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Good morning, Lake Church. We on? Alright. So we got a little uh a little issue in the worship team, y'all. We got a little we got a little disagreement going on. So that song we just sang. Is it called My Savior's Love? How marvelous or I stand amazed? Which one is it?

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I stand amazed. My Savior's love.

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Y'all still don't know. Nobody knows. If it's I stand amazed, raise your hand. How marvelous, raise your hand. My savior's love, raise your hand. Okay, we we don't know. We don't know. We'll have to just not know. All right? 1 Samuel chapter 25. 1 Samuel chapter 25. I want us to look this morning at something that we are all very familiar with and probably all have experience with. And that is dealing with foolish people. Can anybody relate to dealing with foolish people? Foolish people on your jobs. Foolish people maybe in your home. Be careful. Foolish people. Maybe maybe you deal with the foolishness in your own self. I don't know. But we all have experience dealing with foolishness and foolish people. And here's the thing, here's the hard thing about dealing with foolish people. Foolish people rarely know that they're foolish. Which makes it even harder, right? And the thing about it is foolish people can bring out the worst in us. They can bring out a part of us that we thought wasn't there anymore. When you have to deal with their foolishness. You know, maybe just looking at them just upset you. I don't know. But but they can cause us to be very anger, and here's the thing they can cause us many times to feel justified in our anger. Does anybody ever feel justified in your anger? All right, look, anger is not a sin. All right? Anger is a God-given emotion. We can be angry, but the problem I find myself in is that sometimes when we get angry, we don't handle things the way we should. Can anybody relate to that? It's not the anger is not always a sin, but it's how we respond to the anger. It's how we act. We can't, you know, we can be angry. The Bible says, be angry and what? Sin not. It's not wrong to be angry. We look at God and He was angry at times. But we have to be angry and then control our anger and not let our anger control us. And that is so hard to do. And I'm gonna just go ahead and let y'all know. We are gonna step on everybody's toes this morning, all right? Because God has been stepping all over mine. And this is something we all struggle with. I don't care how sanctified you think you are. If you deal with a certain person in a certain situation, it can bring out the worst in you. You can get angry, you can get offended, you can get frustrated, and you can get completely feel completely justified in your anger. You know, the most dangerous anger is not the anger that feels wrong, it's the anger that feels right. And then you start justifying your actions because of the anger that that person caused you. But sin is sin. Right is wrong. Right is right. Right is not wrong. Wrong is wrong. Right is right, wrong is wrong. We have to we have to be angry and sin not. Look, you can tell a lot about people and how they respond when they're angry. Now let's let's just stop pointing the finger at random people. You can tell a lot about yourself and how you respond when you're angry. Because anger has a way of exposing something that's still not right within our heart. And that's what we're looking at as we go through this study of the heart of the matter. We're looking at the heart. What is it that's in our heart that when we get offended, when we get angry, causes us to go to that place that we know we shouldn't go to. That's what we need to look at this morning. Um, so I want to set the stage here. We know we're studying about David. Last week we saw David in a cave. We saw Saul was hunting him. We saw David had an opportunity to kill Saul, but did he kill him? No. He cut off the edge of his robe and he says, I could have killed you. Right? He he he did not retaliate, he showed restraint. He he, humanly speaking, he had every reason to kill Saul. His own men said, Look, here he is. God's delivered him into your hands. And David said, I will not lift my hand against the anointed, against God's anointed. He chose to do what was right. He chose not to take vengeance in his own hands. He he chose not to not to kill Saul, but spare Saul. And you may be thinking, David is completely unrelatable. I can, you know, if if I was in that situation and this man was trying to kill me and he put him in a cave, relieving himself in a vulnerable position where I could kill him. You may be thinking, I'd have to I'd have to go ahead and do it, you know. You know, terrible way to die. And you say, well, I can't relate to that. David's like the perfect man, but hold on a second. That was chapter 24. Then we get into chapter 25, and we see David react in a completely different way. We see that David had the opportunity and he was going to, he made up his mind, he was going to kill a man named Nabal. And we're gonna get into it here in just a second, but I want to say this. Does anybody know what the name Nabal means? His name means fool. And he lived up to his name, as we see in this story. He was a foolish man. And and we all deal with foolish people, and we have to know how to respond. Now I want to I want to do some reading. Uh, and I want us to look and set the stage and see how the context of this story goes. So let's look at 1 Samuel chapter 25, and we're gonna read about 13 verses. Verse number one says, Then Samuel died, and the Israelites gathered together and lamented for him and buried him at his home in Rama. And David arose and went down to the wilderness of Paran. Now there was a man in Moan or Maon, whose business was in Carmel, and the man was very rich. So he's talking about Nabal here. He was very rich, he had 3,000 sheep, a thousand goats, and he was shearing his sheep in Carmel. And the name of the man was Nabal, which means what? Foolish. Look at that, y'all learned something today. And the name of his wife was Abigail. And she was a woman of good understanding and beautiful appearance, but the man was harsh and evil in his doings. He was of the house of Caleb. He was a difficult man. Some of y'all women, can you imagine being married to Nabal? Hopefully you don't have to, hopefully it's a you know of a stretch to what you are married to, all right? He he was hard, he was harsh, he was rude, he was arrogant. And then we see in verse number four, when David heard in the wilderness that Nabal was shearing his sheep, David sent ten young men, and David said to the young men, Go up to Carmel, go to Nabal and greet him in my name. And thus you shall say to him who lives in prosperity, peace be to you, peace to your house, and peace to all that you have. So David's being very generous here, right? Very courteous. Now I have heard that you have shearers. Your shepherds were with us, and we did not hurt them. He was so he was protecting the shepherds, uh, he was protecting his his livestock, nor was there anything missing from them all the while they were in Carmel. He was preventing people from coming in and stealing uh his livestock. Then verse number nine, ask your young men and they will tell you. Therefore, yet let my young men find favor in your eyes, for we come on a feast day. Please, even said, please, please, give whatever comes to your hand to your servants and to your son David. So when David's young men came, they spoke to Nabal according to these words in the name of David and waited. So David reached out, he's trying, he's generously, kindly asking if Nabal, who is rich, could spare just a few sheep to feed David's men, who he has been protected, right? Then Nabal answered David's servants and said, Look at this, who is David and who is the son of Jesse? There are many servants nowadays who break away each one from his master. Shall I then take my bread and my water and my meat? Notice how many times he says the word my bread, my water, my meat that I have killed for my shears, and give it to men when I do not know where they are from. So David's young men turned on their heels and went back, and they came and told him all these words. And look at look at David's response. Then David said to his men, every man gird on his sword. He's saying, Strap up, fellas. Locked and loaded. We about to go to town. So every man girded on his sword, and David also girded on his sword, and about 400 men went with David, and 200 men stayed with the supplies. So again, we see last week David had he had Saul was hunting him. David had an opportunity to kill Saul and his men, and basically he let him go. But this week we see a man disrespected him. And he says, Strap up, fellas. We going to take care of Nabal in his disrespect. We're going to kill Nabal and destroy everything he owns. He goes from saying in chapter 24, I will not touch the Lord's anointed, to chapter 25, gird up your swords and let's go kill Nabal. So David was reacting out of anger because he was offended. But we look through this story and we're gonna look through. David maintained his integrity and did not seek revenge on Nabal. And what we need to see this morning is how can we have integrity when we are angry or when we are offended? How can we maintain our integrity? If we're gonna be people and men and women after God's own heart, how can we maintain our integrity when we're furious and wanting to get revenge on the ones that have hurt us? And here's how David, here's what we see about David, and also I want you to see how do we maintain integrity? Number one, don't let offense change who you are. Don't let the offense change who you are, and I would add to that, are who you are becoming. God is doing a work in your life. God was preparing David for something big. Don't let offense change your character. This was out of character for David. All right? This is not what we typically see from David. He's he's humble, he's kind, he's he's a shepherd, you know, he's faithful. But in this moment of fury and anger, all he was seeing was red. He was angry, he was upset, he was offended, he was disrespected. And he wanted to kill Nabal. Now, now look, Nabal's a wealthy man, he owns thousands of sheep. David and his men were protecting Nabal, his shepherds, his sheep, his goats, his livestock. Uh David sent men to politely ask if he could spare a few sheep. It's a reasonable request. But Nabal responds with, Who is David? Now let me ask y'all something. Do you think Nabal really didn't know who David was? David was probably a household name, right? The young boy that went up against the Philistine giant and killed him with a sling. Everybody knew who David was. Everybody knew him. The great warrior. That as a young 19, 20, 21-year-old boy, was a commander. The one now running from Saul, the one that was anointed the next king. Everybody knew what was this? He he was disrespecting and demeaning David. And by the way, that eats at the ego of a man. I'm not saying it's right, but there is something when you disrespect, especially a man, that it sent him over the edge. And I'm not saying David was right here, but he was disrespected. It was a reasonable request. He he presented it in a nice way. He even said, please. But Nabal said, Who is David? Who is the son of Jesse? Why should I give my stuff to him? He was arrogant, he was rude, he was he was foolish. Now, I want to stop right there and say this. And I'm gonna say it to myself. To all of us. We are not as holy as we think we are sometimes. Thank you. I'm glad y'all agree. I'm glad y'all agree. We're not as good as we think we are sometimes. Just because you passed a test in chapter 24 doesn't mean you're gonna blow it, not gonna blow it in chapter 25. Just because you've passed a test in 24 doesn't mean you're gonna completely fail in the next chapter, in the next test. Just because you did choose to do something right in your past or you know, a few weeks ago or month ago or whatever, and you're starting to feel pretty good about yourself doesn't mean that you can't completely fail in the next test. The Bible says, take heed lest you fall. If a man thinks himself to be something when he's nothing, he deceives himself. And I'm talking to myself because I'll be honest with you, sometimes I go through life and I'm like, all right, I think I'm finally getting this Christianity thing down pretty good. You know, feeling pretty good about myself, you know, my prayer life's strong, and I'm in the Word of God, and I'm I'm serving and I'm living for Jesus, and I'm like, yeah, you know, I'm I'm I'm a pretty good Christian. And then I deal with foolish people. Amen. Thank you, Pastor Byron. And foolish people will bring out something in you that you did not even know was there. It will bring out the worst in you. I'm glad I don't have a bunch of pretenders here in Lake Church. We know that we need his grace every day, right? We know that, you know, I used to sing that song, The Old Man Is Dead. There's an old song called, I don't know if he really is dead. Because I deal with some people that brings him out once in a while. And I can completely screw up my religion, my Christianity. And that's what we see David as. You know, he did great in chapter 24, and we're like, wow, David is a man of integrity. He did not kill the man that's trying to kill him, but then somebody disrespects him. He's like, strap up, let's go. 400 men going to kill one man and everything he owns. It sent him over the edge. Don't let a fence change who you are. Don't let a fence change who you're becoming. And this is this is something we all struggle with. I mean, we can come to church on Sunday morning and be worshiping Jesus, then Monday morning we're dealing with foolish people again, right? Look, maintaining your integrity is easy when you're not being tested. Being patient is easy when you're not dealing with foolishness. Right? Uh, you know, it's easy to have peace when you don't have people causing problems in your life. But what about in chapter 25? When someone insults you, disrespects you, raises their voice at you, yells at you, gets in, you know, a bad place. Where do you turn to then? That's where we see David. And here's what I want us to understand. This situation did not put the anger in David's heart, it just revealed something that was already there. It exposed something that was not yet sanctified and dealt with. And there's situations and circumstances in your life that it will bring out the worst in you. But the thing is, is that is really in you. Right? You can't blame it on all these other things. I mean, we can make excuses for David, right? He was under a lot of pressure, to say the least. He was under a lot of stress, he was running for his life. But it's never an excuse to do wrong. Circumstances do not excuse sinful behavior. Amen. You still have a choice to choose who you are, who you're becoming. Choose the type of person you want to be. Choose whether you're still gonna follow Jesus in that moment. You still have a choice. It was out of his character, but it still came from out of his heart. It was still in there. The Bible says Jesus said, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. He wanted to murder Nabal. There was still something in his heart, just like there is in all of our hearts that is not quite right. That's what we're that's why we're doing this study. The heart of the matter is a matter of the heart. Getting down into the heart. And here's the thing don't let the offense change who you are or who you're becoming. Being wronged does not give you an excuse to do wrong. Right? I mean, it doesn't justify a lapse in character. It doesn't justify sin. They may have been wrong, they may have treated you unfairly, but here's the thing: you do not get to surrender your integrity simply because they don't have any integrity. You maintain your integrity in the anger, in the offense. So, number one, don't let the offense change who you are. Number two, don't confuse God's justice with your revenge. Don't confuse God's justice with your revenge. David had been wrong. There's no doubt about it. Nabal was wrong in this situation. David wasn't just, you know, imagining it or over-dramatizing it. Nabal disrespected him. He was arrogant, he was insulting to the future king. David had a legitimate reason to be angry. And remember, being angry is not a sin. Right? But David was moving beyond God's justice towards his own revenge. And here's something we need to really hold on to. Really remember. You can be right about what happened and still be wrong in how you respond. You can be right that you were wronged. You can have the situation crystal clear. You can be right in your perspective of it. You can be right in the truth of it. But listen, you can be right about what happened and still be wrong in how you respond to what happened. You can't control them. You can't control their actions. You can't control the circumstances. You can't, by the way, we all have a bunch of little nebals in our life. Foolish people. Right? Hopefully you're not married to it like Abigail was. But we all have nebals in our life. You can't control them, but you can control how you respond. You do not have to get revenge. Justice says what is right, but revenge says, How can I make them pay? How can I make them pay? Justice, we know, belongs to God, but revenge is when we try to take God's justice and apply it to ourselves. By the way, God does not need our help for justice. God's got it perfectly figured out. He is a just God. He is holy. He is righteous. He is just. The Bible says in Romans 12, 19, it says, beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath. For it is written, God is saying, vengeance is mine. I will repay, says the Lord. It's not yours, it's his. It belongs to him. We don't have to be little vigilantes going around making every wrong right. That's not our position. That's not our place. You can't enforce justice. You can't get revenge. And if you do, it's not going to make you feel any better. When you're angry, when you're offended, we want to, you know, we don't just want things to be right. Sometimes we just want people to hurt because we're hurt. Sometimes we want them to understand how bad they made us feel. Sometimes we want them to just get it, right? We want revenge. We want them to regret what they did. We want to even the score. We want to get even. We like that Old Testament verse, eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth, right? That's not your place to enforce. That's not individuals. That's laws and legislation. When you see, here's here's something we have to grasp this morning. When you seek revenge, when you are always seeking revenge, you become a prisoner of something somebody else did to you. And you're hurting yourself more than you're hurting them. Come on, somebody. You're replaying it over and over in your mind. And look, that does not minimize the fact and the truth that you were done wrong or that you were hurt. David didn't do anything wrong in this situation. But it did not pay for him to go take revenge on Nabal. Nabal was not worth it. You don't have to get revenge. You don't have to even the score. Because when you are constantly seeking revenge, you become a prisoner of that thing. You can be right about what happened, still be wrong in the way you respond. You can have a legitimate complaint and still have an illegitimate response. You can be offended, but just choose to not be offensive. You know, somebody may be thinking, okay, well, I know what not to do. Well, what do I do? Pastor, are you just saying don't do anything? I'm saying if you have revenge on your mind, then yes, don't do anything. Or you can take it a step farther, do what Jesus says. Love them. I know. Look, I'm not telling you this because I got it figured out. I'm telling you this because that's our standard. I hear the sighs in the audience. I gotta love them. He don't just stop there, does he? Pray for them. Oh Lord, come on. No, no more. Then bless them that despitefully use you and speak evil about you. Why? Because that's what Jesus did. And that's who we are called to be like. Oh, it's so hard sometimes, ain't it? We're not called to return evil for evil. We're called to overcome evil with good. David wanted to return evil for evil. He said, He showed me evil for my good. He says, I'm gonna show him evil for my evil. Paul said in Romans 9, he says, Don't return evil for evil. Return, overcome evil with good. Bless them, pray for them, love them. You don't have to get even. You don't have to make, you know, seek revenge. I heard somebody say this before. Don't argue with a fool. Because they'll drag you down to their level and beat you with experience. You don't have to set the record straight. You don't have to argue with them. You can disengage. You don't have to play their game. Right? I also heard this one. This is a good one. Arguing with a fool only proves there are two. You ain't gonna get through to them. You can present your case perfectly, clearly, but they're foolish. They're not gonna grasp it. Or we could just go to the Bible and see what the Bible says in Proverbs 26, 4. It says, Do not answer a fool according to his folly, lest you also be like him. You don't have to seek revenge. There's an old preaching metaphor I heard before. I don't know if it's true. It might not be true, but it's good preaching anyway. It's a story about the eagle and the crow. You see, the way it goes is that the crow is the only bird that has the audacity to pester and harass and even sometimes land on the back of an eagle. And he pecks at the eagle's neck and he dive bombs them and he flies around them, he's pestering, and they say it's not just crows, it's different little smaller birds, too. But the eagle, who is much stronger and more powerful, he doesn't waste his time and his energy fighting the crow. He's bigger, he's stronger, he could fight and he could win, but you know what the eagle does? He just stretches out his wings and flies higher and higher and higher until they say he gets to a point where the air gets thinner and the crow can't breathe, and it and he ends up having to naturally fall off and leave the eagle. Some of you are fighting against people that it's not worth fighting with. You know what you need to do? Instead of fighting, elevate. Go higher, go bigger, go go go closer to God, and they will naturally just fall away when you when you stop engaging and you stop fighting, you stop getting, you know, wanting revenge, you just elevate, you take the high road. You don't get down on their level. You just rise higher. And God will take care of the rest. By the way, spoiler alert, long story short, I'm not gonna uh, but but this is what happened. Abigail, who's Nabal's wife, we're gonna we're gonna look at this here in just a second. But she calms David down, then she goes back to Nabal, her husband, and says, David was gonna come kill you. But David, you know, decided to turn it over to God. You know what happened to Nabal? He died of a heart attack or a stroke. He died, and then David ended up marrying his wife. Doesn't God have a sense of humor, right? What am I trying to tell you? God does a lot better at working these things out than you can. Now look, don't be praying your enemy will die of a heart attack or anything like that, all right? That's just what happened in this story. But my point is if you place it in God's hands, you rise above. Somebody's like, what are they teaching at Lake Church? You rise above. God will take care of it. He defends those that are his and those that are walking in righteousness. He will defend you. And look, he does a lot better job of defending you than you will do of defending yourself. You know what else? I'm just getting off track, y'all. But you know what else I think about? When Jesus was falsely accused, and they were railing him, and they were accusing him, and they were cursing him. You know what he did? The Bible says he did not open his mouth. Why? Because it does not pay to argue with a fool. He rose above. And he even hung on a cross for those, prayed for those. Father, forgive them. He blessed those by offering them his life. Don't confuse God's justice with your revenge. Number three, listen when God sends an Abigail. Listen when God sends an Abigail. Now, we see now in this story that Abigail takes, uh comes to the center stage here. And I want to read a few verses, chapter 25. Let's start in verse number 14. We're gonna read about Abigail. Now, one of the young men told Abigail, Nabal's wife, saying, Look, David sent messengers from the wilderness to greet our master, and he reviled them. But when the men, but the men were very good to us, talking about David's men, and we were not hurt, nor did we miss anything as long as we accompanied them when they when we were in the fields. They were a wall to us both day and night, both by night and day. So they were protecting Nabal's stuff and people and shepherds and livestock. All the time we were with them keeping the sheep. Nabor, therefore, know and consider what you will do, for harm is determined against our master and against all his household, for he is such a scoundrel. Anybody know a scoundrel? That one cannot speak to him. Then Abigail made haste and took two hundred loaves of bread, two skins of wine, five sheep already dressed, five sias of roasted grain, one hundred clusters of raisins, and two hundred cakes of figs, and loaded them on donkeys. And she said to her servants, Go on before me, see I am coming after you. But she did not tell her husband Nabal. So it was as she rode on the donkey that she went down under coat cover of the hill. And there were David and his men coming down toward her, and she met them. Now David had said, Surely in vain I've protected all that this fellow has in the wilderness, so that nothing was missed of all that belongs to him. So and he has repaid me evil for good. So David's just, he's furious, he's rehearsing these things in his mind. May God do so, and more also to the enemies of David. Look at this. If I leave one male of all who belong to him by morning light, David and his four hundred mighty men are about to go wipe out Nabal and his whole family and everything. Right? He says, There's not gonna be one male left. Now, look at verse number 23. Now, when Abigail saw David, she dismounted quickly from the donkey, fell on her face before David, and bowed down to the ground. So she fell at his feet and said, On me, my Lord, on me, let this iniquity be. And please let your maidservant speak in your ears and hear the words of your maidservant. Please let not my Lord regard this scoundrel Nabal, for as his name is, what's his name? Foolish, so is he. She's saying he's living up to his name. Nabal is his name, and folly is with him, but I, your maidservant, did not see the young men of my Lord whom you sent. Now, therefore, my Lord, as the Lord lives and as your soul lives, since the Lord has held you back from coming to bloodshed and from avenging yourself with your own hand. Now then let your enemies and those who seek harm from my Lord be as Nabal. We almost done. Let's get down, let's get down to verse 31. And now this present which your maidservant has brought to my Lord, let it be given to the young men who follow my Lord. Please forgive the trespass of your maidservant, for the Lord will certainly make for my Lord an enduring house, because my Lord fights the battles of the Lord, and evil is not found in you throughout your days. Yet a man has risen to pursue you and seek your life. But the life of my Lord shall be bound in the bundle of the living with the Lord your God. And the lives of your enemies shall he slisten to this, shall he sling out as from the pocket of a sling. Do you think Abigail may have heard a little something about David? And it shall come to pass when the Lord has done for my Lord according to all the good that he has spoken concerning you and has appointed you ruler over Israel, that this will be no grief to you nor offense of heart to my Lord, even or either that you have shed blood without cause, or that my Lord has avenged himself. But when the Lord has dealt with my Lord, then remember your maidservant. That's a lot of reading, ain't it? Might be some, that means more Bible than some of y'all read all week, ain't it? It's all right. Look. Listen when God sends in Abigail. David is headed towards disaster. Then Abigail steps in, enters the story, and the Bible talks about how she's intelligent, she's discerning. Nabal is described as harsh and foolish. When Abigail hears what Nabal has done, she knows exactly what's about to happen. She knows David's coming. She knows it ain't gonna be good. She gathers food, she goes to meet David, she steps between David and his anger. What does she do? She de-escalates this situation. And you see her character shine through. She's generous. She loads up a lot of stuff. She's kind. She's gentle in how she approaches David. She is delicate. She's direct. She's a peacemaker. You see her wisdom. But here's the thing, church. Abigail isn't just the nice woman who calms David down. Abigail is a God-given interruption in this story. She's a God-given interruption. She is the person that God used to stop David from becoming the person that he should not become. And every man that has an Abigail, you should be thankful for that woman or that person in your life. Maybe it's not even a woman. Listen. Abigail is a God-given interruption. And sometimes God will answer our prayer by sending us an interruption. He will answer our prayer by sending someone in our life to interrupt our actions and keep us from nearly destroying everything in our life. And we should be thankful for that person. It may be in the form of a friend. It may be in the form of a spouse. It may be in the form of a coworker. Or, like in this story, it may be in the form of a complete stranger. But it's a God sent interruption where somebody cares enough to say, don't do that. Don't say that. Or how about this? Don't text that. Don't post that. Don't respond to that. Don't sink to their level. You are better than that. That's what she was telling David. He's a fool. You're not. Right? She's telling him that God has a purpose for you. You're going to be the next king. And she says, look, David, she says, she gently reminds him that this is not for you to take revenge in your own hand. This is for God to handle. And then she goes on to say, and David, you do not want this guilt on your conscience. Basically, she's saying, David, listen. You don't need to make a decision that the future King David is going to regret. Who is that Abigail in your life? We need to be thankful for them. We need to pay attention. We need to listen to them. And here's the other thought is who are you being an Abigail in their life? Are you being an Abigail for somebody else? Somebody that you love, you tell them the truth, not harshly, not arrogantly, not you know, rude, but in love, in grace, in kindness, in gentleness. And you can, Abigail, what we see here is that Abigail didn't, she didn't minimize the offense. She said, Abel's wrong. But she re redirected David's response. And she saved David from making a horrible mistake. Pay attention to the Abigail's. And then I'll close with this thought. Be willing to listen, learn, and change. And that last one is very important. Be willing to listen, to learn and change. How did David react and respond to what Abigail, this young woman, this stranger that he didn't know? What was his response? Look at verse number 32. It says, Then David said to Abigail, Blessed is the Lord God of Israel who sent you to this day to meet me. And blessed is your advice, and blessed are you, because you have kept me from this day for coming to bloodshed and from avenging myself with my own hand. For indeed, as the Lord God of Israel lives, who has kept me back from hurting you, unless you had hurried and come to meet me, surely by morning no males would have been left to Nabal. So David received from her hand what she had brought him and said to her, Go up in peace to your house. See, I have heeded your voice and respected your person. This is the part of the story I love. Because David, in his pride, as a man with some young woman coming to approach him, the next king of Israel, he could have said, Who do you think you are? Now picture the scene. A young woman comes up before David with his sword, the one who's killed tens of thousands of Philistines with 400 men behind him. He's leading an army to go kill one man and his whole family. And she gets off with all of her supplies and she falls down at the feet of David, and she is direct, kind, peaceful, but she tells him the truth. And David, instead of saying, get out of my way, he said, Blessed are you. You basically saying, you are right and I am wrong. And all the women should say amen right there. He listened to his, he listened to the to the woman. Sometimes, men, we do have to humble ourselves and listen. Sometimes we do. Sometimes we do have to admit when they are right. Right? Amen, women. Amen. He was willing to listen. He was willing to learn. He was willing to change. And here's the thing: integrity is being willing to change when God shows you that you're wrong. I'm going to say it again because we could have had at least one amen there. Integrity is being willing to change when God shows you that you're wrong. Integrity isn't when you never fail, it's just what you do when God exposes your failure. David listened. He learned. And he changed. And as we close this morning, we have a song of invitation. The question isn't really this morning, what did they do? The question is what will you do? The question isn't to look out at everyone else and look at those other people and look who hurt you or offended you. The question is what will I do from this point forward? Listen, listen. Here's an even better question. Who am I becoming? Who am I becoming? Who am I going to be? You can't control what people do to you, but you can control and surrender your response to God. You can't control people's foolishness, but you can control how you react to it, right? And there's a very important verse. I closed my Bible, but I want to open it back up real quick. In 1 Samuel 25, verse number 24, there's a very important, beautiful phrase that Abigail says right here. She says, She fell at his feet and said, Listen to this, on me, my Lord, on me let this iniquity be. On me, on me, let this iniquity be. So I want you to picture this. Abigail stands in between the wrath of the king and the sin of a foolish person. Abigail stands. In between the wrath of the king and the sin of the foolish. Come on now. Abigail stood in between the wrath of the king and the sin. Does anybody see where we're going with this? Abigail is a beautiful picture of Jesus here. She said, On me, on me, let your iniquities be. Instead of the wrath of the king taking out his just, you know, his justice on the sin, Abigail said, On me, on me. The Bible says he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. What did Jesus do? He went to the cross and he stood in between the wrath of the Father, and in between our sin and our foolishness, and all of our sin was placed upon Jesus, on him. He died in our place. He took our sin upon his back on the cross. He hung, he bled, he died so that we can be forgiven and get off Scot free where we can be cleansed, and there's no condemnation to those that are in Christ Jesus. On Jesus, on the cross, he died for the sins of the world, satisfying the wrath of the Father. On me, Jesus said, On me, let your iniquities be. Your iniquities was placed on Jesus. Just like we sang, his blood has offered cleansing and forgiveness. And that's so important. Why am I closing with that? Because what I want you to understand is this isn't just behavior modification. This isn't just try not to get angry and react. This isn't just trying to be a better person. This is, I need God to do a work in my heart. And that can only happen by surrendering my life to Jesus. That can only happen by you surrendering your heart, your life, your burdens, your problems, your sin, placing them at the feet of Jesus and saying, God, I need you to do a work in my heart. I can't do it on my own. It's coming to the cross and realizing that that cross is there because we are not good enough. We need the grace of God. We need the forgiveness of Jesus in our life. We can't do it on our own. We need a heart change. We need a heart change. Jesus died on the cross to give us a new heart. Like Ezekiel said it, a new heart I give unto you. Not as the old heart, the stony heart. I give you a heart that's that's a heart of flesh. He died so that you could have a new heart. So that you could give your life to Jesus and let him do a lifelong work where you become more like him. But this morning, maybe there is someone right here, right now, you've never initially surrendered your life to Jesus. You're still trying to do it yourself, you're trying to trying to fix your life yourself, you're trying to fix your marriage yourself, you're trying to fix your problems yourself, you're trying to change who you are. You can't change your nature. You need a new nature. And when you give your life to Jesus, you become a son, a daughter of the king, and he gives you the power of the Holy Spirit so that you can become a new creation in Christ. You need a heart change. And this morning, as we close, I'll read one verse and we'll close. 1 Peter 2 says, For you, for to you this were you called because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that you should follow in his steps, who committed no sin nor was deceit found in his mouth, who, when he was reviled, he did not revile in return. When he suffered, he did not threaten, but committed himself to him who judges righteously, who himself bore our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness by whose stripes you were healed. Let's all bow our heads and close our eyes this morning. We're gonna have a song of invitation. I did my part and I want you to respond as God lays on your heart. Maybe you're here this morning and you say, I've never truly trusted in Jesus as my Savior. I want you to, I want you to acknowledge that before God. And if you're willing to do it so I can be in prayer for you, I want you to acknowledge it before me so I can pray for you. You say, I've never truly trusted in Christ, I've never received a new heart by placing my faith in Jesus. If that's you this morning, I want to pray for you. Will you raise your hand up this morning? Amen. Amen. Anybody? Amen. God sees those hands. God knows. And you're not here by accident, you're not here by coincidence. Today, He may be calling you to make that initial decision to give your life to Jesus. And if you say, if that's you this morning, we're gonna sing this song. And I want you to respond, and we'll have somebody to pray with you. If you want to come up here and we'll pray with you, if you want to just stand up where you are, we'll have someone come back to you. But we're gonna, I want all heads bowed, eyes closed. We're gonna sing. And this morning, maybe you're here, I want to ask one more question. Maybe you're here this morning. You say, I know I'm a believer, I know I'm a Christian, but I'm struggling with some things in my heart. I'm struggling with some anger, some vengeance, some revenge. I'm struggling. I need prayer, I need help. If that's you this morning, would you raise your hand up this morning? Amen. Amen. All over. Amen. I'm gonna have our prayer partners come forward. If you're here and you need prayer, as soon as they start singing, as soon as I close in praying and they start singing, I want you to come this morning. Lord, we we need you. We pray you would move in hearts, we pray you would work in hearts and lives, and that you would help us to humble ourselves and surrender our lives to you in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Will you come this morning if you need prayer? Will you come?