Allen Jackson - Great Leaders Bring God's Blessings - Part 2
I gave you a couple of essential characteristics. They worked on 'em in some earlier sessions. I suggested to you in some detail, I'm not gonna take the time to recapitulate. That if I had to look for one essential characteristic, it would be humility. If you're gonna sustain spiritual growth over time, and I mean more than over a day or two or a month or a year, humility is an essential component. Proverbs 15 says, "The fear of the Lord teaches a man wisdom, and humility comes before honor".
It's worth taking the time to listen to the previous session. If you didn't, we went into a good bit of detail about how you can cultivate humility and as powerful as humility is in opening your life to the blessing and advancement of God, on the other side of the equation is pride. Arguably the most destructive force that has been ever directed towards a human being. It's just corrosive. In Proverbs 11 and verse 2, it says, "When pride comes, then comes disgrace".
We have a common expression that says pride goes before the fall, but the Bible says, "Pride goes before destruction". And in this particular verse, it says, "Pride precedes disgrace". You just can't afford to tolerate pride. It's not an easy discussion because not all confidence is pride. It took a great deal of confidence on Moses part to walk to Pharaoh's palace and say, "Let these people go". The Bible says he was the most the meekest man on the face of the earth. But it doesn't mean he was timid or frightened or cowering to say to all those Hebrew slaves that have been slaves for hundreds of years, "Follow me, I'm gonna lead you to the Promised Land".
That was not the statement of someone who was cowering in his shadow. So answers to comments on pride are not simple, but what the Bible tells us is you simply cannot afford it. Don't excuse it, don't tolerate it. Well, I wanna add to that one more thing. I would submit to you to sustain, to let your leadership grow, your interdependence upon the Holy Spirit grow. If there's one more component that's an essential, it would be obedience. And this is really a matter of choice. What I love about obedience is it's not about your IQ or your physical gifts or your financial resources or the academic pedigree you do or do not have or any of those other things that separate us.
Any person that chooses can choose to be obedient to God. It's not always easy. In fact, obedience is seldom fun. I brought you a sample from 1 Samuel 15. Samuel is the last of the judges. The leaders that God selects recruits to oversee his people. The tribal leaders come to Samuel and they ask to be like the other nations, the surrounding nations. And they say, "We want a king". Samuel's grieved and he and God negotiate a little bit and God sends Samuel to anoint the first king. Who's the first king of Israel? Saul. Go to the head of the class. And we're gonna step into that narrative. Samuel has given Saul an assignment, a group of people that he used to do battle with and at the conclusion of the battle they're to be annihilated, completely obliterated. And Saul returns from that battle.
"And when Samuel reached him, Saul said, 'The Lord bless you! I have carried out the Lord's instructions.' And Samuel said, 'What then is the bleating of sheep in my ears? And what is this lowing of cattle that I hear?' And Saul answered, 'The soldiers brought them from the Amalekites; they spared the best of the sheep and cattle to sacrifice to the Lord your God, but we totally destroyed the rest.' And Samuel said to Saul, 'Stop. Let me tell you what the Lord said to me last night. Although you were once small in your own eyes, did you not become the head of the tribes of Israel? The Lord anointed you king over Israel.'"
Let's pause there just a moment. Seems a little harsh this destruction of the Amalekites. There's a specific word that's used in the Hebrew Bible for it. It's harem. It means, it's kind of the equivalent of a holy war. It means a group of people or even a city would be dedicated to the band. It would be dedicated to God as if it were going to be an offering to him. Jericho when it was destroyed by Joshua and the Israelites as they began to conquer the Promised Land, God said, "Destroy everything in it". It's an offering to me and it was a similar parallel here with Saul and the Amalekites except they took the best of the plunder. I mean, it just made sense.
Why would we slaughter all those healthy livestock? Why wouldn't we plunder the gold and the silver? After all, we put ourselves at risk. There's a whole logical string for why they did what they did and it stands in opposition to obedience because God said. God said, "Don't do that". God said, "This is what I want you to do in this circumstance". And they said, yeah, but it makes more sense to us. It's the age old battle in the hearts of human beings. It goes all the way back to the opening chapters of Genesis when the serpent said, "Did God really say"?
Did God really say that? I have another opinion? I mean, maybe God did say that. But let me tell you what God's really trying to do. Do you understand the degree to which there are competing voices in your heart, in your head, in your life, and the propaganda that cascades over us day in and day out? Did God really say? Did God really just create as male and female? Did God really define marriage? Did God really give us a context for human sexuality and outside of that say that it's sin and you can't do that and imagine the blessings of God? Did God really mean that or is it just kind of a squishy line and you know, there's no real consequence?
Saul, what have you done? Why would you not be obedient? You were chasing donkeys when I found you Saul. You were hiding in the luggage pile when I found you Saul. You were small in your own eyes and God made you the leader over the tribes. You became the head of the tribes of Israel. They're not really thinking of themselves as a nation yet, there are 12 tribes and God made you the leader of all the tribes. He gave you the spot I had. What are you thinking Saul? The Lord anointed you king he said. Anointing carries a meeting all through the scripture. It's a representation of the Holy Spirit's presence upon us.
Do you understand God has anointed us to bear the name of Jesus in this generation? God has anointed you to be an ambassador for the kingdom of God in this generation. We go, "Well, pastor, you know, really, I just wanted to be saved". That's not the nature of the bargain. It says God is reconciling the world to himself in 2 Corinthians 5. He's making his appeal through us. Saul, what have you done? What have you done? Look at verse 18, "He sent you on a mission, saying, 'Go and completely destroy those wicked people, the Amalekites; make war on them until you have wiped them out.' Why did you not obey the Lord? Why did you pounce on the plunder and do evil in the eyes of the Lord"?
God had a mission for Saul. Becoming the leader of the tribes of Israel was not the final engagement of God in his life. He wasn't done when Samuel came and poured the anointing oil on his head and said, "Now you're the leader of the tribes". It was the beginning of the assignment. He could have flourished in that role. He could have secured it for decades and brought the blessings of God upon his family, his children, and his grandchildren. But he misunderstood. He took the blessing of God and he perverted into some sort of self accomplishment when obedience really wasn't required. The temptations of greed and envy. I think it's safe to say at this point in the narrative that disobedience is evil.
See, we've excused it. We've made compromise. Ah, you know, I didn't abandon my faith. I didn't reject God. I didn't become a Muslim. I'm just kind of blurred the edges a little bit. It's like climbing into the batter's box in a ball game and you start to dig in the dirt to kind of obliterate the batter's box to see if you can get a 2 or 3 inch advantage on the pitcher. If I could just eliminate this, you know, there's really no under grace. There's no rules, there's no boundaries. I just kind of say to it, "Oh, I'm sorry".
Look, God's opinion of sin was expressed on a cross, it required the sacrifice of his Son. Jesus opinion about sin was when they tied him to a post and beat him beyond recognition. There was no way for you and me into the kingdom unless Jesus submitted to that. How dare us treat ungodliness as something that's casual. Saul argues in verse 20, "I did obey the Lord. I went on the mission the Lord assigned me. I completely destroyed the Amalekites and I brought their king back. The soldiers took sheep and cattle". Oh, it was the soldiers. "The best of what was devoted to God, in order to sacrifice them to the Lord, your God".
We're gonna do something spiritual with it. We're gonna use it for your purposes. Yes, I cheated a little bit. I manipulated, I was dishonest. I bent my word, but I'm gonna take the prophet and be generous with it. "But Samuel replied: does the Lord delight and burn offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the Lord? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams. For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry. Because you've rejected the word of the Lord, he has rejected you as king". Wow!
Now Saul's gonna maintain his public place. There will be a civil war in Israel but the anointing of God, the blessing of God. Remember we said, great leaders bring the blessing of God. They bring outcomes that are more than talent. Outcomes that are more than just consequences or prudent planning or good strategy. They bring outcomes that can only be fully understood by saying God had to be involved in that. You wanna be that kind of a leader in your home. You wanna be that kind of a parent. You wanna be that kind of a coworker or neighbor or brother or sister in the Lord.
I believe. I think we can say from the text we're reading that partial obedience is disobedience. You can't say, "Well, I was 70% obedient". That's what Saul is trying to sell and it's not working. We've become pretty sloppy. Samuel goes on to explain that religious activity does not qualify as obedience. You can offer all the animal sacrifices you want Saul, but you've been disobedient. So many times I think, well, if we may be ungodly or immoral, but when we're kind of done with that chapter, we're just gonna double down on being Godly again. It's just if we play God. We imagine he's some sort of a fool. Offering animal sacrifices to God provided a facade of godliness but it was all enmeshed in wrong motives. It was an expression of disobedience.
So just a little bit of a checklist, I've gotta wrap it up, but a checklist for spiritual significance. Regularly engage in behaviors that will cultivate humility. I mean, like on a daily basis, do something that will foster humility. Listen to people, talk to people, share with people. Somebody related a story to me today. They said their sister, years ago, she was a teenager and she was at church for something. She didn't attend here. And she said whoever was with her brought her in. She said that she had a teenager with her that had some questions about God and I sat with her for 15 minutes.
I have no memory. I get no credit. But I try to find ways on a regular basis simply to build activities into my life, habits into my life that can let humility grow 'cause pride can grow pretty rapidly. And on the opposite side, I try to pay attention to be engaged in things that will deconstruct pride. Don't leave it to chance. Don't let things grow. You're not special. You know, there's billions of us on the planet. God made every one of us unique.
You say, "Well, I'm fearfully and wonderfully made". Yeah, you are, but so is everybody else. We're so worried that our children, they have a healthy self image. Well, a healthy self image means they have an appropriate self image. They have strengths and they have weaknesses. Life is difficult. It's not always going to be as easy. There is no free lunch. If you get a free lunch, somebody else paid. And if you demand a free lunch all of your life, you're a freeloader. You were chosen by God. But there's no room to boast in that God said he chose from the bottom of the list. He said, I recruited the ones nobody else wanted. That's how I got on the team. There was nobody thinking I was gonna be a minister. I promise you. Only God had that and it's because he had a sense of humor.
In Philippians 2 it says, "Even of Jesus that being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient even to death". Folks, if Jesus was required to humble himself and become obedient, the perfect sinless Son of God had to choose obedience. We've got to expand our imagination. Choosing Jesus as Lord of your life is good, but may I submit to you that you wanna choose obedience to your Lord on a very regular basis. I'm not suggesting you're gonna earn your way into the kingdom, but if Jesus had to choose obedience in order to be exalted by God, I believe you and I should probably consider it.
So I'll wrap it up with an action plan. Some is old and some is new. Humility, there's some things you can do. Carefully establish the greatest ambition of your life for the kingdom of God. Forego profit, forego accolades, forego many things to do anything you can do to gain momentum in the kingdom of God. Why would you do that? Because you want the blessing of God. It's more valuable than any of those other things. It's counterintuitive. You're gonna need people around you that are making similar decisions because this is not conventional wisdom stuff. Multiple times in my journey, people have offered me opportunities that would have far exceeded the opportunities that were in front of me if I continued to serve the Lord.
And I've had to stop and evaluate him and say, "Lord, this looks really good to me. They're telling me I can achieve something in far fewer years than if I just stay the course". Make the kingdom of God your primary ambition. Serve regularly. Find a way to give your time in service of the kingdom of God. The most valuable thing you have is time. If you haven't discovered it yet, you will. It's priceless. It's irreplaceable. So what I'm suggesting is that you purposefully give it away for the sake of the kingdom of God. I'm involved in some activities these days that for me are requiring some pretty significant growth and stretching and getting out of my comfort zone and vulnerability in ways that I don't like it.
And I'm really doing it as a volunteer 'cause I wanna be certain that at this season in my life, I'm saying, "Lord, I wanna serve you. I wanna serve you". Give generously. Give of the resources that God entrusts to you. Material possessions whisper in our ears. They whisper the temptation of self-sufficiency. If you'll keep pushing and keep accumulating and keep making wise decisions, you can be self-sufficient. You can secure your future. I don't believe in the season of turmoil and tumult that's in front of us. We can secure our futures. I like planning. I like wisdom. Spend less than you make.
That's good wisdom. But at the end of the day practice generosity because God's the one who will secure your future. God will secure your future. Maintaining an awareness of the importance of others. People matter. Listen to other people. Practice compassion with other people. It's easy to be impatient. I'm not talking about embracing ungodliness. You're not a good friend if you cheer for ungodliness. You're not a good brother or sister in Christ if people that you're walking with are behaving in an ungodly manner and you don't have the courage to talk to them about it. In fact, you're gonna get the same outcome of their ungodliness.
Read Ezekiel where he talks about being a watchman on the walls. I'm talking about having compassion. People matter, and you live in such a way to reflect that. Pride, deconstruct it, repent, renounce, release, be certain, don't tolerate it, don't excuse it. And finally, be obedient to the truth you know. It's not incumbent upon God to give you any further revelation until you practice obedience to the truth that you know. This is not a smorgasbord. It's not like a menu of items and you can choose Commandments 1, 3, and 7 'cause they seem easier. Whatever truth God puts in front of you, the expectation is that you'll choose obedience to that point.
And there is no suggestion that you get a promotion or an alternative until you grapple with obedience on that point. He didn't say so. I admire your ability to evaluate livestock. You really did choose the good stuff. He said, no, you were disobedient son. And there's a forfeiture that comes with that. Practice obedience. It's a privilege. Jesus wrestled with it. He struggled with it. It wasn't easy for him. It wasn't fun. Where did we get the notion that serving the Lord is always fun? It's not always gonna make us happy. It's not always gonna be easy. Well, I wish it were. Well, okay, duly noted.
Now, let's go do difficult. Choose the Lord with your whole heart, mind, soul, and body and God will bring blessings to your life that will change your journey through time and will be richly rewarded for all eternity. What else are you gonna do? What else are you gonna do? Chase things you can't keep? By the time you catch 'em, your earth suit will wear out. I had a friend, she's in heaven now. And she said, "When I was young, I used to stand and look through the window of the bakery and wish I could afford all the beautiful things on the other side of the window". She said, "When I got old enough that I could afford everything in the bakery, I couldn't eat it anymore".
Serve the Lord. I wanna pray for you. Will you stand with me? God's recruiting a generation of men and women to make a difference in his kingdom. Be one of them. Be one of them. Don't settle for being churched or polite or kind. Say, "God, I wanna learn to depend upon you. I need your supernatural power in my life. I need discernment beyond my education. I need wisdom beyond my experience. I need a power and authority beyond what I can generate with my contact list or my effort. God help me". He will. I'm more excited. Let's pray:
Father, thank you. Thank you for your Word and its truth and its power. I thank you for these men and women. Lord, we present ourselves to you tonight as living sacrifices. Holy Spirit, have your way within us. We wanna cooperate with you. We wanna follow your direction. We wanna yield to your guidance. We wanna walk in obedience and humility before you. If there are any places in our lives where we have tolerated things that limit what you would do, help us to see them. We wanna turn away from them, lay them down. We wanna humble ourselves in your sight. I thank you that you've called us to this very unique time to be men and women who make a difference for your kingdom. May you be pleased with our choices. Awaken your church. May we be a part of what you're doing in the earth and when our strength is done, may you welcome us with, "Well done". In Jesus's name, amen.