Scripture: 1 Samuel 16:3-13
What are the characteristics we look for in leaders? Charisma? Intelligence? Experience…
Experience is a huge one, isn’t it? What’s the person’s track record? What have they done in the past? Is this someone who has proven themselves worthy of leading our nation? Where do they stand on the issues? What kind of military knowledge do they have?
How many sheep can he tend to at one time?
That last one probably isn’t on most of our checklists when we walk into a voting booth.
Nor is a teenage boy usually who we would consider to be our fearless leader.
Yet, this is precisely the person God chooses to be King over Israel. A young man whose father hadn’t even bothered to bring him out to be considered for the job when the prophet Samuel came a-calling.
That’s because things aren’t always what they seem. We are easily misled by appearances.
Case in point – there was an airplane flying from San Francisco to Los Angeles that had a 45 minute delay.
Once in the air, they unexpectedly stopped in Sacramento. The flight attendant explained there would be another delay, and if the passengers wanted to get off the aircraft to stretch, they would reboard in thirty minutes.
Everybody got off the plane except one gentleman who was blind. He had flown before, and his Seeing Eye dog lay quietly underneath the seats in front of him throughout the entire flight. The pilot came back and asked him, would you like to get off and stretch your legs?" The man replied, "No, thanks, but maybe my dog would like to stretch his legs."
Picture this: All the people in the gate area came to a completely quiet standstill when they looked up and saw the pilot (wearing his aviator's sunglasses) walk off the plane with the Seeing Eye dog!
People not only tried to change planes, they also were trying to change airlines!
How easily we can be misled by appearances!
Circumstances can be interpreted so many different ways. And people can be dissatisfied over the smallest things! Sometimes they want desperately and ask for things they shouldn't have. Sometimes they get them.
Such was the case with Israel when the people demanded a king so that they could be like other nations. They saw that’s what everyone else was doing – so they should probably do it, too. But God warned – having a King wouldn’t necessarily be all that great a thing. A King would only take their sons to wage war and levy taxes on their properties. But…the people still said, “We don’t care, we want a king anyway.”
Be careful what you wish for – you just might get it.
God said, “fine… have it your way…” When God agrees to some kind of demand in the Bible, where he says, “Ok, that’s how you want it – that’s how you’ll have it” – it’s usually not a good thing. It’s usually the worst judgment he can pronounce upon people.
But, God acquiesces. He gives them a King. A man named Saul.
Saul was handsome and tall, had charisma, and was a good military leader.
God chose and elevated Saul because he had all the kingly attributes the people were looking for.
However… sometimes it’s better not to have God say, “fine, have it your way.” Saul wound up doing all the things God warned a king would do.
But aside from taking all their sons, waging war, levying taxes… Saul’s bigger problem was he had a limited vision of what was possible with the Lord. Saul tended to take matters into his own hands rather than wait on God’s time. Several times Saul transgressed and tried to do things his way rather than God’s way. He stopped seeking God’s counsel, figuring he knew better.
Eventually the Lord rejected him as king over Israel and selected another… one no one would have expected – especially the prophet Samuel. We can tell from the reading had it been up to him, he would have made up to seven other choices!
David was too young. He was still out tending sheep, his father not even calling him in to meet with Samuel.
Yet this is what God does – he chooses people we normally wouldn’t see or expect to be His servants and do His will.
There are two problems we humans have with this. First – it means that person who isn’t necessarily as upstanding and proper might be called by God to do God’s work. That leaders in the faith don’t come out of a cookie cutter mold.
Second, it’s a troubling when God does this because God choosing means we aren’t the ones always in control. It means God is selecting and choosing people to do His will, and we don’t always get the memo on who that’s going to be.
I remember from seminary a guy named Randy. Randy was 61 years old… tattooed, rode a Harley, had tons of piercings, and his smile… well, his smile looked more like a grimace of pain. He used drugs such as LSD and cocaine in the 60’s and spent 20 years as a functioning addict. He also drank a lot of bourbon and smoked three packs of Marlboros a day.
Randy was not exactly someone you would have imagined being called into the ministry. His story is one that is too long to go into here, but after cleaning up his act, trying his hand at being a successful businessman and then losing millions when the dot.com bubble burst and hitting rock bottom more than once – God led him into the ministry.
But few churches would even look at Randy as someone befitting the call. No one wanted him as their leader because he didn’t fit their expectation of what a pastor should look like. He spent several years just waiting for a church to give him a chance.
A church in Tacoma, Washington, finally gave him that chance – though some members sometimes question why he can’t always keep his arms covered to keep those “unsightly” tattoos from showing. Yet if anyone looked at the tattoos – they’re all about God and the Bible.
Randy’s congregation is in a poor, crime-infested section of the city, where some members show up for worship high, and others are burdened with criminal pasts, joblessness and poverty. The members of his church rock out to a Christian band called “Convicted” – made up of all former prison inmates.
Randy reaches into those places that most of us would never dream of going. And does what God has called him to do – bring the healing love of Christ into the broken lives of people that society rejects.
Randy reminds us not to judge too quickly or on our own set of criteria.
Throughout scripture we find God picking out and choosing the most unlikely person to be a leader. From birth, God had chosen Moses to lead His people, despite Moses’ reluctance and having murdered an Egyptian.
In the Book of Judges, God raises up a woman to defeat Israel’s enemies.
In the Book of Acts, we see the disciples trying to replace Judas – but God has other ideas for a replacement. Instead of a faithful follower of Christ, he goes after a Pharisee who had been persecuting Christians and turns him into the man who would write almost half the New Testament as he spread the Gospel to the gentile world.
These people were not only unlikely candidates for the jobs they were given – they were far from perfect people. These great heroes – had a lot of faults. The tabloids would have been running rampant with the personal lives of these great Biblical characters.
And as we will see throughout the next several weeks, David is hardly perfect, either. He will grow up and become a fierce warrior, a lousy father, a murderer, an adulterer – he grows up to still not be exactly what any of us would consider a model for leadership, even though he winds up going down in the Biblical record as Israel’s greatest King.
There is but one redeeming quality that we’ll see regarding David – his faith in God. David will take almost every mis-step there is when it comes to morality, and yet still be able to teach us lessons about mercy, grace, and faith.
David never abandons God, and never abandons God’s counsel. He’ll mess up, but when his behavior is pointed out to be wrong – he repents and turns back to God. That is the model of faith leadership we need today – to be reminded that despite all our failings – God is still there and doesn’t abandon those who turn to Him.
David may hardly have been the person anyone would have initially selected to be their leader, but then, who would have guessed the humble son of a simple carpenter in a remote part of the Roman Empire would become the savior of the entire world?
What are the characteristics we look for in leaders? Charisma? Intelligence? Experience…
Experience is a huge one, isn’t it? What’s the person’s track record? What have they done in the past? Is this someone who has proven themselves worthy of leading our nation? Where do they stand on the issues? What kind of military knowledge do they have?
How many sheep can he tend to at one time?
That last one probably isn’t on most of our checklists when we walk into a voting booth.
Nor is a teenage boy usually who we would consider to be our fearless leader.
Yet, this is precisely the person God chooses to be King over Israel. A young man whose father hadn’t even bothered to bring him out to be considered for the job when the prophet Samuel came a-calling.
That’s because things aren’t always what they seem. We are easily misled by appearances.
Case in point – there was an airplane flying from San Francisco to Los Angeles that had a 45 minute delay.
Once in the air, they unexpectedly stopped in Sacramento. The flight attendant explained there would be another delay, and if the passengers wanted to get off the aircraft to stretch, they would reboard in thirty minutes.
Everybody got off the plane except one gentleman who was blind. He had flown before, and his Seeing Eye dog lay quietly underneath the seats in front of him throughout the entire flight. The pilot came back and asked him, would you like to get off and stretch your legs?" The man replied, "No, thanks, but maybe my dog would like to stretch his legs."
Picture this: All the people in the gate area came to a completely quiet standstill when they looked up and saw the pilot (wearing his aviator's sunglasses) walk off the plane with the Seeing Eye dog!
People not only tried to change planes, they also were trying to change airlines!
How easily we can be misled by appearances!
Circumstances can be interpreted so many different ways. And people can be dissatisfied over the smallest things! Sometimes they want desperately and ask for things they shouldn't have. Sometimes they get them.
Such was the case with Israel when the people demanded a king so that they could be like other nations. They saw that’s what everyone else was doing – so they should probably do it, too. But God warned – having a King wouldn’t necessarily be all that great a thing. A King would only take their sons to wage war and levy taxes on their properties. But…the people still said, “We don’t care, we want a king anyway.”
Be careful what you wish for – you just might get it.
God said, “fine… have it your way…” When God agrees to some kind of demand in the Bible, where he says, “Ok, that’s how you want it – that’s how you’ll have it” – it’s usually not a good thing. It’s usually the worst judgment he can pronounce upon people.
But, God acquiesces. He gives them a King. A man named Saul.
Saul was handsome and tall, had charisma, and was a good military leader.
God chose and elevated Saul because he had all the kingly attributes the people were looking for.
However… sometimes it’s better not to have God say, “fine, have it your way.” Saul wound up doing all the things God warned a king would do.
But aside from taking all their sons, waging war, levying taxes… Saul’s bigger problem was he had a limited vision of what was possible with the Lord. Saul tended to take matters into his own hands rather than wait on God’s time. Several times Saul transgressed and tried to do things his way rather than God’s way. He stopped seeking God’s counsel, figuring he knew better.
Eventually the Lord rejected him as king over Israel and selected another… one no one would have expected – especially the prophet Samuel. We can tell from the reading had it been up to him, he would have made up to seven other choices!
David was too young. He was still out tending sheep, his father not even calling him in to meet with Samuel.
Yet this is what God does – he chooses people we normally wouldn’t see or expect to be His servants and do His will.
There are two problems we humans have with this. First – it means that person who isn’t necessarily as upstanding and proper might be called by God to do God’s work. That leaders in the faith don’t come out of a cookie cutter mold.
Second, it’s a troubling when God does this because God choosing means we aren’t the ones always in control. It means God is selecting and choosing people to do His will, and we don’t always get the memo on who that’s going to be.
I remember from seminary a guy named Randy. Randy was 61 years old… tattooed, rode a Harley, had tons of piercings, and his smile… well, his smile looked more like a grimace of pain. He used drugs such as LSD and cocaine in the 60’s and spent 20 years as a functioning addict. He also drank a lot of bourbon and smoked three packs of Marlboros a day.
Randy was not exactly someone you would have imagined being called into the ministry. His story is one that is too long to go into here, but after cleaning up his act, trying his hand at being a successful businessman and then losing millions when the dot.com bubble burst and hitting rock bottom more than once – God led him into the ministry.
But few churches would even look at Randy as someone befitting the call. No one wanted him as their leader because he didn’t fit their expectation of what a pastor should look like. He spent several years just waiting for a church to give him a chance.
A church in Tacoma, Washington, finally gave him that chance – though some members sometimes question why he can’t always keep his arms covered to keep those “unsightly” tattoos from showing. Yet if anyone looked at the tattoos – they’re all about God and the Bible.
Randy’s congregation is in a poor, crime-infested section of the city, where some members show up for worship high, and others are burdened with criminal pasts, joblessness and poverty. The members of his church rock out to a Christian band called “Convicted” – made up of all former prison inmates.
Randy reaches into those places that most of us would never dream of going. And does what God has called him to do – bring the healing love of Christ into the broken lives of people that society rejects.
Randy reminds us not to judge too quickly or on our own set of criteria.
Throughout scripture we find God picking out and choosing the most unlikely person to be a leader. From birth, God had chosen Moses to lead His people, despite Moses’ reluctance and having murdered an Egyptian.
In the Book of Judges, God raises up a woman to defeat Israel’s enemies.
In the Book of Acts, we see the disciples trying to replace Judas – but God has other ideas for a replacement. Instead of a faithful follower of Christ, he goes after a Pharisee who had been persecuting Christians and turns him into the man who would write almost half the New Testament as he spread the Gospel to the gentile world.
These people were not only unlikely candidates for the jobs they were given – they were far from perfect people. These great heroes – had a lot of faults. The tabloids would have been running rampant with the personal lives of these great Biblical characters.
And as we will see throughout the next several weeks, David is hardly perfect, either. He will grow up and become a fierce warrior, a lousy father, a murderer, an adulterer – he grows up to still not be exactly what any of us would consider a model for leadership, even though he winds up going down in the Biblical record as Israel’s greatest King.
There is but one redeeming quality that we’ll see regarding David – his faith in God. David will take almost every mis-step there is when it comes to morality, and yet still be able to teach us lessons about mercy, grace, and faith.
David never abandons God, and never abandons God’s counsel. He’ll mess up, but when his behavior is pointed out to be wrong – he repents and turns back to God. That is the model of faith leadership we need today – to be reminded that despite all our failings – God is still there and doesn’t abandon those who turn to Him.
David may hardly have been the person anyone would have initially selected to be their leader, but then, who would have guessed the humble son of a simple carpenter in a remote part of the Roman Empire would become the savior of the entire world?
Trump could very well be God's Moses, God's David or God's Samson but I think he's where he is because God put him there.
ReplyDelete