A Tale of Three Kings | Summer Reads | Part 4 of 7

Welcome back to the Impact Leadership Podcast. In today's episode, we'll be continuing our series, “Summer Reads.” Chip Parker will be discussing another book: A Tale of Three Kings by Gene Edwards. We become better leaders when we trust God's timing, and lead with character and integrity throughout every stage of our career. Let’s dive in!

Thanks for listening to the Impact Leadership podcast! We are so glad that you're here. If you're looking to connect with Chip Parker, send him a message at chip@theorchardcc.org. New episodes are released weekly on Wednesdays. We'll catch you in the next episode!

Transcript

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Hey everybody, welcome in to the Impact Leadership Podcast. My name is Chip Parker and I'm the lead pastor at the Orchard Community Church, a multi-site church in North Central Florida working to impact lostness and impact the next generation. This podcast is all about helping you as a church leader grow your leadership to grow your impact. Let's hop into this week's conversation. All right. Well, welcome back in. I gotta say, I have been loving this conversation going back over some of my favorite leadership books. We've got to learn from my good friend Pat Lancioni. And by good friend, I mean that I've never met him in my life. He has absolutely no idea who I am, but I've read a lot of his books and learned from him. Last week we got to look at two books that focus maybe a little bit more on the church world in Hero Maker and Trellis and the Vine. But today I want to talk to you about the book that I never saw coming. What do I mean by that? This book that we're going to talk about today is a book called The Tale of Three Kings, and it's by Gene Edwards. It was not on my leadership radar. It was recommended to me by someone that I didn't know really well, but I wanted to learn from as a leader. And then when I picked this book up and started reading it, it didn't read like a normal leadership book. It read almost like his historical fiction. And I don't mean like Pat Lincioni's leadership fable. I mean this thing was written much like a play, if we're being honest. And it kind of took me off guard. But I think that's part of the beauty of this book. This book, A Tale of Three Kings, was written by Gene Edwards, and it is about the life of King Saul, King David, and King Absalom from the Old Testament. And it is a book that devastated me in the best way. If I'm going to be really honest and transparent, and maybe I should get this out in the open as we begin, is that ambition is something that I have always struggled with as a leader. It's something that I have always had to really keep in check and take before the Lord and make sure that my heart was in the right place, because it's not enough to do the right thing if we don't do it in the right way. And so this has been a struggle for me. And that's what the book, The Tale of Three Kings, is all about. It compares the kings of Saul and David, where Saul was a king in authority and David was young and up and coming. And then David and Absalom, when David was king and Absalom was young and up and coming, to talk about how we as leaders see ambition, how ambition and power and submission and ultimately brokenness can and does shape us as leaders. When you see that tale of three kings, we see Saul in this book represented as an insecure leader, which he was. He was threatened by David and David's rise to power as the next anointed king of Israel. And then we see Absalom, who is the young man now who wants to be the next king of Israel and sees his father as an obstacle, uh, someone full of ambition and detached from power. And in the middle we see David. We see David as the king in waiting, not kicking the door to the kingdom open, but waiting on God's timing for him to take the throne in place of Saul. And then as an older king, we see him asking, Is my time done? Do I need to step down? Is this what the Lord has next? And so you see Saul, David, and Absalom in this beautiful display of relationships that teach us so much about leadership. Whether we are the king on the throne or the one who seems to be coming next, no matter what kind of leader you are, this book speaks to you. And it speaks to our character as leaders. And it speaks to really, I think, the hidden temptation of leadership that we see in ambition, power, and authority. As a matter of fact, what we see in this book is really an exploration of power and how we handle power, how we should handle power, how we should handle ambition. And the point here is that we be like David in both. When David was the one who was up and coming, when he was under Saul's leadership, he could have taken the kingdom by force and said, Well, Saul is an evil and a vile leader. Saul is a leader that is going against God's will and he could have taken the kingdom by force. And yet he showed restraint and patience and waited on God's timing because he knew that it was God's job to open the door to the kingdom and not his to kick it down. And then when the roles are reversed and David's the king and Absalom is the young up and comer, we see David saying, Is it time for me to step back? The kingdom is not something that I should hold on to so tightly because power and authority ultimately mean nothing if my time is done. But yet Absalom sees David as a Saul. Absalom sees David as that wicked king who needs to be removed for the good of the people, for the good of the nation, but ultimately for the good of his own ambition. And then at the beginning of the book, we understand that Saul sees David really as Absalom, that rebellious young up and comer who's trying to take his throne away. And that's when you start to see the beauty of a tale of three kings, because it shows us so much about our own hearts. As leaders, what we see is that Saul's can only see Absalom's, and Absalom's can only see Saul's. And yet it's our job to be David's no matter the situation. Whether we are the quote king in authority and look behind us and see a bunch of Absaloms who are coming to take our place. No, we operate with integrity, we do not cling to power and authority, and we trust the Lord. Or whether we are, you know, the David who has a Saul over us who feels like we are being mistreated and abused and done wrong, then we don't take the throne by force because we are not Absaloms. We wait for God to open the door because maybe he's not done with Saul just yet. I think one of the key themes of this book is about the pain that comes with leadership. The pain that comes when we are attacked rightly or wrongly. And that attack is much like spears that are thrown directly at our hearts. As a matter of fact, that's one of my favorite pictures out of this book in the life of David and Saul. As David is that next king of Israel who has been anointed by God, Saul one day loses his mind and picks up a spear and chunks at David. And Gene Edwards here just beautifully takes that picture of Saul chunking a spear at David, and he shows us as leaders how each one of us know what it is to have a spear thrown at us, where we are being attacked, where we are being maligned, where people are saying things behind our backs or rallying the troops to put us down, to overthrow us or whatever. And so then Gene Edwards says, Well, what do we need to learn about throwing spears? He says, Well, number one, you can easily tell when someone has been hit by a spear, they turn a deep shade of bitter. And man, isn't that true? When we have been hit by spears, it's easy to get bitter as a leader. It's easy to talk about how we've been mistreated or how we've been done wrong and we get bitter quickly. As a matter of fact, maybe you're listening today and you're no longer a leader because you've been hit by too many spears and now you've turned bitter. So what do we do? What do what do we do when spears are thrown at us? Number one, Edward says that we never learn anything about the fashionable, easily mastered art of spear throwing. That may be how others operate, but that's not how we operate. He says, number two, we stay out of the company of all spear throwers. And listen, I hope I'm not the first one to ever tell you this. But if somebody will throw spears at others when you're in their presence, when you're not in their presence, they're going to be throwing spears at you. So we stay out of the company of all spear throwers. And then finally, we keep our mouths tightly closed. And so Edward says, when we never learn anything about the fashionable, easily mastered art of spear throwing, when we stay out of the company of all spear throwers and keep our mouths tightly closed, he says, in this way, spears will never touch you, even when they pierce your heart. What does that mean? It means that even when spears do hurt because of what is being said or what is being done, they will ultimately never touch us because we are leading with character and God-honoring integrity. And when spears are thrown at us, what do we do? He says, number one, we dodge. There's nothing wrong with dodging. You don't have to let the spears land. You can learn to dodge. But number two, you must never pick up a spear and throw it back. And man, it is easy to do that, isn't it? It is easy as a leader to fight our battles, to pick up our spears and throw them back and say, you know what? I never threw the first one, but I'm throwing this one. That's not how God desires us to lead. Why? Because we are not called to be Saul's and we are not called to be Absalom's. We are called to be David's. And you know what? We don't have to hold on to power, authority, or ambition tightly. As a matter of fact, one of my favorite quotes from the book is this Edward says, Men who speak endlessly on authority only prove they have none. Man, that goes to my heart that does so good when I need to hear it. So, what are some leadership applications that we can take away from this book? Number one, we have to respond to criticism with humility. We have to ask, is there something true in this criticism? Maybe I think I'm a David and I'm seeing an Absalom, but maybe I'm a Saul. Maybe I have done wrong. Maybe I have missed this. Or maybe I really am the Absalom. Maybe I'm not doing what's right by my organization or by the people that I serve with. Maybe ultimately I've tricked myself and I'm just doing what's right by me. Number two, we need to avoid forcing opportunities that God hasn't provided. Look, we need to quit kicking open doors for our own advancement. And we need to trust the Lord's timing that we are where He has us to be in this moment because God is shaping us in this moment. And then finally, we have to trust character development over rapid advancement. Look, it's not all about climbing a leadership ladder. It's not always about making a name for ourselves. And man, in an age of social media, that is so hard. But it's not about us, it's not about our platform. It is about what God is doing in us. And what you're going to find as a leader is this is that God desires to use broken vessels. God wants men and women as leaders who know how to live with pain because it is in that pain, it is in that brokenness that we are shaped. Maybe, just maybe, God is trying to kill the Saul or the Absalom in you through what you're going through right now. And so we need to learn to let God use us not as his prized possessions, but as broken vessels who are being shaped by his hand through this process. Man, if you can't tell, I love this book. This may be my number one book for leaders out of every single book. Whether you are in church or not in church, in your leadership, if you are a believer, you need to read a tale of three kings. So do me a favor, if you listen to this podcast and if you pick up the book, reach out, let me know. I would love to hear about it and I'd love to talk about it because I think this book is the book that you're not going to see coming. And it's going to wreck you in the best way. One last thing before we end this conversation is just let me say if you are a leader, specifically in the local church context or even outside of it, I would love to be able to connect with you if I can help. If you would like, I'm going to have my email in the show notes. Reach out to me. We can set up a time to connect because here's what I know leadership is bigger than any one of us. If we're truly going to have an impact in our communities, we need to lean on each other and we need to learn from each other. So I would be more than happy to do what I can to connect with you and help you lead right where you are. So reach out, let us know how we can connect. But until then, we'll see you right back here next week on the Impact Leadership Podcast.