So – You Want to be a Hero
There are two stories about how Memorial Day came to be. The first story starts in April
1863 in Columbus, Mississippi. After decorating the graves of her two sons who fought in the Civil
War, an elderly lady went over and decorated two mounds in the corner of the cemetery and an
onlooker said, “What are you doing? Those are Union soldiers.” And she said, “Yes I know but
somewhere in the North, a mother or a young wife mourns for theirs as we do for ours.” And this
lady and some others started what has become Memorial Day.
The other story says that in 1866 in Waterloo, New York, and Waterloo has been recognized
by Congress as the official birthplace of Memorial Day, that they began decorating the graves. In
1866, General John A. Logan, now listen to this title, President of the Grand Army of the
Republic . . . I have a picture of a little guy who is making up titles for himself. I am President of the
Grand Army of the Republic. Yeah! What a great name. But he started decorating graves and
declared that May 30 would be a day to decorate with flowers the graves of the comrades who died in
defense of their country during the late rebellion, and after World War I, this was expanded to
include soldiers of all conflicts. And Memorial Day we remember our heroes, our military heroes,
and recently we have kind of expanded that to include firefighters, our law enforcement especially
after 911. And many of us have personal heroes. They aren’t famous. They don’t have Purple
Hearts and Congressional Medals of Honors but we have heroes just the same. Maybe it’s an adult
who helped us through a difficult time when we were growing up. Maybe it is a spiritual hero that
introduced us to Jesus. Maybe it’s a friend who helped us through a tough time or helped us kick an
addiction or some other way and we appreciate these heroes that we have in our lives. And truth be
told we’d like to be a hero too. So you want to be a hero.
Now there are kind of two ways to look at this. One is kind of a selfish way and I’m looking
to be the guy who gets all the glory. That’s not how we’re taking this today. The other way is how
to do the things that are right – how to take care of the things that you ought to be taking care of.
And if you want to be hero, we kind of think you have to run around in tights and a cape. And truth
be told most of us don’t look that good in tights and a cape. And so we don’t want to go there today.
But we want to be hero to the people around us. Maybe it is to our children and we want them to
look up to us and trust us. Maybe it is to our spouse who we want to have a good relationship with
and we want them to know that we are there for them all the time. Maybe it is at work where we
want to be the go to guy where people can come to us with their problems or their issues. The boss
can count on us to get the job done. But being a hero is risky business. You can get hurt. You can
look foolish. You can die and most of us don’t like being dead so that fear of personal risk holds us
back from being a hero. But I have good news . . . we can all be heroes. Everybody here today can
be a hero. No special genes required. You don’t have to be born on Krypton. You don’t have all the
money to buy all the cool gadgets for your belt. You don’t have to get bit by a spider. You don’t
have to fall into a vat of radioactive material. You don’t have to get bombarded by gamma rays or
anything else that we know about heroes.
The Bible is full of heroes. We’re going to look at some of the stories today and see what we
can learn from them. Take out your sermon notes if you haven’t already and we’re going to look at
some stories and see what the Bible says about being heroes.
Number one. Heroes have perseverance. Heroes have perseverance. Now traditionally we
think of heroes as being the quick acting people. They are the people who run into the burning
building and save the baby. They are the people who notice somebody chocking in the restaurant
and run over and do the Heimlich maneuver. They are the people that dive into the river and save the
person that is drowning. They act quickly and that is good. There is nothing wrong with that. We
are grateful for those people. But that is really not the only way to be a hero.
Let’s look at the story of Noah. God tells Noah to build a boat 450 feet long, 75 feet wide
and 45 feet high. Now just for those of you who may not be so good with measurements, from that
wall to that wall is 75 feet roughly so that is how wide the boat was. That’s about 45 feet tall and its
450 feet that way. Now you can’t go down to the lumber yard and order wood and say “hey please
deliver that.” You’ve got to cut the trees down and make your own wood. You don’t have any
power tools. There is no Skil chain saws. You’re out there with a hand saw cutting that stuff. This
is going to take a while. The Bible doesn’t tell us how long it takes for Noah to build the ark. Most
experts put it somewhere between 70 and 120 years. Can you image? Most of us can’t stay with a
home improvement project if it takes three weeks. If it takes like two months, we think we have
lived through the last ice age. Decades he worked on this. Now I have to imagine that somewhere
during those decades he woke up one morning and said “I don’t feel like working on the ark today.
You know I spent all day yesterday on my hands and knees putting in that deck on the second floor.
My back hurts. I don’t want to do it today.” That had to happen. “You know yesterday I smashed
my thumb. It’s all swollen and sore. I don’t feel like working on the ark today.” But he perseveres.
He sticks to it. Sometimes being a hero doesn’t happen overnight.
Then there is Caleb. Remember Caleb. He was one of the 12 spies that went in to check out
the promise land. Remember Israel comes out of Egypt through the Red Sea through the desert.
They get right to the promise land. They send 12 spies to go check out the promise land. For 40
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days they check out the promise land and they come back with a report. Two of the spies, Caleb and
Joshua, say “Oh yeah. We can do this. God with us we will drive these people out and inhabit this
land because this land is kicking. Cool man. This place rocks and we will take it.” The other 10
said “Oh man we’re in trouble. Ain’t no way we can drive those people out of there. They are
fortified cities. They are built in. They are there and we are a rag tag army of slaves. We can’t do
it.” Look at what Caleb says in Number 13:30. Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and
said, “We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.” The other 10
say “No way! We can’t do.” And there is much discussion amongst the millions of people there.
And the 10 are more persuasive than the two and they convince Israel that they can’t go in.
Open your Bibles with me to Numbers 14. Numbers is the fourth book of the Bible; Genesis,
Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers. Numbers 14 and let’s see what God says about this. Numbers 14 here
is the Lord in response to this discussion that has just happened in Israel deciding that they can’t do
it. Verse 26. The LORD said to Moses and Aaron: “How long will this wicked community grumble
against me? I have heard the complaints of these grumbling Israelites. So tell them, „As surely as I
live, declares the LORD, I will do to you the very things I heard you say: In this desert your bodies
will fall—every one of you twenty years old or more who was counted in the census and who has
grumbled against me. Not one of you will enter the land I swore with uplifted hand to make your
home, except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun. As for your children that you said
would be taken as plunder, I will bring them in to enjoy the land you have rejected. But you—your
bodies will fall in this desert. Your children will be shepherds here for forty years, suffering for your
unfaithfulness, until the last of your bodies lies in the desert. For forty years—one year for each of
the forty days you explored the land—you will suffer for your sins and know what it is like to have me
against you.‟ WOW! Lord is getting a little upset with the people. And so for 40 years they go back
to the desert. And imagine Caleb for 40 years in the desert in a tent. It’s pretty hot. Don’t have air
conditioning. Remember what it was like last weekend. 40 years. Eating manna for 40 years.
Waiting for these people to die. And at some point you’ve got to be getting up in the morning and
going “Did anybody die last night? Rats, you’re still here!” It’s got to be tempting to maybe want to
off a couple of them yourself. “Hey, Lord I’m helping.” 40 years. Man that is a long time. That’s a
long time. So finally the day has come where they have all died and Israel goes back towards the
promise land. Moses hands over control to Joshua because Joshua and Caleb are the only two that
are leading the people in. And here comes Caleb to talk to Joshua. This is in Joshua 14. It says,
Now then . . . this is Caleb talking . . . “Now then, just as the LORD promised, he has kept me alive
for forty-five years since the time he said this to Moses, while Israel moved about in the desert. So
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here I am today, eighty-five years old! I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out; I‟m
just as vigorous to go out to battle now as I was then. Now give me this hill country that the LORD
promised me that day. You yourself heard then that the Anakites were there and their cities were
large and fortified, but, the LORD helping me, I will drive them out just as he said.” Can you
imagine 85 years old! I get this picture of this guy who has white hair, white beard, 85 years old.
He’s got his shield on. He’s got sword strapped to his side. I’m ready. Imagine what all the young
kids are thinking looking at him. What is the old dude doing here? Retire grandpa. It’s over. But
Caleb says, “No with the Lord helping me I will do this. I will do this.” I love that. See you can be
any age to be a hero. You can be young. You can be middle aged. You can be a senior citizen. It
doesn’t matter. You want to be a hero though you’re going to have to persevere. You’re going to
have to tell your kids 9 bazillion times to behave. I’ve counted. It takes that many and we’re not
done yet. You’re going to have to be nice to your in-laws every single holiday and for some of us
that seems like eternity. Not me. Not me. You’re going to have to be nice to that person at work
who is really not all that loveable every single day. It takes perseverance to be hero. It takes hard
work. It takes a long time but with God helping you can do it.
Number two. Heroes know that God will act. Heroes know that God will act. The Old
Testament has a bunch of great stories about warriors. It’s Memorial Day. It’s appropriate to talk
about these warriors and we’re familiar with some of them. We know the story of David and
Goliath. We know how the people sang. Saul has killed his thousands and David killed 10,000. We
know the story of Benaiah and going down into the pit on the snowy day against the lion and fighting
the 9½ foot tall Egyptian and the two Moabite warriors. We know the story of Samson and taking
the jawbone and defeating the Philistines. Great stories. But let’s look at a couple that aren’t quite
so popular. This first one comes from Judges and says, After Ehud came Shamgar son of Anath, who
struck down six hundred Philistines with an oxgoad. He too saved Israel. That’s it. That’s the
whole story. That’s all we know. You have to stop when you come across a text like this and think
about it. So the first thing is what the heck is an oxgoad. It’s a stick. I did some research on it and I
found a couple different descriptions. One is that it is kind of a thin stick that is almost kind of like a
whip. You know it is flexible so you can kind of smack the back of the animals and goad them
along. The other is that it is a heavier more substantial stick and it has a point on the end. Maybe
even an iron point and you can poke the animals and goad them along. And I suppose either one is
true because this is a hammer and this is a hammer and they are very different but they are still both
hammers. So I don’t know what kind of stick Shamgar had that day but it was a stick and he is
working in the field. Now if you’re working in the field, are you wearing your armor? No. You
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may have your shirt off and tied around your waste and you probably have something on your head
to try and keep the sun off you. You’ve got your stick. You’ve got a couple of oxen you’re working
with. And he looks up and 600 Philistines are attacking. Now what would you do if 600 Philistines
were attacking? I thinking I’m headed to home to get my spear so I stand a fighting chance but not
Shamgar. He says “No, no, no. This is my home and today we fight with a stick.” I don’t care who
you are, and I don’t care what kind of mad skills you have, you cannot beat 600 armed soldiers with
a stick. I know we see it on TV but it doesn’t really happen. But he does because God notices and
acts on his behalf. I bet he was pretty famous afterwards. Once the word got around people like
walking down the street “Hey Shamgar.”
Then there was Shammah. It says, Next to him was Shammah son of Agee the Hararite.
When the Philistines banded together at a place where there was a field full of lentils, Israel‟s troops
fled from them. But Shammah took his stand in the middle of the field. He defended it and struck the
Philistines down, and the LORD brought about a great victory. Now the Israelites and the Philistines
always seemed to be going after it for something and I don’t know what the problem was here but
they are lining up to do battle again. And they are in a lentil field and you know if you love lentils as
much as I do I hope they burned that field to the ground. But you know some people don’t like
asparagus. I don’t like lentils so here we go. So they are in a lentil field. The Israelites are at this
side and the Philistines are at that side and they are gathering to do their battle. And for some reason
the Israelites flee. They don’t retreat. They flee. And if you’re a Monty Python fan, you’re thinking
run away! And these guys all run away except for Shammah. And I know maybe I have watched too
many movies but I have this picture of him walking to the middle of the field and putting down his
sword and his shield, and putting on his armor, and getting ready, and all the time his eyes are on the
those Philistines. And he is putting his armor on, and putting his helmet on, and picking up his
shield, and straps it on, and he never leaves those Philistines, pounds that shield on good and tight,
picks up his sword, and he is ready to fight in the middle of the field by himself. The Philistines got
to be freaking out. What is that guy doing? It’s got to be a trap. When we go out there the Israelites
are going to be coming from somewhere else and I can just imagine them arguing about what is
going on. Eventually they convince themselves it is not a trap and they rush. And Shammah defends
the field and struck the Philistines down and the Lord brought about a great victory. Again I don’t
care who you are, one guy can’t beat a whole band of soldiers but heroes know that God will act on
their behalf and sometimes you will have to take a stand and sometimes you have to say that’s it. No
more. This is all the farther it goes and you may feel all alone and a little bit exposed but you’re not.
God is there with you.
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We already talked about Caleb. 85 years old. He wants to go clean house. Look at what the
Bible says. As Moses had promised, Hebron was given to Caleb, who drove from it the three sons of
Anak. 85 years old. Because what does he know? God will act. When you’re trying to make a
difference for God’s kingdom, God will act. He is not going to leave you out there all alone and
sometimes you have take a stand. And maybe you’re going to tell your friends that you’re not going
to gossip any more, and you are no longer going to assassinate people with words. Maybe you’re
going to be friends at school with that person who doesn’t have any friends. Maybe you’re going to
take a stand about something that is happening in your family or your house and you’re saying no
more. It’s going to stop here. And you’re going to feel a little exposed and a little alone but you are
not. God will notice when you’re trying to make a difference for his kingdom and he will act on your
behalf.
Number three. Heroes act in an unselfish way. Heroes act in an unselfish way. We rarely
refer to selfish people as heroes. Anybody heard Donald Trump called a hero? No. And you don’t
have to be a warrior and you don’t even have to be male to be a hero. Let’s look at a couple of other
stories. We know the story of Queen Esther right. Queen Esther becomes queen. She is a Jew. Her
cousin Mordecai works in the palace. Haman works in the palace. Haman hates Mordecai. He
comes up with a plan to kill the Jews so he can get rid of Mordecai. Mordecai comes to Esther and
says “You’ve got to go and talk to the King.” She says “I can’t just go talk to the King. If you go
and talk into the King and he is not happy to see you, he cuts off your head.” Now this seems really
foreign to us but you’ve got to remember that the King owned everything. He owned the land. He
owned the plants. He owned the animals. He owned the people. And if he said off with your head,
they cut off your head and nobody thought too much about it. There was no congressional hearings
on the subject. There was no investigative reporter showing up at your door step. That is just the
way it was. And Esther says “I can’t go talk to the King without an invite. That could end badly for
me.” And Mordecai says “You have to.” So they pray and fast for three days and she goes to see the
King and the King accepts her. And through a series of invites she ends up at her house with the
King and Haman, and the King knows something is up. He says “Esther what do you want?” And
look at what she says. This is in Esther 7 verses 3 and 4. The King says that he will give her up to
half the kingdom. The kings were always willing to give away half the kingdom. No king ever said
I’ll give you 75%. It’s always half. It’s like an unwritten king rule or something. And he says
“What do you want?” And Then Queen Esther answered, “If I have found favor with you, O king,
and if it pleases your majesty, grant me my life—this is my petition. And spare my people—this is my
request. For I and my people have been sold for destruction and slaughter and annihilation. If we
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had merely been sold as male and female slaves, I would have kept quiet, because no such distress
would justify disturbing the king.” Wow! If we’re going to be slaves that would be alright. We
wouldn’t bother you with that but they are going to kill us so we need your help. She acts
unselfishly. Now Esther took great risk. We think hey what king is not going to be happy to see his
queen right. But the reason Esther became queen is cause the king got rid of the first queen. So there
was a real risk there and she was unselfish. She thought about others before she thought about
herself. The King took care of the problem for them by the way and things turned out okay for the
Jews and Esther. Not so well for Haman.
Then there is the story of Naomi. Remember the story of Naomi. She moves to a far
country. Gets married. Has two boys. The two boys grow up. They get married. What a great
family. It’s like picture perfect. You know a white house, picket fence, two and half kids and a dog
right. That’s the all American dream. She had it. Then her husband dies. And the two sons die.
And all that is left is the mom and the two daughter-in-laws. In today’s society that would be really
tough. In their society that was impossible. Things were really going poorly for them. So Naomi
begins to head home with her two daughter-in-laws. And at some point she stops and she says “Girls
you’ve got to go back home. There is no hope with me. There is nobody to take care of us where
I’m going. There is no family members that are going to adopt us. I’m never going to get another
husband and even if I did and we had more boys could you wait until they grew up. It’s over. Go
home.” And Naomi tells the truth. What she said there is right. It was true. It was accurate. It was
logical. It was the right thing to do. And Oprah does it. I imagine there are tears, and hugging, and
crying, and Oprah begins to go home. And look at what Ruth says in Ruth 1:16-17. But Ruth
replied, “Don‟t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where
you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die,
and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death
separates you and me.” Ruth is not thinking about herself. She is thinking about her family. And in
the overall scheme of things it ain’t much of a family but she is not about to abandon the family that
she has. And God notices and provides a husband to take care of Ruth and Naomi and they become
part of the lineage of David and to Jesus’ family because Ruth is not thinking about herself.
“What can I do for you Ma’am?” Abraham Lincoln asked the elderly lady who had been
ushered into his office. Placing a basket on the table she said, “Mr. President, I came here today not
to ask a favor for myself or for anyone. I’ve heard that you were very fond of cookies and I came
here to bring you this basket of cookies.” Tears trickled down the gaunt face of Lincoln. He said
nothing for a moment, then said, “My good woman, your thoughtful and unselfish deed greatly
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moves me. Thousands have come into this office since I became President, but you are the first one
to come, asking no favor for yourself or for someone else.” Did you hear what he said? Your
thoughtful and unselfish deed greatly moves me. It was a basket of cookies. You know what is that
worth? A few dollars. Probably less then. But see unselfish and thoughtful deeds do move us. They
move our hearts. They move the people of the hearts around us. It’s contagious. It catches on.
Then other people acted in unselfish ways. And I believe that these acts move our hearts and they
move the heart of God because that is what he is looking for us to be is unselfish. And the question
is this morning, Are you unselfish with your time? With your money? With your things? Are you
giving back to your family? The people around your church? Your neighborhood? It’s important.
Number four. The last thing this morning. Number four. You want to be a hero? Trust in
God. Trust in God. And the one thing we’ve seen in all our heroes this morning is that they all
trusted God explicitly with their lives all the time. And most of us won’t have to make such dramatic
choices in our lives. It just won’t happen but when you do choose to trust God look at what happens.
Look at what God says about Caleb. But because my servant Caleb has a different spirit and follows
me wholeheartedly, I will bring him into the land he went to, and his descendants will inherit it. God
is looking for people who are sold out for him. People to take a stand. People who act unselfishly
and people who persevere. And if you apply these principles to your lives, you too will be a hero.
Well maybe not immediately. It takes a long time. But you will be the kind of person that God
wants us to be and that is certainly worthy of hero status.
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