The Community Church: Sermons and teaching

00:09
So we've been following David on his journey through life and learning about the kingdom of God as we go. And we've come to a bit of a sad place with him, haven't we? But he's gone through so many experiences. We've seen him as a little boy, a shepherd boy, with this amazing call of God. We've seen him fighting a giant.

00:36
We've seen him battling in the wilderness, learning to be a warrior. We've seen him as a king. We've seen him with great plans to build a temple. We've seen him sin. We've seen him fall. And now we've seen him, his life beginning to fall apart with his own family, his son rebelling against him.

01:06
And in this chapter that we come to, he's running for his life. It's a challenging time for him. And we're going to see what we can learn from this stage in his life. David wrote a psalm, Psalm 86. I think, it doesn't tell us when he wrote this, but I think he wrote it probably in the wilderness years.

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This is what he put.

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Teach me your way, Lord.

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that I may, some versions say, rely on your faithfulness, and others say that I may walk in your truth.

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Give me an undivided heart that I may fear your name. Or some versions say, unite my heart to fear thy name.

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Teach me thy way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth. Is that your heart? Are you after that? Teach me, God.

02:23
I want that to be true of me, that my walk, that my way, that the way I live my life is based on truth.

02:33
You probably have seen that sort of what they call click bait online that says you've been lied to. Click on this and you'll find out how, yeah? You click on that and you find out that there's more lies that you're reading.

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I want my life to be based on truth and the way to find that out, David says, is to listen to what God is saying. God created the universe. He of all people knows what truth is. Jesus said, am the way, the truth and the life. Everybody else has got opinions. Some of them can be true. Some of them can be off the mark. But if we want to be absolutely sure,

03:19
We need to go back to the person that created the universe and ask him for his view on life. His is the truth. So David says, teach me your way, Lord, that I may walk in your truth.

03:36
I like the way he says, unite my heart. Sounds a bit football-y, a bit Manchester United, yeah, a bit. Unite my heart. Yeah? Unite my heart. Give me an undivided heart. This morning, I want to talk about having an undivided heart.

04:00
We've got so many things that crush in on us to take our attention. Life, the media, everything that goes on around us presses in to grab your attention. You can't watch something on Prime Video without jolly adverts bursting on you at that one moment when they're about to shoot the baddie and bang.

04:29
advert for toothpaste or something things pushing in on you yeah to grab your attention

04:39
And David's cry is, me an undivided heart so that I can have a right relationship with God. And there is an enemy about making sure that you don't have an undivided heart, that you do have an undivided, sorry, that you have a divided heart, that you have got a load of stuff in your life that is going to distract you from being single-hearted.

05:07
Now, it's not that God wants me to have such a religious attitude of loving only God that I start forgetting about, say, loving my wife. That would be totally wrong, wouldn't it? But it's the idea that everything that I have is lined up to God and His kingdom. He comes first in my life and then everything else lines up. And when we look at David's life, he got off to such a great start. We look at...

05:37
the decisions that David was making, he's constantly going to God saying, God, what do you want me to do in this situation? He's brilliant at that. Right through we commend him for all those instances as a young man when he put God first. God says he's a man, a young man after my own heart. But later in life,

06:04
It starts slipping because things...

06:09
the glory of his kingdom, the fun of having loads of wives and concubines, perhaps the magnificence of having people coming and saying what a great king he is. They all start distracting him and other things start cluttering up his life. So I want to speak this morning about loyalty, but it's a little bit more than loyalty. It's about faithfulness, it's about commitment, it's about

06:39
The Bible uses the word covenant, which is a wonderful word, isn't it? Covenant. It's about a commitment to God that is total, which is what God wants from us. Yeah? And we're going to see in David's journey now. So, he's at the top of the Mount of Olives, which is where David Rayner left us last week. And we're going to watch him as he heads down the road.

07:09
Jericho, he's going from Jerusalem to Jericho, he's heading eastwards from Jerusalem and he's gonna have various encounters along the way and we're going to learn about loyalty from there. I don't really like the word loyalty. Loyalty might be used of football supporters. We got football supporters here? I presume we've got a few, yes? I'm a rubbish football supporter, you know. You know the problem?

07:39
is that I support the team that's losing. So when I was younger, I realized that I needed to support somebody because people always ask you, which team do you support? So I thought at the time that I rather liked Arsenal because they were losing all the time.

08:00
So I started supporting them, but then they started winning and that became a problem to me because I started supporting the other guys instead So that didn't work My wife supports does she not Liverpool yes, she has Ever since she came to this country, maybe from before I don't know 30 years ago

08:24
But I don't think she's, so she's a loyal supporter. She'd never slip over and start supporting a blue team for a weekend or something. But I don't think she's got a t-shirt. She's a loyal supporter, but you know, she doesn't really go to the matches much. She might keep an eye on the score. There's Christians like that, that are quite loyal.

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You know, they never give up on Jesus, but they don't go to the matches, and they certainly don't want to join the team. But God wants you and me to be playing the game 24-7, doesn't He? Fully committed in the match.

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Why should you, why should you throw your whole life into this?

09:21
I think very quickly there's five reasons. The first is that He is Lord of everything. One day, the Bible teaches, every one of us has got to stand before Him and give an account for your life. That's reason enough, I think, to make sure that I've spent my life so that I, you know, I'm going to have to give an account for everything. And I don't want that to be an awkward day for me.

09:52
But also, I owe it to Him. I owe it to God twice. m

10:00
because He made me first of all, He made every one of us, He formed you. The Bible says He created you in His, if you like, His imagination. He knew what you were going to be like before He made the world. Isn't that extraordinary? You were so important to Him that He made you, He designed you before He began thinking about what the world was going to be like.

10:27
You were that important, He loved you that much. That's extraordinary. He made the world as an afterthought because He made you first in His mind. He knew you were coming. And then the second thing about that is that He died for you because He could see that you were going to make such a mess of your life from the moment you were born that He sent Jesus to pay the penalty.

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to make sure that you didn't just go to a lost eternity, but that you were going to be forever with him. You had an opportunity, if you took it, to be his son or his daughter forever. So what a tragedy if you miss that.

11:19
Also, you were just made to be 100 % sold out for Jesus. That's what you were designed for. We see people in the world just going about their own stuff, and it's like driving with some of the wheels coming off, you know, because God made you. You're designed to be a servant of the living God, a child of the living God. Nothing's going to work right until you start doing...

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you know, what you were designed to do. uh So that's reason enough in itself. And frankly, living for Jesus 100 % is the most wonderful thing. Is it not guys? Yeah? Those of you who are in it, I wouldn't swap it for anything.

12:10
Okay, so we're going to watch as David walks down this road ah and it's about, it's going to be about 20 miles that he's going to walk but we're going to cover it in a very short amount of time. The first person he's going to meet on his walk is a guy named Zeba. ah So he sets off on his walk. When David had passed a little way beyond the summit of the Mount of Olives,

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He could look back and he could see Jerusalem in the distance there. Zeba, the servant of Methibesheath, met him with a couple of donkeys saddled bearing 200 loaves of bread, some raisins and a hundred sprints, some wine and da-da-da.

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And he said, why have you brought these? And Zebra says, well, it's to feed your guys and for your men to ride on. There's only two donkeys, so that's a bit unfair.

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Zebra should have been looking after a guy called Mephibosheth.

13:15
And it turns out that Zeba has left Mephibosheth in Jerusalem. It's a long story, you have to read it for yourselves. But basically, Zeba has come here and it looks like he's giving David a gift.

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But it's not. He's switching sides. He's trying to trick David. He's trying to trick David into thinking that he is loyal to David, but he's actually nicking some stuff that belongs to somebody else and giving it away. The king said to Zeba, all that belongs to Mephibosheth is now yours. And Zeba said, I pay homage. Let me

14:02
ever find favor in your sight my lord the king he's a fraud

14:11
We sometimes find this in churches, you sort of hear reports about people that, and organizations that just out to take money off you, and that's a sad thing. And it reminds me of just standing perhaps on the same spot on the Mount of Olives, just maybe just there of Judas betraying Jesus with a kiss, maybe at that same place. ah

14:40
not good. So the first lesson that I want to take from this is really that God doesn't want your stuff, even your gifts, your good deeds. He doesn't want you turning up at church with a couple of donkeys, yeah? m He wants your heart. At that point in David's life, he didn't need somebody turning up with stuff.

15:07
it would have been far more important for Ziba to come and honestly kneel before him and say, I'm your servant, I'll do whatever you want me to do.

15:19
God looks at your heart today. We've had tithes and offerings up there, but God's not so interested in what you give into the church or what you do in the church, but he wants your undivided heart. Yeah? So that's my first lesson from here.

15:41
When David came to Bahurim, that's a little bit further on, there came out a man of the family of the house of Saul, whose name was Shimei, the son of Gera. And as he came, he cursed continually and threw stones at David and at all the servants of King David, and all the people and all the mighty men were on his right hand and on his left. And Shimei said as he cursed,

16:09
Get out, get out, you man of blood, you worthless man. I think this is an extraordinary story. And the Lord has avenged you.

16:21
Then Abishai, this is reading from verse 9, the son of Zeruiah said to the king, why should this dead dog curse my lord the king? Let me go over and take off his head. But the king said, what have I to do with you, sons of Zeruiah? He is cursing because the lord has said to him, curse David. So this guy is throwing stones at the king.

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I suppose at least he's being honest in what he's doing.

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Honesty is important.

17:06
I it's...

17:11
What we see sometimes is that when we're down, when we're struggling with life, that's just at the point when other things start going wrong for us, isn't it? Have you found that? When you are down, the enemy picks that time to come and you encounter more trouble and somebody will come with a comment or something. Trouble seems to come in...

17:40
threes like buses.

17:48
I'm staggered at David's humility here. Some guy is up on the hillside at the side throwing rocks at him.

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And he just says, it's probably God punishing me for the mistakes I've made in my life.

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So we could learn some lessons about humility, we could learn some lessons about just clinging onto God in those times.

18:20
I do want us to pause a minute and just think about guilt because...

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I'm sorry for David in that I think he had repented, hadn't he? He had said sorry to God for the stuff that he had done, and yet the enemy, if you like, is still whizzing stones at him. And you know, when you're down and depressed about stuff, doesn't the enemy come and say, you're not worthy, you're, you know, doesn't he remind you of the bad stuff you've done?

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And yet, Jesus has paid the penalty for your sin, and when you confess your sin, He's, what does it say? He's faithful and just to forgive you your sin and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness.

19:26
So we need to be aware of the... the Bible describes the flaming darts of the enemy that come.

19:34
But I also think there's something here about watching our mouths and making sure that we're not the ones throwing stones at people. It's very easy to do and we should not. Don't ever throw stones at people. The Bible says, let love be your aim.

19:58
The third one, which David mentioned last week, so I'm just going to double back on that one because I don't want to miss out. This is the Gittite troop that is with David uh on either side of him, protecting him in front and behind. uh

20:25
They were from Gath and there were 600 of them.

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They were from, do remember from last week where they came from? The Gittites.

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No, David, they don't remember where the Gittites were from. From Gath. This troop of soldiers that were with David were from the same place that Goliath came from.

20:57
which is extraordinary. So David starts off his career, if you like, killing a giant from Gath. And here he is, looking like it's at the end of his career, and his bodyguard is made up of guys from that same town, 600 of them. Gath was known for raising fierce warriors and... uh

21:26
So he's got 600 of them as his personal bodyguard. It's possible that when David was sort of in the wilderness that they joined him then. But anyway, they're fiercely loyal to him. And I was wondering about this thinking, would I really be confident that those guys sort of behind me, if I was David, were fiercely loyal or likely to stick a spear in my behind?

21:57
Then I thought, that's a bit like us, isn't it? That you and me were in the kingdom of darkness. We were Philistines, if you like.

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And didn't God rescue us out of that? We were totally opposed to God, weren't we? And God picked us out of that and brought us to what's called the city of Zion. He put us in His place and wants us to be His warriors.

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I think that's wonderful that he did that for us. He wants us to be his troop, his bodyguards if you like, his army.

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He's promoted us to that. He trusts us. We're doing amazing work for His Kingdom.

23:01
David stopped the leader of the troop at the gates of Jerusalem and said, don't you guys go back to Gath because my reign is done. I've sort of had it. And their leader says these wonderful words, as surely as the Lord lives and as my Lord the King lives, wherever the Lord the King may be, whether it means life or death, there will your servant be.

23:32
That's a great thing to say. It reminds me of Ruth.

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Bible said the same kind of thing to Naomi, wherever you go, I'm going to go. That is loyalty. That's commitment to say that. So God is looking for us to say the same thing. Achieving the best in God, my key number three for loyalty is achieving the best in God requires being fully surrendered as a servant.

24:09
Okay, so they reach, it's 20 miles to Jordan and we leave them there by the Jordan. uh And the next guy on our list is Ahitafel and we read about him in 2 Samuel 16, 15. So Absalom enters Jerusalem and he has an

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an advisor who's come over to his side called a hitter fell.

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used to work for David.

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Ahitavel's an unpleasant kind of guy. He's extremely wise. He knows everything. In fact, it says that when he worked for David, David began to treat him as if his words were the very words of God. He's like an oracle, like he knows everything. It's a bit like the internet. You go there because it'll tell you everything about everything. A bit like AI. You trust it because you absolutely know it's telling you the truth, don't you?

25:26
We have to be so careful.

25:32
I think David started listening to Ahitafel rather than to God and that might be why he ended up in such a mess. And now Ahitafel has moved over to give advice to Absalom. Interestingly, I found out that Ahitafel is probably the grandfather of Bathsheba. Did you know that? And it's possible therefore that the advice that he gives Absalom

26:03
is twisted because Absalom is, because Ayatophel is actually planning to make Absalom fall as well so that he himself can take the throne.

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Anyway.

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He advises two things. The first thing, which David mentioned very briefly last week, he gives this command that his suggestion is that Absalom should first of all rape the ten concubines that David's left behind. A concubine is like a wife but doesn't have the uh legal rights to inheritance and so on.

26:55
And I was going to just skip past that, but there's something we can just learn from that. It's an awful thing. He suggested, why don't you set up a tent on your rooftop and sort of take possession of David's wives up there so that everybody can see that you've made a terrible example of how you absolutely hate your father and that will make them think that you're definitely the king now and there's no going back.

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which fulfilled incidentally a prophecy that had been given to David where he said earlier, chapter 12, I will take your wives, he said, David heard this from God, I will take your wives and give them to one who is close to you. Entirely fulfilled the prophecy.

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I just felt it right to say some stuff about this.

27:51
It's about loyalty.

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Sexual union is the most loyal thing that man and woman can do together, isn't it?

28:07
It's such an expression of a bond together that the Bible says the two become one in an intimate kind of way. It's an incredible, beautiful, wonderful thing that happens in a spiritual dimension. And the world, society says that it's just an animal instinct and it's good to be as free as you like about it. Put it about. Be free.

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self-expression and everything. But God says it's an incredible, special, wonderful thing and you've got to treat it like that.

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It's because it's such an intimate, beautiful, precious thing that when it goes wrong, when you mistreat it, there's so much jealousy and envy and anger and bitterness because we're busting up something that's happened deep inside. And that's why the enemy likes it so much, which is why, when godly people fall in that way, there's so much anger and...

29:23
hurt and upset. It's why of all the different sins that we can fall into, the enemy's most... he attacks most down that way than I think any other. It's so dangerous. So we have to be on our guard constantly about it. So we all need to watch out because otherwise we can end up, as it were, being...

29:50
on display in public like those poor concubines were.

29:58
I am, now that I'm retired, I'm beginning to do some painting. I've always had a bit of a gift for painting. And I paint in acrylics, so I wash my brushes in water, yeah? I have a glass of water by my paints. I also like to have a glass of lemonade to drink. You see this is going to be risky business. I try and put them sort of quite distant, but it's so easy.

30:29
to either dip the paintbrush in the lemonade or you take a big swig of the wrong water. You don't want to be doing that. You know, the tiniest little taint of paint in the wrong thing or, know, you know where I'm going with that. Don't taint the beauty with anything, It can be just a little slip. Praise God that when we do slip, we have...

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such a wonderful Savior and I can say this because I've slipped and I know that I can go to Him and He can somehow take that tainted water and make it pure again. That's an awesome thing that we can experience in God that we can have that. It can be pure again. What a thing to be able to have that. People in the world cannot get clean but when we come before our God

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we can be clean again. There may be people here this morning, you need to be clean again. You've got a jar that was pure once, but it's mucky and you need to get it sorted out.

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So my fourth key is loyalty requires holiness. It requires us to be pure. It's no use having an external, I'm totally committed to God, but underneath is gunk. Yeah? Good. That's that one. How are we doing for time? Nearly there.

32:13
Okay, there's a great story that I can't go into because there's not enough time, but David has left a spy in the camp, so he finds out what's going to happen with the enemy. So David moves his camp over the Jordan, a bit further north into the forests of Ephraim and Absalom.

32:40
might have attacked him and beaten him at the jords and delays and now we are pending a great battle in the forests of Ephraim.

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While David's up there uh camping, he gets visited by three great guys who are amazing friends of his who supply what he needs, all his food, they provide provisions, all that he needs for his army. So I think that is just a reminder of how important friends are. God just doesn't want me loyal on my own.

33:24
It's really important that we're a family together.

33:30
That's so important. It's important to me that I've got people standing with me. God never intended me to be a soldier, as it were, on my own. He's always working family together. It's really important. David could never have survived this on his own. He depended on people round about him. So, key number five, better together. There's great guys here, Shoby and a guy called Mac here.

33:58
and a guy called Basilei. What a great name, Basilei, uh which means man of iron. I want to be surrounded by men and women of iron. Yes, stand with me on the day of trouble. Hallelujah. We're a great community church, aren't we? It's great to be together when times are hard and we can have people praying with us, people standing with us, people strengthening us. I think that's really important.

34:29
Okay, there's a big battle then which you can read about in the next chapter. Good homework for you, chapters 17 and 18.

34:46
David only had about 3,000 men.

34:50
and absolons gathered about

34:56
well, 20,000 people died in this battle, so he must have had at least 20,000 people. It's a massive, massive force, and David's only got a few. But David's men are hardened SAS-type troops, these Gittites and a few others that have joined him as well. And they're in forested areas up in the hills, right? So it's guerrilla warfare. And I think Absalom is a young man.

35:25
His battle commander is also a young man and they were overconfident. They were charging into David's troops. David very wisely, I think, backs his troops into the forest. Absalom charges in confidently, overconfidently, and 20,000 of the enemy fall on that day.

35:55
David had given the command, don't hurt my son Absalom. Please don't hurt him. He's just worried about his son even despite everything.

36:09
Absalom is being terribly disloyal, course, betraying his own father.

36:17
Let's pick up the story. It's chapter 18.

36:25
going from verse 4

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to Samuel 18 and verse four.

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So the army went out into the field against Israel and the battle was fought in the forest of Ephraim. And the men of Israel were defeated there by the servants of David and the loss was great that day, 20,000 men. That's extraordinary, isn't it? The battle spread over the face of all the country and the forest devoured more people that day than the sword.

37:03
Absalom happened to meet the servants of David and Absalom was riding on his mule and the mule went under the thick branches of a great oak and his head or his hair caught fast in the oak and he was suspended between heaven and earth while the mule was under him, which was under him, went on. Gosh, what a way to go. He was left...

37:32
hanging by his hair from a tree. He had some head of hair. It says earlier on in the book of Samuel that uh he had so much hair that it was, he used to get it cut once a year and the cutting, the hair that was cut used to weigh two and a half kilograms. So that was some head of hair. So he had a lot of hair.

37:59
He was very proud of it. It says Absalom was extremely beautiful, handsome guy, flawless it says, and he knew it. He was very proud of his hair. And so it's kind of ironic, isn't it, that God kind of planned that he ends up hanging by his hair from the tree. Some versions of the Bible say head, hanging by his head.

38:29
but I think it's most likely it was just his hair got tangled up in the branches of this oak tree and he's left hanging there. so Joab comes along. Let's pick it up from a bit lower down.

38:47
ah So, yeah, Joab comes, verse 11, Joab said to the man who told him, you saw him and why did you not strike him to the ground? I would have been glad to give you ten pieces of silver and a belt. The man said to Joab, even if I felt in my head, in my hand the weight of silver, I would not reach out my hand against the king's son, because we were told not to. ah Down to verse 14, Joab said, I will not waste time with you.

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And he took three javelins in his hand and thrust them into the heart of Absalom while he was still alive in the oak. What a way to go. And that was the end of Absalom. What a sad death for the guy.

39:43
is left hanging there.

39:48
Obviously, the guy's not loyal, so we can just learn from that. Don't be like Absalom. But look, I just see here a parallel, a contrast for us between Absalom hanging on a tree and Jesus Christ. Yeah?

40:13
We quite often call the cross a tree, right? So, Absalom's hanging on a tree, and you've got Christ hanging on a tree. Absalom's hanging there by his own glory, if you like, because he thought he was great. He thought that he could rule the world. He thought he was better than his dad.

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Christ was hanging there because you thought you were great. You thought you could rule the world. You thought that you could do without God.

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But he wanted you to be his son, his daughter.

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So to rescue you from that blindness, He went to the cross for each one of you, and He hung there. The Bible says He emptied Himself of His glory. He was guarded, and He emptied Himself of that and took on the form of a servant. He became a servant to hang there for each one of us. What a contrast to this arrogant young man hanging there.

41:33
Absalom had three spears sticking in him

41:39
Son of God had three nails, didn't he? He took those for us.

41:53
Absalom was one son lost. David was gutted to have lost his son. Absolutely gutted.

42:04
does remind me of how much God the Father so wanted you in his family that he was prepared to send Jesus to the cross for it, to make each one of us his son, his daughter.

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God gave His one and only Son so that you could become a son or daughter of God.

42:36
So my final point really for all of this, there's a hymn that says, were the whole realm of nature mine.

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that were an offering far too small.

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so amazing, so divine, demands, how does it go? Demands my soul, my life, my all. You're to be single-hearted for Him. You're going to have one heart. You're going to give your life for Him. Make Him the number one, yes? Love nothing else more than Him.

43:23
Because he's the absolute best, Amen. uh