Ahab - Feeble and Foolish

Well, if you're just joining us, we are in the middle of something that we started at the beginning of the year called the whole story.

We are going through the entire story of the Bible in a year.

It's okay if you're just joining us.

Every Sunday is meant to stand on its own.

But as you can see, we've taken the story of Scripture and we've broken it down into 14 different series.

And we've been going through those week in and week out.

We'll be done in December.

We're on track, so that's a good thing.

Right now we're in our sixth series, which is called Messy Majesty.

Messi Majesty.

We're looking at the lives of many of the most prominent kings in the history of the nation of Israel.

And this is in the time between when they've escaped from slavery in Egypt, if you're familiar with that story, Moses, the Red Sea, all that, up until the time when they're eventually conquered by more powerful nations.

There are several centuries of time where Israel is a nation, it's existing, it has kings, and things for the most part are going fairly well.

And if you've ever read through the Bible, you get to this section, by the time you're reading about King David and that kind of stuff, there's a long period of time where it's just like, and then there was this king, and then there was this king, and then there was this king.

So we've taken and we've picked six of the most prominent, and we're going through their stories, and as we've talked through this, we've learned that almost all of these kings, basically every single one, their lives are their cautionary tales.

Their lives are cautionary tales.

There's a few stories that are inspirational where you go, man, emulate that, imitate that, but not that many.

Most of the king's stories are like, whatever you do, don't do that.

And it's actually amazing.

I'll never get over this.

The fact that Scripture records these stories for us, that it didn't selectively edit and give us these pristine, shiny versions of all these people's lives where we see the good stuff, but none of the bad.

That's the way our world works.

Everyone tries to self-edit, everyone tries to put forward a version of themselves that's the best possible version they can be, but scripture just tells us the truth.

And it's the whole truth, it's the ugly truth.

And we see that with the kings.

And we can learn from their mistakes so that we hopefully don't repeat those mistakes.

Because almost all of these guys have a story of potential and promise, but their success is ultimately sabotaged.

And we don't want to live sabotaged lives.

We don't want our success in life, the success that God would desire us to have in this life that He's given us to be sabotaged by the same things that tripped these guys up.

So we learn from their mistakes.

Today we're gonna study the life of a man named Ahab.

And Ahab is arguably the worst king of all the kings that Israel ever had.

It's like when you think about the kings, there's the good, and that's a short, small category.

There's the bad, and that's a much bigger category, and then there's Ahab.

Ahab's hanging out way down here, right?

He's whatever bad thing the kings before him or after him did, it's almost like Ahab was like, I can top that.

I can beat that.

Ahab is is the worst.

But his life, again, it's this cautionary tale, and it allows us to see what could have been avoided, and we can learn from that so that we don't live lives like Ahab.

And ultimately, as we're gonna see, his life is defined by two things.

Ahab is feeble, and he is foolish.

He is feeble, he has a weak character, and he's foolish, he lacks wisdom.

There's no way to have a successful life if you are feeble and foolish.

Now, to understand Ahab and his situation, we've got to back up just a little bit.

So the last few weeks we've gone through the story of Saul, the first king of Israel, David, the second king, kind of the best king by most accounts.

And then Solomon, his son, that was the first three.

Now we're jumping ahead by a number of years to get to the life of Ahab.

So we've got to understand some things that have happened.

When Solomon died, the kingdom of Israel was left to his son Rehoboam.

But there was a lot of tension.

And so right when Rehoboam takes the throne, the people say this to him.

This is in um, let's see, this is 1 Kings chapter 12, verse 4.

1 Kings 12:4

They say, Your father was a hard master.

Lighten the harsh labor demands and the heavy taxes that your father imposed on us, and then we will be your loyal subjects.

Now Rehoboam replied, Give me three days to think this over, then come back for my answer.

So the people went away, and then King Rehoboam discussed the matter with the older men who had counseled his father Solomon.

What is your advice?

He asked.

How should I answer these people?

The older counselors replied, If you are willing to be a servant to these people today and give them a favorable answer, they will always be your loyal subjects.

But Rehoboam rejected the advice of the older men and instead asked the opinion of the young men who had grown up with him and were now his advisors.

What's your advice?

he asked them.

How should I answer these people who want me to lighten the burdens imposed by my father?

And the young men replied, This is what you should tell them.

This is what you should tell these complainers who want a lighter burden.

My little finger is thicker than my father's waist.

Yes, my father laid heavy burdens on you, but I'm going to make them even heavier.

My father beat you with whips, but I will beat you with scorpions.

I don't even know how that's possible.

But that's one approach.

That's one way to start your kingdom off.

Hey, you thought it was bad with him?

Well, we'll just wait till you meet me.

It's about to get a whole lot harder and a whole lot worse.

That's the advice that he takes.

And it splits the kingdom.

Because the people basically say, Well, why do we even follow this family?

What stake do we have in the family of David?

We we want someone else.

And there's this other guy named Jeroboam, and he was a really successful man underneath Solomon's reign.

A lot of people liked him.

He was rebellious.

He comes back and they're like, We want you.

And the kingdom splits into two.

You have the northern kingdom, which retains the name Israel, and then you have the southern kingdom, which is called Judah.

And the tribes all split up, most go with Israel, but Judah is where the capital city of Jerusalem is, that's where the temple is, and it's this giant mess.

Both kingdoms are pretty messy.

It's one of the reasons we call this series Messy Majesty.

It does not go well, but Judah, the southern kingdom, is far more successful, far more faithful to God than the northern kingdom.

It's much more stable.

And so both end up being conquered.

Israel gets conquered by the Assyrians, and then eventually Judah gets conquered by the Babylonians, but Judah lasts about 150 years longer.

In their entire span of existence, they have 20 different kings, but all from one family.

In 150 less years, Israel, the northern kingdom, has 20 kings as well, but from nine different families.

In fact, the the third king, I believe, of Judah, his name is Asa, and he reigned for 40 years.

And just in his lifetime, Israel, the northern kingdom, had seven kings.

That's how unstable it is.

And Ahab just so happens to be the seventh of those kings.

So when Ahab takes the throne, it's just basically been like this carousel of kings.

Year after year after year, and Ahab inherits the throne of Israel, the northern kingdom, the less faithful kingdom, and pretty much right away begins to run it into the ground.

We get this about Ahab in 1 Kings chapter 16.

1 Kings 16 · chapter mention

Ahab the son of Amri began to rule over Israel in the 38th year of King Asa's reign in Judah.

He reigned in Samaria 22 years.

But Ahab the son of Amri did what was evil in the Lord's sight, even more than any of the kings before him.

And if you know the story of the kings before him, that is saying a lot.

Ahab did what was evil in the Lord's sight.

And as I said a few minutes ago, what we're going to explore with Ahab and the cautionary tale for us is he was feeble and foolish.

Feeble, not meaning physical strength, but strength of character.

Ahab was the kind of person who really cared what other people thought, kind of like Saul that we talked about a few weeks ago, deeply cared what other people thought, lived to please certain people, deferred all the time to those around him, was very caught up in sort of the cultural pull of the day.

Whatever was trendy, he was all about.

You get the impression that he desperately wanted to avoid conflict with the people that he wanted to impress, and so he's just this feeble man.

He has no character, no resolve, no strength.

And so things get away from him pretty fast.

And I think if we're all honest with ourselves, we can say, hey, that that's a really normal human trait.

It is very normal to be someone who has such a desperation to belong, to fit in, to be accepted, to maybe be celebrated, that you feel this tug to just sort of go with the way things are going.

To go along to get along, maybe.

We have this phrase that's got to have existed for a long time because it references a kingdom from 2,000 years ago.

When in Rome.

Like, how many of us are familiar with that phrase?

You've heard the phrase when in Rome?

Yeah.

When in Rome, you what?

What do you do?

You do as the Romans do.

Yeah, when you're in Rome, you just, you know, be Roman.

Go along to get along.

I don't know if you've ever had an experience where you can look back and reflect at your life and say, man, that was a moment in my life when I changed who I was and I adapted a lot of things about me just so that I could belong and feel accepted by that group of people.

By the way, if you're new to his hands, you don't have to do that here.

When I was in uh seventh grade, I moved for the first time in my life.

I at least moved states for the first time.

And I moved from southern Missouri to the middle of Wisconsin.

Southern Missouri to the middle of Wisconsin.

It was a culture shock.

By the way, anyone from like the northern states, do we have any northern representatives here this morning?

Like you guys, okay, you guys will understand this though.

You know what cold is.

There were two things that hit me really hard.

We moved in January.

I think it was like January 3rd that we made the move.

So it was like, we jumped right in.

Middle of winter.

It was the weather.

Like the weather, it was like stupid weather.

Weather that was so cold that it made you think things like, why did people settle here?

What why did they stop?

Like 200 years ago, before there was like heat, you know, before there was was HVAC, why did their horses die and they just couldn't keep going?

Like I lived in southern Missouri, I've seen Arkansas, there's plenty of space where it's much warmer.

Why did people choose to live here?

I actually looked it up.

The coldest day that I lived there, the year that I was there, the coldest day, it was a year and a half, um, was negative 16 degrees.

That wasn't the wind chill, that was the temperature.

And I lucked out because the year before I got there, the coldest day was negative 26, so it could have been a lot worse.

But it was brutal, and we moved there in January.

Like I'll never forget, um, we had been there for maybe a couple nights and we got our first snow.

And and, you know, when it snows here, like we live in Georgia.

How many of you have like born and raised in the South?

Like Georgia your whole life?

Right.

So we know what happens.

If it might snow, let's just shut the whole world down, right?

If if it snows half an inch, it is the apocalypse in Georgia.

Like the world, we can't, we can't function in, there's there's powder on the ground, we can't do anything.

And so we all run to the store, right?

We we buy milk and we buy bread, the two things that expire very quickly.

I don't know why that's what we buy, right?

But whatever.

Dude, it can snow seven feet in Wisconsin and they're fine.

You don't get out of school, you don't, it's like, they're just like, ah, this happens all the time.

So we're up there and it snows for the first time, and it's a substantial snow, and our neighbors knock on our door at night, and they say, Hey guys, we know you're not from here.

We just noticed you're not shoveling your driveway out.

And we were like, Yeah, we'll do it in the morning.

And they said, No, it'll be frozen in the morning.

Like it'll just be ice and you'll be stuck.

And so I'm out in the snow, it was awful.

I mean, I literally thought, what again, why do people live here?

And why, father, I love you, dad, but why?

Why have you done this?

That, though, wasn't the hardest thing to adjust to.

The weather, you just dress differently, you get used to it.

It was the the accents of the people.

So there's this phrase, I think it comes from a movie called Zoolander from back in the day, but it's like, I feel like I'm taking crazy pills, where the situation is that everyone around you thinks that something is normal, and you're like the only sane person in the room who's able to say, This is strange, but none of them see it, so you feel crazy.

First day I go to school, seventh grade, they started with the Pledge of Allegiance.

That was a big thing.

I don't know if they still do that in school, but every day started with the Pledge of Allegiance.

And I'm sitting there, and you know, you stand up, and there's the flag in your room, and I heard this person over the speaker system say, I pledge allegiance to the flag, to the flag of the United States of America.

And I was like, What is a flag?

Right?

And I have this southern Missouri accent, and everyone makes fun of me.

I'm in seventh grade, and everybody's making fun of the way that I talk.

And I'm like, no, no, no, I don't talk weird, you guys talk weird.

Go anywhere else.

There's no such thing as a flag.

There's no such thing as a flag.

You guys are the ones who talk funny.

But the simple truth is that didn't convince them.

And I had a choice to make.

As a seventh grader, either be the one that gets made fun of for the way that you talk, even though they all talk wrong.

Um, no offense to those of us from the north, but you've moved down here, you know.

Um I'm teasing.

But either either get made fun of for the way that I talk, or just talk like them.

You know, go along together.

When in Rome, went in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, and so I just started faking a northern accent.

And so instead of saying something like, oh yeah, I would say, Oh yeah.

You know, it wasn't that hard.

After you got used to it, you started to learn what to do.

Oh yeah, yeah.

I lived there the year that the Green Bay Packers won the Super Bowl, which was nuts because they are crazy about football in Wisconsin, and it's like the Packers are a religion, like an actual religion.

And so, you know, instead of saying, like, go Packers like a human being, I would say, goal packers.

Like, let's go packers goal! Like I talk like that.

And they'd all look at me and like, yeah, let's goal.

And I'm like, yeah.

But the funny thing is, what started off as effort, intention, just became habit.

And after a year, year and a half of that, that's just how I talked.

Because I was in seventh grade, I was very impressionable.

And so my mom would ask me something, I go, oh, I don't know.

And she's like, What?

Why do you talk like this?

And then a year and a half after moving to Wisconsin, we moved to Memphis, Tennessee.

So here I am, in eighth grade, more mature.

And I live in Memphis, and I talk with that accent.

Did me no favors.

All that time and energy I had spent trying to please the people in Wisconsin was of zero value in Memphis, Tennessee.

But that's when I learned how to say y'all.

So it all worked out.

It all worked out.

That prepared me for living here, so it's great.

It's great.

You know, I just I was willing to do just about anything to fit in and belong.

Because it is difficult to be different.

It is difficult to be different.

It is difficult to stand your ground when everyone around you is going a different way.

And I wish that the stories I have of adapting to the people that I'm around were just about the way that I talk and vernacular and things like that, but no, I I have I've had so many moments in my life, especially when I was younger, where I compromised my character to please people around me.

In fact, I have a memory, it's like one of my least favorite memories.

I think I was a sophomore in high school and I was on a bus, and I was new at this school because I'm I moved a lot.

I went to two schools in seventh grade, three through three schools in eighth grade, three schools in tenth grade.

And so I just knew a lot.

And so, tenth grade, one of the, I think the second of the three, I'm at, I'm on the bus, and there's a kid, and I was brand new, and I wanted to be cool.

And uh there was this kid that had seen me at church because my family had gone to a new church the previous Sunday, and he's like, Hey, do you go to church?

And my answer was, yeah, but I'm not like super into it, which was a lie.

I love Jesus.

It's just in that moment I was worried that this would be something used against me, and so I compromised my character, my love for the Lord in that moment to try to fit in with someone, and the guy was like, Oh, dude, it's cool, I go to that church too.

And I was like, Oh.

I felt so horrible.

And so I'm about to dog on Ahab for a little bit, but I'm capable of this.

I think if we're not careful, all of us can be.

And so let's let's look at Ahab and this feebleness of character that leads him to need to go along to get along to get along, to like when in Rome, before Rome even existed.

That's Ahab.

He's gotta he's gotta go with it.

He's gotta go with the the flow of the culture around him.

And we really see this start in 1 Kings chapter 16, verse 31.

1 Kings 16:31

It says, as though it were not enough to follow the sinful example of Jeroboam, he married Jezebel.

Has anyone here ever named your daughter Jezebel?

Yeah, yeah, no, right?

You would know, like, no, don't do that.

And if you're thinking of names, don't pick that one.

This is a name synonymous with evil, synonymous with manipulation.

So even if you don't know the story of Jezebel, her name alone, uh, in fact, there was this is a story that I probably shouldn't tell, but I do that.

Um, there was a lady that used to go here, this is like seven, eight years ago, and she was she was trouble, and she would just text me all the time.

So I just changed her name to Jezebel on my phone.

And uh sorry.

It was appropriate though.

It was appropriate.

It was good, it's good.

Like, don't even answer that one.

That's from Jezebel.

So, anyway, all right.

All right, moving on, moving on.

Oh, I should not have said that.

Alright, so let's just pretend I didn't.

So he married Jezebel, the daughter of Ethbaal of the Sidonians, and he began to bow down and worship to Baal.

So here's what happens: he's king, he marries this woman Jezebel, her father is a king in Sidon.

Uh Tyre and Sidon were these uh city-states, very wicked, worshiped false gods, Baal worship was their primary thing.

And immediately after marrying Jezebel, he starts to worship Baal.

So he he finds this lady, falls in love, and with within moments he is worshiping her false god.

Okay, so he starts to worship Baal.

First, Ahab built a temple and an altar for Baal in Samaria.

And then he set up an Asherah Paul.

Asherah was a goddess that they worshiped that was very tied to Baal.

And he did more to provoke the anger of the Lord, the God of Israel, than any of the other kings of Israel before him.

So what happens with Ahab is he begins to follow the lead of Jezebel because she worships Baal.

She's really passionate about it.

And he essentially sets up Baal worship as the official religion of Israel, completely rejecting God, the very God who had saved his people, the very God who had led them favorably in battle against the people who worshiped Baal, who tried to kill them.

And he sets up Baal worship as the primary worship in Israel, all because he wants to please Jezebel, because he needs to fit in, he needs to belong, he needs to go along to get along, he's feeble in character.

And this leads to some disastrous results because not only does he set up this altar and say, hey, I'm kind of a Baal guy.

If anyone wants to worship Baal, you know, come over here.

No, no.

Jezebel starts to persecute those who are faithful to the Lord.

It gets so bad that if you were a prophet of God, if you were someone who spoke on God's behalf, you had to live in hiding.

In fact, there's a story of a man named Obadiah who was keeping 100 prophets of the Lord hidden in a cave, secret from Jezebel, because she sought out to murder anyone who taught the word of God.

She had hundreds and hundreds of prophets of Baal that she supported, that lived in the palace, that she fed.

But if you were someone in Israel who worshipped the Lord, you were in trouble.

Ahab was so weak in character that he allowed this false, idolatrous worship of his wife to dominate everything in his kingdom.

And it wasn't really him driving the ship, it was her.

And he should have known better.

That's the thing.

He should have known better.

He should have known that Baal, Baal, Baal who?

It's not God.

The God of Israel had rescued his people miraculously and in so many ways that didn't make sense that you would think that if there was one thing that a king of Israel would cling to, it would be the Lord, but he is so willing to let go of God in order to fit in to belong with this new group of people that he's trying to impress.

There's an interesting story in the book of Joshua.

Joshua was one of the original leaders of the nation of Israel, really the second after Moses.

And Joshua led the people into the promised land and they conquered all these people that were against them, and lots of stories of battle.

But then after time goes on, the people start to sort of waver in their faithfulness to the Lord.

They start to worship some of the false gods of the people around them.

And Joshua says this to his people, kind of at the tail end of his life.

He says, Fear the Lord and serve him wholeheartedly.

By the way, that fear does not mean tremble.

It doesn't mean God's gonna attack you and smite you.

It means like Like awe and wonder and respect.

Like recognize that God is so good, that God is so big, that we ought to, we ought to have some reverence for him in our heart.

He says, Fear the Lord and serve him wholeheartedly.

Put away forever the idols of your ancestors, the idols that your ancestors worshiped when they lived beyond the Euphrates River in Egypt.

Serve the Lord alone.

But if you refuse to serve the Lord, then choose today who you will serve.

Would you prefer the gods of your ancestors beyond the Euphrates, or will it be the gods of the Amorite in whose land you now live?

But as for me and my family, some translations say, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

Feebleness of character sabotages your success.

Because to truly be successful in life, to truly live a life of meaning, you've got to be a person who takes a stand.

You've got to be someone who recognizes that the pull of culture, what's popular, what everyone celebrates, whatever is in right now, is ultimately meaningless.

Because it changes all the time.

But Scripture says that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

If you want to be a person who lives a life that's truly meaningful, you can't be a person who just changes and adapts to whatever's happening around you all the time.

You've got to be a person that at some point in time says, no, I'm going to stand for what's right.

This is what I believe is true.

These are my convictions.

And I'm going to stand for it.

Romans chapter 12 says that we are not to copy the behaviors and the customs of this world, but to let God transform us into a new person by changing the way that we think.

Romans 12 · chapter mention

And then we'll learn to know God's will for us, which is good and pleasing and perfect.

Don't copy the behaviors and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way that you think.

There are so many situations in life where we get to a moment where we have to say, Am I gonna make a stand or am I just gonna go, all right, I'll go with it.

And, you know, it's easy to pick out certain things, like there's lots of things in our culture at large that we could obviously point to, and there's a tremendous pull, right?

There's a tremendous pull to just sort of celebrate something that God makes really clear is not in his will, or or go along with something just because it's popular and just because everyone's doing it.

It's easy to look at those things out there and instantly recognize, excuse me, and instantly recognize, okay, that's not good, but how am I supposed to engage with that or not engage with that?

Sometimes you can just pull away and just be like, yeah, I'm just not gonna, I'm not gonna talk about that.

Or maybe you take a stand on social media, which is always effective, you know, like nothing changes the world, like a really angry Facebook post or tweet.

It's just great.

No, there's there's those things that are out there, but but even more personally, how many times in your life, honestly, are you challenged to go against what you know and believe is right in order to make someone else happy?

Like honestly.

How often are you challenged to betray your convictions to please someone else and to make them happy?

Living by conviction is so important.

Strength of character.

Even if other people don't agree with you, even if they think you're nuts, they'll respect you.

Because they'll see that this is a person who has standards, this is a person who's willing to stand for something.

What are you willing to stand for?

What are you willing to die for?

Those are questions that we've got to answer for ourselves.

There was a dad that I was talking to um about a year ago, and he he told me this story uh about his daughter, and he had been a real he had had a hard-line stance on no phones.

That was like a thing for him.

And man, if you have kids, oh, you know the you know the battle over like devices and phones.

We actually just launched a podcast called Raising Kids Who Follow Jesus, and one of the first things we dealt with is the topic of devices, because we didn't grow up with that stuff.

Like we didn't grow up with with phones and and smart devices and all that that unlocks, and so you know, young people just know that for us parents, it's like a panic thing because we don't know what we're doing.

Uh, we didn't have this as kids.

Like, I grew up with video games.

How many of you grew up playing video games?

You're young enough, that was a thing.

My parents didn't, so they hated video games.

That's just the way it works.

If your parents didn't have something and you have it, they hate it.

That's life.

My when I was a kid in the 80s playing Nintendo, my mom would come in my room sometimes and be like, I didn't play video games when I was a kid.

I would get up and we would, you know, milk cows, and I'm like, we don't have cows, mom.

We don't have any cows.

We live in the suburbs.

Like, what am I supposed to do?

Right?

So that's a joke.

But, you know, it's just nature that when you grow up and you don't have something and your kids have it, there's part of you as a parent that's just like bad.

Um, and sometimes that thing is bad.

Or maybe a parent feels like it would be bad for their kid.

And this father really had a conviction that his daughter would not do well with a phone.

But she just begged him and begged him and begged him.

And I know what it's like to have a daughter.

I have one daughter, and ooh, like daughters, man, y'all can manipulate your dads.

You're so good at it.

It's not, it's just you, as a dad, you have this desire to just, you know.

In fact, my my son doesn't have a phone, and he was telling me the other day, he's 13.

He's like, Am I gonna get a phone when I turn 16?

I'm like, probably not.

You don't need one, you'll be fine.

He's like, What if I get lost?

You'll figure it out.

They'll make you stronger.

You know, that's like my take with the boy.

And he's like, Well, what about Lily?

I was like, Oh, she's gonna definitely need a phone.

I'm not, right?

I'm not a monster.

I'm not gonna send her out into the world without a helpline.

Come on, son.

Think.

Come on.

No, I'm teasing.

But this dad genuinely had this conviction.

My daughter shouldn't have a phone.

It wouldn't be be good for her.

He knew his daughter, and he knew that what that would come with and the social dynamics, and he just felt like it would be a problem.

But he caved.

And I mean, who I've caved so many times on such smaller things with my kids.

I mean, come on.

And and I'm I was sitting across the table from him, and he said, Man, it was so nice because she wrapped her arms around me, and I felt like a hero.

He's like, she was like, I love you, dad.

Thank you so much.

He said, and then she went in her room, shut the door, and that's the day I lost my daughter.

And and I'm not saying that phone, like, don't I the high schoolers are in the are in the room right now, they're like, What are you doing?

Why are you talking about this?

I'm not, I'm not sabotaging.

Most of y'all already have phones, it's done.

You're you're good.

It's too late.

Um, I'm not, I'm not we all have to make decisions as parents based on our convictions, but that's my point.

He had a conviction.

It wasn't like something he was ignorant of and ignorant of, and then was like, oh, I didn't expect this.

He he knew this is probably gonna go poorly, but he caved, and he said, That's the day I lost my daughter.

She went into a room and I basically didn't see her.

She just lived like this.

And then he told me some of the things that had started to happen as a result of that, and it was it was heartbreaking.

The point is this stick to your guns.

Stick to your guns.

People may not understand, they may not agree.

But be a person who lives by conviction.

If you believe that something is right and something is good, stick to it.

Don't worry what other people will think, don't worry what they will say.

Be a person who lives by conviction.

Do what you know is right.

Even more than that, do what you know that the Lord says is right.

If you read the history of the kings, so many of their stories are simply this uh So-and-so became the king and they did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.

Or so-and-so became king and they did what was good in the eyes of the Lord.

Be a person who does what's right in your own eyes, and especially what's right in the eyes of God.

And if you go, well, how do I know what's right in the eyes of God?

Well, that's a that's a journey you take with the Holy Spirit.

I'll tell you, Scripture does an amazing job of laying that out.

If there's any issue that you're like, I don't know what to believe on this, just start by exploring what Scripture says about it.

Start there.

Because Scripture is time-tested, it has withstood every challenge that's ever come at it.

And and I view Scripture as authoritative in my life.

And so when I read God's word and there's something in it, I'm like, ooh, that's a challenging truth that I've got to either accept or reject rather than go, ooh, I don't like that, that doesn't sort of play nice with the cultural sort of leanings of my day.

I I say, yeah, well, what's more likely to be true?

This time-tested, enduring, honestly, historically transformational word from the Lord, or just what the people on Twitter say is right today.

Stand for what's true.

Be a person of conviction, have strength of character.

And then, and this takes a lot of guts, let the chips fall where they may.

Do what you know is right and trust God with everything else.

Ahab couldn't do that.

He had to do what Jezebel thought was right.

He had to do what his father-in-law thought was right, and the people of the day were all about it.

Man, that was the movement of culture.

Worship Baal, ignore God.

Oh, like let's get rid of this whole God that we serve.

Let's follow the gods of all these other more impressive kingdoms.

That's what everybody, everybody liked it.

Sometimes to stand for truth means to stand against what everyone around you says, but scripture teaches us and history teaches us, that to simply be a person who goes along with what everyone else is saying and doing does not lead to success.

Be a person of conviction.

Stand for what you believe is true.

That's that's a lesson Ahab would have done well to learn, because by not doing that, he created an enemy of God.

Now, I'm not saying this, I want to be careful here.

We'll move on to the next part and get close to wrapping up, but I'm not saying that if you make mistakes, God is your enemy.

No, no, no, no.

No, this if you're new to his hands, uh, we call ourselves a tree of life church.

The tree of life paintings that you see, uh they're like our logo.

And that tree of life idea means that when God first created the world, if you know the story, there's two trees the tree of life, the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and that sort of symbolizes religion, the rules, and God didn't want us to live at that tree, but that's the one we chose.

And that that means defining good and evil for yourself and always striving, striving, striving, striving to do what is right or good or not good, not right, well, that's to strive and follow the rules so that God will accept you.

That is not the way we approach God.

Not at all.

No, no, no.

We we are loved by God, we are accepted by God.

Through faith in Jesus, we are family with God.

We don't have to tow the line to be accepted by the Lord.

We have a relationship with Him, we have grace, but we are also aware of right and wrong.

It's an interesting dynamic.

There's tension there.

That's why we wrestle with God.

Because when you're aware of right and wrong, you're responsible for that.

And Ahab, he knew it.

He'd been brought up in it.

He was aware, and he chose to completely ignore what the Lord had said and to outwardly challenge God.

And I'm just saying, like, look, if you want to, if you want to challenge anyone, just pick anyone other than God.

Like, if you want to pick a fight with anybody, just don't pick a fight with God.

And by pick a fight, I don't mean ask him questions and struggle with things.

I mean just go like, I'm against you, and I'm gonna kill the people who are faithful to you.

Okay?

That's what Ahab did.

That's that's not a good idea because he created, basically, in not trying to have conflict with his wife, he created conflict with the Lord.

And that did not go well.

God raised up this prophet named Elijah.

And Elijah comes against Ahab.

And so we see in 1 Kings chapter 17, now Elijah, who was from Tishbi and Gilead, told King Ahab, As surely as the Lord, the God of Israel lives, the God I serve, there will be no dew or rain during the next few years until I give the word.

1 Kings 17 · chapter mention

Right away, there's this drought in the land.

And God has said, Oh, okay, you're gonna worship Baal.

Interestingly enough, Baal was very tied to rain in the culture that Jezebel came from.

And so God's like, Oh, you're gonna worship the rain God?

Well, guess what?

There's not gonna be for a while.

Rain.

It's really interesting if you study it.

And it doesn't rain for a long time.

And this doesn't humble Ahab.

If anything, it just emboldens his wife, and there's conflict, and Elijah has this amazing face-off with these prophets of Baal, and that doesn't go well for the prophets of Baal.

In 1 Kings chapter 18, after Elijah wins, he commands seize all the prophets of Baal, don't let a single one escape.

1 Kings 18 · chapter mention

So the people seize them all, and Elijah took them down to the Kishon Valley and he killed them there, like hundreds of them.

It's bloody, and if you're like, what's that about?

We just did a series called So Much Blood.

So listen to that.

You'll hopefully understand a little bit.

It's intense.

And then Jezebel gets really angry because all the prophets that she brought in are dead, and so she's going after, it's just a mess.

But it ultimately ends very poorly for Jezebel and for Ahab.

Because they made an enemy of God.

By by trying to, by trying to avoid conflict with the world, so to speak, by trying so hard to please the world around him, Ahab had conflict with God.

I would much rather have peace with God and conflict with the world than the other way around.

Alright, let's move on.

So Ahab is feeble.

Don't be feeble, be strong, be a person of character, stand for what's right.

Have convictions.

Teach your children to have convictions.

Even if they choose different convictions one day, at least they'll know what it's like to live by conviction, do what's right, and trust God with the rest.

It wasn't just his feebleness, though, it was his foolishness.

Ahab was a fool.

And you know, there's a difference between an idiot and a fool.

I've been both, so I can speak from experience on both.

Being an idiot is just like you just don't know stuff.

You just you just you don't know.

Like I, Megan, if you're in the room, you actually I don't think she is, she's in the kids' area.

I married, I was an idiot when I got married.

I was an idiot about about like women.

I lived in a dorm for freshman men.

I lived in a freshman boys' dorm for three years before I got married.

That was my training.

That was my training ground for living with a woman I lived in a freshman dorm for three years.

And then I I moved in, got I got married and moved in with Megan and was just an idiot about all kinds of stuff.

And so I'm sorry, Megan, for that.

But I learned.

I learned.

And now I know I've learned things.

Like when she's crying, I shouldn't ask her why are you crying?

Because she doesn't know why she's crying.

I didn't know that when we first got married.

I didn't know that women cry for no apparent reason, just to like, I'm teasing.

See, this is all right.

Stick to the script.

Let's go back.

All right, let's get to the script.

I get myself in trouble when I go off script.

Okay.

Women are awesome.

You guys are just more emotionally in touch.

It's great.

I'm like, why am I offending so many people today?

Why am I doing this?

You know?

I don't know.

Okay.

No, there's a difference between an idiot and a fool.

An idiot is what I'm doing.

That's what I'm being right now.

I'm actually being both.

I was an idiot, now I'm being a fool.

That's what I'm displaying.

Now I know better and I'm saying things I shouldn't say.

Now, a fool is someone who is not ignorant of the truth, they just choose not to follow it.

And Ahab was a fool.

He was a fool.

And it actually cost him his life.

And worship team, you guys can make your way out as we as we wrap this up.

Interesting story.

In 1 Kings chapter 22, Ahab is thinking about going to war.

1 Kings 22 · chapter mention

He's thinking about going to war.

And uh and so he he talks to Jehoshaphat, who's the king of Judah, the kingdom to the south, and he's like, Hey, I think we're gonna go to war.

Do you want to join me in war?

And so we pick up there.

He turned to Jehoshaphat and asked, Will you join me in battle to recover Ramoth Gilead?

And Jehoshaphat replied to the king of Israel, Why, of course, you and I are as one, my troops are your troops, and my horses are your horses.

And then Jehoshaphat added, But first let's find out what the Lord says.

So the king of Israel summoned the prophets, about 400 of them, and asked them, Should I go to war against Ramoth Gilead, or should I hold back?

And they all replied, Yes, go right ahead.

The Lord will give the king victory.

But Jehoshaphat asked, Is there not also a prophet of the Lord here?

So basically, these prophets were not prophets of God.

I guess if we ask, ask the right kind of prophet, basically, is what Jehoshaphat says.

We should ask him the same questions.

He never prophesies anything but trouble for me.

His name is Micaiah, the son of Imlah.

Jehoshaphat replied, That's not the way a king should talk.

Let's hear what he has to say.

And so this guy that Ahab hates because he always tells him things he doesn't want to hear.

Hey, this guy comes out and says, Yeah, if you go into battle, you'll die.

And then Ahab turns to Jehoshaphat and says, See what I told you?

This guy's the worst.

He's such a downer.

Everyone else says I'll be successful.

He says I won't be.

And so he ignores his advice.

He ignores his advice.

And he goes to battle, and guess what happens?

He dies.

Yeah, you got it.

You guys are smart.

He dies.

Because he ignored the wisdom of the Lord.

He was feeble, no strength of character, didn't stand for what's right, and he was foolish.

There's so much scripture about wisdom.

Proverbs 27, 12 says that a prudent person or a wise person foresees danger and takes precautions.

The simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences.

It's been interesting this last week.

You know, most people who are following current events have followed this crazy story about the submarine that was lost.

And it's such a tragedy.

And it's kind of ironic because it's about the Titanic, which was this story of hubris, where these people ignored warnings and were like, ah, we're fine.

And then it ended in disaster, and that's very much how this story has shaped up if you followed it, where there was the submarine and it was experimental, and all these really knowledgeable people are like, hey, this thing isn't safe.

This thing's not safe.

There's major red flags here, and the guy who led it was like, ah, it's fine.

And it ended in disaster.

It says that the simpleton, the fool, ignores danger and precaution, goes on blindly, and suffers the consequences.

Proverbs 19:20 says, Get all the advice and instruction you can.

Proverbs 19:20

So then you'll be wise the rest of your life.

Luke 252 says that even Jesus had to grow in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God, and all the people of Jesus had to grow in wisdom, then man, how much more do I need to grow in wisdom?

Ahab rejected the wisdom of the wise.

He rejected the wisdom of the Lord.

And it cost him his life, just like the kingdom of Israel split, because that son of Solomon, Rehoboam, rejected the wisdom of the elders and just took the advice that he wanted to hear.

If we want to be successful in life, and guys know this, the Lord wants you to be.

And I don't mean success and all this typical like usually success just means money and possessions, but no, no, like successful.

Like you live a life worthy of respect.

And you live a life that has meaning.

And you live a life that you'll be proud of one day.

Not a life free of mistakes, not a life free of failure.

In fact, through the Lord, sometimes your greatest failures can springboard you into more success than you've ever had.

But if you want to live that kind of life, you've got to be someone who values wisdom.

You cherish wisdom, you seek it.

You find those who have gone ahead of you in life and you learn from them.

You find those who have a deeper relationship with the Lord and you learn from them.

You look at God's word and it's filled with wisdom, and you soak it up and you desire it and you cling to it because you need it.

Ahab's the worst of the kings.

And at the end of the day, he's just a man who was feeble, no strength of character, went along to get along, went in Rome.

He was feeble and he was foolish.

What if we were strong and wise?

What if we were strong and wise?

What if we made that a priority to say, you know what?

No matter what, I want to live a life of strength, I want to live a life of wisdom.

I want to see what God could do with that.

And you're capable of it.

You're capable of it because if you know the Lord, you have the Holy Spirit inside of you.

You have been given everything you need to live the life that God has given you to live.

You have that.

Don't worry what everyone thinks, don't go along with what everyone else is doing.

Stand your ground, have character, and soak up wisdom, and you will be the opposite of Ahab.

Your success will not be sabotaged.

It's a cautionary tale, like all these kings' lives are.

And I think as we wrap up and pray, as I was thinking about it this morning, you know, I'm like, ah, this I'm teaching the story of Ahab.

He's like the worst guy you could teach on.

What in the world?

How's this gonna be inspiring?

How's this gonna be helpful?

Because it's not it's not it's not fun just to say, hey, don't do this.

That's not like a fun message.

But I think that what I what I realized is that it's really easy to be Ahab.

It's really easy to be Ahab.

It's not hard.

It's easy to be feeble.

It's easy to just sort of go like which way is the wind blowing?

I'll go that way.

What does everybody think?

What does everybody want?

I'll just do that.

That's easy.

It's easy to be foolish.

It takes no effort to be a fool.

But to be strong and to be wise is rare.

And the Lord is calling us to be that.

He is calling you to be that.

He desires you to be that because he has good things for you.

And for you to receive those things and to take hold of those things and to manage them well requires strength and wisdom.

And God has it, and you can have it if you want it.

If you desire it and if you commit to it.

So let's learn the lesson of Ahab.

Not feeble and foolish, strong and wise.

Sound good?

Alright.

We're going to wrap up in just a second with a baptism.

But first, I want to show it's kind of actually in the in the light of oh, you know what I forgot, Matt?

Lord's Supper.

I don't know why I looked at you like Matt.

Hey, let's take Lord's Supper.

I was almost really foolish.

Right?

Almost forgot that.

Hey, so if you're new, we take this little meal together every Sunday.

Um, really important meal.

Reminds us of Jesus, gets our eyes on Jesus.

And like, honestly, guys, he is our strength, and he is the source of wisdom.

So there's no way to do everything that we're talking about doing in our own strength.

It's not our own strength we're relying on, it's not our own wisdom, it's him.

So this little piece of bread reminds us of his body that was broken on the cross, the juice is his blood that was shed for us on the cross.

And we we take this meal to remember him.

And I can't believe I almost forgot.

So forgive me.

So, Lord, oh, Lord, I love you so much.

You're so good.

We thank you, Jesus, for your sacrifice for us.

We thank you, Jesus, for the strength that you showed on the cross.

You know, Lord, I'm reminded that when you were arrested, your disciples tried to stop you from going to the cross by force.

And you stopped them and you told them, Don't you realize that if I wanted to, I could call on legions of angels to rescue me?

That's the kind of strength that you have, Jesus, and yet you willingly gave up your life for us on the cross.

It was not a moment of weakness, it was a moment of unparalleled strength.

And we need this strength that you have to live strong lives.

So thank you, Lord.

As we take this in, we ask that you empower us by your spirit to be as strong as you were.

Let's take the bread.

Let's pray for the juice.

Lord, thank you for this juice.

Thank you for your blood being spilled on our behalf to pay the price and cover our sins.

We love you so much.

We're so grateful for you.

As we drink this, Lord, we just want to express our gratitude and recognize that just like blood is life for us, your wisdom, your truth, your word, it is life for us.

It is what leads us into life.

And so help us cling to it, Lord.

We pray this in your name.

Let's take the juice.