The Men Behind The Mission Part 2

We talk about Eleazar, the overlooked warrior in 2 Samuel 23, and why his decision to stand when everyone else retreats is a model for perseverance and courage. We connect that ancient fight to modern struggles like anxiety, depression, loneliness, addiction, and the pressure men carry in silence, then challenge you to hold on to what God put in your hand. 
• Eleazar’s story in two verses and the lesson of standing your ground 
• The modern man’s battle with quiet fear, shame, and isolation 
• Courage as staying put when quitting feels logical 
• “What is your sword?” and naming what you refuse to let go of 
• Why God leaves out the numbers and highlights character 
• Faithfulness over outcomes, recognition, and public wins 
• Strength as honesty, prayer, counseling, and asking for help 
• Letting God own the outcome while we own obedience 
• The unseen people who get better because you kept standing 
Be sure to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode. And for daily motivational and up-to-date content, follow us on Facebook and Instagram at ExcellenceAbove Talent. 

Transcript

Welcome And The Mission

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You're listening to Excellence Above Talent, a podcast where we have the hard conversations about the lives of men and what leads us to achieve greatness and suffer defeat. Hear from other men's journeys as well, as we all learn and grow together to become inspirations to ourselves and those around us. And now your host, Aaron Thomas.

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What's up, my beautiful people? Aaron Thomas with Excellence Above Talent.

Who Eleazar Is And Why He Matters

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We're on part two of the men behind the mission. And today's episode, we're going to be talking about Eleazar, the man who wouldn't let go. So when we think of David, we think of a king, a giant slayer, a man who killed a lion and a bear, a warrior. But David didn't build a kingdom by himself. He had faithful men beside him. Men whose names many people skip over. Men who don't get a lot of the spotlight. Men who simply showed up when it mattered most. And today we're going to be talking about one of those men. His name is Eleazar. Maybe you've never heard a sermon about him. Maybe you've read right past his name. But I believe his story is one every man needs to hear. Matter of fact, he's in one chapter and two verses. 2 Samuel 23, 9 and 10. And I'm reading from the message Bible. Eleazar, son of Dodi, the Ohite, was the next of the elite three. He was with David when the Philistines poked front at them at Paz Damdema. When the Philistines drew up for battle, Israel retreated, but Eleazar stood his ground and killed Philistines left and right until he was exhausted. But he never let go of his sword. A big win for God that day. The army then rejoined Eleazar, but all there was left to do was clean up. Two verses. That's all God gave us. Yet those two verses contain one of the greatest lessons on perseverance, faithfulness, and courage in all of Scripture.

Modern Battles Men Fight In Silence

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And you can tie this back to a man's story in 2026. A man pulls into his driveway after another exhausting day. He's a husband, a father, a provider. He's carrying the weight of his family, bills, responsibility, work stress, the pressure of trying to hold everything together. He parks his truck, turns off his engine, but he doesn't get out. For 20 minutes he sits there. His mind starts racing. Am I enough? Am I doing enough? What if I lose everything? What if I let my family down? His phone buzzes. It's the guys chat group. Football, memes, jokes. Nobody asks, how are you? Nobody asks are you okay? So he puts his phone away, walks into the house, smiles, kisses his wife, hugs his kids, answers I'm good, but he's not. Nobody never knew. He almost gave up that day. Not necessarily on work, not necessarily on life. He almost gave up on hope. Men don't usually fight Philistines anymore. We fight anxiety, depression, loneliness, addictions, pornography, comparison, shame. We fight believing we'll never be enough. Different battle, same enemy, different century, same need for courage. One sentence when reading this passage in the Bible grabbed me because it said the Israelites retreated. Everybody turned and ran away. There was no one left. No reason to continue to fight an army by yourself. These men that ran, they weren't weak men. They were warriors. They had been trained to fight and to do battle. Yet when that pressure increased, when they looked around and saw people dying and screaming and yelling, they turned and ran away. Except one man, Elieasar. He stayed. In reading that scripture, it never says he wasn't afraid. It never says he wasn't tired. It never said he knew the battle was over. It simply says he stood. Sometimes the greatest act of courage isn't forward charging. Sometimes courage is just standing, knowing you're going to take the brunt of whatever you're facing and refusing to quit. For maybe you're standing today as a man. You're standing for your marriage, standing for your fate, standing for your integrity, standing for your sobriety, standing for your purpose, standing for the young men that need to see what strong men look like. And if you are a man in 2026 standing for something, it will feel like everyone else has walked away. But I implore you to keep standing because there is a level of strength that you get when you're standing and everyone else has turned and ran because they saw what was in front of them. You choose not to move forward, but you choose to stand and face it head on. God can do incredible things through men who simply refuse to quit.

Your Hand Frozen To The Sword

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The Bible verse tells us that Eliezer fought until his hand froze to the sword. Can you imagine that? Muscles screaming, body exhausted, everything in his mind and body is telling him to let go, to give up, to quit. But he kept fighting. His hand became locked around the very thing God had placed in it. That makes me ask you this question. What is your sword? What did God place in your hand and tell you to fight with all your might, to stand with all your might, to never give up? Is it your marriage, your fate, your calling, your integrity, your children, your healing, your purpose? What has God placed in your hand that He's asking you not to let go of? And it's crazy because I started to do some research on how many men did my brother Eleazar have to kill in order for the Philistines to look and be like, we're not going to beat this one man, to make thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of men turn and run the other way from one man standing, one man refusing to quit. But the Bible never tells us how many Philistines Eliezer killed. So think about that. God tells us all the men on Eliezer's side ran, retreated. Eliezer stood and fought. His hand was frozen to his sword. He could not let go. He brought victory to the Israelites. But God never tells you a number. Why? I don't think God wanted us to focus on the body count. He wanted us to focus on the character. Because we live in a culture obsessed with numbers. How much money, how many followers, how many views, how many wins, how many people showed up, how many girls, how big is your house, what car do you drive? But God is asking us a different question. Were you faithful when you showed up? We live in a world that celebrates results. But the God who rules over everything and everyone celebrates faithfulness. He cares about you going out there as a man and showing your faithfulness to him in a world that says they love him, but doesn't show any faithfulness to him. Maybe Eliezer's greatest victory wasn't how many enemies fell. Maybe his greatest victory was when everyone ran, when everyone walked away, he stayed. There's a lot of men out there worried about the outcome. God is looking at your obedience. A lot of men out there worried about the recognition. God is watching your character. How do you treat people who you feel are less than you? How do you treat people of a different race? How do you treat people if your political alignment doesn't align up to what you think it should be? How do you treat people, especially the women, in your life? As men, we need to stop getting so focused on counting victories that we forget the greatest victory simply is

Faithfulness Over Numbers And Fame

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not quitting. And I'm gonna be real with y'all right now. I think one of the biggest lies men believe is strength means pretending. Good gosh. So many men out there pretending to be something that they're not. And Pastor Cliff alluded to this in his sermon on Wednesday. You don't have to pretend. A lot of men are pretending like they are okay, that they're not hurt. They're pretending like they're not overwhelmed, that they don't need help. And I'm sorry to tell you this, guys. That is not strength. You're surviving. Real strength says, I'm struggling. Real strength says I need prayer. Real strength says I need counseling. Real strength says I can't carry this by myself. Men's mental health isn't about making men weak, it's about helping men stop suffering in silence. Pretending doesn't heal anything. Matter of fact, pretending makes everything worse. And the only way you can heal yourself and become a better man is being honest with yourself, being honest with who you are, looking at yourself in the mirror and accepting that person that you see. One of the most important parts of this story, and a lot of people miss it, a lot of men miss it. The verse says that God brought about the victory. So think about that. Eleazar stood, he fought, he stayed. He believed that God was going to give him the victory. He stayed faithful. But at the end of the day, Eleazar didn't run around and say how amazing he was. He wasn't looking for recognition. He wasn't looking for the big accomplishment that he did. He didn't want it on CNN or Fox News or whatever news that you watch. He gave God the glory. And that's the lesson that I need to hear. And I know that some men also need to hear too. Our responsibility as a man is to be faithful to God. And God's responsibility is the outcome, whatever it is. If you don't like the outcome, learn from it. God does nothing for fun. There's always something hidden in what God is trying to show you or what He's blessed you with. So think about this as a man. How much stress will disappear if we stop trying to control what only God can control? Paul writes in Galatians 6 and 9, let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Paul doesn't say you'll never get tired. He says don't give up. Some of you aren't failing in life. Some of you are just tired, overwhelmed, sad. And that's the difference. Rest. Stop doing things that don't motivate or make you happy. Pull back from friends. That all they do is hurt or talk down or try to make you feel less than. Pray. Talk to someone. Ask for help. But whatever you do as a man, you do not quit. And in Ephesians 6 and 13, Paul tells us to put on the full armor of God so that when the day the evil comes, we will be able to stand our ground. And that's what Eleazar did. He stood.

Unseen Impact And Giving God Glory

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The crazy part of this story is after Eleazar won and the Philistines ran, the men who retreated and left Eleazar by himself came back and took the spoils of a battle they did not win. But I also want you to take into account if you're a man that ran and you turned around and you saw one man fighting an army by himself? What if that man that turned around was your kid, your wife, your friends who didn't think you could, who thought you were afraid, who looked down on you, they turned around and saw? What if the men that were running turned around and saw and they were your coworkers? And from your actions of staying and fighting, your faithfulness may inspire someone you'll never even know. Because a lot of those people most likely didn't say thank you to Eliezer. But that's where they got the strength to turn back around, come back and take from the dead Philistines all that they could, knowing they did nothing to deserve the spoils of war. Sometimes there will be people who get inspired by you. They won't like your posts, they won't like your videos, they won't share anything that is yours. But that next day, that next week, that next month, that next year, they implement the things that you are pouring your heart out to give to people. And it makes their lives better. And they run around and say they pulled their own bootstrapped up, they had help from nobody, knowing that they turned around and got inspired by one man who stood and fought a whole army by himself. In the power of God, there will be people you as a man will never know you affected their lives. Because men are afraid to go back to who inspired them, who challenged them, who made them better and say thank you. So they'll pretend that they did this all by themselves, knowing that they needed help from people all over the place. So I'm gonna take a few moments and talk about the men who inspired me, who inspires me to want to be better, to want to do better, to fight for something, to believe in something. My little brother, Nathan Thomas, Pastor Cliff, Justin Granada. It's Granado, but I call him Grenada because I think it's funny. Blessed. Daniel Marquez. And it's funny about Daniel was the whole 2020 thing was happening, and I was doing a men's group, and we were coming together, and we were just talking about life, and he was talking about starting his own business and just didn't know where to go and trying to figure things out. And six years later, he has his own business. He's doing his thing, providing for his family, making things happen. Juan Valenzuela, one of the nicest guys I know, and he's an R man, complete and total badass. I don't need to go and look for people who are already famous or rich or have the accolades or the accomplishments. These are men in the community doing their best to try to figure it out while fighting their own demons and trying to understand what life is about in the season that they're in. You don't have to go far to look and find strong men, men who are standing by themselves, fighting by themselves, exhausted, overworked, overlooked. But the one thing they're not doing is quitting. So I honor you, the men that I just spoke to, and I honor the men who I didn't speak their name, but they're in that same fight and they're standing by themselves and they're fighting to be the best possible version of themselves. I don't know what battle you're facing today. I don't know what battle you're fighting today. Maybe your hand is tired, your heart is tired, your mind is tired, but I would implore you not to confuse being tired with being finished. I'll tell you this right now: God isn't done with you yet. Isaiah 41 and 10 reminds us, fear not, for I for I am with you. I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. So men, hold on, keep praying, keep showing up, keep leading, keep trusting. Because the same God who strengthened Eleazar is the same God who strengthens you today. The history book remembers David, but God made sure we remembered Eleazar. Because in God's kingdom, faithfulness matters more than fame. So if anyone hasn't told you today that they love you, let me be the first to say I love you. You are awesome. You are amazing. You deserve the best that this world has to offer. Do not quit, do not give up. The world does not get easier, but you get stronger. Y'all have a blessed weekend. Bye-bye.

Final Charge And How To Connect

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Thank you for listening. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode. And for daily motivational and up-to-date content, follow us on Facebook and Instagram at ExcellenceAbove Talent. And remember, keep moving forward, never give up, and you are never alone in this battle. We'll see you next time.