Apr 3, 2018
Welcome to Coaching Christian Leaders. My name is Mark Jones and
I coach Christian Leaders. Today we will be looking at the first of
many biblical teachings on leadership.
When I meet with leaders, a common statement that I hear from them
is this, “I just want to finish well.” I can appreciate that. I too
want to finish well. But what I believe these leaders are really
saying is that they want to maintain their integrity throughout
their time of service.
So today the biblical leadership topic we will focus on is
integrity.
Open your Bible to Psalm 78 and find your way to verse 70. Let's
look at 70-72.
God chose David to lead Israel. And David led Israel as a shepherd.
He had been a shepherd for his earthly father. But he became a
shepherd for the Heavenly Father.
Like David, I believe God has called you to your place of
leadership. He has chosen you to lead as David led. God has placed
you, with your unique gifts and talents in this place of
leadership.
It is interesting to me that Asaph, the man God used to pen this
psalm, viewed David’s leadership as shepherding. A shepherd
feeds the flock. A shepherd protects the flock. A shepherd leads
the flock. Was this style of leadership, shepherding, unique
to David? I don’t think so. I believe God has placed you in a
similar place to do a like work.
But the reason we have come to this Psalm is verse 72. Let’s look
at the easy part first. The easy part is the last half of the
verse. It says about David that he, “guided them by the
skillfulness of his hands.” Charles Spurgeon, in
his Treasury of David, writes about this phrase.
Spurgeon writes, “He was a sagacious ruler” ..... To be truthful, I
did not know the word “sagacious.” I had to look it up. It
means, having or showing keen mental discernment and good judgment
– to be wise, to be clever.
From what I know of David, he was a good administrator, a clever
diplomat, he was intelligent. So David was clever, he was
intelligent, he was “sagacious.” But it is the first half of verse
72 that makes me pause. Here it is once again, So he
shepherded them according to the integrity of his
heart. Integrity of heart – Did you see that? Maybe Asaph
forgot about Bathsheba and Uriah?
Remember earlier, I told you that many leaders I meet with want to
finish well. I told you that I too want to finish well. But what
about the start of our leadership or the middle of it? Shouldn’t we
want these to also reflect integrity? Certainly! If we look at the
early years of David’s leadership, those years were models of
integrity. And from what we know of David’s later years, they too
seem to be good years.
Barnes in his commentary writes, “Save in the matter of Uriah ....
his administration was eminently just, pure, impartial,
wise,......” Yes, save in the matter of Uriah.
To be fair to David, he did repent, he did pay a great price for
his sin, and he did rebound to “finish well.” All of us can blow
it. Anyone of us can fail. And we can fail like David. When we do,
let us repent and seek the Savior’s forgiveness. Better yet,
let us ask God to help us lead with integrity in all phases of our
leadership – the beginning, the middle, and the end.
Now here are two coaching questions for you to answer. Get a piece of paper and write them down, or you can find them in the show notes. Just go to CoachingChristianLeaders.com and look at episode 12.
Here is question number one.