Give or Take, Part 1

I want to go ahead and get started today. I actually, you know, it's one of these messages where you get digging into it and you start going and you realize you really have too much for a single message. And I've always endeavored to try to keep messages right at about that 45 to 50 minute mark. I try not to go much longer than that because I don't know about you guys, but for me, I start to drift at about 45 to 50 minutes as a speaker. As a listener, I start to drift as well. But I start losing it at about 45 to 50 minutes as a speaker, even. But I realized, you know, as Shannon and I were talking about this today, the reality is this message is going to be a two-parter on this. There's no way. The first one, we're going to get into some of the principles behind it. We're going to get into some of the basics of what this entails and what it means for us in the modern church. But the second message is going to be a lot more focused on application.

And how do we do this? How do we interact? And how do we do these different things with people, in particular, that are outside of the church, but as well as brethren that are within the church, also? So a couple of questions to get us started this morning. How many of you have ever worked with somebody that ever received a big promotion? And not you, by the way. Not you. You got passed over. No, this guy. The other guy got it. You know the guy I'm talking about. This is the guy that's always nodding their head and smiling when the boss is talking. You know, the one who laughs at all their jokes. The one that's always taking credit for the work that the team produced. The one that complements the boss on his perfectly creased pants. The one that's always trying to make everything about them. You know that guy. That guy. Anyone ever experienced that situation in the workplace? Yeah, I'm sure you have. And how often does that end well? Not very frequently, right? Very infrequently does that end well. And I've had the opportunity to experience this in a handful of situations. And while it wasn't always the kind of person that I described above, I was being a little snarky there, who received the promotion, I can't think of one time where that happened. Where someone went from co-worker to boss. Where it didn't drastically change the culture and the feel of the work environment. And you know what I mean? It changes the dynamics. Suddenly, that person is thrust into this position of authority over the people they once worked directly with. And what happens? They get a little bit of power. They get a little bit of fame. Maybe they don't have as much time for their old co-workers or old teammates. They become cold. They become indifferent. Maybe they're too busy to visit with other people. And they seem to have different priorities. I noticed this in particular a lot of times in education, where we have a teacher who goes to a principalship or a vice principalship. You know, you say hi to him in the hallway and they're always running off to some other place. Or they have to sit at a different table at lunch now because they're no longer the teacher. They're now in it. So it's interesting. The dynamic changes. And what we'll sometimes say to each other, we'll look at each other and go, wow! Boy, he sure let power go to his head. Or she sure let the power go to their head. Boy, they're like a totally different person. You know, believe it or not, that's actually not too far from the truth. It's not too far from the truth. There have been a number of studies who have tried to crack this kind of anecdotal evidence where we look at it and we go, we know this happens, but we rely on hard science to kind of try to prove it. But what they've done is they've done some incredibly cool studies. One study actually concluded that individuals that assume positions of authority and power tend to be less capable of expressing empathy towards other people. They go from a position where they were able to be empathetic to a position where now they have difficulty expressing empathy.

And they tracked it down. It's due to part of the brain known as the mirror sensor. You ever notice when you're talking to somebody and they cross their arms? You ever notice that you'll cross your arms too? Sometimes. You'll notice they're like, yeah, you kind of mimic the position that they're in as they're talking. That's your mirror sensor working. It allows you to understand where the person's coming from somewhat by mimicking body language. Well, what happens with people that have gained this position of power and authority? Their mirror sensor becomes inhibited. They lose that kind of ability in the researcher's opinion to effectively lead because so much of leadership is what makes a leader great is their ability to adjust to the team that they're leading and to really kind of understand where their employees or their co-workers are coming from. There's another study that was summarized very succinctly in an article from the Daily Mail, which is a UK newspaper, online magazine type thing, but it explains a study done by Swiss scientists which adds even another dimension to the results. I'm going to read just a couple of sections from this for you. I'm going to read the quick intro because it basically covers the background of the research and then we'll get into the rest. It says, scientists in Switzerland asked volunteers to play what they're calling, quote-unquote, the dictator game. In the game, people were given complete control over deciding pay. So they have a chance to decide, do I pay this person or do I pay myself? And if I pay myself, well then these guys aren't going to make as much money, but I'm going to walk away with all kinds of cash. So they let the game go. They started by, at the very beginning of this research, they started kind of rating people on a continuum sort of that said how honest they were, how trustworthy they were, kind of general moral character. And the results are really interesting. The results are really interesting. People rated as less honest at first. So those that went into the dictator game as being less honest, less trustworthy, having less moral fiber, so to speak, tended to exhibit more corrupt behavior as the game progressed, as we would kind of assume, right? But what's really interesting is those that scored high on honesty and moral fiber over time also behaved poorly. As the game went on, as the time went on, as more and more rounds went, you know, they were playing for real stakes. People walked out of this research with, you know, a couple hundred bucks in their pocket. So it wasn't like they were playing with funny money. But as they went through this process, what they found was interesting. And the researchers, names John Antonakis from the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, he says, one thing that angers me, my children, and most people across the world is why do powerful leaders not do more good?

Is it because of power? Do we really have to worry about that force? Is what Acton said really true, Acton being Lord Baron Acton, John Acton, who was the guy who made the quote of power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. So they're wondering, is this true? So in the study, the leader was given a pot of money and allowed to divide it up however they liked. The more they took out for themselves, the less that was left for everybody else, right? The results were clear. Power corrupts. When given more followers and more choices, the leader was more likely to make an anti-social, quote unquote, decision. In a way, this is the researcher being quoted, in a way, power is to leaders what the taste of blood is to a dog. Once they get the taste of it, they just can't stop. The more followers they have, the more corrupt they became. So they started thinking about this from a standpoint of politics and from a standpoint of governments, and this was the overall takeaway from these researchers. Based on our research and its conclusions, we think strong governance mechanisms and strong institutions are the key to keeping leaders in check. Organization should work to limit how much leaders can drink from the seductive chalice of power. It turns out, if you don't feel empathy towards your employees in the first place, it makes it a lot easier to reward yourself at their expense, which was shown in results after result in this study. Interestingly, they linked this behavior to production of testosterone, which also results in kind of aggression and more competition. It leads to a workplace that has a culture of what we call dog-eat-dog. Dog-eat-dog style workplace environment, which is that win at all costs. It doesn't matter the morals. It doesn't matter just make the deal, make the sale, and seal the deal. That becomes the important part of the process. It can become institutionalized in corporations if people aren't careful, because as Lord Acton stated, power corrupts. But absolute power corrupts absolutely. But what's interesting is that's not even entirely true. Because for as many horror stories as you've heard about bad bosses in the past, you also hear a number of stories that are the exact opposite. The incredibly amazing, unbelievably giving, and understanding boss who goes the extra mile for their employees. Now they are fewer and farther between, it seems, than the boss Zilla stories, but they do exist. There's actually a book written by Adam Grant of the Wharton School of Business that contains some really interesting ideas about this. He spent 10 years studying various businesses, institutions, military organizations, U.S. Air Force in particular, with a goal of understanding how individuals approach business interactions. Not actually conducting business itself, but how they interact with one another as the business progresses.

And I'm not going to get into the research too deeply. The title of the book is Give and Take, a Revolutionary Approach to Success. And I'm just going to summarize his findings here. He was able to categorize employees in the workplace into three basic categories of people. They broke down into three things. They were either one, givers. They were takers. Or they were what he called matchers. Givers were these people who approach every business interaction that they did with the question of, what can I provide the other person? In this interaction, what can I do for my customer? What can I do for this person that we're working with? What can I do in order to provide some service to this person? They weren't interested in credit. They didn't care who got the credit for the work. They didn't care about additional compensation per se. They sought to bring out the most in others through their attitude and through their work ethic. He characterizes it as they give more than they get. Takers, on the other hand, are individuals that approach every interaction with others with the question of, what can I obtain from this person? What can I walk away from this interaction with? What can I do to better myself from this? How can I make this work out? How can I leverage this to work out in my favor? You know, it sounds aggressive, but it's actually not always aggressive. Sometimes it's self-preservation. It's keeping your job or maintaining a certain position, but regardless of what it may be, they take more than they give back.

Matchers, on the other hand, are your ultimate fairness people. They approach the situation going, all right, I scratch your back, you scratch my back. We both walk away from this winter. And that's the way a matcher looks at every interaction in a business, is that I provide this, you provide that, that's the way it works. Nobody gets rich here, everybody gets along, everybody goes forward from here. But his research showed that everyone in the places that he studied boiled down into one of these three categories. But then what was really interesting about this, once he defined it, he was interested to find out where do people stack up in the corporate hierarchy. In other words, are there more takers at the bottom rung of the company? Are there more takers at the top rung of the company? Where do they sort out? Middle-level management, upper management, you know, regular employees, interns. He looked at productivity and success and his results were surprising. Someone. Where do you suppose the givers found themselves?

More often than not. More often than not, they found themselves at the bottom of the barrel. Very few of them in management positions because they didn't care whether or not anyone knew it was them that did it. They were just cool with going to work and doing the best job that they could do and being paid for the job and going home. They weren't sitting there trying to sell themselves. They weren't sitting there trying to, you know, make believers or gain followers or whatever else.

As you move up the rung into levels of employment, though, you go up into the levels of management, you get into places where society might deem more successful, mid to upper level management. The population starts to shift with the majority of those in those locations in kind of identified as takers. These are individuals who are in it for their own career advancement, so to speak.

But where it got really interesting was when you stepped to the level of CEO or you looked at the individuals who founded companies, the top dogs of the company. You might expect that these folks were cutthroat, win at all costs, build the business, take out whoever I can take out to grow it and build it. And while I'm sure there are some of those there, Grant's research was the exact opposite. The majority of the individuals in the upper echelons of the corporation, those on the board, the CEO, the owner, were found to be givers. They were found to be givers. And the reason, the reasoning for it is these are individuals that had high levels of empathy for their employees, and they sought ways to serve others' needs over their own. They had bought into the values of their company. They had bought into the company itself, and they wanted to ensure its success. And if that meant 10 sleepless nights in a row to advance that company, they were okay with that.

Because they didn't care about their needs as much as they cared about the needs of the corporation or the needs of their employees. They desired the success of the company or the success of the venture over their own needs. It all boiled down to givers and takers. Givers and takers. And biblically, we see examples of both. And what led me down this path, what brought on this study, we were going through our chronological reading program, and I started noticing a pattern in the individuals that God called to serve him. Time and time again, many of them mention their lack of qualifications. You know, Moses, for example, you know, God says, hey Moses, I want you to go, Moses goes, who, me? Me? No, you know, is there another guy out here in the middle of the desert? Because you can't be talking to me. But time and time again, they basically tell God, look, God, you're making a mistake. I'm not your guy. I'm the least of the least of the least. And there are a number of places, scripturally, where we find that almost exact phrase. I am the least of the tribes of Israel and the least of the families in that tribe of Israel. And among that family, I'm the least of all the other brothers. Why me? Is the is the idea. And clearly, God chose them for very specific reasons, in some cases because of that level of humility that they start with.

And he really, God was kind of having none of it. You know, he's like, look, I picked you. You're the one that's doing it. Sorry. It just is what it is. Some of them handle their authority well. Some of them handle their newfound power well. They go on to be very successful, very righteous leaders. Others, well, they don't. So I thought it would be a really interesting study to explore the number of times that that phrase is uttered by people throughout the Bible. And explore some of those individuals' examples to try to better understand the concept of humility and pride, and to kind of understand, really with that, some pretty crucial lessons for all of us in the modern churches today. So the title of today's message is Give and Take. And like I said, this is going to end up a part two at some point. It'll probably be August before we get to that. But the title of the message today is Give and Take. And so what we're going to do is we're going to take a look at a couple of positive examples, but really the focus that I'm trying to, not because I'm trying to be negative today, but I want to see what not to do. I want to focus on what not to do. We'll also see what to do, but I want to focus on what not to do. And so we're going to look today at some of those that allowed their power to corrupt them into making poor decisions based on their pride so that we can learn from their examples so we don't follow in their footsteps as, you know, the phrase goes, those who don't study history are doomed to repeat it. We want to ensure that we're not in that boat. So we're going to start today in the book of 1 Samuel. We're going to start today in the book of 1 Samuel. If you turn over there with me, please.

I apologize for the rate of speed of the turning today. I'm one-handed, so this is my turning hand, actually, too. I tried the last sermon I gave down in Eugene. I was sitting here going, I felt like a T-Rex. I just couldn't quite get to it. I'm going, just turn. So yeah, it's going to take me a little bit to get where I'm going today. That's all right. I usually go so fast that I don't leave anybody time to find where we're going anyway. We're going to go to 1 Samuel 9. First Samuel 9. And just prior to this passage, we'll get a little bit of setup. We see the setup in the introduction of King Saul, or of Saul at this point in time. He's the son of a mighty man. He's heads taller than the rest of the people. He's handsome. He's 100% grade A king material. God notified Samuel. He's going to be coming to meet him, looking for three long-lost donkeys that his father had lost. And God gave Samuel instruction that he is to anoint him king over Israel. Now keep in mind, prior to this, Israel had been ruled by judges. They had been ruled by judges, which, you know, were king-like in a way. I mean, they were kind of these primary rulers. But at the same time, they didn't have the same concerns that kings had. And Samuel told the people flat out, look, you don't want a king. You don't want a king. They're going to take your kids. They're going to put them in the battle. You're going to conscript your children. They're going to take portions of your crops. They're going to put you to work in the fields. They're going to put you to work in their houses. Life's going to be drastically different under a king. You want nothing to do with it. Israel tells him, no, yes, we do. We want one anyway. We don't want to be like the... or we want to be like the nations around us. We don't want to be holy. We don't want to be set apart. We don't want to be different. We want what they want. God tells Samuel, hey, I'll give it to him. That's fine. I'll give it to him. They've asked. Let him see what it's about. So, for Samuel 9, 15, we pick up the account. First Samuel 9 verse 15 says, Now the Lord had told Samuel in his ear the day before Saul came, saying, Tomorrow, about this time, I will send you a man from the land of Benjamin, and you shall anoint him, commander over my people Israel, that he may save my people from the hand of the Philistines, for I have looked upon my people, because their cry has come to me. Verse 17, So when Samuel saw Saul, the Lord said to him, There he is, the man of whom I spoke to you, this one shall reign over my people. Then Saul drew near to Samuel in the gate, and said, Please tell me, where is the seer's house? Samuel answered Saul and said, I'm the seer. They referred to them as seers at that time. It mentions in another passage. Go up before me to the high place, for you shall eat with me today, and tomorrow I will let you go, and will tell you all that is in your heart. Verse 20, But as for your donkeys that were lost three days ago, do not be anxious about them, for they have been found, and on whom is all the desire of Israel. Is it not on you, and on all of your father's house? The New Living Translation puts verse 20, I'm here to tell you that you and your family are the focus of all Israel's hopes.

No pressure, right? That's huge. Samuel sends them ahead to the feast, essentially tells them you're set apart for something special. No pressure, but we're pretty much banking on you and your family, and you'll, you know, come up and eat with me here at the feast. Verse 21, here's where we see that phrase that we mentioned earlier, verse 21 of 1 Samuel 9, And Saul answered and said, Am I not a Benjamite of the smallest of the tribes of Israel, and my family the least of all the families of the tribe of Benjamin? Why then do you speak to me like this? Why then do you speak to me like this? The idea that I'm not your guy. I'm not the one you're looking for. I am the least of the least. I'm not the one who should be honored. We see that Saul exhibited pretty incredible humility in this initial conversation. Granted, it probably caught him by surprise, and it was probably one of those moments of, oh, what? We're doing, huh? What are we doing? But he goes up to the hilly feast with Samuel, chapter 10 of Samuel 1. We see the anointing of Saul as king of Israel. Verse 9, he's given a new heart. He's converted at that point in time. He receives God's Holy Spirit. Everything is peachy! Everything's great! But let's fast forward to chapter 13. Let's fast forward to chapter 13. First Samuel 13. War is continuing with the Philistines. Things aren't going well for the Israelites, actually. They're retreating to superior numbers. They're hiding out in every cave and rock and whatever else that they can manage to find. His officers and his soldiers are bailing out left and right. Everybody's just deserting and taking off. Samuel was gone. Samuel told Saul to wait for him seven days and he'll be back. And that's where he picked it up in verse 8 of 1 Samuel.

1 Samuel 13, verse 8. 1 Samuel 13, verse 8 says, Then he waited seven days according to the time set by Samuel. But Samuel did not come to Gilgal, and the people were scattered from him. So Saul said, Bring a burnt offering and peace offerings here to me. And he offered the burnt offering.

Now it happened as soon as he had finished presenting the burnt offering that Samuel came and Saul went out to meet him that he might greet him. And Samuel said, What have you done?

Saul said, When I saw the people were scattered from me and that you didn't come within the days appointed and that the Philistines were gathered together at Mishmash, then I said, The Philistines will now come down on me at Gilgal, and I have not made supplication to the LORD. Therefore, I felt compelled and offered a burnt offering. 1 Samuel 13, said to Saul, You have done foolishly.

You have done foolishly. You have not kept the commandment of the LORD your God, which he commanded you. For now the LORD would have established your kingdom over Israel forever.

But now your kingdom shall not continue. The LORD has sought for himself a man after his own heart, and the LORD has commanded him to be commander over his people, because you have not kept what the LORD commanded you. Saul kind of let it go to his head. He put himself as king on the same pedestal with the prophet that God had chosen, thinking that for whatever reason he was qualified to offer the burnt offering because of his status as king. Besides, he couldn't be expected to wait longer for Samuel to show up. His men were deserting, after all. Something had to be done. Somebody had to do something, and he was king. It fell to him to make sure that it happened. It was his responsibility, whatever he may have told himself to justify his actions. This was kind of the beginning of the end. One thing to keep in mind here, and this is what's very sobering in this particular lesson, Saul was chosen specifically by God. He was anointed by God. He had a new heart. He was converted. He was chosen, and God ultimately took it away. God ultimately took it away, which is a really sobering message for us today. I mean, obviously Saul lost it of his own accord, but, you know, God followed through on that. But why? Why did God take it all away? Let's go to 1 Samuel 15. We're going to pick it up in verses 19 and 20 of 1 Samuel 15.

And this section almost reads a little bit like maybe Saul was given a second chance here. You know, I don't know that for 100% certain, but he's given a command to do something and then gets an earful from Samuel again when he doesn't do it, almost like this was maybe a test to find out whether he learned his lesson the first time. But in the middle of what seems like a second chance, God gives him the command to strike down all of the Amalekites. Everything. And these are some of those commands sometimes we don't understand. We look at them and we just go, man, we're not looking at them. We just go, man, women and children and animals and everything. We don't understand them with our modern take on things. We just don't. And so we sometimes look at that and think it's harsh. But the command was everything. Man, woman, child, even the animals. And it was designed by God to be a punishment for what the Amalekites did to Israel as they were leaving Egypt. Saul goes to war, he kills the people, he spares the king, and he spares the choicest of the animals. But those that are weak, those that were despised, are the animals they destroyed. And God is upset. Saul didn't follow his directions. God tells Samuel, look, we're done here. We're done with this one. He's just not getting it. Samuel appears to intercede on his behalf that evening as you look through the section. He cries out to God on behalf of Saul, but the next day he does follow God's instructions and he lets Saul know what's happened. But he goes to find him and he's not there. Saul's gone. He's not where he was supposed to be. They find out that he set up a monument in his honor in Carmel and then was headed to Gilgal.

When Samuel finally arrives, Saul lets him know, it's done. I took care of it. You know, God told me to do this and I did it. The Amalekites are defeated. And Samuel says, okay, well, what is it that what do I hear? I hear cows and I hear sheep. What are the cows in the sheep? What's going on with this? What's going on with the cows and the sheep? They're making a bunch of racket where they come from. Saul's like, oh, those are the choicest of the animals that the Amalekites had. We only killed the weak ones. I'm going to save them and sacrifice them to God. And you can kind of imagine Samuel's face just a little bit as he's looking at Saul. You know, were the instructions unclear? Did it not get across? I mean, was this something was something lost in translation? He finally tells him, look, this is what God says. Verse 17 of 1 Samuel 15. 1 Samuel 15 verse 17. So Samuel said, when you were little in your own eyes, when you were little in your own eyes, when you were humble, were you not head of the tribes of Israel? And did not the Lord anoint you, king over Israel, when you were little in your own eyes? Were you not king? Now the Lord sent you on a mission and said, go and utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites. Fight against them until they are consumed.

Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord? Why did you swoop down on the spoil? New Living translation says pounce upon the plunder. When did you you had a chance? All these beautiful cattle and all these sheep and everything else and you went, nope, nope, nope, don't kill those. Nope, we're keeping those. Those are nice. These ones over here, though, we'll take those out. These are nice. We're keeping these. Despite the fact that God told him to to kill them all. And why did you do what was evil in the sight of the Lord? In other words, why didn't you do what you were told? Why did you pounce on these things? Saul acted in his own best interests. He didn't do what he was asked. He was successful in the battle to an extent. Yet instead of giving the glory to God, he set up a monument in his own honor and he kind of let the power go to his head.

In verse 20 we see Saul kind of voice blame on the people. Verse 20 Saul said to Samuel, But I've obeyed the voice of the Lord and gone on the mission in which the Lord has sent me, and I brought back Agag king of Amalek. I have utterly destroyed the Amalekites.

Verse 21, But the people, they took the plunder, the people took the plunder, sheep, oxen, and the best of the things which should have been utterly destroyed to sacrifice to the Lord your God and Gilgal. This kind of like puts the blame on somebody else a little bit, wasn't me. It was these guys, even though under his watch, obviously, it's him. So Samuel says, verse 22, Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord, Behold to obey is better than sacrifice and to heed than the fat of rams. Tells him, look, doesn't God desire obedience over burnt offerings and sacrifices? Verse 23, For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has also rejected you from being king. Then Saul said to Samuel, I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord in your words, because I feared the people and I obeyed their voice. Now therefore, please pardon my sin and return with me that I may worship the Lord.

Verse 26, But Samuel said to Saul, I will not return with you, for you have rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord has rejected you from being king over Israel. Too little too late.

You've got rejected Saul, whether again, whether this was a second chance or whether this kind of solidified the decision, whether the decision was already made prior to this event. Saul was done, as king Saul was done. He got it chosen someone else. Now while he did continue to lead sometime after these events, it was less effective. I mean, during the section when you start reading about interactions with him and David, Saul as king really wasn't terribly effective as a king at that point. You know, David was building followers the whole entire time as things were going on. So interestingly enough, David is another one who states that he is least among his brothers. You know, he's found and sought after for his humility, that he is least among his brothers. In fact, at first, Samuel shows up and goes, well, it's got to be this one. It's got to be that one. It's got to be... it's not any of them? You got another one? Oh yeah, that one. That one, he's out in the field somewhere. Yeah, you don't want to talk to him. It's like, no, that's the one. But he was a humble man, and he was after God's own heart. Not perfect, but humble and repentant, and after God's own heart. But Saul was king. He was the most powerful man in Israel, and he let it go to his head. He began to think that he achieved what he'd achieved through his own power, through his own might. He set up monuments to himself, and he generally felt as though the rules didn't really apply to him. Sometimes politicians, kings, people do sometimes feel like the rules don't really apply to them. But we see a similar situation with the example of Uzziah in 2 Chronicles. Let's go over to 2 Chronicles. I see a similar situation where a person kind of feels as though the rules don't apply to them, so to speak, in 2 Chronicles. And it's in chapter 26. My left hand knows where that is in my Bible. My right hand's still learning.

It blew right past it. Anyway, 2 Chronicles 26.

2 Chronicles 26, and we'll pick it up in verse 16. We'll start in verse 16. But Uzziah is an interesting story. Uzziah took the throne at 16. 16 years of age, he becomes king. Can you imagine?

I wasn't even driving by 16. And here's somebody that's in charge of the overall day-to-day of an entire nation. But he reigned for 52 years, largely did what was right in God's eyes. He was a good king. He learned from a very strong high priest, very strong high priest in Hezekiah. And as long as he sought after God, he had success. In the early parts of 2 Chronicles 26, they kind of detail his accomplishments. And it lists a number of things, which were all thanks to God's favor upon him and God working in the nation.

But when we get to verse 16, we see there was one recorded instance in his life where he slipped a little bit. And I'm very thankful that all of the instances in my own life where I have slipped are not recorded and not necessarily put in print for the world to see. But in this case, he decent life up to verse 16, and we see that he slipped up a little bit.

2 Corinthians 26, or 2 Corinthians, Chronicles, sorry, 26, verse 16. But notice the verbiage here, notice the words here. When he was strong, his heart was lifted up. Does that sound humble? No, no, it's lifted up. He's got a very prideful attitude at this point in time. To his destruction, for he transgressed against the Lord his God by entering the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense. Again, this passage implies these sorts of things didn't happen when Uzziah remained humble. When he did what he was supposed to do, when he was small in his own eyes, as it mentioned with Saul, when he wasn't lifted up because of his own strength.

He didn't let his pride get the best of him. He didn't rely on his own strength and on his power. These sorts of things didn't happen. Uzziah prospered, Israel prospered. God blessed them exceedingly. Verse 17, we'll go ahead and read through verse 21. 26 verse 17. So, as Uriah the priest went in after him, so in he goes, censor incense in his hand right into the temple, like he's going to do the job of the priest here.

As Uriah the priest went in after him, and with him were eighty priests of the Lord, valiant men. And they withstood King Uzziah and said to him, It is not for you, Uzziah, to burn incense to the Lord, but for the priests, the son of Aaron, who were consecrated to burn incense. Get out of the sanctuary, for you have trespassed. You shall have no honor from the Lord God. Then Uzziah became furious, and he had a censor in his hand to burn incense. And while he was angry with the priests, leprosy broke out in his forehead before the priests in the house of the Lord beside the incense altar.

As Uriah the chief priest, and all the priests looked at him, and there on his forehead he was leproous. So they thrust him out of that place. Indeed, he also hurried to get out because the Lord had struck him. Probably a bit of a surprise. King Uzziah was a leper until the day of his death. He dwelt in an isolated house because he was a leper, for he was cut off from the house of the Lord.

Then Jotham his son was over the king's house judging the people of the land. They think there was a regency at that point in time. Well, some of that 52 years overlapped with Jotham's reign, that it wasn't immediately after the 52. But 81 priests stood up to the king, stood against the king of Israel, and told him, this is not your job.

You're overstepping your boundaries. Some things that even you as king are unable to perform. And it made Uzziah angry to be confronted, that someone would dare call him the king out, that they'd even think to tell the king of Israel that he wasn't allowed to do this. He was the king! Who did they think they are? God struck him with leprosy on the spot, and he remained a leper the remainder of his life. Again, we read in verse 16, when he was strong, when he was bigger in his own eyes than he really was, his heart was lifted up.

He was full of pride. And what he didn't realize, he didn't realize that the strengths of Israel and the different things that he did, and there were many, many, many things that happened. You know, fortified cities and towns, and you know, he defeated the Philistines. He got tribute from the Ammonites. You know, they were paying him a bunch of money from the Ammonites. He had fame, he had power, it went all the way down to Egypt.

But just like Nebuchadnezzar found out, kind of the hard way, all of that comes from God. All of that comes from God, and it can be taken away just as easily. But he kind of got this idea that he was the reason that it all had happened. He became prideful. He committed the same sin that Satan committed that we see recorded in Isaiah 14.

We won't turn there, but you're all very familiar with the terms. I will ascend. I will raise my throne. I will sit enthroned. I will make myself like the Most High, lifting themselves up prideful. The book of Proverbs records this concept and the resulting consequence of pride. Let's go to Proverbs 16.

Pick it up in verse 18, one of those passages that likely have memorized. But I want to make sure and look at both passages here. We sometimes memorize 18 at the exclusivity of 19. Proverbs 16.

Verse 18, we see Solomon's wisdom here. Proverbs 16 and verse 18 reads, and this is the memory part of things, Proverbs 16 verse 18, pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall. Now 19 is interesting. That's why I wanted to include this. Better to be of a humble spirit with the lowly than to divide the spoiled with the proud. Solomon realized it was extremely important to keep a humble spirit, that it would be better to be poor, to not have any riches at all, and be humble than to be rich and prideful, or to be rich and allow that to build yourself up like, oh, I'm doing all these amazing things that I'm doing, look at all this money that I'm making, or whatever, because a pride and a haughty spirit comes before a fall. It doesn't last.

Pride is fleeting. Pride doesn't last. It's true in individuals, it's true in societies, it's true in nations, and frankly, the United States would do really well to read this passage now and again, because we are a very prideful nation. We are a very prideful nation. You know, both Uzziah and Saul fought less of others and more of themselves as they became more and more powerful. And what that ultimately did is it led them to make choices with themselves and what they would gain from that in mind, rather than what God would get or what the nation would get out of that decision. And this wasn't, you know, something that was instantaneous, you know, this built over time. This was something that as they became more and more and more and more powerful, it became less and less and less about God and more and more about them.

And there are examples on the other side of this coin, too. Let's take a look at one sort of positive, sort of negative example. It's kind of an in-betweener, actually. Let's go take a look at the example of Gideon in Judges 6. Gideon in Judges 6.

Before we get to the good, really solid, positive example. Gideon in Judges 6, he was called by God during a very interesting time in Israel's history. They'd been given into the hands of the Midianites, who along with the Amalekites would regularly raid the land of Israel.

Regularly raid the land. They'd ruin crops. They'd, you know, kill off beasts of burden. And they'd been given into their hands for seven full years. And these raids were actually devastating enough. They referred to the raiders that were coming in. They referred to them as locusts. They would just sweep through and just destroy everything, you know, slaughtering cattle and sheep and whatever they could, just to kind of harass the Israelites and to make their lives difficult, steal their crops, steal their animals, etc. So we see Gideon was called during this time, and Israel as a whole was crying out to God for their deliverance in this devastation. And God sent him a prophet. God sent him a prophet that said, your idolatry has to stop. If you'd quit doing this, then God will hear you and God will fix it. And yet, many of them didn't. They wouldn't listen. They continued idolatry. Well, we see Gideon is threshing wheat in secret to avoid being detected. It turns out if you thresh wheat in a wine press, you know, during a different season, nobody's looking in the wine press, but they're looking for the threshing floors for the wheat. So in the wine press, it works out pretty good. But he was doing this in secret to avoid detection when the angel of the Lord appears to him. And he encourages Gideon. First words out of his mouth are encouraging. He refers to him as a mighty warrior and encourages him to rise up and to deliver God's people. And in verse 15 of Judges 6, we see the kind of humility that we've seen in the other passages. Judges 6 verse 15. So he said to him, Oh my Lord, how can I save Israel?

Indeed, my clan, my people, we are the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house.

In other words, once again, here's the who, me? You got the wrong guy! I'm not your guy! I'm not your guy! Notice that we don't see... you know what, God? I always figured you were smart, because you're right. I am amazing. I am definitely the guy who should do this. Yes, sir, sign me up. This is me. This is me. You're right. I'm that guy. He didn't do that. He didn't do that. Verse 14, he says, Go in your might and save Israel from the land of Midian. He said, but I'm the weakest. I'm the poorest. I'm not your guy. And what Gideon didn't realize is that God has a track record and a history for choosing those that feel as though they have nothing to offer, those who feel like they have absolutely nothing to give, because those individuals put to shame the strong, the powerful, the wise, because when you look at that person, you go, how could this person do that? Clearly God is the one. That way there's no glorying being done for the flesh. We put the glory towards God, but he was exactly the guy God was looking for to deliver Israel. And to deliver Israel, he did. He began by destroying the idols that his people were so entrenched in, which means his own father, in fact, in some cases. He did it not once, but twice, earning himself a new name. They called him Jerubbel. Jerub-bub-ble. Jerub-ble-ble-ble. Jerub-bel, however that's pronounced. But after all of his successes here, he gathered men with him to go and then kind of take on the combined armies of the Midianites and the Amalekites. We'll go ahead and pick it up in Judges 7. We won't go through all of it, all of this section in Judges 7. We'll just stay in the first little bit of it. So Judges 7, we'll pick it up in verse 1. Judges 7 verse 1 says that then Jerub-ble, Jerub-bub-ble-ble, Jerub-ble, vegetable. How was that one that I couldn't pronounce a lot one of the other times? Somebody afterwards comes up and goes, just call it a porch. You don't have to try to say vestibule, just call it a porch. So in this case, I'll just use the parentheses. That is Gideon. And all the people who were with him rose early and encamped beside the well of Herod, so the camp of the Midianites was on the north side of them by the hill of Mora in the valley.

And the Lord said to Gideon, the people who are with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hands, lest, notice why, Israel would claim glory for itself against me, saying, my own hand had saved them. In other words, if your numbers are too high and you win, there's going to be that patchy on the back, hey, we did awesome! We are amazing! Without that whole connection, that God gave them everything that they had. It was God's strength that provided it. It was God that provided it. Judges 7 verse 3, Now therefore proclaim in the hearing of the people, saying, Whoever is fearful and afraid, let him turn and depart at once from Mount Gilead, and 22,000 of the people returned, and 10,000 remained. 22,000 people said, see ya! You guys have fun! I'm going home! When given the opportunity to leave, he lost two-thirds of his army in one fell swoop. 10,000 men left. Now, God knew that that was still far too many people, so he didn't want to give him the opportunity to glory in their own achievement. He wanted to ensure they would give him the victory and give him the glory. So he had stacked the deck in such a way that there was no way that the Israelites could say it was them. And what God had to do here is he had to back them into a corner that only he could deliver them from. I don't know about you, but it seems sometimes in our lives, God has to put us in these places. We have to be put in places where it doesn't matter what we try to do. We're not getting ourselves out. We can't get ourselves out. We have to trust that God's going to take care of it and that God is going to deliver us and get ourselves out. But basically, he puts us in these places where the message is decidedly sent to us. Look, you can't do this yourself. You're going to have to trust me. You got no choice.

He continues to whittle away at Gideon's army, finally do through a couple of series of things, but he comes down to 300 men. 300 men remain. And at that point, this is impossible. 300 guys against the entirety of the combined armies of the Midianites and the Amalekites and some of the other eastern tribes that are unnamed. 300 versus multiple tens of thousands at the very least, potentially hundreds of thousands otherwise. But they routed them. We know the story. They go into the camp. You know, God turns their swords upon themselves. The guys come out in all kinds of confusion from their tents, and they're hacking each other up. In the meantime, Gideon and his army are standing on the outside with their torches screaming and hooping and hollering, just watching them take each other out in the middle of the thing. God delivered them the victory. Handed it right to them.

The more important part to our story today, though, is what happens next. That's the more important component. Let's go to Judges 8, verse 22. After that portion of the battle, they start chasing the Midianites through the parts of Israel, trying to run them off, finally capture the couple of Midianite kings. They go through, they kill them, and we pick it up in Judges 8, verse 22. Judges 8, verse 22.

Then the men of Israel said to Gideon, rule over us. Both you and your son and your grandson also, for you have delivered us from the hand of Midian. In other words, be our king! Become our leader! Rule over us! After what you've done, rule over us! We will follow you! Boy, if that's not a seductive chalice of power, as the article earlier went. People wanting to elevate you to this position of king, and wanting to follow you, and to be your subjects, to take care of all these different things. The men of Israel offered that to him right then and there. Begin a dynasty of rulers. Not even just you, but then your son will rule, and your grandson will rule, and his son will rule. On and on down the line this dynasty goes. Right here, right now, just say yes. Sign on the dotted line, so to speak. That power would be incredible. And he tasted power. He was charismatic. He could have easily said yes and become king. But notice what he says in verse 23. Gideon said to them, I will not rule over you, nor shall my son rule over you. The Lord shall rule over you. I'm not gonna do it. Neither's my kid. God will rule over you. He rejected, to an extent, their hero worship. Now I say to an extent, because as we read further down in this passage, we see some things that Gideon did not do right. And there are a couple of things that seem to give some evidences that perhaps after this moment he may have had a slight change of heart. We'll go into those. I'll mention them here. But at that moment Gideon realized it really wasn't about him. It wasn't about how much power he could obtain, how much he could take, how much he could get from other people. Rather, it was important how he served God, how he trusted in God, and how God delivered, and the glory that he was able to give God through that victory. But he was the least of the clans, he was the least of his family, and he rose to become an incredible leader. And he didn't really let it go to his head, at least at that point. He asked the men later on in this passage for a number of gold items from the spoils of the war. And he makes this golden ephod out of it. And it ultimately becomes an idol in his house. It ultimately takes the place of God. It takes a place as an idol in the town in which he's living. And it becomes a stumbling block to his family, and ultimately a stumbling block to Israel. His focus on God slipped, he stumbled, and eventually on his death Israel returns to their idolatry. You don't stay out of it very long, which is a common reoccurrence. But additionally, and this is what I'm getting at with a little bit of evidence, it may be even though he said I'm not going to be king, he may have lived a little like a king even despite that. Despite turning down the opportunity to become king, it seems he kind of still lived as a king. He multiplied a number of wives. He had something like, what, 70 kids? Had an unbelievable amount of children. It was three score and ten, if I recall. But he had like 70 kids. He had a concubine. And the final piece of evidence, this is the one to me that is kind of a little bit solid. The child from the concubine he named Abimelech, which means my father, the king.

So I don't know if that into if he if he kind of took that persona a little bit and kind of lived, even though he wasn't officially a king. I honestly don't know, but it is kind of an interesting thing. But his example isn't perfect. His example isn't perfect. He does seem to have been affected by his power a little bit later in life after the events that we see in Judges 8. But our final example today, I told you we were going to go to one this positive. Our final example today is a man who can very clearly be placed in the giver category. And he is one of the few examples of people that we see scripturally, men scripturally, who gave up power to become a servant of God, who gave up power, who gave up a cushy life to become someone who is chased, beaten senseless, attempted to be killed, imprisoned, exiled. But that's Saul of Tarsus. Saul of Tarsus spent much of his early life persecuting those in the church. He was a high-ranking Pharisee, held a significant amount of power within that order. He was directly responsible for a number of deaths of some of the early church members, notably Stephen, whose stoning he supervised. They laid Stephen's clothes at his feet.

When he was converted, though, along the road to Damascus, ironically when his eyes were opened, when he was blinded and his eyes were kind of opened, God finally revealed to Paul who he was to become and what his responsibility would be. When his heart was circumcised, he didn't argue. He submitted himself to God's authority and he became an incredible servant of God. Let's go to Philippians 3. There's a message that he records to the church in Philippi that is pretty incredible in Philippians 3. He talks a little bit of his...he's got a number of locations within his writings where he talks kind of of his qualifications. I think there must have been a need for him to kind of put those qualifications in writing at that time frame. But Philippians 3...we'll go ahead and pick it up. We'll go to verse 2 for a little bit of context. Philippians 3, verse 2, in one of these spots where he goes through and he kind of outlines some of his qualifications.

Philippians 3, verse 2 says, beware of dogs. Beware of dogs, not like literally canines, but what he's talking about is specifically kind of an analogy towards individuals here that he's going to discuss. Beware of evil workers. Beware of the mutilation. For we are the circumcision who worship God in the Spirit, who rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh. Though I might have confidence in the flesh, if anyone else thinks he may have confidence in the flesh, I more so. This is where he kind of gets into his previous life. Circumcised the eighth day of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews concerning the law of Pharisee, concerning zeal, persecuting the church, concerning the righteous, which is in the law, blameless. Looking at what he understood of the law before, he looked at his life as blameless in that law. But what things were gain to me, for what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things lost for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I have suffered, the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I might gain Christ, and be found in him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith, that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings being conformed to his death. You know, Paul looked at all of the achievements, all the gains that he'd made in his previous life, all of the, you know, middle-level management in the Pharisees that he'd kind of reached himself to.

All those things he counted as gains at the time, his zeal, the persecutions, you know, his his ranking as a Pharisee, the Hebrew of Hebrews, he counted them garbage. He counted them garbage.

Now that he understood, instead he desired the knowledge of Christ, to live as Christ taught, to preach the gospel that Christ preached. And you know, despite becoming a... I would count Paul as a fairly high-ranking apostle. You know, I mean, when it comes... I'm sure there were like hierarchy within the apostles themselves there, but I think you make a pretty decent argument. He was one of the most influential among the world at that time, you know, from a standpoint of his travels. But he never let that go to his head. He never let that go to his head. In fact, he refers to himself as the least among the apostles in 1 Corinthians 15. He said that he didn't feel based on his past behavior, he didn't deserve to be called an apostle. He was humble. It's extremely humble, because when Paul... what Paul recognized is when it came down to it, he was a tool in the tool shed. He was a tool in the tool shed. He wasn't the gardener. He wasn't the gardener. He had a specific job, and that job was important, and it caused the work to get done in the garden. You know what enabled the gardener to do the harvest? But at the end of the day, he's still a tool in the hands of the gardener. He was not the gardener. He was not the gardener.

In fact, he wrote... let's go over to 1 Corinthians 1, verse 27. 1 Corinthians 1, verse 27. We'll kind of start wrapping things up here today. 1 Corinthians 1, verse 27. We'll go ahead and read through verse 29. There it is. Pardon me.

Hmm, that's not what I'm looking for. It must be 2 Corinthians. My apologies.

I think I'll go over there and find out. If not, I'm just gonna have to summarize it. I'm gonna have to do that little trick where you say, it is written. It's in there. 2 Corinthians.

Nope, that's not the one I'm looking for, either. I wrote down a marginal note that is not gonna work for me. But basically, he talks about... maybe it's seven... he talks about how... is it 27?

What did I look at? One, two? I think I did. My fantastic wife has informed me that I was correct the first time that I've told you what I was looking for, but I didn't go to verse 27. I went to verse 2, which is now... I can recall exactly what I did. 1, verse 27. There we go. 1, verse 27. We'll read through 29. It says, But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise. We referenced that earlier. And God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty, and the base things of the world, and the things which are despised.

God has chosen in the things which are not to bring to nothing the things that are. And why? Verse 29. That no flesh should glory in his presence. That no flesh should glory in his presence. When he says that God has called the foolish, the base, and the weak, he's talking about himself. He's lumping himself in there, too. But he's also lumping us in. You know, sometimes this is a good passage. Sometimes we start getting a big head about stuff. We have all these... all this truth that's been revealed to us, which I mean is an amazing thing. But we don't need to get a giant, you know, big head about it and get egotistical about it. God chose us because of these reasons right here. You know, we are the foolish. We are the weak. We are the base things.

Saul lost sight of that. Saul lost sight of that. Uzziah and even Gideon, to an extent, lost sight of that. Paul, on the other hand, was obedient to his death. He gave his life for the truth of God so that the people of Galatia, of Ephesus, of Rome, Corinth, Colossia, many more of those early church locations, those parts of the early church, could come to the truth of Jesus Christ and the gospel of the kingdom of God. You know, brethren, we need to keep this concept in mind as we go about our Father's business. You know, we have been given the incredible blessing of God's truth, and we've been called to be tools in the tool shed as well. And we're no greater than any of our fellow tools in the tool shed. We're all designed. We're all chosen to do a specific job. You know, God desires that we preach the gospel of the kingdom together and in unison. We've been given the job, really, I mean, we think about it, we've been given the job to be ambassadors.

And with that role, we've been given a degree of authority. Will we let it go to our head? Will we let that go to our head? Will we be givers or will we be takers? In our interactions with others, when we do choose to interact, what's the purpose? What's our overall goal from that interaction?

Is it glory to God or is it glory to us? Are we putting ourself on a pedestal? Are we winning the argument, so to speak, so that we can look good? Or are we winning the argument so that God can look good and so that God's truth is known and God's truth is understood? You know, to much of the world, the gospel that we preach is foolishness. The truth of God, the plan of God, merely a fable.

But that doesn't change the importance of our preaching. It doesn't change what we have to do. It doesn't change our commission. And when we come into contact with other people who don't necessarily believe the way that we do, and we are preaching the gospel out in the public, you know, because it's not really preaching the gospel if you're only talking to people who agree with you, you know, if we're preaching the gospel out in the public and we encounter people that don't believe the way that we do, consider the interaction. What will it be? Will it be give or will it be take?