Stop Withholding - Part 4

Well, I am, I'm, I'm going to try and, and get through some of

this a little bit quicker than I normally do.

I've got a, I've got a different way of closing out the, the

sermon today, but I'm excited about it.

In the meantime, you can turn to John, chapter 13 today.

John 13 · chapter mention

I want to talk about the Super Bowl.

I'm just kidding. That was last week.

I do want to thank you for coming back.

I expected to get a lot of difficult messages.

I only got a couple. A lot of you were very

encouraging and I appreciate it. I just tell you from the bottom

of my heart, I care about things like politics.

I care about things like science.

I care about all sorts of societal issues.

I just am not ashamed that what I care about the most is the

Lord. And I wish I could tell you that

everything that is important to Him is what is most important to

me. But it's more and more all the

time. It's a journey.

We talk about the love of God and a lot of times, and we'll

talk about a little bit more in a moment, but the way that God

loves is not natural to you and I, and so it has to be something

we continue to pursue. How many of you know what

confirmation bias is though? Well, confirmation bias, whether

you realize it or not, is something we all have.

And it is the tendency to interpret new information in a

way that confirms what we already believe.

And So what that means is if we already trust someone and we

hear something negative about them, we slow down and we look

for context. But if we don't like them, then

we believe it quickly. Like, if I don't like Jay

because I just think Jay's a jerk, right?

Yeah. Boo, Jay.

I'm just just kidding. And then somebody comes to me

and says, you know what? Jay said something that really

hurt my feelings, My immediate reaction, And yours, too, if

you're honest, is normally something like this.

That makes a lot of sense because, you know, I've had

problems with them too. Yeah, but.

But what we don't normally say is, well, I know I've had my

problems with them, but Are you sure?

No, our confirmation bias says, well, I already had problems, so

I'm sure what you're saying is true, but the reverse is true,

too. So if you were to come to me and

say I have a problem with Jay, but I love Jay, and truthfully,

I'm somewhere in between. So then because I already have

positive experiences, I say, oh, well, that can't be true.

You don't know him like I do and all of this.

But here's the reality. There's not one person in this

room who's not hurt somebody or done something real crummy to

another human being. And there's not one person in

here who hasn't done something that's really been incredible

and helped somebody before. It's so hard to be impartial,

isn't it? And that's why a lot of times

when you hear about somebody who's committed a crime or

something, we're like Burnham, you know, like we immediately

it's, it's our, it's, it's our bias that speaks there.

And then when it's somebody that we know and we know more the

details, we're like, well, there need to be consequences, but

let's be wise. Do you understand why it is so

good that God is the judge of this universe and we're not.

He is the only one who can do it without any bias.

Well, why do I talk about confirmation bias?

Here's why. This is our last message in the

relationship series. And confirmation bias doesn't

just inform the way that you process headlines or social

media. It also influences the way that

you process relationships. When your affection for somebody

and, and just so you don't hear this the wrong way, that can be

romantic or family, love or friend.

When your affection for somebody is strong, you're very quick to

give grace. When your affection is cooled

off, you're quick to assume their motives.

And when love is expressed on a regular basis, you can interpret

things in a in a very generous and healthy way.

But when love has been withheld, we interpret actions as

suspicion. And so today we're going to talk

about what it means to withhold love from one another.

Normally it's not something that happens immediately.

It's something that happens because things got difficult.

And so we don't share encouragement that we used to.

We don't give affirmation, we withhold them from people, and

we postpone reconciliation for a time that is better.

We say I'm not ready. A lot of times we'll convince

ourselves that we're simply being cautious or guarded or

wise. But slowly, over time, distance

replaces any desire to be close again.

Over the last few weeks, we've been walking through this

relationship series. It's called Stop in the Name of

Love. And if a song went in your head,

you are older, it's OK, I'm with you.

I just completed another trip around the sun.

But we're talking about the things that we have to stop in

order to have a healthy relationship.

And so the very first week we talked about not having knee

jerk reactions, to stop reacting to things and instead be

proactive. And a lot of times, relational

damage doesn't happen intentionally happens because we

reacted before we had time to think or pray and we wish we had

slowed down. But once something is said and

it's out there, it's hard to put it back.

By hard to put it back, I mean impossible.

The second week we talked about this.

We talked about not keeping score, which come to find out

nobody here struggles with. We talked about the secret

ledgers that we all keep in our hearts, which make it impossible

to forgive freely. Because we can remember all the

things that we've done in the positive column, but we remember

all the negative things they did in the negative column.

And last week we looked at the tendency to try and fix

everyone, actually, especially the ones that we love the most.

Isn't that crazy? God loves us so much that he

gives us so much free will that we could walk out of his hand.

We could walk out of his Kingdom if we chose to.

But we love people enough that we're like, I will fix every

single thing that is wrong in this scenario and you'll thank

me later. They normally don't.

Isn't that weird? We saw how easy it is to cross

the line from helping people that we love into controlling

them. And so we talked about how our

job is to plant and water, but it's God's job to make the seed

grow. And if you trace those three

things that we talked about together, you can see a pattern.

When we react, we wound people, and when we keep score, we

distance ourselves from them. And when we try to fix them, we

control. And then they want distance from

us because they're wounded. How about that?

And so after enough reacting and enough enough score keeping and

enough controlling, something else will begin to happen.

Because now it's just been a pile of issues, hasn't it?

We start having distance and withholding love.

It's a punishment that we don't even intend to dish out, but it

still happens. And because it does, we don't

often even notice it when it happens from us because, again,

it's slow. That's why this final message is

what's going to tie all of it together.

Sometimes the greatest regret that we have in our

relationships is not loving too much.

You never heard that. Like, if there's guilty of one

thing, if I'm guilty of one thing, it's just that I care too

much. Normally that's not the issue.

Normally it's loving too late, so we need to look at what this

actually looks like. And in John 13 we see a great

picture of it. It says before the Passover

celebration, Jesus knew that his hour had come to leave this

world and return to his Father. He had loved his disciples

during his ministry on earth, and now he loved them to the

very end. Isn't that sentence interesting?

We'll circle back to in a moment.

But how interesting is that? He loved his disciples very

much, and now he loved them to the very end because we just

talked about they didn't do a great job at the very end, did

they? He still loved him.

It was time for supper, and the devil had already prompted

Judas, son of Simon Iscariot, to betray Jesus.

And Jesus knew that the Father had given him authority over

everything and that he had come from God and would return to

God. We would never word it this way,

but sometimes we like to play God, don't we?

We look at that. We're like, well, I think if I

were Jesus, I think what I would have done it just said that he

gave him authority over everything.

So couldn't he have said I'm going to rebuke the devil for

you, Judas? You don't understand how bad it

was about to get, but I just did you a solid and then they lived

happily ever after free will. He won't control you.

And so verse four, he got up from the table, took off his

robe, wrapped a towel around his waist and poured water into a

basin. And then he began to wash the

disciples feet, drying them with the towel he had around him.

And Jesus came to Simon Peter and Peter said to him, Lord, are

you going to wash my feet? And Jesus replied, you don't

understand now what I'm doing, but someday you will.

You would think that should be enough for Peter, top disciple.

Oh, OK, well I trust you. No, Peter protested, You will

never wash my feet. And Jesus said, well, unless I

wash you, you won't belong to me.

Now here's Peter. Then wash my hands and my head

as well, Lord, not just my feet. He was all in when he believed

in something. So Jesus said a person who's

bathed all over does not need to wash except for the feet to be

entirely clean. I love it.

Jesus doesn't even rebuke him right there.

He's just like, I'm not, I'm not going to give you a sponge bath.

You're don't make it weird, Pete, but the feet had to be

washed. Why?

Because they had these open toed sandals that they were wearing.

They walked a lot of places. The roads were dusty.

Foot hygiene was very important. And it was very important

because you needed it in order to walk around, right?

So he says this. He says you disciples are clean,

but not all of you. I love it, for Jesus knew who

would betray him, and that's what he meant when he said, not

all of you are clean. Verse 12 after washing their

feet, he put on his robe again and he sat down and asked, do

you understand what I was doing? You call me teacher and Lord,

and you're right because that's what I am.

And since I, your Lord and teacher, have washed your feet,

you ought to wash each other's feet.

It's just one random question. Anybody here read through the

Bible before? When do they wash each other's

feet? When is that document in

Scripture? Anybody remember the chapter?

I don't think it is. I'm not saying they didn't do

it, just interesting. He's like, since I did it, you

should do it. He said I'd given you an example

to follow. Do as I have done to you.

I tell you the truth. Slaves are not greater than

their master, nor is the messenger more important than

the one who sends the message. Now that you know these things,

God will bless you for doing them.

Now here's what's interesting about this too.

When he's saying slaves are not greater than their masters, he's

already given them a caution and a warning.

What he's telling them is you're going to be tempted to do things

your own way and say look at the beautiful example of Jesus, but

this is not what Jesus is calling me to do.

And he's saying you are not too good to do what I just did.

Now I remember one time, I'm sure there will be a couple guys

here that'll remember this. There was a men's retreat.

We had a special guest speaker and he was a longtime friend of

Pastor Tom, who was leading this church at the time.

Anybody here remember when he was there?

And he and we, we did a foot washing, right?

Man, I was in such a conflicted place.

It was so hard because I'm the associate pastor.

And so this guest speaker comes to me and says, hey, Pastor Tom

doesn't know that we're doing this, but I want you to find a

basin. And we're all going to wash his

feet. And I said, will he be?

Will he be OK with it? And he said, oh, he'll be fine.

He said are you OK with it? I know what to answer.

I'll go find a base and I'll be right back.

And I did. I went and I found one and

Pastor Tom cried during it. If you've ever taken part in a

foot washing, it's humbling. It is humbling to be the one

that is receiving it. And I'll be honest with you, my

foot washing was twice. I cup the water and kind of

poured it, and then I went. I went and I sat back down.

I didn't really know what I was doing, had no experience doing

that. But here's why that moment still

to this day doesn't really sit right with me.

And Pastor Tom and I, we've talked about a couple times, it

was sort of mandated. Jesus willingly decided to wash

the feet of the disciples he was with.

And in this case, we had somebody say, here's what we're

going to do. And what you ended up then with

is peer pressure. OK, Now, I don't have a foot

washing illustration this morning.

But if I did, here's the reality.

Some people would come up here and do it and hate doing it, but

they wouldn't want to seem like they're less spiritual and they

would try to do it. There are whole denominations

that make a ritual out of foot washing.

Because he says, now that you've seen me do it, you should also

wash each other's feet. And they take it very seriously.

And they say, OK, well, we'll get baptized, we'll take

communion, and we'll wash each other's feet the same.

That kind of church, guys. You're welcome.

But here's what he's getting at. Don't feel like you're too good

to do something that benefits somebody else.

Again, remember, foot washing was something that was needed.

It was basic hygiene. It was something that you needed

because if your feet fell apart, you could no longer travel.

You weren't hopping in a car. There was no cart system.

There was no bus system that was going to come.

You weren't going to get an Uber to take you somewhere without

feet. It's even hard to hop up on a

donkey or a horse. He said, I want you to take care

of one another. The way you live matters to me,

and I want the way that you live to matter to one another too.

And I also want you to think about this.

So we just talked about this. It said having loving them, he

loved them to the very end. You remember what we just talked

about? Jesus knew what was coming.

A lot of times I've heard this preached and I've heard it

preached in the way of like Judas, right?

Jesus knew Judas was going to betray him and he still chose to

wash his feet. That's true, but he also knew

that Peter was going to deny him.

He also knew that John, the one that Jesus loved, was probably

going to write some things that were going to be less than

flattering about Peter. He knew all of these things that

were going to happen. He knew his disciples were going

to scatter. He knew Thomas was going to

doubt, and he loved them to the very end.

He didn't even go out of his way and say, OK, let's talk about

all of the failures that are coming up and how to avoid them.

He loved them enough to let them walk into mistakes, walk into

failures, walk into trials. But what was his great promise?

Not in this scripture, but he said, remember this, I will be

with you always, even to the end of this age.

Jesus learned how to love without expectation.

And so I want this moment to force us to confront something

that is uncomfortable in our own lives about love.

And maybe you've heard this before in Scripture.

There are some different words used for love.

Just as a quick review, if you have heard this before, there's

Eros, which means erotic love. That's where you get the word

erotic from that same root. So sexual love.

Then there is also storgay. And storgay is sort of a

generalized love. Probably the best you can get at

this now is, man, I love tacos or whatever, a general fondness

or affection. There's also Phileo, which is a

brotherly type of love. It's where Philadelphia gets its

name from. It's the city of brotherly love.

Unless you've been there and then, and then finally, I've

only been in the airport, but it was enough.

And then you have Agape. There are churches named after

Agape. Although to be honest with you,

when I was a kid and I'd drive past them, I looked at them and

I'm like, what's that? Agape Church, which is also a

word Agape which is the all consuming, self sacrificial,

humble type of love that God has for us.

And I want you to know this before I challenge you to

challenge yourself on the way you love one another.

God loves you without expectation.

He didn't say I decided to love you because I'm sure that that

love will move you to come and serve me and worship me.

He didn't say I'm going to love you so you can start serving

people. I'm going to love you because

you're going to start a ministry.

I'm going to love you because you're going to do something

that makes me look good. He just said it was really fun

creating you. You're made in my image.

You're of me. You are from me, and I love you.

Not everybody gets into heaven, but it's not because of a lack

of love, right? So this this is where most of us

struggle. Agape is a chosen commitment and

love to act for another person's good regardless of their

response. John 316 help me with this.

What is it for God so loved the world that he gave his only

begotten Son. For God so loved his church.

That is is that what it said. He so loved the world, He gave

his Son for the world. Not all of the world will choose

him, but for those who have, we now have the ability to be

called sons and daughters of the King.

He so loved the world with no expectation that the whole world

would come to him. So for us, we start by loving

freely and we serve people. And we have no problem being

generous. We'll initiate conversations.

How many of you you love like that?

Getting to know you process, right?

Because then we get to hear about everything.

And it's fun to learn about somebody and we encourage them,

and we give. But somewhere along the way,

especially when appreciation starts to feel absent or

gratitude feels lacking, something shifts inside of us.

And we might not say it out loud, but internally we reach a

threshold that's hard to pass. And I want you to know before I

go further because today is challenging.

I actually cried while I was reading my sermon this morning,

so hopefully I won't now. Got to get it out early, right?

It's completely human to feel hurt when you feel

unappreciated. That's normal.

It's normal to desire gratitude in a healthy way and to value a

relationship that feels more natural than transactional.

But the danger comes when appreciation becomes the fuel

for how you express your love. Love is not an emotion, it's a

decision. It's something that is to be

demonstrated. And you can choose to love.

Love is a decision. How many of you have heard this

before? It's a choice.

It preaches so well and it's so difficult to walk out.

Could you imagine? You come home, You give your

spouse these flowers. I thought of you today.

These were beautiful. And because I saw something

beautiful, it made me think of you.

And then they said you want me to stick them in a cup and watch

them die for a week, throw them away, they go to bed.

What do you feel was your true motivation?

These were beautiful and they made me think of you because

you're beautiful or was your true motivation.

This will show her how much I appreciate her.

And therefore I'll get some points, I'll get some coins,

she'll say something nice to me. We'll have a really nice feel

good moment. We normally don't chase it that

far in our thoughts, but we do think this would be nice to do

for them and it'll be nice for me what you did for that person

and that scenario which has not happened in my house.

Just want to be clear, what you do for that person and that

scenario has nothing to do should be completely detached

from how they react. Now there's something to be said

about being rude and I'm not saying it's OK to do whatever

you want, but I am saying this. If you were in Jesus shoes, his

sandals if you will, would you have done the same thing that

night? And I'm not saying you're the

savior of the world. I'm just saying you're their

teacher and you know what's to come.

Would you have done it? And I think the answer for every

one of us is probably not. I probably would have chosen

something else. I'm not even saying you hate the

idea of what happened, but you would choose something else.

Jesus could have withdrawn from them.

He could have said, hey, you know what?

I'm pulling in Noah. I'm starting over again.

New disciples. Let me get a new 12.

What would he have done if he was us?

He could have folded his arms and he could have let things get

a little more stressful there. He could have distanced himself

emotionally from Judas. That sounds like it'd be healthy

to do today's culture, doesn't it?

He could have reserved all of his emotional availability for

the disciples who would remain faithful.

Instead, you know what he did? He knelt down in front of them.

Agape love does not wait for the person to deserve it.

It would be waiting forever. And since agape love is the kind

of love that God has, let me ask you, aren't you glad that God

didn't wait to lavish His love upon you once you deserved it

because you still wouldn't have it today, and neither would I.

So that's what we're learning in the final week of the series is

how to stop withholding love. If we allow God to change us and

we ask Him to change the way we love other people.

I can't give you a method that won't hurt, but I can give you a

method that if you follow it through, it will help you not

take things so personally. The first thing that we'll talk

about is just that withheld love hardens.

I, I posted a, a video about this at one point, but just as a

brief recap, as you read through the story of Exodus, half the

time it says Pharaoh hardened his own heart.

Half the time it said that God hardened Pharaoh's heart.

Because you look at it and you're like, man, look at all

these plagues. Why wouldn't Pharaoh just let

them go? Obviously something supernatural

is happening here. You guys get out, do what you

got to do and come back. Pharaoh was not made of the kind

of stuff that was going to be readily adapted and molded by

the love of God. And because of that, it

continually was hardened. So what's the answer?

Did God harden his heart or did he harden his own heart?

And the reality is he wouldn't allow his heart to be made of

anything else. So God's very presence, very

provision hardened his heart because he was already decided

to be against him. You can turn to Second Samuel

14. We're going to talk about a

family that's pretty messed up. Second Samuel Chapter 14.

2 Samuel 14 · chapter mention

But I want to try to speak to where a lot of us are sitting

today and that's this. A lot of us, we really just

crave safety. We want to be in a good

neighborhood. We want to know that the family

dynamics are good. We want to know our relationship

will be good. And so when conflict hits,

betrayal wounds us and disappointment comes in, the

instinct that we have is rarely to move closer to somebody who

has hurt us. We move away and we convince

ourselves that we're simply giving space.

Sometimes we'll even tell ourselves that we're being wise.

But a lot of times what feels like self-control is more like

self protection. And at first it seems

reasonable. How many of you have heard the

saying or seen it on the Internet?

If it costs you your piece, then it's too expensive.

Something like that. That's crazy, man, because I, I

can't find that scripture, but I do read this one that says in

this world you will have trouble.

And so sentiments like this, they make sense.

But again, we're talking about how to have healthy

conversations with the people that matter the most to us.

And you cannot be equally intimate and close to everybody

that you know. Silence can feel safer than

confrontation. Indecision sometimes can feel

safer than risking a hard talk because you don't know how it's

going to go. So when we begin to pull back in

subtle ways, the whole time we're not realizing that we're

actually making whatever the original problem was worse.

So we become less expressive and less vulnerable and less

intentional. And we tell ourselves we're

being mature, but we're actually just disengaging because it's

hard. So the problem is that what

begins with self protection rarely stays that way.

It always morphs into a fun word that we will call apathy.

Apathy is the supposed absence of any sort of emotion.

Happy, pleased or displeased, any of it.

Apathy is not usually something that presents as dramatic.

Wouldn't be very apathetic then, would it?

It doesn't really project your emotions to everybody.

It it just makes you comfortable with distance and it trains your

heart to tolerate disconnection. Over time, you'll stop noticing

the gap. And the principle of, of, of

this can be life giving in certain areas.

So when someone is breaking free from addiction or growing

distant from a destructive habit, it's necessary to put

distance between certain places, locations, things like that.

When a person is abusive, detachment can be wise and there

are a lot of moments where distance is part of the healing

process. But you are wired for

relationships and you might say like, well, you're an extrovert,

I'm an introvert. I said what I said, if you are

made in the image of God, you're wired for relationships.

Could be different, could be a different amount, could be

different kinds, but you are wired for relationships.

Don't let the bad ones make you lose the benefits of the good

ones that God has laid out there for you.

If you become comfortable and growing distant from your

spouse, for example, eventually you'll find yourself emotionally

detached. If you find you, you grow

comfortable with distance from your children, well, eventually

you're going to end up handing their spiritual growth and

maturity or life instructions over to someone else without

even realizing it. And if you allow friendships

that once carried weight in your life to drift without any

effort, then one day you'll wake up and realize you stopped

fighting for it a long time ago and you don't really need them

without love does not preserve relationships.

It just hardens a heart. So David, who we're going to

talk about, is known as a man after God's own heart.

He was courageous in battle, tender in worship, and poetic in

his devotion. And in case you're curious, the

story we're about to share is not going to be in the kids

movie that we're showing in April.

Not really appropriate, right? That'll be later on.

They should do a Netflix series on this one or something.

But Scripture is also very honest about David.

But before we talk about this, let me just tell you this

spiritual depth does not automatically translate into

relational health. David clearly knew the Lord well

and clearly had no clue how to manage his family.

If you are a fan of theological writings, if you've ever heard

of AW Tozer, he has some of the most intimate writings about the

Holy Spirit and knowing God that I've ever read.

And both his spouse and his kids after he was gone, said he

didn't really know us. He didn't really spend time with

us. You can have a great

relationship with God and not know how to manage a family.

So I'm going to summarize this very uncomfortable scenario.

We'll be in second Samuel 14 in a moment and we'll hop around a

few scriptures, but let me give you a little back story.

In the in the chapter previous to that 13, he has an oldest son

named Amnon and Amnon assaulted his half sister Tamar.

I know, I know. I'm surprised that they've not

actually put all of this, you know, into some sort of

cinematic thing before because they tend to love things that

are very awful like this. It actually says that Amnon

desired Tamar so much he he created a trick to bring her

into his bedroom. And after he had assaulted her,

it says he hated her with more passion after than he had for

her when he desired her. It's pretty awful.

So because of this, what do you think happens to Amnon?

Nothing. The injustice of this act was

horrific. And so Tamar's full brother, a

man named Absalom, is devastated and furious.

And can you blame him? I can't blame him for it.

The Bible tells us that David was angry when he heard what

happened, but he didn't discipline Amnon for what he

did. He didn't step up decisively

into the chaos of his own family.

And so that silence ended up creating space for bitterness to

take root. And so as the family starts to

divide, David can't even see that his own inaction towards

the situation caused the rifts that are now growing.

And eventually, Absalom tricks Amnon into a scenario where

Absalom kills his older brother and then he flees the scene.

Does David send anybody to go get Absalom?

No. So now one of his sons has been

murdered by another one. The one that did the murdering

is now gone, and three years have passed.

Three years now we arrive at second Samuel 14 verse.

First verse. Joab realized how much the king

longed to see Absalom. That's all I'm reading right

now. What's interesting about that?

It's not the David didn't care. David did care about his son

Absalom. You read the same scripture I

did. He longed to see him.

You don't say. You long for endless pastables

from Olive Garden. You don't say that.

You long for the series premiere.

We could do some counseling. It's going to be OK of

something. Longing for something.

It's totally different. And I want you to notice the

tension here. He was not indifferent to his

relationship with his son, but he was unwilling to do anything

about it. He missed his son.

How could he not miss his kids? He's now got less kids than he

had before. He's watching his kids fracture

and splinter. But longing for something

without any movement still doesn't repair what's broken.

So Joab arranges for a wise woman to tell David a parable.

Because parables are the way to get David, apparently.

And in this parable, it exposes his own inconsistency.

So eventually David agrees to bring Absalom back home to

Jerusalem. Yay, we happy for David and his

family. You don't sound happy.

Go down to verse 24. So the king gave this order.

Absalom may go to his own house, but he must never come into my

presence. So Absalom did not see the king.

Well, sure, he can be back in the family, but he can't be in

relationship with me. So now Absalom is home, but he's

not welcomed. He's restored geographically,

but not relationally. Now he lives in the same city as

his father and can't see him. Wouldn't you think that's almost

worse? So that's about as clear a

picture of what withheld love looks like to me.

If I could possibly find one in the Bible that was better than

that, I would have used it. But proximity to somebody

without intimacy does not grow you.

And so it's already been three years.

And according to the Bible, two more years pass now, a total of

five years since the incidents happened.

No conversation between David and his son, no intentional

reconciliation. So what's the distance do?

It hardens a heart. And I want to try to give a

benefit of the doubt here. David might have believed he was

preserving authority. Maybe he was saying, look, I'm

the king. I've got an example to set.

I can't be seen bringing him in after what he did.

They probably already think I've shown him favoritism or who

knows? I mean, David was not known for

doing the best of decisions when it came to women.

So maybe he thought, who am I to judge?

Well, you're the king. But Absalom's resentment started

to grow. So what does Absalom start

doing? He's sitting at the city gates

and as people are coming to talk to David, Absalom says he's much

too busy for you. I can fix this problem for you.

The Bible says he actually stole the hearts of the people.

So Absalom's resentment continues to grow and eventually

it becomes full blown rebellion. He says you know what, I should

be the king anyway. David doesn't do anything.

He doesn't know how to lead this nation.

I'll take it from here. And this rebellion has followers

because you know what? Everybody likes a decisive

leader. So Absalom has some people that

come with him. David is unwilling to fight his

son. He's already traumatized.

He's already been through it when it comes to his own family.

So David just passively leaves the palace and wanders away.

At one point, people ask him, David, aren't you going to fight

back? And he said, maybe God's done

with me. Maybe he's moved me on to the

next mission. If God wants me in there, he'll

put me there. But if he wants me out, he'll

remove me. He's not even taking that part

personally. So there's still a good lesson

there from David. David goes off into the

wilderness, but Absalom decides to pursue him into the wild.

It's not enough for him to take over the palace and take over

David's women and all of this. He now decides he's going to

pursue him into the wilderness and he's going to kill him.

But that's not what happens. David's not killed.

Absalom is killed. He ends up hanging from a tree

and stabbed through the middle. And in second Samuel 18 verse

2 Samuel 18:33

33, when David gets the news, says the king was overcome with

emotion. He went up to the room over the

gateway and burst into tears. And as he went, he cried.

Oh my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom, if only I had died

instead of you. Oh Absalom, my son, my son.

Now here's the thing, we've all experienced loss before.

I never thought about this until this message.

What could have changed if Absalom could have heard David

say that earlier? By the time David does express

the depth of his love, it's too late to repair the relationship

and it's too late for his son to even hear it.

So without love did not protect David, it didn't preserve his

family. It multiplied the pain.

And the tragedy is not just that Absalom rebelled, it's the years

of inaction that preceded it. Love that's left unexpressed

does not remain neutral. You don't really get to catch

up. Whenever somebody tells me, hey,

I'm three months behind on my Bible reading plan, but I'm

reading like 5 days every day, I'm always like, don't do that.

You're not going to absorb it just getting the word today.

There's some things you just can't get caught up on, but you

can start fresh. What's today's Bible reading,

right? If we're not intentional about

moving toward the people that God has entrusted to us, our

natural drift will always be a way.

And once distance becomes normal, detachment no longer

feels dramatic. It just feels natural.

I'm going to ask for Michael and Heather Fort to come up here on

the stage. I have something for you guys.

You excited? Good, good.

Look at these backpacks. So I'm going to, let's see.

This one's a little smaller. Would you open it just so it's

it's open at the top, but not like all the way.

I'll do the same thing here. All right.

There we go. That one's a little bit smaller

than this one, so you can have that.

I don't want to stress you out. Here you go.

You're welcome. Yeah.

Yeah. No, I'm worried about you, man.

I care. Here's what's great.

These are my are. Are these cool?

These are like adjustable weights.

They go up to 25, but you can also put them at A5.

You just twist them, Right? So I think that's what we're

going to do here. Now, a couple weeks ago, we did

something with let's come over here into the light.

We did something, had another couple up here.

We saw that wall grow between them.

But here's the reality. First of all, just to confirm

publicly, you are married, correct?

OK, great. Step forward.

All right, so here's what happens.

Married people have baggage. Wait, wait, wait.

I'm not done before they get married.

But what are you going to do? You still got it.

So what happens then is they've already got their own baggage.

I had my kids go and pick out some of my heaviest books at the

house and fill it up. So if they are heavy, you can

blame them. I do so.

But then something happens and now you have a fight and you

don't really know how to resolve it, so you just leave it alone.

So here's what happens. You end up dropping some weight

in here and it gets a little bit heavier.

Doesn't feel a lot different than what you were already

carrying though, does it? No, but then, but then she says

something that's super passive aggressive.

You don't know what it means, but you don't want to ask

because then you'll have to talk about it.

So you you got some extra weight there.

But let's see, as time goes on, all these small things all add

up until it feels like there's a big thing.

And all of a sudden it's like, whoa, this came out of nowhere.

No, no, no, it didn't come out of nowhere.

There's been small weights that have been stacked for a long

time. And then there we go.

It's all right. Let me help you.

There you go. You want to help me with that?

That's great. Perfect.

Perfect. Now, we'll just leave it there

for now. Now, who do you think, Who do

you think has the heavier? Who do you think has the heavier

bag right now? I still do.

You still do see who has the heavier bag?

She does right now. Now, here's the deal.

Maybe this, maybe this is actually something that he's

used to carrying. So here's what I want you to

understand. You are designed to take care of

some things and do them well. And your spouse or your friend

or your Co worker or whoever else, they're designed to carry

other things. Well, here's where the danger

comes in. Here's where the apathy comes

in. What is something that you are

able to carry stress wise? Well, I think planning a little

bit. Planning whenever she tells me

what's going on, He said whenever she tells me what's

going on, I can handle that pretty well.

OK, We're all wired to handle things pretty well.

But when something hits and now you're both carrying baggage,

did you see how her whole posture changed?

Why? Because if it didn't, it would

have fallen out. Somebody's got to carry it.

And if he's not going to do it, and if you're not going to do

it, I've got to figure out how to do it.

Moms, right? So.

So I'll carry this, right? I'm going to figure this out.

Here's the problem. Then he says, what's the big

deal? I carry stress at work all the

time. Why can't you carry it?

Well, she's already carrying these things.

What is this? What did they pick?

Oh, Atomic Habits. That's a good 10.

Here's a book called Love Thy Body.

Sexual healing book, right? Yeah.

Bunch of books here. Here, I'll take this.

You've carried enough. You're welcome.

But the same is true. There are certain things he is

wired to carry better than you. And it could be easy to say, why

don't you care about this in the same way?

Well, because he's not wired for it.

Now, the beauty of marriage is that you become one flesh.

You're supposed to take each other's burdens under concern.

But a lot of times what we hear is well, I I'll take it.

A lot of times what we hear is like, well, I, I don't know,

I'm, I'm, I'm really good with finances.

So why can't they be as good with finances or I really take

my fitness seriously? Why can't they take their

fitness seriously or I do this? So why can't they?

Because they are not you. And if that is what you wanted,

you should have married yourself, right?

Thank you guys for helping me. If you start to think I can

carry this, why can't they? You're in danger because here's

what happens. You are now so distant that you

cannot see the struggle. You're not looking at them eye

to eye, are you? You're just saying I carry stuff

too. Life is hard, suck it up.

There's a measure of that. But you stood somewhere and made

a vow to this person, Made a vow to the Lord actually about this

person that for better or worse, or something along those lines,

that you would help help them carry it.

You know, what was kind of cool wasn't really part of it.

I didn't know he's going to do that.

He said let me help you pack that.

And he was being silly about it. But if you could see it from my

angle, what he was really doing is making sure that it wasn't in

a way that was going to hurt you and it wasn't in a way that was

going to fall out. That's what we're supposed to

do. You're having trouble carrying

that. I don't think you're weak.

I don't think you're used to carrying that.

I've carried that before. Let me help you carry it.

But you can't do that when you're apathetic.

I'll start helping you carry that when you learn to carry it

for yourself. Does that make any sense?

If they learn to carry it themself, they don't need you.

And eventually, that's the decision that gets made.

Sometimes. David might have been able to

live with the silence in the family, but Absalom couldn't.

David felt like he could function as long as their

relationship looked like this. So for him, no big deal.

Sure, he misses him, sure he wishes things were different,

but he could still function. Absalom was rotting away from

the inside out and he caved to bitterness and the whole family

paid for it. It's a nightmare scenario, isn't

it? You can't judge someone for

having a different emotional capacity than you, but you'll

never learn their limitations if you stop paying attention to

them. So pay attention to the people

you love. I don't want you to let safety

become a stone. So just a couple steps that I

have for you here. If withheld love does harden

hearts, we have to ask an uncomfortable question and it's

this. Are we becoming safer in these

relationships or are we becoming colder?

Before I give you these steps, I'll just tell you there's an

interesting cultural shift that's happening right now.

I read this article that was put out.

I don't know if anybody's aware of this guy.

His name is Kerry, new off. He's a Christian leader.

He puts out articles, and he found this one written by

somebody else. Her name is Freya, India.

And it was fascinating. The article was titled This

Therapists Are Not Parents. And she made the observation

that therapists are increasingly being asked to do what parents

once did. And what she basically says is,

is we've always said things like this, like, hey, you've got good

friends, your wife or whatever, but they can't be your

therapist. They can't be the one that helps

you through everything. So don't treat them like your

therapist. Well, now we're seeing the

reverse is becoming a problem because now people are pulling

on their therapists for things that they should go to their

loved ones for. Both are wrong.

And so therapists are not designed to help you in the

interpersonal. You have interpersonal people

for that. Therapists have a purpose.

And by the way, there are bad therapists out there.

So be wise. Although I'm a fan of Jesus and

therapy and community. Get a good therapist.

Just like sometimes we have bad interpersonal relationships,

sometimes they're a bad therapist.

But the point is this, there's a whole generation of people

coming up that never learned how to have interpersonal

discussions and how to have problem solved within the home.

And so they've gone to the first place that seems safe.

And whether that's an actual therapist or it's ChatGPT,

they're looking for somebody to look at them and say, you're not

wrong for feeling this way. I totally understand it.

Everybody wants to feel affirmed, don't they?

And if you're not going to get it from a parent, you'll get it

from somewhere. Here's the problem, it's not

just enough to be seen. God loves you so much that what

do What is the standard thing from the days of Billy Graham?

Come as you are, But what do the Christians normally follow that

up with? But he loves you too much to

leave you there come the way you are, but God loves you so much

He'll change you. We've got to have relationships

that challenge us. And that's again not an attack

on therapy. Therapy can be a gift.

It can be redemptive and healing.

But what's important to remember is this.

Not every difficult relationship is abusive.

Not every conflict is because things are toxic.

Some things are just hard. Some relationships are just

harder than others. Here's the thing guys, we're

Christians. We're made in the image of God,

and we are called to do hard things only through His power.

So not every relationship is your relationship to fix, and

not every problem is your problem to solve.

But some of them are. And if you toss out every one of

the ones that feels hard, what's your mission?

The danger is when we look at apathy like it's wisdom.

You know what I just read in the Bible yesterday?

I'm going through Leviticus with my children.

That means I got to go through Leviticus 18 with my son for the

first time. Forbidden sexual practices.

That was fun. However, listen to this gem that

just popped out with yesterday's Bible reading.

If you have the Bible reading plan that we're doing here,

Leviticus 1917 says this. Do not nurse hatred in your

heart for any of your relatives. Confront people directly so that

you will not be held guilty for their sin.

So you won't be held guilty for their sin.

How's that work? I'll tell you, in the days that

Leviticus was written for the culture of believers there, this

is what was so important. They understood that we only

grow close to the Lord relationally, relationally.

And so if you see someone and they've committed a sin, don't

sit there and look at them from afar and hate them for it.

Sin in the camp is sin that's going to affect everybody.

And they knew this. And so because of that, they

said if you see sin, you need to relate to it.

So first thing I would say, if you're worried, if you need to

see if you've got a hardened heart or a heart that's wise,

first of all, pay attention to your prayers.

A hardened heart normally will stop praying for someone once

they get wounded, still intercede for them through a

wound. Second, I would tell you to

examine your imagination about it.

When you picture them, do you imagine their worst motives or

do you allow for there to be some complexity in it?

Wisdom does discern patterns with people, but hardness of

heart always assigns a permanent label.

The third thing I would say is this.

Test your willingness. Are you willing to move toward

repair if there were a safe opportunity?

Or have you already made-up your mind that it's over?

And the last thing I would say is to ask somebody who's

spiritually mature to speak into your relationship or your

situation. Not only does isolation weaken

discernment, but it fuels apathy.

It's a bad cycle to be in. One more Scripture, and I'm

going to read you some lyrics. Hebrews chapter 3 says this.

Hebrews 3 · chapter mention

Be careful then, dear brothers and sisters.

Make sure that your own hearts are not evil and unbelieving,

turning you away from the living God.

You must warn each other every day while it is still today.

Anybody know what today is? It's today.

Thank you though it's today. Warn each other today while it's

still today, so that none of you will be deceived by sin and

hardened against God. Stop being so loving while I'm

trying to bring conviction. The point is this.

Both Old Testament and New Testament agree on this.

Do not nurse resentment. Do not let bitterness calcify

your heart. Do not allow silence to become a

strategy. OK, I'm going to skip ahead.

I had a whole lot more I wanted to say, but I want to read you

some lyrics. How many of y'all remember when

Jason Gray has been here for a concert before?

All right, we're some fans of Jason Gray around here.

I'll tell you what, out of all the artists we've had here, man,

he is such a genuine guy. He is a singer-songwriter, plays

acoustic. He is such a good guy.

And there is a song that was never on the radio, but there's

a song he has called Without Running Away.

And this song is powerful. It is something I've cried

through many times. And so I decided I was going to

read these lyrics to you. Here's some of them.

It's not like I'm trying to be optimistic.

If the truth be told, I'd rather dismiss it and be free from the

burden of living that hoping requires.

And what's the chorus To bring my heart to every day and run

the risk of fearlessly loving without running away.

He says Jesus is speaking, but it's so hard to hear when

disciples with swords are cutting off, ears broken and

bleeding, waiting for healing to come.

And let's see how honest this is, he says.

But wounded is a part that I've learned to play well, though the

wound may run deeper than I know how to tell.

Pains and addiction that keeps me buried alive.

But when it's all that I know, I'm afraid to leave it behind

and bring my heart to every day and run the risk of fearlessly

loving without running away. And so I decided to try

something out. I sent him a text and I said,

Jason, I don't even know what inspired you to write this song,

but this song means a lot to me and I feel like the lyrics are

something I want to share on Sunday.

The name of my sermon is Stop Withholding.

Would you mind telling me what inspired you to write the song?

And he graciously said yes. And he stopped what he was doing

and he walked down some Rd. in Wyoming where he was recording

something. And he sent me a video.

And I'm going to let him preach the final part of this sermon.

Gray I was so honored when Blake asked me to give a little bit of

background on my song Without Running Away.

I believe that the pertinent lyric was you have to bring your

heart to every day and run the risk of fearlessly loving

without running away. I think that's the key lyric.

If not, now he's going to have to work that into the sermon.

So there was an interesting songwriting process for me.

One of my heroes, Leonard Cohen, talks about how some songs

should be written the way that the Lord commanded the ancient

Israelites to build altars to him, altars made of unhewn

stone, untouched by the Craftsman.

Because evidently the Lord didn't like smooth.

He liked the rough edges, you know?

And So what that means to me as a writer is, you know, like I

can, I can work eight years on a song and just craft the

lifeblood right out of it, you know?

So that song I wrote in about 20 minutes, and I didn't really

change anything. I just allowed it to be what it

was, an alternative unhewn stone, you know?

But the song, it just kind of came out of me and I didn't even

know what a lot of it meant at the time, kind of revealed

itself to me over the years. Like, oh, oh, that's what I

meant when I wrote that, you know, uh, so it started because

I was umm, I was in a dark season in my life.

And you know, our, our, our hearts are self protective,

right? They want to, they want to armor

up because to love is to be vulnerable, to be open and to

risk the pain that comes along with that.

And that guy's got a good groove going anyway.

I was, I was feeling that I was in a a rough spot where loving

was was painful. And I guess I wanted to do the

ultimate running away. It was a long, restless night

where I was fixated on the idea of of checking out, of being

done with life. I had a there was a rafter in my

attic and there was a heavy duty extension cord.

And I thought that's how I could do it.

And three times I got out of bed in the middle of the night and I

went up in the attic and I contemplated it, lined

everything up. And then ultimately, I, you

know, I, I thought, I can't do this to my kids.

That'd be too hard for them. And I came back down and tried

to go back to sleep and then would be overwhelmed by the

pain, the pain of life, you know.

And so that happened three different times.

After the third time, I was laying in bed and a lyric began

to form in my head. I've spent some years looking

for a length of rope and a place to hang it from the end of my

hope. But where I thought hope it

ended, I always find a little bit more.

And you know, I'm a a sucker for a song lyrics.

So the fourth time I got out of bed, instead of going up in the

attic, I went downstairs to my laptop and I just had to go

after that lyric. And it just spilled out of me in

about in about 20 minutes, you know, And that line run the risk

of fearlessly loving without running away.

You know, that night, it meant, you know, without leaving planet

Earth before my scheduled departure, you know, but we can

do that in small ways, right? We can armor up.

We can withhold love. I think about one of the ways

that I've done that recently. I was with a young person who

spoke disrespectfully to me. And I got angry inside, you

know, and, and, and I said I expect an apology.

And was my anger, my armoring up was hiding behind this demand

for respect. But I was armored up in that

moment, you know, and, and that didn't help.

I didn't get an apology. Umm, I thought about it

afterwards. I hadn't been authentic.

I hadn't been truthful. If I had, I would have said,

instead of, uh, I expect an apology, I would have said, I

don't know if you mean that or not, but it, it hurts me when

you talk that way and then just let her respond however she was

going to respond anyway. I'm learning.

I'm learning how to show up authentically vulnerable, run

the risk of fearlessly loving without running away or hiding

behind anger or apathy or all those things.

So that's helpful. Thank you.

That was a very important song for me.

So as Cassie and I watched that video when he sent it in, I'm

like, just preach my sermon. It's almost like we serve a

sovereign God who's speaking to all of us, right?

And I'm so glad that he listened to the Spirit of God instead of

his own emotions. It really caught me at the end

where he said, if I would have been honest, I wouldn't have

demanded an apology. We do that with kids.

Don't we say you're sorry, sorry, but they're not.

He said, if I had been authentic and honest, I would have said

that really hurts. And then just see where it goes

from there. Doesn't that feel more

vulnerable though, if you do feel convicted to try and love

without expectation, if you feel like there is something that you

need to do, I just have one line of a scripture for you.

And it's this. James 417 says, remember, it is

sin to know what you ought to do and then not to do it.

Christianity, simple, but it's not easy.

So I just want to challenge you. I want to encourage you today to

run the risk of fearlessly loving without running away.

Christians need to be in the world.

We've got to find ways to be united with each other because

we're not going to be united with anybody else.

I love you guys. I pray that you'll all run that

risk today, Eamon.