have words that we would just lend towards a Germanic word or another word that we would lend towards a Latin word. And so when we talk about 'hand,' 'hand' is a Germanic word, but in all the other Latin-based languages, the word for hand is in Spanish 'mano' or in Romanian 'mâna.' We still use it when we talk about hard work where we use our hands, we call it 'manual labor.' Some of y'all must have...
Worked hard today, y'all look like y'all are taking the best nap you've had in your whole life. You know what? He giveth his beloved sleep. Let the peace of God come on you. Keep on resting. Nobody wake him up. Just let him sleep. Bless him real good.
God, listen. What does it mean? It means that when you take control, you manipulate it, you're saying, 'I will be God of this. I will control it.' You don't get my coffee right? I'll come back there and make it myself. You don't answer the phone? I'll show up and knock on your door until you text me back. I don't like the way you're running things. I will be God of the situation.
When we are tempted to kill our Amnon, when we are tempted to act out of impatience, when we are tempted to take control, it's because we're saying, 'I don't want it your way. I want it my way.' You remove prayer. You remove the place of having a king and a throne in your heart.
But when you trust God, you say, 'Lord, it wasn't fair.' Listen, listen, listen tonight. I believe this is going to help some people. God knows it's not fair. He knows that life has not been fair to any of us, but He doesn't expect you to pretend like it was. He expects you to bring it to Him.
What's the shortest verse in the Bible? What's it say? Isn't that beautiful? We have a Jesus who comes to the funeral of His friend, knowing He's about to resurrect His friend. Why is He weeping? He weeps because He commands us, I believe in Thessalonians, 'Weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice.'
Can you hear that tonight? If you are grieving about a broken season of your childhood, a broken dream in your life, something that was done to you, or even something you did and you've suffered consequences, and it derailed the plan, it derailed the entire hopes and aspirations, Jesus doesn't say, 'Hey kid, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, pretend like, rejoice evermore, just keep going and smile through it all.' No, He says, 'Come here, let's weep together.' Isn't that what He says?
We have a high priest that is touched by the feeling of our infirmity. You know how to not manipulate yourself into the lust of the flesh, of dethroning God and trying to take over? You know how to not do that by sitting at His feet and weeping and knowing that He's weeping with you.
But I like the preacher that said it's the shortest verse in the Bible because He didn't weep for a whole chapter. He only wept for two words of a short verse. And then He said, 'All right, we've done got done weeping. Now roll the stone away. I've got a resurrection in order for this situation.'
But he didn't trust his father. He didn't trust God. Absalom didn't allow things to take its course. He manipulated through hurt. Most people are not struggling with sin because they got up in the morning and said, 'I want to be the villain of the Jesus story in my life. I want to be the worst person my family ever had. I want to destroy my own future, ministry, calling, marriage.' Nobody's waking up with that.
People are hurting, and instead of medicating themselves with the Word and hope and joy and the baptism of the Holy Ghost, instead they medicate themselves with pleasure and giving into what they want. 'People don't know what I've been through, so I deserve to look at these websites. I deserve to hook up with this person. I deserve to get high with this. I deserve to indulge myself with whatever entertainment I want because I'm hurting and I deserve this.'
When you give into what you want, you're planting the seed of rebellion that says, 'I will be God.'
So after he operated in impatience and manipulated and ultimately killed his brother, notice what happens next. 2 Samuel chapter 13 and verse 37: 'Absalom fled and went to Talmai the son of Ammud the king of Geshur. And David mourned for his son every day. And Absalom fled and went to Geshur and was there for three years. And the soul of King David longed to go forth unto Absalom, for he was comforted concerning Amnon, seeing he was dead.'
The throne was not against Absalom, but Absalom isolated himself from the one who loved him the most. This is so hard for young people, really for all of us, to understand that the one who has the ability and the right to discipline you, your parents, your pastor, is the one who wants the best for you. They're not your enemy when they look you in the eye and ask you to give an account of disobedience.
And yet that discomfort causes people to separate themselves from the throne. For three years he did not see the face of his father. And when he moves back to Jerusalem, he lives in Jerusalem for two more years but does not see the face of his father.
Father, you're in church. You saw the face of the singers. You see my face tonight. But is there something in your heart that's preventing you from seeing the face of God? It's the same question Brother Michael asked. There's the water. Are we going to sit in this carriage all day and discuss the orthodoxy, the right doctrine of what Isaiah's prophesying? Or are you going to get out and are you going to get in that experience and say, 'Baptize me in God, immerse me in God. I want to see the face of God.'
I want to come up not even seeing the face of Philip because he got teleported. I need one of those miracles in my life. Amen. Delta's getting too much of my money. Amen. I'm not going to come up and see the face of a preacher or a minister or a church. I want to see You, God. Immerse me in You. I know enough to know what I need to do. I need to come back to God.
When we manipulate, when we take control, when we operate in the lust of the flesh, when the seeds of rebellion, be it through the beginnings of hurt, resentment, disappointment, where we feel validated by what we did, when those things begin to grow, we get further and further from seeing the face of God.
2 Samuel chapter 14 and verse 14. I love this. A lady comes to King David and begins to explain a situation, ultimately trying to get David to bring Absalom back close to him. But this is what she says: 'For we must needs die and are as water spilt on the ground which cannot be gathered up again. But this is what I want you to hear: neither doth God respect any person, yet doth He devise means that His banished be not expelled from Him.'
I know I'm not sweating and screaming and spitting as loud as I normally do when I preach, but those words right there echo in my soul. God devises means whereby His banished be not expelled from Him. Listen to me tonight. It matters not how long you've been away from God, how far you've gone from God, what you've done, so that the enemy capitalizes on it and says, 'You don't deserve to be close. You don't deserve to feel His presence. You don't deserve to have the anointing. You don't deserve to come back into the fellowship of believers in the house of God and worship. You deserve to be separated.'
Oh, listen to this little lady coming into the king's court. What's she doing? She's interceding. She's saying, 'There's distance between the throne and Absalom, but God devises means whereby the banished can come back home again.' Oh, that's the story of the prodigal. That's the story of every saved person that's ever lived. That's my story. Amen. That's pastor's story. If you're born again, that's your story.
God was devising. He was engineering methods. He was discovering ways. 'I can pull him in this way. I can get him back that way.' That's why He brought you here tonight. That's why He sent this American preacher to come to you and say, 'I'm devising a way.' You went because you were hurt. You indulged to distract yourself. You thought, 'I'll be safe if I take control.' You put your money on it. You manipulated it. And God said, 'But I'm still trying to figure out a way.' Woo, glory to God. I'm still paving a road for you to come back home and see My face. Glory to God.
Verse 25 of chapter 14. So then Absalom returns, but he doesn't go to the palace. The Bible says in chapter 14, verse 25: 'But in all Israel there was none to be so much praised as Absalom for his beauty. From the sole of his foot even to the crown of his head there was no blemish in him.'
I guess probably none of the men in here struggle with that struggle like Absalom did. What an issue. Rebellious and distant, and his soul corrosively deteriorating, but externally being praised. It's dangerous to be successful on the outside when your soul is distant on the inside.
That's why you got to be careful in worship that you don't hit the high note and let people praise you. You don't hit a riff on a guitar and let people praise you. You don't hit a drum roll and let people praise you and substitute that for closeness to the Lord. That's why I got to be careful and not validate myself from anything that happens up here. When I get done preaching, I go find a corner and I say, 'Father, don't tell me I preached good. Don't tell me I preached bad. Just tell me I'm Your son. It's not my doings. It's just me and You that are in relationship.'
Outwardly successful, outwardly attractive, inwardly distant. What did it produce? Verse 28: 'So Absalom dwelt two full years in Jerusalem and saw not the king's face.'
Chapter 15: 'It came to pass after this that Absalom prepared him chariots and horses and fifty men to run before him. And Absalom rose up early and stood beside the way of the gate. And it was so that when any man that had a controversy came to the king for judgment, then Absalom called unto him and said, Of what city are you? And he said, Thy servant is of one of the tribes of Israel. And Absalom said unto him, See, thy matters are good and right; but there is no man deputed of the king to hear thee. Moreover, Absalom said, O that I were made judge in the land, that every man which hath any suit or cause might come unto me, and I would do him justice! And it was so that when any man came nigh to him to do him obeisance, he put forth his hand and took him and kissed him.'
Absalom, outwardly attractive to the flesh of others. Now he stands in the gate, and when people come from all over Israel to see the one on the throne, he interjects them and says, 'What's going on in your life? I care. The king's too busy for you, but I'm concerned. I will listen to you. Oh, you are right. You were done wrong. That was unfair.'
Listen, I preached eleven youth camps last summer. I've seen kids from states far and wide, not knowing each other a day in their life, get off church buses from all different kinds of churches, and in one afternoon the gossipers all found each other and they're sitting in the corner saying, 'Oh, did you see how she's pretty? Did you see what he did?' Amen. They're just talking, talking, talking. Amen.
The kids that want to find somebody to get high with behind the cabin, it don't take them thirty minutes to find somebody else that says, 'Oh, you brought some stuff? Me too. Let's go find somewhere.' It's amazing how people will find those that will listen to their calls and not challenge them to be right, but to tell them, 'I agree with what you're already doing, and let's find a place where we can agree together.'
Be careful. Genie Mayo said, 'Show me your friends, I'll show you your future.' Water seeks its own level. You show me who you're attracted to, who you desire to date, you show me your friend group that you feel comfortable with, and it speaks something about your character.
If you only want to hang out for all of the pleasure but you don't want to show up for service, you have no desire to go on a mission trip, amen, you'll be willing to do anything with a microphone but nothing with a scrub brush, there's something to be said about what company of people you're in.
And so he found people where he said, 'Life has been unjust towards me. You make me your king and I will bring justice. I'm right and I was done wrong and what I think about it is the right way. And if you let me hear your heart and your story and show me your wound and your resentment and your disappointment, I'll agree with you.'
We'll both just... can you see how pure that looks on the outside? You're hurting, I'm hurting, let's go have coffee together. By the end of the coffee time, you're talking about pastors don't want to listen to us, nobody wants to let us lead any ministry, nobody wants to support our hurts and our wounds.
The psalmist said, 'Kiss the king.' It's a picture of worship. But here Absalom is stealing the kisses that belong to the throne. It will not be long until when you do not look on the face of God, you begin to collect worship for yourself.
Am I boring you tonight? Am I going too long? I feel like this word is powerful. I may not be shouting it, but it's powerful. The father of Shalom, he could have been the father of peace for his nation, but he gets fifty men to run in front of him. He gets the nicest car of anybody in his community and he starts wowing people by his appearance, his outward prowess, success. He's gaining followers and clout.
And then he says, 'It's time for me to be king.' He goes to Hebron and he creates an uprising. And when David hears that Absalom and hundreds of men are coming to Jerusalem, I never heard anybody preach on this, but when the Lord showed it to me last week, it so prophetically spoke something to me. I pray God will speak it to you the same way tonight.
David did not fight to keep the throne. He didn't get his army to go out to the gate and say, 'How dare you try to usurp the throne? How dare you try to raise up a coup d'état? How dare you try to have your own way?' David said, 'You want it? You can have it.' And he walked out of the palace and out of Jerusalem and out of Israel and crossed the Jordan River into a foreign land.
What was the original resentment in his heart? Against his brother for an incestuous sexual immorality. But now that he's on the throne, one of his counselors says this. His counselor says, 'These people may think that you're having second opinions. They will not give you loyalty because they think you may change your mind and invite your father back. You need to let them know you don't want to have anything to do with him, that you are a stench in his nostrils.'
And so Absalom says, 'How should I do that?' They said, 'Prepare tents on the top of the palace and invite your father's concubines and you commit sexual immorality with them.' He went from being wounded by what happened to his sister to committing the same sexual sins of incest.
Last week in one day I had two men call me. One I went to Bible college with and another in ministry. Both of them struggling with purity in areas of their life. Both of them their marriages in trouble. Nobody stands at an altar committing themselves to a bride saying, 'I can't wait to rip your heart out. I can't wait to have to share custody of our children every other weekend. I can't wait to separate our finances and pay you out.' Nobody thinks that.
But some wound in a marriage, some misspoken words not brought back into communion, the turning away from one another's face, the silent treatment for years, and what happened to Absalom is resentment turned into distance, turned into manipulation, turned into control. And all it is is the simple thing we struggle with every day of our life: I want my own way.
But when we say that, what we're saying is, 'Get off the throne of my heart, God. I will be God of my own life.' And when we say that to God, God says, 'If you don't want Me on the throne, I will walk out.'
I was at a camp meeting, one of the only ones in the country that I attend not being invited to preach. I just attend in Alabama between Christmas and New Year's. And the preacher preached one night, or one morning rather. This preacher from Tennessee preached about being the bride of Christ. Some people just want to be His servant. Some people want to be His friend. But we're called to be His bride.
He said, 'I'm friends with your pastor, but sometimes we don't talk for months. But your pastor doesn't get mad. We just pick up where we left off.' He said, 'But if I don't talk to my wife for a whole day, something's wrong.' He said, 'You can justify yourself as being a friend of God and having no prayer life, but if you go days without talking to the lover of your soul, you don't want to be His bride.'
I went to that altar and I made up my mind, 'Lord, I'm just going to be like Mary at Your feet.' I used up a whole box of Kleenex just sitting there loving on Jesus and letting Him love me back. And as I was trying to clean up my face to go have lunch with the other preachers, I heard the Lord say, 'If you get what you want, I am not your Shepherd.'
See, the lust of the flesh is wanting your own way, and the lust of the eyes is wanting everything for yourself, and the pride of life is wanting to be seen as important. And when all this wanting, wanting, wanting governs your life from the flesh, it is a tyrant that when you are in control, you lose control. It will destroy you.
Psalm 23 says when He's in control, 'The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.' Oh, the freedom of wanting my own way is the freedom of Him not just being my Savior to take me to heaven, but being my Lord where I'm not governed by rebellion based on past hurts, but I've grieved in His presence. He's walked with me, wept with me, healed me, and now I say, 'I don't have to understand, but vengeance doesn't belong to me. It belongs to You. I worship You, for You are good.'
And now I'm not the one trying to drive. I can sing that old hymn of the church, 'Jesus, take the wheel,' and really mean it. It's not a hymn of the church. I'm just trying to see if you're still awake. Let Him be in control. You are Lord and I am not. Your way is better than my way. Praise God.
If you love Him, then you want Him on the throne. And the love of the Father divorces you from the lust of the flesh, the flesh of wanting your own way, and it shows up by abiding in obedience. Somebody come to the piano if you would, please.
He committed sin with his father's concubines, and then he raised up an army to chase the king down.
As I finished praying there in the altar in Alabama at that conference, this is very vulnerable for me to talk about, but this is what I found in ministry: if I only preach from my mind, shallow speaks to shallow. But if I talk to you about the real issues of my life, deep cries out unto deep.
I wasn't in a backsliding condition by any means, but it had been a while since I had just been Mary at His feet, saying, 'Lord, I'm not praying to ask You for anything. I'm not worshiping because I'm in a service. I'm not asking You for a sermon. I'm not praying about a conference. I'm just here just loving You, and it's been a while since I've been this close to You.'
And the Lord said this to me. He said, 'Did you not think I would fight for your heart?'
David didn't want to leave Jerusalem. He wanted reconciliation. He told Joab, 'Be good to Absalom.' He's got an army to kill David, and David is still saying, 'Be good to Absalom.' But when Absalom brought his army and Joab found him caught in a tree by his own hair, he was so vain he let his hair grow so long he got caught by his own vanity. Absalom killed him.
I'm going to be honest with you tonight. The reason I titled this message 'I Am Absalom' is because myself included, everyone in this place, have operated in the lust of the flesh, wanting control, wanting to manipulate, wanting things our own way. And when we do, we are identifying with someone who took offense, found themselves wounded, disappointed, and moved into the place of saying, 'If I keep going this direction, I will be seated on the throne of my own life.'
But God says, 'I will fight for your heart. I won't force you to obey Me, but I will fight for you to love Me.'
How can I be free from this? Stand with me to your feet. Very simply tonight, how can I make sure that the self-governing spirit of Absalom doesn't destroy my life? How can I make sure that my own wounds don't become infected until I try to take the lordship and dethrone God? How do I not live a life having to wake up and go to bed every day distant from His face? Confessing, 'I am Absalom.' This is how.
Matthew 27 and verse 16: 'And they had then a notable prisoner named Barabbas. Therefore when they had gathered together, Pilate said unto them, Whom will ye that I release unto you, Barabbas or Jesus which is called Christ? For he knew that for envy they had delivered him. And when he was set down on the judgment seat, verse 20: But the chief priests and elders persuaded the multitude that they should ask Barabbas and destroy Jesus. And the governor answered and said unto them, Whether of the twain will ye that I release unto you? They said, Barabbas. And Pilate said unto them, What shall I do then with Jesus which is called Christ? And they all say unto him, Let Him be crucified.'
The spirit of Absalom says, 'I would rather my father die that I could be on the throne. I'm right and the whole world has done me wrong. I'll isolate. I'll keep silent. I won't look at my pastor in the face. I won't open up. I'll live like a clamshell in the presence of my parents. How dare someone try to ask anything of me? You don't know my hurts. You've not walked in my shoes. I'm right. It wasn't fair. Let the king die and I'll sit on the throne.'
But you don't have to cry out, 'I am Absalom.' You can cry out, 'I am Barabbas.' Absalom, the father of Shalom, the father of peace, that should have been his destiny, but it wasn't. Barabbas. Bar, the son of Abba, the son of the Father. He already had his court day. The gavel had fallen. The sentence was enacted. He was guilty.
He stood there knowing the cross is mine, the prison cell is mine, the punishment is mine. I'm not right. I am wrong. I have done wrong. Why do we have to have times of repentance in every single service? Is this just like a... they don't do this at American churches. Why do our Romanian churches, we have to repent, repent, repent? Because when you come saying, 'I am right, I know the songs, I know how to do church, I'm right, I'm right, I'm right,' you shut yourself off from seeing His face.
But when you cry out, 'I am Barabbas. I was guilty, but I just want to be a son of the Father. I recognize that He's dying and He shouldn't. It should have been me. It was my cross and not His.' Then knowing that when He took your place and rose from the dead, you say, 'Jesus, You get the throne, not me.'
I just want to be very practical tonight. If you'd be honest in this place and say, 'Robert, there's things in my life that are not going the way that I wanted them to, and I feel tempted to put my hand on it and to turn it in my own direction, but I don't want to be Absalom.' Some of you would say it's because I've been hurt and wounded. Some of you are like, 'Robert, rebellion? I'm not in rebellion.' No, no, no. You're chilling. You're chilling, but you're in the driver's seat and not God.
I'm going to open this altar with no more pressure after this. You come, you pray. Worship team come, unless you feel like staying in the altar. If you feel like responding to the Lord tonight, He's fighting for your heart. If you say, 'I'm not in rebellion, I just want to come and kneel at His feet and say, You are seated on the throne of my life,' then the altar is open for you.
Life's not gone the way I want to, but I don't want to seek vengeance. God, You avenge me of my adversary. Satan, You turn it around on his head and You get the glory. Coming to the altar. God, I've been wounded and sometimes I wounded myself with my decisions, but would You grieve with me? Come and find your place in the altar and let the high priest be touched by the feeling of your infirmity. Amen.
That's your altar call tonight. Stay where you are and say, 'I'm fine at the driver's seat being Absalom,' or come and find a place and repent and say, 'You don't have to repent to me, God. I am Barabbas.'
