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Amen, 1 Chronicles chapter 27, we're getting to the very end of the book of 1 Chronicles in our Bible study, and this is the portion of 1 Chronicles where it's laying out David's kingdom, the way it's organized, and in the previous chapters we've seen the divisions for the Levites and the priests, and last week we talked about the porters or the gatekeepers and people like that. So this week we're getting into some more of the organizational structure of David's kingdom. Now we're not going to reread all this for the sake of time, but I'm just going to start by giving you kind of an overview of this chapter and then I'll explain what we can learn from this. Because the Bible says that all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. And so we know that every chapter is in the Bible for a reason, otherwise this chapter could have just been left out. You know, God gave us the Bible that we need, and so we're going to go through this chapter. Now verses 1 through 15 explains this division of the chief fathers and captains of thousands and hundreds and their officers. So this is basically the military. Look at verse 1. It says, Now the children of Israel, after their number, to wit, the chief fathers and captains of thousands and hundreds, and their officers that served the king in any matter of the courses, which came in and went out month by month throughout all the months of the year, of every course were twenty and four thousand. So the way this is broken up is you have twenty-four thousand men that are under a certain leader, and that group of twenty-four thousand guys with their leader is assigned a certain month of duty. So in the first month, this guy and his twenty-four thousand are on duty, and they're being rotated out. They can spend the other eleven months of the year dealing with their own personal business and their own livelihood, and then just once a month, they give their service unto David to work for him. And then it lists each of them. It says, for example, in verse 2, Over the first course for the first month was Jashobim, the son of Zabdiel, and in his course were twenty and four thousand. And then it goes on and lists the twelve months, the twelve leaders, and so forth. So what can we learn from this? Well, one thing we can learn is just being organized. I mean, you know, David's kingdom was very well organized. He definitely had a well-oiled machine, and that's what made him a great leader. That's why the kingdom of Israel was at its heyday during his reign and why he reigned successfully for over forty years. But not only that, another principle that we can learn from this is that you're never going to be able to operate at peak performance all the time, okay? You can't just be redlining all the time and working super hard and pushing yourself the whole year long. There are different seasons. The Bible says to everything that there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven. So David knew that if his troops are really going to be giving it a hundred percent and really doing their job well, you know, they can push themselves for that one month, but they can't push themselves year round, okay? People need a break. And there are certain times in our life when we need to take a break, when we need to take a vacation or relax a little bit. And if you think about the calendar that God laid out for the people of Israel in the Old Testament, they had one day a week off, the Sabbath day, but then not only that, they would also have three times in the year where they would have feast days or holidays where they would take a whole week off. So they ended up with a day off every week, and then they ended up with three weeks off per year also where they're not doing their job. And during that time, they would focus on spiritual things. They would relax, but they would also hear preaching and worship the Lord and do things like that. So it's important to take times of rest, but then also what we can learn from this is that there are also some times when we should ramp up our intensity and work really hard, okay? So just as there are seasons of rest, there could also be seasons of intense activity. You know, every week you've got your routine, you go to work, you do your job, and you have time of rest, and you have time to go to church, you have a soul winning time that you do where you go out and do a little bit of soul winning. But you know what? Sometimes it's good to just take a week and go on a missions trip or something, and you're just doing an intense amount of soul winning. Now look, you're not going to do that intense of soul winning all the time, but sometimes it's great to take a time where you go to war and you go out and fight the Lord's battle, and you go out and serve Jesus Christ in a very big way for a short amount of time, something that you couldn't maintain all the time, but you can maintain it for a short time, okay? Or even maybe with your job. Sometimes there are intensive periods in your job. I remember when I was running my fire alarm business, I had a certain customer that would just bombard me in the month of March with hundreds and hundreds of jobs. And I loved that because I could really make a lot of money in the month of March, and then it took the pressure off for the whole rest of the year. The rest of the year I could make money, but I didn't have to make as much because March was the big month. So I would literally work like 100 hours a week in March while pastoring the church, so it was pretty wild, but I would just be working day and night. Now look, obviously I don't want to live that kind of a life all the time because I need to spend time with my family, I need to spend time with my wife, my children, and I need to focus on the things of God, I need to be able to stop and think and meditate and read my Bible more, but it was good for that one month to just go crazy and get a bunch of work done, right? Other times you go crazy and do a bunch of soul winning, right? So it's okay to have intense periods of work or effort that can't be maintained for a long period of time, but just for a short time, just give a week here, give a month there either to serving the Lord or maybe to meet your family's needs, to meet your financial needs and do what it takes to pay the bills, amen? So that's one principle that we could get from this idea of rotating people in each month to really just give everything for the king, everything for David who represents Jesus for that month, and then the other 11 months, obviously they're still serving the Lord, they're still serving the kingdom, but they have to deal with their own issues as well. So there's that one intense month, okay? So that's verses 1 through 15 of this chapter, then we get to verse 16. It says, furthermore, over the tribes of Israel, the ruler of the Reubenites was Eleazar the son of Zikrai, of the Simeonites, Shepetiah the son of Maacah. So verses 16 through 22 are giving us the leadership of each tribe. He lists each of the tribes of Israel and says who the leader is of that tribe. And it talks about how they are taking a census of the tribes. And in verse 23 and 24, we're not gonna spend time on that because I did a whole sermon on that a few weeks ago where it talks about how David only numbered those from 20 years and upward, but because of the fact that it was a sin the way they went about it, they ended up cutting that short and they didn't end up recording that number in the book of Chronicles, right? Because it was aborted partway through, they didn't finish that census for that reason. Then for the rest of the chapter, it goes over other divisions of labor within David's kingdom. In verse 25 it says, over the king's treasures was Azmaveth the son of Adiel and over the storehouses and the fields and in the cities and the villages and the castles was Jehonathan the son of Uzziah. Then in verse 26, over them that did the work of the field for tillage of the ground was Ezra the son of Caleb. And over the vineyards and then in verse 28, over the olive trees, verse 29, over the herds, verse 30, over the camels, verse 31, over the flocks was Jazes the Hagarite. All these were the rulers of the substance which was King David's. Also Jonathan, David's uncle, was a counselor, a wise man and a scribe and Jehiel the son of Hackmoni was with the king's sons and Ahithophel was the king's counselor and Hushai the Archite was the king's companion and after Ahithophel was Jehoiada the son of Benaiah and Abiathar and the general of the king's army was Joab. So we see that David in his kingdom he's ruling over a huge amount of people so he has delegated a lot of things within the kingdom and then he's even delegated some of his own personal things of his herds that he has and his olive trees and camels and flocks and things like that where he delegates those to different people. So what can we learn from this portion of the chapter? Well first of all we learn that if you do a good job at your job you're probably going to be honored. Now I don't know about you but I think it'd be pretty cool to have my name in the Bible, the eternal word of God where thousands of years later people are talking about me every day or reading about me every single day all over the world and you know this guy that was over the asses in verse 30 he probably didn't think that he had a very glamorous job or a cool job dealing with a bunch of donkeys, right? But that guy's name was Jediah the Morontothite, okay? Now his name's in the Bible. Why? He did a good job. I mean he worked hard. He was the top donkey guy. I mean if you, you know, you want to find a guy to take care of your donkeys this was the top guy and David put him in charge. You know whether it's the guy that's over the herds, over the camels, whatever. The lesson here is whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might and the Bible says that no matter what we do we should do it as unto the Lord and not unto men and so it doesn't matter whether our job seems like an unimportant job, a menial job, if you're scrubbing toilets or scrubbing floors or taking out the trash, hey those jobs matter because even these really menial jobs God is honoring people in the Bible for all eternity because they did their job and they did a good job and they excelled in their field. So God values hard work. God doesn't only value spiritual things. If so then we would just have the priestly chapter and the Levite chapter. But no, he valued the porters. He values the guy who takes care of the camels. He values the guy who's got these other herds and olive trees and vineyards. Whatever we do we should do our best. We should do it as unto the Lord and God honors those who work hard. God rewards those who work hard. The Bible says knowing that whatsoever thing any man doeth, whether he be bond or free, the same shall he receive of the Lord. You know whether you're free, whether you're a slave, if you work hard the Bible says God is going to reward you. God is going to bless you. And so we can see that in this chapter. But I think another important lesson from this chapter is just the need to delegate. A guy like David can't run the whole kingdom by himself. He needed a lot of people under him that are rulers of tens, rulers of hundreds, rulers of thousands. And so it's important to understand this concept of delegating authority and delegating responsibility. Even a great man like David, he needs help. He even needed counselors. He needed people to give him advice. He needed this companion. He needed a general for his army. He needed people to handle all of his affairs and he delegated a lot of things. Now go back if you would to Exodus chapter number 18. Exodus chapter 18 is an important chapter on delegating. This is the story where Moses meets up with his father-in-law and his father-in-law looks at the way he's running things with the children of Israel and his father-in-law points out that he's not doing things the right way. And his father-in-law gives him some really good advice, some good constructive criticism and helps Moses to become a better leader. Now of course Moses is a great man of God and he was a very skillful man. He was mighty in word and in deed, the Bible says. But sometimes people who are really good at something have the hardest time delegating because they're really good at something they feel like, well, I have to do it all myself. And that was Moses' problem here. It says in verse 13, it came to pass on the morrow that Moses sat to judge the people. This is chapter 18 verse 13. And the people stood by Moses from the morning unto the evening. And when Moses' father-in-law saw all that he did to the people, he said, what is this thing that thou doest to the people? Why sittest thou thyself alone and all the people stand by thee from morning unto even? And Moses said unto his father-in-law, because the people come unto me to inquire of God. When they have a matter, they come unto me and I judge between one and another. And I do make them know the statutes of God and his laws. And Moses' father-in-law said unto him, the thing that thou doest is not good. See, some people would look at this and say, well, Moses is just a really hard worker. He's just really dedicated. He really wants to do it all himself. But his father-in-law rightly points out, no, actually this is not good what you're doing. Thou wilt surely wear away. He's saying, look, you're going to burn out. You're pushing yourself too hard. You're not going to be able to just do this day and night every day. You're going to wear away. And the people that's with you is going to wear away. Why? Because they're having to wait in line too long to talk to somebody about what they need fixed. For the thing is too heavy for thee. Thou art not able to perform at thyself alone. Harken now unto my voice. I will give thee counsel, and God shall be with thee. Be thou for the people to Godward, that thou mayest bring the causes unto God. And thou shalt teach them ordinances and laws, and shalt show them the way wherein they must walk and the work they must do. Moreover, thou shalt provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hate and covetousness, and place such over them to be rulers of thousands and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens. And let them judge the people at all seasons, and it shall be that every great matter they shall bring unto thee, but every small matter they shall judge. So shall it be easier for thyself, and they shall bear the burden with thee. So look, it's good sometimes to work smarter, not always just to work harder. You know, Moses was working hard, but he wasn't working as smart as he could have been. So this wise counselor, his father-in-law, gives him great advice here to delegate some of that authority. Now he gives him some other advice, too, though. He says, first of all, you need to teach the people laws and statutes. If you can teach everybody a lot of the laws and statutes, they won't even need to come to you. Now this is a great lesson for pastors, because if pastors are effectively teaching people the Bible, the people are not going to have as many questions. Think about this. I mean, pastors where they just have this big, giant, long line of people who are coming to them, and they don't know what to do in their marriage, they don't know what to do with their children, they don't know what to do in this area of their life, or that area of their life. You know, maybe the pastor's not teaching effectively, because if the pastor would get up and just teach on marriage and preach on child-rearing, that's going to answer a lot of the questions. Now, some people are still going to have questions, but they're not going to have as many questions if the Bible's being clearly taught. But if it's just a 15-minute little fluff sermon, just a little motivational speech or a little shallow sermon, and then of course, yeah, people have all kinds of questions about marriage and child-rearing and business and their life, because they're not getting the teaching from the pulpit. So step one to the pastor not wearing away from having to talk to too many people or counsel too many people or help too many people is that, number one, he's got to teach the people the Bible. So if the pastor gets up and teaches the Bible, that's going to answer a lot of the questions before they're even asked, okay. But people are still, of course, going to have issues, questions, needs, and so forth. So then you have to delegate to other people. So Jethro told him, look, first of all, teach the people. But then number two, you've got to find some men that fear God, men of truth, men that hate covetousness, and you've got to put these people to rule over them, to judge them, to be an authority for them, to answer their questions, to help them out. And they're only going to bring the hard matters for you. But the easy stuff, they'll judge on their own. Now here's the thing about that. A lot of people, they expect the pastor to do everything himself. And they get mad if the pastor won't personally do everything that they need in their life. Now in my opinion, if the church is meeting your need, it shouldn't matter who met your need. If the church is meeting your need, the church is meeting your need. Well, I need Pastor Anderson himself to come visit me, or I need Pastor Anderson to answer this, or I need Pastor Anderson to do this. It reminds me of a toddler or a baby. Because think about this with a toddler. Those of you who have kids, you know this. You'll try to tell one of the older kids, hey, you know, change his shirt or give him a cookie or help him blow his nose or change that diaper or whatever. And then the little toddler will say, I want daddy to do it. I want mommy to do it. Or they won't let anyone else feed them. Only dad can feed them. Only mom can feed them. I don't want anybody else to feed me. Who knows what I'm talking about where they only want mom to do it or they only want. You know, can you put your shoes on and then, you know, here, help him put his shoes on. No, no, no. Dad can help me put my shoes on. Mom can help me put my shoes on. Look, this is childish, isn't it? Because it doesn't really matter as long as you get the help you need. As long as you get the shoe put on, who cares whether it's brother or mom or dad or sister that's putting the shoe on your foot, right? So childish Christians or baby Christians will demand, I want Pastor Anderson to do it, okay, and not allow delegation to happen. Well, you know, that's just a recipe for a church that can never grow. You know, our church has about 350 people in it. Obviously, I can't sit there and do everything for everybody, answer everybody's question all the time. That's why I have people that I delegate those things to. So don't get mad if something's delegated. And you know who it was that hated David delegating things or talked bad about David delegating things? Who was it? It was Absalom, right? Absalom said, oh, yeah, you know, it's too bad that, you know, David doesn't have time for you and blah, blah, blah, you know, putting that idea into people's ear. That's what Absalom did, okay, when in reality, David had a lot of people that he delegated things to. I mean, look, they don't have to go to David because if they're of the tribe of Issachar, there's a guy that's running the tribe of Issachar, they can go to him. They can go to the ruler of 10. They can go to the ruler of 100. They can go to the ruler of 1000, and they can only take the hard stuff to David. Look, I like answering Bible questions. I like helping people with their needs. But come at me with a hard Bible question, you know. I don't need to, I mean, people will literally contact me, hey, Pastor Anderson, you know, can you explain to me the eternal security of the believer? I'm like, did you listen to my sermon called Once Saved, Always Saved? You know, did you listen to the other 10 sermons I've done on that subject? You know, or hey, Pastor Anderson, hey, I have a question, can you explain to me why the pre-trib rapture's wrong? Okay, yeah, turn to Matthew 24. You know, do you really think that I should spend my time answering every basic, easy, simple Bible question? Or do you think that there's probably a whole bunch of men in this church and women in this church who know the Bible very well that could help people out with most of their questions? Now look, there are some churches where the church members don't know anything. And you can walk into that church and start asking Bible questions and everybody's just going, I don't know what you're talking about. But guess what, Faithful Word Baptist Church isn't one of them. Faithful Word Baptist Church is filled with people who know the Bible. There are a ton of people in this church who know the Bible very well and most of your Bible questions could be answered by other men in the church. And ladies, most of your questions, they don't have to even go straight to my wife. Most of the ladies in the church would be able to answer a lot of questions and everything like that. Now look, there could be a hard question. Let's say you go to Brother Segura and you ask Brother Segura and he says, wow, that's a hard one, let's go ask Pastor Anderson, right? That makes sense. But I guarantee you that Brother Segura is going to be able to answer a ton of questions for you. Brother Corbin Russell is going to be able to answer a ton of questions for you. Brother Chad Morgan is going to be able to answer a lot of questions for you, okay? There are a lot of people in this church that are going to be able to answer your questions. Even guys that aren't even in leadership positions, Joe Churchmember at Faithful Word is going to be able to point you in the right direction 99% of the time. And I think that's great. So you know, Bible questions can often be answered by other people in the church. And look, sometimes when you have a need and you're in a jam, you're in a bind or something, sometimes I'm able to personally hop in the car and go help you out. Other times it might be Brother Segura who hops in the car and helps you out. It might be Daniel Rider that hops in the car and helps you out. You know, don't get this attitude of I want Pastor Anderson to do it about everything because I don't want to wear away and I don't want you to wear away. I am in this thing for the long haul. I want to be a pastor for decades and a lot of pastors are burned out. They're burning the candle at both ends because they're trying to do too much. I want to work hard but I don't want to do too much, okay? I don't want to go overboard because of the fact that then my health is going to suffer, my wife is going to suffer, my children are going to suffer, my preaching is going to suffer. The ministry is going to suffer if I'm trying to do everything myself. I need to delegate things to other people and have people that can do things for me to free me up to do other things that only I can do. There are certain things that only I can do. That's what I should focus on and have other people doing the stuff that they can do. And this is how we grow as a church by other people stepping up to the plate, filling needs, taking care of responsibilities, stepping in and doing the work of the ministry and not expecting one person to do everything because it's just not realistic. Now in order to delegate, it takes humility, okay? Because this isn't just about a pastor delegating to his staff or delegating to the church members. You know, this also has to do with your home, okay? Mom, you can delegate things to the children and put the kids to work. Dad, delegate things to the children. Now it takes humility to delegate. Now thankfully, Moses was a very humble and meek person so when his father-in-law came to him, he immediately took this advice, he put it into practice. Why? Because number one, he didn't have an attitude of, well, who are you to tell me what to do? You know, you're not the one who brought these people across the Red Sea. You know, sometimes your father-in-law could be a great source of wisdom or your dad himself. Mom and dad, other wise counselors in your life, listen to them. Listen to what they have to say. Even David didn't know it all. He had a guy who's called his counselor and then another guy called his counselor and then a third guy as his counselor in 1 Chronicles 27. So he was humble enough to listen to people's advice when they said, hey, delegate. Hey, you're doing too much. You need to teach this stuff from the pulpit and then have other leaders in the church, other men in the church, answer people's questions, judge between people and help out and then they'll bring the hard matters to you. He was humble enough to take the advice. But the other reason why it takes humility to delegate is because people who don't want to delegate, it's because they have an attitude, well, I'm better than everyone else so no one can do this except me. Think about that, right? When you're delegating, what are you saying? Someone else can do this. And in some cases, you're not going to believe this, sometimes when you delegate things, they'll do better than you. I mean, look, there are people that I delegate things to, you're getting better service from than you would get from me. And why are you nodding so vigorously, honey? I don't know why my wife just, you know, she's like, yeah, they're getting better service. No, I'm just kidding. No. But this is why, because my wife and I, I'm just joking. My wife and I have talked about this because, you know, some people got a burr under their saddle because I didn't visit them in the hospital because I sent someone else to go comfort them and visit them in the hospital. My wife and I kind of agreed that I'm probably not the one with the best bedside manner in the world, okay? So I don't necessarily dole out the best hospital visits. But, you know, I've done a lot of hospital visits. I like to be a blessing and do a hospital visit when I can. But sometimes I'm here and there and everywhere and somebody else does it. You know what? So what? Because you know what? I guarantee you there are probably people that I send that are probably going to comfort you more and make you feel even better in the hospital than I would have made you feel. I mean, look, when I visited Brother Logan Prales in the hospital, he thought it was the end of the world, okay? So I went and visited Brother Logan in the hospital and he was put completely unconscious for surgery. And they told him, they said, you know, when you go unconscious for surgery, it's a little nerve-wracking. You know, what's going to happen to me? Where am I going to end up? So they told him, they said, hey, listen, when you wake up, you know, your family's all going to be there for you. So they told him, don't worry, you know, you're going to go to sleep. And when you wake up, your family's going to be there to comfort you, right? He wakes up in a dark room and I'm the only one there, okay? Because I had basically come in and there was some kind of a mix-up or something. They had me in there. So he wakes up and looks at me. And he hadn't been in our church for very long, so he mainly knew me as after the tribulation. So he kind of associated me with the end of the world and end times. So, you know, he's all disoriented from, you know, you're unconscious, you're put under with drugs and everything. So he wakes up and he's just like, what's happening? It's the end of the world, you know? So, you know, I could have delegated that visit. It would have been a little bit less scary for him. So anyway, and then, well, there was another, I was going to tell another story about a hospital visit that was kind of funny. Yeah, I came to see you. Anyway, I came to see Brother Gregory Davis. You remember when I gave you a haircut? You don't remember that. I went and visited Brother Gregory Davis when he was in the hospital and they'd already done everything that they needed to do to him. He wanted to get out of the hospital. He was trying to get released and he said, they won't release me, you know, and I want to get out, you know, because I want to get home. Well, what they had done was they'd done some surgery on his head and they shaved like half of his hair off, but they didn't shave it off. They only shaved like one side. So he looked like he was like an 80s new wave kind of a hairdo and so I looked at him and I said, you know, the reason they're not releasing you is that hairdo, you know, because they're looking at you and you don't look well, okay? So I literally just said, let's find some scissors, you know. I didn't have a razor. I got some scissors and I cut his hair and made it all match and made it all look right and that's the only haircut I've ever given, okay? Besides I used to trim the back of my mom's hair, but that was just kind of a straight line when I was a kid, but I actually gave him a full-blown haircut, you know, I was putting my hands in there and, you know, I've seen the barber do it, you know, how hard could it be? So I gave him a haircut with scissors and boom, he was released like less than 12 hours later because, you know, because then he looked like a guy who's ready to go home, but without, you don't, you still don't remember, all right. So anyway, you know, now that was one where I kind of needed to be there myself because I don't know if anybody else would have just started giving haircuts, but hopefully, you know, maybe they would have done a better job of the haircut, I don't know, maybe they would have really tapered it and made it look great, but the, you know, the point is that, you know, leaders have to delegate, whether that's a pastor or whether that's family. If you try to do everything else yourself, you're going to wear away. Now, I know this, sometimes it's easier to do things yourself than to teach someone how to do it, isn't it? And this is a lot of people's excuse for not delegating. They say, well, it's just easier to do it myself. Yeah, in the short term, it's easier to do it yourself, but in the long run, if you teach somebody else how to do it, you're saving time in the long run because today, you're wasting a bunch of time teaching, but guess what? Now that person can do it for the next week, the next month, the next year, and eventually that investment of teaching people pays off. Plus, don't you want your children to know how to do things? I mean, look, when you're teaching your children, you're educating them, okay? So I can just do it myself. Okay, now your kids are going to grow up and not know how to do anything. Delegate to them. Harder in the short term, but in the long run, they're going to take the weight off your shoulders. Plus, again, this is where humility comes in. You're not the only person who can cook and clean and do these things. Guess what? Other people can do the same thing, and some people might even surprise you and do it better than you. I delegate things to people frequently where I think to myself, wow, that's not the way I would have done it, but your way is better. You did great. Good job. You know, why? Because guess what? We're not just all that sometimes we think we are. Like, we're just the only people who can do. Guess what? A lot of people can do the same stuff. So delegate what you can. Spend time teaching people, training the next generation, and then you're creating new leaders as well. I mean, look, Moses delegates stuff to guys like Joshua. Well then when Joshua becomes the leader, he's not just like, oh man, it's my first day on the job. What do I do? I've been leading for decades. Joshua's already had experience. He knows what he's doing. He's able to just step in and do a great job because he's already been doing it. And so, you know, there need to be people that I'm training and people that are doing jobs for me. And look, any time there's a job at church that I can train somebody else to do and teach someone else to do, I'm going to delegate that. I want to delegate as much as I possibly can. It's not because I'm just going to go lay down somewhere and just, you know, sip lemonade by the pool and just be like, man, this is great. I got everybody whitewashing the fence for me and I just sit back and relax and do nothing. No, it's so that I can do other work and other things that only I can do and I can work a level that's within reason. Okay. Look at a lot of pastors, how unhealthy they are. I mean, think about it. How many pastors have you seen that are morbidly obese, just 100 pounds overweight, 50 pounds overweight? Why is that? Why do you think that they're so obese? Is it just because they're just complete gluttons? Well, not necessarily. Obviously, they are having a problem in that area. But I'll tell you one of the big reasons is because they just get so busy and so stressed out that they're not thinking about what they eat, right? And when you get busy and stressed out, you tend to eat junk, right? I know that when my schedule gets really busy, I stop carrying what I eat and I just start just whatever, just pass that cheeseburger, whatever, you know. When I'm on these mission strips, sometimes it's just like here, Coca-Cola, cheeseburgers, you know, fries, whatever, fast food. You don't even think about it on a mission strip, right? But that's why you have to be austere the rest of the year, okay, to make up for that. So if you're just always redlining your life all the time, you're going to eat all kinds of junk food, you're not sleeping enough, look, if you don't get enough sleep, you get overweight because you lose weight in your sleep. Every night you go to bed, you wake up like three pounds lighter, okay? And the fat burning often happens in your sleep, okay? So people who are sleep deprived, they get overweight. They can get type 2 diabetes. They can have all kinds of health problems from not sleeping enough. They can also get overweight from just binging because they're so stressed out. And look, when I get stressed out, I tend to eat more and eat junk. I mean, look, whenever I'm on an airplane, being on an airplane is a little stressful, you get a little claustrophobic, you're not comfortable. I mean, I bring a lot of snacks and I'm just like eating the whole time, just eat, eat, eat. So I try to bring something healthy. But look, if I were just redlining my life all the time, if I wasn't delegating anything, if I'm doing everything myself, I'm not going to have time to pack, you know, a bag of popcorn that's 35 calories per cup or something where I can just eat a whole bag of popcorn and it's not that bad. You know what I'm going to do? I'm just going to grab Snickers. I'm just, right? I'm just going to start grabbing candy bars, chips, sodas, and just when the stewardess comes by, just would you like, yes, whatever it is. So, you know, eating right takes a little bit of time and thought, getting the right amount of sleep, getting exercise, these are things that most pastors don't do. They don't get any exercise, they eat junk, they don't sleep right, and look, I did that for years when I first started the church and I don't regret it because I had to because guess what, I couldn't delegate anything because it was just me, all right? So I had to do everything myself and I had to work a full-time job in addition to pastoring. So yeah, there were, you know, I was unhealthy during that time and if you look at pictures of me from back then, I look like garbage in some of those pictures because I look like a sickly, you know, as long as I look at them and think I look like I just am coming out of a concentration camp or something. I'm looking all skinny and gone and bags under my eyes and it looks like, you know, I'm really dying or something. So you know, sometimes you have to do that temporarily but you don't want to just live life there. You know, it's like I was preaching earlier in the sermon, you know, yeah, you can redline it for a month, you can redline it for a week or two on a mission strip or, you know, let's say crunch time at your job, you know, your job is paying overtime and you want to make money while the getting is good, great, okay? Redline it. And you know what, if you're eating healthy the rest of the year and taking care of yourself the rest of the year, then guess what, if you have to go crazy for a couple of months and put on 10 or 15 pounds, you're still not obese because you got that buffer zone. Does everybody understand what I'm saying? So take time for yourself. And you know what, a lot of ladies would say, well, how can I take time for myself with all these kids? I got all this stuff to do. Don't tell me to go to sleep. Don't tell me to take a rest. Don't tell me to take a break. Who's going to do all this work? Here's the answer. Your kids are going to do a lot of that work. Now the hardest time for parenting, people think that having 10 kids is the hardest thing. Having 10 kids is not the hardest thing. You want to know what the hardest thing is? Having three or four kids when they're all at the youngest age, okay? This is the hardest thing when your kids are six, four, two, and a baby. That's the hardest thing because you don't really necessarily have that viable of a helper in that six-year-old, okay? I believe it's gotten easier since then. That was the hardest. When we add the fifth child, add the sixth child, add the seventh child, it's getting easier. Why? Because we're not adding younger children. We're actually adding children on the top, if you think about it, because we went from having six, four, two, and zero to having eight, six, four, two, and zero, 10, eight, six, four, two, zero, 12, 10, eight, six, four, two, zero, 14, 12, 10, you know. We're adding them on the top. You know, when you've got a 17-year-old, a 15-year-old, a 13-year-old, an 11-year-old, a 9-year-old, a 7-year-old, they're working. They're assets. They're doing dishes. They're doing laundry. They're sweeping the floor. They're cooking meals. They're changing diapers. Here, hold the baby for a while. Here, another one. You switch off and hold the baby. He needs a change of face. He needs a fresh face. Pass off that baby. You know, it's just, you end up, but here's the thing. But you've got to delegate. And then you say, ah, that's so terrible, you're making your kids work. Look, kids love to work. Kids beg to help. They love work, okay? And you know what? You're doing your children a disservice by not making them work, because what are you doing? You're teaching them the world just revolves around them. Everybody just serves them, and they don't have to do anything. No. Teach your kids to pitch in and do their part and pull their weight. You say, well, it's easier to do it myself. Yeah, today it's easier to do it yourself, but stop and train them, and it'll be easier tomorrow and next week and the week after that when you can say, go empty the dishwasher. Go load the dishwasher. You know, go cook spaghetti. Go do this or that or the other. Amen? Delegate. So this isn't just a sermon about being a pastor. It's a sermon about running a business. When you're running a business, you've got to delegate to employees. Otherwise, the business is always going to stay small. Now, you might want the business to stay small, but if you want to grow, you've got to learn how to delegate, okay? And it's also a great truth for ladies in the home. Delegate to, and don't delegate to your husband, all right? Delegate to your children, all right? Delegate to your children, all right? And look, I love to help my wife out with anything that my kids can't do. But when my wife says, hey, can you do this? I'm just like, well, that's something Isaac can do. That's something that John can do. That's something that Solomon can do. That sounds like a job for Miriam. That sounds like a job for Rebecca because I'm not paying the bills for 10 children so I can take out the trash myself, am I? So let's have them take out the trash. You know, I did my time taking out the trash. When I was living at home with my parents, I took out the trash and I did my time when I was newly married, taking out the trash. You know, now it's time for somebody else to mow the lawn, take out the trash, do all that stuff. Okay, there ought to be some benefits to having this many kids, all right? Because it's a lot of additional work and effort, there better be some benefits, right? And look, and you say, well, you know, you're just being lazy. No, no, no, I just don't want to wear a wig. Number one, I don't want to wear a wig. And number two, there's better things I could be doing with my time. What are these, what are the teenagers going to do with all this extra time? Oh, they're going to make real good use of their time, right? Down at the video arcade, right? You know, or whatever. Yeah, they're really going to be great stewards of all that extra time. Who do you think is going to be a better steward of that extra time? I am, all right? I'm going to do stuff that is furthering the kingdom of God. And look, they often do good things with their spare time, God bless them. But teenagers, they have enough spare time, put them to work. Put the children to work. As soon as they're old enough to push a broom and do, you know, get them doing that menial work, learn how to delegate. Being an effective leader involves delegating. Being a humble leader involves delegating. Don't be so full of yourself that you're the, I'm the only one who can, you know, you know that when I get sick, I could have an attitude that says, nobody else can preach like me. I got to get in there. I got to drag myself in, you know, I'm better sick than they are well, you know? No guess what? You know what my attitude is? You know what? I'm sick, I'm going to stay home because I don't want to get other people sick. And I don't want to just run myself into the ground, drive until the wheels fall. And guess what? When people fill in for me, they do a good job. And sometimes they might even preach something that I wouldn't have even thought of preaching. And so basically, you know, they step in and bring a fresh perspective. And sometimes they do a great job. And I sit back and say, wow, that was a great sermon. You know what that does? That gives me the freedom to be sick every once in a while and know that somebody can step in and do a good job and fill in, right? But pride is like, nobody can preach like me. I got to do it myself at all costs. No, other people can step in and do a good job as well. Okay. Now, I do believe that the pastor should preach most of the time because I know that back when I was in the pew, it drove me nuts when my pastor was just gone constantly. He was literally preaching less than 50% of services. And that was just irritating. You know, you wanted to hear the pastor. But guess what? If the pastor is preaching 90 some percent of the time, then it's kind of a treat to get a break from the old man, right? And to get somebody else in there to preach. It's okay to think it's a treat, all right? To get a break from Chronicles. So anyway, you know, I'm sure hearing Brother Bruce Mejia next Wednesday night is going to be a great treat. You know, it's not going to be a downgrade. It's going to be an upgrade or equivalent. Okay? So it's not like, I'm the only person who can preach the Bible. I'm the only one who knows how to cook spaghetti. I'm the only one who could mop this floor right. Learn to delegate, friend. And be humble and realize that we need to train another generation how to preach, how to lead, how to cook and clean. Amen? Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for this chapter, Lord. It's an obscure chapter that probably rarely gets preached, Lord. But thank you for the truths that we can pull out of it, Lord. What kind of a leader David was, the delegation that he did. And Lord, help us to do likewise. Help us to learn from Moses and Jethro and how they delegated and structured things, Lord. Help us to be smart and not necessarily just work harder and run ourselves into the ground, but to work smarter by delegating and help us understand that there are seasons of intense work and seasons of rest. And help us to be in it for the long haul and in Jesus' name we pray.