I Samuel 2:12-4:1a: Kings and Kingdoms Week 3

All throughout history men have searched for their next leader. Nations, are looking for a ruler. Kingdoms, searching for a king. Corporations, looking for a CEO. Schools looking for a principal. Churches looking for a pastor. There isn’t a realm of the world that you can go to that doesn’t have some sort of leader or leader figure. You can go to the remotest tribes in the jungles of Africa and find that even they have a chief. You can’t get away from it—people need someone to follow. The Apostle Paul recognized this in I Corinthians 11 when Paul said “Imitate me as I imitate Christ.” We all need someone to follow! But what do you look for in a leader? Well, I suppose it depends on what type of leader you are looking for. Different types of leaders require different sets of skills. And EVERYBODY has their own ideas and opinions about what those qualifications should be. For instance—if you’re talking about the president of the United States, there are all kinds of ideas about what that leaders should have for qualifications. And you can see a broad spectrum—we’ve had politicians, we’ve had a movie star, we currently have a successful entrepreneur. If you’re talking the CEO of a company, you’re probably going to want someone with some business experience, who has a proven track record in leadership and has met with success in their career. If you’re talking about a university, well then you’re going to want a head who has a doctorate and skill in educational management. All kinds of qualifications necessary to be used in various settings. But what about the person God uses? What are the requirements to be used of God? Often times we try to come up with our own requirements for the person God uses. Maybe it’s the resident theologue—the person who knows all about doctrine and can detail all the nuances of theology. Maybe we think it is the educated person—they went to Bible college or a little seminary, or here at Faith—they completed the entire FBI course so they are most likely to be used of God. Maybe we think it’s the person who’s been saved the longest, they obviously have more experience in serving God. Or maybe we think it has something to do with spiritual disciplines—this person always has long prayers so they must be spiritual and the type of person God is looking for. In reality, none of those are accurate. While those are all God things, God’s metric for choosing people to be his servants is drastically different that we might sometimes expect. So what determines the type of person God prefers to use? What type of person is the first choice for being used of God? The story we have today from I Samuel 2-3 answers that question for us. We meet two leaders—I call it the tale of two leaders. One current leader and one future leader. And their stories are intentionally intertwined, and they are pitted against each other to demonstrate who God uses, and who God doesn’t.