Leadership is stewardship

Everyone has a definition of leadership. John Maxwell says it is influence; Robert Greenleaf says it is serving people so they can flourish. Pastor Juliet lands on something simpler: leadership is stewardship. Leaders steward what God has placed in their hands and lead people to places they could never reach on their own. Parents, teachers, coaches, counselors, and friends are all leading somewhere. Anyone can pick up the skill set, but being a godly leader takes more than practical tools. It takes an internal resolve formed by the Holy Spirit, because "we cannot be godly leaders in the society we are living in today without the Holy Spirit."

God is not only calling you to lead someday, when the promotion comes. He is asking you to lead differently right where you are, even in the in-between season. That starts with how you think, which is why the message is anchored in Romans 12:2: be transformed by the renewal of your mind.

David was a crockpot, not a microwave

To the soldiers in the valley, David looked like an overnight success. He was not. God had been doing slow, hidden formation in him for years with the sheep, the lion, and the bear. Three characters in 1 Samuel 17 represent three mindsets that would have stopped that formation, and that will stop ours.

1. Eliab: the mindset of criticism

When David's oldest brother heard him asking questions at the battle line, he burned with anger, belittled him, and questioned his motives, and David had not even spoken to him yet. If you do anything worthwhile, you will be criticized by people who do not know your full story. David's response is the model: he addressed it in a sentence and moved on. He did not let bitterness take root or let embarrassment short-circuit what God was doing, and because he kept going, he ended up in front of the king. Take note of the Eliabs in your life, and notice when the critical voice is your own. Speak life over yourself: this is holy territory.

2. Goliath: the mindset of discouragement

Goliath cursed David and promised to feed him to the birds. David answered with faith because the moment, while big, was not unfamiliar. The lion and the bear had produced the same adrenaline and the same helplessness, and God had already given him victory there. How you respond to today's giant reveals the training you have already had. Courage is not a microwave characteristic; it is grown in the secret place, through weakness that God pulled you out of. True Davids are only revealed when a Goliath shows up. If you are going to do something worth anything, discouragement will come, and you will have to defend your courage when it does.

3. Saul: the mindset without vision

While David fought Goliath, Saul's only question was "Whose son is that young man?" He cared about lineage because David was about to join his family. He was fighting a small battle as if it were the whole war, blinded by his own weaknesses, and the Spirit of God had departed from him. He had lost the fear of the Lord, and that is the moment the war was lost. David, by contrast, kept the fear of God and kept a long view. He took Goliath's armor to his own tent instead of handing it to his superior as an armor bearer should, because he knew this battle was one step toward a promise he would not see for more than a decade. Years later that same sword came back to him from the priest Ahimelech when Saul was hunting him.

Know your war

Everyone is in a battle, and everyone is in a war. The battles are the conversations, the budget, the building, the daily grind. The war is the purpose God put on your life and the people who will come to know Him because of it. Do not let puny battles, or thumb fights on social media, take you out. A formed character can look at criticism and see it for what it is, look at discouragement and speak the Word to it, and cast God's vision where there is none.

Don't run from the Eliabs, Goliaths, and Sauls

Each of them is forming a David inside you. The fear of the Lord keeps us humble, sanctified, centered on truth rather than emotion, and living with integrity whether or not anyone is watching. The degree, the spouse, the children, the business, and the influence are not the purpose; they are for the will of God. It will take people willing to overcome these deadly mindsets and put on the mind of Christ.