Pentecost 4 - Leading

Scripture: 1 Samuel 8:4-20

1 Samuel 8:4–20 NIV

4 So all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah. 5 They said to him, “You are old, and your sons do not follow your ways; now appoint a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have.” 6 But when they said, “Give us a king to lead us,” this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the Lord. 7 And the Lord told him: “Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king. 8 As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you. 9 Now listen to them; but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will claim as his rights.” 10 Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking him for a king. 11 He said, “This is what the king who will reign over you will claim as his rights: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. 12 Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. 13 He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. 14 He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. 15 He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. 16 Your male and female servants and the best of your cattle and donkeys he will take for his own use. 17 He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. 18 When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.” 19 But the people refused to listen to Samuel. “No!” they said. “We want a king over us. 20 Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles.”

6/9/2024

Order of Service:

Announcements

Opening Worship

Prayer Requests

Prayer Song

Pastoral Prayer

Kid’s Time

Mission Moment

Offering (Doxology and Offering Prayer)

Scripture Reading

Sermon

Closing Song

Benediction

Special Notes:

Week 2: Mission Moment

Opening Prayer:

O God our ruler and shepherd,

you anointed Jesus

as the king and servant of your people.

Make us attentive to your word,

that we may accept your reign over us

and serve you alone. Amen.

Leading

People

There is a basic human need to leave our names on things. Some people put their names on buildings or monuments. Some put it on their artwork. Most artists whose work we read, listen to or look at sign their names on it somehow, even if it is small and out of the way. From the hieroglyphics in Egyptian tombs to the credits that scroll after the movie finishes, we put our names on the things we have proudly accomplished. We get a satisfying feeling looking back on something we made or did, and we strive to stay in that feeling of being pleased with our work.

Those who can teach others to work like them can accomplish much more than they could ever do alone. One brick on its own can prop open a door, and a messy pile of bricks may be less useful than a single brick, but when they are aligned, they can become a wall that can protect a home. They can be built into anything. The same applies to people. When they align, they can do anything… but it requires leaders who can see beyond their own work, see the bigger picture, and communicate where everyone fits together.

It always feels easier to do the work ourselves, and it is often truly easier not to deal with others. However, it is never the better option to do it alone. Teamwork is essential, but it only happens with leaders who can shift the focus away from their own work and raise up leaders under them.

We do our best to listen to God and follow where He leads us. We do our best to bring others with us as we go. And as we go, Jesus calls us to patiently lead those who do not follow Him themselves yet .

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What We Want

Most of Samuel’s life takes place in five chapters of the two books that bear his name. From being a young boy in chapter 3 to becoming an older man in chapter 8, he led Israel as a prophet, a priest, and a judge and experienced a fair amount of success. However, he did not raise a replacement for himself. Instead, he expected his sons to take over in his place. Unfortunately, his sons did not have his calling or character, and even if they did, the roles of prophet and judge were not passed down through the family line. Those were selections made by God Himself.

So Samuel should not have been surprised when the elders of the people gathered and told him that if leadership was going to be passed down through family lines, they wanted to do it like the other nations and with a family that had better leaders than his own. Ouch! That was a harsh rejection. Samuel could get the people to follow Him as He followed God, but they could not follow God on their own after he was gone. They were still lost, and they knew it. They wanted a leader who would give them the safety and security they could trust, and they thought they would be better off with a warrior-king like the other nations had. They wanted a young man strong enough to lead their men to victory against any of their neighboring enemies.

Samuel was one of Israel’s greatest leaders, up there with Moses, but even Samuel could not change the hearts of the people, no matter how much he pleaded with them. We want what we want. No matter how great our leaders may be, they cannot change what we want. Even Jesus had people walk away from Him because they had too many possessions, duties, and cares of the world, and He would not compete. He tells us the truth but leaves us the choice to believe the lie and follow our hearts to destruction because we want what we want.

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What We Need

But we need what we need. The people needed God, not a broken, sinful human being to be their leader. And Samuel knew it. He knew how to let God be in charge. No one else understood that. Samuel’s own children did not understand that. But Samuel did… or at least he thought he did.

This moment in Samuel’s life is an excellent example of how our allegiance to God can easily slip away. No matter how often Samuel told the people it was God who delivered them, many believed that it was mostly Samuel leading the way or that God delivered them by giving them Samuel to lead them. Then God went back to heaven to nap for a few decades while Samuel ran things in His place. And to this day, we as God’s people, who have had Jesus come to us in the flesh and 2000 years of the Holy Spirit moving and saving people all over the world in every nation, filled with both righteous and wicked leaders, we still have a sense that our safety, security, and well-being depend upon getting the right leader selected.

We forget that no matter who sits on the throne, whether we even have a throne, whether we are at home in our own country and our own culture, or whether we are sent overseas, to the ends of the earth, to live under the authority of pagans, atheists, or leaders who persecute Christians... no matter what our circumstances may be today, it is God, the One and only, who leads us, provides for us, protects us, and makes us who we are. And the truth is, I can stand up here and say this today, but come November, your blood pressure will run a little higher, and we will find ourselves saying the same things and praying the same kind of prayers that the people brought to Samuel.

We still struggle to believe that God is truly and fully in charge of our lives. So we should not be surprised when the people we are trying to lead to serve God with us keep falling back to trusting in their own strength rather than God’s, or even more often, trusting in us to carry them through the day, rather than seeing the many ways God is carrying us as we lead them.

In the end, the only one we need is Jesus. Everything and everyone else in our lives are extra blessings that Jesus sometimes works through and often works despite. If we were more faithful people as a whole, we wouldn’t need leaders at all. We would all follow Jesus. But we all struggle with doubts and confusion. So God calls us to lead each other lovingly back to Him.

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What We Get

What we want is not always what we need, but what do we get?

As Samuel was telling everyone what they really needed, God stopped him and told him to let go and give control back to God. Let them have their way, let them have their forbidden fruit, and tell them what the consequences will be. Tell them the king will be everything they wanted, and he will take everything they have, and one day, he will fail them, and they will all fall with him. All because they traded God, Whom they could not see, for a man that they made into an idol to follow. Tell them that on that day, you will cry out that you changed your mind; you didn’t mean it when you asked for this leader instead of following God. But on that day, God won’t hear you.

God gave them a man who would become an idol, not a leader. God gave them a man known for size, strength, and good looks, not for his faithfulness in following God. And they would suffer the consequences of their choices, feeling like God was not listening to them until He sent them the savior they truly needed, not the leader they wanted.

And that’s what we get—leaders who lead us to follow Jesus with love. I’m not talking about evangelism, which is introducing people to Jesus for the first time, although that is a kind of leadership. I’m talking about being a parent, a guardian, a teacher, a team leader, or even a good neighbor in your community that others respect and follow. As a mom or dad, your job is not done once you introduce your children to Jesus. You don’t drop your kids off at church and walk away, never to see them again. You keep bringing them to Jesus over and over until they start trusting in Jesus themselves. And even then, you don’t stop leading them. You keep watch, check in with them, and are there to catch them and lead them back to Him if they ever face doubts or struggles. God gives us and calls us to be leaders who lead with His love.

Love’s description begins with patience and ends with perseverance—both in Paul’s words and in Jesus’s life. You can check that out in 1 Corinthians 13. Patience and Perseverance are the Bass drums of the rhythm of our dance with God, and they are the bass notes that hold up everything else in the symphony of the love we share with others.

If you are leading faithfully, it will usually feel like you are failing. Your children, family, co-workers and teammates, neighbors, and friends will frustrate you as God calls you to lead them to Him. They won’t get it at first and will fall back often. You won’t feel in control. You will begin to see how difficult it was for Jesus as He marched to the cross, begging His disciples to see and hear each other, to love each other well, and to know they had such a long way to go as He stretched His arms out on His cross. You will feel His pain as His heart breaks for us. And then you will see He also has a cross for you as He calls you onward to lead like Him. When they reject you, you can hear the voice of God, as He told Samuel:

1 Samuel 8:7–9 NIV

7 And the Lord told him: “Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king. 8 As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you. 9 Now listen to them; but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will claim as his rights.”

You cannot make anyone follow Jesus because Jesus did not make anyone follow Him. But you can follow Jesus’ example and lead them with patience and persevering love until they choose to follow Him instead of merely following you. In the end, it will not be your name that is praised and memorialized. Nor will it be the names of those you led to do their work with you faithfully. It will only be Jesus, the name above all names, that we remember and praise as we all find our true identity in Him.

Who do you lead? Who do you see as lost sheep, left without a shepherd to guide them to green pastures and still waters? Who is God calling you to step up and lead today?

Who are you struggling to lead? Where do you feel your patience being tested the most? Are these some of the people God is calling you to lead to Him and keep close to Him throughout their doubts and struggles?

How do your struggles to follow Jesus faithfully help remind you of the patient love you need to lead those in your care?

Closing Prayer

Oh Lord, we need You more than we know. We want our families to be taken care of, our nation to be secure, our work to be prosperous, and our church to feel alive, young, healthy, and growing. But we don’t want to step up and lead it to be that way because we don’t feel secure, prosperous, young, healthy, and growing ourselves most days. We feel other feelings instead and don’t want to lead others to feel that way. Today, Lord, we are not asking You to send us good leaders. Instead, we are asking You to give us the patience and persistent love that comes from Your Holy Spirit to help us to be those leaders that our families, our workplaces, our nation, and our church need. We know it is easier to do the work ourselves. Help us not to focus on how we will leave our mark in this world but instead to leave Your mark on anyone You bring to us as we lead them to You. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

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