David's Mighty Men Sermon

one of the lesser known features of the
story of David as it's recorded in
Scripture I think is what is known as
David's list of mighty men that list
occurs in two places in the Old
Testament that occurs in second Samuel
chapter 23 the verses 8 through 39 we're
going to be looking at that in a few
moments and you get Bibles as you came
in so feel free to turn to that the
second place is 1 chronicles chapter 11
from verse 10 on the two passages are
essentially duplicates of each other
though the Chronicles passage adds
excuse me an additional 60 names to the
list that we find in 2nd samuel chapter
23 in either case the list of mighty men
lists for us famous warriors who came
over to David's side and who fought with
him to help establish the kingdom of God
in Israel as God had promised to David
through the prophet Samuel and each list
is subdivided into three sections the
first section is what is known as the
three and as I said if you've got your
Bibles there turn with me to 2nd Samuel
23 and I'm just going to point out a
couple of things to you you'll notice
the heading there reads David's mighty
men and it's introduced with these words
these are the names of David's mighty
men and the first one is an
unpronounceable name Joseph Bathsheba
who is a Tokiwa night and he's chief of
the three and he is famous week
he raised his spear if you can picture
this against 800 men whom he killed in
one encounter now that I tell you is a
dude who knows how to fight the second
one of the three is Eliezer son of Dodi
the a-hole height he's one of the three
mighty men and he was with David when
they taunted the Philistines gathered at
pass demean for battle and the story
goes on to say all of Israel retreated
in the fight but Eliezer stood his
ground against the Philistines until his
hand grew tired and froze to his sword
and Saul he defeated single-handedly the
Philistine army and Israel had a mighty
victory and then down to verse 11 next
to him was Shama son of Agee the Hara
right and the story goes on to tell us
that when the Philistines bended
together at a place where there was a
field field full of lentils Israel's
troops fled from them but Shama took his
stand in the middle of the field he
defended it and struck the Philistines
down and again the Lord brought about a
great victory these are the three top
men that are listed in the group of
mighty men now skip down a number of
verses down to verse 18 the second
division of these mighty men is a group
of two the first is a be shy who is the
brother of Joab the son of Zarya and he
was not one of the three but he was
chief of the three and he raised his
spear against three hundred men whom he
killed and he became as famous as the
three he was not held in greater honor
was he not held in greater honor than
the three he became their commander even
though he was not in
looted among them so this is second
category the second name in that
category then of two is benaiah who was
the son of jehoiada and he was a valiant
fighter who performed great exploits and
then the passage lists for us three
things that he did
he struck down two of Moab's best men
and then he also went down into a pit on
a snowy day and killed a lion that's a
really interesting little tidbit that's
repeated in the Book of Chronicles snow
had fallen a lion had taken refuge in
probably a cistern or a well and vanaya
killed the lion and then he struck down
a huge Egyptian and although the
egyptian had a spear in his hand
binaya went against him with a club and
he snatched the spear from the Egyptians
hand and killed him with his own spear
and so he is famous as one of the second
batch of two because he was also a good
fighter and then if you go down to verse
24 from there on to the end of the
chapter you have what is known as the
thirty it's called the thirty even
though it's actually 32 depending on how
you count the names no exploits of these
are given but we are told that they also
are mighty fighters so you add them all
together you have the three you have the
two and you have the 32 and so that
passage ends in verse 29 there were 37
in all these were david's mighty men and
the reason they are called his mighty
men is that they were qualified
therefore to become chiefs of his army
and here is how the passage is
introduced in the book of Chronicles the
eleventh chapter
the writer to the Chronicle says these
were the chiefs of david's mighty men
they together with all israel gave his
kingship strong support to extended over
the holy and as the Lord had promised
this is the list of david's mighty men
and then the list repeats in 1
chronicles chapter 11 with some
interesting challenges spelling wise
because names are very difficult to pass
on by writers without making mistakes or
without having alternate spellings but
essentially the lists are the same
except in chronicles written much later
additional names are added so there you
have the list of david's mighty men
warriors who stood with him as he sought
to fulfill god's purposes for his people
in the land of his draw and of course
the reason that i referred to that
tonight is that at least to some very
practical lessons that you and i can
learn from that and in the time that
remains want to try to walk you through
some of those i would say the first
lesson that we learned from this list of
mighty men is that no one can accomplish
single-handedly think back with me why
did God call David to become king of
Israel from tending the Sheep well it
was because God's destiny for him was
that he should Shepherd God's people and
I love the way Psalm 78 puts it it says
concerning the Lord he chose David his
servant and took him from the sheep pens
from tending the Sheep he brought him to
be the shepherd of his people Jacob of
Israel his inheritance David was a man
after God's own heart you will remember
because he understood
God was after God was after building
himself a people who would love him
above all who would obey Him above all
and who would keep the testimony and the
witness of God alive among the nations
of the world and David was called to
tend the shame to look after God's
people to extend the kingdom of God to
make sure they could dwell in safety to
make sure that they could experience the
blessings of the Covenant and to make
sure that through the nation of Israel
the blessings of God would one day pass
on to the nations of the world and David
did that with supreme excellency Psalm
78 ends with these words and David
shepherded them with integrity of heart
with skillful hands he led them David's
job was to build a people of power and
the people of honor before God but David
could not do it alone he needed people
with him to make that happen and the
history of how that came to be is rather
fascinating because if you think back to
the history of David when he and Saul
first got alienated David was a persona
non grata in the land and he was
strictly on his own there was nobody
with him in fact he's so feared for his
life and you might recall this back
earlier in 1st Samuel chapter 21 and 22
David is so afraid of saw that he flees
for his life and who remembers where he
goes he goes to gasps a guest one ought
to be when you think about that because
this is the land of the Philistines
well the Philistines see him come and
you know I
the the the king he could handle it okay
but his people say look this is the dude
who keeps on killing us we don't want
him here and if you remember the story
David has to pretend he is insane to
avoid being captured it was not his
finest moment and so then he leaves Gath
and who remembers where he goes he goes
to the cave of a dull 'im and he now is
like a hunted animal fleeing again for
his life but that's where it becomes
interesting because this is where people
begin to gather to him
chapter 22 when Samuel David left Gath
and escaped to the cave of a dalam when
his brothers in his father's household
heard about it they went down to him
there all those who were in distress or
in depth or discontented gathered around
him and he became their leader about 400
men were with him
this becomes the nucleus of David's
fighting men people who were described
as being in distress or in debt or
discontented and there's a couple of
principles there that are really
important for us to lay hold of the
first of these is this when God calls
you to do a new thing in the kingdom he
will bring other people to join you in
that battle and it's a very important
principle to understand because God's
people always function in New Testament
language as a canoe as a people who are
a body and if you think of how your body
works then and we've talked about this
in detail in the past you know you've
got yourselves and you've got your
tissues and you've got your organs and
you've got your know the whole thing
gathers together
but you have all these different parts
of the body who not only make up the
part of a body but who together make up
the whole body and so what happens in
the kingdom of God is that when God
works in people's lives and he
distributes his gifts he puts a variety
of different gifts in people's lives
as you know and when you hear somebody
casting vision about what it is that God
is going to do or wants to do depending
on what your gifting is you will
identify with that person and so if
you're a person with a prophetic gifting
and you hear somebody proclaim
prophetically
what it is that God is going to do
you're going to be drawn to that person
and you're going to be drawn to that
cause and if you're the kind of person
who has the gift of mercy and you hear
somebody cast a vision give a
presentation of what God wants to do in
terms of helping people or eeling people
there will be something in your heart
that burns and that resonates without
vision other things might leave you cold
and you might sometimes even feel guilty
because there are all these good things
as a Christian that you ought to be
involved and you think but it's not you
well the reason for that is that you're
drawn to where you're calling lies and
when you hear that calling put into
words you get drawn to it and that's how
God builds teams who move forward in the
purposes of God little while ago Willow
Creek celebrated its 40th anniversary
and one of the characteristics of the
40th anniversary was that there are four
people who were at the founding of that
church 40 years ago and they brought
them up on stage to recognize them and I
was especially impressed by one man who
for 40 years now
has headed up their wilderness camp in
northern Michigan and the way this came
to be was he had come back from the war
I believe somewhere had come back to
Kalamazoo Michigan a total wreck
didn't know what to do with his life and
met up with highballs who had been one
of his schoolmates and they talked about
life and Hybels made the observation
well listen you know why didn't you come
to Chicago spend time with my wife and
me and I want to tell you about Jesus
that what Jesus can do in your life
well eyeballs forgot to tell his wife
about this roll the clock forward
doorbell rings and here is this dude
standing at his door taking him up in
his offer had Doolittle talking with his
wife to settle that issue but brought
him into the house led him to faith and
that man's heart caught fire with the
overall vision for that church community
but particularly for tending to the
youth in this camp which was donated I
believe by Bill's father
whole bunch of acres up in in northern
Michigan my point is this
nobody can do the work of God alone but
whatever your gifting is or whatever
your calling is you hear somebody
articulated and it will resonate with
you and you will form bonds together as
a team and as a team you're able to
accomplish things that you could never
ever do on your own and sometimes people
feel guilty for being drawn to people as
if somehow there's something wrong with
that but there isn't it's how God works
in the body and identifying who you are
and what you're called to
if hugely important and many of us are
part of this community because we share
to some degree the vision and the
passion of what God wants to do in US
and through us in terms of making his
redemptive purposes known to the ends of
the earth you with me here there's a
second spiritual principle that flows
out of this and that is in order to
embrace something new there has to be a
measure of discontent with the old in
order to go for something new you have
to be discontent with the old nothing
back to these 400 men who came and
joined David and I'd love to be able to
tell you tonight that they join David
because they were full of the Holy
Spirit and fire and they shared David's
vision and passion for building the
people of God and maybe they did to some
degree or another but that's not what
the text tells us instead they were in
distress in debt or discontented and
what that illustrates is that new
movements are almost always built on the
basis of those who are no longer
satisfied with the status quo and
sometimes that's because people are
distressed sometimes that's because
people are in debt sometimes it's just
dis they have they have a holy
discontent because they know there is
more than what they ought to be
experiencing think of migrants who risk
their lives crossing the ocean this past
week what another 38 or somebody drowned
terrible thing back to the days when
some of us emigrated from one country to
another why do you take the risk of
leaving the familiar for the near
because you know that you've gone as far
you can go where you are there is a holy
discontent and you need to move forward
into the purposes of God and the whole
point of that is that when God begins to
move in your life or when God begins to
move in the life of a church there comes
a place of holy discontent there is a
place that says there's more than what I
am experiencing I don't know how to get
there but God is going to show me the
way that is why the rich by the way are
sent away empty and why the kingdom
belongs to the last and the lost of the
least the more you have invested in the
present world order the more you have
invested in the present period the less
likely you are to abandon that for
something that is new and that's why
revolutions turn a whole social
structure upside down so that people are
are moved from where they are to where
they need to go and often that is bloody
often that comes at an incredibly high
cost and often the pain is huge but God
wants to move us from where we are to
where we need to be and so when he makes
us discontent that is his preparation
for something else that he has in mind
for us so those are some of the first
principles that come out of this story
nobody can do the work of God alone we
all need other people around us to
resonate with that vision and to put our
shoulders to the wheel because it takes
a collective assembly of different
giftings to make the kingdom of God
happen David could have never become
king over Israel without these men
coming to join him second lesson that
flows out of this is that in the kingdom
of God for the kingdom of God to move
forward what matters and I say this very
advisedly what matters is
military power s I think that's how you
say it military strength talked about
this before but let me talk about it
again because it contains a number of
principles that are really important
Nancy if we can move that next slide up
this is known as I've called this the
three C's of the kingdom you can call it
the three C's of the church you can call
it the three C's of of an organization
the reality is that any organization
consists of three overlapping circles
one that we call community one that we
call cos and one that we call
corporation now the metaphor for
community is the word family and in
family the core values are love loyalty
and mutual support and the gifts that
are needed to make family function are
gifts of shepherding gifts of
encouragement gifts of mercy and gifts
of help community is what we do when we
get together we visit each other we
encourage each other we eat together we
weep with those who weep we rejoice with
those who rejoice it's what most
churches spend most of their time doing
building community the next aspect
though is that a church is not just a
community but the church is also a cause
that is to say it has a job to do and
that job biblically speaking is to go
out and make disciples of all nations so
the metaphor for cause is mission
there's a job we have to do and the core
values of that are things like outreach
it's loving strangers it's furthering
the cause it is engaging society it is
praying for society it is
bearing witness to society it is helping
people to come to faith in the Lord
Jesus it is the biblical concept as I
said of making disciples of all nations
there's still a third function and that
is Corporation and the defining word of
corporation is administration or
organization core values are things like
effectiveness and efficiency and the
gifts that are needed are gifts like
administration and the gifts of giving
the gifts of leadership in other words
this aspect of life in community gives
structure and it enables the
organization to move forward later on
we're going to see what an excellent
administrator David was and how much of
his energy went into organizing the
kingdom the larger community becomes the
more important it is to have an
organizational structure and the people
who manage to to to organize that and to
run it now here's the thing that I'm
want to mention about this because
that's why this is so important in each
of these circles who is the most
valuable person it's a very important
discussion to have in community who gets
most of the attention the week the baby
in your family how do you get up for a
night it's the baby it's the weakest
it's a person who's sick it's the person
who is most in need of encouragement and
support that goes without saying and how
healthy a community is is a function of
how well we do that how well we weep
with those who weep and we rejoice with
those who rejoice now in the corporation
the defining word of which is
organizational structure who's your most
important person
it's your most organized or your most
efficient person you're not going to put
a spendthrift in charge of your finances
if you've ever been part of a movement
led by somebody who doesn't know how to
organize you know how incredibly
frustrating it is if you've ever been to
a meeting that was not well led then you
know that a recipe for disaster
is for people who just go with the flow
and who don't know where they're going
so in terms of corporation what really
matters is the gift of leadership and to
be into and to be able to say this is
how we're structuring our finances this
is how we're structuring our people this
is how we're doing life together I mean
I got to tell you you know and some of
you've heard me tell the story but years
ago I mean today in terms of music
department and so on we have cue sheets
and we have lists of who does what and
whatever else
well that developed organically as time
went on because in the early days it was
small enough that it just went by word
of mouth and everything worked pretty
well until we had two people sliding
behind the organ at the same time and we
had chaos on our hands because neither
was too prepared to let go for the other
one you know godly people can be very
attached to their instruments okay so
big question then and you want a hard
time guessing what I'm talking about
here is who is the most important person
in cause well it is your strongest
person it is your best fighter it is
your best warrior and that's why we have
this list of mighty men in Scripture
remember it was David's job it was
David's job to build the kingdom
territory had to be wrestled away from
the Philistines
territory had to be wrestled away from
King Saul who was not about to lie down
and give up his kingdom and so for David
to succeed
he didn't just need nice pastoral kind
of people who are kind to everybody he
needed warriors and that's why in this
particular list we have such a category
of mighty men whose exploits are
recorded for us on the pages of
Scripture understand that these were
probably not people that you're going to
sit down with and spill your guts to
because they aren't going to have an
awful lot of sympathy about your store
tell these are soldiers who intend to
stand for what is right and who oppose
the enemy so again a couple of
principles here that are really
important I think for us to understand
and that is this if you want an
organization to move forward get beyond
the status call who do you look for
well you look for warriors that is to
say you look for people of faith
encourage people who are prepared to
stand for what is right and who will
occupy the ground even when the
temptation is to give in because
fighting is too difficult or too hard
over the years we've had you know
criticism sometimes in the nomination
process in this church of of who gets to
be nominated for elders and a lot of
people don't know how the process works
and sometimes they think it's all
manipulated which it is not but we've
never apologized for setting the bar
I for people to be nominated they need
to share the vision and the mission of
the church they have to know what they
believe and they have to be prepared to
stand for what is right
because if you don't have people who
know how to stand for what is right when
the battle begins to rage everything
falls down and God is looking for men of
courage women of courage who know their
calling and who aren't afraid to say no
de'cine no to unrighteousness and yes to
the things of God
second spiritual principle are flows out
of this is that in the kingdom of God
advancement is based on a proven
track-record earlier I quoted the verse
from 1 chronicles chapter 11 telling us
that these lists this list is given to
us to show that these are the chiefs of
David's army if you read through it very
carefully
12 out of that whole group end up
becoming I don't know what the word is
captains or their they're in charge of a
whole division of his soldiers and the
principle there of course is this you
can't lead people where you have not
gone before and what's needed then is a
demonstrated track record of what you
can do so that you can be entrusted with
more responsibilities years ago there
was a book that became very popular
called the Peter Principle
and the argument that the author of
Peter Principle made was that in
corporate life in North America people
got promoted to the level of their
incompetence very interesting theory
because his argument was that when
people were functioning well for an
organization and they were you know a
whole
for the values of the organization and
they were contributing to the
organization well those are the people
get promoted so people get promoted and
they get promoted and they get promoted
until they get to the place where
they're no longer functioning at their
highest ideal now nobody wants to
promote them anymore
so now they're stuck at their highest
level of incompetence as opposed to the
level where they want to be functioning
and one of the jobs in Christian
community is to identify the gifts of
God's people and to allow those gifts to
flourish and to allow people to rise to
the level that God has ordained for them
because of their calling and I always
say to people you know this is true for
for kids going out and getting a job and
this is true for employees and your
company or just a general principle of
how life works you want to advance then
you demonstrate that you're worthy of
advance you want to be in a leadership
position then demonstrate that you're
worthy of leadership demonstrate did you
have the ability to do what needs to be
done in order to accomplish the purposes
of God let's put up the other slide for
a moment Nance I've talked about this
before too but it also bears repeating
because it has an incredible pile of
wisdom in it Craig Hill as you may
remember heads up the foundation family
foundations International Institute or
whatever
Valarie and marked went to it back last
fall and he does a teaching a leadership
that I've touched on with you before but
I think is really profound and it came
out of his experience of trying to
expand his ministry among nations of the
world they have a healing ministry very
similar to what we emphasize here and he
trains people and builds teams in
different countries so that they can
have conference
that people can come to get prayed
forward and and things can really happen
but his model is really quite
fascinating because he talks about ease
and s's and bees and eyes East stands
for an employee S stands for a
self-employed person B stands for
business person and I stands for an
investor and he says if you want to see
what people are able to do in ministry
then look at how they make their living
because he says an employee is a person
who works typically fixed hours for
fixed pay and is perfectly satisfied in
that area of his job or her job nothing
wrong with that the world needs a lot of
employees a self-employed person is a
person who looks at the employee and
says why should my boss get paid $45 and
I get paid $15 or $20 I'd be better off
working for myself because then I can
get that extra money and so he leaves
his boss and he starts his own company
and how many people in our own church
haven't left their construction boss
over the years for example and started
their own business with that kind of
thinking now a businessman he is the
kind of guy who says well if I'm an
employee and I stopped working or take a
day off my pay gets docked and if I'm
self-employed
then the onus is on me to keep my
business going and if I stop working I
lose out on my pet so he says the smart
thing for me to do is to get other
people to work for me organize them and
equip them so that they can do the work
and now I can go away in vacation and I
can trust the work to carry on right
make good sense right now the investor
then is a person who isn't content to do
this just in one area of his wife or
business he's got enough energy and
skill and he can run multiple businesses
that way and you know the big rich
people in today's society the CEOs that
could pay these incredible piles of
money get paid incredible piles of money
because they have the skills to make
that happen they can head up multiple
corporations and make money in the
process of doing that now here is what
he discovered as a very important key
that took him quite a while to figure
out he says it's relatively easy to go
from an e to an S because all you have
to do is learn some new skills in terms
of managing your business it's not
difficult he says to go from a B to and
I if you have the gifting in order to
accomplish that it's virtually
impossible he says to move across across
from an e to a B are from an sto B
because it requires a whole different
mindset of how to run the show and you
know without spending too much time on
elaborating upon that it's not hard to
figure that out because you require a
whole other set of skills now to create
the the kind of structure and the kind
of equipping that is needed in order to
help people to move forward and so it
takes a particular skill set to be able
to
move people into their area of
responsibility and he tells stories
about you know how he in the early days
he would he would he would find an
employee who really resonated with his
mission and he would put him in charge
of a particular country and he said okay
you know here's what you need to do and
he'd go on to the next country and he'd
come back however much later and and he
would ask the question well what have
you accomplished so I hadn't
accomplished anything because you see if
only the boss were here more often to
show me how to do it then I would be
able to do it because the employee is
accustomed to being told how to do the
work he isn't paid to try to figure it
out on his own because if he did he'd be
self-employed or he'd be businessman and
so he discovered that he had to find
people who knew how to recruit people
and instill training in people and
empower people to make it happen and
David David was successful because he
was an incredibly gifted leader and
that's another sort of lesson that flows
out of this and that is you have to
leave room for people to grow because
remember now what did David start off
with pretty raw material not you know
not resumes that you'd want to hire for
your business or for your church and yet
out of this group comes the mighty men
that helped him advance the purposes of
God we won't take the time tonight to
read it but there's this very moving
story in this particular passage about
the three men who break through the
Philistine lines to get water out of a
well in Bethlehem you can read the story
on your own you might remember it
David is having a moment of nostalgia
and he says old that I could have water
from Bethlehem and these three men
profoundly loved him took their lives in
their own hands broke through the
Philistine lines went all the way to
Bethlehem came back with a jug of water
and they said here's the water that you
were looking for and if you know the
story you will recall that David was so
astonished at the price they were
prepared to pay to get that water he
said I can't possibly drink it and he
poured it out on the ground as a thank
offering to God but it shows you what
kind of loyalty these men had in their
relationship with David so how did he
take this whole motley crew and make
something out of them well he was a
leader par excellence he knew how to
identify what their gifts and what their
abilities were he knew how to inspire
them in the purposes of God he knew how
to help them move forward and out of
this motley crew comes Chiefs of the
people who ultimately end up being able
to dis possess Saul out of his kingdom
get rid of the enemies and establish the
kingdom of God in the land of Israel you
can't do it alone you need people with
you but what matters is being able to
identify the warrior spirit among God's
people and to say I'm gonna empower you
to step into these battle you show me
what you can do and I'll let you rise to
the top rank of my army to build God's
kingdom each of us needs to reflect
sometimes what has God gifted us with
what has God done in her life
what can we be entrusted with have we
proven ourselves faithful many of us
have to whom much is given or he that is
faithful and little of course God will
place over much one more lesson before
we wind this up and that's this your
strong supporters can also be a huge
liability did you know that sometimes
your best friends give you the most
trouble if you've ever read the list of
David's mighty men you may have noticed
there is one very prominent military man
whose name is missing in the list
anybody guess which name that is Joab
what do you remember about Joab well
Joab was one of three sons of zouriya
the other sons are Abba shy and his name
is mentioned in this passage and the
other is Isaiah and Joab ended up
becoming commander of all of David's
armies and much of David's military
success was the result of Joe ABS
fighting ability but Joab had issues and
Joab on two occasions turned out to be
extremely treacherous one was in
connection with the murder of Abner you
may remember that Abner had been the
commander of the northern tribes the
tribes of Israel
and after david was crowned king over
judah there was war between judah and
the northern tribes for seven years and
there were some very very nasty battles
because the northern tribes were loyal
to the house of Saul and they wanted
nothing to do with David
well eventually Abner entered into a
peace treaty with David and they agreed
that he was going to come over to
David's side Joab
had a bone to pick with Abner because
earlier Abner had killed his brother
assail not because he had wanted to kill
him but because a sail was pursuing him
he had repeatedly been told by Abner
don't come after me wouldn't listen
because he was a very fast runner caught
up with him and in the resulting
conflict as they all died and Joab never
forgot
so under false pretenses after David had
entered into a treaty with Abner and the
northern tribes under false pretenses
Joab invites Abner to have a meeting
with him and then when his guard is down
he stabs him in the gut and Abner dies
terrible problem for David because he
has to distance himself from that action
because if the northern tribes think
that David has been part of that his
credibility is totally shot so this is a
huge issue and David has to go through a
lot of Hoops in order to persuade Israel
that this was Joe ABB's doing and it was
not his own doing same thing happened
again later with a military commander
called Amasa he was appointed by
absalom in absalom's rebellion to lead
the armies of judah and here again in a
very treacherous fashion Joab got him
aside and stabbed him and shed innocent
blood see it's one thing to fight in
battle and to kill somebody in battle
it's quite something else to kill
somebody under false pretenses when
you're pretending to be good friends
so Joab was a real liability to David
but was too powerful for David to do
anything with and so second Samuel 339
gives voice to David's lament when he
says and today though I am the anointed
king I am weak and the sons of the riah
are too strong for me may the Lord repay
the evildoer according to his evil deeds
and we know from the rest of the story
that that happened during the reign of
King Solomon David before he died took
Solomon aside and he said don't let Joab
go to his grave in peace he couldn't
carry out he couldn't handle him himself
but he passed it on to his son and the
end of Joab happens as the story goes on
in the battle for succession after King
David Joe lab's sides with one of the
other sons called ed Anaya and Solomon
finds out about that and make long story
short he ends up executing or having
Joab executed by the hand of benaiah who
was one of the names that appears in
this chapter and who then becomes the
commander of Israel's armies
so principal here not infrequently
leaders are at the mercy of the strong
people who have helped them lead think
back to the Harper government and the
Duffy trial or the Nigel Wright
situation think of how many people in
business have an employee who causes
chaos and who produces relational
difficulties but nobody dares say
anything or do anything because this
person is deemed to be so valuable to
the organization that nobody dares fire
them and yet produces chaos wherever it
goes and I think of church situations
where particular people who have been
maybe at the very foundation of building
a church who are unapproachable and who
have their heels dug in and who who lack
the character of Christ but nobody can
call them to account because they're too
strong you see what I'm saying if you've
ever worked with that kind of a person
or in that kind of a situation you will
know that just because you occupy the
title of head honcho doesn't really mean
you are the boss sometimes the people
that rise into positions of power and
organization are people like Joab who
have a lot of characteristics and
qualifications that make them successful
in what they do but who lack the kind of
spiritual maturity or the relational
ability that they need to be able to
function properly in an organization and
so what's the antidote to that well the
antidote to that is to make sure that
let me put it this way if you're gonna
hire somebody or if you're gonna give
authority to somebody in an organization
or in the leadership position there are
four things that you've got to look for
and now wind up with this character
competency chemistry and culture in that
order character is is this person
yielded to the authority of Jesus is
this person relationally gifted can this
person be corrected can you talk with
that person feel like you're getting
somewhere does this person care for the
bigger cause as opposed to just his own
issue see Joab had one over on David
because Joab was instrumental in the
murder of Uriah at David's command so
you can see where David didn't have have
any room to maneuver with Joab because
Joab knew the secret and Uriah is listed
in this list as one of David's mighty
men and you know how his story ended
over David's affair with Bathsheba
character Trump's competency any time
character is much harder to come by than
giftedness but character is essential if
you're going to build the kingdom of go
on competency it's great to be have
character but if you're going to do a
job you also have to have the ability to
do it
so competence is not insignificant
chemistry does this person fit with the
people that you're working with and
culture does this person understand the
culture of the organization
you know business-wise what
the biggest stumbling block when major
companies merge you know how often
people will say well if we can take this
company in this company and put the two
together we'll have that much greater
power and ability to engage the market
you know you hear this all the time
right they bring these companies
together and what happens they can't get
along with each other why because they
have their own cultural values which are
often unspoken and when you start trying
to work together you discover that you
have an entirely different set of values
and you have an entirely different way
of approaching a given situation and if
you've ever been in a situation where
you're working with people whether in a
team a church or in a team at work and
and you constantly feel the grinding of
the gears then one of those four
characteristics that you're talking
about has not been addressed and so I
leave you with this whatever God calls
you to or whatever God equips you for
understand that character and competence
in chemistry and culture are of
incredible importance and understand to
that what God is looking for in the
church today is the people who will
stand up and who will be counted a
people who are not afraid to say this is
right and this is wrong
not because they are contentious or
because they're crazy right-wingers or
because nobody you know that they're
critical of everything that happens in
the world but because they understand
that if you're going to stand with God
you have to stand for what God stands
for
and you have to stand against what he
stands against and I don't know if you
read the news story and I'll end with
this an amazing thing happened in the
Anglican Church a couple of weeks ago
the Anglican Church has been fighting
for years and years about issues of
homosexuality ordination of homosexual
clerics and the battle has raged between
the African contingent of the Anglican
Church and the North American
Episcopalians in the United States and
for years now they have been wrestling
with how do we keep this together
because unity is more important that
anything else in the world including
truth well two or three weeks ago they
cut the Gordian knot and to everybody's
surprise they placed the Episcopal wing
of the Anglican Church under discipline
because they said it is more important
for us as an Anglican community
Communion to stand for truth than it is
to pretend that we're all in the same
page when we're not on the same page
that's almost unheard of in today's
Church world but critical if we're going
to be like David men and women after
you