Yeah. So my name's Rob, and I'm a graduate of loving hands ministry. I spent a lot of my time at the Dade City campus. I've been here several times, and it's a blessing to be here. Pastor Nick is dear to me.

One thing about loving hands is not only does it have the tendency to catapult you into ministry, because you're basically at a two year Bible boot camp, which is almost. You learn more there than you learn at a ten year seminary. But I'm blessed to have several pastors. You know, I have a church that I attend and I'm on staff at, but there are several mentors that I've been blessed through, loving hands ministries. And Pastor Nick has always been gracious to me.

He's always been a good supporter of the ministry and even the aftercare of the men. He's always been able to disciple the men and speak into their lives. So it's an honor. When he asked me to come and fill in for him, I do believe they're big shoes to fill. And I'm going to go ahead and apologize ahead of time, okay?

Because I'm not Pastor Nick. But one thing that Pastor Nick has always said is he tries to inspire people to take this lens, this americanized, modern lens off. And when we read scripture, we want to try to look into scripture contextually and try to put ourselves in the story. And that's something about eight years ago, I heard him say, and that's something that I've really tried to approach the Bible with. But this morning I would like to talk about a very uncommon topic, and I think that most people are guilty of it.

And that's the topic of self preservation, or in layman's terms, just trying to fulfill our own needs, trying to fill that void that God has put in our hearts and in our lives and in our DNA to need him. And a lot of times we try to put other things in the place of that. When I read my Bible, I see myself in the stories, in the scripture, I see myself as a leader. I see myself as a husband, as a father. I see myself as a businessman.

And it's a blessing and a curse, because sometimes I just want to read my Bible. Sometimes I get the easiest translation and I just try to read. But I get so immersed in the story. And I was reading, there's actually a story that Christ, when he was walking this earth, he faced some, let's say, some political challenges. It's not any different than today than it was back then with we're in the information age, but the political divide and the social divide is something that Christ dealt with.

When God takes on flesh and he steps into people, and people hold God to their cultural standards, it's never a pretty situation. So I'm going to be in the book of Matthew in the 12th chapter, and it's Matthew, chapter twelve, verse one. And what's happening is I'm going to do a little backdrop here. This is second Temple Israel. They have come back from the exile.

Israel was exiled about 700 years prior, and they were exiled because they broke a peace treaty with Goddesse. You see, the book of deuteronomy was a peace treaty that God made with his people. If you do this, this will happen. If you don't do this, this will happen. Turns out that God was right.

He always is. So Israel was involved in idolatry and they forgot who their God was and they started to worship other gods and they were exiled into Babylon. And what happened was they rewrote the Bible. In those times, they all collectively got together and they rewrote their scripture. Because King Nebuchadnezzar, when he came and he pillaged Jerusalem, he burnt everything they had, he burnt their temple, he burnt their library.

So the Lord always finds a way to preserve his word. And then when they rewrote the word, they actually read it. And it's the first time they had read it in a long time. And they discovered everything they had done wrong. So this fraternity of people known as the Pharisees, they kind of rose up in this.

It's called the inter tentemestal period. It's the time between the Old Testament and the New Testament. And what they did was the rules and the regulations that God had placed. They thought that they were going to do a better job and they were going to add like an addendum to those rules, to the point where Christ, God himself, is in flesh and he's walking the earth and he's constantly met by these Pharisees, this fraternity that actually started off with a good purpose. They started off to preserve God's word.

They never wanted to be exiled again. They never wanted to be out of God's presence and God's will. So their meaning and their drive to do this came from a healthy place, from a good, righteous place. But just like humans do, when we can have something righteous, one generation can have something good, and we can have reformation, but slowly things creep and we hold on to traditions more than we hold on to actually, what God said, and Jesus actually referenced this to the pharisees, he says, you teach traditions of man as if it's God's word, and you place your thumb on people and you do nothing to relieve it. You do nothing to actually help the people and shepherd them and follow these precepts.

So Christ is living a perfect life. He's walking the earth, he's healing people. And people are starting to that the rumors going around that he's the Messiah. The people in those times, they were waiting for a seal, a sword wielding, King David type messiah that was going to come back. He was going to take out the roman government, he was going to take out all foreign governments that opposed Israel, and he was going to set Israel up on the top, and they were going to rule the world, and it was going to be God on earth.

They had this idea and this concept of what the Messiah should look like. And Jesus completely wrecked their theology and wrecked their doctrine. Because when Jesus is walking, it turns out that God, when God doesn't line up with the way they wanted him to, they try to kill him and rebel against him. So they're constantly meeting Christ. They're constantly meeting him with opposition.

It's no different than when you look at the news today. You see any president for the last 25 years being constantly questioned, and you get a sound bit. You only get a clip of what they actually say. They say this, but they shorten the sound bit to this to actually like, did you hear what the president? The Bible says there's nothing new under the sun.

But I believe that all scripture, Paul said to Timothy that all scripture is profitable. It's profitable for correction, doctrine and instruction, and righteousness. So I get into these stories, and my Bible nerd Pastor Nick Lyn's thing starts happening, and I read, and I can't help but put myself in these stories. So we're in Matthew, Matthew Twelve, and it's verse one. And at the time, Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath, and his disciples were hungry, and they began to pluck heads of grain to eat.

But when the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath. He said to them, have you not read what David did? So let me actually stop halfway there. The law, the prescription for the Sabbath given in the Torah from God was that you just take the day off from your normal work and you make this day holy. Okay?

It wasn't. There was no heavy definitions. It was just basically, God rested on the 7th day. You do this on the 7th day. And actually, the purpose that God gave the Sabbath for was an evangelical opportunity.

Because in the ancient world, people would work seven days a week. It's not like today where we just get the day off. We get to go to the grocery store. For them to eat, for them to survive, ancient cultures would have to work seven days a week. As a matter of fact, the Romans looked down upon the Israelites and thought they were lazy because they didn't understand why they took Saturday off.

They took the Sabbath off. And God even put addendums in there. He said, hey, if your ox, Jesus says, hey, even if an ox falls on the hole in the Sabbath, don't we pull it out? Are we going to throw God's blessing and throw our livelihood away over a rule? So they're coming to Jesus.

What they had done is they had make the Sabbath walk. You can't have a handkerchief in your pocket. You can't go upstairs. You can't walk a certain amount of distance. They were so scared to be exiled back to Babylon.

They were so scared to be removed from God's presence that they put their own little laws in there. So Jesus is walking through a field and he's hungry. And he's hungry because he's doing God's work. He's walking through the Sabbath, healing people. He's actually on his way to go heal a guy with a withered hand.

God's work. It's God in the flesh, healing people. And the Pharisees see him and they always take the opportunity to confront him. So they're walking by, they take these grains of, this husk of grain, and they just take a little bit of seed. They're eating raw oatmeal.

They're not enjoying themselves. They're not sitting down and having a barbecue. They're literally eating the last thing you want to eat. So the Pharisees come to him and say, hey, it's the Sabbath. You're harvesting grain, is what they say.

Harvesting grain. They're literally just walking by and eating instant oatmeal packets raw with no milk. Actually, their own punishment was there. That's not something you want to eat on a missionary journey. So David references Jesus, references David because there was nobody held to higher regard in those times than King David.

When they look back on the times of King David, it was the golden age, you know, they, they actually expected Jesus to be just like David. And what Jesus does, because he was the ultimate teacher and he is the word of God, is he goes to the word of God and he references a story about David and they're accusing him of basically self preservation. Hey, you're, so you're going to break the rules of the Sabbath? You're going to break our rules because you're hungry. They've come to him, they've called him a glutton, they've called him a drunk, they've thrown everything they can at Jesus.

And Jesus references this story. He says, well, haven't you, have you not read what David did when he was hungry and those who were with him, how he entered into the house of God and he ate the bread of the presence, which was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests. So I'm sure you've heard that story, you've read this part of a passage of scripture. But unlike the modern church, unlike myself, unlike most people, these people were aware of their history. You know, as a young boy, even the most basic young person, by twelve years old, was able to recite the first five books of Moses back to you by memory.

Okay? They were experts in their Bible. So when I read this story, it's like, oh yeah, David walked in somewhere and ate some bread he wasn't supposed to. But there's actually a huge backstory and it's in one Samuel. Hopefully I haven't lost my place.

It's in one Samuel, chapter 21. And the backstory on this is David is anointed to be the king of Israel and King Saul is the king at this time. And it's actually very similar to what's going on in modern day society. It's time for him to retiree. Okay, Saul.

Saul's going crazy. Can I make a Biden joke? Is it? Yeah. Okay, I heard enough laughs that, that's my yes.

So Saul, Saul is being tormented with what the Bible says. The Lord allowed an evil spirit to torment Saul. Saul has not done a good job as king and it's time for him to step off the throne. And God has raising up David to be the next kingdom. Saul's losing it, he's beating Medicare, he's going crazy and he's actually trying to.

There's assassination attempt on David. Saul has several times tried to kill David and hasn't even hit him in the ear. Not even the ear has been nicked. But David has a promise from God and David is a righteous mandehethere. But David finds himself on the run and David is on his way to actually to the church.

See, the priesthood at this time was separated. Jesus references this time that they considered the golden age. But Jesus is pointing off things in this story that we don't normally catch. Unfortunately, you're going to have to hear me teach a little bit this morning. I'm a teacher.

I do preach. There are preaching concepts in my speaking, but I'm a teacher, and I think that when we unfold the Bible and we really break this thing down, there's a lot of things in there. So David's on his way to nob. He runs to the priesthood. That's what we do sometimes.

The only place we have to go is the church. The only place we know to go sometimes is the church. And that's what David does. He's on the run from Saul.

He's got no resources. He shows up at nob, which is where the tabernacle is set up. And not the full tabernacle. There's pieces missing. The ark of the covenant is somewhere else, and the tent is set up in nob.

And that's where they're doing the animal sacrifice. And that's where the presence of the bread is. There's twelve loaves of bread that the priest, every Sabbath, they would replace this bread, and it was twelve pieces of bread to symbolize that God is our provision. God preserves us. He gives us the bread.

Each loaf of bread represented the twelve tribes of Israel. So David has no food, he has no weapons, and he shows up to the priest at nob. And now, mind you, this is a priesthood that is actually not supposed to be the priest. Unfortunately, I have to go into another Bible story and back up a little bit. In the Torah, what happened was Aaron had four sons and his oldest son was supposed to be the priest, the high priest, and Aaron's two oldest sons.

The first day the tabernacle opens, it's like the chamber of commerce is there and they're doing the ribbon cutting, and it's God's temple's here. His presence is coming to live. We're opening the church. It's a big event. There's bounce houses and water slides and everybody is really.

I mean, it's opening day, and nadab and Abihu, the first thing they do is break the rules that God set forth. And they bring strange fire. They burn the incense the wrong way and God strikes them dead. So that leaves Aaron. Aaron has two sons left, and that is phineas, or that's Eliezer and Ithamar.

So there's a point where they're out in the desert and the Israelites start to assimilate with the Midianites. And they start to get involved in pagan worship. And Phinehas, Eleazar's Aaron's grandson, ends up killing one of the Israelites who's with a Midianite in his tent. And the Bible says that that day he stopped the curse. There was a curse on the people, and Phinehas stopped the curse.

And God rewarded Phineas with the priesthood. He says, you are going to be the high priest. The high priest is going to come from Your line. So we fast forward into the times of Saul. The priesthood is gotten off.

It is not through that line. It is actually through Ithamar's line. So this is a priesthood who shouldn't be there anyway. And God has already said that this line of priests are going to be exterminated. They're not going to be around.

God has spoken through the prophet Samuel and said, hey, this line of people, this line of priests is getting XED out. David, in his self preservation, he goes to the church. Hey, that's a pretty good thing to do, right? Wouldn't you think that? Hey, if we need help, if we're in a problem, we go to the church.

But what happens is David's not honest. David shows up to nob and they say, hey, you're the king's son in law. You're the commander of the israelite army. As a matter of fact, what are you doing without your secret service? Like, why are you alone?

Sometimes we show up to the church and we want the pastor's help and we want our mentor's help, but we don't want to be open and honest about what's really going on with us. Okay, so David is not 100% truthful. And there's several, several scenarios in the Bible. Wherever we find men like Abraham, all the righteous men we read in the Old Testament, they all had this come to Jesus moment where they don't tell the truth, whether it's Abraham going to Egypt and he lies about Sarah being his wife or Isaac doing the same thing. There's about six chapters of Jacob doing it.

Jacob spent like 40 years just being untruthful and lying to people. Okay, so DaVid is just like his forefathers, is faced with the same scenario, and he gets to the NOb where the priests are, and it says, then DAVid came to Nob and AHimelech, the priest, and AHimelech came to meet David Trembling, and said to him, why are you alone and no one with you? And David said to Ahimelech, the priest, the king has charged me with a matter and has said to me, let no one or anything of the matter about which I send you and with what I charge you. I have made an appointment with the young men for such a place. Now then, what do you have on hand?

Give me five loaves of bread or whatever is here. And the priest answered David, and they said, we have no common bread on hand, but only the holy loaves, if the young men have kept themselves from women. And David, answered the priest, truly women have been kept from us always when we're going on expeditions. The vessels of these young men are holy, even when it is ordinary journey. How much more today would the vessels be holy?

So the priest gave him the bread, and for there was no bread there but the presence of the bread, of the presence which is removed before the Lord and replaced to be hot on the day it is taken away. So Jesus references a story. And I know I'm probably going off on tangents and going down rabbit trails here, but if I could just bring this back in. Jesus, they're accusing God himself of breaking a tradition and breaking a law. And what he does is he disrupts their theology, he disrupts their whole mood because he brings up a story of David.

They revere David. David could do no wrong. As a matter of fact, they wrote the book of chronicles about David, the priesthood and the elders did. And they left out all the bad things that David did. They've literally written books to try to eliminate his bad history.

There's several political figures and historical figures from the last hundred years that the way the public school system teaches it, they were just great people. We read about their exploits. We read about certain people of history that we've revered and loved, but we find out there's things that they did that were offhanded or crooked and corrupt. So Jesus brings this story of David because he's trying to get these people to see how ridiculous they are. He's saying, hey, you're accusing me of self preservation, but do you remember the time that David, your beloved king, which I don't need to go down the list of all the things David did wrong, but do you remember the time that he came to the priest and he lied to them?

Okay, we go to the church and we want help, and we want to bring our needs, and we want the pastor's help, we want spiritual counsel. But sometimes we don't tell the whole story. Sometimes we keep those things, whether it's for self preservation or whether it's for embarrassment. So what happens is David, David lies to the priest, actually, as a matter of fact, the priest, if you read the next chapter, the priest cast lots. And they actually, they go to God and they check with God if it's okay to eat this bread.

They don't just give him the bread. They prayed about it. And the Lord said, yes, give David the bread. God had already told David he's going to be the king. But sometimes our circumstances and our life situations, sometimes those outweigh what God has told us and God has promised us.

Sometimes when we have a promise and we have something that God has given us, which is matter of fact, if you're in this room and you're a believer, the Bible says that you're going to be a king. You're going to rule with Christ. We are to rule with Christ one day. So he's given us all that kingly promise. But sometimes our circumstances of our life and the things don't look the way we think they're supposed to look.

And that draws us and drives us to do things that put us in self preservation mode. So David is here. He has lied to the priestley. What happens is David leaves. He gets the sword of Goliath from the priest.

They give him bread and he's on his way. He goes down south and things start turning up for him. He gets an army together. He's got his little coalition. David's doing well.

Well, Saul shows up and Saul finds out that the priest fed David. And the priests are blindsided by this. They said, hey, he's your son in law. He's the commander of the army. Why wouldn't I give him bread?

Why wouldn't I bless your son in law? Oh, it's because David lied. They didn't know that David lied. And what happened was Saul had doeg the Edomite that day, slaughter 85 priests. They killed the animals, they killed the children and they killed everybody in the camp.

Do I have to really break down what happens if all of the priests are dead, all the animals are dead. There's no sacrifice, there's no atonement for sins. The basic, the religion is completely shut down. And David's self preservation to be the king of Israel, he has lied and he has caused a situation where there is, he's basically bankrupt and corrupted Israel's whole sacrificial system. The Bible says that one man escaped from that camp, one of the priests escaped from that camp, and his name was Abiathar.

Okay? And let's go to chapter 23, one samuel 23. What happens is God has, God has a priest for us. The book of Hebrews calls him Jesus. Okay?

He is the ultimate high priest. We don't have to have priests. We don't have to have intermediate people sit between us and the Lord. We are able to go. We are able to boldly approach the throne of grace as children of God if we have accepted the sacrifice that Jesus has done for us.

Amen. I'm saying good stuff. I don't know if you guys are hearing it. I think it's. I don't know.

My wife's looking at me. But by the way, I just want to honor my wife, Lindsey.

She's a saint, if you can't tell, for putting up with me. So we drove here from Bradenton with two kids. So it's been a rough morning. So I'm trying not to look at her because I'm a different person on stage than I am in a car with two toddlers.

So David, in his self preservation, has done things to try to gain God's promise. He's trying to. He's taken it in his own hands. And sometimes we're all guilty of that. I know I'm guilty of that.

I know that God has promised me things. God has blessed me. God has anointed me with certain gifts. But sometimes I take means and I take things. When situations occurred, I take it upon myself, and I try to fix the situation.

I try to steer the boat instead of trusting God. You know, there's things. Sometimes it can be big things, and sometimes it can be little things. Sometimes it's a decision I make without prayer. Sometimes it's a third cup of coffee in the morning or a second energy drink on the way to preach.

You know, I don't know if you guys can tell. I had a couple this morning. There's little acts of self preservation, and some are. Some are harmless from the surface of. And some actually lead and draw us into a situation in our lives where we have to be aligned with things.

Sometimes it creates alliances in our lives that God didn't intend for us to have. He intended us for have one priest, and that's Jesus. And one priesthood. In the Old Testament, it was one priesthood. It was the descendants of Phineas and the descendants of Eliezer.

Now David's in a conundrum. DAVID has showed up to the priests, ANd he's lied, and he's caused the death of 85 people. So one man, his name's Abiathar, he escapes, and he finds David in the wilderness. And this is what David says to him. He says, but one of the one Samuel 22.

One Samuel 23. Six. And when Abiathar, the son of Ahimelech, fled to David in Keilah, he had come down with the ephod in his hand. And it was Saul that David had come to see and was told Saul that David had come to Keilah. And SAUL said, God has given him into my hands.

And if you back up, sorry, wrong verse, verse 22, chapter 22, verse 20. But one of the sons of HiMAlek, the son of Atob named AbiATHAR, escaped and fled after DAVId. And Abiathar told David that Saul had killed the priest of the lord. And DAvid said to AbiAthAr, I knew on that day when the Edomite was there that he would surely tell Saul, I have occasioned the death for all the persons of your father's house. Stay with me and be not afraid, for who seeks your life seeks my life.

And with me you shall be in safekeeping. So what happens is this little act of self preservation, this little act of lying, has caused David now to be aligned with a priest who is not supposed to be the priest. Now David has to shelter this guy. Sometimes we think that we're working for ourselves, and sometimes we think we're getting ourselves out of sticky situations. But really what we're doing is we're building up alliances.

We're building up causes and effects that allow us throughout the rest of our lives. Sometimes when we don't take what God has promised us and given us, we put ourselves in a position to be aligned with people and things and organizations and relationships that God didn't intend for us to have. And I equate that to the fact that Jesus, Jesus is talking to these people who are alive. They have a different set of rules. They have a different way of doing things.

They have taken the Bible and they have expanded it so much because they're so scared to break God's law that Jesus wrecks their theology, he wrecks their world. He brings up this story about the time. What Jesus is really saying is, hey, you're getting onto me for eating raw oatmeal in a field on a Saturday when I'm healing people. What about the time your beloved David killed the whole priesthood and all the sacrificial animals and then went to the south and aligned himself with a priest who wasn't supposed to be the priest? Did you know in David's time there was two high priests?

Because sometimes we will get ourselves in a relationship and we will get ourselves in with a certain crowd of people and we're aligned to them and we're married to them and we're in alliance. And then when the real thing happens, when the actual thing that God had for us that we tried to fulfill ourselves comes, there's not room for it. Sometimes we forfeit the things that God wants to bless us with. When we try to bless ourselves, we try to feed ourselves. The Bible says you can't serve two masters.

And I know contextually that's about money. That's about the things in our life that we hold dear. But it's hard to have a treaty with somebody that you basically have caused the death of their family. And mind you, God intended to take out that priesthood anyway, but now David's responsible for it. He has to be in relationship with this guy who's the high priest.

When the real high priest, his name was Zadok, he was actually a descendant of the real priest. When he comes to the table now, he has to split the duties. Sometimes we give God half of our life. We allow him to be the priest over certain portions of our lives. And the other thing that the other priests in our lives are the things that we set up, that we think they look like goddess, godly things.

They have the appearance of godliness. They have the small undertones of thinking that something that God would want. But unfortunately, those are the areas in our lives that we struggle when we don't submit to God. So when Zadok, the high priest, is actually has to split the duties, there's two guys going in to do the sacrifice. That's breaking the rules.

There's only supposed to be one high priest going into the holiest of holiest. They both carry the ark. David has a situation where he has two people being a priesthood. And the Bible says if we're not for Jesus, we're against him. So how can we have the Bible?

This is a situation where this is what the Bible talks about, being unequally yoked. You would have two oxen, and if you have one oxen and a donkey next to each other, when they would plow the ground, what would happen was the lines that we, we make to sow the seed. Those lines would be crooked because you'd have one strong animal pulling you this way, and you'd have a weak animal pulling you this way. And what we're supposed to do is we're supposed to be harvesters, right? We're supposed to the harvest as many, but the workers are few.

There's supposed to be a harvest being planted. There's supposed to be seeds being sown to grow up into God's kingdom. But when you have a situation where you allow the world and you allow things in yourself and the things that you set up for yourself to infiltrate your lines are going to be crooked, it's going to be harder to get that harvest. It's going to be harder to pick those things up. The Bible talks about being unequally yoked in the sense of with the who we're aligned with, who are we yoked with?

There's relationships, and I could probably say all of our lives that I'm not saying to dissolve those relationships. I'm not saying to not minister to those people. The Bible says to be all things to all men. But there's things that we've done that we think when we're doing God's work and we don't let him do his work, we align ourselves in relationships that can hold us back, that can hold us down, that can keep our lines from being straight. It affects the harvest, it affects the way things are planted, and it affects the way things grow.

Now, if you're a believer in Christ and he's Lord over your life, you're going to heaven, okay? You're a part of that harvest. But there's things that Miss Kim, from loving hands, she calls it living below your privilege. There's a privilege and a situation that God wants us to live in. There's a way that he has for our life.

And if we let him lead and we let him move, it's going to grow the way it's supposed to grow, but when we take it in our own hands, we're going to make our lines crooked. We're going to make the harvest harder. We're going to cause people to stumble. David had to deal with this. The next generation had to deal with this situation.

Not only does a new priesthood have to be developed and new animals raised up and the Israel go probably several years. I'm sure it takes a couple of years to get some unblemished animals. I want you to understand that the animals used for the sacrifice is a symbolization of what Christ did for us. He was the perfect spotless lamb. He was the perfect sacrifice to pay for our sins.

When you have to restart a whole generation of farm animals, there's a lot of work that needs to be done there. Now you have, I mean, imagine today if everybody disappeared from this church. We got to find a new pastor. We have to find a new associate pastor. We have to find a nice, sweet lady who sits up front and makes me feel like I'm doing a good job.

We have to find, we have to find children workers. Sometimes you have to weed those things out. What happens if we hire the wrong children's worker? What happens if we hire one that doesn't like kids? What happens if we hire a pastor that doesn't like people?

Okay. It's not just going to pick up tomorrow. David has put Israel in a situation where they have to start over. Sometimes we do that to ourselves. Sometimes God has lined up a perfect path for us.

But in our, and our own preservation and our own need and our, and our own fear, we do things to try to do them for God and do God's job for us, and we end up in a situation like David to where when his son Solomon takes the throne, King Solomon has to deal with a biathar. King Solomon. My children are going to have to deal with things that I set in place in this time. My kids are going to have to clean up the messes that I make. I had to clean up the messes my father, father made.

Took me ten years of being wrapped up and bound in addiction to get free to break those generational curses for my kids to not see their father as a drug addict, as a, as a. I don't want to paint my dad in a negative light, but he was a convenient dad. Sometimes when you're wrapped in your addiction and you're addicted to yourself and you're in the ultimate form of self preservation, which is drug addiction, unfortunately, you pick yourself over your kids, you do it when it's convenient. I loved my children in my addiction. I loved them.

There's nothing in this world that can make me love them less. But unfortunately, my addiction, the things that I did instead of, because God gave me this promise when I was young that I was going to teach, I was going to preach, that I was going to be a minister of the gospel that was given to me at a young age. But in my own self preservation, it started with a little bit of pot and it ended up being. I was a full blown heroin act for years. I was addicted to heroin for many, many years, and opiates.

And unfortunately, something that I thought was making my day easier and making my life easier actually destroyed it. So King Solomon, when he takes the throne, Abiathar, the priest, and Zadok the priest, well, Zadok is at the coronation anointing Solomon, respecting David's wishes. And Abiathar, this priest that David, some 40 years prior, 30 years prior, set up an alliance with is actually opposing his son. The things that we do to try to make our day easier and try to get by is going to affect our children. It's going to affect our church.

It's going to affect our spiritual children. So now Solomon, actually, Solomon inherits a lot of David's problems when he takes the throne. The first three it takes, Bible says it took him three years to establish the throne because he had to clean up his dad's cousin, who was a murderer. But David couldn't deal with the murderer. He couldn't deal with his cousin Joab, because David was accused of the same thing.

David had Joab kill people. He couldn't get rid of Abiathar because he was responsible for killing Abiathar's family. Sometimes our self preservation and trying to make things better in ourselves actually makes it worse for other people. You might be feeling better. You might be gliding through.

It might be a little sentimental of ease of, but it affects other people. It always affects other people, and it always affects those closest to you. So Solomon has to actually puts a biathar in house arrest. Okay? He puts a biathar in house arrest and has to watch him and has to actually redevelop the priesthood.

He has to put Zadok in place. And I know that sounds like a bunch of mumbo jumbo, bible nerdy. Maybe I'm going too deep into Bible nerd stuff, but that speaks to me when I read these stories and I see that, hey, David's doing the right thing. He's going to the church for help. How many times have I gone to the church for help or my pastor for help, and I haven't been honest with them?

And not being honest, it's a chain reaction. We can read in the Bible that every time somebody's not honest, it always spawns something else. It's always that one little, tiny bitty lie that you think is harmless that just goes into a tangled web of chaos. So the original passage, they're coming to Christ, and Christ is saying, hey, you want to teach these traditions? What about the David that you revere so much?

What about the time that he eliminated the priesthood and he made an alignment with the wrong priest, and then he allowed that priest to serve for 30 years? And then what about the time that David's son, Solomon had to deal with it? Actually, as a matter of fact, God can even clean up our messes, though, even when we do self preservation, even when we take and we make our lines in the garden and we make them crooked. And we don't affect the kingdom the way we're supposed to affect the kingdom. And some of the things we think we're doing to help and the things we're doing to look good and to save face are actually affecting the kingdom.

God has a way, he has a way of cleaning up our messes, and that's what makes him such a gracious goddess, because I don't have it. I'm not perfect, okay? I'm not digging crazy crooked lines anymore, but I guarantee you don't want to get a laser level out on my garden, okay? I'm telling you, the fruit might taste good and it might look good, but it could have been a lot easier to harvest if I would have just done what God asked me to do. Abiathar is actually, he's exiled to a place called ananoath.

And you might say, I've never heard of that. Well, I've barely heard of it. And it's in the first line of the book of Jeremiah, the prophet Jeremiah. It says, the priest, son of long jewish names Jeremiah from the town of Ananoath. Did you know that Jeremiah was probably most scholars would tell you he was a descendant of a biathar to where in the beginning, this priesthood who wasn't supposed to exist, God had already chosen to eliminate those priests.

Now God accomplished in his sovereignty the purpose of that priesthood getting eliminated through David's lie. But God always has a way of cleaning up our mess. And I'm not saying the Bible says, paul says, hey, do we keep going on and sinning because it makes grace prevail? Absolutely not. Matter of fact, the word it uses in Greek, what he's basically, if I could rephrase it in English, he's saying, are you completely, are you a moron?

Are you an idiot? Of course, we don't just go on sinning to make grace abound, but it is a beautiful aspect that God does. Jeremiah ends up being a descendant of Abiathar in that town of priesthood. And a matter of fact, Isaiah the prophet, he had an audience with the king because he was judean royalty. Ezekiel was a priest from Jerusalem.

He was carried off to Babylon from Jerusalem. Daniel was a royal official. But Jeremiah the prophet had the worst job. He was a depressed jewish guy from a bad town in Israel that had a bad rap because they knew the town he came from was the town that Abiathar was put on house arrest. There.

That's where Solomon put him on house arrest. He said, you carried the Ark of God. For my father. So I'm not going to put you to death today, but I'm going to keep a close watch on you. He put two people in house arrest.

There was a guy named Shimei from the tribe of Benjamin that he threw rocks at David and cursed David out. And Solomon put him on house arrest and he broke his house arrest and Solomon ended up having to put him to death. That was another mess that Solomon had to clean up of his fathers from the time that his brother Absalom rebelled against him. I can't go there. Pastor Nick is going to watch this, so I want to be able to come back.

So Jeremiah, the prophet, has a long ministry of nobody listening to him. He goes to the kings, he goes to the officials. He says, hey, the best thing that you can do is put yourself in a yoke because the king of Babylon is coming, just like the northern tribes, just like Assyria took out the northern tribes, the king of Babylon is coming, and God's not pleased with you. And this is actually God's mercy on you. Put yourself in this yoke and go to Babylon with him.

And the king wouldn't listen to him. And those kings were killed and the city was pillaged and burned. And Jeremiah, the prophet, the depressed prophet who only had bad news. You ever read the story in first king or in two kings where the king of Israel and the king of Judah, they're getting together for war and he says, hey, don't you have a prophet that actually speaks to God? Because all the prophets, like 100 of them, come in and say, oh, yeah, God loves you.

Go for it. You guys are going to win. And the king says, hey, can you just bring somebody in here who's going to be honest with me? So they bring the prophet in and he says, hey, I wouldn't go to war. I wouldn't go out there.

It's probably not a good idea. He says, God's not with you on this. He's not co signing on this. They said, well, put him in prison and make him eat the bread of affliction until I come back from war. He says, well, I'm going to be in prison a long time because you're not coming back from that battle.

You're going to die. So what happens is the kings and the officials, even the church, even today, we want to hear all the good stuff, right? We want to hear what God all the blessings and I'm a child of God and I'm special and God just loves me and I can do what I want. And grace. Grace.

We love that stuff. But when somebody comes to us and speaks into our lives and tells us the truth, we don't like those preachers. We don't like those pastors, the ones that convict us and make us think about what we're really doing. It's the same thing with Israel. They hated Jeremiah because he was one of those prophets.

He never had good news. Matter of fact, there's a time where Jeremiah wanted to shut up and not even say it. He's like, why do you have me going and saying all these horrible things? Everybody hates me. I'm miserable.

And he says that when he tried not to speak this message, that it was fire burning in his bones. We preached that in evangelicalism. Like, I got a message from Goddesse, and if I don't preach it, it's like, fire him up. No, if God's got you a message and you have a desire to preach, preach it. But Jeremiah was saying, hey, I have a death sentence for everybody and I don't want to preach it because it makes me unpopular, okay?

And they like fake news because they actually were dealing with fake news and fake prophets back then, okay? So Jeremiah, he's from the town of Ananoath. He's got a bad stigma. The stigma on. If you read the first.

The first verse of the book of Jeremiah, it's supposed to paint a picture in your head as an israelite. Oh, man. He's from a really poor, horrible town where it's got a bad stigma from a priest that was exiled there because that priest went against Solomon and that priest wasn't. You're supposed to be able to read that line and trace it back into the Bible. I've done it because I've done it for 20 years.

And Pastor Nick's my mentor, and I have no other choice but to be in the Bible like that. But the first century israelite, when Jesus references this story, he's thinking to these people. He knows that these people, people know the undertones of this story. Well, let me tell you about Jeremiah. He goes onto the mountain and he watches Jerusalem burn, and he writes this book, and it's called lamentations, and he laments.

And what happens is Jeremiah. Jeremiah goes to Egypt. He flees to Egypt, and he flees to a place called Alexandria. And in the time of Christ, Alexandria was like Chinatown, okay? It was like the closest.

It was like little Italy. It was the closest thing you're going to get to Jerusalem or Israel. They had the best library of jewish literature and second Temple literature, and they had the greek translation of the Bible. If you weren't in Jerusalem, the next best place to be was Alexandria. You read through the Book of Acts.

There's a man named Apollos. Bible says that Apollos came from Alexandria and Egypt. And when he came, he wasn't filled with the Holy Spirit of God. And he was an effective teacher. And he understood the precepts of God.

But he didn't have the evangelical power from God to preach these words. And it says, when Priscilla and Aquila met him, they taught him the word more precisely through the gospel. And it says that Apollos. I personally think that Apollos wrote the Book of Hebrews. Hebrews.

It doesn't follow Paul's signature of writing. And nobody knows who wrote it. But I am under the understanding that Apollos wrote the Book of Hebrew. And Apollos comes from Alexandria, which is the town that Jeremiah the prophet was exiled to. Sometimes when things are burning and things are falling apart, God will preserve.

We go from self preservation with David trying to preserve his own life. He causes the death of the priesthood to Jeremiah, deciding not to preserve his life. And he goes to Egypt. And God preserves the gospel there. God preserves the Bible and the word of God.

So that when the time is right and all the roman roads were open into the world, that Apollos could go spread the gospel efficiently and effectively. And he became one of the greatest preachers, the greatest evangelists there ever were. And he came from a place that somebody from Abiathar's town was exiled there. So even when we are in self preservation, God has a way of cleaning it up. God has a way of just making our wrongs right.

But there's a lot of turns. There's a lot of things we could have done, I could have done in my life that God wouldn't have to clean up. It's a lot better if we just take God's way first and he doesn't have to clean up our mess. What a testimony. What a beautiful God we serve.

That he can clean up my mess. But, boy, it'd be nice to not be in self preservation. And try to take care of myself. And I try to take the wheel. It'd be a lot easier if God could probably get more work done if I'd get out of his way.

Are you tracking with me? Was that just a bunch of nonsense? Long Bible. I see one person back there who's into it. You know, I think Pastor Nick might be into it, but it's hard.

I'm a teacher who preaches. I find preaching concepts in teaching. But what I really want to drive home is there's things in your life, and there's things in everybody's life that we place there as priests. There's unholy alliances. There's things and people and relationships that are not supposed to be there.

And sometimes they're a result of bad decisions we've made. But God can clean them up. God can use those relationships for good purposes, just like he did with a biotharous and Solomon and Apollos. But there's some times that we just need to examine our lives. And I'm not talking about going to Starbucks, okay?

There's some people that take this so far, like, I can't go to Starbucks because what, they approve this and they pay for this? If that's your convictions. Hey, great. Unfortunately, I got three kids, and my wife's seven months pregnant, and I got a lot more fish to fry than going to Starbucks. There's a.

It's a lot whole. It's a lot harder for me to walk in holiness than that. I pray that one day I can get to the spot where I'm so spiritually in tune that I only shop at certain stores because I know politically what they do with the money. Okay, I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about people that we hang out with.

There's people that we gossip with. There's people that are in our lives that don't. They have the appearance of godliness. They have the appearance of an israelite, just like Doag, the Edomite, the man who slaughtered the priest. What is an edomite?

An edomite is a descendant of Esau. Esau is Israel's twin brother. They look alike, they sound alike. They don't smell alike. The Bible says he smelled different.

He was a lot more hairier. But if Esau. If Jacob could take on Esau's clothing enough to fool his own father, how much more can an edomite that we let in, how much more can they influence? They look just like christians, right? They look just like Israelites.

They look just like Jacob, but they're not Jacob. Sometimes we allow those people to creep into our lives, and I just want everybody to just have the spirit of God to examine some of the relationships we're in. Some of the things. Sometimes it's not even with people. Sometimes it's relationships with programs we watch or music that we listen to.

I struggle with it with my eight year old daughter. I'm not ready to explain to her the sexual innuendos in the songs. I'm not ready to explain to her why that's a bad song. But, man, I'm trying to get her to not listen to those things. I'm trying to keep my daughter from being in line.

Her own eight year old, self preservation, wants to listen music soothing. I like the music. I like the beat. I like the way that they say it's the tiniest, smallest, innocent form of self preservation. I'm trying to even stop it in my daughter.

And I just say that we're never too old or we're never too young to examine these alliances and these things that we allow this little leaven that spoils the whole batch. I guess that's where I'm bringing this message to, is who are we yoked with? What are the unequal. Are we unequally yoked with? With memberships to certain places, with, like I said, programs with music?

With what preachers we watch and listen to? Or is your, is the preacher that you watch and listen to biblical and doctrinal? There's certain things that have the appearance of godliness, and they set up our public Persona and our public image, like, oh, look, I'm godly. Like, but there's things that God doesn't intend in your life. And sometimes it just takes the holy spirit of God in deep prayer to really dig deep down inside and decide, what am I aligned with?

What am I letting in? What am I doing? Is this for God or is this for myself? Am I actually, am I really just on my way to a mission? Am I actually on my way to heal somebody or preach and teach?

And I got to stop and grab a little bit of oatmeal off this husk of grain to feed myself, you know? Is that what you're really doing or are you indulging? Are there things that you're doing to get you through the day? Like I said, I find myself drinking quite a bit of coffee during the day. Sometimes I find myself just getting to the tv to just preserve my way when I could be in my bible.

Okay. I'm telling you, the nice, like, the real self provision I get into because I want. I want to be able to come back. But everybody knows what I'm talking about. And everybody can be honest that there's things you do to get through your life and get through your day.

And we say that our, we say that our life is gospel oriented. We say that we're about the kingdom's work, we're about the harvest, but there's things we do that are just about us and getting us through our day. I own a construction business, and I was actually talking to Pastor Nick last week, and my own words condemned myself because I said. I said, hey, you know what? I work hard, and I'm very business oriented.

I'm business minded right now. That's because my business funds my family, and my family is a ministry. Because I disciple my wife, my wife disciples, the kids I hear from the lord, it's a trickle effect. And then my kids are supposed to go out, and they're supposed to preach the gospel at their schools, and they're supposed to be a light and a dark world. But unfortunately, when I said that to Pastor Nick, I realized how my family isn't really the mission it's supposed to be.

That's not the harvest machine it's supposed to be. Sometimes I'm making money to buy a minivan because my wife won't stop having babies. Okay, I'm jewish, and I follow most of the commandments, but one of the commandments was to be fruitful and multiplied. I stuck with that one. Okay?

I'm getting extra credit from God for that. But I find myself working. Why am I working? I'm working to make money. Well, where does your money go?

Well, I tithe. I tithe to the ministry. I tithe to my church. I give to other outreaches. You can look at my bank statement.

It says, oh, he's pretty. He's a giver. Why did I give to that ministry? Did I give to that ministry because I like the person running that ministry or because I really believe that what they're doing is effective for the kingdom? Hey, what do I do?

I really need a minivan right now. A happy life is a happy wife, and I need a minivan. So that's. That's. I'm working right now to get a minivan and a Toyota one because I don't want to be working.

I don't have time to work on another vehicle. So if anybody has a 2012 to 1415 Toyota Sienna that you want to really bless a mission based family with, get my number. But I really had to ask myself, is my family gospel oriented, or are we into self preservation? Do my kids drive us so nuts that we just try to get a moment of peace and we get into self preservation mode? Are we discipling our children?

Am I teaching my children to be godly because I want them to be godly and I want them to be effective for the kingdom, or am I teaching my kids to be godly because I want the pastors and my peers and my friends to look at me like I'm a good dad. You know, it's the little things of small preservations. Yesterday I was at loving hands with my daughter, and she was acting like she'd never been to church and like, her dad's never read the Bible. Okay, I don't know whose kid this was, but she only shows her tale around, like, important, prominent people that I care about, their opinion. We're at the supermarket.

She's beautiful, she's great. But we get around pastors and teachers and preachers, and she just all of a sudden acts like she's never heard the gospel in her life and never been instructed in anything. So I found myself yesterday in self preservation, trying to preserve my Persona, trying to preserve the way people view me. So sometimes it's not lying to a priesthood and killing a whole church. Sometimes it's the little things we do and just to get through our lives.

But if our lives are surrendered to Christ and our lives are surrendered to God, the little things we do are going to be a little bit more calculated.