The King Returns to Jerusalem

Hi, this is Pastor Daniel Bracken. You're listening to Kings Alaska Podcast. I hope the Word encourages you and you get a touch from God that brings transformation and equips you to experience life with people, power and purpose. Thank you for joining us. Enjoy the Word, and I want you to take your Bibles and turn to second Samuel, chapter 19 and 20.

While you're turning there, Pastor Kirsten, would you give us a little infomercial, please, on the King School of Ministry? There's an interest meeting that's just ahead. And the King School of Ministry has been so powerfully used to raise up leaders here at King's. Would you tell us a little bit about that? Right.

So if you got some questions about KSM or you want to know some more information, on August 16th, I'll be doing a walkthrough of what it is, what the commitment looks like, what our goals are, and to say it short, it's to position us for greater service in the Kingdom of God. Whether your ministry is in the marketplace or neighborhood or in a church setting, a life group setting. If you want to be more fruitful and effective in preaching, teaching, leading, growing in the Kingdom of God. And KSM is for you. I'll be out there after service.

I'd love to answer any questions you might have or give you an idea of what KSM is about. And this is the month to sign up. Now, many of our staff have been graduates of many ksm. Many of our pastors and ministers, many of our leaders around the United States and in other nations and internationally, so have been through the KSM program. Good.

So you be a part of that. Thanks, PK. Praise the Lord. Again, take your Bible, 2nd Samuel, chapter 19 and chapter 20. We will not be reading the whole thing.

The life of David is something that's profoundly impacted me, the study of his life. There's more verses written about David than any other Old Testament character. And as it's been on this incredible journey, it's impacted me in my leadership, it's impacted my walk with God. I. I so enjoy the fact that David is called a man after God's own. Man after God's own.

What heart. Yet he committed adultery and he was responsible for the murder of 80 priests. He had some. Some horrible failures. And unfortunately, and fortunately, the Spirit has placed this moment in David's life where he fails, but he gets a hold of himself.

And there's much to be said from these two chapters, but I'm going to hone in on this one section here. Second Samuel chapter 19, in fact. Go stand upon your feet. Second Samuel, chapter 18, verse 33, the final verse. There's been civil war.

Let me give you a background and then we'll read it. There's been civil war. I mean David, David, still reaping the the effects of his adultery.

Absalom has risen and gathered many to himself through his charisma and his incredible hair. You heard me right, which ended up killing himself. His vanity of his hair as he's hung by a tree. And he died, basically, he was killed. And this is a terrible, painful verse of Scripture we're going to read 2nd Samuel 18, verse 33.

Then we'll go to. How many of you know there was no chapters in the Scripture? We give numbers to it so we can find it. Then we'll go to 2nd Samuel 19, verse 1 through 4. Let's read the word then.

The king was deeply moved and he went up to the chamber over the gate and he wept and he went. And he said thus. O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom. If only I had died in your place, oh my son, my son. And Joab was told, behold, the king is weeping.

This is 2nd Samuel 19, verse 1. The king is weeping and mourning for Absalom. So the victory that day was turned into mourning for all the people. But the people heard it said that day that the king was grieved for all his son. Verse 3.

And the people stole back, I want you to say that. And the people stole back into the city that day as people who were ashamed to steal away when they flee battle. But the king covered his face and he cried out with a loud voice, oh my son Absalom. Oh Absalom, my son, my son. Let's pray.

Father, thank you for this moment in David's life that we can all glean and learn from and for this incredible series that has been so life changing. Move in power in Jesus name. Amen. You may be seated.

So the fact that David, a man after God's own heart, failed so horribly and yet he still identified as a man after God's own heart is encouraging to me, and it should be encouraging to you because we all have a tendency to fall short. In fact, the book of Romans says we all fall short of the glory of God. Everyone has fallen short and yet we can still be a man of God, a woman of God after God's own heart. David failed, but he's still identified by God himself as a man after God's own heart. So what is it that Defines someone who has a heart after God.

It's not that you're walking perfect, although we're to be perfect because he's perfect. We're supposed to live in holiness, purity, certainly. But in the course of life, when you go through things that you maybe fail at, maybe. Maybe you blow it.

David constantly brought his heart back to God. Constantly brought his heart back to the Lord. Make sure that you never get. If you stumble or you fall or you blow it, get up. There's hope for every single person.

Now, I would suggest you plan on not doing that. I've planned on not doing that. I have no plans on backsliding. How about you? If you have a plan on backsliding, you already did.

I have no plan on turning my heart from God. And I don't think people actually plan it that way. It starts slow, you know, if you knew you're gonna have a blowout on the highway. You know how many trailers I saw on the side of the road? Skip can tell you why.

Because people don't pack their bearings and their wheels just rattle and come off. They should have done their bearings. I'm gonna help you do your bearings tonight. Lift your hands to Jesus, say, oh, God, grease my bearings.

Oh, I've been traumatized by that, although it's never happened to me because I had this Alaskan when I first came here, gave me a trailer, a school and trailering. We loaded his trailer and we went off on some expedition. He pulls over a mile down. He said, every time you're trailing everything, you pull over. After a mile or two, pull over.

I said, really? He said, yeah, check everything. Walk it through. Check your hubs, see if there's any heat. You should have packed your bearings before.

Maybe you should grease your bearings before. But I mean, you check things. Because if your bearings are hot to the touch, after you've driven 20 or so miles, you stop for gas, you check stuff. Some of you need to check your undercarriage.

There is a civil war that takes place here in this text. And this is David failure. But he. He has a come apart. But he.

But he brings it together. It's David's leadership after the civil war.

So David had left Jerusalem and now he's brought back to Jerusalem. Here in chapter 19, chapter 20. There's a civil war. There was a war. And Absalom is.

Is. Was anointed as the next king. But it was not God's will and it was not ordained by David. And it was kind of. Well, it wasn't kind of.

It was it was usurping, took it and he got the hearts of the people. And now, now Absalom's dead. And as he's dead, David mourns. So, I mean, I, I have lost a child, Pastor Karen and I lost a child.

And the grief of losing a child, and it was, it was a newborn, was, was difficult, is nothing like losing a child who's full grown or. I don't think any parent should have to bury their child. That's a horrible thing. Come on, somebody saved me. And maybe you're grieving and I pray for you to be comforted tonight.

But the sorrow that overcomes David and you see the wrong and right way to carry the heart of God in a crisis. And this is a crisis, but the crisis is over concerning the nation. But it's not for David. You see, Absalom's now dead of the civil war has been, is quelled. And now peace is going to be restored to Israel.

And David, the man after God's own heart, who has the promise of the Messiah coming through his lineage, is restored as a king. But he's not excited. He's grieving and he's crying so much so. And we read it in the text, he's crying so much so that it says in verse three, look at verse three. And the people stole back into the city that day as people who were ashamed because of the grief of David.

He's wailing. And because he's wailing, people aren't celebrating the fact that they won. David is oblivious to the fact that had they lost, David would be dead, everyone in the city would be dead, all of his advisors would be dead. And he's oblivious also to the fact that it's not just Absalom that died, it's to families that put their sons to war. Everyone had dead, everyone was grieving.

But there was a victory for Israel that day and he could not see it. And as a result of his grief, his excessive grief, his lack of awareness of his role of his sorrow and how that came, brought sorrow on the whole nation. Do you know that the way that you live, the way that you walk, the way that you talk, the way that you carry the challenges and trials and difficulties can release sorrow, can release shame, can release things on people that you're leading. Did you know that that next Sunday, that Sunday after we lost our child, Karen was still in the hospital And I went to church. I went to church and I was a broken man, went to church.

And I remember not really worshiping much. I remember sitting in the same place that I always sat. And I said, lord, I. I do not understand. And I just felt like the Lord said, worship me anyway. So I said, okay, now, I didn't have goosebumps.

I didn't feel like lifting my voice. I didn't feel like lifting my hands. I didn't feel like doing any of that. And that's what the scriptures call a sacrifice of praise. And if you've never learned that, you're going to learn it one day.

There's times where you. Well, I don't know. There could be. Every morning you come to morning, Sunday morning, you feel like you didn't get your coffee right. And the cafe messed it up.

Maybe. I mean, I don't know.

I had a coffee recently. I felt like I was drinking bile.

Horrible.

So I threw it out and got another one. Listen, if you've gone through. If you've gone through difficulty, rejoice anyway, and God will strengthen you and God will help you. David loses it and doesn't realize the impact of his leadership on the nation, so much so that they've won. But nobody's.

Nobody's excited because the king is grieving.

David's publicly wailing. I mean, he has a come apart. And I understand that for me, that that day as I began to worship, I began to weep. And I used to spin a lot when I worshiped. The spirit of God had come on me and I would spin.

Rejoice is actually the word. Rejoice is to spin. Rejoicing. I. I spin. Occasionally.

You see me spinning. I'm getting very touched by God. I don't know. It's like, then nobody else could be in the room. It doesn't matter.

It's just me and Jesus. I'm spinning. I'm loving God. It's just one of those things I do. Occasionally.

I run also.

You might call it jogging. Now I've got incredible stories of running around the building. You say, do you actually run around? Yeah, I've run around the building. I'll romp.

Sure, I'll run again. I've got cowboy boots on today. I don't think I'll be running right now. There's moments of exuberant praise. And so I just began to worship.

And I just gave God my everything. And I started spinning and worshiping. I was weeping. God touched me. It's amazing.

Sometimes we look for God to touch us. And when we give a sacrifice of praise, you can enter on in and all. All of this worries and concerns and the cares fall off. Come on he cares for you. Cast your cares upon him, for he cares for you.

David. David's not doing that. Where is the one thing I will seek after, Guy? Where is the hide me in the tabernacle, guy? Psalm 27.

He's weeping, he's mourning, he's grieving, and grief is real. That morning, as I worshiped, I'll never forget Pastor Kamau coming up to me and saying, I know you're going to be okay after going through that. I said, yeah. He said, you know how I know you're going to be okay? I said, no.

He said, the way you're worshiping right now, you worship like that, you're going to be okay through anything. I'm like, well, amen. David has had to come apart. It brought shame. It's like a corporate defilement that comes.

It's a defilement that comes because of his grief. He's so preoccupied with his personal pain, you know, and grief is real. But as a leader and as. As a king, David had to put it aside. And there's times when you're leading your family, you're leading your business, you're leading perhaps a church, in this case the nation.

There's times where you just have to put it aside.

David had to turn his mourning into rejoicing. He's rebuked by. He's rebuked by his leader, Joab. Verse five. Then Joab came into the house.

Look at verse five. We didn't read it, but we'll read it now. And Joab came into the house and said to the king, today you've disgraced all your servants, who today have saved your lives, the lives of your sons and your daughters, your wives, and the lives of your concubines, and that you love your enemies and hate your friends. You have declared today. Got a little bit of a ring if you could work on that for me.

Not the one on my finger, the one in my ear. All right, thank you. Appreciate you.

For you've declared today that you regard neither princes nor servants. For today I perceive that if Absalom had lived and all of us had died today, then you would have been. Plea it would have pleased you well. Verse 7. Now, therefore, arise and go out and speak comfort to your servants, or I swear by the Lord, if you do not go out, not one will stay with you this night, and it will be worse for you than all the evil that has befallen you from youth till now.

Now, I was talking to Dr. David, and we were discussing this passage a Little bit. And I said to him, and I've said it to others, and if I didn't say it to you, I just didn't say it to you yet. You. But God gives people to you, Dr. David. I appreciate you, Pastor Kirsten.

I deeply appreciate you, Pastor. Pastor Tim. And there's many others I could go and name. I could, you know, name maybe 50 here. So glad to have my lifetime friends there.

The Ostermillers said you didn't know them their whole life. You only know them, like, 30 years. Yeah, but I was dead before that.

Love and appreciate you. We're close. We bear one of those burdens. And as such, I'm so thankful to have somebody that loves me enough, that'll tell me, hey, you're having a problem. You need to check yourself.

You need to grease your bearings, bro. Come on, pump your neighbor and say, grease your bearings. Who do you have like that? Joab said to him, he prophesied, if you don't get a hold of your bitterness, you don't get a hold of your sorrow, you don't get a hold of this national defilement you're bringing, you won't even have a kingdom. I mean, he lights him up.

His son just died. I mean, where's the compassion? He literally prophesied that if you don't change things, you're not even going to have a kingdom. And I'm going to tell you this tonight. Some of you need to change your attitude, because if you don't, you will not fulfill what God called you to do.

You feel like you're alone? Maybe you are. You know, years ago, we had somebody say to me, you know, pastor, nobody wants to come to my group. I'm like, no kidding?

Hand on the hip. Nobody wants to come to my group. I said, well, I understand that. How about you need to put people in my group? I said, I'm not putting people in your group.

This particular person was from the east coast, so we related really well, because I'm from the east coast, born in New York, said, you need to put somebody in my group. I said, I'm not putting people in your group. Said, I've had people come, but they don't stay. I said, why do you think that is? I don't know.

I said, how many friends do you have? I said, I'm gonna love you here. I'm gonna help you. How many friends you have? I have.

I have a few. I said, okay. Do they stick around? Well, no. I said, you know why?

Why? I said, because that you're kind of mean and you're. You're not very kind. I mean, who would want to spend time with you like that? I've already hurt your feel.

I let her. I let her have it. I let her have it. Somebody. I'm trying to let you have it.

By the Holy Ghost, I, I don't know the inside of everything that you're going through, but the Lord wants to speak to you, to check your undercarriage, to check your bearings, because you might be overwhelmed in a particular area filled with grief and filled with sorrow. And you're bringing it on your whole family. And it's like a wet blanket over everything you say. Well, I'm grieving. I understand that there's a right way to grieve and there's a white way to respond.

And I don't belittle your grief. But David, David was respons. Listen, if you're leading your family as a, as a father, maybe you're a single mother, you're leading your family as parents, you're leading a group, you're leading a company, you're leading. The 360 degree leader is leading all the way around you. Everybody's leading.

Everybody has influence. Lead with a way that doesn't bring defilement on people. Through your bad attitude and through your grief. And I've had times, I've had times where I. I just couldn't shake it off.

Anybody know what I'm talking about? That is real. That is. That is life.

David failed to respond rightly to their. I mean, extravagant. Everybody had someone that died. They were at war.

So is David's son more important? Well, he is the king. Okay. I mean, you could say that. But I mean, is his son more important than your son?

Everyone had lost someone. People had died. There's grief and sorrow and David can't see it because he's so overwhelmed. And I really think it's like a demonic assignment. There's a time and a place to express personal grief and sorrow.

Absolutely. And then get up, get up and move ahead in the plan.

I haven't really had a lot of occasions to apply it. Grief in my own life. Both of my parents were alive. Thank God. Thank God.

I'm very grateful your dad died. When we first got here, Karen was. Many people know he died. We grieved. He died at 60 years old.

And we've said it before. He. He constantly declared that he wasn't going to live past 60. And that's exactly right. You know, you create the.

He creates the fruit of your lips. And he had some horrible, debilitating disease, his lungs. And we were there in the hospital with him, and we were there when they took him off the breathing machine. He had one of his lungs blow out. And it was the end.

And we're there with sue, who was our first life group leader, Sue Sundom. And we were there and turned the machine off, and whole atmosphere of the room changed.

It was like the Lord came in and it was like, whoa. And then we just went like, he went to heaven. Like we knew he went to heaven. And, oh, it was sorrow. We've adopted on our life, we've adopted the Hebrew understanding of grief.

One year. One year. You've heard me say it many, many times before one year. You allow yourself to grieve for one year, and after that, you have to generally put it off and move on. You're not supposed to wear black your whole life and grieve and sorrow your whole life.

Let it go and move forward. In this case, that's not a year for David because his grief and the sorrow had to be tempered because he's leading a nation.

20,000 people or so, they saved killed because of absin.

David's excessive grief and sorrow and his. His come apart, causing him to neglect his responsibility as a leader and not acknowledge the death of others brought this potential wipeout of the nation. There are moments in leadership where you need to think beyond yourself.

In fact, leadership is thinking beyond yourself. Joab understood the power of grief and sorrow and disappointment and bitterness to affect the whole nation. He said, if you don't snap out of it, bro, you ain't even going to have a nation. Thank God for the joabs. Do you have a Joab?

Do you have. Do you have somebody. We hold it, we say it this way. Do you have somebody who holds your shut up card? Do you have someone who can say, hey, you've got a booger.

You got a bat in the cave, bro. Bat in the cave. You know what a bat in the cave is? Raise your hand if you know what a bat in the cave is. Okay?

Someone who will tell you spiritually, you need to grease your bearings and you know what people are going through because out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks, the jokes that they tell, way that they live. If you're. If you have relationship with somebody. That's why those of you on the Internet, I'm glad you're on the Internet, but there will never just be Internet church because I can't see the bat in your cave. Right now, you got to.

You got to know people. It's relationship fellowship. Koinonia cannot be had through a camera. See, because you can turn me off if I just get a little bit irritating right now. You can just go, scroll away, but you can't scroll away from.

From Joab, who's all up in your grill saying, hey, David, get a grip, or you're. You. Do you wish we were all dead? I mean, he's. What a light up.

He's talking to the king. He could lose his head himself. If the king just got really lost and said, hey, kill him. That would be it. He'd be over.

But Joab gets in his face. You have somebody like that. I've got a group of people like that. Sometimes I don't like them so much.

My wife is the number one corrector in my life. Of course, the Holy Spirit, but my wife as well. The civil war is over, and David is restored. And there's. There's much more to the text, but I'm going to leave it at that instead of go through 15 more pages, because I feel like that's what the Lord wants to do.

He wants you to be awakened. Worship team, please. He wants you to be awakened to the reality that the way that you handle your emotions is going to affect everybody around you.

And something, something Dr. David said as we were discussing the text on the back, he said, do you think it's because of perhaps his trauma and loss of his child? With Bathsheba and I, it was. It was so many years before that. I don't. I don't think so.

I just think it's this overwhelming grief and sorrow. He's reaping what he sowed. The prophetic word from Nathan, Thou art the man. The prophetic word from Nathan, rebuking him and exposing his adultery with Bathsheba is come to pass. And there's a whole lesson in that, which I preached in a previous message.

Your life is sowing and reaping. You will reap what you sow. And if you sow to the wind, you will reap the whirlwind. You will reap what you sow. Oh, my goodness.

I want to sow good seed into the ground. I want to be the kind of leader. Come on, raise your hand if that's you. I want to be the kind of leader. Leader that is not ruled by my emotions and ruled by my.

By my feelings, are ruled by my trauma or ruled by my sorrow or ruled by the things that the enemy wanted, would want me to pay Excessive attention to how am I feeling? How I'm feeling is often irrelevant.

Walking. I will. I'm gonna say it. I'm walking with Dr. Morocco. Years ago, I've told this story.

We had just purchased.

We had just purchased a large property on Oahu. We had no congregation. We had no ability to make it happen. It was a supermarket. He called all the pastors in.

We flew into Oahu, and we met in the deli section. So all of the pastors are there from around the islands. I think we had 12 churches back then. We met in the Daily Sec, in the. In the deli section.

I was one of the pastors. I think it was pastoring on Kauai or Molokai. I forget which one. We're standing there. And he says, okay, I want you to walk up and down the aisles and pray for this whole thing, because we now own it.

So go ahead, go pray. So we're all walking. The building pain was, this is a massive building payment. We had no congregation. It seemed like an absolute insane move.

So I start walking. I'm praying. My pastor, senior pastor, told me, I'm praying, Lord, thank you. Thank you for this place sanctified. So, and I look down the aisle, and there's Dr. Morocco all by himself.

He's about a quarter of the way down The. I don't know, down was a serial aisle.

And I think to myself, oh, I wonder what it's like to be him right now. And I thought, yeah, I'm going. Go walk next to my pastor. So I come up to him and he's walking. I said, hey, Doctor.

He said, yeah. I said, how you feeling? He said, that's irrelevant.

As he walks on. He said, that's irrelevant. We are. It's a quote from Star Trek. Our senior global pastor was a Trekkie.

He quotes Captain Kirk, James Tiberius, you know, he is. Okay. He quotes Captain Kirk and says, that's irrelevant. We are engaged.

And then I don't usually tell this story, but I heard Dr. Morocco just tell it recently. Then I said, can I pray with you? And he said, no, you can pray back there.

That's why I could pray. He says, no, you can pray behind me.

There's times as a leader, there's times as a father, as a mother, even as a child. You listen. You have to learn to control your emotions, and you have to learn to control your sorrow and your disappointment because there's people that are paying attention. And you might not understand. You might not understand why certain things took place.

And you might have responsibility in it, you might not, but you are responsible for ruling your own emotions. And if you constantly are yielding to how you feel, You're gonna end up in trouble. I don't live according to how I feel. I live by faith. I live according to the word.

I speak to my emotions and tell my emotions. In fact, you're not giving up. I see hope in the land of Shut up. No, you shut. No, you shut.

I. I'm in charge here. What? Yeah. In Jesus name. Why you got to talk to yourself?

Why so downcast? Oh, my soul. I don't understand it, but be quiet. Put your hope in God. Come on.

You need to talk to yourself. The psalmist did it. In this case, it's not David, because he's had a high speed come apart. And it's a joab saying, you're not even gonna have something to rule unless you grab yourself and get it together. And he's just like.

He comes out and celebrates the victory and God restores him as king. We all need to learn that. Lift your hands to Jesus. Oh, Lord. You know, feelings are indicators.

I don't like being triggered, but I love the fact that when I am triggered, it shows me that I got something to be healed of. And if you've been triggered, that's good. Get to the root of it and lay an ax to it. Pull it out. Fix your gaze upon him.

Renew your mind. Speak to your emotions. Move forward. Why? Because you're affecting everybody around you.

Don't be Johnny Rain Cloud.

Oh, God. You're going to hell. You were going to hell. I mean, seriously, what are you so upset about? Oh, and again, there is grief, there is sorrow.

It is real. But we need to temper that. And David did get a hold of himself and he was established again as the king, and he went on to fund the building of the temple. And there's so much more in these, but I felt to share that. Lift your hands to heaven.

Maybe you're grieving. Maybe you're filled with sorrow or pain or difficulty tonight. There's no shame in that. That's real. So what do you do?

You get prayer, and you cast your anxiety upon him. You cast all your burden upon him and you let him comfort you.

Well, I hope you were encouraged by God's word. Thank you again for listening to Kings Alaska podcast. God bless you. For more great content, go to kcalaska.com and may God's face shine upon you and give you peace.