Unholy Ambition

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Don Filcek; 2 Samuel 15:1-12 Unholy Ambition

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You're listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsak is preaching from his series,
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The Warrior Poet King, Study of Second Samuel. Let's listen in. I'm Don Filsak.
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I'm the lead pastor here, and welcome. I'm glad that you're all here. I hope that we have gathered together this morning to grow in our faith.
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I hope that that's the reason that you're here. I recognize that the coffee's pretty good, but it's not that good.
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You could have slept in. The donut holes are great, but you can run to Sweetwaters and get those on your own. What we've gathered for this morning is to connect with God in community, to connect with God in the presence of others.
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He has built us, church. He has built us as individuals for that purpose.
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Even the introverts here, you need others. How many of you would just identify and say,
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I'm an introvert? Well, you're not going to raise your hand if you're an introvert, right? You're probably like, ha ha. Some people next to others are raising their hand for them.
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You're the extroverts, right? We all need community. We need to look around ourselves and see that we're not alone in this fight.
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We have struggles throughout the week to maintain a relationship with God, to stay close to Him. The world out there is not drawing us any closer to God, right?
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How many of you know that you've got coworkers that are challenging you at every turn? You've got neighbors that are challenging you at every turn.
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You've got media that's challenging you at every turn to walk away from Christ. And we need the gathering of people, maybe more so now in a season like this than ever.
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We are meant to gather together in a local community of faith. And we grow in our faith through hearing from God, hearing from His Word, believing what it says, and then going out and walking and living according to His Word.
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This morning, the text of God's Word is going to shine a light on an American cultural value, something that I think we value in our culture.
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And I don't know if you realize this, but there are things that we value as a culture that are not good.
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There are things our culture has adopted that ought to be scrapped. Sure, as Christians, we can easily point to the clear moral decline in our culture and point out recently shifting values in those other people out there.
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But I would encourage us all to open our minds and hearts this morning to God's Word during our time together of hearing from Him.
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Ask God in the quiet of your own heart if maybe there is a little something inside you that God wants to correct through the hearing of His Word today.
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You see, God's Word is an equal opportunity offender. It slices and cuts in both directions like a two -edged sword.
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The subject we're going to be addressing this morning in our text kind of flows out of our text.
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You're not going to see the word there, but I think you're going to understand when I read it exactly what I'm talking about, and the word is ambition.
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The challenge of ambition. What does ambition look like in the life of a believer? What role ought it to play in the life of a follower of Christ?
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We will see that Absalom has plenty of ambition and plenty of initiative in our text. And I would suggest to you this morning that the seeds of ambition are sown within the church through books and songs and messages and podcasts, and they will tell you that you are very, very special.
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You are called to greatness, and you are called for great things. Any of you would testify that you've heard that message?
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Have you heard that from books? Have you heard that from podcasts? Have you heard that from messages? You're a snowflake, and you are so unique that you are meant to just do amazing and glorious things.
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As a matter of fact, the majority of you are better than average. Right? Isn't that what we're taught, is that all of us are above average?
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You were not meant for ordinary things. You were not meant for ordinary life, is the message of so many preachers, so many messages, so many authors.
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And in our Christian culture in the West, we are enticed to achieve with strong ambition, without a warning in sight.
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Without a warning in sight, as if ambition is a unmitigated good thing.
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God most often uses, in Scripture, faithful people doing ordinary things.
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Doing ordinary things. We can think back to the beginning of the life of David. We can go back into 1
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Samuel. I preached through 1 Samuel in 2018, picking up 2 Samuel now.
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And when we go back there, what role do we see ambition playing in David's rise to the throne of the kingdom?
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We see him slaying a giant, right? We see all these great things, and we see him going to the prophet's door, knocking on Samuel's door, saying,
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I was made for greatness. I'm a giant slayer. Crown me now.
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Put the king on my head. I deserve the throne. Is that what we see in the life of David? No, of course not.
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What we see in the life of David is, he's out one evening, in the fields, watching the sheep like normal.
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That's what he did every night. When a guy comes running up over the hill and says, David, David, David, I'm going to spell you for a minute.
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I'll watch the sheep. You run home and run fast, because the prophet Samuel is there waiting for you.
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The whole family is gathered, and he's sent specifically for you.
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Get back there. David hoofs it back home, and that night, he has anointed king over Israel.
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What role did ambition play in that? He's doing what he does, and he's doing it faithfully.
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How many of you think that all of those nights spent out there, among those sheep, felt ordinary? Anybody? Routine life?
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Not so great, not so fun, but just faithfully doing what he was called to do. This message is here to warn us, to warn us, about the prevalence of unholy ambition.
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The prevalence of unholy ambition. Let's open our devices, or your Bibles, or your scripture journals, to 2
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Samuel 15, verses 1 -12. Again, it's 2 Samuel 15, 1 -12. Remember that if you open the
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Recast app, click on the faith tab on the bottom. You can find sermon notes there, and the
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Bible will open up right for you, and there's a place to take notes there as well. But let's please follow along.
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In 2 Samuel 15, 1 -12, we have the privilege of reading God's word together, church. It's awesome that we get this chance.
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After this, Absalom got himself a chariot and horses and 50 men to run before him. And Absalom used to rise early and stand beside the way of the gate.
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And when any man had a dispute to come before the king for judgment, Absalom would call to him and say,
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From what city are you? And when he said, Your servant is from such and such a tribe in Israel, Absalom would say to him,
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See, your claims are good and right, but there is no man designated by the king to hear you.
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Then Absalom would say, Oh, that I were judge in the land. Then every man with a dispute or cause might come to me, and I would give him justice.
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And whenever a man came near to pay homage to him, he would put out his hand and take hold of him and kiss him.
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Thus Absalom did to all of Israel who came to the king for judgment. So Absalom stole the hearts of the men of Israel.
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And at the end of four years, Absalom said to the king, Please let me go and pay my vow, which I have vowed to the
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Lord in Hebron. For your servant vowed a vow while I lived at Gesher in Aram, saying, If the
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Lord will indeed bring me back to Jerusalem, then I will offer worship to the Lord. The king said to him, Go in peace.
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So he arose and he went to Hebron. But Absalom sent secret messengers throughout all the tribes of Israel, saying,
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As soon as you hear the trumpet, the sound of the trumpet, then say, Absalom is king at Hebron. With Absalom went 200 men from Jerusalem who were invited guests, and they went in their innocence and knew nothing.
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And while Absalom was offering the sacrifices, he sent for Ahithophel the Gilanite, David's counselor from his city,
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Gilo. And the conspiracy grew strong, and the people of Absalom kept increasing.
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Let's pray. Father, I ask that you would meet us here in this place.
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I recognize that there are all kinds of people here, and probably factored down into two primary categories of those who are very ambitious, are very strong -willed, are seeking greatness, and are setting goals and seeking things to achieve.
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And then there are those who need to be motivated. There are those who need a holy ambition. There are those who need to be fueled to recognize that you are calling us to live our lives for you.
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And so, Father, I pray that you would help us to understand that balance in our own hearts, to hear exactly what you desire to communicate to us here in the gathering of your people, that no one would walk away from this with just merely more information and the ability to fill out a little answer or quiz on this passage, but that you would press on each heart that you desire to change us as a result of hearing this.
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Father, I pray that you would help us to not buy into the world's messaging around us, not the
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American messaging around us, but your word being the message that transforms and changes us, that we live and move and breathe your word, and that your word would not return void.
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Father, I thank you for the opportunity we have now to sing praises to you. We rejoice in the salvation that we have in common in Jesus Christ, that the very basis of our unity, the very basis of our gathering is centered on the cross, is centered on the sacrifice that was made for us.
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Father, I pray that you would receive our praise now in this gathering, unified together under the cross.
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And we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. There's an interesting phenomenon surrounding the word ambition.
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So, how many of you, just being honest, I'm not trying to set you up, how many of you would say that you recognize that ambition is a positive, you would believe that ambition is a positive word in our culture?
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It is. It is. I think that that's an accurate statement. It is a positive word.
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Now, it's a word that would have appeared 500 years ago. We have lists of vices written by the church, and it would have appeared on lists of vices.
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That is bad things, in case you're confused over that word. Ambition was a bad word 500 years ago.
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So, there's a phenomenon about the shift where I ask you guys to raise your hand, and you go, no, that's a good word. 500 years ago, everybody would have raised their hand and said, bad.
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Ambition, down. Now we say, ambition, good. And there's a shift that's changed.
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Ambition drives people to achieve greatness, does it not? Ambition starts businesses. Ambition takes the gospel to remote places, does it not?
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Ambition can plant churches. Ambition gets stuff done, right?
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It does. But let me clarify that ambition is not the same thing as hard work.
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There's different words that we ought to use to describe different things. Ambition is defined this way, as I studied it and kind of researched it a little bit this week.
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This is a good definition of ambition. A strong desire to accomplish or achieve something, usually requiring hard work and determination.
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Let me say that again. A strong desire to accomplish or achieve something, usually requiring hard work and determination.
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There's a dude named Alexis de Tocqueville. He was a French aristocrat and diplomat who came over and was sent by the
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French government to the fledgling United States to observe American life. And he traveled around America with the sole purpose of reporting back to the
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French government what is America like. He wrote a lot, took extensive notes, and so we have in his writings a pretty good understanding of what early
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America looked like, at least to a French man. The American, he says this. Here's a quote from Alexis de
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Tocqueville. The American will describe as noble and estimable. Now, we're using old words, but good and valuable.
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The American will describe as good and valuable ambition. That our medieval ancestors would have called base cupidity.
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Now, you get it, right? Cupidity. Not a word that we use regularly. It just simply means greed. I don't know why
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I didn't just say greed. So the American will describe as good and valuable ambition. That our medieval ancestors would have called base greed.
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They would have defined the way that we describe ambition as greed. Now, we call it noble and valuable.
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Useful. In ancient times, ambition was perceived as self -promoting greed. Today, it is the grease that keeps the engine of industry running.
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But I want to be clear here at the start that we are seeing in our text an example of unholy ambition.
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The Apostle Paul did indeed speak of making it his ambition. He uses the word ambition.
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He says, I make it my ambition to take the gospel to places where Christ has not yet been named.
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We see within Paul a holy ambition. We are going to see within Absalom an unholy ambition.
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And it is very vital, church, that we understand the distinction between these two things.
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Paul had an ambition. Not all ambition is bad. But more needs to be said about this later. And this message, if you get one thing out of it, it is a stern and severe caution about our own ambitions.
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A stern and severe caution about our own ambitions. Absalom, kind of catch us up to where we're at in the text.
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Ambition. Absalom, ambition. Absalom was restored to the kingdom after five years of being forbidden to enter the king's presence, his dad's presence,
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King David. Absalom is King David's son. Further, he is David's oldest son, making him the crown prince.
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The throne is going to be Absalom's one day if he just sits back, plays it cool, and chills and doesn't offend anybody or do anything wrong.
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He gets the kingdom. He is the next in line. You need to understand that as the foundation of everything that we read here in these first 12 verses of chapter 15 of 2
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Samuel. He is in line for the kingdom. All he needs to do is be patient.
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But waiting is not for men of strong ambition. Absalom had been exiled for murder.
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He had been restored to a good standing by King David, undeserved by the grace of the king.
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Restored at the end of chapter 14. And we might like to think that this restoration would be enough for him.
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He went from deserving death, deserving the death penalty, to being welcomed back into the king's presence.
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He is still a murderer, albeit a forgiven murderer. And so what
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I'm going to point out is in this text, we're going to see four evidences of an unholy ambition in the life of Absalom.
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These are good for us to take on and consider. The first evidence of unholy ambition is unholy ambition glorifies self.
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An unholy ambition glorifies self. We see that in verse 1. Verse 1 tells us the first thing that the dashing, young, ambitious Absalom went out and did.
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His daddy has just pardoned him of murder. And by a kiss in his royal presence, welcomed him back into the family.
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Welcomed him back into all that it meant to be a crown prince in that society, in that kingdom.
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He is, by the king, been unilaterally restored and returned to the social standing that he thought he deserved.
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And that really a son of the king deserves. So he went out and he bought a limo and he hired his own motorcade.
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First step, first step, get your limo. So that whenever Absalom rolled the streets of Jerusalem, everybody took notice of his new wheels.
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This is not unintentional, folks. He was royal and he wanted the attention due the royal family to rest on him.
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He didn't want to leave any question in anyone's mind that he was a man of high and noble standing.
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This chariot with 50 men running before him is not merely a display of wealth, though it is.
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It's not merely a display of wealth, but it is also equally at least a display of power.
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He wants everybody to know how mighty and how powerful he is. By the way, just to clarify, this is the way that kings rolled.
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This is not the way that princes usually rolled. This is the way that kings rolled down the streets of Jerusalem.
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And he is play -acting the role of king in advance. Play -acting the role of king in advance.
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So we see first that Absalom's ambition led him to flaunt his position. Unholy ambition has a strong desire to accomplish or achieve something that primarily benefits the self.
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Primarily benefits the self. It has self -glorification at its center. In contrast, a holy ambition seeks to glorify
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God first. Like Paul who says, I want Christ named in places he wasn't named.
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What is Paul's motivation made up of? What is his ambition made up of?
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What makes it a holy ambition? That Christ's name would be honored among people who do not yet know that name.
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Well, the second evidence of an unholy ambition. It's not just that an unholy ambition glorifies self, but the second thing is that it manipulates others.
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We see this in a larger chunk of the text, verses 2 through 6. Absalom would set his alarm early in the morning because that's what ambition does.
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Ambition, the early bird gets the worm. I don't know who's into worms, but it's not worth setting my alarm for early.
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Ambition often gets up early, right? And he gets up and he drives his super sweet chariot out into the road leading up to the city gates.
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The text indicates that he's setting up his shop before you get to the city gates.
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On the road that goes up to the gates. Why? Well, the city gate is the place where the king would come down out of his palace.
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And he would go sit in the city gate. A gate within, so there's gates.
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You're outside the city. Big set of gates in front of you. You walk in there. You're in a massive courtyard, maybe two, three times the size of this room, with another set of gates on the far side of the courtyard to get into the city.
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This is extra protection. The king comes down in there and sits on one edge with his entourage and all the nobility and his counselors and advisors and, of course, a bodyguard.
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And he stands there and throughout the day will listen to people's cases. That's where court was.
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This is the courthouse of the ancient culture. And so the king would go down there and judge disputes between the people.
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So -and -so moved my property boundary and he's claiming that he owns ten more feet of land or his donkey ran over my corn or something.
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I don't know. This was the royal court for Israel. So people would be coming into town early to get in line for what amounts to a first -come, first -served court time.
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They didn't get a court date. They enrolled that way. You get there first, the king hears you.
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If you get there 15th, he might not get to you today. It depends on what all the cases were. And we even have Jesus telling a parable about a lady who came every single day and bugged the judge until finally he's like,
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Okay, get that woman up here because she's annoying me. But Absalom set up his shop before the court.
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So whenever a man was walking along the road to get up to the city gate, Absalom would call him over, schmooze him, ask him,
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Where are you from, bro? And he would listen to his case. The goal of this stranger was to come before the king and that was all surrounded with a pomp and circumstance of the presence of the king and the city gate.
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But in Absalom, every plaintiff found a compassionate, understanding, sympathetic ear.
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Everyone was heard by Absalom. He was willing to just listen and commiserate and understand.
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And in verse 3, we get the idea that Absalom never found an unjust complaint. He never found a plaintiff he disagreed with.
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Just felt for them all. Everything out of his mouth to the people was,
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Your claim is good and just. You have good grounds for your complaint. I think we don't need to stretch far from this text in our understanding to see that Absalom is manipulating the people.
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And at the end of verse 3, we see how Absalom sowed seeds of distrust in his father, the king, and in his judicial decisions.
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It's too bad the king hasn't assigned someone to hear more cases. It's implied that it's a waste of time to go up to the city gate.
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He's not going to hear you today anyways. He doesn't have that much time. David would be too busy to hear you today.
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And he hasn't been smart enough to incorporate a better system by which I could also be a judge.
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He's not that bright. Absalom is not so subtly casting doubt in his father,
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David, the king, in his wisdom and in his leadership. And in verse 4, he further endears himself to the commoners by interjecting an emotional commiseration.
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The translation of the word, oh, there is important. Oh. That's an emotional, like, when somebody comes to you and says, my mom just died, and you're like, oh man, are you serious?
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What's oh mean there? What does it mean when you say, oh? That's what
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Absalom's saying here to the people. Oh man, dude, I'm with you.
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I'm with you in this. Oh, that I were a judge in the land. I could solve your problem. I could help you.
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But oh man, I can't because my hands are tied. I've not been given that role yet. I'm not a judge.
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But if I were judge, you would be taken care of. You can bet on that. You can be sure that if I was raised up and I was in power, all of your problems would be solved.
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Now, what does that sound like to you? Anybody get any postcards in the mail recently? Are we getting a little into politics here?
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Does this sound like everybody's campaign? You put me in this role, and it's going to go great for you?
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It's going to be like all icing with sprinkles on top. If I'm your representative, if I'm your governor, if I'm this, if I'm that, this is a political campaign that Absalom is waging here against his own father.
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If only I were president, then your gas prices would be taken care of. If I were your referee, then you would get a fair game.
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If I were the boss, then it would be fun to work here. Ambition will often employ manipulation because the end goal of ambition is the thing desired.
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Remember that ambition is defined as a strong desire to accomplish or achieve something. The thing desired is the thing at the center.
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From this standpoint, God is... You're going to get through this message, and I'm fairly down on ambition.
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I think there's very rarely a time that you've used a holy ambition, and I'm going to be direct with that. I believe that God is rarely the center of any of our ambitions.
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Something else is most often the object of our ambition, a raise, a new house, a high title, a number of followers, and the motives behind it are often quite self -centered.
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Anybody know what I'm talking about? If we really mind down in our own hearts and we deeply look into our own motivations, what's really there?
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A little bit more of a life of ease, a little bit more in the bank account, a little bit better standing in our business, a little bit higher, more followers, more people looking at our pics, more whatever it is.
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Something else is often the object of ambition other than God. I say rarely because we have to leave room for what
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I talked about earlier. The apostle Paul's brand of ambition does indeed have the goal of Christ being named in places that he was not named.
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That is a holy ambition, that God would be lifted up, that his benefit, his blessing, his glory is the thing that is the culmination of whatever it is that I'm pursuing.
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That's a holy ambition. Do you hear that? That's a different thing altogether. I'm getting some blank stares.
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How many of you are getting it? Some of us. Okay. God the center, holy ambition.
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God the object, holy ambition. Anything else, unholy ambition.
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Full stop. That's what I'm saying. You can choose to disagree with me. I might get some emails on this one and you might go, but ambition is amazing because we're
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Americans. We can talk through that, but you've got to wrestle with this text and see what's happening here in the heart of Absalom and tell me why your heart's different.
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Tell me why you're different than Absalom. Why you're made out of something different than him. I say rarely, there is room for that.
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Some ambition is God -oriented. Let me throw this at you for a minute. I like this illustration, this comparison.
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I think ambition is like anger. How many of you know that there's such a thing as a holy anger? There is a righteous anger.
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Jesus was angry. Did he ever sin? Never. So there is such a thing as a righteous anger.
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Raise your hand if you're in agreement with me on that. There is such a thing as a righteous or a holy anger. And I'm suggesting to you that there's also something that's like a righteous and a holy ambition.
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There's a holy version of it. But it is unlikely that you've stumbled into the good version of it.
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Most ambition sets something as a goal that has nothing to do with the glory of God. I have to be cautious with my own assessment of what makes me angry.
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How many of you know what I'm talking about when I liken this to anger? It's very rare that I've ever, if ever, expressed a holy and a righteous anger.
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My expressions of anger are usually selfish and childish at best. I have to be cautious with my own assessment of my anger.
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I have to be very cautious with assessing my own use of ambition.
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I would suggest to you that I've rarely had a holy ambition in my life. My expressions of ambition are just when
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I really analyze my motivations and what's going on in my heart, which can be really difficult to do and take some time. Often it's greedy.
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Often it's self -inflating. And it leads often to manipulating others to get to that end goal.
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Absalom paints a better future under his administration to everybody, manipulating them.
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I will give justice for every man with a dispute, he says in verse 4. And in verse 5 we see another form of manipulation.
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By riding around Jerusalem in the sweet limo and the motorcade, it sets the stage for verse 5. Without that, verse 5 doesn't make as much sense.
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But it is the fact that Absalom presents himself as a big shot publicly that makes his approachable, personal, and compassionate response to commoners effective.
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The fact that he boosts himself so high in the public standing makes it a big deal when he gives a hug.
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Here comes the powerful son of the king, Absalom. Everybody bow. Everybody pay homage.
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But then the hand of the king reaches out and lifts them up, giving them a big hug and a kiss on the cheek and saying,
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No, no, no, you guys, you guys, I'm not that. I'm here with you. I'm one of you, man.
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As he steps out of his limo. Absalom was a shrewd politician, shaking hands and kissing babies.
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Regardless of intent or flattery, Absalom would receive all. He was glad for whoever would pay him any attention.
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Of course, I suggest to you that someone sitting on the throne cannot kiss every hand. Someone sitting in true judgment cannot kiss every hand.
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It is easier to lead from the armchair is what I'm getting at. It's easier to drive from the back seat. Anybody here?
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Easier to drive from the back seat? It's always easier to call the game when you're not wearing the striped shirt. Anybody?
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That's the easy spot to call. From the cheap seats, man, you can shout all day, Man, that was a foul!
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Are you kidding me? How can you not see that? Get down in the game. Get the striped shirt on and tell me how easy it is to make those calls in a moment and be respectful.
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When the real position and real authority is given, that's when the tough decisions begin.
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But Absalom has the benefit of pretending to be in charge without any of the real tough responsibility and the tough adjudication.
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I think all of us in the room at some point have thought, I would run it better. I would run it better, whatever it is.
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I would ref it better. I would be better at president than this guy. Why do we think that?
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Well, it's because we have the benefit of not being under the pressure of that role. That's why we have the benefit of thinking that way.
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Ambition quite often manipulates people, church. It will often result in us using people to achieve the thing because the thing is the object strongly desired.
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Everything else either helps us or is just in the way people included. And so they become a tool to accomplish our ambition.
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So the result of the manipulation is found in verse 6. Absalom, it says, duped the people of Israel.
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Duped, what does that mean? The phrase stole the hearts is a literal translation from the Hebrew and it does not mean the thing that you think it means.
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The reason is that in English we use the word heart different than they used it in the ancient Hebrew language.
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The word heart for us is primarily an emotional word, a feeling word. When somebody gets your heart, what does that mean?
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You love them, right? Isn't that what it means? If you give your heart to somebody, what are you giving? Your love, your affection, your feelings, your emotions, all of that stuff.
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That's not what the word heart means in the Hebrew language. The Hebrew language uses heart as a metaphor for the entire internal workings of a person.
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All that you are inside is heart. So when he stole the heart, he's stealing mind, will, all of it.
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He's pulled the wool over his eyes is what the text is getting at. Over their eyes. They don't even necessarily love him per se.
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I think some probably did. But that's not what the text is saying. The text isn't saying he stole their hearts and now they love him.
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But no, he's pulled the wool over their eyes. And verse 6 is saying that Israel was captured by his manipulation and Israel is increasingly under his sway.
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Increasingly under his sway. The third thing that we see that's an evidence of an unholy ambition is that unholy ambition is in a hurry.
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It's in a hurry. Verses 7 through 10. For many of us, we may be tempted to ask, how long is too long to wait for the fulfillment of a dream?
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I mean, as Americans, how long are you willing to wait for a dream to realize? In a world where the average stay for a youth pastor is 18 months and the average stay for a lead pastor is less than 4 years, 3 .6,
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we have many spiritual examples of what it looks like to get antsy. A year is a long time.
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Would you guys agree with me on that? It's getting smaller as it becomes a smaller percentage of my lifespan, right?
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Like a year is a really long time to an 18 -year -old. A year is not as long to a 50 -year -old.
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But it's still a long time. And so do you think it's unfair to call Absalom out for declaring himself king after 4 years of waiting?
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That guy's been waiting. He's been waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting for 4 whole years.
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Come on, Dad, die so I can be king. My wife was in a car accident a couple of winters ago at the roundabout heading south towards, coming out of the roundabout towards the
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Shell station, heading towards church. She was coming out of the second one. It was wintertime.
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There were piles of snow everywhere. A 16 -year -old girl pulled out of the Shell station, smack dab in front of her. It was like a one, two, pull out, bam, done.
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We were out of the car for a month. It wasn't a super fun time. I doubt it was fun for the girl either. But the first words out of her mouth when they got out of the car to assess, make sure everybody's okay and everything, she says,
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I've been waiting for like 5 minutes. I've been waiting for like 5 minutes.
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So I just went. Okay, all right. I hope she's not in the room. But it's kind of embarrassing.
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We don't even know who she was. So it could be. But it's like, are you kidding me? You were waiting for 5 minutes and you just got in an accident?
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Just ram somebody. I'm just going to pull out because it's time to go, right? Like, I mean, but I can hear something of that kind of impatience echoed in Absalom's ambition, can you?
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I've been waiting for Dad to die so I could get his throne for like 4 years. I'd like to think that God could, rather,
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I'd like to think that we could wait a little longer than 4 years to get a kingdom. That's a pretty big deal to get a throne.
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I'd like to think that we could be patient on that one. It's coming to him. That's as I said at the beginning. Absalom's going to be king if he just plays it cool.
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Consider the opposite of Absalom. His father, David, in his youth, waited for well over 20 years before he obtained the crown he was promised in his youth, anointed by the prophet
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Samuel. Further 20 years before, 20 plus years, before he comes into the crown of Israel.
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David spent all of his 20s, some of his teens probably, all of his 20s and most of his 30s waiting to receive the kingdom he was already promised.
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But his son Absalom is impatient after 4 years. And so he makes a plot because unholy ambition always has a plan.
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He gets King David to allow him to go to Hebron, fulfill a vow he claims to have made while still back in Gesher.
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And I wonder about this because he has been in Jerusalem now for 6 full years without fulfilling this vow that he made.
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Something smells a little fishy here. I don't know if this was a true vow or if he's just making it up, but it's kind of like, bro, you've been in Jerusalem restored 6 years and you haven't made good on this promise that you told
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God I'll make some sacrifices if you restore me. But he claims he's going there to worship.
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By the way, Hebron is where he was born. That's where probably all of his childhood friends are and those that he rolled with when he was younger.
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He claims to be going there to worship, which also would have involved making some sacrifices that we see at the last verse of our text.
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It's unclear why he has to go there to make the sacrifices and is trying to convince his dad, but he convinced his dad to let him go.
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And in verse 9, we get David's ironic words of blessing to his son. I'm sure you can go, go in peace.
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Absalom is going to Hebron to start an insurrection against his father, and his father says those ironic, funny words.
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I'm sure, go in peace. Absalom may indeed leave in peace, but he certainly is not going to return in peace.
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In a couple of chapters. And a little sidebar on verse 9 that I noticed about the season of David's life, and I think it's worth mentioning.
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In his 20s and 30s, we have recorded the life of David. We have a lot of his life. There's a lot recorded for us.
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As a matter of fact, I would suggest to you that David is one of the guys we know the best from Scripture because we see his psalms where he wrote from his heart.
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We see the internal life of David. In the music that he wrote and the words that he wrote, we see what's going on in there.
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And then we also see a lot of the external things that he's doing in 1st and 2nd Samuel. But when he was young, we see said of him all over at every turn, almost every chapter early on in his life, we see the phrase, when he's early in the kingdom,
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David inquired of the Lord. David inquired of the
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Lord. It's starkly absent. Read his life. If you just read 1st and 2nd
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Samuel in one sitting, it would glare to you that this is gone, something that's completely fallen off the table.
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He does not inquire of the Lord. This is completely absent. He sends Tamar to Amnon without seeking the
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Lord. Tamar is violated. He sends Amnon to the sheep shearing festival with Absalom without seeking the Lord. Absalom murders his brother
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Amnon. And here he sends Absalom to Hebron without seeking the Lord, and Absalom starts a revolution.
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And the thing here isn't that God's going to tell you every little nuance and protect you from every little thing that might go wrong in your life if you just be quiet and listen to him.
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David's seeking the Lord was often through the priesthood. We see him at one point define what that looked like, was to bring forth the
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Urim and the Thummim, this Old Testament concept of seeking the will of the Lord. I believe that that's what he was doing back then.
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He has forsaken that practice now. And so the sidebar just reminds me as the years roll on ever faster, as we continue to age and we continue to grow, keep seeking wisdom from God through prayer and through his word, the means that he has given to us to figure out the way he wants us to roll.
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Don't rest on the vibrancy of faith that we had in our youth. Don't rest on our laurels.
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Keep stoking the fire of relationship with our God. There is still more to learn. There is still more leaning on him that he desires of each and every one of us.
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At the core of Absalom's ambitious, impatient plot is revealed in verse 10. Absalom has his men all throughout the tribes of Israel.
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They will blow the herald's trumpet and in unison shout that Absalom is king in Hebron. And by doing so,
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Absalom is doing something amazing. He's getting local buy -in because it would be local people shouting that they support
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Absalom's kingdom. Unlike our struggle with fake news, the ones declaring this news would be local people who were influenced by secret messengers.
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And that leads into the last point, the last evidence of an unholy ambition is that it's secretive.
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It's not communicated. It's secretive. It's under the currents. You're not sharing with others what you're aiming for.
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Verses 11 and 12, that kind of wraps it up. Not only does Absalom dispatch secret messengers, secret messengers throughout the 12 tribes, but he also invites 200 presumably powerful men to come with him from Jerusalem to Hebron to make these sacrifices.
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That's all they think. Verse 11 makes it clear. They're innocent. They're unsuspecting. They don't know what's going on. They were not in on the conspiracy, but Absalom has shrewdly entrapped them now, these 200 who's who of Jerusalem.
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They're now in it because they are there in the entourage when he's declared the new king there. How could they extricate themselves from this plot?
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How could they withdraw and say, no, no, no, I wasn't really in on it. I really didn't know. No, they're there present, and they look like they traveled there with him for that purpose.
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They would be assumed to be co -conspirators in this coup against David. Absalom is sneaky.
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He's conniving. He's secretive. Absalom brought along Ahithophel, again in secret, who was
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David's top advisor to participate in the ceremony at Hebron. And Absalom has declared himself king over his father
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David. And his ambition has birthed a full -blown conspiracy to take over the throne. And those on the side of Absalom are increasing, the text ends with this morning.
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And David is in a world of trouble just like the prophet Nathan told him he would be. This is all fulfilling a prophecy.
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One of the consequences of his sin spoken of by the prophet is found in 2 Samuel 12, verse 11.
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The first half of that verse says, That's what's happening.
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That's coming to pass. David is living in a season of dire consequences of his sin of adultery.
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His household is in shambles. And now his son has set his unholy ambition against his throne.
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You can come back next week to hear the next episode of David's life is really screwed up. But let's camp out on what should prove to be informative and most likely corrective for many of us.
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Applying narrative passages, I admit, can be tricky. Are we meant to adopt the Puritan's view of ambition and see in Absalom an example of how all ambition is wrong?
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I don't think so. Are we to relegate the word to a list of vices that are not becoming of a follower of Jesus?
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Is there a certain amount of ambition that's okay? Or maybe there's a magic line when you get too much ambition and then it's sinful.
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No, it's about the object of your ambition. I think just like all things
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God has created, there are good uses and there are bad uses. But I do believe that this passage exists to give us a serious caution about the way that an unholy ambition can control and capture a life.
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I hope that every person in this room has some form of holy ambition. I hope that there is indeed something that you strongly desire that will require determination and hard work to bring glory to God.
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But let me suggest to you the following questions to steer us toward a holy and God -honoring ambition. These are cautionary questions in application.
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The first question I want us all to ask ourselves is, am I concerned, am I most concerned for the glory of God?
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Am I most concerned for the glory of God? This will season and flavor the things that you desire.
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Do you recognize that? Probably less leaning towards the super sweet car. Probably less leaning towards the 4 ,000 square foot house or whatever it might be.
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Or, you know, a place down in Mexico or whatever it might be. Probably not so much that, right?
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If God's glory is the center of your desire, then you are on the right track to a holy ambition. But be careful and honest because we all know we can deceive ourselves, right?
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You know your motives are tricky. You know they slide sideways on you super fast. Of course, you know, you can hear the voices, right?
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Of course I'm shooting for the top spot at the company because I'm super awesome. I mean, God's super awesome.
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And it's just like my God to give me good things. Just like my Father to recognize how awesome
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He's made me. How really good and skilled I am because of Him. Because of Him, right?
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Be introspective about why you desire what you desire, church. Do you hear the call? Be thoughtful.
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Be honest. Is it to make a name for yourself or to make a name for God? Remember Paul's ambition to see the glory of the name of Jesus spread where it had not yet been named.
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Glorifying Jesus. That's his holy ambition. He says, this is what I'm shooting for in my life. That Jesus would be named in my community.
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And that His name would be lifted up, not in his community. That's not what Paul said, but maybe it would be for you. Maybe that would be a great ambition.
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A great ambition that somebody in your neighborhood, somebody in your workplace, somebody in your family gives glory to God more next year than this year because you are in their life.
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Would that be a holy ambition? That's the kind of thing we ought to be targeting. That's the kind of thing, yeah, shoot for that.
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Work hard towards that because you are seeking to glorify God. That's a good ambition.
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The second question is, am I content? This is really fundamental to the understanding of ambition.
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Because often an unholy ambition comes out of discontent. I'm not happy with this. I was made for so much better than this ordinariness of my everyday.
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I was made for greatness. God, these circumstances and these situations are just holding me down from the potential you know you've made me for.
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This drives to the heart of the Alexis de Tocqueville quote from earlier about ambition really being baptized greed.
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Ask yourself, can I be thankful if what I'm working for never comes to pass? And more to the point, are you currently living a life of gratitude before God?
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Because thanklessness will always skew ambition toward unholiness.
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Thanklessness, a life of ingratitude will always skew your ambitions toward unholiness.
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Being in a place of satisfaction in God is the best launching point for a holy ambition.
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Are you content with God and what he has given to you already? The third question is, am
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I manipulating others? Obviously a telltale sign of unholy ambition is utilizing others to realize your dreams.
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A holy ambition will also attract others. So don't get the impression that just because others join in and then you're manipulating them or something like that.
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Look at the life of Paul. How many joined him in his missionary ambitions? But only you know your heart toward others.
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Are you using people to achieve your goals? A holy ambition loves others.
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It never merely uses others. Again, that takes an internal look at how am
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I interacting with others around me, surrounding what I believe God is calling me to do. The last and final thing, am
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I in a rush? Am I in a hurry? Ambition has a tendency, I would say unholy ambition has a tendency to create urgency.
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Where the fruit of the Spirit is patience. Fruit of the
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Spirit is patience. In this sense, a holy ambition is content to wait on God's timing. One of the reasons
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I would say that most of what passes as ambition in our current culture is the bad kind, is because we would define an ambitious person in terms of how quickly they get stuff done.
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Holy ambition acknowledges that I am not in control of the timing. God raised up David to the throne at the proper time.
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And David waited despite having opportunities to give God a nudge. He had opportunities to actually slay the previous king and say, well look,
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God gave him into my hands so I took the throne from him, but he chose not to. Another biblical illustration,
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Abraham is not commended for ambitiously seeking the promised child. God promised you're going to have many children.
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He had none. He was really old. And so he sought the promised child through offspring with Hagar. Not commended for that.
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Not like, wow, way to take the bull by the horns. Way to be really ambitious in this and get stuff done.
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That's not it. A sign of a holy ambition is a patience that is okay with God's timing.
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And let's end this service with one final and significant observation that leads to my final caution about ambition.
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Ambition plays absolutely zero part of your salvation.
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Ambition has no role in your salvation. We come to communion empty of ambition.
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Emptied of hard work. Emptied of determination. At the end of ourselves, emptied of a get it done mentality.
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We must come to the tables of communion with empty hands and nothing more than a grateful heart for what he's done for us.
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Not with promises to do for him. It's a straightforward remembrance of what has been done for us.
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If Jesus Christ has saved you, and that means that you came to realize your sin against God, and you believe that Jesus took on himself the penalty for that sin on the cross, and you now want to follow him and let him call the shots, if that's true of you, then
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I encourage you to come to communion to remember what he did. And I pray that communion this week might serve as a vehicle of humility to all of us.
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Everyone who stands up and goes to these tables is on an equal playing field. We stand up and go to the tables to testify that we are all the same.
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We have journeyed here from the same exact identical status. All of us beggars for crumbs of grace at the table of the king.
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That's us. That's what I know about you when you get up and get in line. It's a glorious truth.
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We're all the same here, church. He will use us. He will deploy us this week.
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Amen? He's got things for us to accomplish this week, and he will instill in us a holy ambition for his honor and for his glory, but that ambition will be oriented around making his name great.
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Let's pray. Father, I thank you so much for your word that cautions us, that's faithful to bring these stories from the
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Old Testament into our lives to clarify for us the easy slide into sinful things, like an unholy ambition that would lead us to forsake your glory for our own.
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So, Father, I pray that you know every heart here. You know who needs to be kicked in the pants and needs to rise up to a holy ambition towards the things that you desire of them to accomplish for your glory and for your great name.
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I think you also know where in our own hearts, and it could be the same identical person who needs correction in both directions, you know where we have adopted our own glory, where we are setting forth a plan and a plot to make our name great, to make our 401K awesome, to make our retirement on the links 24 -7, to make everything for us.
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I see the seeds of that in my own heart, and I know that is at least in seed form, if not flourishing in all of our hearts.
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And so, Father, I pray that you would help to war against that with your truth, to make it our single ambition as a church to see you lifted high and raised up, starting with this communion, starting with this opportunity that we have to come before you with empty hands and grateful hearts for the great and glorious salvation that you have given to us.
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And thank you for that unifying factor that we all are terrible to a person, we are all sinful and corrupt and broken, and redeemed by your love at the cross.
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So, Father, I pray that you would press on each heart exactly what you desire to communicate to us this morning. In Jesus' name, amen.