Let’s pray.
Lord, our lives are yours we want to be a drink offering poured out for you. So we’re praying, Lord, may we love you to where we would want to do that. And when we don’t feel like doing it, we would still give ourselves away in holy consecration. Now, Lord, that you could love us and make us Your children is an amazing thing. And we’re here worshiping you because You’ve done it.
You’ve paid the price. You’ve written our names down in the book of life. And I’m just asking now, Lord, may we be willing to not let Jesus bear the cross alone, but to pay the price with Him. So I ask now, Lord, help us know how to be the people You’ve called us to be. In Jesus name I pray. Amen.
I didn’t want to be a pastor. I feel bad about that. Now. First I thought it was cool when I was a junior high student and the teachers at my school put a mantle on me. Not a literal one, but they said, we think you’re called to the ministry. And in the more innocent ages of my life, I thought that was a high and noble thing. Then I became a teenager, unfortunately. Kind of had a little sideshow with a love affair at the world going on, and there’s nothing worse than standing up for God, knowing that you shouldn’t be doing it.
So I ran away from it, attempted a couple different kinds of educational pursuits. Finally, I surrendered to it. It was good that I had wrestled with it, because once I decided to do it, I decided I wasn’t going to be a placeholder. I was going to actually be what you needed to be if you were going to make this thing work. Now, I need you to know something.
People don’t make this thing work, but God uses people to make it work. He’s using all of us to the degree we make ourselves available to Him. If you find yourself on a track for ministry, be it teaching or preaching or medicine, it’s exceptionally important that you do come face to face with what it’s going to cost you, so that you don’t start to build the house and walk away from it. So you don’t start to fight the war and wave the white flag.
While there have been chapters in my life that have been challenging, I stand before you today as I get ready to present a message entitled give US Leaders, Not Managers, with a lot of prayer and humility and willingness to keep following that which I know works. Every church I’ve received has found itself in difficult position, and it’s usually a leadership issue, because real leadership breeds function, healing and growth. But most people don’t want to be told they need better function, healing, or growth. As a matter of fact, lots of people would like their comfortable life to remain just so. But each place I’ve gone.
I’ve gone under the direction of prayerful indication, and God has sent me to the most wonderful groups of people to work with who have not hit the easy button or the eject button. They’ve actually said, we prayed for him to come. And I knew. I prayed about me coming with my wife. And we were all in this thing together and with enough wisdom and prayer and patience and forgiveness and all the things it takes to make things better, that’s what’s happened.
So this morning I’m going to go on a journey. Could be a tad bit difficult at moments not designed to be on purpose wasn’t how I started out yesterday. While I was exercising, I listened to patriarchs and prophets two times, the same subject matter that covers what I’m going to cover here today. And I heard things that I hadn’t seen before when I had read them. So I’d stopped what I was doing and I made notes.
So let’s go ahead and make the journey and see if it’s worth making. And some of you may have to decide during this message you’re willing to make the journey, and some of you may get courage to keep making the journey. And of course, it’s possible some will say, I’m not going to own that journey. I am going to tell you a prayer that I’m praying that most of you don’t know is in the Bible. But I pray it every day.
I pray it every day. I’ve prayed it every day for months, probably years. Don’t need to look it up. It’s not my sermon, but you can pray it if you want. Just so you know, these are okay words, because I’m going to get to a point in this sermon where I’m going to use some words Adventists don’t use.
Well, they should, but they don’t. New American Standard version Psalm 35. When I’m walking with God, when I’m on my knees, I pray this prayer almost every day. Contend, O Lord, with those who contend with me. Fight. There’s one of those non Adventist words, and I’m not here to promote fighting, but these are David’s prayer. Fight against those who fight against me. Take hold of the buckler and the shield. Rise up for my help. Draw also out the spear and the battle axe to meet those who pursue me and say to my soul, I am your salvation.
Let those be ashamed and dishonored who seek my life. Let those be turned back and humiliated, who devise evil against me. Let them be like the chaff before the wind with the angel of the Lord driving them on. Let their way be dark and slippery. Let the angel of the Lord pursue them.
And I can stop right there. Those are God’s words written by God’s servant because he found himself being chased around the wilderness by somebody else who had been anointed to be God’s servant.
The great controversy hasn’t ended, has it. And I need to tell everybody listening to me, as much as I love this church, this village church, and this corporate church, and as much as I love this message, everybody here needs to know that in my job, sometimes I’m supposed to make it a tad bit uncomfortable for people. Actually, they’re not supposed to like me sometimes.
Now, I like to be liked as much as everybody else, and I love friendship and fellowship as much as everybody else. But if I do my job and this is what makes pastoral ministry so difficult there are moments when I’m pretty low down on somebody’s list. And worst of all, they can grab their connect card and fill out a membership transfer to go somewhere else. And I’ve never pastored in a community where it’s easier than this one.
Fortunately for most pastors, if you think your row is hard to hoe, it’s at least a 30 minutes drive to the next church. Here, it’s three minutes you could walk. So let’s go ahead and do this, all right? And let’s have a wonderful, wonderful journey doing it, because I do love you, and I love this church, and I hope you love me like I love you.
Give us Leaders, not Managers Two Duke Divinity professors wrote an article that was published in the Review and Herald January 25, 1990. Robert Wilson, who held two doctorate degrees, and William, who held a degree in the sacred theological doctorate from, I think, Emory University at the time. The editor of the Review was William Johnson.
He held that post for a long time. I don’t know why he chose to put this article written by two Methodist professors in the Adventist Review, but he did. President of the North American Division at that time was Charles Bradford held that post right up until a few months after this article was put in.
Speaking to the delegates assembled for the 1989 Annual Council, which happens every fall and will happen in a few weeks here of the General Conference, north American Division President Bradford said these words. He, “called for leaders to become truly leaders, not simply managers. In such a time as this he said, the church needs more men and women of vision to move God’s church ahead.” There’s only one problem with that. The laws of inertia say that when something stops moving, it’s harder to get it going than it would have been if it would have kept moving. Now, Wilson and William penned words. You can find these, I think, on our website.
They’ve been up before. I asked one of our pastors if we could put it back up again, so I’m assuming it’s there. And if you’d like, we’d be glad to print you off a full copy. I’m only going to excerpt things from it.
Let’s go for it. Give us leaders, not managers. The article starts out saying, leaders establish new institutions. They revitalize and reform old ones. They tend to be controversial because they inevitably challenge the existing social structures and accepted ways of doing things. Leaders will inspire both love and enmity.
And if you’re a pastor, you need to know you’ll ebb in and out of those two emotions if you’re doing your job just right, but never indifference. In contrast, managers accept the validity of the institutional status quo and they give their attention to its maintenance.
And by the way, folks, we need good managers and good leaders, but they need each other, and we need to make sure we don’t trend into a managerial approach to an organization that is led by Christ and needs effective leaders. They see that everything is done correctly by the proper person and consistent with precedent. In due course, the institution becomes an end in itself rather than a means to serve a larger goal.
Now, when I was at the Teachers Convention in Phoenix with thousands of teachers and preachers, I had a Seven Day Adventist conference president come up to me and these are the words he said. He said, we don’t exist to run schools. We don’t exist to run hospitals. We don’t exist to run churches. We exist to give the Three Angels Message.
And all of those institutions exist for that one cause. So if you work for one of those institutions or you go to a church where you may be involved with all of them, that is why we exist. We’re not here to support and strengthen the church without having the discussions about the church’s ultimate goal. We are a movement, not an institution or an organization, although we have institutions and organizations. But we are here for a larger goal than simply propping up the status quo. Because managers assume the validity of the organization, they expect the constituents to be loyal and supportive of the institution. Now, ask yourself this question is there anything wrong with being loyal to the institution? Yes or no? No. I want to be loyal to the institution.
I want you to be loyal to the institution. But loyalty to the institution when we cross principles around which the institution is established is a flaw, not an admirable trait. The problem when we drift into management and status quo living, when an institution goes through the cycle and it’s in the plateau and the decline stage is we start rallying the forces around saving the institution because we see signs of death and decline around us. This loyalty is expected even if the people do not feel that the institution is serving them and even if they are opposed to what the institution is doing.
Now, I would alter that sentence to say because the institution doesn’t exist primarily to serve the ones that are already in it, although there is service from each other and to each other. But I might alter that sentence to say the institution is not serving the purpose for which it was established. Nonetheless, we do serve each other, and different layers of institution are designed to support.
In contrast, managers accept the validity of the institution, and they give their attention to its maintenance. We just read that managers tend to tend the institutional machinery. They are not threatening because they can be counted on to see that no radical changes will be made and that no tough choices will be faced. They may be dull, but they are comfortable. There will be some conflict, but will be amongst the people or groups who aspire to be the managers.
Now remember, this is two Duke Divinity professors writing about the Methodist Church. It’s not a Seventh-day Adventist author, it’s two Methodist leaders. We’re told that there’s nothing wrong with the machinery, we just need more female or black or conservative liberal managers to run the machinery. The names on the doors change, but not the machinery, so nothing changes. The long term result is a kind of institutional dry rot, sober words which preserves the form after the strength is gone, and the end result is predictably fatal. The self image of most denominational officials is not that of institutional managers.
Many of these people probably see themselves as leading the church into the battle against such evils as racism, sexism, ageism, handicap ism, which is not written down there, but it’s in their article, and perhaps even other isms yet to be discovered. The rhetoric is that of bold leadership. The reality is that of control and maintenance of the institutional status quo at all levels of the connectional, structure, and suppression of alternative points of view. The Methodist Church clergy tend to be comfortable with the denominational managers because they can be trusted to maintain the status quo. They are the main beneficiaries of the machinery.
That’s true. I get my check through the machinery, just like the Methodist pastors. The laypersons who are elected to denominational offices in both the annual conference and the general church seem to quickly take on the perspective of the clergy, which is not automatically bad. But if you’re looking for leaders and it’s a managerial perspective, it is bad. Despite the attempt to include laypersons in and on the various agencies, there’s little evidence that it has had any effect in altering either the style or the direction of the denomination.
The machinery is greater even than the laity. It turns all of us, they say, into managers. Dozens of congregations that are in trouble have been studied. These studies reveal that the three factors that most important for revitalizing these dying congregations are leadership, leadership, leadership.
He goes on to talk about a Methodist Church in a place where they had not had a Sunday school in decades. A new pastor came. He thought to himself, if this place is going to stay in existence, we’re going to have to do some things differently. You can bet he ran into resistance, but he actually started going out and talking with people, and he actually started training Sunday school teachers and the day came when they opened their doors. And you know what the big fear was of the Sunday school teachers? Will anybody come?
Actually, 35 showed up. That church went on to become a vital place because it was willing to endure the throes of being coached into vitality. There’s an ethic at work that believes that one should not disagree or make waves. Such action is thought to produce conflict that will greatly damage the church. I had to have a visit the other day with a person who holds institutional position.
This person doesn’t like conflict. I don’t like it either. But I had to remind the person in the conversation that not all your conflicts with your spouse are of the same nature. Some are little, some are just irritations. Some of them you overlook.
In our marriage seminars we say there are some discussions you have, some things you discuss and some things you dismiss. But if it keeps bothering you or making a problem it makes it onto the discussion list. And on a spectrum of one to ten some marital problem solving is down in the one to three to four zone. Some gets to where there’s actually some emotion and some is pretty deep, heavy and strong. Because if things don’t get worked out we could have a marriage or institutional implosion.
And in a church it’s the same way. And in parenting it’s the same way. And in effective businesses, if you read Jim Collins’book Good to Great it’s the same way because effective leadership is not effective if it allows dysfunction to develop and it just pushes things under the rug. Those are tripping hazards for effectiveness. Conflict is not what damages the church.
It’s poorly done conflict that damages the church. I’m going to say that again. Conflict is not what ruins a marriage. It’s unresolved conflict that ruins a marriage. Conflict is not what ruins a child. It’s poorly managed conflict that ruins a child. Conflict is problem solving. And when you don’t solve your problems they accumulate like barnacles on a boat. Have you ever seen those big ships that they put thousands of people on? Do you know they take them out of the water regularly and they not only take the barnacles off but they polish those boats with polymers so that they go through the water faster and easier.
Any institution which refuses to say and acknowledge there’s barnacles and occasionally take the boat up out of the water to see what you can’t see from the deck is destined to become a tugboat instead of a speedboat. Because an institution employs the type of leaders the constituents want the people, if they desire can have a different type of leader. And with this I categorically disagree. But it’s where we’re going to launch into our Bible study this morning. Don’t open unless you want to.
This is not where the sermon’s at. But I do want to make sure you know where I’m launching from. But the thing was displeasing in the sight of Samuel when they said, Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed to the Lord, and the Lord said to Samuel, listen to the voice of the people in regard to all this that they say to you, for they’ve not rejected you, but they’ve rejected me from being king over them. The truth of the matter is, in modern egalitarian American society, if you want a different leader, you might be able to get a little different leader if you understand how the institution works and the decision making process, and you believe in prayer as the great undergirding structure.
But in Saul’s day, they wanted a king, and they were stuck with him for 40 plus years. That’s where we’re going today. Now, let’s go ahead. If you want to open your Bible, I’m going to be in one Samuel 13, eight to nine here and one Samuel 14. Most of everything I use will be on the screen. But if you want to follow along in your Bible, you can. I’m preaching from the new American Standard. The problem is this saul has a big battle to fight. The prophet has said, I’ll be there in seven days. The seven days has come, the hour appointed is upon him and Samuel is not there.
He waited seven days according to the appointed time set by Samuel. But Samuel did not come to Gilgal and the people were scattered from him. So Saul said, Bring to me the burn offering and the peace offerings. And he offered the burnt offering. That’s right. He had a sword, he had a spear. Slaying the animal was no big deal. But what you need to know is the behind the scenes. And I want you to see two mistakes that Paul made. This is one mistake outlined in Patriarchal Prophets.
It says, day after day, Saul tearing. He’s got a whole week of time, but without making decided efforts towards encouraging the people and inspiring confidence in God. No, the prophet’s not there. As a matter of fact, he’s going to providentially show up late. That’s what she says in that chapter, chapter 60 of Patriarchs and Prophets.
But instead of inspiring the people with confidence, something had emptied out of Saul’s life spiritually. And if you’re a leader here today especially, or you’re a leader listening, or a leader online, and you’ve allowed your spiritual vitality to drain out of you, no wonder you’ve become a manager instead of a leader. The truth of the matter, the Bible says, they that wait upon the Lord renew their what, their strength. You don’t wait on the Lord. You don’t have spiritual strength.
You cannot encourage the people to have something you don’t have without being found out that you’re a fake and a hypocrite. If you’re going to change something in the cause of God, you need to know you’re going to fight the devil and sometimes the spirit of the devil and some of God’s people. And of course, sometimes they’re good people working from a wrong perspective.
But you can’t encourage people to be inspired in God if you’re not praying and talking with God and reciting the promises and praying the prayers like I started out here. And I want to tell you, when you find yourself in the great controversy, get down on your knees and pray, Lord, contend with those who contend with me and fight with those who fight with me. And I’m here to tell you I prayed about my kids that way. I have four good kids. The apple didn’t fall too far from the tree, which means occasionally the iron sharpening iron that’s happened inside the Kelly family is a natural strength or weakness, depending on how it blurs in and outside of its lines.
Yes, he should have been encouraging them. And here’s the other thing he did. With growing impatience, he awaited the arrival of Samuel, and he attributed the confusion and distress and the desertion of his army to the absence of the prophet. Well, wouldn’t it be nice if it was the preacher’s fault your kids don’t like church? Wouldn’t that be good? He’s boring.
It might be the fact that you’re letting them play games and do things that put a scintillation connector on the end of every synapses so that nothing’s exciting except what they decide is exciting. I’ve had those discussions before, and I’m having them now with anybody who listens. Church isn’t interesting to you. There’s a reason. It could be the preacher.
It could be also that your spirituality is drained out and there’s not a connecting cord with which the spirit can resonate. Yes, it’s nice to have a scapegoat for personal problems. Saul had his. It turned out to be Samuel. He managed to do all kinds of things. He’d slay the animal, walk out and see Samuel and act like nothing was wrong. And he resented the rebuke of the prophet. But there is a different story. It’s his son. Chapter 14. “Now, the day came that Jonathan, the son of Saul, said to the young man who was carrying his armor, let’s get over to the Philistine garrison that’s on the other side.”
Now, I want to tell you, Saul is perfect proof because he was filled with the spirit before and he was chosen by God, and he was a good leader. You need to remember he went all the way up to Jabesh and delivered the city. And when he died, it was the men of Jabus Gilead that came and got his body and gave him a proper burial. Saul was a valiant man at one point in time, but he lost his way with God.
Then he lost his way in leadership. And we’re going to see he lost it so badly that before the day’s over, he’ll be ready to sacrifice his son rather than to acknowledge that there’s a pride issue in his life and he made a big mistake. Let’s go over and see those Philistines.
Something’s in his heart that says this could be different. “But he didn’t tell his father. Saul was staying in the outskirts of Gibeah under the pomegranate tree, which is in Migron, and the people were with him, about 600 men.”
You know, Jonathan was not in a position to be inhibited by his dad. So instead of telling his dad what he’s going to do, he’s talked to his heavenly Father and he’s prompted to do it. And he does. “Let’s go over into the garrison and see these uncircumcised Philistines. Perhaps the Lord will work for us. The Lord’s not restrained to save by many or by few. His armor bearer said, do all that’s in your heart. Turn yourself here. I am with you according to your desire.”
Every leader needs this kind of leader partner. And every marriage should work this way. It’s not for one of you to be the softie and one of you to be the difficult person for the kids to get along with. No, the blessings and the strengths of each other emerge together. But I want to tell you something.
When I walk away from this plexiglass pulpit and I’ve said my final prayers and my final goodbyes, and I finally make it to the Sabbath dinner table, and later on the day my wife says to me, that was a good sermon. That’s good enough for me. And you know, when your husband or your wife can stand by your side and said, you did the right thing, we’re just going to have to take what comes. That’s an important moment. Every leader is better as two or three than as one.
And God sets it up that way. And that’s why in Ecclesiastes four it says two are better than one. And it’s true in leadership. And I found in my leadership, you get three people together who can be honest with each other, love each other, talk to each other, disagree with each other, and you’ve got like a triangle, the strongest geometrical shape. You have something that’s hard to stop.
“And Jonathan said, Behold, we’ll cross over to the men and reveal ourselves to them. If they say, Wait here until we come to you, then we’ll stand in our place and not go up to them. But if they say, Come up to us, then we’ll go up to them, for the Lord has given them into our hands and this shall be the sign.”
Now, Jonathan didn’t say, if they say, we’ll come down to you, we’ll turn and run away. No, he said, we’ll wait here. But he said, I want to put the sign of God’s assurance on the challenge they give to us to do the harder thing. And that’s what happened when both of them revealed themselves to the garrison of the Philistines. “The Philistines said, Behold, sarcastically, the Hebrews are coming out of the holes, or they’ve hidden themselves. So the men of the garrison hailed Jonathan and his armor bear and said, come up to us and we’ll show you a thing or two. And Jonathan said to his armor Bear, let’s go.The Lord has given them into the hands of Israel.”
Now the men of Israel were hard pressed on that day. We’re skipping now. They’ve gone up. The angel of the Lord has stood by their side. Patriarchs and prophets says the angels were fighting with them and shielding them. Yes, two against 20 plus as they came up a crag on the side of that valley that appeared to be insurmountable. They surprised the first century and it was curtains for him. They go on to the other, and then there’s a great earthquake and pretty soon the Philistines are fighting each other.
And now the battle is being won. But there’s a problem, and I’m skipping some of it for time. Saul, who has become a man of fear, not faith, has made a rash oath. The men of Israel were hard pressed on that day. Saul put the people under earl, saying, cursed be the man who eats food before evening until I’ve avenged myself on my enemies.
So none of the people tasted food. But Jonathan didn’t know this. The victory’s being won. They have a little break in the fighting. They’re walking through the woods, and there’s some honey.
I don’t know why the men didn’t say anything to them. But he takes his stab, he dips it into the honey, he holds it up to his mouth. And then afterwards the people say, your father strictly put the people under oath, saying, cursed be the man who eats food today. And the people were weary.
And then Jonathan said something. It almost has the echoing sentiment of a leader, not a manager, who’s got a wrong sense of loyalty around what royal authority is. And by the way, the words royal and authority or kingly and authority, I want you to be paying attention to because I’m going to show you something a little bit farther down the way here. Jonathan said, my father has troubled the land. See how my eyes have brightened because I tasted a little bit of honey? How much more? If only the people had eaten freely today of the spoil of their enemies, which they found. For now. The slaughter among the Philistines has not been great.
And Ellen White confirms this. Had the people been free to eat, they would have been able to go aggressively after the enemies. When Paul had disbanded his men, he had made a big mistake back before the sacrifice, where we began this sermon. Ellen White says he should have kept them together. He had had a mighty victory against the Ammonites. He should have gone on from victory to victory. But instead he disbanded them down to 3000.
Here we go again. We’re going to get a break in the action because the men don’t have the strength to keep going. Jonathan didn’t know what the oath was. He had some honey, and Jonathan is not going to call a spade anything other than a spade. And he says, my dad has troubled the whole nation.
He’s gotten in the way of God. We could have had a much greater victory. Now, when it’s all said and done, saul’s in a position of trying to make sure he’s got enough courage to go on. So he calls somebody and they pray and they look for some divine indication. Saul inquired of God, shall I go down after the Philistines? Will they give them into the hand of Israel? But God didn’t answer him that day.
Then Saul said to Jonathan, because eventually he got an answer. After they cast lots, tell me what you’ve done. And Jonathan told him and he said, I indeed tasted little honey. With the end of my staff, that was in my hand. Here I am, I must die. Certainly everybody knew how ridiculous this was. But Saul was not willing to back up. It would be too humiliating. It would take away a measure of his kingly pride. When it was time to go fight against the Philistines, he didn’t say that God could be avenged on his enemies.
When you read the oath in the scriptures, it’s so that I can be avenged upon my enemies. Saul had become a me focused person. And because of that, all of the people around him were now to serve him, not him to serve them.
I reminded some of my co workers the other day that the leader is the one who loves the most, sacrifices the most, serves the most. These are the people. I had a former Korean president in the Seventh-day Adventist church tell me as a young man, he said, Ron, if you will love these people, it was a difficult church I was in at the time.
He said, if you will love these people, they will follow you. Of course, there’s more to it than that, but there’s no substitute for actually caring about the people. You’re not a divine salesman, you’re not a peddler. Paul said, I’m not a peddler of the gospel. You’re a spiritual father. Paul would say, you’ve got lots of teachers, but only one spiritual father. And real leadership is built around the greatness of heart, which is why David could be such an amazing leader. And Saul struggled.
“Saul said, may God do this to me, and more also, you shall surely die, Jonathan. But the people said to Saul, must Jonathan die, who has brought about this great deliverance in Israel? Far from it. As the Lord lives, not one hair of his head shall fall to the ground. For he has worked with God this day. So the people rescued Jonathan and he did not die.”
But the clear, uninferred meaning of the text is that if it came down to Saul’s honor or Jonathan’s life it was going to be Jonathan’s life that was sacrificed. Now, I just want you all to think about that. We have a few other stories in the Bible where we have some really whacked out thinking. Jephthah, remember he said the first thing I see when I get home first thing he saw was his daughter coming out of the house.
Was she sacrificed? Was she banished? You’re left with the impression that there was an actual human sacrifice there. Some contend that what kind of person are we collectively? Who are we as a church?
Have we morphed into a managerial mode where conflict is anathema? That means the worst thing that can happen to you. Talking about disagreeing is impossible. And so we just kind of collectively pile up our dysfunctions up through the way because the less connected to we are, the less we can do. I want to tell you on that day different from the day when Elijah stood on Mount Carmel and said his great speech if the Lord be God, serve him.
If not, don’t. And all the people were silent to Israel’s credit. On this day, they step up. They stand up and they say to the king jonathan is not going to die. That, my friends, is leadership. And it was incumbent. That means it was on. It was a responsibility of all those that were listening and watching to do that. And they did. But let’s look at this just a little bit.
Let’s look at the commentary reading from Patriarchs and Prophets page 625. It says, “Saul could not claim the honor of the victory but he hoped to be honored for his zeal in maintaining the sacredness of his oath. Even at the sacrifice of his son he would impress upon the subjects the fact that his royal authority must be maintained.” Now, the word royal is not one we use a lot because we’re not part of the Commonwealth. We had a little thing called a revolution and we set up something that was a republic, not a parliamentary system of government.
And we believed in the rights of the minority and the rule of law. Yes. That’s what America did. So we don’t talk about royal authority but we may find ourselves talking about institutional authority every once in a while. And I want you to do a little bit of thinking.
Has humanity changed so much in the last 3000 years that people can’t make mistakes? That things don’t sometimes go wrong? Let me ask you a question. Was David a good king or a bad king? Come on, talk to me. Was he a good king or a bad king? Choose. Good or bad. He was good. Did he do some bad things? Yes or no? Did he try to cover him up? Yes.
Was his leadership wounded after he admitted he had done some bad things? Yes, he was not a man after God’s own heart when he had Uriah killed and he took his wife. Spirit of prophecy is clear on that. Please don’t call David a man after God’s own heart while he was doing those things. He was not.
Spirit of prophecy says so. If you don’t think you can establish that biblically, I’m wondering if Nathan the prophet was about to wound the institutional authority of the dynasty of David when he stepped in there and told the story about a little bitty. Lamb that belonged to some neighbor kids that the king took and slit its throat and flayed it and served it to some guests who came when he had thousands of lambs in his own. I wonder if Nathan was wounding the institutional authority of David’s dynasty, or maybe because word was getting out and people aren’t dumb, he was actually putting it back on solid ground. Think about it.
What is the culture of our church? We could stick the word organizational in there. Let’s go to another quote just on the next page. In patriarchs and prophets, often those who are seeking to exalt themselves are brought into positions where their true character is revealed. That’s what happened to Saul.
So it was his case, his own course, convinced the people. Now, this is just two paragraphs after the one I just showed you, that kingly honor and authority were dearer to him than justice, mercy or benevolence. And here we see the history of Saul and David partying majorly. When it got through to David that he had taken somebody’s little she lamb and sacrificed it, david, because he cared about justice, mercy and benevolence more than his own position and place was broken. Broken.
But what if there wouldn’t have been a leader by the name of Nathan who was going to lay his life on the line? I mean, some of them were sawn asunder some of them were thrown in pits, some of them were slayed on the spot. That’s why there was blood soaked into the stains of the sanctuary stones. Yes, some of them had all kinds of trauma worked upon them. These prophets who had the spirit of true leadership even though they weren’t tasked with management.
And by the way, most leaders have some management responsibilities and most managers have some leadership responsibilities. But what if we took the word kingly and authority out and stuck the word institutional authority in instead? Does it change the discussion? Does it change the relevancy? I think it does, because I’m afraid today humanity has not changed and there is just this natural temptation for human hearts to go astray, for the spirituality to drain out of people.
And yet they want to hang on to those things that they were invested with in better days, at better times, by better church processes or royal process, whether you’re a Methodist or an Adventist or an Israelite. Yes, these are serious things to think about. And this paragraph sure got my attention in the same chapter. Either Israel must cease to be the people of God hold the fort. You mean the promises to Abraham? I think Jesus said it this way. I think the stones could talk for me if they needed to. Either Israel must cease to be the people of God man, there’s a showstopper sentence or the could we say the next word together on the count of 3, 123? Principle principles. Oh, those are pesky things.
They just happen to be applicable in any situation. They’re not policies and they’re not laws. They are principles upon which the monarchy was founded must be maintained and the nation must be governed by divine power. You may have a pastor, you may have several pastors, you may have a president, you may have presidents up through the line. But it is the divine power underneath the direction of a divine head following divine principles that protects the existence of any movement or nation or people ordained by God.
This is where we’re at. So long as the king and the people would conduct themselves as subordinate to God. Now, there’s a phrase worthy of a few discussions, maybe even disagreements, so long as he could be their defense. But in Israel, no monarchy could prosper. They did not in all things acknowledge the supreme authority of God.
Now, I’m bookending this sermon with two articles. They were both instrumental in shaping my life, my person, my character, and my ministry. Now, the first one came out of the Review and Herald in 1990, January 25. This one comes out in December 1993. This one is anonymous. J. David Newman is the editor of Ministry magazine in the early ninety s. And this is well, I’m going to say just a little more before I open up the article. I want to make sure before I close this sermon out you know something? Every leadership module you’re in has a proving moment.
For Jonathan, it was climbing up that craig. For David. It was fighting. Goliath. Every leadership moment will have a proving moment. The other thing you need to know is that nothing will ruin you as a leader and turn you into a manager. More than self-interest, fear, greed, ease, you’ll become a manager fast. Because those things are opposite to the kind of purity of heart and spiritual integrity it takes to do right and pay a price for doing right in a world that loves wrong. I want you to know that purpose and partnership goes a long ways in giving courage for our schools, our hospitals, and our church.
And I want to give you just a little illustration for I’m done. Because it’s the best one I can give, especially if you’re a leader. When I was in academy, I went to Broadview Academy, which doesn’t exist anymore. So maybe like the Methodist church that’s been slowly losing ground, you have to admit, in some places we’ve been losing ground.
On a Sabbath afternoon, we decided to go for a walk. And across the street to the north of Broadview Academy, were two major rail lines. The Burlington Northern Railway ran on those rail lines, and it wasn’t a crossing. They were going so fast and they came so often that they put a bridge over these two lines. One sabath afternoon, we got the wise idea to walk out across Elburn Road and go up on the bridge. Not a metal bridge, wooden bridge, and not a tall bridge, just got a nice arc in it. And while we were walking, we heard the low rumble of diesel engines and we thought to ourselves, there’s a train that’s coming. And we got the bright idea that we were going to go up on this bridge and we were going to stand there as the train came through. Now, I’ve never been in a tornado before.
People say it’s like a locomotive bearing down on you. And I’ve never had a real locomotive bear down on me, although I’ve had a lot of metaphorical ones, or I’ll call encounters with people that felt like it. But I want to tell you, there have probably been few days in my life that turned out quite like this one. And I wasn’t scathed or wounded by it, except psychologically. But I was not prepared as I got up to the edge of those creosote soaked timbers that this bridge was made of.
And I watched those green train engines, two, three, I don’t know, lined up in a row with probably 100 black coal cars behind them. And those engines were working hard because those cars were loaded, bringing coal from the west to the east, and you could see the black diesel billowing out. Of course, those diesel engines are powering electric motors that actually move the vehicle.
But I want to tell you, as I stood there watching that train bear down on me, knowing that I was in a safe place, nothing could prepare me for the decibels pouring out of the top of that unmuffled set of engines. And I have never probably been much more scared in all of my life. And I don’t need the audible thrill or terror of doing that again. But I need to tell you the metaphor I use when I’m trying to teach leadership. There are two tracks, and each of those tracks can carry trains. Off of one of those tracks. There is a siding.
You’re standing at the switch leader. That’s where you’re standing. And what people will do when they don’t like you, or they don’t like what you’ve done, or they’re just not very mature, spiritually, relationally, or any other way, they will get the train fired up and they’ll put as many cars behind it as they can. And instead of talking to you as the station master, they will come at you with fervor and aggressiveness, and you are standing on the tracks by the switch, and you have to make a decision. Is this train going so fast that if I hit the siding button and send it onto the siding so it doesn’t plow into the station, that I’ll survive? Because if it’s going too fast, it’ll peel over right onto you.
So you’ve got three decisions to make. You can run off the tracks and let what happens happen. You can hit the siding, and that train is either going to come onto you because it can’t be stopped, it’s too sharp of a turn. Or you can pray and push the sighting button and stand there while those thousands of horsepower diesel smoke belching out the top, and audible sounds groaning as the wheels creak as they run onto that siding. And you save the guy driving the train. You save the people at the station, and God saves all of you as you go through the adrenaline rush of knowing, I just did the right thing.
That’s what people do. They’re smart. It’s like when your kid comes up to you and they know you’re going to say no, so they bring a friend with them because you won’t say no with their friend present. Oh, it didn’t just happen to me, did it? That’s life. Now let’s talk a little bit about holy oil and fiery swords. When I trained as a pastor, no one taught me how to fight. There’s that word contend with those who contend with me. Psalm 35 fight against those who fight against me. As far as I know, not much has been written about it either.
It was as though pastors never fought. At the time, this misperception didn’t seem strange. All the ministers I had known were the epitome of patience and cooperation. It would have been almost impossible for me to picture an angry, unkind, or vengeful pastor. And by the way, unkind and vengeful should never be part of a pastor repertoire. But there might be some righteous indignation mixed in there. They were saints. And so unarmed, unprotected, and very vulnerable. I entered the Lord’s army. Now, you need to realize I’m two years out of seminary.
As I’m reading this article, ministry magazine, feelings of inadequacy dog my heels. But I believe righteousness would always prevail. Just pray more. No, it doesn’t say that, but that’s what some people think. Although I wanted desperately to be the Lord’s most courageous champion, I doubted that I could ever attain to such a lofty post. And by the way, I don’t like conflict. And before I know I’m going to have one, I pray and pray and pray and pray and pray, and sometimes fast, because I don’t want to be in an argument with somebody.
I love being loved just like everybody else. And the bigger the church gets, and the bigger your circle of influence gets, the bigger the target grows on your back. And the less people can like you, or they can adore you. But I’ll tell you what. I just like to be in a healthy family where if I make a mistake, I can say I’m sorry and I’m still loved. But if I don’t make a mistake, the people have enough spiritual good sense, goodwill and determination to stand by my side and not run away. No ministerial intern is fully prepared to take up the Lord’s banner, and I was no exception. I comforted myself with the thought that my colleagues would be supportive, sensitive and helpful.
But then the man who wrote the article, who is anonymous, got up to make a presentation on end time events. And it was in a large church like this where there were multiple pastors on the staff. And when he got down to describing Jacob’s time of little trouble, another pastor stood up, not the senior pastor. So that tells you it was a pretty big church. And he attacked the man, young man making the presentation.
And it wasn’t just that he disagreed respectfully. It’s the fact that he embarrassed him and attacked him and told him he was wrong and acted like he had ill intent. Eventually, I recovered. I shall never forget how my senior pastor handled the situation. I want to tell you something. I can tell you, after 30 some years, the senior pastor blew it.
Whether you’re in a board meeting or a public place, when somebody, especially a coworker of yours, stands up and humiliates somebody else, somebody else better stand up and nicely communicate. We don’t do that around here. He refused to take sides, which is supposedly a Christian attribute of nobility. But most situations I’ve faced, there’s right and there’s wrong, even though it’s mixed up sometimes.
Instead, he just poured oil over the troubled waters, and sure enough, they quieted down. What seemed to work was to have a huge reservoir of oil handy to smooth over conflicts, to learn to be a people lover, which we should be and which we are. I thought that if I just kept the oil flowing and kept smiling, I’d be able to keep all things at least polite. I once worked with a pastor who illustrated the tragedy of ministering with a survival mentality. He was near retirement.
I had learned his survival. I’m skipping things in the article. Well, I say I knew him. I didn’t really. He’d learned how to hide his true self. He could dodge and parry as deftly as any fencing champion. All the while, he was careful studying you to see if you were safe to talk to. As soon as retirement came, however, he threw aside a lifetime of pretense and he left the church. He officially didn’t leave. He just left physically and emotionally. The smiles and the politeness could no longer hold back the years of bitterness and loneliness.
And I’m going to tell you, I’ve watched this. In marriages, a woman will put up with an immature husband for about 20 years. But I want to tell you, you shouldn’t put up with an immature husband for more than 20 minutes, because if you practice the holy oil version of marriage, eventually you’ll do what this man did. And I’ve dealt with too many women married for 20 years to people that are absolutely immature. And when they’re done, I want to tell you the cup is more than full and you can talk till you’re blue in the face. They’re done. Let’s go back.
He became impaled on his own sword because he never learned how to use it properly. I’m no longer the idealistic young pastor I once was. The years have forced me to see that oil and kindness are not the only traits a minister needs. Not a husband, not a parent, not a boss, not a manager, not a president. There are situations that demand courage and the ability to speak up and be counted.
The Church can ill afford timid ministers. Ellen White’s classic statement is just as true for pastors as others. Could we read this together? “The greatest want of the world is the want of men. Men who will not be bought or sold. Men who, in their inmost souls, are true and honest. Men who do not fear to call sin by its right name, men whose conscience is as true to duty as the needle to the pole, men who will stand for the right though the heavens fall.”
Our church must begin to foster such persons in the ministry, persons who know how to be gentle. Can anybody say men and kind and strong at the same time? But how do we do it? Where do we begin? Who’ll be the first to break the ground? By the way, this is Parenting 101 as well. Our church leaders must inspire both love and enmity. That’s what William Willeman said kind and firm.
And I just want to leave you with this knowledge. This is who Jesus was. He knew when to draw the sword. And he wasn’t a butcher. He was a spiritual friend and surgeon, and that’s what put him on a cross. Everybody abandoned him. Some hated him. He inspired both love and enmity, but never indifference. Now, why am I preaching this sermon today? There’s a variety of reasons.
I’m here to tell you when Moses smote the rock the second time, he did almost kind of the same thing Saul did. Don’t let anybody eat today so I can be avenged on my enemies. Sounds an awful lot like must we fetch you water out of this rock? And I just want you to know what happened. God held him out of the Promised Land, not because he’s a meanie, but because he’s kind and he’s firm. Moses even pled in Deuteronomy, chapter three. Please let me go in. Please let me go in. And God said, Quit talking to me about it. The Hebrew actually reads God was beside himself. He could hardly bear to hear a man he loved so dearly beg for something he couldn’t and wasn’t going to give him.
So he said, Go up on the land. Go up on Mount Nebo. Moses had already gone up with Aaron. Aaron had died in Moses’arms. Whose arms is Moses going to die in? And why does he have to die? Except that the people had been confused over and over again that he was their leader, and God had to leave the absolute irreversible impression that he was not their leader. He was just the face of the leadership team.
And they go up on that mountain, and God shows Him everything. He shows them everything. He shows them the land as it is from the Mediterranean to the mountains in the north of Dan. You can’t see that from Mount Nebo. Friends, some of you have been there. It’s a divine, supernatural, revelatory experience. And then he shows them the future of Israel, and he shows the coming of Jesus, and he shows the rejection of Jesus and the death of Jesus.
And then he shows Jesus being welcomed back to heaven. And then Moses sees Himself in the group welcoming him back to heaven. And all of a sudden, Moses gets it. I serve a kind but firm heavenly Father, and he can’t let me go into this land. And he is going to die in the arms of God. And then, my friends, he’ll be resurrected, and he’ll go to the real Promised Land. Glory. Hallelujah. That was Jesus who dealt with him there. That was Jesus who resurrected him.
That was Jesus who said no to Him. Yes, friends, Jesus is a leader who is kind and he is firm, and he has paid the ultimate price so that we can go all the way to the Promised Land. But you can’t behold Jesus without becoming like Him. You may be timid, you may be shy. You may not have confidence. That’s okay. God doesn’t architect your leadership growth moment like he does mine. But I’m here to tell you today the journey’s not different for any of us. 40 years of wandering in the wilderness was a discipleship journey to try to convert them and admit they made a mistake and get them ready to go to the heavenly one that they had forfeited on earth.
Yes, friends, we serve a good, good God, and he’s a leader, and he’s true to principle, and he knows the principles this church is built on. It’s built on the principles of Matthew 18, talking and working things out. It’s built on the principles of Leviticus 19, where you’re supposed to speak frankly with each other, don’t hold a grudge in your heart, don’t account sin on somebody else’s behalf because you didn’t speak up. Listen, the world needs saved, but they don’t think they do. Sometimes the church needs save, and we don’t think we do. I’m here to tell you the journey’s on.
The journey for Moses came to an end, but he didn’t lose his faith up on Mount Nebo. Let’s stand together and sing about it and commit ourselves to continuing to make the journey. I am bound for the promised land.