Bob Hudson will now be with us to conclude the service with the Bible reading, last hymn, and the sermon. And he'll give us a little introduction about himself and who he is and where he comes from when he gets up here. Thank you, Bob. Good morning. Good morning. As Dave said, my name is Bob Hudson. I'm so thankful to be here. Before we dive in, I'll tell you a little bit about myself so that you know me a little bit and you know where I'm coming from. I am a product of the Philadelphia area. I was born and raised in Jenkintown, just about a half an hour away. Graduated from Jenkintown High School. Went to Drexel University and then Westminster Seminary and now I'm living back in Jenkintown. So I come from this area, always a pleasure to be with fellow Philadelphians. I don't know if I'm a Philadelphian, at least Philadelphia area. But thank you for having me. My wife wishes she could have been here this morning. Her name is Christiana. She is a nurse, and she was working this weekend, and so she couldn't be here. And our two daughters, Hannah and Ella, who are five and three, just a little too much to handle by myself while I'm preaching, so they're with my sister this morning. But I'm so thankful that I could be here with you. I am not an ordained pastor. I'm what's called a licentiate, which means if you know what a pinch hitter is in baseball, I'm basically approved as a pinch preacher. So I'm always thankful for the opportunity to preach. My regular vocation, I work as an engineer, but it's always my delight and my joy to bring the word to fellow believers. So thank you so much for having me here this morning. We are going to be opening up with our reading this morning. It is 1 Samuel chapter 16 verses 1 through 13. The Lord said to Samuel, how long will you grieve over Saul since I have rejected him from being king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil and go. I will send you to Jesse, the Bethlehemite, for I have provided for myself a king among his sons. And Samuel said, how can I go? If Saul hears it, he will kill me. And the Lord said, take a heifer with you and say, I have come to sacrifice to the Lord. And invite Jesse to the sacrifice. And I will show you what you shall do. And you shall anoint for me him whom I declare to you. Samuel did what the Lord commanded and came to Bethlehem. The elders of the city came to meet him, trembling, and said, do you come peaceably? And he said, peaceably. I have come to sacrifice to the Lord. Consecrate yourselves and come with me to the sacrifice. And he consecrated Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice. When they came, he looked on Eliab and thought, surely the Lord's anointed is before him. But the Lord said to Samuel, do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees. Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart. Then Jesse called Abinadab and made him pass before Samuel. And he said, neither has the Lord chosen this one. Then Jesse made Shema pass by, and he said, neither has the Lord chosen this one. And Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel. And Samuel said to Jesse, the Lord has not chosen these. Then Samuel said to Jesse, are all your sons here? And he said, there remains yet the youngest, but behold, he is keeping the sheep. And Samuel said to Jesse, send and get him. For we will not sit down till he comes here. And he sent and brought him in. Now he was ruddy and had beautiful eyes and was handsome. And the Lord said, arise, anoint him, for this is he. Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers. And the spirit of the Lord rushed upon David from that day forward. And Samuel rose up and went to Ramah. This is the word of the Lord. Why don't we open with a word of prayer before we dive in. Father, I thank you so much for this time we have together this morning. I thank you that we could come before you and worship. Thank you that even though I don't know these brothers and sisters personally, I can still call them brothers and sisters because we are all in one spirit and we've all been saved by one Savior and we are all a member of one family in Christ Jesus. So be with us this morning. May your spirit be working in a mighty way in the hearts of everyone here. I pray that you would anoint the words from my mouth, that you would give each and every person here a tent of ears and an open heart to receive your word, to store it up, and to be blessed by it. So Lord, please be with us this morning and be working as I preach your word. Thank you, Lord, in Christ's name, amen. So I want to begin by talking about a classic movie. Most of you will probably have heard of it, called The Karate Kid. It was in the 80s. There's a new show out now called Cobra Kai, which is based on Karate Kid. And I've heard it's great. I haven't watched it, but I've heard it's great. But that's kind of what I want to talk about, is this Cobra Kai leader. His name was Kreese. And if you remember, Daniel in the movie goes by the Cobra Kai dojo and he sees them all, you know, doing their moves. I don't know karate, I'm making a fool of myself. But, you know, they're learning the self-defense, they're learning the kicks, they're learning the punches, the attacks, everything. And, you know, if you think about Kreese, their sensei, You just kind of remember his attitude towards karate. You know, in the tournament later in the movie, he's all, sweep the leg, no mercy, right? He's a win at all costs kind of guy. On the other hand, you've got the main character in the movie, Daniel, or Daniel's son, as Mr. Miyagi calls him. And Mr. Miyagi is his sensei. He teaches in a little different way. If you remember, Daniel shows up at his house and Mr. Miyagi starts giving him chores. He tells him to clean the cars, wax on, wax off, paint the fence. And Daniel's like, what's going on here? What does this have to do with karate? And he eventually learns that all these motions that he's been taught to do repeatedly are kind of the backbone of his self-defense. You know, this is how he blocks certain attacks and same with the pain in the fence. And what ends up happening is he ends up becoming really proficient with karate. When we kind of compare the different teaching styles, we look at Mr. Miyagi, we look at Kreese, the leader of Cobra Kai. In the movies, it's easy to tell which is the right leadership style when they're pitted against one another like this. Of course Mr. Miyagi is the better sensei. His methods were quirky and more effective. And he was squarely on the side of good in a good versus evil showdown. But in real life, things get a little bit more fuzzy. We're not always talking in terms of good versus evil when we look at a leader. We often think in terms of successful or unsuccessful or likable or hateable. But what does the Lord expect in a leader? That's what we're going to talk about as we dive into the text this morning. So I've just read 1 Samuel 16, 1 through 13, and as you see in your bulletins, the title of this sermon is What's in a Leader? What's in a Leader? So I'm gonna answer that in a few different ways. The first answer is it's not what the world expects. It's not what the world expects. Samuel, in this text, Samuel expected the king that God was calling him to anoint, he expected the king to look like the kings of the world. Kingdoms at that time were won through military conquest. So Samuel saw a man who looked like a warrior and thought, this must be who God has chosen. What do we expect? What does the world expect today? Maybe a big personality, right? We often see this with politicians. How well can they give a speech? Can they win over a crowd? Are they someone people want to talk about? What else? We're looking for natural ability, right? For a team captain, we want the best player on the team. Someone who can put the team on his back and carry them to a win. For a boss, we want someone who knows the industry inside and out. who knows what to do in every situation. Right? For a personal trainer, we want some buff guy with muscles, right? We don't want someone who looks like a couch potato. We want natural ability. What else do we want? We want experience in our leaders. We don't want our leaders to be newbies. We want to know we're in the hands of someone who's been there, done that. So what's wrong with those things? Look at each of these traits that I've mentioned. Are any of these traits wrong for a leader to have? No, I don't think so. Most of these are great assets and helpful for strong leadership in many areas of life. The problem is when we apply the world's standard of leadership to a leader of the people of God and make that our main criteria. We cannot make a blanket statement about leadership based on this passage. We must look at the type of leadership role that Samuel was looking to fill. The king of Israel was to be one who led his people in righteousness. If you look at Deuteronomy 17 verses 14 through 20, The Lord gives a prescription for what the king of Israel should look like. And it should be one who studies scripture, who's studying the word and leading others in that word, and leading in righteousness. Leaders of the people of God are held to a different standard. It's not to say that a Christian leader should not have many of the traits that I mentioned earlier, you know, experience, natural ability, big personality. They often do, and their leadership is all the stronger for it. But it's not the main thing. So it's not what the world expects. What else is in a leader? Well, it's in the heart. Our key verse is verse 16-7. But the Lord said to Samuel, Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees. Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart. It's in the heart. The Lord does not use the same criteria to choose a leader of his people that we would use, that the world would use. What matters most for a leader of God's people is the heart. Now we need to be careful when we hear this, right? We can hear this and jump to the conclusions, we can jump to conclusions that aren't in the text, right? When we hear that the Lord looks at the heart, we may assume that instead of outer appearances, the Lord is looking for someone who is loving and morally upright, and we'll come back to that. But if that's the case, Let's look at the heart of David throughout his life and see if he fits that bill of a loving and morally upright person. If we look at 1 Samuel 25, look at David's heart. David has a heart of vengeance and wants to kill Nabal for not providing him with food that he believes he's earned. 2 Samuel 11. David has a heart of complacency as his men go out to war without him, a heart of lust and adultery with Bathsheba, and then a heart filled with murder towards her husband, Uriah. In 2 Samuel 24, David has a heart of pride that led him to take a sinful census of his fighting men. which led to 70,000 of his people dying. Does this sound like the kind of man the Lord would choose to lead his people because he is morally upright and loving? I don't think so. But if this is not what the Lord is looking for in the heart of a leader, then what is it? I think among many other places in scripture we find the answer to this question in how David responds after each one of these incidents. So in 1 Samuel 25, after Samuel's getting ready to go and kill Nabal and all of his men, Nabal's wife Abigail comes to David and she brings him food. She brings him what he needs. And David recognizes the sin in his heart and the outward sin he was about to commit. This is what it says, verses 32 through 34. And David said to Abigail, blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who sent you this day to meet me. Blessed be your discretion, and blessed be you who have kept me this day from blood guilt and from working salvation with my own hand. For as surely as the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, Who has restrained me from hurting you unless you had hurried and come to meet me? Truly by morning there had not been left to Nabal so much as one male. David recognizes the thing that I was about to do was wrong. And he's thankful that he's been stopped. You know, when we look at David's interaction with Bathsheba and his murder of Uriah, when Nathan the prophet brings that to his attention in 2 Samuel 12, David says, I have sinned against the Lord. He recognizes that sin. In 2 Samuel 12, after the sentence, verse 10, it says, But David's heart struck him after he had numbered the people. And David said to the Lord, I have sinned greatly in what I have done. But now, O Lord, please take away the iniquity of your servant, for I have done very foolishly. So although we've seen David with a heart of vengeance, a heart of adultery, a heart of pride, in all these stories, we also see David with a heart of humility and repentance. It is recognition of our failings before a holy God and utter and complete reliance on him that God calls us to And these are the key attributes in a leader of God's people. Of course there are many more attributes that a strong Christian leader should have. Just look at 1 Timothy 3, the qualifications for an elder. But I'd like to focus on repentance and humble reliance on God because I believe that these are prerequisites for everything else. Why are these attributes key? I believe it speaks to the very heart of God and his disposition towards his people. Why does God delight in humble repentance? Because God delights in showing mercy to his people who are the delight of his heart. We, having the New Testament and the gospel of Jesus Christ, should understand this in an even clearer way than David would have understood it. Pastor Dane Ortlin in his book Gentle and Lowly gives a really compelling illustration to this point. I'm going to read it here straight from his book, Gentle and Lowly. It says a compassionate doctor has traveled deep into the jungle to provide medical care to a primitive tribe afflicted with a contagious disease. He has his medical equipment flown in, he has correctly diagnosed the problem, and the antibiotics are prepared and available. He is independently wealthy and has no need of any kind of financial compensation, but he seeks to provide care. The afflicted refuse. They want to take care of themselves. They want to heal on their own terms. Can you imagine how frustrated this doctor is? He has sacrificed so much time and effort and money out of his love for these people. He just wants to help them, but they refuse. Finally, a few brave young men step forward to receive the care being freely provided. What does the doctor feel? Joy. His joy increases to the degree that the sick come to him for help and healing. It's the whole reason he came. How much more if the diseased are not strangers, but his own family? so with us and so with Christ. He does not get flustered and frustrated when we come to him for fresh forgiveness and renewed pardon with distress and need and emptiness. That's the whole point. It's what he came to heal. He went down into the horror of death and plunged out through the other side in order to provide limitless supplies of mercy and grace to his people. If we don't come to Christ with our brokenness, our emptiness, and our sin, we reject the gift that he freely and bountifully gives from a joyful heart. Have you ever turned away a gift from a loved one? Probably not, if you're most people, because you know that that gift is joyfully given and it would hurt the giver to reject it. So it is with us in Christ, right? He freely offers us grace upon grace with joy and his joy increases as we draw upon the bottomless well of his mercy. This is why a heart of repentance and humility is far more important to God than a heart focused on moral uprightness. This is what David has and God calls you to have it too. And that brings us to our last point. You may have been thinking that this sermon is about who you should follow, who you should elect, who you should look to for inspiration. That's partly true. But more importantly, it's about who you are called to be. So what's in a leader? Our third point is it's in you. It's in you. At the heart of this message, I am urging you to be leaders. That doesn't mean I am urging you to strive for that promotion. It doesn't mean I'm urging you to be world shakers and public figures. It doesn't even mean I'm urging you to seek a leadership role in the church. Although nothing is wrong about any of that, it's not what is at the heart of this message. I'm urging you to be leaders by example in whatever sphere you are in. whether you are an employee or a CEO, whether you are team captain or bench warmer, whether you are a stay-at-home parent or traveling businessman, whether you are a new believer or an elder, the Lord has given you people in your life who you can lead by example. You might say, how can I possibly lead? You don't know me. That's not my personality. I'm more of a sit-in-the-back-row, stay-at-home, one-word-answer kind of person. Well, it's not about who you are, but about who you are united to in faith. David could have said, you don't know me. I'm just a shepherd boy. I can't lead God's people. but the Lord sought him out and gave him a heart of humility and repentance." If you have placed your faith in Christ, you have that very same heart of humility and repentance. It is inherent to the role of a Christian. To come to Christ, you must acknowledge your sinful heart and come to him for grace. The way we become a Christian leader is to continually exercise those muscles of repentance and humility. Right? I exercise my physical muscles by lifting weights, by doing the elliptical at the gym. But I exercise my muscles of repentance and humility by continually falling at the feet of Jesus and drawing on his grace and righteousness. This is how you lead. When others see you constantly drawing from the well of grace that Jesus freely offers, it makes an impact. It draws them in and draws them to Christ. This is not a seminar on how to be a successful business leader or how to be a successful political leader. It's a message on how to lead others to Christ through example. And I'm not even necessarily talking about conversion. Take a look around this room. This is your community of believers. This is your immediate family in the faith. And you are called to continually be leading each other to the feet of Jesus in all humility. Show your brothers and sisters in Christ what it is like to experience the joy of abandoning pride, abandoning the It's all on me attitude and trusting that Jesus is in control and his grace is sufficient for you. David failed many times and sinned greatly in his lifetime. Yet Acts 13, 22 calls him a man after God's heart. How could this man lead God's people? He was given a heart of humility and repentance through the spirit of grace. That same spirit works in you when you call on the name of Jesus Christ in faith. Continually living in that spirit-filled repentance and humility, continually falling at the feet of Jesus, is what it means to be a Christian. And it is how God has called you to lead. Let's close with a word of prayer. Father, I thank you for this time. I thank you for this message from 1 Samuel 16. I thank you that you have given each and every one of us the opportunity to lead through humility and repentance and reliance on you, Lord. Help us to make an impact in the lives of those around us. Help us to make an impact here at Third Reformed. Help us to make an impact at our places of work, in our neighborhoods, in our families. Lord, help us to continually be modeling the heart that you've called us to have so that others may see, that others may take notice and be blessed by it and want to know more about it and want to know more about Christ because of it. Pray that you'd help us all to be leaders. Help us to glorify you. So thank you for this time together this morning. Help us to honor you in the way that we live out this leadership role which you've so graciously given us. In Christ's name, amen.