 Here we are in First Kings. Am I on here? In First Kings chapter one and we see the story of Adonijah. Adonijah is David's fourth son. Now I came across this story in you know kind of my study and my thought on Father's Day sermons when I was thinking about you know fathers and their children and the culture you know the sermon this morning kind of popped this sermon up in my mind and in my reading. So what I wanted to look at was some things that we could learn from this story. We see this story of Adonijah which is basically a good a good lesson for us that good men of God, great men of God don't necessarily pass that on to the next generation. I mean here we see Adonijah which is David's fourth son you know this this kid had some issues and you know it's another son of David's that tries to take the kingdom. All right so what I want to do this evening is I want to look at Adonijah. I want to look at Adonijah and another son of David and I want to look at some aspects of what they did and have kind of a cultural application of that of that of these men's lives and see what we can learn as a church and as people. Now you know both things to watch for first of all and things not to do okay and now this is now first of all let me just give a disclaimer this is one of those sermons where you may sit in your seat and go oh is there something wrong is something going on look not as far as I know okay I mean this is one of those preventative maintenance sermons okay so I mean we used to have preventative maintenance programs at power plants on huge expensive machines right we would have we would implement a preventative maintenance program where we did certain things so these machines would last like four or five times longer than they normally would so this is a preventative maintenance sermon for the church okay and for us all right so we can we can learn some things from these stories because look there's some patterns here that always repeat themselves okay in these stories of Adonijah and someone else that we will look at so let's look at the story first of all we'll do we'll do it we'll get the story we'll study out what happened here and then we'll apply that to us individually as a church and how what we can learn going forward all right so we can be more protected okay think about it that way look at first Kings chapter one and verse number five the first point I want to make with Adonijah and the pattern that he follows that we will you will see with this type of person over and over again is that he first Adonijah he exalted himself okay look at verse number five of first Kings chapter one the Bible says then Adonijah the son of Haggath exalted himself saying I will be king and he prepared him chariots and horsemen and 50 men to run before him and his father had not displeased him at any time and saying why has thou done so and he was also a very goodly man and his mother bear him after Absalom so look this is nothing new under the sun this idea that somebody who's you know trying to take over and trying to you know subvert the leadership would exalt themselves turn back to second Samuel chapter 15 because even this very man's brother was no different than him okay his brother did exactly the same thing so you would have I mean you would have thought that after everything that they went through with Absalom that more people would have noticed but fortunately as we'll see as we go through this the right people did notice okay look at second Samuel chapter 15 and verse number one the Bible says and it came to pass after this that Absalom prepared him chariots and horses and 50 men to run before him so it wasn't that somebody took Absalom and said hey we're gonna we're gonna put you in the high seats and we're gonna give you these men and no he prepared that for himself right he prepared all these men to make himself look special and important and then the Bible says in Absalom rose up early Absalom of course is that the one that successfully took the kingdom from David for a period of time okay he successfully led a coup against his father all right and this is the beginning of it this is how he did it and the Bible says in Absalom rose up early and stood beside the way of the gate and it was so that when any man had controversy had a controversy came to the king for judgment then Absalom called unto him and said of what city art thou and he said thy servant is one of the tribes of Israel and Absalom said unto him see thy matters are good and right but there is no man deputed of the king to hear thee so basically he trashes leadership in a in a subtle way here right he basically says oh here's somebody with a problem that's coming to the king for judgment and he basically intercepts that person and says oh man if only the king could help you bummer you know there's nobody right and then in verse number four it says Absalom said more over oh that I were made judge in the land that every man which have any suit or cause might come unto me and I would do him justice so basically what he's saying is man you have a problem it's too bad that the king can't help you but if I were the judge I would help everyone right I mean it's like he's exalting himself he's he's lifting himself up the same as adonijah he's lifting himself up all right so that's the first aspect we see of what adonijah did is he exalted himself he lifted himself up the second is this go back to first king's chapter one first king's chapter one and look down at verse number seven in verse number seven of first king's chapter one the bible says and he conferred with joe ab the son of zariah and abbi abbiathir the priest and they following adonijah helped him but but zedok the priest and baniah the son of jehoida and nathan the prophet and shimei and rhea the mighty men which belong and the mighty men which belong to david were not with adonijah and adonijah slew sheep and auction and fat oxen and fat cattle by the stone of zohoeth which is by enrogel and called his brethren the king's sons and all the men of judah the king's servants but nathan the prophet and baniah and the mighty men and solemn in his brother he called not now look turn to second samuel chapter 15 the the second aspect that we see of adonijah is this he separated people on purpose okay he specifically separated people for strategic advantage okay absalom did exactly the same thing okay go to second samuel chapter 15 and look at verse number 11 and the bible says in second samuel 15 this is absalom it says an absalom went and with absalom went 200 men out of jerusalem that were called so these are men that he chose okay he chose them why did he chose them and they went in their simplicity and they knew not anything so absalom picked and chose certain men to go with him all right and they were the bible says that they were you know chosen for their simplicity go back to first king's chapter one let's look at verse 10 of first king's chapter one go back to adonijah you see the similarities between these two are shocking actually but it's not really that shocking because they were doing their motives were the same so they were following the same pattern and in second and first king's chapter one in verse 10 the bible specifically says but nathan the prophet and benaiah and the mighty men and solemn in his brother he called not and look at verse number 11 and this will tell you you know basically why he didn't choose them in verse number 11 and it says this wherefore nathan spake unto bashiba the mother of solemn and saying has thou not heard that adonijah the son of hageth doth reign and david our lord know if not look he separated people and chose certain people so david wouldn't find out he was separating people in a strategic way so people wouldn't find out and tell david what he was doing it was very simple okay but look david did find out all right look at verse number 12 david did find out and who recognized the issue with uh with adonijah look at verse number 12 now therefore come this is nathan the prophet talking to bashiba even bashiba didn't know before nathan told her so i mean there was some subtlety going on here the but the bible says in verse 12 nathan tells bashiba he says now therefore come let me i pray to you give the council that thou mayest save thine own life and the life of thy son solemnly because solemnly was promised by david that he would be the king so solemnly was supposed to be the king and here adonijah had kind of exalted himself he wanted to be king he was forming this little alliance to the side and he was doing all these things and raising himself up to be king to steal the kingdom from solemn basically david was old he was stricken in years the bible says and he didn't have any idea that any of this was going on okay and look at verse 13 and nathan says go and get thee unto king david and say unto him dits thou not my lord oh king swear unto thine handmade saying assuredly solemn in thy son shall reign after me and he shall sit on my throne why then dush adonijah reign so she's basically saying you better go and tell king david what's going on about about what's happening here okay now look here's some some words on nathan here all right this guy's been around the block i mean this guy has has seen some things in his time and he recognizes this right away okay and he goes and he tells bashiba who's the mother of solomon david and one of david's wives of course and he basically saves the day in this story so nathan saves the day but look he had the experience he he recognized this pattern i mean think of the things that nathan had seen i mean it was easy for him to see when you think about it like hopefully david took good care of nathan in his life i mean nathan pulled david out of the fire so many times you think about it it was nathan that went to david after his major sin with bashiba and it was nathan that that basically confronted david and said you know thou art the man you know you are the one and he brought that sin to david and of course david paid you know the chastisement he got chastised by god but at least david was confronted by nathan and was able to get right right away he had the choice to get right right away so it was nathan who recognized that and brought it to to david then you know nathan again here you know nathan's not he's not 30 years old here nathan's an experienced person he understands what's happening and he saved david big time throughout his life so the conclusion of the story is this adonijah he of course you know his it's brought to light he then you know he gets he gets caught and you know solemn even says you know i'll let him live right but then he takes things too far and he asks to marry you know david's concubine which at that point solemn says you know you've obviously not humbled yourself you're obviously still after power you're obviously still causing trouble and he has benaiah you know the hammer you know first of all every leader needs a benaiah that's not in the sermon but i mean this guy who's just like hey he's just dropped you know whenever the hammer has to be dropped benaiah is like no problem i got it right i mean he takes care of all these people for solemn he's the one that killed joe ab i mean it's just then benaiah went if benaiah is coming for you things have gone south okay one of the mighty men of course all right so here's the story we see that there's a very specific pattern here and i got to thinking about this when i was reading this and i was writing the sermon for this morning and i just want to just bring up some cultural things that we need to watch for and like i said this is preventative maintenance right don't be all you know because there's no problems here as far as i know all right so let's just look at some application here what can we take from this so on this father's day we see some kids here that didn't quite turn out right absalom adonijah they followed a specific pattern and the pattern rings true today and you know as i bring these things up if you can think in your mind things that have happened in churches you know not this one but i mean other churches that you know of this pattern rings exactly true so let's step through it look there's nothing new under the sun nothing so let's learn some preventative maintenance lessons from these kids the first one is this okay you need to be aware of people that need to have the preeminence okay and look don't be this guy right don't be this guy number one but first of all be aware of people that need to have the preeminence you know these are your people that are like your one uppers right i mean where they've always got the better story or they've always got this or whatever think about ad i mean think about this kid think about adonijah think about it i mean what had he done what in the world had this kid done where he would say in verse number five i will be king what had he done nothing think about his dad think about david david was sol's armor bearer before he killed goliath david was anointed by god to be king and david david's heart you you say david you know is is god all kinds of problems throughout the bible agree he did all kinds of things that weren't right and all this but his heart was right towards the lord his heart was right his flesh messed him up a bunch of times but his heart was right towards the lord where was adonijah's heart his heart was for himself so you think about just the the arrogance of this kid the the preeminence i mean he had done nothing yet his father was this great man of god so it wasn't look it was the same with absalom absalom oh that i would be judge in the land what makes you qualified to judge people nothing i mean just because you know he's the king's son you know it's look you have to watch out for these people that need to have the preeminence and i'm not saying that every single person that's arrogant and needs to have the preeminence in their life is going to turn out to be this way that's not what i'm saying but the people that turn out to be these wicked people that would just rebel against leadership they do it for this reason because they need to have the preeminence look good leaders don't need the preeminence good leaders lead out of service they i mean they lead i mean a good pastor leads out of service to the lord that's why he leads a good pastor leads because he wants to serve god with his life that he wants to build people up with his life that's why you'll you'll see a good spiritual leader because they want to build people up it has nothing to do with them it's matter of fact it's very detrimental to them is what you i mean can't you can't you see that with what pastors go through can't you see that with what i mean it doesn't matter what year it is if it's 2020 2019 2018 2017 just think of the the things that pastors have dealt with in their churches with people just like stabbing them in the back and all these different things i mean look a good leader just leads out of service not out of preeminence but they're going to have these people that pop up and that need to have the preeminence that's the first warning sign that they need to have the preeminence these are the people that they're always the ones they have to be the most spiritual like they speak in bible verses like no one speaks in bible verses that's not normal you want to we'll talk about the bible that's good but no one you just like this person that's trying to out spiritualize everybody all the time that's not that's not normal you know that's that's that should raise a red flag okay these people are trying to build themselves up all right here's another aspect of this and this is a big one that i really want to focus on as far as the culture of of a church especially a church our size all right i want to focus on this aspect of these two men these two boys these two sons of david in this aspect that they needed to they were they were always trying to separate people they were trying to pick and choose and separate people off okay now look let me just rabbit trail this thing for a second because look this is a big deal for us especially because we're a small church okay look the importance of unity in our church i cannot stress enough okay because look we're a small church we need to be careful and this is something that i didn't really necessarily understand when i would hear pastor preach it when we first moved to california to sacramento but pastor you know preached a lot against the formation of small groups and look in a bigger church it's less of an issue with with a church our size we do not want small groups for me because we it's people will feel excluded and and we we need to make sure that we're not doing that even if it's innocent okay look even if it you're there's no adenias here all right it's just something we need to be conscious about right so look what i'm getting at is that the culture of our church should be where there's never something where 80 percent of the people are invited that should never happen because people will feel left out right i mean and you say man so i'm gonna have like you know five or six people over and look i don't this has never happened as far as i know preventative maintenance okay but look you say look there's always going to be in a group of people there's always going to be people that you connect with better my wife has a friend and she calls it clickation i just have clickation with these people and with this person i don't have so much clickation right i mean it's true that's the way we are right but especially in a small church like this we need to make sure that you know people are included in things that we do okay because we can't leave people out and you say well that seems like he seems like that's a lot of work well yeah it's a lot of work it's a lot of work if you want to go and do something with four people to call an extra four people and make sure that everybody at least had the invite and all that type of stuff that's a lot of work but but guess what that's church that's church life that's that's life with your brothers and sisters in christ this isn't the world okay there's no cool kids here okay we're all cool all right but look there's no there's none of that here so it's extra work to go to those steps but that's a culture that we have to have here okay so i mean even though we have a tendency towards that you just need to think about each other when we're part of a church right i mean go study the one another's in a bible in the bible you know there's all these different things like you should consider one another you should build one another you should pray for one another you should give to one another you should exhort one another you should forgive one another i mean you can have a sermon series on one another's i mean it's not you and your buddies it's not you and me two people it's one another when we're part of a church so that is something that we always need to be conscious about especially us as a small church okay preventative maintenance so it's just different than being part of a normal group of worldly people it's different because we are going to consider one another okay all right now back to what i was talking about it takes effort right to have a friendly church culture by the way we notice i mean look i can do everything myself and my wife can do everything here ourselves but look we notice when there is people here that aren't necessarily comfortable in the church whether they're not um whether they're not like regular attendees or they're not three you know three to thrive or whatever and and we see that certain people of you are like giving extra effort look that does not go unnoticed because that's exactly the culture that we want to have here and that is so appreciated i can't even begin to tell you okay because look we can't be everywhere at one time okay my wife is talking to somebody some visitor today look there's other people that need attention in this church and you guys you all are taking care of that and we notice it that's the culture that we want here and and it's happening and it needs to continue to happen okay all right go back to first kings chapter one and verse number 45 49 so look here's the thing back to the story and like my second point on unity is this we need to be aware of people that are always trying to separate people okay because you will meet these people that are always trying to separate people and look don't be the one doing it because look even if you're even if you're not you know sinister about it it's it's not a good thing okay so like look at first kings chapter one in verse number 49 where the bible says and all the guests that were with adonijah were afraid and rose up and went every man his way so look the people that got separated by adonijah they got hurt too so we don't want to be and we need to be aware of people that are trying to separate people okay because that's what will happen and i'm telling you it happens every single time that there's been huge trouble in church there's been somebody that has separated four people or whatever and then the trouble starts but i'm telling you that even though that might have started with one bad person all those people got hurt all those people got hurt and that's what happened here too in verse number 49 they were all afraid they're like oh man whoa this guy's in a lot of trouble and we were along with him right so i mean be i mean be careful i mean recognize it and be careful if if you see somebody like that okay because you don't want to get caught up in that right these are people that are always trying to like get people to talk in a corner or something like this i mean that's a huge red flag if that happens okay they're trying to separate you don't be the simpleton as in second samuel okay and it says that absalom picked the simple people he picked the simple guys don't be that all right you know and then because look that leads into all the i mean why are you in a separate conversation it is the it begs the question right why or is there always these separate conversations going on i mean i mean that's why i like the big group that we always talk in i love that i mean if first of all it's fun second of all i mean it's it's the way we should always be together because i mean look you know you just have to kind of ask yourself why someone would want to be doing that if that happens okay because look it will stick to you if you if you if something had an idea grabs you it will stick to you okay and you know think about this too how is your spirit after hanging out with somebody right you ever be or you ever been around somebody who's just really negative i mean so that's another little litmus test for yourself if you're hanging around somebody who is always negative how how's your spirit after talking with it maybe their little red flag comes up something's going on all right because look that's that's where when i think about all the disasters that have happened in the last two or three years or whatever in churches that i know of it's always started that way where people got separated and then they started talking about things that they shouldn't talk about and there was like all these secrets going on and all this i've seen it personally myself up in sacramento you know all these little secrets that's that start going on like and here's the thing okay let me go off on this one too here's the thing about secrets okay and i just dealt with this with somebody in my secular world life okay and americans don't know this anymore secrets are always bad because look we were raised on we were raised on survivor remember that show i don't even know is it still on we're this show where everybody's would form these alliances and it was all about you know stabbing people in the back in the most efficient way like people were raised on that they think it's okay they think as far as long as like in a work environment people think that if that gets them ahead it's okay so i mean i i've told people like at my job and people that are like in groups and teams of mine and stuff look we're never going to tell secrets keep things above board all the time that's how we operate here always secrets are always bad i mean that's a pretty simple rule right because here's the thing with secrets number one you say well you know what do i do about this knowledge that i have number one if it's something that you can't say to certain people it shouldn't be said and number two if it's important just say it to the person just become a man and just say you know if i i don't like the fact that brother ryan wears that shirt um i shouldn't go and tell secrets to people about it i should be like man i don't like your shirt i should at least be a man about it right your shirt's fine it's the best thing i could come up with in the moment but look i mean people i mean it's it's shocking to me i mean i know we know this because we're christians and we know what the bible says but people don't know this people don't know that they shouldn't be going around like doing all this scheming i mean people like 50 year old people they don't know it's shocking but look secrets are always bad secrets bad i feel like i'm talking to a bunch of little kids sometimes you know not you but look the the the secrets thing they they oh whenever something like this happens in a church here's the difference people forget the god factor turn to loop chapter eight here's what people like adonijah and absalom they miss all the time every single time they forget the god factor look at loop chapter eight look at verse number 17 and this is true every single time i've seen it every time amazing how the bible is right luke eight seventeen look what the bible says for nothing is secret that shall not be made manifest neither anything hid that shall not be known and come abroad turn to luke chapter 12 and look at verse number three luke chapter 12 just a few chapters over the bible says therefore whatsoever you have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light and that which you have spoken in the ear in closet shall be proclaimed onto the house tops every single time this is true look so two things they it should either not be said or you should just say it to the person that it's about just just do it right because it will always come out for everyone to see period right and some people won't see it until it does come out but there's always going to be the nathans that see it right away that's another thing so look you will then if you've been involved in that type of stuff this is back to the like the gossip sermon and things like that you'll always be lumped in by association by the nathans right so that's that's why so many people get hurt in these situations that you've seen because like they were able these people were able to like separate out all these people and they didn't just i mean it would be fine if like okay you're just some idiot that was spreading new doctrine around a church or you just some you know arrogant fool who was just trying to rebel against his pastor or whatever right but look they always bring these other people with them they always take other people down with them so look we just have to we have to recognize that it starts you know down this road if some because look the reason that they separate people away from the crowd is because if if somebody that was pushing some new doctrine in this church or was pushing like you know rebellion against the leadership in this church or something like that if they would come into the circle that we always have in the back somebody would just shut them down right away so they're always going to just like grab some people and try to just plant those seeds of discontent right so we just need to be like look we just need to be aware of this pattern it's the same every single time i'm sure we'll we'll deal with it here at some point i'm not really looking forward to it you know i want to come and i want to you know lead a church and i want to do like the first works and i want to come here and look it's hard work doing this right it's hard work you know leading a church it's hard work you know for even you all doing what you're supposed to be doing coming to church going soul-winning i mean it's not the easiest thing in the world at times sometimes when you go out soul-winning if people are just slamming doors in your face all the time it seems a little bit like labor it seems a little bit like labor so i mean we want to just do the work and i mean i don't really want to deal with the garbage like that i'd rather not but i know that it's going to come so i mean if you all i mean that's why we're doing a preventative maintenance sermon so if you all could help me recognize things like this that would be helpful some ben anias some zedock the priests some nathans out there right so look it's just we can learn a lot from these kids okay it's not a really complicated lesson this evening we can learn a lot from these kids both on not doing the things that they did right because look it doesn't even have to be like you don't have to be some sinister person who's trying to take over a church to do things like this that could hurt people's feelings or to to separate people off or to be you know this person who's i mean look because i mean the last thing you want is some nathan to like be like oh why is he doing all that stuff that's weird and then you don't have any intentions bad intentions at all i mean that could happen too right it's just we ought to consider one another and then we won't be separating ourselves right then we won't be exalting ourselves when we think about one another and that's look it's i'm trying to sell you on this i'm not trying to sit here and and i know that as this church grows that we're going to have more people who become more friends and become all this and we and i'm just going to have to keep saying this and keep selling you because the last thing that we want i mean think about it if it's not there's no sinister plot or anything because i mean i don't want to be a paranoid person i refuse to do it right and if i would rather think the best of somebody and then just take the knife in the back that's where i'm at okay but look say that everyone has the best of intentions but somebody just ends up getting left out of things all the time or whatever look that's my responsibility if something like that happens that's my fault because i should be the one watching to make sure that that doesn't happen right that's why i'm preaching a sermon like this is there problems no i don't want problems i want two or three guys in this church that are super good buddies i want them to be good buddies i want them to hang out and to to be friends and all this but i want them to take that extra effort and invite the other four people and include the other four people even though they may think that those people aren't going to come or whatever i want the women in this church that get together at a park and all these types of things even though these two women might be just the best of friends and have the super clickation going on to include everybody every time because someone will get hurt and it's a terrible thing to think that you know you're not included or that they don't peep somebody doesn't want you there that's a terrible thing so look that's what i'm always watching for okay and that's the that's the good side of you know unity right is just that somebody could accidentally be left out the bad side is that it could be something bad like this right and and every single time i want you just to think in your mind uh of the situations that you've that you've remember because i know you all remember these situations they were so high profile they were such messes and every single time that this happened it followed this pattern right here every time every time so let's recognize it before it gets crazy because look they brought other people with them and that to me is the tragedy right because look i mean i don't really feel bad for the guys that came and like like did those things and just you come into a church and you try to spread some different doctrine and all this i don't really feel bad for you and i feel bad for your family a little bit because they're going to suffer with you but i mean ultimately the real tragedy of those situations is that they brought other families down with them and and just like in verse number 49 here the same thing happened with adonijah they were all afraid they were all afraid okay so let's just watch for these things we need to have especially as we're starting look we're building a strong base here we're putting we're building a strong foundation here as this church builds and as new christians new believers come in here and they get baptized we now have a baptistery as you know they get come in and they get baptized and we start turning people into disciples we need to build off a strong foundation okay and that's where we're going to be they're going to come in here and they're going to see unity in this church they're going to come in here and they're going to see a church that's going to include them even though we don't even know them i mean i've known some of you now for years can i say years i think i can i've known some of you for years but somebody that comes into this church should be just as included as somebody that i've known for years and have good clickation with right that's what we need to be that's the cult am i selling you on the culture that we need to have here it's effort it's effort and we need to have it okay let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer and then have some root beer floats all right okay dear heavenly father i thank you for um these stories in the bible i thank you for um even the bad stories in the bible lord you're giving us some patterns that we can watch for some things that we can recognize lord some things that we can just you know be aware of you know the bible shows us everything i pray god that you just give us unity in this church and you just give us that that heart to to take that effort with our brothers and sisters and just to always have that unity lord and as this church builds and grows or we have this unity so you can allow this church to grow and we just need to be strong we need to be tight and as people come into this church or just help us never to exclude people and always bring these new people into the things that we're doing and all of these different things or what we thank you for your word we thank you for this entire day and and for all the fathers in this church ward i asked you just to bless this evening and the fellowship to come in jesus name amen