The title of my sermon today, is "Spiritual Leadership."
However, I would like to begin by saying that this isn’t for everybody. Well, the sermon is for everybody; it’s just that leadership isn’t for everybody. Everybody should set a good example, but everybody can’t be a leader; otherwise we will all be going in different directions. There is a spiritual gift of leadership, and not everybody has this particular gift.
I remember going to a conference on leadership taught by Bill Hybels and John Maxwell, and they were describing what leaders do and how they operated, and about three-fourths of the way through the conference they stopped to ask, How many of you are eager to do this? How many people find this interesting, find it desirable? Because, they said, people with the gift of leadership find leadership interesting and exciting; people who don’t have the gift generally are not eager to get into it.
Now, the vast majority of the people there raised their hands. Maybe people were embarrassed to admit that they went to a conference that they didn’t particularly have an interest in, perhaps only people who were already interested made the effort to come anyway, or perhaps the enthusiasm of the speakers persuaded some people to be interested. But about 10 percent of the people there said, No, this isn’t for me,
And I was one of them. I am not a leader type. I am not anxious to get out in front and rally the troops. I am not anxious to get other people to support my goals and ideas. I prefer to work behind the scenes, writing articles, doing research, letting the written word do whatever persuasion needs to be done.
When I speak, I don’t put much weight on my own opinions; I try to get people to see what the Bible says, so they are convinced by the Bible and not by me particularly. If I speak on leadership, it is going to be based on the Bible and not on my own experience, because I don’t have much experience in leadership. That’s just the way I am; I am not a leader and I do not have the gift of leadership.
I feel kind of dumb saying this, it’s a bit self-contradictory to be a public speaker who isn’t that interested in being in public. The pulpit is a place for leadership, so what am I doing in a pulpit saying I’m not particularly good at leadership? Well, the main reason is that Pastor Bermie asked me to speak on this subject. He didn’t tell me what to say, and what I say might wreck what he plans to say next week, but that’s the risk he took when he asked me to speak on it today.
I do not want to be a leader. My skin is too thin for that. Leaders get criticized, and I don’t like criticism. My feelings get hurt too easily. I don’t like to take risks and stick my neck out. Leaders get criticized no matter what they do. No matter whether they change things or keep them the same, somebody is going to complain. I don’t want that. Leaders get criticized, sometimes fired, sometimes beat up, sometimes stoned, and sometimes crucified. I’m not really into that. I prefer to have things a bit more stable.
Most of you aren’t leaders, either. You haven’t been in the past, and you aren’t right now, and perhaps you will never be leaders. Now, in some circles, that would be an insult. It would be like saying, You people will never amount to much. But remember, it applies to me, too. I may never be a leader. I may never enjoy public speaking. It may never come easy for me. That’s OK. That is not my calling.
I think it is a false conclusion to equate leadership with personal value. It is based on the false standard that leadership is the main thing that makes a person worth something. It is an egotistical leader who thinks that, if you don’t have a leadership personality, you aren’t worth much. That kind of attitude sometimes existed in the church. But that attitude isn’t true, says Jesus.
Leadership is important, but it is not the only way to be important. It is not the only way to be a child of God, to be a Christlike person. It is not the only way to be spiritually mature.
Only a small percentage of the church has the gift of leadership. About 6 to 10 percent, according to Bill Hybels and John Maxwell. The other 90-some percent of us are not leaders. Yes, we should set a good example, but we are not leaders in the usual sense.
Nevertheless, many people act as if they are supposed to be the leaders. They want to make the decisions, they want to set the policies. They want to have things their own way. It’s the disease of individualism, the disease of Western society. We always want things our own way, because our way is the best way, and we grumble and gripe whenever we don’t get our own way. We get our feelings hurt and we stamp our little feet and go home to sulk and say, Nobody likes me. At least that’s what I do.
But having it our own way is not what leadership is really about. Having it our own way is an abuse of leadership. It is the way the world exercises leadership, but that’s not supposed to be the way it is in the church. The church does not exist for our convenience, or for the convenience of the leaders. The church does not exist to do the pastor’s work or to pay his salary. Nor does the church exist to do our work, or to make us feel good, or to satisfy our desires – or even to give us our needs. If we look at the church as a way to get what we want, then it is a good thing we are not in leadership.
Now, one of the things that the church should do is to serve the members. That’s true. But if we look at the church primarily with an eye to what the church should do for us, then we are not seeing it the way we are supposed to. Instead, we are supposed to see first what we are supposed to do to serve the church – and if we all did that, then our needs would indeed be served, without us having to worry about them.
If the church fails to do its duty, then we as members of the church should attempt to fix the problem. I said "if," but I should have said when. It is inevitable that the church will sometimes fail to do its duty. The church is made up of people who make mistakes, so the church will sometimes fall short. We should expect that.
We should expect the church to fail us, to sometimes overlook us, to sometimes slight us or insult us, to fail to do its duty toward us, and to make mistakes. That doesn’t make it OK for the church to fail – it just means that we should expect to get our feelings hurt sometimes. Because the church is made up of sinners, and we aren’t perfect yet. So sometimes we have to accept some inconveniences, and we even have to suffer some injustice sometimes. That doesn’t make it right, but it’s something that we need to expect and live with.
This is something we need to know about spiritual leadership. Fact 1: we are not all leaders. That means that perhaps the biggest lesson we need to learn about leadership is really how to be a good follower – that is, how to submit to the leadership that God has given us. Submit.
Fact 2: nobody is perfect, and our leaders are not perfect, and they will make mistakes – and our reaction to those mistakes isn’t always perfect, either. We do not always submit in the way we should. Our feelings are going to get hurt, but we should not react as if the church is supposed to revolve around us. The church does not exist for our convenience, or to do what we want. Rather, we have been called to support the church.
Even the pastor has been called to support the work of the church. We exist not for our own will, but to do the will of the One who called us and gave us life. We exist to do his will, and we are called to do his will, even if our feelings get hurt and even if we get crucified unjustly.
Now, I would like to speak about what the Bible says about spiritual leadership, and spiritual leaders need to pay attention, not because I know a lot about leadership, but because the Bible is the standard for what we do in the church, and it says some important things about spiritual leadership.
Everybody else needs to pay attention, too, because we need to know what our leaders are supposed to be doing, so that we can help them do it.
Now, the foundational passage for Christian leaders is found in Luke 22, verses 24 to 30. Let’s turn there to look at it in some detail.
LK 22:24
Also a dispute arose among them as to which of them was considered to be greatest. 25 Jesus said to them, "The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who exercise authority over them call themselves Benefactors. 26 But you are not to be like that. Instead, the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves.27
For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is at the table? But I am among you as one who serves. 28 You are those who have stood by me in my trials. 29 And I confer on you a kingdom, just as my Father conferred one on me, 30 so that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel."The disciples were arguing about which disciple would be the greatest. In one of the other Gospels it tells us that they wanted to be in positions of authority in the kingdom of God. They wanted to be important, they wanted to have power, they wanted to be leaders.
And Jesus spoke to the concern for power and authority. He said that Gentiles seek that kind of leadership. He could have just as easily said that the Jewish leaders wanted that kind of authority, too, but by using the word Gentiles he is making it really clear that the disciples’ desire for power was an ungodly desire, and unconverted desire. That’s the way that unconverted people think, but we are supposed to think in a different way.
Now, the Jewish people were looking for a Messiah who would be a leader like that, a national leader comparable to the nations of the world. They wanted a Messiah who would kick the Romans out of the Holy Land, and would lead the Jewish nation to greatness. But Jesus was not that kind of leader, and he is telling his disciples here that they aren’t supposed to be that kind of leader, either. Leadership is not about power and authority and honorific titles and personal greatness. Leadership is not about getting status in the eyes of other people, so the disciples were asking the wrong question.
True greatness, Jesus says here, is to be found in humble service. That means getting down on our hands and knees to do some dirty work, if necessary. It means doing jobs that we don’t necessarily like to do, jobs that other people look down on. It means washing feet, as Jesus did on the evening before he was crucified, as a lesson that Jesus’ disciples are supposed to serve, to be servants. Spiritual leadership is really servant leadership. The whole point of leading is to serve others, not to benefit ourselves.
This is true of the disciples, true of the leaders in the church today, and true for every member here. The point of what Jesus was saying is that all of his people are equal in importance, equal in greatness. There is no point in striving for leadership, because that doesn’t make us better than other people. And being in a subservient role does not make us less than other people. Christianity is not a race for self-exaltation. Our job, whether we are leaders or followers, is to serve.
Jesus was a person who served. He did not try to get power in the usual way. When the crowd wanted to make him a king, he slipped away. He did not come to rule, but to serve. And he did serve, even to the point of inconvenience, even to the point of giving his life. And he tells us to serve in the same way. It is not yet time for us to rule with power. It is time for us to serve, for leaders to serve, for members to serve. In that sense everyone here can lead, by setting an example of service.
Oh, this might involve some inconvenience at times. It might require some time. It might require some courage. It might require some money. It might require some humility. It might even require some pain and suffering and even death. That is what Jesus calls us to, whether we want to be great, or not. He calls us to serve, to give, to submit.
Now, look around in the congregation. What might service mean in this congregation? It might be coming early to help set up. It might mean staying late to help put things away. It might mean picking up trash that we didn’t put down. It might mean standing at the door to welcome visitors. It might mean helping take care of the pre-K children, or helping to teach the pre-teen children. It might mean letting somebody else go first in the lunch line. There are little ways to serve, and big ways to serve. There are public ways to serve and private ways to serve. The point is that we are all called to serve.
And notice what Jesus says in verse 29: "And I confer on you a kingdom, just as my Father conferred one on me, 30 so that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel." Jesus will take care of the rewards. Our service will be richly rewarded. We don’t have to worry about trying to get power in this world that is only temporary. Jesus will give us power and honor and greatness that will last forever. We don’t have to struggle for it here; what Jesus wants us to do here is to serve. That is what he did, and he wants us to follow him in that.
Now, even with all this emphasis on serving, we should also note that God does want leaders in the church, and he wants those leaders to lead. He tells us in Hebrews 13:17 to obey our leaders. This means that leaders will sometimes give us instructions to do something we wouldn’t otherwise do. We are supposed to submit to their leadership. This does not mean blind obedience, in which we do what they tell us even if it’s against God’s law, but it does mean that skepticism is the wrong attitude to have. The attitude we should have is willingness, even an eagerness, to serve.
Some basic instructions to pastors is seen in 1 Peter 5:1-4: To the elders among you, I appeal as a fellow elder, a witness of Christ's sufferings and one who also will share in the glory to be revealed: 2 Be shepherds of God's flock that is under your care, serving as overseers—not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be; not greedy for money, but eager to serve; 3 not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock. 4 And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that will never fade away.
This verse shares some similarities with what Jesus said – that leaders in the church are supposed to serve, not to lord it over other people. They are to lead not for their own benefits, but to help others. They are to watch over the flock to see what kind of help we need, and they need to set a good example. And just like Jesus said, the rewards are in the future. There are some temporary inconveniences involved in leadership, but there are eternal rewards.
We might notice one more passage that says that God assigns leaders to the church, and it tells us what they are supposed to do. That’s in Ephesians 4. Sometimes we go immediately to verse 12, which tells us that leaders in the church are supposed to prepare the people for works of service, or to equip them for ministry, but today it might be helpful for us to look at the context of the chapter, starting in verse 1.
As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. 2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. 3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.
Paul here is telling us how to get along with one another, how to be the community of God’s people, how to be a congregation. It calls for humility, patience, and love. Unity requires effort and patience, and bearing with one another. That means bearing with inconvenience, it means overlooking faults. It means getting our feelings hurt and keeping quiet about it. In a way, it means being a prisoner of the Lord, being his slave, giving up all our rights, trusting him to take care of us in the end.
4
There is one body and one Spirit-- just as you were called to one hope when you were called-- 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.EPH 4:7 But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.
Yes, we are one body. We are all equal in the Lord, but this does not mean that we are all identical. There is only one God and one Holy Spirit, but just like Paul says in First Corinthians, there are different gifts, given as God decides. Here Paul calls them grace. To each of us, he has given us not only forgiveness, but by grace, he also gives us additional spiritual gifts. We are part of the same body, but we are not all the same.
In verse 8 Paul writes, 8 This is why it says:
"When he ascended on high,
he led captives in his train
and gave gifts to men."
He is quoting from Psalm 68:18, and the part that he is especially interested in is the last part, giving gifts to people. His point is that as part of the way that we get along with one another, part of the way that we have unity within the church, is the distribution of gifts among us. Jesus has not given all the talent to any one person, and he has not given all the spiritual importance to any one person. He distributes or apportions his gifts so that we have to work together.
EPH 4:9
(What does "he ascended" mean except that he also descended to the lower, earthly regions? 10 He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe.)11
It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers,So these are some of the gifts Jesus Christ has given: leadership roles within the church. And their purpose is given in verse 12: "To prepare God's people for works of service" -- leaders exist to prepare God's people for serving others. Leaders inform, encourage, train and organize to bring out the most in the people. And they do that not by being an expert in every field, but by encouraging us to get involved and to learn more about our area of ministry than the pastor has time to learn. Some people will be more compassionate than the pastor is, some will be more technically skilled than he is, some people will be better at organizing than he is, some will be better with money and some will be better with people. But the leader exists to help all these diverse gifts work together for the common good.
Verse 12b: So that the body of Christ may be built up" -- the result of this is that the church is built up. Works of service help build and unify the church. This is the purpose of leadership in the church – not to serve the pastor’s interests, but to build up the church, to help the church grow in numbers and in maturity. The pastor is to help us grow in faith and in service. The pastor is to encourage us to get involved in different ministries, to spread the workload, to help us grow. And in order for this to work, we have to let him lead, and we have to follow him.
Verse 13: "Until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ" -- this process continues until the church reaches maturity, which means unity in faith and the knowledge of Christ, as measured by the standard of Christ himself. Although the goal is never attained in this life, it is still the goal the church is working toward. We are to be like Christ is, and in this age, that means a role of service, for leaders as well as followers.
14: "Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming" -- maturity in Christ gives us doctrinal stability. It gives some stability to our faith and the way that we serve.
15: "Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ" -- maturity in Christ comes from combining doctrinal accuracy with love. Truth with love. We are all to speak the truth with love, and leaders have to do it, too. If we are wrong, truth and love says that they have to correct us. Truth and love says that they have to call us to do things we wouldn’t otherwise do. It means we have to get out of our comfort zones and do things that we’d rather not do. It means a willingness to do someone else’s will, instead of insisting on having things our own way.
16: "From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work" -- It is from Christ that the church grows. That’s an important thought, an essential thought. We should never leave that out of our thinking.
But the second thought here is that the church is held together by its members, who work together in love to build the church. We need that, too. We stick together if we work together. Church growth comes as each member does his or her work of service, everyone according to the needs of the church, everyone according to the place in the church God has given them, and according to the spiritual gifts he has given them. Both leaders and members work together for the same purpose: maturity in Christ.
But we each have to do our part: Leaders are to lead for the purpose of our growth, and we are to serve, again for our growth, under the pastor’s leadership.
The book of Ephesians has a lot to say about how we get along with one another, how we are to live after we have been saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. And since human relationships involve authority, it has quite a bit to say about how authority is to be used, and how we are to respond to it.
For example, in chapter 6 Paul reminds children to obey their parents, and then he tells fathers how to use their authority, not in a heavy-handed way, but in a Christ-centered way. And it seems that this is true for church pastors, too. We as members are told to obey our leaders, and our leaders are in turn told not to exasperate us, but to teach us and instruct us in the Lord. The pastor is lead us toward the Lord, not in some other direction, and not in some other way.
The way of the Lord is the way that Christ himself set as an example, and in the Gospels we do not see him barking out orders, but dealing with people gently, patiently, pointing them toward God.
In a similar way, Paul has instructions for slaves, and then for masters. And again, his instructions are easily adapted for leadership within the church. If slavemasters aren’t supposed to threaten the slaves, you can be sure that pastors aren’t supposed to lead by threatening the members. In fact, it says here that masters are supposed to lead in the same way that slaves are supposed to submit, that is, as if we are serving God rather than humans. God does not show favoritism; he requires all of us to be servants. Paul called himself a slave of Jesus Christ. He knew his role as a servant, and that is our role as well.
We as church members can see our part in spiritual leadership by looking at what Paul tells slaves to do: "Members, obey your leaders with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. 6 Obey them not only to win their favor when the pastor can see what you are doing, but be like slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart. 7 Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men, 8 because you know that the Lord will reward everyone for whatever good he does, whether he is a leader or a follower."
God rewards us all, and we are to see him in the picture of what we are doing. Even though our leaders are not perfect, we are supposed to respect them and support them as much as we can, as part of our service to the Lord.
In both cases here, Paul has given instructions to the subordinate persons first, and then to the ones in authority. He does the same thing in chapter 5 when he discusses marriage. He speaks first to the wives, and then to the husbands. And he specifically says that the marriage relationship is like the church. We can learn something about spiritual leadership by seeing what Paul writes to wives and husbands.
Let’s look first at what he tells husbands, the ones who had a leadership role in the family: "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies."
Does he tell husbands to be sure to lead, to take charge, to give commands, to make sure that they are obeyed? Not at all, just like Jesus told his disciples that true leaders are ones who serve. In Paul’s case, he says that husbands are supposed to serve like Christ did, giving their lives in service to others.
This is the way that spiritual authority should be used, too. The pastor is to love the people in the church, despite our sins, and to give himself up for the benefit of the church. Love is a self-sacrificial thing – it means giving up things that we want, in order to give what other people need.
The pastor does not lead by yelling and demanding submission, but by serving the needs of the church. That doesn’t mean that he does what we want, but what Christ wants. The pastor is to help the church grow in holiness by preaching the Word of God. He can’t do the cleansing himself; he can’t make us holy, but his job is to point us to Christ, because Christ is doing the work. He points, he gives his life in service.
Now, what does Paul say about the way that the church should respond to this leadership?
Verse 22: Church members, submit to your leaders as if to the Lord. 23 Because marriage is like the church. The husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
This is the way that spiritual leadership should work in marriage, and this is the way that it should work within the church. There is leadership by service. The leader puts his life on the line; he uses his life to serve,… and we are to obey, to submit, to follow, not grudgingly, but willingly, wholeheartedly, as if we were serving the Lord.
The whole context is service. That is the way that Paul begins the whole discussion, because in verse 21 he writes, "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ." Both leaders and followers are called to submit, but we do so according to the way that Christ has put us in the church. Leaders have to stand up front and give instructions that sometimes aren’t popular. The leader has to correct us when we are wrong; the leader has to attack our misplaced priorities. He has to get the criticism and the crucifixions. And we the followers are supposed to hear the correction and refrain from the crucifixions.
Paul gives the summary in verse 33: Each pastor is to love the church as he loves himself, and the church must respect the pastor. The person in authority is to love in a self-sacrificial way, and the people under authority are to submit in a self-sacrificial way. That is spiritual leadership for all of us.