Leadership

So we're going to look at this issue of leadership together. There's a list of

spiritual gifts found in Romans chapter 12. I'm just going to read that. Where

Romans 12 · chapter mention

the Apostle Paul writes to the Roman Church and says, we've got different

gifts according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesied

then prophesied in accordance with your faith. If it's serving then serve. If it's

teaching then teach. If it's to encourage then give encouragement. If it's giving

then give generously. If it's to lead do it diligently. If it's to show mercy do

it cheerfully. So leadership is an important part of the gifts that God has

given to his church and to his people. So what does good leadership look like?

What does good Christian leadership look like? If you've been part of a church

for any length of time then you probably know what bad Christian leadership looks

like and the church is much to apologize for in many ways for how poorly it's

exercised leadership in many people's lives. One of the favorite films I saw

last year, I saw it several times because my son loved it so much, was The Darkest

Hour and that's the film about Winston Churchill leading Britain through the

D-Day crisis or not the D-Day crisis but the Dunkirk crisis. Gary Oldman

fantastic incredible performance as Winston Churchill and some people ask

what made Winston Churchill such a great wartime leader and the answer to give is

that he really hated Hitler. Really hated Hitler. So is that what a good leader is?

Somebody who's full of hate? Probably not but it made him a good leader. So

sometimes we look around for leadership models you know and we think you know we

look at secular models Sir Alex Ferguson that great Scottish sporting legend is

he a great role model or we might look at figures in the Bible and say well

David you know King David is he a great leadership role model but I don't want to

do any of that with you. I decided to come to John chapter 15 because I think

John 15 · chapter mention

here what's happening is it's the night before Jesus is crucified he's with his

closest circle of friends the future leaders of the New Testament church and

he's entrusting the leadership and the mission of the church into their hands.

So if we want to get insight into the kind of leadership that Jesus wants in

the church then this is a really helpful place to start because there are

really important leadership themes woven into the passage in John 15 that

Derek read earlier. You might not think of yourself as a leader but actually we

all teach we all pass on information we all set the tone the culture we all

influence and share ideas we're all involved in making things happen in the

home at work in the community here in church we're all involved in leading

influencing directing the course of events we might lead small groups we

might lead kids church we might lead music but we're all involved at

different levels in different ways in leading and influencing others. I'm

going to give you a simple definition of leadership to begin with and then I'm

just going to sort of unpack that in different ways and this idea of

leadership is not mine I read it in a book called Gospel Centre Leadership

it's an excellent book by two guys called Steve Timmis and Tim Chester but

really what the insight that the book has that I found most useful is this

that a Christian leader is not teaching others to live under their

authority or their leadership but actually Christian leadership is

teaching others to live under the authority of Jesus Christ. Okay so my

job is not to exercise power or authority over you as a Christian leader but

it's to help you to live under Christ's kingship Christ leadership Christ

authority and if you're a Christian this evening then that's that's true for all

of us isn't it that what we want to do is to lead others towards Jesus and we

want to lead others towards Jesus in a way that they find that he is a good

king and that to live under his reign and his authority that's good you don't

want to live under my authority or my reign I can tell you people I've tried

it people didn't like it okay it's miserable but to live under Jesus

authority in reign that is wonderful because he is a good perfect king so as

I speak about leadership that's the kind of leadership that I've got in mind

leading others to live under the good reign of Jesus Christ all my points

start with L and there's loads of them so hopefully I'll be quite brief but

anyway we'll go and we'll see how we go but you know all with L so living

lowly listening loving we're gonna go on like that okay so let's start with living

leadership so just at the beginning of John chapter 15 Jesus says I am the true

John 15 · chapter mention

vine my father is the vine dresser there's an organic metaphor here every

branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away every branch that does bear

fruit he prunes so that it can be more bear more fruit and verse 4 abide in me

I knew as a branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine

neither can you unless you abide in me so that's a really clear simple sort of

horticultural idea that as Christians our life is rooted in Jesus Christ all

spiritual life flows to the believer from Jesus he is the vine where the branch is

the only way we can have spiritual life spiritual vitality spiritual fruit is to

live a life in union with Christ rooted in him in the previous chapter chapter

14 of John's gospel in the same kind of pre crucifixion teaching that Jesus

gives he's spoken to the disciples about the gift of the Holy Spirit and he

says the Holy Spirit is going to come and live in you so that you can continue

to know my presence in your life when I'm no longer around physically I will

dwell in you Jesus says by the Holy Spirit the Spirit of God brings

spiritual life to the people of Jesus he is the vine spiritual life flows through

him so first thing then to say to this is you cannot give spiritual leadership

to other people unless Jesus Christ is living in you and you are living in him

verse 4 we must abide in him we must dwell in him we must live in him we

must remain in him and he must remain in us this is the idea that theologians

call union with Christ that through faith we are united to Christ in his death

and resurrection that all the life we have is bound up in Jesus Christ so I

want to say to you you may want to be an influencer of others you may want to do

good in this world and to start that process as a Christian then you have to

live in relationship with Jesus Christ and you have to focus first on your

relationship with Jesus Christ only through him can you do anything that's

really good okay I think that's a great insight isn't it in verse verse 4 you

can't bear fruit by yourself unless you abide in the vine okay so unless you

abide in Jesus but if we do abide in Jesus in verse 8 he tells us we will

bear much fruit so some of you know about Tim Keller who is a well-recognized

pastor he's now retired from Manhattan in New York and he's got a book so there's

gonna be a church planting references woven through this he's got a manual

called the church planter training manual that I use a lot and in it he

makes a distinction between what he calls gift operation and spirit

operation and he's trying to draw attention to the fact that we can do

many things in a kind of church setting or a home setting or a life setting we

can do lots of things out of the strength of our own gifts and sometimes it

can look as if we're doing a great job but he's saying if you want what you're

doing to bear lasting spiritual fruit you can't do it in the strength of your

own gifts you need to do it in the power in the ministry of the Holy Spirit

unless God is in it unless the spirit is in it it won't bear eternal fruit the

good fruit of the gospel that God is looking for there's somebody that I use

as an example of this now who's very dated but a man called Ted Haggard now

Ted Haggard was a minister of Colorado Springs probably about 20 years ago and

he led a huge church 14,000 people in his church and he was also a head of the

evangelical alliance of America which had 42 million members so he was on

obviously an incredibly gifted person at a gifting level huge impact but at the

same time he was smoking crack with male prostitutes so you had somebody very

gifted but whose personal life was really corrupt and who personally was

far away from God so you can operate and look as if you've got a successful

church or a successful ministry or a successful life because humanly speaking

that's the way it looks but without the power of the Holy Spirit it's not going

to bear fruit for eternity so you need to live in Jesus and Jesus must be

living in you second thing I want to say is lowly good leadership gospel

leadership is lowly what's the context it's the night before the crucifixion

to give insight to how Jesus views leadership and how he's going to offer

himself a sacrifice to rescue his people the night that Jesus is speaking here in

chapter 13 he's got down and washed the feet of his disciples a really menial

tasks usually taken on by the the most menial low-state as household servant

Jesus is saying the Lord is the servant Jesus is saying to lead is to serve to be

the leader is to be the one who is willing to take the lowest and the

humblest position to be a real leader Jesus says spiritually is to know that

we are nothing and that Jesus is everything that it's not about us and

it's not about us having power and it's not about us having influence on a

authority over others I've met people who said I love to be a leader in the

church because then I could make sure that things happen the right way and the

church would be a lot better if I was in charge and that's what some people

think of as leadership isn't it it's a power over others I was reading an essay

in the New York Times a few years ago about American politics and before the

last presidential America election in America and they're talking about

politicians and why politicians seek office you know I mean who would want to

be a politician really and they drew this distinction you know that some

politicians seek office because they want power over others but then you get a

different group of politicians who seek office because they want power to help

others power to serve others power to make a difference in the lives of others

and so in the church leadership is not about power over but power to power to

serve power to love power to hell so lowly leadership we take the lowest

position the biblical idea of servant leadership has caught on in lots of

corporate cultures also listening leadership okay good leaders listen who

do we listen to well as Christians we want to listen to God so in verse 7 he

says if you abide in me and my word abides in you ask whatever you wish and

it will be done for you so here Jesus is saying that we need to hear his word

later on he will say we need to hear his commandments so we need to be listening

listening for the voice of God listening for the word of God to lead we need to

hear what God is saying to us that means we need to be in the Bible and we need

the Bible to be in us it means we need to be listening to God and prayer there's

quite a lot of prayer here in this passage to ask whatever you wish and it

will be done for you as we live a life rooted in the word of God hearing the

word of God hearing the voice of God speak through scripture his spirit

leads us to Christ sent our prayer ask what you will and it will be done for

you so that listening well to who God is and what he's saying is really

important but listening to others so Jesus isn't speaking to one person on

this occasion in John 15 he's speaking to a group he's speaking to a community of

people a group of friends so we never lead on our own we lead together with

others we lead as part of a community that God has called on mission so you

not only need to be listening to God but you need to be listening to others to

hear their heart to hear their concerns to hear their needs so that you can love

and serve them well to listen well requires humility where does humility

come from in the Christian life well of course humility comes to the gospel

because what the gospel teaches us is this that we're not chosen for leadership

or we're not chosen for the Christian life because we're great people or we're

good people we're chosen to live for Christ serve Christ and because he's

merciful and gracious because he takes broken people and redeems and restores

them and puts them to new and better purposes so our leadership begins out

of our own brokenness our own sense of sinfulness our own conviction about our

utter inadequacy and knowledge of our own heart that we are the worst kind of sinner

and that it's a miracle that God loves us and is willing to work in us and

through us and so we listen we listen to God we listen to others we listen to the

gospel and that means learning I think it's really important that you see

yourself as a learner learning is one of the most boring words in the world

isn't it you're gonna have to learn something you know so just sounds like

hard work learning things doesn't it but learning is really really important

part of our existence growing in knowledge and understanding and I want to

say to you really try and grow in your knowledge and understanding of God and

grow and understand in your knowledge of theology now you might think theology

is nothing to do with your life but you know in the day-to-day but theology

makes a big difference in so many parts of life because it helps us to understand

who God is what his purposes are for this world who we are what's wrong in the

world around us and then how to think through the problems that we face

theology gives us wisdom for life about 12 years ago I was part of a small group

of people who were looking at the free church of Scotland as a denomination

try to work out why is our denomination shrinking and why is it so rubbish at

everything that was basically the question we were asking ourselves and

you might think we're still rubbish at everything so there you go we didn't solve

anything but one of you know we so we look to organizational issues and

financial issues and vision and all kinds of structural issues but as we've

peeled away all the problems you know what we found out that really at root

we had a theological problem and the theological problem was that we'd

forgotten what the church was for we'd forgotten that the church was for mission

for sharing the good news of Jesus and so theology helped us to understand what

was wrong and what needed to be done so we need to learn learn from our failings

as well so listen and learn love leadership needs love so verses 9 and 10

of John 15 as the Father has loved me so have I loved you

abide in my love if you keep my commandments you will abide in my love

just as I have kept my father commandments and abide in his love so you

need to love God don't you you need to love God the leader loves God and because

they love God they live in obedience to God in his word and God leads us through

his word by his spirit so we need to have a passion a love for the God who has

rescued us by his grace but we also need to love people so verse 12 this is my

commandment that you love one another as I have loved you greater love has known

than this that he's laid down his life for his friends so as well as loving God

you need to love the people around you this is often where we fall down in the

Christian life and in Christian leadership what does it really look like

to love other people well well that means taking time doesn't it and most

leaders don't think they've got much time they've got so much to do leaders

are self-important I'm so busy I'm under so much pressure I've got all this

stuff to do wow look at me and so they stop listening and looking and learning

from others and so loving people means taking time for them getting to know

them being their help or being their friend great ideas of friendship in this

passage so many of us in leadership we get stuck on tasks I need to do this I

need to do that I've got a task list and goals and all those kind of things but

God calls us not to love the task but to love the people if we focus on people

the tasks will get done one of the great temptations of leadership is to use

people to use people as a means to getting what you want done done and so we

need to learn not to use people but to serve people to love them well

sometimes you know the leader thinks this is my vision so I could say you

know if I was a minister of St. Columbus I would say I've got a vision for St.

Columbus and your job as the people of St. Columbus is to help fulfill that

vision and then I think I used to think of church leadership in that way and

then one day I was reading a book by Dietrich Bonhoeffer called Life Together

and he said God hates the visionary dreamer well it was a bit crushed because

I thought I was a visionary dreamer I was very proud of my visionary dreams God

hates the visionary dreamer what does that mean well he meant this that we have a

vision of what the church should be and we try and force everybody into that

grid and that's not what leadership is about when you look at Christian

leadership actually God says you all have your different vocations your

different gifts your different callings you have a workplace you have a family

you have a community God has given you a mission and a ministry and the job of

the leader is to equip you to live that out well and whatever sphere of life

you're in so loving people means not lining them up to do what you want but

it means serving them well so that they can do what God wants and the calling

that God has put on their life

I would also say as we talk about love you know you need to love God you need to

love others I think also you know you need to have passions in life you know

so find one thing that you really love to do or be in life you know some of us

have a passion for music some of us have a passion for working with young people

or kids some of you have a passion for mercy ministry some of you have got a

passion for the creative art some of you've got a passion for hospitality

and so I say find that thing you love doing and God can really use that in a

way to be a blessing to others and build his church and people who are good at

influencing others usually are people who are passionate about something and

who really care about something well so Derek and I care about church planting

you know we're very simple people we have one thing that we talk about a lot of

the time and it's starting new churches so find your thing that you love being

and doing and pursue that so leadership needs love I'm going to go back over all

these else just to keep you in the loop living leadership lowly leadership

listening leadership listening includes learning loving leadership loving God

loving others loving one thing with a great passion leadership means loss one

of the most memorable paintings of the previous century is called the scream by

Edward Munch and it's a very famous painting of a face wide open and terror

the screen and it's sort of speaks of despair doesn't it and hopelessness and fear and anxiety

it's always our 20th century existentialist and it's the way these

and fingers that Christianity chose as its symbol fear the symbol of fear the

cross the cross was an instrument of fear and terror there was a rebellion

about 71 BC by the the slaves led by Spartacus and it was caused by a Roman

general called Crassus and once he defeated the slave rebels Crassus

crucified six thousand of them along the Apian way you couldn't walk more than

120 feet before you came to the next crucified person why did Crassus do that

he wanted to make sure no slave ever rebelled against Rome again the cross

was an instrument of terror and fear and that's what God chose to symbolize

Christianity why because the way of the cross is the way of Jesus we're not

called to great things we're first of all called to suffer take up your cross

Jesus said and follow me if you're going to follow Jesus if you're going to be a

leader for Jesus if you're going to lead others towards Jesus let me tell you

this you are going to lose a lot a lot in verse 13 Jesus says this love will

ask that you lay down your life for your friends you've got to be ready to

sacrifice and to sacrifice in costly ways verse 18 Jesus said this the world

will hate you it's the way of loss we will be hated but in the Christian life

the way down is the way up isn't it the Christian story is this story not only

of death and of resurrection but it's also the story of resurrection and so at

the heart of what it means to follow Jesus is dying to self but rising to new

life in Jesus Christ and that's an ongoing process in the life of the

Christian day by day we crucify the old nature we die to the old wavelength but

we rise to a new way of living in Jesus Christ and you know what that means it

means this that loss and gain coexist in us at the same time we lose but we win

at the same moment it means that suffering and joy coexist in the

Christian at the same moment because we are dying yet living because we are in

union and communion with the dying yet living Jesus and his life in us shapes

us so that we can lay our lives down and live for something greater so there is

loss there is loss and then slightly counterintuitively there is laughter

okay so I think a lot of leadership in all kinds of different communities but

especially in the church is a harsh crushing negative depressing controlling

and mean so whatever sphere of influence you have in your home in your

workplace in the church in the community please be a leader who brings

laughter and joy so one of the reasons I like working with Derek is very simple he

makes me laugh okay we laugh a lot and it just makes life a lot easier when you

get to laugh lots one of the key things about leadership is culture creation

okay when you're a leader you create a culture in your organization your church

your home your family an atmosphere an ethos and lots of churches create very

depressing negative cultures but Jesus said I came so that my joy will be in

you and that your joy will be full there should be laughter there should be joy

there should be celebration there should be thanksgiving so wherever you get to

influence the culture to shape the ethos in the home or the family please bring

some laughter and joy and celebration celebration of all that is good and

blessed that's how we can have joy and sorrow together isn't it because no

matter how hard life is or difficult he's always there he's in us living in

us in the power of the Holy Spirit and he is our joy so leadership is all about

him isn't it that's the biggest lesson of all for leadership that it's all

about Jesus if he is our joy if he is our treasure if he is our prize if he is

our love if he is our goal then that shapes everything else in a really great

way so for those of you who aren't Christians I just want to say to you

that you know I don't want you to do what I tell you I don't want you

necessarily to come to my church all I want you to do is to find out that

Jesus is good good in a way that you've never experienced good before life with

Jesus is good and that's what we're all invited to