Priority: Leadership
Introduction
In our summer Priority Series, we have looked at several different priorities already: worship, witness and particularly witnessing to all peoples, and discipleship. These priorities have been, in many ways, the foundation that discipleship is built upon and they are also helping to describe the core of discipleship. At Main Street we will often say that our mission, our goal as a group of Christian believers, is to:
Love God
Love Others
Make Disciples of Jesus
We get that primarily from Matthew 22:34–40 and 28:20. This is a great summary of the priorities we have talked about already.
Love God = Worship
At its core, the command to love God with all of our heart, soul, and mind is really a call to worship God. To make everything we do and our identity all about God. Similarly:
Love Others = Witness & All Peoples
The call to love others is a great summary of our priority to make sure others witness and notice our worship of God. And we don’t want to be unduly biased against anyone for any reason when we think about who should receive this love. We want all peoples to witness our worship and hopefully see our God.
This process of worshipping God ourselves and then making sure all peoples witness our love of God IN our worship of God is meant to produce disciples.
Make Disciples of Jesus = Discipleship
Love God, Love Others, Make Disciples of Jesus is not only the core of our missional call together here at Main Street Church, it is also a summary of several of our Priorities. And it is a synergistic process, a process where one part leads to the other. The more we love God or worship God, the more we will desire to witness to all peoples that they might love and worship God as well and we will desire to be discipled ourselves and to disciple others. As we partner with the Holy Spirit to make disciples of others we will see how much more we need to grow in our own discipleship and knowledge of God. And the more we try to disciple ourselves and others the more we will value and worship God and care for the entire breadth of his people. This is a beautifully intertwined process where each step forces us to the other steps and, ultimately, we find ourselves realizing our deepest need is to know God himself and live in his ways. God has designed our life so that everything is pointing us back to him!
What we will find as we go through the rest of our priorities is that outside of Love God (Worship), Love Others (Witness & All Peoples), and Make Disciples of Jesus (Discipleship) most of our priority topics are specifics and particularities to our love of God, love of others, or making disciples. They are the different veins and ways our love and discipleship are lived out in this world. And this morning, we want to look at one specific vein of this process: Leadership.
Leadership
Now, that may seem like an odd place to start as we begin to look at specific examples of our love of God, love of others, and discipleship. You would probably expect a topic like prayer or compassion—and we will touch on those in the next couple of weeks—but leadership is a dynamic that we all bump into every day and it has a profound impact on how we and others experience this process of loving God, loving others, and making disciples. And, we all have experiences and thoughts about leadership!
Remember last week when we talked about the suffix “ship.” Well, that will help us again today. Leadership is usually defined as a state of being:
Leadership: The state of leading or being a leader.
Which again, means it is helpful to think about what it means to lead just like we had to think about discipleship and being a disciple. To lead is:
Lead:
To cause (someone or something) to go with oneself while moving forward
OR
Acting and speaking to create a following toward a goal
It is exactly this definition that makes every TV show with a comically inept boss hilarious! Shows like the Office or Parks and Rec (or pick your show) strike us as funny because the one in the position of leadership doesn’t know how to lead. And chaos ensues!
For much of history, leadership has been given or taken by those who literally were the strongest and most able to keep you safe and provide you with what you needed. And sometimes force you to go with them. Leadership was largely about survival, protection, and strength. This is where we often get the image of an alpha-male who can storm the battlefield AND whisk away the damsel in distress over his shoulder at the same time. It has been the movie diet of choice for many generations since the beginning of movies themselves and seen in war movies, cowboy movies, and ancient hero movies, and now—superhero movies.
Yet in our post-modern world, survival is not always the goal that looms largest for most of us. Praise God that is true! Our biggest problem is largely if the grocery store has what we want in stock and if the air conditioner can keep up with a 110-degree day. Today we often care most about comfort, prosperity, or enjoyment. That means many are no longer looking for muscles to define leadership, but rather wit and intellect, kindness and care, the best vacation home. And nice guys and nerds of world rejoiced!
Groups like Disney have swooped in to remind us that men AND women AND children AND even animals given human voice can have good ideas and lead in many ways. Podcasts and social media have thousands of individuals who will claim (often with little or no facts) that they have the truth you need to help you heal every illness you have ever had, make you a millionaire with no money down, and grow back your hair AND stop unwanted hair growth with the same tonic or pill.
It is funny that many people often think that leadership is this rare thing reserved for a special few, an elite placed outside the realm of normal humans. Yet that is not what we see today. Our culture today makes it easy to notice the truth about leadership: Everyone leads in some capacity. Young, old, male, female, in the home, in the workplace, in the public square, even in church, everyone takes varying roles of leading. When we think of this definition:
Lead:
To cause (someone or something) to go with oneself while moving forward
OR
Acting and speaking to create a following toward a goal
You should see yourself.
You lead when you sweetly talk to your child about their hard day and when yell at your kids to get in the car and maybe literally drag one of them to their seat. You lead when you try to persuade your friends where to get lunch. You can lead by raising your hands in worship. You can lead by keeping your hands down in worship. You can lead in your opinionated outspoken ways. You can lead in your silent judgement. We all, often, try to cause someone or something to go with us in the direction WE want. We often act or speak in a way to get people to follow us towards our preferred goal. We all lead.
Now yes, there are roles of leadership, outside the church and inside the church, that we all don’t take part in. There is a category called “leader” that is often reserved for specific types of leading. Not everyone in the church will be an elder or pastor. We will not all be able to be the president despite what your second-grade teacher told you. Most of us will not run a multi-billion-dollar company nor own a major league sports team. But we will all lead in many ways throughout our life, not the least of which is the leadership role we all take in witnessing to and discipling others.
The fact that we all lead and can lead is great news! How else would we take part in the call to witness and make disciples that we have been talking about these last several weeks if we had no ability to lead others? How else would WE grow and learn if there weren’t any other people trying to lead us in a new or different direction? Leadership is something we all must care about because we all are called to be leaders in the knowledge and faith we have been given. Worship requires us to witness to all peoples as well as be disciples of Jesus ourselves and MAKE disciples of Jesus. And that requires leadership. That will require each of us to lead in many ways.
We all are called to participate in leadership. We will all pick a direction in life, and head that way, hoping and encouraging friends to come with us. This will happen especially as Christians and in our Christian walk. Which begs the question: what then does Christian leadership look like? If we all are to do this, God must have instructions for how we are to be leaders. If we are honest, we have all had that image tainted in many ways through the many images we talked about before. Our interaction with previous leaders, the books we have read, the movies we have seen, the podcasts we have listened to have likely shaped that perspective more than the Bible has.
There are many great passages about leadership in Scripture. Yet I really like this quote from Hebrews 13 for our leaping off point today:
“Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”
(Hebrews 13:7–8 ESV)
The first portion helps to define for us the type of leader Scripture is most concerned with. The writer of Hebrews equates leadership with “those who spoke to you the word of God.” As Christians, it is the leadership of witnessing and discipleship that God is concerned about here. Leadership is, for the Christian, about how we are communicating with others the very word of God himself. It is about how we are showing our worship of God to others. It is how we are witnessing. It is how we are discipling. That is you and me!
This all connects with what we said last week when we talked about discipleship in general. We all need to be theologians, meaning we all need to know much about God. That is the first step of owning our identity as a disciple and working on our own discipleship. But the second step, witnessing and helping to make disciples, that requires this type of leadership. Leadership that focuses on the word of God—Jesus—and how we can be more like him.
And here, the writer to the Hebrews also says there are two particular aspects that matter in a leader: the outcome of their way of life and their faith. We are to consider a leader’s life. That means to observe, weigh, and evaluate if their life matches up to what they are sharing with you. Similarly, we are to look at their faith—what they believe and how they are willing to trust God where they don’t fully understand—and imitate that, presumably to the degree it matches up to what God has told us in Scripture.
This is a great paradigm for all of us to consider! If discipleship is about first being a disciple of God and knowing him ourselves, walking with him in our new identity, and then sharing what we love about God with others, then leadership is something we all do in many ways. Leadership is the role we step into when we seek to disciple someone else. And for those being discipled, they are letting someone else lead them towards knowing God more. And that is where this last statement is so crucial:
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
That may seem like an odd phrase to throw into this passage. This seems like a non-sequitur in the sentence—a phrase that doesn’t seem to follow from the previous phrases. Here the writer is talking about leadership and how to evaluate a leader but then just drops in this statement: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” That seems really strange. And I can tell you, context doesn’t solve the oddity of that statement. The next sentence goes right back to talking about leaders, particularly bad leaders:
“Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods, which have not benefited those devoted to them”
(Hebrews 13:9 ESV)
But this seemingly random phrase is very purposeful and is there to remind us that every TRUE leader’s life—from the most visible leader to the most hidden, from the loudest to the quietest, from ME to all of YOU—will all have largely the same identifying characteristics because God himself is consistent. God wants us to be conformed into THE image of Jesus as Christians AND as we all live as leaders in our discipleship of others. We are all being made more like Jesus in every way:
“I appeal to you therefore, brothers [and sisters], by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
(Romans 12:1–2 ESV)
We worship God when we allow ourselves to be transformed by God. Not transformed to this world, but transformed to the very image of God, which we see most clearly in Jesus Christ. God is conforming all of us to exclusively be like JESUS. Yes, we all uniquely image God through our God given talents and personalities. Every leader will look different in many ways (especially when we consider God’s diverse gifts), but there is a grand SAMENESS to our identity as disciples and our leadership. And that sameness is found in Jesus. The phrase “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” reminds us that while personalities will be present and unique, and situations will vary day-to-day and culture-to-culture, we can and should expect that God will work in his people consistently. Leadership should look similar in CHARACTER and ESSENCE from leader to leader. How else would God work if he wanted us all to be more like Jesus? How else would disciples be able to know we are heading in the right direction if there was not a defined end goal? And that goal is Jesus.
This morning, we define leadership first by looking at THE leader, our God, and we see him most clearly in Jesus Christ. And then we remember that we are all called to lead in many ways, especially in our discipleship. Before we have conversations about elders or other leadership roles in the church or the world and the different ways or giftings for leading, we start with looking to our God who leads us ALL and all of US and our grand commonality as leaders in discipleship. We are all leaders because we are all meant to be worshippers who witness and make disciples. Remember, it will take us a lifetime to unpack all the ways you and I are called to lead well in the Lord. As we consider our mutual role as leaders, I pray we will see these four core truths about leadership today:
Christ-Like Leadership Is:
God-Focused
Others-Serving
Humbly Faithful
Joyful
God-Focused
If you search your Bible for all the places where God leads you will find him leading Abraham out of Ur to the land of Canaan. You will see Moses being led into the wilderness to the burning bush and then told to lead Israel out of Egypt and into the promised land. You will see God leading his people as a cloud by day and a whirlwind of fire at night. He leads them personally in their lives and he leads them as a nation. And leads them to settle down and he leads them into war. Clearly God is not an inactive God but a good who leads like we are called to lead.
What is more interesting is how Scripture describes his leading. Look at a just a couple of examples from the Psalmist with me:
“He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.”
(Psalm 23:2–3 ESV)
“Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all the day long.”
(Psalm 25:5 ESV)
“Teach me your way, O LORD, and lead me on a level path because of my enemies.”
(Psalm 27:11 ESV)
“For you are my rock and my fortress; and for your name’s sake you lead me and guide me;”
(Psalm 31:3 ESV)
God’s leading always has a purpose, and his purpose is himself. We talked about this before: God knows himself to be the most wonderful, glorious, lovely, and true being there is. What else would we expect God to do but call us, equip us, and empower us to know him more? We will not find anything as lovely, true, or beautiful as God. God is always leading us that we might know him more and love him more.
“After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.””
(John 6:66–69 ESV)
I think we all know this is the right Christian answer, but stop and notice the Psalmist’s sayings again. God leads us in times of restoration and peace that we might know his name—his character more and know that God is a God of peace and care. God leads us through times of teaching and knowledge, because he wants us to learn that God saves. God leads us amongst our enemies because he is our portion and our shield, our great provider, that we might know him and that he is our rock and fortress. Again and again God’s leading is said to be “for his name sake.” God leads you and I in many different situations and ways so that you and I and the world may see God’s character shown in front of us again and again, and that we might become more like him. This is exactly what Jesus is doing—showing us and his disciples the very character of God. We see this in Jesus’s response to Philip in John 14:3.
“Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves.”
(John 14:10–11 ESV)
Application
God is always leading that we might know HIM more. Jesus is always leading that we might know the Father more through him. That means our leadership, our encouragement through our words and actions for others should always—ultimately—be to show the glory of God somehow.
That is a big challenge! That means to the degree each of us leads, even in non-Christian conversations and spheres, we are meant to lead that we might show others God. Your leadership with your kids in their homework, chores, and disciplining their behavior is to show them the glory of God. Your leadership at work even in spreadsheets, meetings, and products and deliverables—these are to show your coworkers the glory of God. Your leadership at school in assignments and social interactions is to demonstrate the glory of God in your life. Your leadership with your non-Christian friends and neighbors in every conversation and interaction is to show them the glory of God. And this will take a lifetime and longer to unpack how to it all well.
But I can tell you the first step: the first step is realizing leadership isn’t about you or your pet topics! It is about God! If it is about God, it can’t be about you. So often, we want to talk to someone about OUR prerogatives, our perspectives, our personal concerns. But that is not what is most important. Frankly, if we are honest, it is rarely important. We want to find ways to make our engagement with others primarily about God and his glory. To find that when we share about our life and our ideas that we are weaving it back to God and HIS ideas, thoughts, and desires. That our desires might be so aligned with God that we can’t help but get to his desires.
Especially when we think about our witness to others, we want to start with the MOST-clear things of God and encourage others in what we can surely know about him from Scripture. We want others to enjoy and glory in the beauty of the gospel message that is written from Genesis to Revelation and marvel at the hope they have through faith in Jesus. Can we talk about the other fun stuff—football (fantasy drafts are coming soon), our favorite theological nuance, our most enjoyable hobby? Sure! But we do that knowing that each time we lead someone in action or in word we want them to ultimately see that life is all about God!
Others-Serving
Fighting to keep life God-Focused will almost naturally force us to think about the second category—being others-serving. The more we look to God the more we will see his love for all peoples and his desire to bring his sheep back into relationship with himself.
“What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? And if he finds it, truly, I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray. So it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.”
(Matthew 18:12–14 ESV)
We are to be others focused in how we lead in our actions and words with others. There are some passages that we read often when we think about church leaders or Christian leaders like this in Mark:
“But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
(Mark 10:43–45 ESV)
You may think about those when you think about the role of a pastor or elder or deacon. But do you believe these words are for you too? You are a son or daughter of the most-high God, his ambassador in this world, empowered and indwelt with the very Spirit of God himself. You are being changed to be like Christ, and you are destined for a future eternity with God on the new earth. You are meant for greatness in God through faith in Jesus!
Therefore, you are meant to serve one another. In fact, Jesus says here, to be a slave to all. Your greatness in Christ is the privilege and responsibility to serve others. Jesus freed us from the yoke of sin and the oppression of Satan not so we can serve ourselves, but so we can serve others:
“For you were called to freedom, brothers [and sisters]. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.”
(Galatians 5:13 ESV)
We all have moments where we glimpse that God is making us into something marvelous in Jesus Christ. Moments where we can see him working in us. Yet how often do we realize that miraculous change is SO THAT we can serve others? So that we can make much of others. Much like Christ did:
“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”
(Philippians 2:5–8 ESV)
Humbly Faithful
And our service to others comes from a heart that is poor in spirit, mournful, and meek as we saw recently in the Sermon on the Mount. We are to rightly see ourselves, see both our sin but also our great privilege in Jesus and find ourselves, in the Spirit, humbly faithful.
“[C]omplete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.”
(Philippians 2:2–3 ESV)
“Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.””
(James 4:6 ESV)
“But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”
(2 Corinthians 12:9 ESV)
“If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you.”
(John 13:14–15 ESV)
“Leaders who make people glad do not think too highly or too often of themselves. That is, they are lowly people who live among the people instead of hiding behind their privileges. Good leaders realize that God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. This does not mean leaders are timid or unsure of themselves. Instead, it means that they are aware of their weaknesses, depend on Jesus, and consistently lean toward others.”
To truly lead we all must look to Christ, learn from his humility but also grasp onto his faithfulness. To witness well always requires us to care about the other. To witness to a child requires us to leave behind big words and lofty theological statements and share in ways that they can comprehend the love and beauty of Jesus. And yet we must stay faithful. We cannot share a faith that is anything more nor less than what Jesus has given us. That is true every time we witness. As Paul said to the Galatians:
“I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.”
(Galatians 1:6–9 ESV)
Joyful
Last, but definitely not least, we are all called to lead in JOY!
“Not that we lord it [our leadership/discipleship] over your faith, but we work with you for your joy, for you stand firm in your faith.”
(2 Corinthians 1:24 ESV)
Our call to worship God and then witness that worship to others and to disciple others is meant to be:
In Joy
For Joy
By Joy
There is no way to escape Joy in our interactions of discipleship and leadership with others. Everything we do is mean to be “In Joy” meaning in the joy of Jesus. Jesus did not come to serve us begrudgingly—he came joyfully!
“[Look] to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”
(Hebrews 12:2 ESV)
Jesus came for the joy that he saw would come THROUGH his serving us, leading us, discipling us. It is that joy that Jesus wanted us to have. Like Paul said above and like Jesus says it is FOR JOY, our joy, that God came to love us.
“These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.”
(John 15:11 ESV)
And it should be for joy, the joy of others, that we serve them as well. Everything we do, our leadership included, is all done “By Joy.” The joy of Jesus working in this world for salvation and worked INTO us that we might give joy to others. The very joy of salvation through faith in Jesus.
Conclusion
“Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”
(Hebrews 13:7–8 ESV)
I know that when most of us think about leadership we first think about specific roles within the church or culture. That isn’t wrong, because God has given us amazing brothers and sisters who can help us in unique ways as we seek to be discipled ourselves and to disciple others. But I want you to think for a moment about what Don Carson says here. In a talk about elders and their roles from Paul’s letters to Titus and Timothy Carson says this:
“These verses (in 1 Timoth 3 and Titus 1) teach us that the primary characteristic of the Christian elder/pastor/overseer is that his life constantly reflects Christian values, morality, conduct, and integrity; that’s the baseline. In some respects, the list is remarkable for being unremarkable. In other words, there is nothing about superior IQ, charisma, powerful personality or the like. The Christian minister is supposed to be gentle, not supposed to get drunk, and so forth: the list is remarkable for being unremarkable. Indeed, with only a couple of exceptions, all of the qualifications listed here are elsewhere in the New Testament demand of all Christians.”
D.A. Carson
That means, short of the specific gifting that God gives to each of us and the specific ways that works out in our life, we are ALL called to be leaders as we are called to be emblematic Christians. There are just specific ways that plays out for everyone. But the SAMENESS is larger than the difference. We are all called to be leaders who represent the very character of God in how we lead.
Christ-Like Leadership Is:
God-Focused
Others-Serving
Humbly Faithful
Joyful
We care about this leadership because, as we have seen, our call to worship God, witness that worship to others, and disciple others—or as we would say:
Love God
Love Others
Make Disciples of Jesus
Requires us all to be leaders as we seek to witness and disciple others.
Response
I want to give you a moment to respond to this sermon this morning. When you think about our priority of leadership, I want you to think about these questions for a moment:
Do you see yourself as a leader?
Do you view that leading is about being God-focused and keeping him at the center of any and every way you can lead?
Do you view leading as first about others and not yourself?
Do you seek to have a heart of humble faithfulness in your service of others?
Do you seek to lead and live joyfully?
Communion
Benediction
“The LORD bless you and keep you;
the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;
the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.
“So shall they put my name upon the people of Israel (and you and I today), and I will bless them.””
(Numbers 6:24–27 ESV)
