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Please turn in your Bibles to
2 Samuel 23, and we're going to be looking at a long list
of heroes who made this same declaration in the Old Testament. 2 Samuel 23, beginning at verse
8. These are the names of the mighty
men whom David had. Josheb Bashebeth, a Takmanite,
chief among the captains. He was called Adino the Esnite
because he had killed 800 men at one time. And after him was
Eleazar, the son of Dodo, the Ahohite, one of the three mighty
men with David, when they defied the Philistines who were gathered
there for battle, and the men of Israel had retreated. He arose
and attacked the Philistines until his hand was weary and
his hand stuck to the sword. The Lord brought about a great
victory that day and the people returned after him only to plunder. And after him was Shammah, the
son of Agi the Hararite. The Philistines had gathered
together into a troop where there was a piece of ground full of
lentils. So the people fled from the Philistines, but he stationed
himself in the middle of the field, defended it, and killed
the Philistines. So the Lord brought about a great
victory. Then three of the 30 chief men
went down at harvest time and came to David at the cave of
Adullam and the troop of Philistines and camped in the Valley of Rephaim.
David was then in the stronghold and the garrison of the Philistines
was then in Bethlehem. And David said with longing,
Oh, that someone would give me a drink of the water from the
well of Bethlehem, which is by the gate. So the three mighty
men broke through the camp of the Philistines, drew water from
the well of Bethlehem that was by the gate and took it and brought
it to David. Nevertheless, he would not drink
it, but poured it out to the Lord. And he said, far be it
from me, O Lord, that I should do this. Is this not the blood
of the men who went in jeopardy of their lives? Therefore he
would not drink it. These things were done by the
three mighty men. Now Abishai, the brother of Joab,
the son of Zeruiah, was chief of another three. He lifted his
spear against 300 men, killed them, and won a name among these
three. Was he not the most honored of
three? Therefore, he became their captain. However, he did not
attain to the first three. Benaiah was the son of Jehoiada,
the son of a valiant man from Kabzeel who had done many deeds.
He had killed two lion-like heroes of Moab. He also had gone down
and killed a lion in the midst of a pit on a snowy day. And
he killed an Egyptian, a spectacular man. The Egyptian had a spear
in his hand, so he went down to him with a staff, wrested
the spear out of the Egyptian's hand, and killed him with his
own spear. These things Benaiah, the son
of Jehoiada, did and won a name among three mighty men. He was
more honored than the 30, but he did not attain to the first
three, and David appointed him over his guard. Father, we thank
you for your word, and we pray that as we look into it, that
your Holy Spirit would stir the word within our hearts, sanctify
us, cause us to reach out to you and to expect great things
from you, to attempt great things for you. But we thank you as
well for the positions that you have put each of us in. Help
us not to envy that which is not part of your calling, and
yet to strive for that which is a part of our calling, that
we would keep pressing toward the upward call that we have
in Christ Jesus. We love you, we commit this time
of continued worship and pray for your blessing in Jesus' name,
amen. In his 1968 book, None of These
Diseases, which is really a path-breaking book on the application of the
Bible to health issues, S.I. McMillan talked about a young
woman who had made an application to go to college, but her heart
sank as she started filling out the application because she came
to this question that asked, are you a leader? And she thought,
well, that kind of disqualifies me because I'm definitely not
a leader. But she wanted to be honest.
She put down, no, I'm not a leader. And to her surprise, she received
this letter from the college. Dear applicant, A study of the
application forms reveals that this year our college will have
1,452 new leaders. We're accepting you because we
feel it is imperative that they have at least one follower. It was kind of a tongue-in-cheek
poke at the 1,452 people who put down, they thought, well,
I've got to be a leader. I'm going to put down I'm a leader, even though
probably many of them were not. And MacMillan's point in using
that was that many people feel pressured to be leaders when
God has not actually called them to be leaders. And I'm starting
the sermon out this way, in this introduction, because This could
be a real discouraging thing for some people they they they
hear sermon after sermon But all of these exploits and all
of these amazing things that people do and they think man
I'm, just little old me and I can't do a lot of those things, but
they feel pressured to try to do that well, let me assure you
that God did not write about David so that all of you aspire
to be the head of a state, right? That would be a ridiculous expectation
To try to be exactly like David now, there's a lot of things
we can imitate in David's life but in the same way God did not
include this list of what sometimes seems to be almost miraculously
enabled hero leaders so that all of you would aspire to be
exactly like that. That's a sure recipe for discouragement
in your life. This chapter actually doesn't
even list all of the 400 valiant men that were a part of David's
army. It only lists 36 of the leaders of that army. And here's
the point. Where would those leaders be
without the followers? They would be nowhere. They wouldn't
be able to get anywhere. And while there are characteristics
of these leaders that we can imitate, and I'm going to be
pointing those out this morning, I want to be clear that God does
not expect every one of you to be a David or a Benaiah or a
Joseph. But God does want you to value
the leaders that he has put in place. He does want you to recognize
the need for such leaders and to gladly take your various roles
as followers of imperfect leaders. And that's the third caution
that I want to give during this introduction, that every one
of these men were imperfect leaders and yet David valued them and
God valued them very much as well. We've already seen that
David was not a perfect leader, nor was Joab or Abishai or any
of the others. And that's actually the whole
point of this chiasm. Remember how the whole chapters
21 through 24 is structured as a chiasm. The whole point of
the structure is to point out that every one of us needs God's
grace. We need the gospel. And that
God uses imperfect people like all of the people listed in these
chapters to advance His kingdom by that gospel. Now granted some
of these men were outwardly blameless, but they still had weaknesses
as we will point out in point number two of your outline. And
just as leaders should not pressure followers to be Goliath slayers,
you know, and heroic leaders, followers should not have idealistic
expectations of their leaders. Yes, there are standards that
the scripture sets out before us leaders. But if followers
were only able to follow perfect leaders, we would have precious
few leaders and precious few followers over the last 6,000
years. Okay, followers can aspire to be like leaders and leaders
can aspire to be like Jesus Christ But it's a growth process and
even the Apostle Paul says this towards the end of his life Brethren,
I do not count myself to have apprehended. I But one thing
I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching
forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the
goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. And so on the issues of leadership,
it is direction, not perfection. On the issues of followership,
it is direction, not perfection, okay? So that's the introduction,
let's dive into the text and let's see some of the characteristics
that made these men mighty and made them leaders who were worth
following. And the first characteristic
is that every leader was a follower. And you'll see this interesting
point throughout the chapter actually, but it's also hinted
at in verse 8. Verse 8 says, These are the names of the mighty
men whom David had. I'm going to emphasize that last
phrase, whom David had. These men followed David. They were leaders who followed
David. And one of the first prerequisites
of a good leader is that he has learned how to follow. In his
book, Cutting Edge Leadership, Ronald Riggio says, The reality
is that all leaders must also follow. Even a CEO must follow
the leadership of a company's board of directors. Research
tells us that the best leaders are also the best followers.
Effective leadership and effective followership have much in common,
but understanding how to follow can make you a better follower
or a better leader. Robert Kelly said much the same
thing in his book on leadership. even David had to exhibit followership
under Saul. He had to learn that. And he
continued to learn from and to follow the advice of other leaders
in 1 and 2 Samuel. And so there should be no such
thing as a leader who does not know how and when to follow. The elders of this church are
in mutual submission to each other. We're in submission to
the elders of Presbytery, and we value followership, and we
very much fear the independent spirit that we see all throughout
the church in America. It is led to disaster when you
see leaders who want to be leaders, but they have no humility to
follow in the ways that God calls them to follow. And sometimes
that means being challenged by the very people that we are leading.
And we're going to talk about that a little bit this morning.
Do not have the illusion that these 36 men were yes-men to
David. We'll see in the next chapter
that Joab actually challenged David in a very godly way over
his numbering of the children of Israel. Now Joab didn't always
challenge in a godly way. I think most of the time he didn't,
okay? It was ungodly. But that was a very godly way
to challenge David to be a better leader in that chapter and it
was one of the few places where David became stubborn, proud,
and pig-headed, and he resisted that and it led to absolute disaster
in Israel. So let's quickly consider the
kinds of followers that are out there. Arrigo outlines four kinds
of followers. He describes yes-men who back
the leader. And yet they still expect the
leader to make all of the decisions and to provide all of the direction.
They're faithful, okay, there's nothing wrong with their faithfulness,
but they lack initiative. And not one of these 36 men was
yes men. Now there may have been yes men
amongst the other 400, we're not told, but not these 36 heroes. The second kind of follower is
described by Riggio as the alienated. These are the cynics and the
disgruntled who create a lot of negativity and trouble in
the organization. They unnecessarily are challenging
their leaders, unnecessarily challenge, and in many ways they
resemble Joab and Abishai. Even Joab and Abishai are, I
think, better than some of the descriptions that Riggio gives
in his book there, but they bring a lot of giftedness to the table,
but they also make life discouraging for the leader. So those are
the alienated, maybe a better way of describing, and those
are the jerks in the organization, okay? The ones that are really
hard to get along with. The third kind of follower is labeled by
Riggio as the pragmatic. These are the followers who are
in it for themselves. And so if they don't like change,
they're gonna resist. And they're gonna try to keep
the status quo going. They're gonna resist any improvements.
If they, on the other hand, are in this just for what they can
be advanced on, they're not afraid of change, but they're gonna
be backing whoever is going to best serve their own best interests. And I think both Doeg the Edomite
from the past and Ahithophel would be examples of these kinds
of followers. They follow only because of what
is in it for them. There's no God-centeredness to
their following. They're not driven by the cause.
Like the others are, they're only driven by their own self-interest. The fourth group is what he calls
the star followers. They represent the ideal in followership. And let me read you his description
at length. Riggio says, star followers are
active, positive, and work with and for the leader to achieve
good outcomes, and outcomes aligned with the direction and the vision
of the organization. Kelly describes them as leaders
in disguise. Ira Chalif also talks about these
ideal followers in his book, The Courageous Follower, Standing
Up To and For Our Leaders. Courageous followers do everything
possible to contribute to the leader's and the organization's
success but have the courage to constructively challenge the
leader or the status quo if they think the direction is wrong.
Importantly, the courageous follower helps prevent ethical abuses
and misbehavior by the leader and others. And so the star followers
are dedicated. They give their all to the cause
But they're willing to stand up to a leader if what he has
done is unlawful. In other words, they're only
following when God allows them to follow. Just as an example
David put up with a lot of nonsense in Saul's administration But
there came a time when he could not be faithful to God and continued
to be a follower now Jonathan was still able to be that but
in David's case He was not able to be so a star follower is not
a yes-man but he is still a full-hearted and loyal follower and we see
both dimensions and some of the other leaders that are mentioned
in this chapter and For example, the dimension of incredible loyalty
to to David is illustrated in verses 13 Through 17 where we
see these leaders At great risk to their lives going to get that
water. They want to please David They
want to make his life more comfortable and they do not expect him to
be a perfect leader before they try to bless him Okay On the
contrary, they submitted to David's leadership in the spirit of Hebrews
13 verse 17, which says this. Obey those who rule over you
and be submissive, for they watch out for your soul as those who
must give account. Let them do so with joy and not
with grief, for that would be unprofitable to you. So those
are the kind of leaders that brought joy to David's heart.
They made it easy for David to lead them. But the willingness
to occasionally stand up to leadership and those same people is illustrated
in 1 Kings 1, verse 8, and some other chapters. And it was because
they cared about David that they stood up to him, okay? It was
because of their loyalty to David that they had earned the right
to challenge David when he needed to be challenged. Their followership
of David was not a blind followership, but it was certainly a loyal
followership. And I cannot emphasize this enough,
that those who aspire to leadership must learn the humility of followership. Don't even think of being a leader
if you have not learned how to follow. And Jesus modeled this
for us. Remember in Luke? Chapter 2 verse
51 it says that Jesus went home and he was in submission to his
parents. He was in subjection to his parents
is the way some word it. He also apprenticed under his
father. Now here he is the creator of the world. You know, I mean,
he made the trees and he could make anything he wanted, but
he's apprenticing under his stepfather, stepfather, his adoptive father,
Joseph. He apprenticed under him. Yes,
he learned followership so that he could be a good leader. And
now let me point out that if followership and leadership are
so tightly intertwined as these books indicate that it is, that
it means that every one of you can lead in some way. If all
of you are followers, that means you can lead in some way. You
may not be able to lead like David led, but you can still
lead. So. It is the women who are in
subjection to their husbands. who manage their households,
who lead their children and their slaves back in the days when
they had slaves, their servants, who lead them the best. It is
the husband who has learned how to be in submission to his parents
when he is growing up, who has learned how to be in submission
at work and in his church, who has the most gracious and the
most compassionate kind of leadership in the home. And when our children
are properly trained to submit to discipleship, they too will
be leaders in righteous actions when there's enormous peer pressure
to do the bad thing. Okay. So I think it's one of
the huge lessons we can learn from this chapter. Good leadership
has learned good followership. Every one of these men was leaders.
Every one of these men was a follower. Now I want to back up a little
bit and have you turn with me to 1 Samuel chapter 22. and verse
2 to see what these men looked like before they were put into
positions of leadership. In 1 Samuel 22, David is not
even a king yet. But his leadership on the battlefield
and his amazing balance of followership under King Saul brought admiration,
the text says earlier, and such admiration of David that people
flocked to him in droves out there in the wilderness. They
just were inspired by his lifestyle. So take a look at 1 Samuel 22
and verse 2. And everyone who was in distress,
everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was discontented
gathered to him. So he became captain over them,
and there were about 400 men with him. Now, at first blush,
you would not expect to make leaders out of people like that. And yet, God turned them into
leaders. To me this indicates that the
leaders in 2 Samuel chapter 23 were not bound by their past.
And it would have been very easy to be bound by their past. When
you face distress like they faced, it's very easy to become bitter.
The Hebrew word for distress, matzok, refers to such painful
circumstances that it brings anguish of spirit. That's a lot
of distress, okay? It's the kind of distress that
brings many people down, makes them want to quit. But it's also
the kind of stuff that distinguishes true leaders, okay? These men
were not overcome by their distress, but were instead overcomers.
Learning to rise above the distresses is a key to surviving in leadership
when the going gets tough. But some people are so chained
to the past by bitterness that they are ineffective. Okay, second
word, debt, nasha. is described in the TWOT dictionary
as equivalent to a loan shark. And the reason they say that
is because of the usage of this word. It's used in connection
with snake bite. It's used in connection with
debt and with wickedness. And you wrap those all up in
a package. It's a kind of debt that is overwhelming. It's these
people, it's the mafia putting the knuckles to you, you know,
on the debts that you have. And yet, even though debt dogged
them, They were overcomers. Okay, that's the point. Now you
may think you don't have debt, but when I checked the national
debt on Monday, and it increases by the minute, when I checked
the national debt on Monday afternoon and I divided it by the latest
population figures, every man, woman, and child in America owes
$55,659, and that does not count the state debt or the city and
county debt. That's just the national debt. Now when you when you consider
everyone in your family has fifty five almost fifty six thousand
dollars of debt that's been assigned to them that's enough to make
you want to throw up your hands and say it's a hopeless cause
there's nothing we can do for our nation. But it's also one
of the kinds of things that divides between those who will be leaders
and those who will not be leaders. How many times have good leaders
lost everything gotten back up on their feet and tried again. Now the third word, discontented,
is actually three words in the Hebrew, ishmar nefesh, and it
refers to those who are hard-pressed because they've been fleeing
from Saul. Now it could refer to their holy discontentment,
the way things are in the nation, But one dictionary has it as
outlaws, and that's the way some translate it. And that's okay,
so long as you realize they're not running from the law of God,
they're running from the tyrannical statutes of King Saul. But either
way that you translate that, it was such a bad kind of a situation
that they had to flee from the country. And it might be ordinarily
something that would make a person so discouraged that they would
give up. And so again, these were men who would not stay on
the ground when they were knocked down by adversity. They came
right back up fighting again. These providential difficulties
proved their mettle. And I think that Teddy Roosevelt
hit the nail on the head in his speech, The Man in the Arena.
He said, it is not the critic who counts, not the man who points
out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could
have done them better, the credit belongs to the man who was actually
in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood,
who strives valiantly, who errs, who comes short again and again,
because there is no effort without error and shortcoming. but who
does actually strive to do the deeds, who knows great enthusiasms,
the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who
at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement,
and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly
so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid
souls who neither know victory nor defeat. And I think that
pretty much sums up the kind of character that these men developed
through their tough circumstances. For sure, they were not bound
by their past. Now let's go back to 2 Samuel
chapter 23. The third thing that characterizes
the men in this chapter is that they had learned to fear the
right thing. They definitely did not fear
dying. That's pretty clear through the chapter. They did not fear
the government's displeasure. You know, they've been running
from the government. They were fighting against Saul's government. They
did not fear that. They did not fear the odds that
were against them. Take a look at the odds that
are listed there in the second half of verse 8. Josheb, Bashabeth,
the Taqbanite, chief among the captains, he was called Adino
the Esnite because he had killed 800 men at one time. That is nothing short of miraculous. In fact, some people say the
only way this could be true is if this man had some kind of
a supernatural miraculous gifting like Samson did. You know, we
talk about the gift of mercy and the gift of this. Well, they
had the gift of fighting, right? Some kind of a miraculous gifting
that was upon them. I kind of think of it as a Jackie
Chan with some supernatural oomph that was given to his fighting.
But this is really astounding even then you think Wow, even
with the miraculous power of the Holy Spirit up against 800
men and he kills them kills them all Well, there's more On another
occasion, according to 2 Chronicles 11 verse 11, this man single-handedly
killed 300 men in battle. Now I don't think Jackie Chan
could go up against 800 men in one battle and 300 men in another
battle. This is something that goes beyond
the normal. It's in the supernatural and
it implies to me a faith in God's miraculous power. Now the next
two heroes exemplify the same thing, verses 9 through 12. And
after him was Eliezer the son of Dodo the Ahohite, one of the
three mighty men with David, when they defied the Philistines
who were gathered there for battle and the men of Israel had retreated.
Now the fact that the rest of Israel had retreated shows that
they knew there was danger. They had a reasonable fear from
a human perspective. But there was something about
Eliezer that made him fear God more than man. And when your
eternal destiny is secure and you do not fear death, it gives
a certain boldness in battle. I mean, okay, if I die, go to
heaven. I'm just focused in on what my
duty is, focused in on my task. You do the right thing even if
it means your death. Now usually, such leaders inspire
others to similar heroics, but the fact that they didn't follow
shows that they must have thought He's just gone over the board.
You know, he's one hairbreadths on the other side of crazy, right?
Sometimes heroes are one hairbreadths on this side of crazy. They figured,
no, it's on the other side, so they didn't join him. So starting
at verse 10, he arose and attacked the Philistines until his hand
was weary and his hand stuck to the sword. The Lord brought
about a great victory that day and the people returned after
him only to plunder. And after him was Shama, the
son of Agi, the Hararite. The Philistines had gathered
together into a troop where there was a piece of ground full of
lentils. So the people fled from the Philistines. But he stationed
himself in the middle of the field, offended it and killed
the Philistines. So the Lord brought about a great
victory. And I want you to notice he does
not attribute this to the fact that he's some kind of a Jackie
Chan amazing fighter. Now there's supernatural here.
It says, so the Lord brought about a great victory. So what
distinguished these men from the rest of Israel was that their
faith in God somehow made them fear the right things. And let
me illustrate what I'm talking about by quoting from a devotional
book by Dana Key. She said, today a public school
teacher is afraid to recite the Lord's Prayer or read Psalm 23
in her classroom for fear of legal repercussions. But that
same teacher can tell your child where to get a condom or an abortion
without your consent or knowledge and fear no legal repercussions. Now fearing the right things
in circumstances like that is essential to being a godly leader. Too many pastors fear the hardships
they may face if they preach the whole counsel of God or if
they put a politician that's a member of their church under
church discipline. They fear the consequences, and
because of their fear of man, they lose their fear of God.
It's a very short-term orientation. It takes long-term orientation
to fear what James 3, 1 warns us teachers about. That passage
says, my brethren, let not many of you become teachers, knowing
that we shall receive a stricter judgment. That is saying that
us teachers and any others in the congregation who are involved
in teaching that we receive a greater judgment than those who are being
taught. But it takes a long-term perspective
to worry about that. Most people who are in the pulpit
worry more about the immediate repercussions of what they are
saying rather than fearing God and saying the same things. And
so you see the Apostle Paul who you think, wow, he's an amazing
guy, and yet he said he always sought to be close to God because
he feared lest he be disqualified. There's another thing that distinguishes
those first three leaders, this is the next point, they stood
in the gap for the sake of others. So when others fled there's a
gap that the enemy is pouring through and these leaders step
into that gap and they stem that flood. They hold back the enemy.
Eleazar led the charge into battle and he looks around to see who's
following him and they're all going the other direction. And
I'm convinced when he was going into battle he was probably trying
to do the same thing, probably yelling for the others to be
following him into the charge. I remember the movie Patriot
where Benjamin Martin in the last battle there, he's picking
up that flag and he's trying to wave it. Everybody's running
the opposite direction and he manages to stir them up and go
in the right direction. I imagine Eliezer is trying to
do that, but in this case he was not successful. They did
not turn around. He fought alone and the Israelites
sheepishly return only after he has routed the Philistines.
The last phrase of verse nine says, that they retreated, and
the last phrase of verse 10 says, and the people returned after
him only to plunder. They didn't return to fight,
they returned after the battle was done. But the memory of what
he did that day may have made his followers rise to the occasion
on other battles and emulate his courage. He stood in the
gap for the sake of his nation. And that pretty much covers the
fifth point as well, that he did not give up even though he
was standing alone. Nor did Shammah. Take a look
at verses 11 through 12. It shows a man who refuses to
retreat when it comes to defending God's land. And after him was
Shammah the son of Agi the Hararite. The Philistines had gathered
together into a troop where there was a piece of ground full of
lentils. So the people fled from the Philistines. But he stationed
himself in the middle of the field, defended it, and killed
the Philistines. So the Lord brought about a great
victory." Now in Robert Bergen's commentary he says, Shammah's
willingness to die for the sake of the land may properly be understood
as a defense of the Israelite faith. According to the Torah,
the Lord owned the promised land and Israelites were its tenants
and caretakers. Thus to defend the land was to
take a stand in behalf of the Lord." Now I will admit that
there do come times where if we don't retreat it's foolhardy.
But there are times when a leader must lead even when people do
not follow. His leadership in that case becomes
a rebuke to those who don't follow and becomes an inspiration in
the future to others to follow where they should follow. And
let me, one person worded it this way, standing out often
means standing alone. And let me just apply it in the
area of family. The Bible doesn't ask husbands
to force their wives to follow. That's not followership and that's
not leadership, okay? The Bible never gives that as
a mandate to men. It calls them to lead. Too many
men substitute power for authority. They try to force things in their
own strength. Authority is a channel flowing from God through the
husband into the family. And so you can lead even if people
don't follow. And leaders sometimes have to
stand alone and just say, okay, Lord, I've done what I could.
I'm standing in your authority. It's sometimes very lonely being
a leader. I think of George Washington.
Many thought of the Declaration of Independence as a stupid,
foolhardy pact with death, that this is not a winnable battle
against the Brits. At least a third of the population
sympathized with Britain. A third of the population probably
did not side with one side or the other. They just wanted to
remain neutral. And only 4% of the population
actually joined George Washington's The remaining patriots decided
they would take their chances fighting outside of the army.
So George Washington had a very lonely leadership position. But
there are times when leaders have to be willing to stand alone,
and I would encourage you to pray for them. Pray for your
leaders. It's sometimes a tough job to
be a leader. And actually, I think George
Washington exemplifies all of these points that we're looking
at today. Now another thing that was clear here was that loyalties
were not divided. All these men, even the grouchy
ones like Joab and Abishai, all of these men were fiercely loyal
to David. They weren't ready to get up
and leave him at the least offense. Even when they disagreed with
David, they were loyal to him. You know, an entire sermon could
probably be preached on verses 13 through 17 on this incredible
act of loyalty and devotion. I'm not going to do that, but
let me at least read these verses to you once again, beginning
at verse 13. Then three of the thirty chief
men went down at harvest time and came to David at the cave
of Adullam, and the troop of Philistines encamped in the valley
of Rephaim. David was then in the stronghold,
and the garrison of the Philistines was then in Bethlehem. And David
said with longing, Oh, that someone would give me a drink of the
water from the well of Bethlehem which is by the gate. So the
three mighty men broke through the camp of the Philistines,
drew water from the well of Bethlehem that was by the gate, and took
it and brought it to David. Nevertheless, he would not drink
it, but poured it out to the Lord. And he said, far be it
from me, O Lord, that I should do this. Is this not the blood
of the men who went in jeopardy of their lives? Therefore, he
would not drink it. These things were done by the
three mighty men. And that was an incredibly daring
trip of 25 miles through hostile territory. Why on earth would
they take such risks? Well, it's because they loved
David. They were willing to do anything for them. They saw his
even greater sacrifices for country, and they were inspired by that.
They were loyal to him, and it was a joy for them to sacrifice
for David. And on David's part, knowing
the risk that they had taken to their own lives in bringing
this water, he did something that you might consider insulting
after they've done all that and he's not going to drink it. But
it was actually the exact opposite. He felt unworthy of what they
had done. He felt unworthy to drink it.
The men knew that he longed for that water, but David said that
their sacrifice was so great that only Yahweh deserved to
have it. And so he poured it out as an
offering to Yahweh. There was no greater action,
in my estimate, that David could have done to honor these men.
So he was loyal to them. They were loyal to him. But there's
another point illustrated in those same verses. David's action
of pouring out the water and Shammah's action of defending
the Holy Land both showed that these leaders were driven by
a cause that was greater than them, greater than they were.
This is not just about David. In fact, as you read through
these stories, you realize each one showed by his willingness
to die for the cause that the cause was greater than them.
Otherwise, they wouldn't be willing to die for the cause, right?
They were gripped by a cause. They were not in this for the
money. They were not in this just for a job. They were gripped
by a cause, and it is a cause that gives passion to leadership.
It's what keeps leaders from compromise. And every time I
watch Braveheart, I am stirred on this point. Men were willing
to battle against all odds because they were so passionate about
the liberty and the cause of Scotland that any sacrifices
they made of leadership, any sacrifices of followership that
they made were worth it. And I see one of the major themes
of that movie as being the making of Robert the Bruce into a full
leader by transitioning him from a leader with a job into a leader
with a cause. At one point in the movie he
had compromised and It was because of his father's advice, and he
had betrayed William Wallace. And seeing the look in William
Wallace's faith gave him enormous remorse. And in the famous dialogue
with his father, he expresses the longing to fight for something
worth fighting for. He's expressing the fact that
he wishes his heart was sold out to a cause just like William
Wallace's heart was sold out to a cause. He admired William
Wallace's leadership and he knew he didn't have it. He did not
have the kind of leadership that William Wallace had. Now his
father just accused him of naive idealism, but let me read you
that part of the dialogue. Robert's father says, I'm the
one who's rotting, but I think your face looks graver than mine.
Son, we must have alliance with England to prevail here. You
achieved that. You saved your family, increased
your land. In time, you will have all the
power in Scotland. And Robert the Bruce said, lands,
titles, men, power, nothing. Robert's father, nothing? Robert
the Bruce, I have nothing. Men fight for me because if they
do not, I throw them off my land and I starve their wives and
children. Those men who bled the ground red at Falkirk fought
for William Wallace. He fights for something I've
never had. And I took it from him when I betrayed him. I saw
it in his face on the battlefield and it's tearing me apart. Robert's
father, all men betray, all lose heart. Robert the Bruce, I don't
want to lose heart. I want to believe As he does
i will never be on the wrong side again And it takes a while
But you see robert the bruce by the end of the movie being
willing to die for a cause that is bigger than he is And it's
only then that he's willing to risk his life and it's only then
he has some of the other characteristics that we've looked at this morning
In fighting for david these men were not just fighting for another
king They were fighting for what David stood for, for limited
government, for liberty, for the Torah, for the glory of God,
for their wives and children. They had become selfless leaders. And yet another principle that
we see in these men is that they never asked their soldiers to
do anything that they themselves were not willing to do. You see
it in David and Josheb and Eleazar and Shammah. You even see it
in Abishai. Look at verses 18 through 19.
Now Abishai, the brother of Joab, the son of Zeruiah, was chief
of another three. He lifted his spear against 300
men, killed them, and won a name among these three. Was he not
the most honored of three? Therefore he became their captain.
However, he did not attain to the first three." One of the
great examples of this principle here I think as depicted in the
movie, We Were Soldiers, directed by Ronald Wallace, starring Mel
Gibson as Lieutenant Colonel Hal Moore. And prior to leaving
for service in Vietnam, Moore delivers a moving speech to his
troops And in that speech he says, I can't promise you that
I will bring you all home alive, but this I swear, I'll be the
first one to set foot on the field and I'll be the last to
step off and I will leave no one behind that are alive. We
all come home together. And Moore literally fulfills
that promise. He's the first onto the battlefield.
He's the first off of the battlefield. And that's leadership. True leaders
don't ask their people to do anything that they are unwilling
to do. They lead by example. A father who is a good leader
doesn't just boss his family around, okay? He leads by example. And these leaders modeled the
behavior they wanted others to manifest. Though some leaders
could care less about these things, that's the kind of leader that
the star followers want to follow. That's the kind of leader that
the star followers are inspired by, okay? Yet another principle
that's exemplified throughout this chapter is clearly stated
in verses 19 and 23. that David showed his leadership
by honoring those who deserve to be honored. Verse 19 says
of Abishai, was he not the most honored of three? Now what's
remarkable about that statement is that Abishai constantly rubbed
David the wrong way. He was irritated by David many
times, but tough as Abishai was to get along with, David recognized
that this was a man who deserved to be honored and he honored
him. He gave honor where honor was due. Now the text says that
the most honored one of them all was Benaiah, that's in verses
20 through 23. Benaiah was the son of Jehoiada,
the son of a valiant man from Kabzeel who had done many deeds.
He had killed two lion-like heroes of Moab. He also had gone down
and killed a lion in the midst of a pit on a snowy day, and
he killed an Egyptian, a spectacular man. The Egyptian had a spear
in his hand, so he went down to him with the staff, wrested
the spear out of the Egyptian's hand, and killed him with his
own spear. These things Benaiah the son of Jehoiah did, and won
a name among the three mighty. He was more honored than the
30, but he did not attain to the first three. and David appointed
him over his guard. And then the honor roll just
continues as the rest of the leaders are mentioned in verses
24 through 39, a list of 36 leaders. I'm not going to take the time
to read all of the names, they're hard to pronounce, but you can
look over those. But the point is that good leaders
gladly promote leadership qualities when they see them. Good leaders
gladly honor the achievements of other leaders. insecure in
elevating leadership. In fact, good leaders will advance
leaders who are far better than they are. And some of the leadership
books that I've read have pointed out that some of the leading
CEOs in America have elevated people who really are much better qualified
for their job than they are. They've elevated them, and a
bad leader would not have done that because he'd be insecure.
He'd be thinking, boy, if I elevate these, everybody's going to recognize
they're much more gifted than I am. My job is going to be in
jeopardy. But you see, a good leader wants the success of the
cause, not his own glory. Husbands who are good leaders
are not intimidated by the fact that their wife is smarter than
they are, maybe more well-read than they are, or more gifted
than they are. On the contrary, they are delighted
that their wife and they together have a synergy that's going to
bless the family more than if they had not had a wife who was
more gifted than they are. So I think you can see it really
is an important quality. Now I could have focused on manliness
and bravery and courage and strength and technique and fighting prowess
and other characteristics that are essential for good leaders
in the military. And if I was preaching to some military men,
I'd probably deal with a bunch of those things. They write very
big on the text here. You can see it. And if you want
to have models of manliness for your boys, wow, have them read
this chapter. There's testosterone written
all over this chapter, okay? I've chosen not to go that direction,
even though Joel probably wishes I would have. Because I wanted
to focus on the principles that every one of us can imitate,
either by submission and followership or by, you know, growing in our
own leadership qualities. And it's my prayer that your
hearts would be stirred up to be the best followers and the
best leaders that God's grace can make you to be. May it be
so, Lord Jesus. Amen. Father, we thank you for
this passage and the incredible lives that have gone before us. And Father, even though we can't
be a David and we can't be a Benaiah, you have made us to be exactly
who you've made us to be. We want to fulfill our calling,
not somebody else's, yet I pray that each one of us would learn
from these characteristics and grow in the positions that you
have called us to. Do bless this people and strengthen
us and help us to be totally sold out to you and to your cause. And we pray this in Christ's
name. Amen.
Characteristics of Leaders Worth Following
Series Life of David
Though God does not expect everyone to be a hero warrior like David and his 36 leaders, there are principles of followership and leadership that can be learned from these amazing men.
| Sermon ID | 9953162023210 |
| Duration | 48:08 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | 2 Samuel 23:8-39 |
| Language | English |
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