How to Win Hearts and Take a Kingdom

I. Winning the Heart of the People

How do you win the hearts of the people… that’s the question every politician and marketer wants to know the answer to...

Well today… I’ve got it… the definitive answer…

So listen up if you want to learn something that’ll change your life…

There are at least two ways to win the hearts of the people...

One… you identify a problem they have, and you fix it for them…

Two… you identify the cause of a bunch a problems the people have… then remove it…

Only problem is that both of those options are hard work… first, you’ve gotta actually know the people and their problems… second, you’ve gotta actually care about the people and their problems… and third, you’ve gotta actually have the skills and power to fix their problems…

And that’s really tough, because what if you’re just a vain narcissist? How do you win the hearts of the people then?

You’ll never really get to know anyone all that deeply… and I mean… actually caring about people… gross… you don’t want get too invested in the people and their problems… And what if on top of that, all you are is just a pretty face, or maybe a gorgeous flowing head of hair… I mean, how do you win the hearts of the people if you’re just a self-centred, prideful, prettyboy with no brains to speak of?

What do you do then?

That’s the real question…

Well if that’s you… then I’ve got even better news… there’s a third way…

Don’t fix problems… create them… complain about them… and then “fix” them…

Or better yet, don’t even create them… just imagine them… and if you get everyone else imagining with you then one day… BAM… just say you fixed it!

In the tech world its called the triumphant retreat… It’s what Apple does evey time they release a new iPhone… every year, they say the screen is 50% more shatter proof than the year before, and then the next year its 50% more sctratch resistant than the year before… but in reality screens are basically no better than they were 15 years ago… its just that glass that’s really good at resisting scratches is more likely to shatter, and glass that is good at not shattering, it more likely to scratch… so they just keep swtiching the glass back and forward each year and claiming it’s an upgrade!

It’s brilliant… it really is…

But just like most of the stuff they do, Apple didn’t invent this either… they just copied it and made it shinier…

The pioneer of this strategy was a young man with a luxurious head of hair who lived around 1000 BC… King David’s son Absalom…

1. Kingdom in Chaos

Now by the time we get to 2 Samuel 15… a lot has happened in the Kingdom of Israel… Saul has been made king… then rejected as king… David was anointed king, was best mates with Saul’s firstborn, married Saul’s daughter Michal… then ran fled from Saul’s attempts to kill him… throughout 1 Samuel, David shows remarkably godly character… he spares Saul’s life multiple times… honouring him as God’s anointed… he waits and waits for his kingdom to be given to him in God’s timing… and he suffers while he waits… even when Saul and Jonathan die… he doesn’t make a worldly play for the throne… He inquires of God, and obeys… then has to fight a 7 year war against a military regime set up behind the puppet king Ish-bosheth, Saul’s son… then even once he’s taken the whole kingdom… and defeated all his enemies… he shows undeserved kindness to Saul’s crippled grandson Mephibosheth… King David, the man after God’s own heart, is just as God promised for kings in his line:

2 Samuel 7:14 ESV

I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son.

But then David sins… despite all that God has given him… he takes Bathsheba and kills her husband Uriah… and it’s a shock when you get to it… how could the David we’ve come to know and love do such a thing?

Well, there were signs… he married Michal because he wanted to be the King’s son in law… he abandoned her after she saved his life… he took more wives while he was gone… then demanded she be added back to his collection after she had remarried to a man who loved her…

In the end… David’s poor attitude to women leads to his downfall… he sees, he inquires, he sends, he takes, he lies, and he kills... And God judges…

2 Samuel 12:10 ESV

Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.’

And from there… things start falling apart… David’s eldest son Amnon rapes his half-sister Tamar… David is upset about it, but he does nothing… So Tamar’s brother Absalom begins to take justice… and eventually the kingdom… into his own hands...

2. Attractive & Agreeable Absalom

a) The Prideful Prettyboy with a Plan

Now while Absalom is described as handsome… physically perfect from head to toe… and able to grow over 2 kilos of hair on his head every year… he is not just a self-centred, prideful prettyboy with no brains to speak of… hes a patient self-centred prideful prettyboy with a plan…

He does not act rashly… like his father… he waits… not for God… but for opportunity… after 2 years the scandal of the crime against Tamar has blown over enough for Absalom to get himself alone with Amnon… and he kills him in revenge, then flees the country…

Then again… he waits… and eventually this scandal blows over too… and one thing leads to another… and 2 Samuel 14 finishes with a kinds of awkward and cold reconciliation between David and Absalom...

But it turns out that Absalom was only just getting started… it seems that he’s spent his three years abroard plotting and scheming… and now that he was back, it was time to steal the kingdom from David…

b) Step 1: Personal Brand

So the first thing he does is conduct a four year long marketing campaign to build his personal brand…

He gets himself a chariot, horses, and fifty guys… and he goes about like this… because branding is firstly about visability…

You can’t just look like any other guy… you can’t even look like any other royal… you’ve gotta stand out… you want people to see you and immediately know who you are…

And you need to shape how they feel when they see you too… a good starting place is strength… might… power… a chariot… horses… fifty strong lads… that’s an image of strength… but it’s also an image of action… he’s out and about, an important guy doing important things… ready to act whenever he needs to…

But strength and action are only the foundation of his image… this is where Absalom deploys step 2 of his marketing campaign… public relations…

He gets up early and goes to the city gate… and in that world, people from around the nation who had a dispute with someone else would travel to the capital to seek the King’s justice… So Absalom sits at the gate and waits for them to come… and he imagines a problem for the people, gets them imagining with him, then positions himself as the solution…

2 Samuel 15:2–4 ESV

Absalom would call to him and say, “From what city are you?” And when he said, “Your servant is of such and such a tribe in Israel,” Absalom would say to him, “See, your claims are good and right, but there is no man designated by the king to hear you.” Then Absalom would say, “Oh that I were judge in the land! Then every man with a dispute or cause might come to me, and I would give him justice.”

There’s actually no indication that the people couldn’t actually have their matter heard in the king’s court… but would a man with a chariot, horses and fifty guys lie about that? Not to mention the fact he’s kings son…

It’s PR genius… it’s the best way to win the hearts of the people… and it works…

2 Samuel 15:6 ESV

So Absalom stole the hearts of the men of Israel.

d) Step 3: Well Executed Product Release

And now it was time to deploy phase three… a carefully planned product release…

If you’re going to have success in challenging a market monopoly as a small player… you’ve got to tarket the right market first…

So Absalom arranges a surprise product launch event at Hebron… the very city David himself was made king… and using the vast network he’d built up across the land, he uses company plants to create an artificial hype… he even poaches one of David’s head strategists Ahithophel… who happens to also have grudge agaisnt David since he was Bathsheba’s grandfather…

And all that planning and waiting pays off… Absalom’s market share grows and David is forced to retreat…

He takes all his servants and the people still faithful to him and leaves Jerusalem… only leaving behind ten of his concubines to look after the house while he was gone…

Absalom… attractive… agreeable… politically savy… the man with the smooth words and the solutions to everyone’s problems… how could he lose?

The world hasn’t really changed much has it… there’s an Absalom around every corner these days… whether its a politician, tech company, or a Christian leader with a fancy new ministry strategy…

Beware leaders like Absalom… because as impressive as he looks by worldly standards, he is beautifully packaged box of nothing…

3. Dishonoured & Defeated David

So what of David?

Well for better and worse, he’s everything Absalom isn’t.

a) A Management and PR Nightmare

He’s got an image problem… he’s weak and in retreat…

We know he’s got an action problem…

He’s got family problems…

And he’s got a kingdom problem…

His sin has had catestrophic and far reaching consequences…

He is dishonoured… defeated… and under God’s judgement… how could he win?

b) David’s Big Point of Difference

But it’s here that one big difference to Absalom shines through…

While Absalom takes the Lord’s name in vain… lying that he had to fulfill a vow to the Lord in Hebron…

David shows the fruit of repantance…

He entrusts himself to the faithfulness of God… saying:

2 Samuel 15:25–26 ESV

“Carry the ark of God back into the city. If I find favor in the eyes of the Lord, he will bring me back and let me see both it and his dwelling place. But if he says, ‘I have no pleasure in you,’ behold, here I am, let him do to me what seems good to him.”

David will drink the cup the Lord gives him.

In a way which creates a pattern for the true Son of David a thousand years later… David weeps at the mount of olives… he is betrayed by a close friend… he endures scorn and mockery without retaliation… he stays quiet as his enemies gloat and take his kingdom, his city, and his palace, and abuse his wives in view of all the people… and he prays that God would save him… but says the Lord’s will, not mine be done…

It’s here that he writes Psalm 3… with all his hope of salvation placed firmly in God…

Psalm 3 ESV

Arise, O Lord! Save me, O my God! For you strike all my enemies on the cheek; you break the teeth of the wicked. Salvation belongs to the Lord; your blessing be on your people!

For all David’s weakness and Absalom’s strategic exellence… it is David who puts his hope in the right place…

If Absalom is a beautifully packaged empty box… David is that package that arrives with the box looking all beat up and broken but inside contains the most precious of gifts… faith…

In the good and gracious God who made a covenant with him…

4. Good & Gracious God

Because as 1 & 2 Samuel has been teaching us…

1 Samuel 16:7 ESV

the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”

God is good and gracious… yes, he is disciplining David with the rod of men… as promised in 2 Samuel 7:14…

2 Samuel 7:14 ESV

I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men,

but his steadfast love has not departed from him like it did from from Saul… also as promised in 2 Samuel 7:15…

2 Samuel 7:15 ESV

but my steadfast love will not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you.

Because all throughout this account, God is soverignly working to bring about his good purposes… he shows grace to David giving him an unexpected friend in Ittai the Gittite who aligns himself with God’s anointed king for both suffering and victory… He allows Hushai, David’s covert operative, to arrive back to Jerusalem just before Absalom… he frustrates the wisdom of the wise Ahithophel… using Absalom’s vanity against him making him reject the idea of a covert opperation to assasinate David in favour of the suggestion of David’s spy Hushai to go out and meet him in open battle… he allows David’s messengers to escape from Absalom to tell David about Hushai’s plan…

By the end of 2 Samuel 17, the armies are assembled… the rebel Absalom with seemingly the whole world on his side… and God’s anointed king David, weak and broken, with his few remaining loyalists on the other…

Who would you bet on?

Who would you throw you lot in with?

Better yet…

Who have you thrown your lot in with?

Do you trust the Good & Gracious God who frustrates the wisdom of the wise… and brings salvation and victory through weakness and humilty?

Lets pray.

Father thank you for your goodness and grace, and your faithfulness to your promises.

Thank you for making all your promises “Yes” in Jesus, the eternal Son of David… your own dear son.

Thank you for giving him the ultimate victory through his weakest and most vulnerable moment.

Lord Jesus, thank you that you promise to always be with us.

Please help us trust you and the message that seems so weak and foolish to the world.

Please keep us from being seduced by deceptive worldly strategy, and preach the gospel of Christ crusified for the salvation of those who believe.

Amen.