Read 2 Samuel 10.

You need to be careful about where you get advice. Don’t get advice from just anyone. Find an expert. Find someone who knows something or has experienced something you want to know or experience. You wouldn’t ask one of those panhandlers, holding the cardboard sign, looking sad down by the McDonald’s, for advice about how to further your career. No, that wouldn’t do. You wouldn’t ask an atheist up at the college for tips about how to draw closer to God. And you wouldn’t go to Joab – violent, vindictive, man-hunting Joab, the military commander for King David – for the finer points of biblical theology. It doesn’t make sense.

But here we are. The Bible takes us to strange places sometimes. A donkey talked once in the Bible. A prostitute did a noble thing one time. The Bible recorded it. And Joab teaches us theology. Who would have thought it?

It’s one reason you should come to Sunday School as often as you can. You won’t find any homeless panhandlers there, or atheists, or prostitutes, or donkeys – at least on most Sundays. But you won’t find any PhD Bible scholars either. Yet you may find wisdom and insight from the people who are there. God can speak to all of us through any one of us. It doesn’t matter who it is. God can speak through anyone, even the most unlikely.

The question is whether we are humble enough to listen. Some Christians aren’t.

Here, God speaks wisdom through Joab, an unlikely prophet. “Be of good courage, and let us be courageous for our people, and for the cities of our God, and may the Lord do what seems good to him” (2 Samuel 10:12).That’s good theology – particularly that last part. “May the Lord do what seems good to him.” It’s good theology because it acknowledges God is capable of doing anything He wants, and we ought to leave it to God to do just that. The business of this world is God’s business, whether it is in the affairs of the natural world or in the affairs of men and women. He is the potter, and we are the clay (Jeremiah 18:6).

Joab proclaimed this truth. Any properly functioning follower of God will know this to be true and will live as if this is true. You can’t worship God without believing this truth. Your faith life simply won’t work without it. To be a believer, you must believe that God owns everything and that He can do anything He wants and that He ought to do what seems good to Him – not necessarily what seems good to us but what seems good to Him.

It’s the only way you’ll be able to sleep at night – when your spouse dies or your child dies or your business goes under or you lose your job or your whole world is rocked in some crazy way. To be a believer, you must consent to these words, this theological prayer of Joab: “May the Lord do what seems good to him.”

Of course, it’s a wonder we find these words on the lips of Joab. Joab so far in this recorded history of 1-2 Samuel has been a man who preferred to take matters into his own hands. “May the Lord do what seems good to him.” Joab didn’t seem to live by that most of the time. No, Joab seemed to do what seemed good to Joab.

You recall the murder of Abner, the top military man for King Saul (2 Samuel 3). Joab sliced open Abner’s belly in vengeance – after Abner reluctantly had killed Joab’s brother in battle. Joab did not let bygones be bygones. He kept his knife hidden when he pulled Abner aside at the city gates of Hebron.

You also can recall Abner, when he was assassinated by Joab, was helping King David unite the tribes of Israel. Abner almost certainly was in line for a prominent place in the united monarchy, and Joab would have known this. Joab’s position might have been in jeopardy because of Abner’s success. Vengeance and self-seeking are terrible companions.

We get the sense Jesus would have been disappointed in Joab. Joab wasn’t a noble man who was accustomed to turning the other cheek or declining to seek the best seat at the table (Matthew 5:39; Luke 14:8).

So here we are in 2 Samuel 10. Joab’s army was caught in the middle of two hostile forces. The Ammonites were on one side, and the Syrians and others were on the other. Joab told his brother, Abishai, to take some of the troops to fight the Ammonites. Joab would take the rest to fight the Syrians. It was a simple strategy. What else could be done? If either Abishai or Joab were overwhelmed by the enemy, his brother would come to help – or try to help.

It is important to remember Joab had no guarantee of victory on that day. There’s nothing in Scripture and nothing in Joab’s words to his troops that indicate the Israelite army would prevail. In the dust and the blood of the battle that day, Joab and his army could have been overwhelmed. Joab didn’t know. The moment was filled with uncertainty, like so many of our own moments.

Joab knew the big picture, however. He knew God favored Israel and had promised to bring the nation into peace and prosperity. The promise was an ancient one that Joab likely had known since childhood. Israel was God’s treasured possession, and God always was true to His promises. But the fact was God didn’t need the Israelites to win the battle that day outside that Ammonite city in order to make the big picture come to fruition. Joab knew this, too.

So all Joab could tell those anxious soldiers was: “Be of good courage, and let us be courageous for our people, and for the cities of our God, and may the Lord do what seems good to him.” God can speak to all of us through any one of us.

Joab teaches us theology. An unlikely man has wisdom for us. It’s kind of surprising. Can we humble ourselves to listen to Joab – violent, vengeful Joab? Do you trust the will of God in your life? Do you leave room for it?

I was reminded what James, the half-brother of Jesus, told us (James 4:13-17). James said, “Don’t be so sure you’ll go over to that city and make a bunch of money or take that great vacation.” James called us a mist that’s here for a moment and then vanishes. No, James said, “You ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills …”

Leave room for God’s will. You don’t know what God’s will for you for today might be – even if you know that in the end, God works all things together for good for those who are called according to God’s purpose (Romans 8:18). We live our day-to-day lives in uncertainty even if the big picture is built on a cornerstone that cannot be moved.

So leave room in your life for God’s will. But don’t sit on your hands. That seemed to be the wisdom we get from our violent theologian, Joab. “Be of good courage, and let us be courageous for our people, and for the cities of our God, and may the Lord do what seems good to him.” Joab was saying, “Let God do what seems good to Him. And in the meantime – Get to work. Go and fight. Don’t worry, and don’t run. Fight – to the last drop of blood.”

Maybe there’s a fine line that we need to walk, a road between two ditches. We should believe in the will of God, the all-surpassing power of God to do what He wants with His creation, including ourselves. We should desire God to do what seems good to Him. At the same time, we ought not to sit on our hands because of that belief. We still have things to do. We know the right thing to do. We ought to do it. Go and fight.

It’s a road between two ditches. Don’t fall into either ditch if you can avoid it. Don’t drop to the one side thinking God won’t do what seems good to Him – or that He can’t. If you do that, you’ll have to take everything into your own hands. It’s a lot of work and a lot of worry.

At the same time, don’t drop into the ditch on the other side of the road, thinking if God is going to do what seems good to Him, then you don’t have to do anything at all. If you do that, you’ll play no part in the kingdom of God at all. You won’t serve others. It’s a loveless existence.

Stay out of the ditches. We know God’s promises. But life is uncertain today. Do your best, and trust God to do what seems good to Him. Joab, our unlikely theologian, teaches us this.

A college friend of ours is in the hospital right now, needing lung and liver transplants. It might not happen. Our friend is suffering alone in the hospital. They’ve told him he could go home and be on hospice, but all the needed medications would have to stop. It would be “giving up,” so to speak. But our friend needs to make a decision. What difference would it make in his life to be able to pray, “May the Lord do what seems good to him”?

We listened to a graduation speaker the other day – a sports broadcaster named James Brown. He’s a faithful Christian. One time, early in his career, James Brown interviewed a so-called Christian pastor, on Easter, about the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The pastor said he thought the resurrection was a fable. At the end of the segment, James Brown turned to the camera and said, in essence, “Regardless of what this guy says, I do believe the resurrection is real.” James Brown made a decision. He did act. And it was risky for a journalist. Do you think he was able to pray, “May the Lord do what seems good to him”?

I talked to a Christian woman the other day whose son was applying for a job far from home. She didn’t want her son to move away. But her son was following his dream. Can a parent get on board with something like that? What should she say to her son? What difference would it make for her if she could pray, “May the Lord do what seems good to him”?

A man once was praying in a garden. “Yet not what I will, but what you will” (Mark 14:36). Is it all that far off from Joab’s prayer? The cross was right at hand. It was coming just the next day, right over the hill. Excruciating suffering was staring our Lord in the face. He’d be abandoned by His disciples, His friends, His Father. Jesus knew it. But Jesus declared the preeminence of God’s will. “Father, do what seems good to you.” Can you hear Joab?

Our eternal lives depend upon this truth – “May the Lord do what seems good to him.” It seemed good to God to take on flesh, live a sinless life, and die on a Roman cross for our sins. It seemed good to God to offer the gift of salvation to us free of charge, by faith. It seemed good to God to grant eternal life to sinners like us.

It’s the big picture of our faith. But today? Life is uncertain. We don’t know whether we’ll live or die, whether we’ll get sick or be healed, whether we’ll enter bankruptcy or find wealth. We don’t know. We live in tension. But we can life by faith today. We can do the best thing we know to do right now. And we can pray, “May the Lord do what seems good to him.”

It’s good theology from an unlikely source.