Let me open tonight with a quote from John Piper. He describes spiritual leadership as, quote, knowing where God wants people to be and taking the initiative to get them there by God's means and God's power. Let me say that one more time. Spiritual leadership is knowing where God wants people to be, and then taking the initiative to get them there by God's means and God's power. Now, what kind of leader actually does that? We often think in churches of leadership as a almost an administrative ability. Like that guy really knows how to lead a meeting or maybe a gifting in terms of preaching or, you know, a personality thing that the person is liked. And so they would make a good leader. But in God's economy, leadership is knowing where his God, where God wants his people to be, and then taking the initiative to direct people there by God's own means. So not inventing new ways to get things done, but by understanding what God wants to happen and how he wants it to happen. And so, like I asked, what can a leader actually does that? Is it the strongest person in the room? Oftentimes that is the person who's leading meetings, even in churches, the strongest person who's there. Is it the most gifted person who's there, the most charismatic, the most visionary? In first Chronicles ten, which we looked at last Lord's Day, I believe our last time in First Chronicles, we saw Saul die. Saul was the most charismatic person in the room. He was, from external appearances, the most gifted person there. He was straight out of central casting for King. The Israelites wanted a king that could lead them into battle who looked like the kings the other nations had. They knew that God was their king, but God couldn't ride on a horse in front of them in battle, could he? They tried bringing the ark out in front of them. That didn't work. And so they got a king. And Saul looked the part. Tall, dark and handsome. He looked the part. But you realize very quickly that Saul did not have what it took to be the kind of leader God wanted his people to have. He immediately started grasping on to leadership. He was immediately more concerned about appearances than convictions. He was afraid. What would the people say? Saul was the kind of guy who started every meeting with like, how do we address complaints kind of thing? He was so concerned about what the crowd would say. He lacked conviction. He was unable to lead God's people effectively because he was kowtowed by them. And so he watched the kingdom slip away and he tried to hold on to it so much, didn't he? He tried to grasp the kingdom, and God took it out of his hands. And so it's fascinating to watch Saul died last chapter, in fact, to jog your eyes up to chapter ten, verse fourteen. Saul did not seek guidance from Yahweh. Therefore Yahweh put him to death and turned the kingdom over to David. So the pages of Saul's life are over, and we're turning to a new chapter, literally in the picture in the scripture. It's a new chapter with David, and David is going to be a different kind of king altogether. David is going to be if you look at verse three, a shepherd, king, I'm sorry. Verse two, Yahweh goes to David and says, you shall be shepherd of my people Israel. This is what true leadership in the Christian world looks like shepherding in God's economy. Leadership begins with shepherding, and this is a top down kind of thing. God views himself as our shepherd. God is, of course, our sovereign. He is our King, but he often relates to us through this imagery of being a shepherd, which is surprising because shepherds are not noble, they're not royal, they're not rich, they're not wealthy. They're not. I mean, they are dirty. That's what they are. They're not well dressed. They're the anti sol. Shepherds don't look like kings. When David and all of his family had had sheep, it was David who was out with the the sheep, not the older brothers. And this was like so ingrained in them. When Samuel comes looking for the king, remember, they put all their sons there and Samuel says, none of them are the right king and certainly of another son. They're like, no, we don't have any other sons. And Samuel's like, come on now. I'm like, well, there is the one who's a shepherd. Like, obviously that wouldn't be the king, right? Not the shepherd. That's who they fetch. But understand that God himself sees himself as a shepherd to us. He sees himself as a shepherd. Psalm twenty three. Yahweh is my shepherd, written by David. By the way, I love that little twist in God's economy that the Shepherd King writes a psalm about God being a shepherd himself. I wonder if that was like an I told you so to some of his brothers. My favorite song. My most famous song is one about God being a shepherd. Take that. God is a shepherd. He cares for us. God exalts the shepherd who serves his people, not the King who serves himself. Saul was never going to be exalted because he served himself. David is exalted because he served others. God exalts the shepherd who serves people, not the King who serves himself. In God's economy, shepherding is a virtue and God's economy. Greatness is measured by care for people, not for gifting, not by the number of people, not by the number of followers you have, the number of books you sell, the number of sermons you preach not by the size of a church. And even in a more granular Christian level, greatness in your Christian life is measured by faithfulness to God, seen by love for others. More than your own entourage. This is so counterintuitive to Saul and those that came after him, but it's a new day in Israel. God will raise up shepherds for his people. He prophesied this before Chronicles was written. He tells Ezekiel, the day is coming where I will raise up shepherds to care for my people. Not like those false shepherds that the Israelites had, these leaders that fleeced the sheep and and fed themselves off the sheep. And that's not what God wanted for his people. And so he said, I will raise up a leader who is like David, who will be a shepherd for my people. And God's solution to people's needs is rarely a celebrity. It's usually a shepherd. A parent who knows their kids. An elder who watches over their souls. A teacher who faithfully feeds them. A disciple maker who is faithful in praying and caring for people. That's greatness in the church. That's greatness in the Kingdom of God. Last chapter I mentioned we saw a king who lost his crown. This chapter shows us the King that God gives. When First Chronicles is written, everybody knows who David is. He's you know, the author of Chronicles doesn't have to walk you through all that David did. He didn't have to go to David and Goliath or whatnot. He expects that, you know, these things. And so it's worth a little contrast. Before we get into the text that Saul clung to power while David waited for God. David was ordained king for twenty years before he became king. In that twenty years, he had ample opportunity to kill Saul, and nobody would have judged him for it. Everybody would say, Saul had it coming. I mean, even the most, even the most, the craziest pro Saul jury in all of Israel would have sided with David had he killed Saul. Saul was hunting him. Everybody would understood. But David waited for the Lord. Saul feared people. David shepherded people. It's not just that David feared God. Where Saul had feared people. That's a almost. a vertical distinction. But there's a horizontal distinction that Saul feared people, while David actually led people by shepherding him and caring for them. And so the contrast is that Saul lost the kingdom. Saul lost the kingdom before David was anointed. Saul lost the kingdom when Samuel ripped it out of his hands. And of course, that was emblematic of Saul ripping Samuel's clothes. And so Samuel says, the kingdom is ripped from you. And meanwhile, Samuel says it's going to be given to someone else who will be a man after God's own heart, namely David. David has given the kingdom. Saul tried to clutch it. David Shepherd's people. Saul fears them. David waits for God. Saul clings to power. Let's look more at the shepherd King. Tonight we'll do an outline of the Shepherd king. First, he's the shepherd that God chooses. This is the kind of leader that God chooses when Saul dies in verse one, Israel gathered together and they said, behold, we are your bone and your flesh. They're talking to David here. Israel rallies around him. What is super cool about this? If you just think the way political transitions happen, this is one of the there's no primary here, I'll put it that way. There's no primary. It's not that when Saul dies, people are like, well, you know, there's, there's Abishai or there's Joab or, you know, no, none of that. Everybody just naturally gravitates towards David. He'd been waiting in the wings for twenty years. They come to him and it's not just like, hey, we think you might be a good king. It says, no, we are your family now. We are of your bone and of your flesh. And they recognize verse two, When Saul was king, you're the one who led Israel. And David didn't overthrow Saul. He yielded to Saul's leadership. But David exercised his own care for the people by actually leading them. You know, David never drew attention to Saul's wicked leadership. David did not do what Absalom would do to David. David didn't walk around the streets of Jerusalem and tell everybody, man, Saul is pretty terrible, isn't he? He didn't say, I don't mean this as gossip, just a prayer request. So you know how hard it must be working for Saul? He never complained about him. He was only faithful. In fact, he covered for Saul's weakness. Saul's weakness is that he wasn't a shepherd. So David stepped up his own shepherding game. Nobody in Israel could say that they didn't have a loving shepherd to lead them, because they had David, even while Saul was king. And everybody recognized that David didn't even have to make his case. He didn't have to stand up in front of everybody and say, you know, that I was the one who was actually shepherding you these last twenty years. No, they know it. And so Yahweh God says, you will be shepherd of my people. You shall be prince of my people Israel. All the elders came to the king. Now he's just called the king. And David made a covenant with them in Hebron before the Lord. They anointed David king over Israel according to the word of the Lord by Samuel. So he becomes king. David becomes king by a covenant. It's in a covenantal relationship with his people. He is ordained as king, sworn in as king. And it is indeed a covenant. This is the kind of leader God chooses. Notice this to the description of why they're drawn to him. First of all, there's a relationship. We are your bone and flesh. There's care. You let us in and out and there's the calling. The Lord said the Israelites recognize this. They recognize David's relationship. They recognize his care, and they recognize his calling. That becomes the foundation for Christian leadership relationship leadership under the authority of God's covenant. God's king is recognized because he's already serving. And that's the basic principle for being an elder at a church, by the way, to when we identify elders at Emanuel, we don't take applications or nominations or anything like that. We look around the congregation and we find people that are acting like elders. They're already seen as elders. You know, I've said many times our goal when we add a new elder at Emmanuel is for people to be surprised and think like, oh, I thought that person already was an elder. That's the goal. That's what's happening with David. He acted the part. He acted like the king because he was a shepherd. As I said, Saul wanted the crown. David wanted to lead. Ezekiel thirty four prophesies that God would raise up a good shepherd. But it also gives a contrast in Ezekiel thirty four that there are bad shepherds, those that fleece the sheep and feed themselves. This is leading you towards David, who? Towards the Messiah, who's the son of David, the true good Shepherd. When Jesus says he's a good shepherd who lays his life down for the sheep, he's connecting the imagery from Psalm twenty three to himself. It's a contrast. Ezekiel thirty four bad shepherds won't even go hungry for the sheep, a bad shepherd. If he's hungry, he'll eat a sheep. That's the bad shepherd, Jesus. If he's hungry, he would lay his life down for the sheep. He would rather die than harm a sheep. That's how God cares for his people. Ezekiel thirty four sixteen is prophetic about the Savior. The Savior will say, I seek the lost. I bring back the scattered. I bind up the broken and strengthen the sick. I mean, this is almost a prophecy from Isaiah about what the Savior will be. He binds up the brokenhearted and strengthens those who are sick. A good shepherd looks at a sheep and finds where there's ailments and treats them. And so it's interesting when the the New Testament gives analogies for spiritual leadership. It doesn't use a business leadership or structure. It doesn't use a hierarchy. It doesn't use governor illustrations, which certainly you could have. I mean, the pastor could be called the governor of the church and the, the elders could be the city council of the church kind of kind of thing. It doesn't the New Testament doesn't use that analogy at all. It uses the example of shepherding. Hebrews thirteen seventeen says, submit to your leaders because they're shepherding. They're keeping watch over your soul. They are. They're a shepherd to you underneath the authority of the great Shepherd. The end of Hebrews thirteen says one Peter two describes Christ as our great Shepherd. One Peter five describes elders as shepherds and then under-shepherds. That's all owing to God's call of David. The Messiah's line starts with David. He is the headwaters of the Savior. The shepherd is more than biologically related to David. The Messiah is not just from his DNA and his lineage. The Messiah is from his likeness, meaning the Messiah will be a shepherd, and God calls David so that the Messiah would walk in the image of a shepherd. Secondly, it's the kingdom. God builds, the kingdom. God builds. It's not just the shepherd that he calls, but it's the kingdom that he builds. Verse four, David and all of Israel went to Jerusalem. That is Jebus or the Jebusites were the inhabitants of the land. Now Israel under Saul, didn't control Jerusalem. We talked this morning about how Jerusalem was hidden in the basement, so to speak. Israel had been given the land and grew up around them. Judah was to the south of of Jerusalem, Simeon to the just, you know, up to the north, Dan along the coast, Zebulon out by the the river behind Jerusalem. So the tribes had kind of hemmed in Jerusalem. But like I said, Jerusalem is hard to find. You have to look for it to find it. But it is a stronghold and it is a city that God chose. He chose it, going all the way back to Genesis, where Abraham runs into Melchizedek, the king of Salem, the King of peace. Jerusalem is another way of saying the. The city of peace. Salem being what carries over there from Melchizedek, the Prince of Salem, that's Jerusalem. Jerusalem is where Abraham offered Isaac on the altar. And God stopped the knife and said, I'm I'm going to provide a sacrifice. That's Jerusalem. So it's already in the works that Jerusalem will be the place where God places his name. He's going to put his Messiah and his city and his capital into Jerusalem. His kingdom is going to start in Jerusalem and go out. That's Jerusalem. But the problem is when David becomes king, Israel doesn't own it. Now, we don't have the the timeline here, but it's about seven years of David being king before the events in verse four take place. There's a seven year gap. So don't picture the inauguration. And David like Jerusalem, he reigns from Hebron and then he goes to Jerusalem. Well, the inhabitants of Jebus aren't so keen to give it over to David. Notice in verse five they say, you won't come in here. Now there's a phrase missing that's in first Samuel five and first Samuel five. The text says, if you were to try to come in here, even the blind and the lame would repel you, which I think is funny. That's trash talking in the ancient Near East. Bring your best, David. You cut off Goliath's head. But if you come here, our blind people will shoe you away. Well, the blind people didn't work. David does go there. Verse five. Nevertheless, despite the threats of the blind and lame people clubbing him to death or whatever, David took the stronghold of Zion. That is the city of David. Notice the author calls it the stronghold of Zion. Why did God choose Jerusalem? You know, now Tel Aviv is Israel's biggest city. Tel Aviv is much better located. I mean, it's on the coast. The main highway from Egypt to Lebanon and Turkey goes through Tel Aviv. The ocean is right there. There's a great airport there. Why didn't David choose that city? I know there was no airport there. Jerusalem. Why Jerusalem? Well, it is the it is becomes the cradle of civilization. Really. Four hundred and sixty five verses in the Old Testament are about Jerusalem. Twenty four verses in the New Testament. Eight hundred times in the Bible it's mentioned. You could put a. A pinpoint in Jerusalem and draw a nine hundred mile circle around it. And that circle would include Athens, Istanbul, Beirut, Damascus, Baghdad, Jerusalem, Alexandria, Jerusalem, Alexandria, Cairo and Mecca. Those are the main cities that are just within a journey from Jerusalem. It, in a sense, is the center of civilization, like I mentioned. Its name means City of Peace, and it will be the headquarter of God's kingdom. It's not just a strategic city. It's the place that God chose to put his name because it is up in the mountains. It branches out to all the places. It's a stronghold. It's going to be David's place. God chose it and he didn't let Saul get it. If it had been Tel Aviv, Saul would have got it. If it had been Jericho, Saul got Jericho. I mean, Joshua got Jericho. You can go before Saul, but it's none of those places. God chose Jerusalem and gives it to David. David will be the first king in Jerusalem that will reign over all of Israel as one tribe and as over one people. That is the place. And this becomes the focal point of the Israelite religion. The Psalms of Ascent. Psalm one twenty to one thirty three. Those Psalms that are fourteen Psalms that are memorized and sung every year on the journey to worship God's people. It's a huge part of the Psalter that is about going to Jerusalem. We met this morning about Palm Sunday, where Jesus goes into Jerusalem. They build a temple there. They journeyed there. Every year, God's Spirit dwells with mankind in Jerusalem. Two Kings twenty one, verse seven. Yahweh said to David and Solomon his son, in this house in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put my name forever. It's the city of the Shepherd King. God chooses his shepherd, he builds his kingdom. And now he's going to gather his people to it. Third, the servants God gathers. And I hope you see the progression here. God chooses the leader. He chooses the place, and now he gathers the people. Now this is verse ten through forty seven. We have looked at all of these things back when we were in Second Samuel. So I'm not going to go through all of these names in the list. It's a long list of all of David's Mighty Men. And it's it is a pretty cool list. You can go through it on your own. I'm just going to draw out a couple treasures for you here. There, the chief of David's mighty men. Verse ten says, they gave him strong support in his kingdom with all Israel to make him king. Now there's a couple mighty men who are called up by name. Verse eleven, Jehosheba a hatch ammonite who was chief of the three. So there's three who are leaders over all the other ones. What does it take to be a leader of the three? Well, you find out in verse eleven, he killed three hundred dudes at one time. I don't know how that happens. They all lined up and he had a very long spear. I don't know, but he uses spear and killed three hundred of them. And so David said, okay, you can be in charge. Next among them was Eleazar in verse twelve. Verse thirteen, he was with David when the Philistines were gathered there for battle, there was a plot of ground full of barley in the mid. Fled from the Philistines, and he took his stand in the midst and defended it, and killed the Philistines. And Yahweh saved them by a great victory. So those are the three that are in charge. Notice why they're in charge? Because they were fighting with David. They were on the Lord's side. This dude killed a bunch of people over a ground full of barley. Three of the thirty chief men went down to the rock of David at the Cave of Adullam. Remember? That's where David was hiding out from Saul. This was before he was king. Verse seventeen, David said, oh, that someone would give me water to drink from the well of Bethlehem that is, by the gate. And so if you remember the story, David is in this cave, which you could visit today. You can climb up through and get in and go into this cave. And it's odd because there's no roads there today. You can't get from the cave of Adullam over to Bethlehem, but it's right on the other side of the mountain again. Very precarious. There's no way to hide. There's no trees up there. You're exposed. And David is hiding in his cave. And he says, man, I could go for a glass of cool water from the well at my parents house. And he's got a bunch of dudes that are like, on it. That's really cool. These guys would go give their life for him. And so David was just talking out loud and they go and raid a well and bring back. They had to fight through the Philistines. They had remember, they had they had kind of cornered David in there, trapped him. But his men fought their way through the Philistine garrison to get over to the well and bring him back water from the well that he remembers fondly from his youth, to quench his parched lips. Look what David did in verse eighteen. He pours it out, dumps it on the ground. What do you think about that? Like if you said, if somebody maybe your parents said, or I'm looking at some of you kids. Your parents said I could sure go for chick fil A tonight, and you go to chick fil A and it's closed on Sunday and you're like, ah, but I know somebody who works there. And so you get your friend and you break in and you fire up the fry mobile and you make all the things and you. It was a lot of work and you're probably going to prison. But you bring your dad back the chick fil A sandwich. You're like, this is what I did. And your dad's like, I give it to the Lord and he throws it away. That's what David did. And he explains himself in verse nineteen. Far be it from me before my God that I should do this. Should I drink the lifeblood of these men? They risked their life for it. Therefore, he wouldn't drink it. This is a fascinating passage, but the reason David didn't take it is because he didn't want to exploit his men. He's the shepherd King, a CEO king would take it. A political king would take it. A governor or a mayor or a senator would take it, but not a shepherd. And so he threw it down. That's a little story that's captured here. It's so weird in battles where thousands, tens of thousands of people die, you get a story about David wishing for water and then pouring it out on the ground. Well, the chief of the thirty and verse twenty is Abishai you get another guy. Verse twenty two, he was a valiant man who struck down a lion on a day when snow had fallen. That's kind of cool. It's hard to track somebody. It's hard to sneak up on somebody in the snow is the idea like crunch, crunch, crunch. But this dude got to jump on a lion. That's impressive. And there's others in verse twenty three that killed an Egyptian man five cubits tall. He'd be a great NBA player. Can't transition at all, though. The Egyptian had his spear in his hand like a weaver's beam. That's massive. The dude's, you know, seven and a half feet tall, and he's got a spear the size of a pillar that holds up a house. But he was killed by one of David's men. And that guy, he doesn't get to be named among the three and says in verse twenty five, even though he killed a seven and a half foot tall dude with a weaver's beam, that's not good enough to be one of the three, but it does good enough to be in charge of David's secret Service. Verse twenty five, he gets to be over the bodyguard, and there's a list of other people. These are the thirty men that are there. There's thirty three names to spare you from. Counting thirty is kind of a technical term for like, you know, a special forces division. They're just called the thirty. They're a group of men. There's more than thirty that are on it. But it's David's elite soldiers. That's who's fighting for David. All of them are there not to make their own kingdom. They're there to advance David's kingdom. David is the shepherd king, and God elevates people to help him in his mission. But his mission is the Lord's mission. David values their lives more than his own desires. That's demonstrated by the water. He values their lives more than his own glory, his own fame. He would do anything for his men. This becomes an example. What a contrast with Saul. You can't picture Saul doing any of this. Saul didn't have thirty people surrounding him. Who would, you know, kill a seven and a half foot tall Egyptian? Saul had enough trouble keeping his own people around him. Saul used people to preserve himself. David honored people because he served God. He recognized the people he was leading, belonged to God before they belonged to him. And so he was their servant. God's kingdom is not built by kings who take, but by kings who shepherd. And God builds up people around them who are likewise under-shepherds and who care for the flock. God chooses his shepherd, builds his kingdom, gathers his people. And of course, this maps on to what we saw this morning with Palm Sunday. When Jesus finally comes into Jerusalem, like David enters Jerusalem here, when Jesus finally comes into Jerusalem. He has his apostles around. The apostles are still learning, but ultimately they're going to be disciples. They're going to be Christians. They're going to be servants. They're going to be under-shepherds. The shepherd prototype here of David becomes Jesus. Jerusalem becomes the place where the shepherd lays his life down for the sheep. The people that gather around the shepherd becomes the church. David introduced him to establish a kingdom. Jesus entered Jerusalem to purchase people for himself. David gathered mighty men around himself. Jesus gathers sinners around himself and sanctifies them. David would one day die and leave his throne. Jesus will die and attain his throne, and he reigns forever. The story here sets you up for Jesus. I hope you see the patterns here that Jesus will walk in their. Prophesied by David, prophesied by Jerusalem, predicted by the mighty men, but incarnated through Christ. The church and the people of God. Lord, we are thankful that Jesus is our Shepherd. Didn't come as a warrior, didn't come as a political king, or a powerful man in worldly sense. His kingdom was truly not of this world. He came to lay his life down for his sheep. We know that his kingdom remains in the future. We know that true leadership here and now, this gap between the worlds, so to speak, between two worlds, the kingdom of David and the kingdom of Christ that will be in Jerusalem. This gap that we live in now is marked by servants, by shepherds. Lord, we pray that you would make our church a servant oriented church, that we would prefer one another over ourselves, that we would see friendships and relationships in the church, not as something to be grasped, but as opportunities to serve. Ultimately, our service is seen in Christ. We're thankful for Him and His death for our sin. We give you thanks for him. In Jesus name, Amen. And now for parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson. If you have any questions about what you heard today, or if you want to learn more about what it means to follow Christ, please visit our church website, ibc dot church. If you want more information about the Master's Seminary or our location here in Washington, DC, please go to TMZ dot edu. Now, if you're not a member of a local church and you live in the Washington, D.C. area, we'd love to have you worship with us here at Emmanuel. I hope to personally meet you this Sunday after our service. But no matter where you live, it's our hope that everyone who uses this resource is involved in their own local church. Now, may God bless you this week as you seek Jesus constantly. Serve the Lord faithfully and share the gospel boldly.