9 Preaching/Teaching 1 Samuel 25-Abigail
Notes
Transcript
Abigail
Will the Real leader please stand up
EOT-Abigail displayed wise and Godlly leadership
EOS-Lessons of leadership that could be learned
DDS-Will you take steps to grow as a disciple maker.
Intro
Story about someone who was a great leader who you would not have expected (Maybe Abraham Lincoln or EF Hutton)
Growing up I did not really want to influence people I just wanted to be successful. I wanted to live the American dream.
When I think about leaders one that comes to mind is Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln did not start out a leader. He started out as a captain in the local military. The story goes that he was not very good. He was such a great leader that he started as a captain and left as a a private. But guess what that did not stop him from growing his leadership. Eventually he became president of the US and signed the emancipation proclamation.
People of influence come in all shapes in sizes.
Joe H is a leader. -He is a influential person in this church and has invited his friends and family to be a part of RCC.
Leaders influence people.
There are bad leaders.
Some of us have a lot of influence.
Others of us have a little influence.
WHAT KIND OF LEADER ARE YOU?
What are you leading people towards
Did you know that God wants you to be a person of influence for him.
Our vision is a vision to make disciples.
HAVE VISION CARD READY TO SHOW
Disciples influence people.
We have been talking a lot about David lately.
He was the upcoming King of Israel, but today we are going to be reminded that God does not just want kings to be influencers, he wants all his people to be influencers. Today we are going to see a lady, among a king and a powerful, influence an entire nation.
But today two powerful people are going to learn a couple of lessons about Godly leadership. Isn't it amazing that this book begins with a lady's desperate prayer and close to the end it ends with a lady showing us what leadership looks like.
1. The first leadership lesson we must heed from Abigail is leaders love people well. (1-8).
1. The first leadership lesson we must heed from Abigail is leaders love people well. (1-8).
Isn't this the great commandment.
If we will l
a. The setting
Then Samuel died; and all Israel gathered together and mourned for him, and buried him at his house in Ramah. And David arose and went down to the wilderness of Paran.
This chapter opens with one disappointment for David, the death of his anointer, and it closes with another, the departure of his wife (v. 44). This suggests that the events of chapter 25 took place when David was at a low point in his life emotionally. This may account for the fact that David did not conduct himself completely honorably at this time.
Now there was a man in Maon whose business was in Carmel; and the man was very rich, and he had three thousand sheep and a thousand goats. And it came about while he was shearing his sheep in Carmel
(now the man’s name was Nabal, and his wife’s name was Abigail. And the woman was intelligent and beautiful in appearance, but the man was harsh and evil in his dealings, and he was a Calebite),
Nabal had the potential to be a Godly leader.
Remember the 12 tribes they all had land, and it tells us he was a Calebite.
Remember Joshua and Caleb the spies who took over the land.
Right from the beginning you see a contrast between two people.
How do we know this we see the word BUT.
I love with Abigail how it mentions she was both intelligent and beautiful. Notice it mentions intelligent first.
David Asks for something. Think about this, a man soon to be king has a request. (4-8)
that David heard in the wilderness that Nabal was shearing his sheep.
So David sent ten young men; and David said to the young men, “Go up to Carmel, visit Nabal and greet him in my name;
and thus you shall say, ‘Have a long life, peace be to you, and peace be to your house, and peace be to all that you have.
‘Now I have heard that you have shearers; now your shepherds have been with us and we have not insulted them, nor have they missed anything all the days they were in Carmel.
Explain this.
We took care of your stuff, can you help us out!
‘Ask your young men and they will tell you. Therefore let my young men find favor in your eyes, for we have come on a festive day. Please give whatever you find at hand to your servants and to your son David.’ ”
How was this wealthy, mean, surly man going to respond.
Was he going to respond in love or not!
Response (9-11)-
When David’s young men came, they spoke to Nabal according to all these words in David’s name; then they waited.
But Nabal answered David’s servants and said, “Who is David? And who is the son of Jesse? There are many servants today who are each breaking away from his master.
Nabal was most likely a supporter of Saul, why would you break away from the king.
“Shall I then take my bread and my water and my meat that I have slaughtered for my shearers, and give it to men whose origin I do not know?”
We can't influence people if we don't love people.
There are so many ways Nabal could have responded that would have been in love and he chose to not lead in love.
Application:
Nabal decided not to love these men. He had the resources and the ability to love them well and he chose not to.
The contrast between Nabal and Abigail (lit. “My Father Is Rejoicing” or “My Father Was Delighted”) could not be clearer. Someone has called this chapter the story of Beauty and the Beast. Nabal was foolish; Abigail was wise. He was evil; she was good. He was repulsive; she was attractive. He was arrogant; she was humble. He was ungodly; she was godly. He was antagonistic; she was peacemaking. They were one of the mismatched, odd couples of the books of Samuel—along with Hannah and Elkanah, and David and Michal. The rabbis considered Abigail one of seven women in the Old Testament whom the Holy Spirit had graced unusually.
Do you love people?
Are you responding in love?
Are you influencing people towards God with the Love of Christ?
Do you ever share the love of Christ with someone? I love when Bill Carpenter talks about the unconditional love of God.
September 8th we are going to have a back to school cookout after church. Yes this is for everyone including those who are not students. Christiana made an awesome flyer for this. Here is what we are going to do. I am going to text this to someone. When everyone has one then we will all send it to someone else.
You just used your influence for God.
2. The next leadership lesson we must heed from Abigail is to take ownership of our specific calling (14-25).
2. The next leadership lesson we must heed from Abigail is to take ownership of our specific calling (14-25).
We all have a great calling-To love God, love others and make disciples.
It can be easy sometimes
What is everyone's responsibility becomes no one's responsibility.
Not all of us our like Robert and Diana who actually went to foreign lands to be missionaries. God has a calling and purpose for you right here and right now.
We don’t have to be someone else, we have to be the best you and I.
But in this general call to make disciples, everyone has a specific calling?
Abigail was not David, she was not in a different tribe she was married to a powerful man and had an opportunity to do something that was right in front of her.
Are there some things that God is calling you to do?
This situation was life and death (12-13)
So David’s young men retraced their way and went back; and they came and told him according to all these words.
David said to his men, “Each of you gird on his sword.” So each man girded on his sword. And David also girded on his sword, and about four hundred men went up behind David while two hundred stayed with the baggage.
David was about to take out Nabal and his household he had enough. This is a guy who they sang songs about, Saul had killed his thousands, David his 10,000.
He was about to take this matter into his own hands.
Now why would David be taking this into his own hands, had he not just had the opportunity to take out Saul and he decided not to.
David was worn out!
This chapter opens with one disappointment for David, the death of his anointer, and it closes with another, the departure of his wife (v. 44). This suggests that the events of chapter 25 took place when David was at a low point in his life emotionally. This may account for the fact that David did not conduct himself completely honorably at this time.
Abigail basically got the same information that her husband had gotten (14-17)
But one of the young men told Abigail, Nabal’s wife, saying, “Behold, David sent messengers from the wilderness to greet our master, and he scorned them.
“Yet the men were very good to us, and we were not insulted, nor did we miss anything as long as we went about with them, while we were in the fields.
“They were a wall to us both by night and by day, all the time we were with them tending the sheep.
“Now therefore, know and consider what you should do, for evil is plotted against our master and against all his household; and he is such a worthless man that no one can speak to him.”
A different response: Faithfulness (18-22)
Then Abigail hurried and took two hundred loaves of bread and two jugs of wine and five sheep already prepared and five measures of roasted grain and a hundred clusters of raisins and two hundred cakes of figs, and loaded them on donkeys.
She said to her young men, “Go on before me; behold, I am coming after you.” But she did not tell her husband Nabal.
It came about as she was riding on her donkey and coming down by the hidden part of the mountain, that behold, David and his men were coming down toward her; so she met them.
Now David had said, “Surely in vain I have guarded all that this man has in the wilderness, so that nothing was missed of all that belonged to him; and he has returned me evil for good.
“May God do so to the enemies of David, and more also, if by morning I leave as much as one male of any who belong to him.”
Her responser literally saved her husbands life, their were 400 men coming about to destroy Nabal.
Abigail was about to do what she could do.
Her leadership saved a king from doing a really bad thing and it also temporarily saved her husband.
What can you do?
Did you realize we are around life and death situations all the time. There are literally people around all of us who are on the brink of heaven and hell and we have4 the message of good news to share with them.
What could e more pressing that the reality that men and women are dying and their eternity is in the balance.
God can turn our faithfulness into influence for the glory of God.
This week we had our first youth meeting. Here is what we did for the meeting. It was awesome. Church isn't this one of the reasons we wanted to join forces, so that we could do more together. We did the Life Book. At Turner High School where Major goes they have 1100 people, at Shadow Creek High School where Bella is they have 2600 students. At Pearland HS their is 3200. We read through this life book, all this life book is = the gospel of John. We read the first chapter of John and we challnged them to read a chapter a day. What if our students had a vision to passing a life book to all their friends, what if they got a vision for passing it out to their entire school. What if someone they passed a life book out to caught a vision for passing them out to the entire school. What if someone from one of the high scho....
We can lead wherever we are.
3. The last leadership lesson we must heed from Abigail is that god is in control.
3. The last leadership lesson we must heed from Abigail is that god is in control.
St. Augustine said this:
"Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you."
We have seen the character of David, we have seen him trust God, he could have killed Saul who was trying to kill him and he did not. Here he was about to take vengeance into his own hands.
Notice the order of this.
Did we not see David just completely trust God, he could have killed Saul the very man, the very King whom he would have replaced then and their. He knew how to trust God[s sovereignty, that he is in control. But at this moment he was tired, he had been camping for a really long time and people were trying to kill him. THIS WASN'T DAVIDS FINEST MOMENTS BUT WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THE BIBLE IS THAT IT DOES NOT HIDE PEOPLES WEAKNESSES.
Then Abigail came to Nabal, and behold, he was holding a feast in his house, like the feast of a king. And Nabal’s heart was merry within him, for he was very drunk; so she did not tell him anything at all until the morning light.
But in the morning, when the wine had gone out of Nabal, his wife told him these things, and his heart died within him so that he became as a stone.
About ten days later, the Lord struck Nabal and he died.
When David heard that Nabal was dead, he said, “Blessed be the Lord, who has pleaded the cause of my reproach from the hand of Nabal and has kept back His servant from evil. The Lord has also returned the evildoing of Nabal on his own head.” Then David sent a proposal to Abigail, to take her as his wife.
God is the ultimate author of the story
The disciples-not educated were the ones God used to turn the world upside
Jesus life is still changing lives and he is no longer walking the earth
Isaiah said he was hard to look at
IN this story Abigail is a Christlike figure. She interceded for her husband and saved his life.
He is not the hero of this chapter. Abigail is. God used a woman to avert a tragedy in Israel’s history, again (cf. Judg. 4; 2 Sam. 14:2–20; 20:16–22). The wilderness of Paran, to which David fled next, lay just southeast of Maon (v. 2).
But remember that the real hero of the Bible is Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith.
Conclusion
How will you lead today?
Back to the vision: