This morning I have a reading for you from the First Testament, the Hebrew Scriptures, also known as the Old Testament.  And this comes from the Book of Chronicles.  Dick Christopher and I were praying together as we prepared for service today.  Alice was preparing the refreshments.  And he said, “You know, I think it has been a while since I’ve read Chronicles.”  So maybe this will spark a few extra points in the history of the kings and judges.  Particularly we are going to just hit on a couple of versus today in Chapter 12 of I Chronicles.  And I would call your attention, to begin, with Chapter 12 and Versus 38-40.  “All these men of war who could keep rank came to Hebron with a loyal heart to make David king over all Israel.  And all the rest of Israel were of one mind to make David king.  They were there with David three days eating and drinking for their brethren had prepared for them.  Moreover those who were near to them from as far away as Issachar and Zebulun and Naphtali were bringing food on donkeys, camels, mules and oxen, provisions of flour, cakes of figs and cakes of raisins, wine and oil and oxen and sheep abundantly:  for there was joy in Israel.” 

            Today I want to talk to you a little bit about lists.  That Scripture that I just read comes at the end of a long, long list.  A list of names that are even harder to pronounce than the ones that were in that verse.  This list was David’s army.  And as we think about lists, I know you have your to-do list and you have your list of things, I hope, not to do.  Because a list of not-to-do’s are just as important in keeping you focused in life.   

            I want to tell you another story about another military man. His name was Johnny Johnson.  And Johnny Johnson was in a war that sometimes, I think, might be called the forgotten war. He was only 18; he was a private.  He was in the Korean War.  And he had just practically joined with other comrades in the year 1950.  And his division was thrown into combat by a police action in Korea.  Immediately two-thirds of his comrades were killed in his division.  And others, like him, were captured.  He was held as a POW and accidently American planes hit the building that he was in.  And several more men were killed that day.  It was that day that Johnny Johnson began to be concerned.  He held an impression upon his heart that these men would be forgotten.  That their loved ones back home would not know where, when and how they died.  

            And so Johnny Johnson became focused on one thing, a very small thing, a list.  It was a list that with a pencil stub he wrote the names. He wrote the names on anything he could get his hands on—a piece of wallpaper, c cigarette packages that had been discarded, pieces of trash—he wrote their name. He wrote their names, their units, and their day of death.  After three months most of Johnson’s fellow prisoners were sick, malnourished.  Seventy died in those ninety days; seven were executed.  And Johnson kept focused and kept writing his lists.

            After those ninety days a cruel, North Korean Army major took control of the remaining POW’s, 758 of them.  And he forced those 758 men to march 120 miles across snowy mountain terrain.  The lists increased importance now to Johnny Johnson especially after the North Koreans took away the remaining prisoners’ dog tags.  If an American soldier fell and could not keep up, he was shot and left to die.  And so Johnson kept focusing on his list, memorizing the names.  Because that helped him as he focused with the pain level, with the emotional pain as well as the physical.  And when he could, he managed to jot down those names, more than a hundred of men who had died along the way. 

            In the wintertime that year they were camped by an ice-clogged river.  It was there that 300 more prisoners died.  And Johnson kept writing.  He kept writing adding names to his secret list.  At one point he risked his life just to snatch a piece of paper away from one of his captors.  Enough that he could make two identical lists. And he hid one in the wall of the mud hut that he was kept prisoner in.  The other he hid in the floor of that hut. His guards found one.  They discovered the one in the wall and they tortured him in many ways and accused him of criminal propaganda for his government.  But the list that he buried in the floor, they did not discover.   

And it was at the end of the war, for he was a prisoner through the end of the war, Johnson dug that list up and stuck it into a toothpaste tube.  And he wouldn’t open it until he got on board a troop ship coming home.  And on the ship the officer asked him as he pulled it out, “What have you got there?”  And Johnson said, “It’s my list, sir.”  And he showed it to him—496 names.  To get on Johnny Johnson’s list, you had to die.  It was a list that he himself risked his life to complete.  But the military showed no interest in that list other than making a brief note in Johnson’s military file.   

In fact, it took many years for people to discover it and ponder the value of that list.  It was a reporter from the Discover Channel and then a Reader’s Digest article that finally brought it all to life. Johnny Johnson still has that list. He keeps it in a scrapbook.  And at Korean War Veteran reunions, Johnson is overwhelmed by the number of relatives that come and thank him for that list.  Just mere names to some people but loved ones for others.  They hug him and they thank him.  Those that still haven’t been able to find out information about their loved ones are anxious to see the list because as long as a name of a man is on that list, they are not purely lost.   

Like Jesus, like David, like many others, perhaps some of you, Johnny Johnson was a man on a mission.   A man that was able to drill in and lock on to his target.  Oh, he had joined the military for another reason—to fight for his country.  But his mission became larger than life, bigger than him, bigger than the enemy.  His mission became one of serving others.  For the list, you might say, he carried his fellow comrade home to their loved ones with their name on a list.  So simple, so small, but it was a huge gift for the families of his buddies.  Johnny Johnson had a heart-felt focus to honor the life of another human being. 

David was a scrawny kid, a shepherd, a little one with lots of courage to stand out in that field at night and watch over those sheep.  And he was the one selected eventually to be king of Israel.  He was the one, against everybody’s thought, who went up against Goliath, the Philistine.  Showing great courage, believing more in God than in what stood before him.  Just a small guy, but a man who had been faithful in the small things of life.  And it was the Philistine’s eventually; they gave David the property in which he is located in Chapter 12 of I Chronicles.  And these are some of the people that joined David at that place with one heart, with one focus—to make him king over Israel.   We look in Chapter 12, there are lists.  And these are among some of the mighty men, helpers in the war.  In Verse 2, “They were armed with bows using both the right hand and the left they were capable of hurling stones and shooting arrows.  They were of Benjamin, Saul’s brothers.” Even before Saul was dead, his relatives were joining the fight to make David king because they knew that David was a righteous and just man.  And David knew that he needed to show compassion for Saul but also that Saul had disobeyed God.  So even the relatives, the tribe of Saul, joined with David to make him king. 

And then in Verse 8 it says, “Others joined David in the stronghold in the wilderness, mighty men of valor trained for battle, those who could handle the shield and the spear.”  And get this, “their faces were like the faces of lions and were as swift as gazelles upon the mountains.”  Does that not make us think of the lion of Judah, the redeemer, Christ Jesus himself who later came from the very tribe of David?  And then it says, “These are the ones, the sons of God, captains of the army, the least was over a hundred, the greatest over a thousand.  These are the ones who crossed Jordan in the first month, when it had overflowed its banks; and they put to flight all those in the valleys.  And David received those that came to him with these words,” (Oh, that we might listen) “He went out and said, ‘If you have come peacefully to help me, my heart will be united with you. But if you betray me to my enemies, since there is no wrong in my hands, may the God of our fathers look and bring judgment.’  And it was then that the chief of the captains, that one who was a Philistine, came and said to David, ‘We are yours David.  We are on your side oh son of Jesse:  peace, peace to you and peace to your helpers for your God helps you.’”

David, one was faithful in small things, one that had people join him because of his focus on a mission.  How true, whether it is Johnny Johnson or whether it is you, we need to be focused.  God has given us a mission as a church.  He is the head of the body of the church and he calls us to one thing, one thing only—that we might have the love of God in us for our neighbor.  And that that love might compel us to go and to make disciples.   

There is a lot of remembrance this weekend.  And if perhaps a veteran could turn to a young child and say, “This is why I fought”, it might instill in that child a new appreciation for the privileges that we enjoy in America.  And recorded in this book is what David fought for.  If you were to look at II Samuel, Chapter 23, Versus 1-7, it’s David’s last list.  David in II Samuel gives his list after he becomes king and he is on his death bed.  The list at the end of David’s life is filled with words about influence, focus, righteousness, justice, trusting in the Lord. Oh, like many, he might have been tempted to record his unique role in the history of Israel, his memoir in those last words, final words that would recall how great he was.  But he lived, through the list; the orders that focused his life he handed on to others so that even after his death, the life of Israel might be influenced.  A leader discovered in such a way as to enable those who follow to develop their fullest potential.  That’s what a true leader does whether in the church, whether in the school system, whether in the military, whether in the political system.  A true leader enables those who follow to reach their highest potential.   

And that’s what Jesus said to his followers, “Greater works than these will you do because I go to prepare a place for you but my spirit I leave with you.”  That’s us folks.  That’s us.  The spirit of God upon us,   in some way linking us with the likes of David through Christ Jesus, a descendant of the tribe of David.  Let us look at the characteristics of David, let us claim the power of God through Christ Jesus and the Holy Spirit to be leaders after we follow the one true God, Jesus Christ.  In the way of love shall we go.  Amen and Amen.

E-mail Comments to: Pastor Nancy Blevins

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