ILLUSTRATION:
Mother Teresa – So many leaders have the idea that to lead greatly you have to focus on everyone. Mother Teresa took a different approach. She saw the poor. The hurt. The dying. And she knew something had to be done. When you know that there’s that many hurting people out there, you might think you’d go to work helping them all. Mother Teresa didn’t.
Instead, she got to work helping one person. AT A TIME.
She did what she could for the person right in front of her. She learned to FOCUS on the immediate need. She decided to HELP the person right then. Leadership example? Take on one person at a time. Doing so makes a difference.
Judges 4: 1-9
4:1 After Ehud’s death, the Israelites again did evil in the Lord’s sight. 2 So the Lord turned them over to King Jabin of Hazor, a Canaanite king. The commander of his army was Sisera, who lived in Harosheth-haggoyim (Har-o-seth)(hag-go-yim). 3 Sisera, who had 900 iron chariots, ruthlessly oppressed the Israelites for twenty years. Then the people of Israel cried out to the Lord for help.
4 Deborah, the wife of Lappidoth(Lap-pu-doth), was a prophet who was judging Israel at that time. 5 She would sit under the Palm of Deborah, between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim, and the Israelites would go to her for judgment. 6 One day she sent for Barak son of Abinoam(A-bin-o-am), who lived in Kedesh in the land of Naphtali. She said to him, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, commands you: Call out 10,000 warriors from the tribes of Naphtali and Zebulun at Mount Tabor. 7 And I will call out Sisera, commander of Jabin’s army, along with his chariots and warriors, to the Kishon River. There I will give you victory over him.”
8 Barak told her, “I will go, but only if you go with me.”
9 “Very well,” she replied, “I will go with you. But you will receive no honor in this venture, for the Lord’s victory over Sisera will be at the hands of a woman.” So Deborah went with Barak to Kedesh.
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Ending of the story: Barak, along with Deborah, took their 10,000 man army to Mt. Tabor. The army reconnoiter, made camp and observed the enemy, and when God told Deborah it was time she said to the Army get up and they went off Mt. Tabor and totally destroyed Sisera’s army. Sisera found refuse in the tent of Heber the Kenite. His wife, Jael, killed Sisera while he slept.
1 A woman lead by God and a man of God getting up and following the Holy Spirit. Neither sat around waiting for God to do all the work for them. Barak wasn't doubting God. He only wanted to ensure that Deborah knew she had a message from God. Barak just wanted to ensure Debora believed what to do and the success of the outcome as told to her by God.
2 Barak really didn't care who got credit. Doesn’t that say a lot about him.
3 Over all meaning here is: God doesn’t hand out gifts but he does give victory. Victory comes when we believe enough to get up and start doing what God wants.
3a Unless we have quenched the Holy Spirit - we know what God wants when He gives us the desire or we know what the Bible says. We move by examples in our Bible and by the One True God we call Jesus and what he has told us. Then we accept the leadership of the Holy Spirit that lives within us we get up and go forth to do what God has welled for us.
