The Rise and Fall of Prince Charming

Well we are in part two of a series called Pretty Ugly People. Pretty ugly people, right? People who are pretty on the outside, but ugly on the inside. We've been looking at people throughout the Old Testament, kind of doing some character studies, if you want to call it, of people in the Old Testament, and what that really means to us, because you can be pretty on the outside, everything could look in order on the outside, but what's really going on in the inside is what counts. Beauty on the inside is what counts, and that's the idea of this message.

And today I'm going to talk about a true story that would seem to be a story that was written in a fairy tale. Because it's so crazy, it's so wild what happens, but when we place that idea of, it's based on a true story, what does that do? That grabs our attention. We want to kind of take note of it. If it's a true story, then maybe, it's like going to the movies or popping something on TV, and it says, based on a true story, right before it starts.

What do you got? You're leaning in to know exactly what that's going to show you, because it's a true story, right? And that's what we're doing here. This is nothing but a true story. And we're going to talk about the real Prince Charming, okay?

The real Prince Charming. And we're calling this story, actually, the rise and fall of Prince Charming, and his name is Absalom. Absalom has a story that we can all learn from. He was the most beautiful person that ever lived in that time. In fact, that's what the Bible tells us.

In all Israel, there was no or not a man so highly praised for his handsome appearance as Absalom. For from the top of his head to the sole of his feet, he had no blemish. He was the son of King David, the most famous king, right, in Scripture. He was a beautiful man. He was stunning to look at.

Everybody noticed him when he came across the stage, when he walked across the road. Everybody knew who he was. He was from the top of his head to the soles of his feet. There was nothing wrong with him or what seemed not to be wrong with him. But if you could look on the inside, what God sees, because that's what God sees, right?

He sees the inside. He doesn't care about the outside, but he saw something very ugly. It was a very ugly person. And God cares more about what's inside of you than what's outside, okay? And that's what we're getting at in this message.

He's asking us... My Siri went crazy there. Yeah, did y'all hear that online? So, if you could look on the outside, it looked great. Absalom, look at him.

Beautiful man. Had everything going for him, charisma, but on the inside, he was very ugly. In fact, here's what 1 Samuel 16, 7 says about how God sees people. And this kind of sets us up here, right? When David was being picked as king, what did he tell Samuel?

God told Samuel, looks aren't everything. Don't be impressed with his looks and stature. God judges persons directly, or differently, excuse me, than humans do. We look at the outside, the face, but God looks at the heart. And Absalom had a beautiful face, but an empty head.

And that's what we're going to look at today. Also, he had amazing hair. We just got to put that out there. Absalom had this incredible, incredible hair. How do we know that?

Because it tells us in Scripture that he had good hair. It says whenever he cut the hair of his head, he used to cut his hair from time to time when it got too heavy, when he was whipping it around and, you know, it got a little heavy on his head, you know? You know, he's doing this, you know? It's like, okay, it's time to cut it. He would weigh it, okay?

Its weight was 200 shackles by the royal standard. Commentaries say that that's about two to three and a half pounds of hair. That's a lot of... That's a lot of... A lot of hair, and when he got tired of whipping it back and forth and it was time to cut it, he would put it in a dip.

Now, I don't know why somebody would weigh hair. I don't understand that, but I imagine they were probably like, what, look at this hair, and they were dissecting it in order to understand it a little bit. Wow, this hair is here. You think he was born with it? Maybe it's Maybelline, you know?

Like, no one will ever know unless we weigh this hair out and we look at it and we determine what it is. So, he was beautiful. He had great hair. And out of all of David's son, he was the highest favored to be king after David died. You might say he was the hair apparent.

Thank you. So, he was beautiful. And he had great hair. So, we know that. And he was the quintessential Prince Charming.

He was Prince Charming. Sadly, he made an untimely ending. And we're doing a character study of him, if you want to call it this. Because we know that charm is deceitful and beauty is fleeting. But someone who fears God, that hangs on forever.

That's what really lasts. So, what do you do when your looks go? What do you do when your charisma is gone? When the magnetism, the magnetic thing that you have is gone? When the work, the room type of thing is gone?

When all that goes, the electricity that you have is gone? What does that leave you with when somebody hotter, when somebody fresher, when somebody that has the it factor at that particular time and you lose it? What are you left with is the question. What are you left with? And that's why the Bible says you can do a lot better than that.

You don't look on the outside. You can go deeper. You don't have to be fooled by charm. Charm is not what we're looking at. Don't put your stock in something that's going to leave you with nothing.

And Absalom believed the lie that charm was it. Charm was everything. And we're going to look at five lies that Absalom believed about himself. And here's the first one. I am my looks.

I am my looks. Absalom was vain. He was his looks. You could call him long on image and short on substance, you know? He was all hat and no cattle as the ranchers would say, right?

He didn't have it where it actually counted. So he believed, you know, I'm my looks. There was nothing deeper than his looks. And he believed I am my looks. The second thing he believed is freedom is doing whatever I want.

Freedom is doing whatever I want. Freedom is doing whatever I feel like at the time. Because I'm Absalom. I can do what I want. Giving in to every impulse.

He was a very impulsive person. In fact, in chapter 14, we learned that he's very frustrated with Joab, his friend Joab, because Joab's ghosting him. He called him over, you know, will you meet me here? He sent him letters and Joab didn't respond. He didn't say anything.

He didn't text him back. He saw the deliverer on the phone, you know, and it didn't come through. The bubbles were there. He was getting ready to text me back. What is he doing?

I mean, what's going on, dude? You know? So he's upset with him. And what does he do? He burns his fields.

I'll show you. I'm just going to burn your fields. I'm going to go and burn your fields since you didn't respond to my letter. You didn't respond to my request. I'm just going to do that.

He acted impulsively. So he responded in that way. I'll show him. I'll show him. I'll show her, right?

Can we relate? I'll show him. I'll show her. I'll unfollow him. I'll follow her.

And I'm going to like every picture on there right before I do it. Boom, bam! That'll show him, right? We love to do that. I'm going to tag him on this.

You know, that's what we do. He acted impulsively. Why? Because he had no impulse control. For Absalom to feel like doing it was the same as doing it, right?

As small of a thing as being ghosted by a friend and overreacting, it also played out in larger areas like killing his half-brother. And he had no self-control in the small areas. And if you have no self-control in the small areas of your life, you'll have no control in the bigger areas. So he gave in to every impulse. The third thing he did, he liked his friends to tell him what he wanted to hear.

So he surrounded himself. Friends are those who tell me whatever I want to hear. He surrounded himself with people who helped him believe what he wanted to believe, not what he needed to believe. He surrounded himself with people that stoked his fire, that got his ego, you know, like got it boosted a little bit, you know. He surrounded himself with people like that, that, what do I want to hear?

I'm going to pick that person, you know. Tell me exactly what I want to hear. And one example of this was his relationship with Ahithophel, and that's ten points if you can pronounce that correctly, right? And Ahithophel, and I'm going to be saying that a lot, okay, so tongue twister there, Ahithophel was the greatest advisor in the kingdom. And in fact, 2 Samuel says it like this.

Now, in those days, the advice of Ahithophel that Ahithophel gave was like that of one who inquires of God. That was how both David and Ahithophel regarded all of Ahithophel's advice. So he was the best counselor. He was on the cabinet of David. He was the man to go to.

Everybody respected what he had to say. And instead of listening to the advice of Ahithophel, he listens to the advice of someone else. And if he had only listened to his advice, his plan would have been great. Because here's what's happening. Absalom is planning to take the throne of David.

He's staging a rebellion. He's winning people on his side. And Ahithophel is on his team. Now, there's another guy named Hushai that steps into the picture that gives him advice as well. But the thing about Ahithophel, he had this surgical, precise plan that he wanted to help Absalom execute so that he could take the kingdom.

But the problem here was there was something better. Because here's what happened. First of all, Hushai was on Team David. And Ahithophel was on Team Absalom. Now, here's some drama.

There's some family drama here because Ahithophel is the grandfather of Bathsheba and he never got over that. And here's what's happening. He was looking for every opportunity to get back at David because he had never let that go, right? So as soon as Absalom staged a rebellion, he wanted to go with Absalom. And he wanted to give Absalom advice.

But Hushai, on the other side, he wanted to go with David because David is ready to go and hide again. He was going back to the caves again. It was the advice of his mighty men and the people that surrounded him. And he wanted to actually go into battle. But they said, no, that's not a good idea.

And I'll explain that a little bit later. So Hushai says, I'm going with you. He says, no, you're going to stay behind and you're going to listen to Ahithophel and make sure his advice isn't listened to. And I'm going to go over here and I'm going to pray that this whole plan is thwarted, everything that's going to happen. Because he understood that Ahithophel was like the best advisor in what he said went and it would work.

So, after listening to Ahithophel's masterful plan, Hushai's like, oh my goodness, that is a great plan. I've got to come up with something. So he knows what to do. And he takes time to meet with Absalom and give him his plan. And he appeals to his vanity.

So, although Ahithophel had this measured, precise surgical plan that would work and would have brought success to Absalom, he listened to this plan. He says, no, no, no, no, you don't want to do that, Absalom. Hushai says, that's not what you want to do. Look, your dad, he's crazy. Your dad, he's ruthless.

Your dad, he's taking out thousands of men at a time, and he's probably looking like, well, I could take out thousands of men. I mean, it says, your dad's like a bear robbed of his cubs. He's like, well, I'm a bear. I'm a bear. I can do it.

And David's like, you'll eat the soldiers for lunch. Eat your soldiers for lunch. He's like this ruthless guy. He's tough. He's all these things.

So here's what you need to do. You need to build the biggest army. Just get as many people, just thousands of people, and let them just go out and start building and big, and take your hair and just, you know, just march down the street and let it flow in the air, right? And no, don't get that sword. Here, get this bigger sword here.

Here's your big, use that huge sword. Just march and just lift your legs way up in the air, and then parade around, and everybody will see you. And you just need to go in like that. So he just goes crazy. And whatever town he's holed up in, we will drag the city away with ropes, is what scripture says.

And I'm sure Absalom's like, yeah, that's a great plan. I don't even know what that means, but it sounds cool, so let's go. Let's do this, right? And the academy goes to Hushai the Archite for best BS battle plan, right? Some of you are offended by BS, but you're probably in the wrong church, okay?

And he did not listen to Apothal, who promptly went home. And this is really sad. He told Apothal that he wasn't going to take his advice, so he goes home and kills himself. And that's because he was dealing with his own identity issues for his preeminence issues to unpack in a later sermon. So the bottom line is that Absalom only wanted to hear what he wanted to hear.

He only wanted to hear, he only surrounded himself with people who would tell him what he wanted to hear. The fourth thing is, I need to take matters into my own hands. So that means whoever's in the way. I'm going to take matters into my own hands. Whoever's in the way, whoever's going to stop me from doing what I want to do, I don't care who they are.

I'm going to crush them. I'm going to use them. I'm going to hurt them. I'm going to do whatever I can to get what I want. I am Absalom.

Hear me roar. I'm going to do what I want to. And nobody's going to step in the way. And he was a marketing genius. He was a politician.

He was great at what he did. He could win people over so smoothly. Look at 2 Samuel 15, how it says this. In the course of time, Absalom provided himself with a chariot and horses and 50 men to run ahead of him. Now think about this for a minute.

There's just 50 men just jogging in front of him as he's coming down the street. They're probably doing all kinds of stuff. And he's got these chariots. And again, his hair is probably like, hey, everybody, yeah, yeah. And he's doing all that.

And he has this going on. And they're probably like, what's up with that guy? Who is that guy? I think that's Absalom. And wow, Absalom, man, he's cool.

He must be important. And I'll follow him, right? I'll be persuaded to follow him. That must be some special guy. And then it goes on to say, And he would get up early and stand at the side of the road leading into the city.

And whenever anyone came with a complaint to plead before the king for a decision, Absalom would call out to him, what town are you from? And they would tell him, one of the tribes. And then he would say, look, your claims are valid and proper. Too bad there's no representative of the king that's here to hear you. You know, the king doesn't have time for you.

And he goes on, he says, if only I were appointed judge of the land. See what's going on here? Then everyone who has a complaint or a case would come to me, and I would see that he gets justice. If only I were. So whenever anyone approached him to bow down before him, Absalom would reach out his hand, take his hand.

Take hold of him and kiss him. Oh, no, no, no. You don't have to bow down to me. I'm one of you. Come on.

Yeah, a little side hug. Come on. Fist bump. Let's go out to breakfast together. Go to your favorite place.

I'm just one of you, you know. We're just blue-collar guys. I mean, I look royalty. I've got all this stuff. But you know what?

I'm just one of you. And this is how he worked the system. And here's what happened. Absalom behaved in this way toward all the Israelites who came to the king, asking for justice. And so he stole the hearts of the men of Israel.

The men of Israel were following God and God's appointed. And he redirected people at whatever means necessary. He used whatever means necessary to get what he wanted. And here's the point. It's real easy to not do anything but sit around saying, If I was in charge, it would be better, right?

As I was in charge, I would... You know, for example, I'm sure he was like just kind of sitting around and this person comes to you. He says, Oh, you're visiting the king. What's up with that? He says, Well, I stole a mule.

He says, You stole a mule? I'm sure the person was needing... You know, they were asking for it. I'm sure of that. So, you know, you're okay.

Well, did the king hear you? Yeah, the king said I shouldn't steal it. He says, Whoa, he would say that because that's how he responds. What in the world? So how easy is it to stand there and criticize the king when you're not actually doing it, right?

And that's what we do. Sideline leadership, right? Like just... Or whatever that is. It isn't even leadership.

It's just criticism. And I love how Teddy Roosevelt says, It's not the critic that counts, but the person who's actually in the arena. Marred with dust and sweat. I'd rather be a part of the solution than sit on the sidelines arguing about what's going on. I want to contribute to life.

I don't want to tear it down. My life actually... I don't just want to politic on the side. I don't want to just smooth things and sit on the sidelines. I actually want to be in it.

I don't want to waste my life pointing at somebody else. So Aslan took matters into his own hands. And Aslan didn't care what anybody else thought. He didn't care about who they were. They were just pawns in his scheme.

He was very good at that. The fifth thing, the fifth lie is glory and fame will bring me happiness. And it was clear that Aslan had this insatiable need for fame. He wanted fame. He wanted to be looked at.

He wanted to be lifted up. What is being famous to us? More than I currently have. That's really what it is. What are you going to do when you get it?

Well, get more, right? I want to get more. There's an unending level of fame that we want that just never stops. And that was his life. I mean, he had everything he ever wanted.

He was next to be king. He was a royalty. He had unlimited power. He could go pretty much anywhere he wanted to. Yet, he wanted more.

There's not enough dollars. There's not enough Instagram followers. There's not enough horsepower in your truck. You just want more, right? And it just keeps going.

And there's nothing in the world that will ever cause you to put your hands up and go, Well, I've got enough. You know, I'm good. Because we're always wanting more. We're always wanting a little more. We're always wanting a little more.

We're never content. I love how Tom Brady said it when they asked him, Which Super Bowl ring is your favorite? He said the next one. There's never enough. There's never enough.

Why? Because the human engine doesn't run on fame. It doesn't run on power. It doesn't run on sex. It doesn't run on money.

It doesn't run on getting high. And what he does benefit from this guy. When he did that, it literally Yesterday. It's meant to run on God, and God alone, and we are only fueled by God completely. The thirst in our hearts can't be satisfied by any water that's found in this world.

The only water that satisfies us is the living water, Christ Jesus. So how do you know? What did he spend his hours doing when he wasn't politicking at the gate? He was finding monuments to give to himself, to name himself on. Here's what it says.

During his lifetime, Absalom had taken a pillar and erected it in the King's Valley as a monument to himself. For he thought, since I do not have a son to carry out my memory of my name, he named the pillar after himself. Could you imagine that? Oh, that's a great pillar. What is that?

What did he call that? Me. That's me, right? That's myself. That's in honor of myself.

It's really creative, right? And he named the pillar after himself, and it was called Absalom, monument of this day. Absalom is called Absalom's monument to this day. And all he wanted was to be remembered. That's all he wanted.

He wanted to be remembered. And that's where his identity lied to him. That he was more than just being remembered. There was more to him there. And it has been said that you can break any of the Ten Commandments, or you can't break any of the Ten Commandments, rather, until you break the first commandment of thou shalt have no other gods before me.

And if you put any other gods before you, it automatically leads you into so many more commandments to break, right? And Absalom was putting a god before the only true god, and that was himself. And he served himself. And when you worship another god, you become that god. When you worship that thing, you become that king.

If your god is the Lord, you will live a life to worship him. But if your god is anything else, you will live a life to serve that thing. And he served that thing. And he lied, and he was willing to cheat, and he was willing to steal. He was willing to do whatever to serve that thing.

And you will do the same. If you put any other god before Yahweh, the only true god, if you put any other god before you, you will automatically find yourself going into these areas of cheating, and lying, and adultery, and stealing, and all these things in order to support the god that you are serving. The god of this world. So those are the five lies. And what I want to do is I want to revert those.

Those five lies. But how did this work out for him? How did this happen? It's actually kind of comical how his life ended. Because it really ended badly.

It shouldn't be funny, I guess. But I love the Bible. It's just so, it just gives you these stories, you know. Because those who worship idols, he worshiped himself. They ultimately, their life ends a certain way, okay?

You worship Jesus, you become like Jesus. You worship idols, you become like idols. And what are idols? They're lifeless objects. They're lifeless inanimate objects.

They're frozen. They're slaves to nothing, right? You're enslaved, you're bonded, you're locked down, you're locked up if you serve other idols. And it ends in death. And for Absalom, it ended in death.

And this is what happened. 2 Samuel 18, 9. Now Absalom happened to meet David's men. Because, as you know, Absalom's army was out pursuing David and David's men. And he was riding his mule.

And as the mule went under a thick... In this thick tree or thick branches of a large oak, Absalom's head got caught in the tree. The very beautiful thing that he put pride in actually caught him. And he was left hanging in mid-air while the mule was riding. He kept going.

So could you imagine? I mean, it's sort of pathetic and sad in a way. I mean, he's just dangling there in the tree. And it says, When one of the men saw this, he said, Joab, I just saw Absalom hanging in an oak tree. Could you imagine that conversation?

It's like, I'm the darndest thing, guys, hanging in a tree back here. I mean, I just, you know that guy we were looking for? There he is, just hanging in the tree. And then Joab said to the man who had told him this, What? You saw him?

Why didn't you strike him to the ground right there? Then I would have given you 10 shekels of silver and warrior's belt. And then the man responded. He said, Even if the thousand shekels were weighed out in my hand, I would not slay the hand of the king's son. In our hearing, the king commanded you and Abishai and Ittai, Protect the young man, Absalom, for my sake.

So earlier in Scripture, David asked them to protect Absalom, not to harm him. And I love this because here you see the father. You see the heart of the father. The heart of the father is still for the son to be restored. That's just amazing to me.

It's powerful. And then verse 18, it says, And if I had put my life in jeopardy, this is the man talking to Joab, You know, you would have probably ignored me. And nothing is hidden from the king, and you would have kept your distance from me. So, you know, I don't want to get myself in trouble here. You know, like if I kill him and then the king gets mad, you're going to be like, Yep, he did it.

You know, he did it. I had nothing to do with it, right? And then Joab said, Well, I'm not going to wait like this for you. So he took three javelins. I don't know why it had to be three, but it had to be three, I guess.

Yes, and in his hand, and he plunged it into Absalom's heart while Absalom was still alive in the oak tree. And then verse 15, And then ten of Joab's armor bearers, as if plunging three javelins into his heart wasn't enough, they surrounded Absalom, struck him, and killed him. Then Joab sounded the trumpet, and the troops stopped pursuing Israel, and Joab halted them. Then they took Absalom, threw him in a pig pit in the forest, and piled up a large heap of rocks over him. Meanwhile, all the Israelites fled to their homes.

Sad ending, too. A charismatic, gifted, good-looking, born in a royal family fed with a silver spoon. A tragic ending, buried in a pig pit for no one to know, no one around. And what was the greatest symbol of his pride? His beautiful hair became a ridiculous source for his downfall.

But didn't Jesus say it like this? Whoever exalts himself will be humbled. And whoever humbles himself will be exalted. Pride leads to falling. Whatever you get caught up with, you'll get called up in.

And when we don't do what God is calling us to do, we'll end up inevitably caught up with something, and focused on something, and preoccupied with something. And it's not what God wants us to do. And what's going to happen, like Absalom, we're going to be dangling from an oak tree, because we're going to be so preoccupied with something else. So what do we need to do to avoid this outcome? What do we do?

We need to combat the lies with truth. And we talked about this in a previous message, and I'm just going to say this real quick and give you these five... Five lies, and we're going to flip the script on these five lies real quick here, because if we can expose the lies, we have to identify them, right, first? So we identify the lies and then we meet it with God's Word, right? And then we replace it with truth.

You can't erase it, but you can replace it. You can't erase the lie. The lie is there. The devil's been whispering for a long time, all the way in Genesis 3. He's always whispered these lies to destroy our identity, to destroy who we are, and we need to flip the script.

We need to place truth over the lie. So here's what the first truth is. He said, I am my looks. How about I'm not my looks? I'm more than my looks.

I'm more than this body. I'm more than this body. I have a soul. I have a spirit. There's something more inside of me.

There's something that you can't see there that's there that's eternal. There's more to this. I'm more than just good hair. I'm more than just a physique. I'm more than just, you know, and bodily exercise and looks, they matter, but that's not who I am.

That's not who I am. Yeah, I look a certain way and that's okay, but that's not who I am. I'm more than that. And that's just not me. I'm deeper.

I am more than the cloud. I'm more than the social media status. I am more deeper than the depth of this culture or what it puts on me. I am deeper than that, and I'm not going to ignore that, okay? And I'm not going to waste my life and waste my time trying to be something that I'm not because I know who I am on the inside.

I don't have time to waste on something that doesn't last. I need to get busy on things that last forever and ever and ever. That's what I'm here for. And it's not just going to be the things that are seen. As Paul says, they're the things that are unseen, the things that they can't see.

And I'm going to work on my character and I'm going to work on who I am internally. Godliness means more than giftedness. Character means more than charisma. Knowing that what is happening in here matters more than what is happening out there. And that's really what it's about.

And number two, we said freedom is doing what I want. How about freedom is doing what God wants? Freedom is doing what God wants regardless of how I feel and regardless of my impulse. I want to do what God wants because my feelings steer me wrong every time. And in Proverbs, it says someone who has no rule over his own spirit is like a city broken down with no walls.

In that day, cities had to have walls. They had to have fortified walls because the enemy would come in. And if you don't have walls and you live in the city, you're in danger. So that's what an unruled spirit is like. And you may say, well, it's their fault.

They triggered it. That's what we say. Yeah, they triggered it. I just reacted, right? And they started it.

No, you let yourself get triggered, okay? If they got your goat, you know, you should have left your goat over there tied to a tree somewhere. You should have gotten it out of the way. If they pushed your button, it should have been put in a vault and then locked away, okay? So that button couldn't have been pushed.

You should have pre-decided before you even entered that situation. You got to put those things away. You are responsible. I love how Brian Houston, Pastor Hillsong Church, says that my spirit, my responsibility. It's my spirit, my responsibility.

I can't control you, but I can control my response. And we believe in our culture, in a very, in our culture, a very narrow definition of freedom. We think that freedom is doing whatever I want. We worship it. We worship it.

We bow down to it. We want it to rule us. But culture says freedom is what I want to do, when I want to do it, and nobody's going to tell me what I want to do, right? That's what we say. There's another aspect of freedom.

It's not just that you have the ability to do what you want to do, but you also simultaneously have the ability to do, not do what you want to do. That's true freedom. You are not free if you do whatever you feel like doing with no control, with no restraint. You're impulsive and you can't stop yourself. That's slavery.

That's slavery. And you need to surround yourself with people that are willing, which leads me to my next point. Friends are people who tell me what I need to hear, not what I want to hear, okay? True friends stab you in the front and tell you straight to your face what's going on. And you need to surround yourself with people who are willing to do what they need to do to protect you and your direction in life.

And David knew this. This is why David, even in the day that Absalom was against him and looking for him, he listened to his advisors. He was ready to go out to battle with his friends, but his advisor said, no, David, you can't go out with them. And they said, you're worth 10,000 of us. And David listened.

Well, I'm one of the mighty men of Valor. I want to go out. I want to be a part of this. I've always been there. And they're like, no, no, no, you cannot.

You've got to stay out of the way. Let us handle it. And David listened to him. Even back when he sinned with Bathsheba, Nathan, the prophet, walks into the room and he says, you have done this horrible thing. How does David respond?

Did he get angry and impulsive, throw him in prison, throw him to the lions or whatever? No, he didn't do that. He repented. That's why people followed David. That's why they were all a part of what he was doing.

He had something in him that was special. And he was willing to surround himself with people who would tell him the truth. And your greatest opportunity for growth come in those difficult conversations. Did you know that? Putting yourself in those conversations.

As hard as that is. If you avoid them, you won't grow. But if you have them, if you allow those conversations to happen, you will grow. And you'll be grateful for it if you invite people in to help you and guide you in those situations. That's why the Bible says to react harshly to a spiritual authority who points something out in your life lovingly is to basically harm yourself.

So it's good that God puts people in your life. That's why you have small group leaders. That's why you have pastors in your life. That's why you have people here in the church and different levels of leadership that are here to minister to you. That's why you have people who are mentors in your life to help and guide you in these areas.

But absolutely, he insulted himself or insulated himself, my bad, from everyone who told him anything that he wanted to hear. He insulated himself. He put barriers around himself so that he didn't have to hear them. And he lived those lies. The fourth truth is, I need to trust matters into God's hands.

Not take matters into my hands, but trust matters into God's hands. Leave the outcome to him. I think about Esther. She said, if I perish, I perish. But I'm going to do what God wants me to do.

I think about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. I may die in this fire. I believe that God's going to bring me through. I believe that God's going to... But I will not bow down to your God.

And I will not do what you want me to. I will honor God alone because he has called me to something greater. And you've got to be willing to go through the fire and honor God and trust him in the process. So many would say, well, this is a dog-eat-dog world. I've got to do what I've got to do to get by because everybody else is doing it.

And that's the way it is. And this whole thing about good men and good women finishing last. Here's... Here's... Here's a better one for you.

God's people finish first in the final analysis, okay? We finish first, so when you start, see, you'll never have long-term regrets honoring God, okay? In the short term, yeah, maybe it will feel that way, but in the long term, you will be surprised if you honor God, you follow God, and do what He has called you to do, and walk that path, even when it feels like there's some gray areas and we can skirt a little bit and kind of go this way a little bit. But God has a way of even making your enemies be at peace with you when you do the right thing. Even your enemies.

So that shady, unethical thing that you're tempted to do at the moment, thinking, you know, it's for the greater good, you know, we say that. No, it's not. Honor God. Honor God. Obey God.

Be obedient to God and let Him handle the rest. Obey God and He handles the rest. David modeled this very, very well. In fact, David did the right thing when it probably would have been easier to do the wrong thing. He loved his people so much that he wasn't willing to take the battle into the city.

He was willing to sacrifice himself and take himself out of the city so that the people that he loved could be safe. Because he cared more about, because he was a good shepherd. He loved his people. He cared more about his people than he did himself. He loved his people.

That's why Ittai, the Gittite, and I would love to tell you the story of him. He's just amazing. He's just incredible. I'd do a sermon on him one day. I mean, that's why he wanted, he didn't even have to follow David.

David told him to go home. He had a conversation. He says, this has nothing to do with you. You don't want to die at my hands. He says, no, I'm going with you, king.

And I will die and my people will die with you. We are with you till the end. Why did he want to follow David? Because he knew David's character. He knew David's character.

That's why Hushai tries to come with him. That's why the priest tried to carry the Ark of the Covenant with him. He's like, oh, don't bring the Ark. Leave it there. The people need that.

They need the presence of God. Everybody wanted to follow him. He's not thinking about himself. He's thinking about others. And that's why David is who he is.

He was just amazing, amazing king, amazing man. And he trusted God rather than what possibly could have been an easier choice. But it wasn't the right choice. And then lastly, the lie is glory and fame will not bring you happiness. The truth to that lie that glory and fame will bring me happiness.

It will not bring me happiness because God's glory will. We live for God's glory. It's seeking God's glory, not trying to make your own glory that brings you whatever it is that you think that you need. It didn't work for Absalom, did it? It left a hole in him.

He never was content. And that's because to try and get fame that feels good, that helps you feel good. It's like the proverb says, you know, too much honey makes your stomach sick. Honey is a good thing, but too much of it will make you sick, right? And if we eventually go those directions, going for fame, I want more, I want more, I want more, we're going to get sick.

We're going to get spiritually sick. And he didn't understand that. He went that direction. It led him to a place where he was eventually thrown in a pig's pit with nobody around him, nobody knowing where he was, hanging and dangling from a tree. And you try and you fill your heart with your own glory and you'll find emptiness.

And this world just brings nothing but emptiness. But you were made to give God glory. A complete satisfaction is only found when we give glory to God through our lives. That's where true peace, that's where true fame comes from. So we need to crave those things, those eternal things, not the things that give us immediate pleasure.

So in closing, that's Absalom. And we have this example of what God wants us to do rather than not to do. And to spot the lies, to combat the truth, or combat it with truth, pardon. And what will we have if we've done that? We'll have a life based on the real us, a true story.

Not a false us, not a fake us, not a clouded us, not an us that Satan is trying to pull us towards, this false identity that many of us are living in, but the truth of who he is. And some of us are struggling because we're living a made-up story. We're living a made-up story, a false narrative that has been crafted in our heads by the enemy that he's been doing from the very beginning. That anxiety will prevail, that sickness will prevail, that insecurities will prevail, that loss gets to prevail whatever we've lost in this life. Being abandoned at some point, being betrayed at some point, being forgotten, being overlooked at some point in our life.

And we've allowed that to define who we are, we've allowed that to be our identity. And Satan's whispering in your ear, he's trying to get that in your ear, and he's trying to use these half-truths stuffed with great big lies, and you believe them and we follow them. And Adam and Eve did, they ate of the fruit, they wanted, they thought that God was leaving something out. But God had true freedom for them. Under his umbrella, under his covering, under his authority is only true freedom.

And we believe wrongly and it leads to a life of instability, because wrong thinking always leads to wrong living, right? So we've got to make sure our lives and our decisions and everything we do is based on the truth of who we are. So that we don't have a fairytale story, but we have a true story that has a good ending. That we're not living a false narrative, but we're living a true narrative. I'm going to leave you with a story.

Nedra Nance was her name, and some of you probably know it from current events. Back in 2010, there was this girl who, through a period of time, started to get suspicious of her parents. She was raised by these two parents, and when she got older, there was little things, like little red flags, like her social security number. She never had that. And when she had it, it was like a fake number.

And her birth certificate was not real. And she began to do some investigation, and she found out that her parents weren't her parents at all. She saw that she was actually born from another parent. She went to her parents and said, what's going on here? Why didn't you tell me about this?

Well, they were drug addicts, and I didn't want to tell you about it. But as she did more digging, she did the DNA test, she connected with them and everything. She found out that was not the case at all. She found an article that said that it was a baby that looked just like her that was taken from the hospital. But she was really, really young.

She was stolen by the parents that had raised her, that she had been raised by people who weren't really... It wasn't her life. It wasn't her real identity. It wasn't everything. And she lived that false narrative for so long.

But once she found out who she truly was at 23 years old, she was able to walk out and know who she was. She always had these questions about her life. But only when her life was based on truth could she actually move in. And to her future with the right heart and where she was. And the enemy who is the thief and the murderer and the liar and all those things, he lied over our lives and told us who we are and these half-truths, these mixed-up things.

He's trying to get us off of what God really wants for us. He doesn't want what God wants for us because he knows that brings freedom and he wants to enslave you. But Jesus Christ came and shed his blood. Why? Because the Father in Heaven never lost hope of you coming home.

He never lost hope from the very beginning when you steered away with this identity. He never lost hope. He was inviting you to come home. And when our life is based on truth, when our life is based on the reality of who we really are, that we weren't created for sin, we weren't created for emptiness, we weren't created for heartache and despair, then death is not what our life is based on. It's based on truth.

It's based on life. And gratifying our flesh is not what our life is based on. It's not our own desires. But now we're positioned and posture to bring glory to God. We are designed to bring glory to God.

And that's the only way to live, to have our true parents, our true, the true arms of God around us, to have every hurt inside healed and then be postured to do all that God has told us to do. It's only possible because of the name of Jesus. Amen. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for these true stories.

We know they're not fairy tales. We know they're not fake. They're real things. Decisions that people have made. And we can learn from them.

But more than anything, I hope that we learn today that truth is only found by posturing ourselves in your will, Lord. And your purpose for our life. And for some people here today, maybe they have not postured themselves. Maybe they have not surrendered themselves to Jesus today. Maybe they're almost there.

Maybe they're walking for Jesus, but not in Jesus. Maybe some people here today have never heard the name of Jesus or never even given thought to walking this life of true identity today. Jesus Christ, Father, gave his son so that you could come home. That you could come home today. So if that's you today and you're ready to come home, you're ready to be a part of the family of God, you're ready to sit at the table with a true father, a father, a good father who loves you and gave his son for you.

Believe that today. Father, in the name of Jesus, I believe that you are the son of God. Lord, you died off for my sins. You are a good God. You are a good God because you gave your son for me.

Jesus, come into my life. Come into my heart today. Holy Spirit, come into my heart and live. So that I can be free. Because true freedom isn't doing what I want to do, but it's surrendering to God and his freedom.

So I give my life today to you, Lord. I surrender all. All my hurts, all my pains, all my aches, all my lost identity. I surrender to you today. Give me true identity today because I'm surrendering it to you.

In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen. Amen.