1 Samuel 24. Sparing Saul | Niv Lobo | 260913 | Looking for a leader

As we begin, something to think about, a question that, to be honest, I think all of us probably have thought about: What kind of people get to the top? What do you need to have to make it in a competitive environment? How do you get to be number one? Uh, I remember enjoying a TV show called Succession, uh, and it features a billionaire tycoon called Logan Roy, who came from nothing, rags to riches.

A billionaire with a vast global media empire, but he's aging, and that's the point of the show.

It's why it's called Succession.

Which of his children will take over? But here's the problem.

None of his children have done the rags to riches thing.

They've just known riches all their life, and so he's afraid that they're soft, that they don't have what it takes.

In one of the scenes, he says to his eldest son, "You're not a killer.

You have to be a killer." Another scene, he's talking to all his children and he says to them, "I love you, but you are not serious people." They don't have killer instinct.

They don't do what needs to be done.

And so he fears he can't entrust his empire to them.

What kind of people make it to the top and stay there? Isn't it ruthless people, serious people, killers, if you like? Chapters 24 to 26 of 1 Samuel are, are going to help us see the answer to that question.

And if you're an art fan, you would recognize these three chapters as a triptych.

Ever seen one of those? That's a sort of three-panel painting.

Um, and it's sort of three panels, and that's what we're gonna find.

Chapter 24 is panel one, very similar to chapter 26 and chapter 25 in the middle.

But across all three of these chapters, here's the question we're trying to figure out: How will David get to the top? W- we've heard the promise of God that he's on his way up.

If you were here last week, it- it's what we recognize as the X shape of history.

David is the humble king that God is gonna bring to the highest place, even as he humbles the proud under him.

But the question is, how is he going to get there? What will God do to bring his Christ, his anointed one, his Messiah, to the top? And the answer has nothing to do with being a killer.

What we see in this chapter is that God puts Saul into David's hands to test and reveal David's heart.

And what we see in this chapter shows us what Christ David does.

But in truth, the reason why it's so important for us to see this evening is that it is the pattern of what the true Christ Jesus does.

It gives us a, a picture of how the true Christ gets to the top.