HEROIC
LEADERSHIP
In our first apartment, we lived on the
first floor and every morning our upstairs neighbors would awaken to a loud
radio alarm blaring music from a rock station.
The problem is that they would let it go on and on long before we needed
to get up. One morning we had a chance
to sleep in and you guessed it! Their
alarm went off and sounded like it was in the same room with us! After about fifteen minutes, I got up and
found their number in the phone book and called them. As soon as the phone rang, they turned off the alarm. I hung up and went back to bed!
What does it
take to wake you up in the morning?
Everyone seems to have a way they prefer to wake up…some who simply wake
up with no help…others who like an alarm with soft music…others a piercing
ringing or buzzing. Wake up calls are
not always welcome.
Once in a while,
God has to issue a wake up call to His children. We doze off when we should be paying attention and He does what
it takes to make sure we are awake and ready to get up and get going.
David needed a
wake up call in his spiritual life and perhaps even a shock treatment to bring
him back to his senses after he had made some horrible choices for which he was
paying a high price. God loved him
enough to do whatever it took to bring him back…even allowing crisis to hit him
and his family if that is what it took.
THESIS: He alone can satisfy you and enable you to endure the troubles that come upon you and enjoy “to the max” the life He has given you.
Wouldn’t it have
been better if David had just been able to read some Scriptures and learn some
verses and be cured of his fall into a spiritual stupor? Sometimes, though, a crisis is needed to
wake us up and show us what is really going on.
I. CRISIS PUNCHES THROUGH THE SURFACE AND SENDS ITS SHAFT DEEP INTO
OUR HEARTS.
--It will tap into either a dry hole, a boiling cauldron or
a flowing fountain.
A. THE EMPTINESS OF a DRY HOLE COMPLICATES THE CRISIS.
--As you may recall, David was running on empty spiritually
and had been running from the Lord for the past 16 months.
--When crisis hit, the surface façade was shattered and the
resulting shaft driven deep into David’s heart ran into nothing but dry, dusty
air!
--So not only does David face a devastating situation, he
has no inner reserves from which he could draw any comfort or courage.
We find in the church that many people are content
to neglect their spiritual lives until they are confronted with a crisis beyond
their capacity. Occasionally we get
calls for help from folks demanding that we do something because they are in
deep trouble with no one to turn to.
We ask what small group they are
in, what LIFE class they belong to, where they are plugged in so that we can notify
a team of folks to mobilize around them to help them draw on the inner
resources they have been storing up in the Lord. That is when we find that they have neglected such things and
have only a dry hole where a fountain of living water should be flowing.
Of course we rally to their side
and help as much as we can, but how much more could they have handled things
had they already been increasing the flow into the reserves of their spiritual
lives through a steady walk with the Lord.
Note: Call us if you need help!
But in the meantime, why not cultivate a spiritual reservoir through a
consistent daily investment in making sure that your reservoir is not empty so
that when crisis comes you can respond?
--David’s well had been dry for some time and he was running
on empty when the crisis hit.
B. THE EXPLOSIVENESS OF A BOILING cauldron EXAGGERATES THE CRISIS.
--If the shaft penetrates the surface and pierces through to
release pent up pressures, an explosive situation can develop which will make
the crisis worse.
When one of our sons was still eating baby food,
Cathy warmed up some strained meat in the microwave. She knew to keep it uncovered so that the pressure of the heat
would not cause an explosion. What she
had not expected was that a skim had formed over the meat so that when she put
a spoon into the jar, the scorching meat exploded hitting her in the face and
went all over the ceiling of the kitchen.
The meat burned her face and made a mess on the ceiling.
The problem was that all the heat
had built up a lot of pressure that was released when the surface finally was
broken. Many people have something akin
to a volcano boiling inside as they have major issues of unforgiveness, anger,
bitterness, guilt and the like. When a
crisis breaks the surface, they explode…their response is totally
disproportionate to the crisis which set off the explosion leaving everyone
wondering what just happened.
C. THE FULLNESS OF a FLOWING FOUNTAIN ALLEVIATES THE CRISIS.
--But David had a history…a history and a track record that
he could not deny—God was faithful in the past and as faithless as David had
been recently, he knew that God was still faithful.
1 Samuel 30:6b
…But David strengthened himself in the Lord his God.
--Although David’s well was empty, a dry hole of spiritual
dust, he reconnected to the wellspring of life, to the fountain of life
eternal, to the living water—he turned back to the Lord!
--The crisis did not go away, but now David knew that he was
not going to face it alone, parched and powerless—but now the Lord could begin
to fill him once again.
Psalm 1:1-2
How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, Nor
stand in the path of sinners, Nor sit in the seat of scoffers! …3And he will be like a tree
firmly planted by streams of water, Which yields its fruit in its season, And
its leaf does not wither; And in whatever he does, he prospers.
--Should you face a crisis that pierced the surface and
drove a shaft into your heart this morning, would there be a sudden rush of
living water to flood you with relief, or a gust of dry, dusty air offering
nothing?
II. GRACE FLOWS FROM THE RESERVOIR AND SENDS ITS FLOODS WASHING OVER
OUR HEARTS.
--God’s grace offers you the fullness of a heart that
overflows with every provision you could possibly need.
--Like David, we do not deserve anything, and the Lord by His mercy and grace offers us everything!
A. A CRITICAL NEED FOR THE LORD RE-AWAKENS DAVID’S CONVICTIONS.
--For David, the breaking point was the crisis—his loss of
everything that mattered to a heart that had been hardened toward nearly
everything else.
--David finally was forced to realize that he could not
survive apart from the Lord, and as much as he wanted to run from Him, he could
only fall deeper and deeper into despair until he once again was willing to
trust the Lord and follow Him.
--So now he turns, now he finds strength, now he seeks
direction, now he asks for help—it is
never too late to do that!
--And so David begins to operate with convictions that have
re-awakened to his need for absolute dependence on the Lord—and the wisdom of
actually choosing to do things His way again!
B. A RENEWED STRENGTH FROM THE LORD RESTORES DAVID’S COURAGE.
--Although no one would accuse David of running from a
fight, as a result of his restoration to the Lord, he now has a new courage
rooted in the power of the Lord instead of the strength of his own might.
--Going into a battle when the odds are against you
numerically requires a special kind of courage—or a foolhardy attitude.
--Because David found strength in the Lord his God, he was
able to approach the task before him of tracking down the army of the
Amalekites with the courage of the Lord, not his own bravado.
--Years before, Moses encouraged the nation Israel with
these words just as he was passing the torch of leadership on to Joshua—words
that may well have resonated in David’s heart and mind as one who had long
delighted in the law of the Lord:
Deuteronomy 31:6
Be strong and courageous, do not be afraid or tremble at them, for the
Lord your God is the one who goes with you.
He will not fail you or forsake you.
--Facing this major crisis in his life, David now finds what
he has been missing over the past 16 months—his courage and strength once again
are coming from the Lord!
C. A GRACIOUS TOUCH FROM THE LORD RESURRECTS DAVID’S COMPASSION.
--David did not have any right to make any claim on what God
could provide yet he relied on God’s grace and appealed to Him for a gracious
touch on his life.
--He knew what he deserved for running away from the Lord
but prayed a prayer of faith trusting that the God of mercy would have
compassion on him in spite of everything!
Eugene Peterson – “But we live in an age
that has replaced compassion with sentiment. Sentiment is a feeling disconnected from relationship. Sentiment is spilled compassion. It
looks like concern; it could develop into compassion, but it never does. Sentiment is the patriotic catch in your
throat as the flag goes by—a feeling that never gets connected with the
patriotic honesty of paying your income tax.
Sentiment is the tears that flow in a sad movie—tears that never get
connected with visiting your dying friend.
We feel sorry for people; we lament the pain and suffering of the
world. But having felt the internal
motions of pity, wept a few requisite tears of sorrow, and sent off ten dollars
to a charitable appeal, we’ve exhausted our capacity for care.” (pp. 110-111, Leap Over a Wall)
--Once David had experienced the touch of the Lord in his
life again, there was no way he would allow that touch to stop with him—he was
compelled to pass it on to others, to share the grace he knew was not deserved,
nor intended for him alone!
1.
Compassion for the Exhausted Two Hundred
1 Samuel 30:10 But David pursued, he and four
hundred men, for two hundred who were too exhausted to cross the brook Besor,
remained behind.
--After six straight days of marching (three north and three
back south to Ziklag), the emotionally draining grief of discovering the loss
of their families and city to the Amalekites, David’s men were totally
exhausted by the time they made it to the Brook Besor, fifteen miles march SW
of Ziklag.
--One third of his men could not continue on so David leaves
them behind to stay with the extra supplies and keeps going with the remaining
four hundred in pursuit of their families.
--Some military leaders might have been inclined to accuse
the men of dereliction of duty, others of cowardice, others even of treason—but
David has compassion on them and allows them to stay and rest until they come
back.
--His new perspective on God’s grace toward him gave David a
new compassion on others.
2.
Compassion for the Abandoned Egyptian
--Continuing in their pursuit of the Amalekites, David and
his men had no way of knowing which direction they were headed or how to find
them.
--As they were going south, they ran across an Egyptian who
had been left to die in a field…he had had no food or water for three days!
--Before they even knew that he had information that would
help them, David and his men saved the man’s life by providing food, fruit and
water to revive him (30:11-12)
--Then as if to repay their compassion, the Lord revealed
through this man where the Amalekites had gone so that David and the others
could focus their pursuit more speedily and catch up with them.
--Sometimes kindness and compassion toward others pays off
right away…but even if the man had known nothing, their compassion toward him
demonstrated that there had been a heart change among David and his men.
3.
Compassion for the Wicked and Worthless
1 Samuel 30:22
Then all the wicked and worthless men among those who went with David
said, “Because they did not go with us, we will not give them any of the spoil
that we have recovered, except to every man his wife and his children, that
they may lead them away and depart.”
--Who were these among the four hundred who had gone with
David into the battle?
--They were the same ones who had received a gracious response
from David when they deserved to be shunned and sent away when they first came
to him at the cave of Adullam.
1 Samuel 22:2
Everyone who was in distress, and everyone who was in debt, and everyone
who was discontented gathered to him; and he became captain over them. Now there about four hundred** men with
him. (**600 men by 23:13)
--They did not deserve to receive anything from David or
from the Lord, but somehow they wanted to keep what was theirs by grace from
those who were just as needy as they had been!
--David would have nothing to do with that self-serving,
ungrateful perspective and responded…
1 Samuel 30:23-24
Then David said, “You must not do so, my brothers, with what the Lord
has given us, who has kept us and delivered into our hand the band that came
against us. 24And who will
listen to you in this matter? For as
his share is who goes down to the battle, so shall his share be who stays by
the baggage; they shall share alike.”
--Instead of getting angry with them for such wicked
thoughts and designs, David called them ‘brother’ and showed them a more noble
and gracious way.
D. A COMPLETE RECOVERY FROM THE LORD RENEWS DAVID’S COMMITMENTS.
1 Samuel 30:26-31
--After sixteen months of running from the Lord and
rebelling against His people, David realized that his first allegiance was to
the Lord Himself and to those he would serve as king—the Lord’s people.
--So not only did he share the spoils of battle with his own
six hundred…he sent some of the bounty to the elders of Judah, to his old
friends in the places where he and his men had been during their days of
running from Saul.
--Although there is no indication he did this to buy their
good will, it did not hurt in the days to follow when Saul died and the time
came for him to assume the throne God had promised him.
--His re-commitment to the Lord affected his entire life and
impacted the commitments he would make for years to come as God’s anointed king
over Israel.
Out of the overflow of David’s renewed commitment to
the Lord came a recovery of his first love—his love for the Lord and His
kingdom.
Mark my word…when we have come
back to a fresh relationship with Christ, one of the most telling signs that
our restoration is real will be visible in the character of our hearts and the generosity of our hands.
When life unraveled for David, and the pieces started to
fall apart, instead of despairing still further, he drove a spiritual stake in
the ground and refused to run any more.
The surface façade had been thoroughly
penetrated and a crisis had pushed a deep shaft down to the core of David’s
being. There was nothing there but a
dry hole. But instead of giving up,
David opened himself up to the Lord and allowed Him to fill him once again with
the life-changing living water of His everlasting power and love.
Will it take a crisis to uncover the dry
hole in your life? Or will you allow
the Lord to fill you as you open your heart to Him, swallow your pride and
admit that apart from Him you really can do nothing?
David had to learn the hard way. You can learn from what happened to him…or
you can also learn the hard way!
Strengthen yourself in the Lord your God…turn from running away and come
to Him so that He can fill you and empower you.
He alone can satisfy you and enable you
to endure the troubles that come upon you and enjoy “to the max” the life He
has given you.
Our text says that David recovered
everything he had lost. God does
that! What could the Lord restore to
you if you would just let Him?
Providence
Baptist Church
© David Horner 2004
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