This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Hi, this is Pastor Tom, and I want to welcome you to week five of our look
through the book of Psalms. This is the last week of our first section of our
look through the book of Psalms. We're going to do it in six different parts.

And so as we end this this week, we're looking at Psalm 21 to 25, which of
course includes Psalm 23, the most familiar of all the Psalms, "The Lord is my
shepherd. " On either side you have Psalm 22 and 24, which are amongst the most
powerful of the Psalms. Psalm 22, 23, and 24 might be the strongest trio of
Psalms in all the Psalms.

And the book ends to those Psalm 21, "How to be a great leader," Psalm 25, "How
to stay on God's path. " So it's going to be a good week together of looking at
the Psalms. Starting today with, "How do you be a great leader?

" What does Psalm 21 have to say to us? This is a Psalm that is written by David
as the king. And writing as a king, he gives us some lessons on how to be a
great leader.

Truth is, we are all leaders in one way or another. You may be leading one, or
you may be leading many. You may be leading visibly.

You may be leading without really knowing that you're leading. But as a follower
of Christ, any of us, we are leaders. And this Psalm has some really powerful
lessons for what it means to be a great leader, beginning with number one,
"Great leaders look to God for their strength.

" That's how this Psalm begins and ends, with the fact that God is our strength.
Psalm 21, "One says, 'O Lord, the king rejoices in your strength. How great is
his joy in the victories that you give!

'" And verse 13, at the end of the Psalm, says, "Be exalted, O Lord, in your
strength. We will sing and praise your might. " When you think about leadership,
we all have strengths.

Some more than others. And based on our human strengths alone, truth is, you can
be an okay leader, even maybe a good leader. You can get things done.

You can keep people motivated. The things that we would say make a good leader.
But great leaders have to have more than that.

Great leaders have an integrity that challenges people to be more than they
thought they could be. They have a hope in God that gives hopeless people a
sense of hope. They look to eternity in a way that causes those around them to
live for that which is truly significant.

They don't just build companies. They build people. They don't just raise
children well.

They give children a faith and a hope and a love to live for and to pass on. And
you can't do those things in your strength. You can try, but you'll run out of
strength pretty quick.

You need God's strength for that. If you're weary when it comes to leading, if
it just seems like too much, the question you have to ask yourself is, "Who am I
looking to for strength? " Great leaders look to God's great strength.

There's a second truth in this psalm about great leaders. Great leaders look to
God's victories for their joy. They find their joy, their greatest joy in the
victories that God gives.

Where do you find your greatest joy? In verse 2, "You have granted him, the
king, the desire of his heart, and have not withheld the request of his lips. "
And in verses 5 and 6, "Through the victories that you gave, his glory is great.

You have bestowed on him splendor and majesty. Surely you have granted him
eternal blessings and made him glad with the joy of your presence. " We've
talked about strength in the first point.

Joy is actually where your strength comes from. That's what the Bible teaches
us. The joy of the Lord is your strength.

So if you find joy in the wrong things, you'll find yourself constantly without
the strength or the motivation to be a great leader. Where you find your joy is
all important when it comes to being a great leader. When you see it as your
victory, that gives you a certain amount of happiness, but it's not enough to
keep you going.

When you see it as God's victory, a victory that he allowed you to witness, that
he may have even used you in accomplishing, then you have genuine joy. And
that's where great leaders look for their joy. Now this psalm at the end of
those two points says "selah," which means stop, pause, consider, let that sink
in.

You've got to have great strength, and you've got to have great joy, and you
have to look to God for both of those if you're going to be a great leader. A
third truth this psalm teaches us is great leaders humbly recognize that God has
given them their life and leadership. This is in verse 3.

He welcomed him with rich blessings and placed a crown of pure gold on his head.
He asked you for life, and you gave it to him, length of days, forever and ever.
Within great leadership, there is this sense of I would have nothing without
you, Lord.

You gave me my life. You gave me every blessing that I have. You gave me this
responsibility of leadership.

Great leaders know that. They understand that. The more I think I own it or I've
developed or made it, the less of a great leader I can be.

It's this humility of recognizing that it's a stewardship that's been given by
God that causes you to be great in your leadership. There's a fifth truth about
great leadership. There's a fourth truth of the five truths we're going to look
at about great leadership in this psalm, and that great leaders know that evil
will not succeed.

If you want to be a truly great leader, you can't be afraid of evil. You have to
know that it will not succeed. You have to know the truth of verse 11.

Though they plot evil against you and devise wicked schemes, they cannot
succeed. Great leaders, they don't live in fear because they know that God will
be victorious in the end. Now, I'm not saying that you won't face disappointment
and sometimes even devastation because of the presence of evil in this world.

But even when it looks like Satan has taken everything from you, you know deep
down that there is a victory beyond this life that no one can take from you, and
that you have a love from God in this life that nothing can separate you from.
You know the truth of 2 Timothy 4. 18, "The Lord will rescue me from every evil
attack and will bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom.

To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen. " That's what Paul wrote near the
end of his life.

He knew that there was no evil attack that could keep him from being the leader,
the person, the faithful man that God intended for him to be. An immediate
crisis that comes with an attack, it may seem very powerful, but it is actually
just an expiring breath of wind when compared to the eternal reality of God's
rescue in your life. That's what's going to last forever and ever and ever, and
great leaders know that.

And so although they know they have to face evil and deal with evil, they know
that they don't have to be afraid of evil. It's the fifth truth about great
leaders in this psalm, and that is great leaders have great trust. Verse 7, "For
the king trusts in the Lord.

Through the unfailing love of the Most High, he will not be shaken. " What's the
number one quality of a great leader? You could say it's love, you could make a
good argument for that, but there are many people who love without actually
really being a leader.

They don't lead anybody else. You could say it's faith, but I would say it's
important to do something about that faith. So I'd say that possibly the
greatest quality of a great leader is right here, it's trust.

The trust to take the faith that God has given you and the direction that God
has given you and the love that God has given you, and to do something about it,
to act on it. That's what trust does. It acts on the faith and the love and the
hope that God has given.

My friend Rick Muchow is a great leader. As a worship pastor, I worked with him
for many, many years here at Saddleback. I saw him being a great leader, and
then after being at Saddleback for many years training younger worship pastors,
I saw him being a great leader.

And then these last few years, Rick has faced brain cancer. And once again, I
watched him be a great leader, even as he's faced these difficult days. The
theme of Rick's life is "Trust God.

" One of his greatest songs is "Trust God from the bottom of your heart. " And
he loves when he speaks into the mic in the testing, making sure that it works,
saying those words "trusting," one, two, three. Instead of testing, he loves to
say "trusting," one, two, three.

And it's a reminder to me that the kind of leader that he is has been. Great
leaders have a great trust in God. And so you, as you trust God with whatever is
in front of you right now, you have no idea who you're going to be leading
through that trust.

That circumstance that you are facing, it is not just about you. God wants you
to trust him with that circumstance because he knows that your trust will lead
others in the circumstances that they are facing. And so as we think about the
truth that God has brought into all of our lives, this responsibility to lead at
least one other person, and for some of you, it's many other people, I want to
pray for you.

Right now, Lord, I pray for each person listening. I pray for our leadership. I
pray, God, that you use us to lead others to places of trust in you, of faith in
you, of hope in you.

If that's going to happen, we're going to need the humility to realize that it's
all from you, God. The strength is from you. The joy is from you.

The daily hope that we need, it is from you and you alone. And so right now, we
ask you, God, would you use us? Would you use us to lead others to places of
strength?

Would you strengthen us to lead others to places of hope? We need you to do
this. We ask for your strength to do this.

We ask for it in Jesus' name, amen.