House Rules: Week 14, 1 Timothy 5:17-25

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Now let's get started.

Well, over the years, I've had the church, the opportunity rather, to serve in three different churches.

Now, Pam and I spent some time on the mission field as well, but over my whole career, just three churches.

The first one was fresh out of seminary.

It was a little small church in rural Tennessee.

It was the like 93rd out of 95 counties in Tennessee in population.

So when I say rural, man, I mean it was absolutely rural.

And I was the only staff member there.

There was nobody else being paid by that little church.

And I'm not gonna lie, y'all, it was it was some tough sledding.

It was a tough place to serve.

For one thing, small churches, they can't pay particularly well.

There's just not that many people.

My wife was a school teacher at the time.

She out-earned me huge.

I mean, it was not even close.

She made way more money than I did.

And there's an old joke about preachers' pay.

It was common back in the day when I was in this little church.

And the joke went something like this: you keep him humble, Lord, we'll keep him poor.

And uh the church there, that little country church, they did a pretty good job of that, okay?

But the money was not the hard part of serving there.

Everybody in that church felt like it was their job to supervise the preacher.

And so every single week I had about 60 different bosses.

And they were not shy about sharing or reluctant to share their opinion about how they thought I was doing.

Not just with me.

They would tell me for sure if they didn't think I was up to it.

But they also were happy to share it with anybody who would listen.

And that little town, they talked like it was their job.

Okay?

One time Pam and I bought a new couch and we had it delivered, came in a huge truck, you know, and they backed the truck up in our front yard all the way straight to the front door, little small front porch.

They dropped a little ramp right out onto the front porch.

The truck was maybe eight feet from the front of the house.

They bring the couch out of the truck into my living room and they drive off.

They are there maybe five minutes.

We straighten out the furniture, get it where we want it.

About an hour later, I go into town to the post office, and Stella, the postmaster, said, Hey David, I hear you got a new couch and it's real pretty, too.

I'm like, how did you know that, right?

You can imagine if they're gonna talk that much about a couch, you can imagine how much they talked if somebody was unhappy with a preacher, right?

Now, I want you to think about that for just a moment.

That dynamic.

That church had a culture around its leadership, okay?

And that culture, well, let's just say it was it was it was unhealthy, okay?

And that unhealthy culture made it very difficult to lead and resolve conflict because every time you turned around, the pot was being stirred with gossip just all the time.

Now, here's the thing I want you to understand about that culture.

It was not created intentionally.

Nobody at that church woke up one day and said, you know how we're gonna do business around here?

We are gonna build this whole thing on gossip.

They didn't do that.

That just happened to that church.

Now, here's the thing I want us to realize.

Every single church out there has a culture around leadership.

And I want you to understand as we talk about this today, that the culture around leadership that our church has, it affects us.

It affects us every single day.

Not just because of how we relate to our church leaders, but the way that we relate to our church leaders also impacts how we relate to other people in our life, right?

It affects how you think about your boss, it affects about how you think about your teachers at school, it affects how you think about your spouse because the culture that we kind of settle in on, that we we create, that we're a part of in terms of how we relate to leadership, it penetrates everything we do.

And so today we're gonna be talking about the culture of church leadership that Paul wants Timothy to lead this church in Ephesus to develop and to maintain.

But as we talk about this, I want you to really stick with this because you're gonna see these principles that we're gonna be talking about today showing up in all kinds of ways in your life.

So we get into this in 1 Timothy chapter 5.

1 Timothy 5 · chapter mention

It's gonna begin in verse 17.

And Timothy, I'm gonna go ahead and give you the whole thing right now.

Timothy tells them here's what it looks like to have a healthy church leadership culture.

And it's all built on three things: a culture of honor, a culture of accountability, and a culture of discernment.

Let me say them again: a culture of honor, a culture of accountability, and a culture of discernment.

So we're just gonna go into this.

We're gonna break each one of these little pieces down one at a time.

You got it?

All right, so let's start off by looking at a culture of honor.

What are we talking about there?

Well, in 1 Timothy chapter 5, beginning in verse 17, let's look at verses 17 and 18.

1 Timothy 5 · chapter mention

Here's what it says The elders who are good leaders, now I'll stop right there real quick.

The word elder, remember we've already learned that word can mean uh it can mean elder, it can mean bishop, it can mean overseer, okay, it can mean pastor.

We use the word pastor here in our culture, okay?

So Paul says, okay, in order for you to have a healthy culture, you've got elders who are good leaders, there in verse 17, who are to be considered worthy of double honor.

So if you've got a good one, consider him worthy of double honor, especially those who work hard at preaching and teaching.

Then verse 18.

For scripture says, do not muzzle an ox while it's treading out grain, and the worker is worthy of his wages.

So throughout 1 Timothy, Paul has been talking about what the church should do with uh false leaders, with false teachers.

Okay, they had all these bad leaders who'd gotten into the church.

So in chapter one, he says, we're gonna throw those leaders out.

You come to chapter three, and he says, here's the criteria so that you can select good leaders.

And now he's gonna say, here's what you do if when you get good leaders in place, here's how you make sure that you keep them, how you create a culture that's gonna hang on to them.

Okay?

And he says, if you want a creature where good leaders are gonna remain, you create a culture where they're recognized and honored because good pastors are good leaders.

A good pastor deals with all the problems in the church.

He manages people well, he keeps the church focused on its mission, um, he handles all the responsibility that's thrown at him in a good and godly way.

And so Paul says, Timothy, you want to make sure people are thankful if they've got a pastor like that.

You should show them honor.

And if you look at it carefully, you see that it says you should show them double honor.

Do you see that?

Okay?

Why does he say, why does he use that expression?

Why double honor?

Well, the first kind of honor that he's talking about there, so honor A is simply describing treating somebody well, appreciating them, being thankful for the leadership that they can, uh that they can do.

And then the second form of double honor or of the piece of double honor is, well, taking care of them financially.

Look at verse 18.

Look at what Paul says there.

He quotes Deuteronomy 25, 4.

He says, Do not muzzle an oxen while tread while it is treading out grain.

So the idea here is simple, right?

You think about it in the in back in the Old Testament days, you had an ox, he's tied to a pivot, he's walking around a circle on a threshing floor, and as he goes, he as he steps, he's stamping, separating the grain, the wheat from the chaff kind of thing, right?

You with me?

The Bible says you can't put a muzzle on him while he's doing that.

What is that about?

What are we talking about there?

Well, if the animal's walking around, he's doing all the hard work of separating that grain for you, would it be right to put a muzzle on him so you can't eat anything?

Paul says, no, that would be wrong.

That would be just cruel.

Here's this poor animal.

He can smell the grain, he can see the grain, he just can't eat the grain.

How cruel would that be?

And so Paul says, you don't do that, okay?

You don't do that.

Then to make it us it real clear to us what he's talking about, he drills in a little bit deeper and he goes on, he quotes Jesus from Luke chapter 17, verse 7.

Luke 17:7

It says, the worker is worthy of his wages.

So we put all this together.

He says, hey man, don't muzzle the ox, right?

Hey man, you know, the worker is worthy of his wages.

And what does he say?

He's saying, if a pastor does a good job, if they preach and teach really well, if they're doing that kind of hard and heavy lifting, then you make sure that you honor them with your respect and that you honor them by paying them well.

Now, right now, you're probably looking at me and going, this is the most self-serving sermon, I think, that David has ever preached in his life.

Okay?

But before you go there, before you kind of go down that road, okay, let me just say to y'all, I I just want to stop and say thank you.

I want to say thank you.

I know of a lot of churches, I've got pastor friends and so, who serve in churches where they don't have any health insurance, they don't have any retirement benefits, and they're paid poorly.

And I just want to say to this church, thank you very much.

You all do a fantastic job of taking care of your pastoral staff.

And it makes it an absolute honor to serve here because we absolutely can tell that you appreciate us.

Okay?

So thank you guys for doing this really, really well.

Okay.

We feel as a staff very honored to be here.

So Paul says, Timothy, if you want a healthy church culture, okay, if you really want that, you've got to make sure that it's a culture of honor.

Now, when you think about that culture of honor, do you see how this will follow you around all week long?

Do you see how this will show up in everything that you do?

Because as Christians, we need to create that culture of honor everywhere that we go.

We should never take people's faithfulness for granted.

You know what I'm saying?

We should always be appreciative of it.

I think our tendency is that if somebody does something well enough, long enough, we just begin to take it for granted.

Does that ever happen in your life?

Moms, I think for you all, this is very much your story, very often.

Moms do a great job of taking care of us, they do so faithfully and so wonderfully, and it becomes very easy to just take that wonderful care that they provide to us for granted.

We shouldn't be doing that.

If we create a culture that is instead focused on appreciation and being grateful, being thankful, we would never do that to anybody.

So each day we need to stop and and appreciate the boss who leads us incredibly well, or the teacher who gives a little extra what they're doing, or to our spouse, or whatever it may be.

We should always be appreciative of what somebody does for us.

See, I believe that that biblical honor refuses to let faithful people become invisible.

So I want you to think about this as you consider your week next week.

Who is it that's in your life right now that's serving you well that maybe you've stopped noticing?

Who is it?

Can you think of that person?

Maybe you've got a fantastic boss and you just so appreciate the way that they lead you that you've begun to take them for granted.

Maybe that's your situation.

Maybe you've got somebody who serves you incredibly well.

If that's your situation, maybe you've begun to take them for granted.

Make the decision that you're going to show them your gratitude and honor them because they serve you well.

Can we do that this week?

Just make sure that's the case, all right?

Now, wouldn't it be fantastic if every pastor at every church in every position all across the country always did their job incredibly well and with great faithfulness?

Wouldn't that be fantastic?

But we also know that that doesn't happen, does it?

There are plenty of times when pastors don't get it right.

And that's just too bad.

Sometimes they not only don't get it right, they get it badly wrong.

I mean, they fail.

They have a complete moral collapse, whatever it may be, and they get it incredibly wrong.

So now Paul's going to address that.

He says, okay, you're going to have to have a culture of honor, but you're also going to have to have a culture of accountability.

All right, let's take a look at that in verse 19.

Begins there.

Don't accept an accusation against an elder unless it's supported by two or three witnesses.

Publicly rebuke those who sin so that the rest will be afraid.

I solemnly charge you before God and Christ Jesus and the elect angels to observe these things without prejudice, doing nothing out of favoritism.

So Paul says, okay, if somebody brings a serious accusation against a pastor, you don't just accept it because somebody said it.

You've got to go and do the hard work and back it up with credible witnesses and real facts.

There needs to be real, verified proof.

And if the accusation is limb is legitimate, then the pastor is in sin and you've got to just really dig in on that word.

Do you see that word sin there?

The word sin there means ongoing continuous action.

Okay?

So if this is not describing a pastor who says something out of hand and he apologizes for it quickly, that's not what he's referring to.

He's referring to a pastor who's in systemic sin.

He says, hey, if that's what's happening, then something's got to be done to break that behavior.

You cannot allow that pastor to continue in that same pattern of sin and that just let that run wild and unchecked.

You can't do that.

So what does he say do?

He says, rebuke him publicly.

Now why publicly?

I want you to think about that for a moment.

Public accountability is a pretty strong deterrent to sin, is it not?

And I've just got to tell you, if I knew that as a pastor, if I were locked into a pattern of unrepentant sin, and somebody came to me and said, Hey man, if you don't get this turned around, we're gonna bring you in front of the church, the whole congregation, we're gonna tell everybody exactly what's been going on here because we can't let this continue.

If I knew that was gonna happen, you know what my response would be?

I will bring this under control, my friend.

Okay?

That is the last thing I would want.

Can you imagine?

And so that's exactly what's going on here.

Paul's saying, listen, we're gonna make sure this is done publicly so that we deal, we lead this pastor to deal with the sin and to deal with it right now.

Okay?

Now, if you call somebody out in public like that, is that gonna blow things up?

You better believe it.

And so in verse 21, Paul says, Timothy, if you're gonna blow things up like that, you better be really careful about it.

Look at verse 21.

He says, I solemnly charge you before God in Christ Jesus and the elect angels to observe these things without prejudice, doing nothing out of favoritism.

So what is he saying here?

He's saying, listen, Timothy, God is watching you and he's watching how you handle this.

So on the one hand, don't rush to judgment because you don't like somebody.

Don't rush in like that.

And then on the other hand, don't overlook somebody's sin because you do like them.

Don't destroy somebody with a false accusation, don't shield somebody from a true accusation just because of their position.

So don't go into either extreme there, okay?

Be committed to the truth, not to not to personalities.

And if you do that, you're gonna protect the innocent and you're gonna confront the guilty and you're gonna treat everybody fairly.

Now, as you look at those verses there, and you might say, well, wait a minute.

Isn't Paul kind of giving Timothy a bit of a double standard here?

I mean, look at, he says that you shouldn't be able to accuse a pastor without witnesses.

Is that fair?

Is he trying to protect the pastor?

Because what if there are no witnesses?

I mean, is that what he's saying?

And the answer to that is no.

What Paul is laying out here is very similar to what Jesus lays out for us in Matthew 18 about how we respond when somebody you know sins against us.

So let's take a moment right here and let's just break this down.

What I want to do is I want to take a kind of a look at scripture and kind of build a bit of a pattern or a bit of a model for what we need to do when somebody sins against us.

So if somebody sins against you, how do you handle that?

And I want us to look at this because I think what you're gonna see is that what Paul is laying out here is incredibly consistent with scripture, and it's helpful for us to understand how to relate to other people who sin against us.

So let's take a look at it, okay?

How do we deal with it when somebody sins against us?

Well, first of all, when sin interferes with a relationship that you're in, go to the person, not around the person.

Go to them, not around them.

Now it's really interesting if you look at Jesus' teaching on this, you find that he talks about this idea kind of two different times.

The first one is in Matthew 5, 23 and 24, and there he talks about what we need to be doing if we know that we're the one who has offended or sinned against the other person.

Okay, here it is in Matthew chapter 5, verse 23.

Matthew 5:23

So if you're you are offering your gift on the altar, and there you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar.

First go and be reconciled with your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.

All right, do you see what he's talking about there?

Do you see it?

When I realize that I've sinned against somebody, what do I do?

When I realize, oh man, that person has something against me, what do I do?

I go and I deal with it right then.

He says, You should do that.

You should interrupt your worship to go take care of it.

Don't delay.

Go straight to that person and deal with that person face to face if you have done something against them.

Now, what does he say to do if somebody has done something against you?

Look at Matthew 18, verse 15.

Matthew 18:15

If your brother sins against you, go tell him his fault between you and him alone.

If he listens to you, you have one a brother.

So if somebody sins against me, what do I do?

I go to them.

Okay?

So either way, whether I'm the one who's in sin or whether the other person is in sin, what am I supposed to do?

I'm supposed to go to that person and initiate a conversation with them directly so that we can work through this and work this out.

Do you see it?

Okay, now, is this something that comes naturally to us?

What do you think?

No.

This does not come naturally to us at all.

In fact, what is our basic instinct here?

Our basic instinct is that someone sins against me.

So I go over here to my friend who also happens to know the person who sinned against me.

Okay?

And I say to them, you would not believe what they did to me.

And I tell them.

Okay, and then what happens?

Then somebody else shows up.

Oh my goodness, you won't believe what that person just did to this person.

And what are we doing?

We're seeking to build a coalition against that person who has harmed us, aren't we?

We're trying to get everybody to come over to our side and to work against them.

And here's the problem: we're not talking to that person, we're talking about that person.

We're going straight into the public space, right?

Long before we've even given them an opportunity to talk this thing through.

We're skipping all the steps to the very end.

And because of that, what are we doing to their reputation?

We're destroying it.

And when that other person discovers that we have responded to what they've done, that what we have done to them by destroying their reputation, how are they gonna be to us?

Mm-mm.

What's gonna happen to the relationship?

We're gonna kill it, okay?

And so we're gonna do the exact opposite of what we're supposed to be doing.

Jesus wants to keep us focused on the right goal, and the goal is to restore the relationship.

The goal is to win the relationship, not win the argument, and not to win in the court of public opinion.

So when somebody sins against you, go to them, don't just go around them.

Okay?

Next one is simply this forgive when there is repentance.

Jesus gives this one to us as well.

Look at it in Luke chapter 17, verse 3.

Luke 17:3

Be on your guard.

If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him.

So if the person listens, you go to him, you say, Hey man, this is what you did to me.

And if he listens, then what do you do?

You forgive him.

You move on to trying to restore the relationship and make it right, good, and healthy.

Okay?

And you might be thinking right now, yeah, but what if he what if he doesn't repent?

You know, like what do I do then?

You know, do I like, you know, I don't know, slash his tires.

What do I do?

You know, do I do I take it out on him?

Or do I do then?

No.

You don't.

And please don't tell anybody the preacher said to slash his tires.

That's what I did.

No, that's not what I'm telling you to do.

Okay?

That's not it at all.

What you do is exactly what Paul is talking about here in 1 Timothy chapter 5, or what Jesus is talking about in Matthew 18.

1 Timothy 5 · chapter mention

That's when you begin to get other people involved.

That person sinned, I confronted them with it.

They chose not to repent.

They dug in instead.

So now what do I do?

Now I go, I take witnesses with me, and if I need to, I go in front of the entire church.

But I do not, under any circumstances, slash their tires, okay?

I don't retaliate, and that's the last idea.

There's no need to retaliate.

Look at Romans chapter 12, verse 17.

Romans 12:17

Do not repay anyone evil for evil.

Give careful thought to do what is honorable in everyone's eyes.

So if someone has sinned against me, what I absolutely do not do is just declare open season on them.

I don't just go after them.

I don't try to ruin their character or take them on or harm them in any way.

Okay?

So, how do I deal with this when somebody sins against me?

Well, I go to the person not around them.

I forgive when there is repentance, and I refuse to retaliate against them.

All right?

Now, there's something else here that's just really important that we need to talk about for just a moment before we go on any further with this idea.

Okay?

And it's especially true for church culture because we've all seen it here lately that we've all seen stories of church leaders who've preyed on vulnerable people.

Have you seen this?

I I read the Christian Christian news every single day.

I'm always reading about the church here in the United States.

And as I read that, I'm reading story after story after story about a leader who has gone and preyed on somebody who's vulnerable.

Okay?

And it's a horrible thing.

It just absolutely breaks my heart.

And when that happens, I want you all to understand the church cannot just bury that in order to protect the reputation of a leader.

The church just can't go to the victim and pressure them to remain silent and call it forgiveness.

That is not at all acceptable.

See, the Bible calls on us to forgive people, but the Bible also calls on us to defend the vulnerable, to expose wickedness, to pursue justice.

And so if a church finds itself dealing with sin that's risen to the level of abuse or criminal behavior, vulnerable people get protected and guilty people face real, real consequences.

So I just want you to know if if a leader, if a pastor breaks the law, the church should report it, the church should remove that person from a position of leadership and trust.

And depending on what has happened, depending on the crime, that person may lose their freedom for a while.

It may be important that they do lose their freedom.

They may, we may need to protect other people from that person, right?

Sometimes that's exactly where dealing with sin openly and honestly will take us.

Now, do we forgive?

Absolutely.

Absolutely, we do forgive.

It's important that we do because forgiveness acts like an antiseptic on the wound, right?

It doesn't remove the wound, but it does clean the wound up.

That wound of being harmed, that wound of being taken advantage of by somebody, that forgiveness can help clean that up a little bit.

It can keep bitterness from infecting further and further and further, and it can create space for that wound to begin to heal.

But I want to be real clear, we don't look past that in the name of forgiveness, okay?

So, let's come back to it.

Healthy church culture, okay?

We've got those three pieces there: culture of honor, a culture of accountability, and let me give you one more.

A culture of discernment.

Here's why that last one is so important.

The best way to not have to discipline one of your pastors is to choose really good pastors, right?

And that's where discernment comes in.

Take a look at it in verse 22.

Don't be too quick to appoint anyone as an elder and don't share in the sins of others.

Keep yourself pure.

Don't continue drinking only water, but use a little wine because of your stomach and your frequent illnesses.

And you read that verse 23 there, and you're like, what in the world?

How did that verse sneak into this text?

What is it even talking about?

Okay, so let's see if we can't make sense of this as we go through it here.

Okay, back to verse 22.

One of the best ways, as I said, to avoid uh having to deal with the lead a leader's sin is to choose carefully up front.

And so Paul says, Timothy, don't rush in when you're selecting somebody to serve in leadership in the church.

Because if you choose carelessly, if you choose the wrong leader, that's gonna blow back on you, and you're gonna want to keep yourself pure, right?

So be intentional, be careful, and don't make that mistake.

Slow down, pump the brakes, and be careful before you appoint somebody to be a leader.

And then it comes to verse 23.

And you look at this and he says, okay, don't continue drinking only water, but use a little wine because of your stomach and your frequent illnesses.

Doesn't that just seem random and kind of weird?

Like it's just stuck into this passage right here.

And I gotta tell you, as a Southern Baptist, I find this particularly distressing because I'm like a teetotaler and I encourage you guys all the time not to drink.

And now you can go, see, it's good for me.

No, that's not what he's talking about.

So what is he talking about and why does this verse find itself into the text at this precise point?

Okay, what does it have to do with selecting good leaders?

Well, if you look at 1 Timothy, you go back to read chapter 3, where uh Paul gives us the qualifications for uh a pastor and for a deacon.

We spent a lot of time in chapter three.

Do y'all remember that?

Okay, if you go back to those qualifications, two times in quick succession, once in talking about pastors and the second time in talking about deacons, two times Paul mentions that they should not be given to much wine.

Okay?

Two times, bam, bam, he hits on it.

And what a lot of people believe is going on here is Paul is looking at this church in Ephesus and he recognizes that one of the challenges that the leadership in this church have is alcohol.

And so a lot of people believe that what Timothy was doing as he's working in this culture and he's trying to hold himself up as an example of what a good and godly leader is like, is he's abstaining from all alcohol, not taking any, as a way of saying, hey, you all have a problem over here.

Let me show you that you can live your life without that influence in your life, right?

Does that make sense?

There's a problem though.

Timothy has a track record of health issues.

And in the day, wine was considered to be medicinal.

And so Paul is telling Timothy, Timothy, you're trying to blaze a trail of righteousness and purity, and that's a beautiful and wonderful thing.

But don't neglect your health in the process.

Make sure that along the way, you're being wise and taking care of your own health.

Do you get it?

Do you see how that all fits together?

So Paul says, listen, man, make sure that you're picking good leaders.

Make sure that they're buttoned up.

And he must have thought, yeah, make sure they don't have a problem with alcohol, like so many of them in that leadership structure do.

And oh, by the way, as you're working on this and as you're modeling good behavior for others, don't neglect your own health in the process.

So do you see how that all kind of snaps together a little bit there?

Okay.

Then he comes back in verse 24, back into evaluating people.

Look at what he says here.

Some people's sins are obvious, preceding them to judgment, but the sins of others surface later.

Likewise, good works are obvious, and those that are not obvious cannot remain hidden.

So what's he saying here?

He's saying, Timothy, as you're evaluating people and you're looking for people to lead in the church.

You need to understand that sometimes as you look at somebody and you look at their life and you gauge who they are, the sin is obvious, man.

Have you ever met that person before?

I mean, as soon as you meet them, you don't even talk to them for two minutes before you're like, wow, okay, this person's rough.

Okay.

Paul says, man, that's the way it is with some people.

Some people you know immediately.

It's just right out there for everybody to see.

But other people, they're really good at concealing their sin.

And so you're gonna have to know them for a little while before you can really evaluate who that person is, what their integrity is actually like.

Then he says the opposite is also true when you're evaluating their good qualities.

We've all met people that as soon as you encounter them, the talent is obvious, right?

I mean, when you meet them, it's just it's just clear.

They're an incredibly, incredibly gifted at academics, or they are incredibly good at building things with their hands, or they sing beautifully, or whatever it might be.

You just you can see the gifting.

You can you can spot it a mile away.

Other people, they're more quiet, they're more reserved.

And you've got to get to know them a little bit before you see their strengths, right?

Before you can really evaluate the skill set that they bring to the table, right?

And so Paul is saying, he's coming back and he's saying, listen, man, you've really got to take your time.

You've really got to discern when you're gonna put leaders into position.

Because sometimes you'll see the sin right off the bat, other times it's gonna take a little bit of daylight before you see it.

Sometimes you're gonna spot the quality, the capacity, the talent, you're gonna spot it right off the bat.

Other times, it's gonna take a little bit.

So give yourself time so that you can really see who this person is and just be wise, right?

Make sure that they have the character to do the job.

Sometimes, sometimes they may look the part, but when you really put them under pressure, they can't live the part, okay?

So show discernment, all right?

So, as a church, we want to have a church leadership culture that's healthy.

How do we do that?

Well, we have a culture of honor, we have a culture of accountability, and we have a culture of discernment.

And I hope that you see exactly how this plugs in to your life every single day, right?

You need to honor those people who are leading and serving all around you.

You want to make sure that you're holding people accountable, that you're dealing rightly with sin, that you're not calling people out, you know, publicly by spreading rumors, but you're going to them, dealing with things rightly, following the biblical steps that are given to us.

And then you want to make sure that you discern before you put somebody in a leadership role, make sure they're up to it.

All right.

Now, we've been talking a lot about leadership today, and it's important.

It's really important.

It's certainly important in the life of a church.

We desperately need good leadership, but it's not just in the church.

Our businesses need good leadership, right?

Our families need good leadership.

And you and I individually, we need good leadership as well.

And let me promise you, when it comes to who can lead me, nobody leads me like Jesus leads me.

I just want to be real, real clear.

Human leaders can fail us.

Ever been let down by a human leader before?

I promise you, if you hadn't, just wait.

It's going to occur.

People always tend to let us down.

Okay.

Sometimes they don't just let us down, they they hurt us.

That's what we've been talking about much this morning.

But you all, Jesus is different.

The Bible says that he is our good shepherd.

He is our good leader, and he knows us completely.

And he knows that the biggest problem that you and I have is the grip that sin has on our life.

He knows that our sin separates us from God.

It leaves us guilty before God, and there's no amount of human leadership that can solve that problem.

And that's why Jesus came.

He rose from the dead so that we might be raised as well.

And now he calls us to repent of our sin and to trust him and to follow him.

So I just want you to know that the greatest decision on leadership that you're ever going to make is the one about who is going to lead your life.

You can keep on trying to lead yourself or you can keep on looking for an earthly leader, but nobody can lead you like Jesus can lead you.

And I just want to encourage you right now to surrender your life to Him, turn from your sin and trust what Christ has done for you and follow him because there is no better, wiser, greater leader than Jesus Christ.

Let's pray for just a moment right now.

Well, Father, we thank you so much for the gift of leadership.

I just thank you for the leaders that you've placed in my life.

I thank you for a church that seeks to have a healthy, you know, culture surrounding leadership.

I mean, it's it's just an incredible place.

And so I just thank you for it, Father.

And I pray that as we go out into the world this week, that we'll take that culture with us, that we'll take a culture of gratitude with us, that we'll seek to be accountable to others, and that when we are dealing with people who've let us down, who've sinned against us, we deal with it rightly and biblically.

And then, Father, I pray that you grant us real discernment so that we choose to follow the right people, not the wrong ones.

Now, Father, in this room right now, I know there are people who have yet to trust you, to put your their faith into you and to count on you to provide them with abundant life today and eternal life forever.

So, Father, I just want to lift those people up to you right now.

And I pray, Father, that you lead them to embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ today.

Let today be the day that they say, Jesus, will you lead my life?

Let today be the day.

Father, we love you, and we pray this in Jesus' name.

And everyone agreed and said, Amen.

Thanks for joining us on the Celebration Baptist Church Podcast.

We hope today's conversation helped you take another step in your faith journey.

For more resources, upcoming events, and to join us live, visit iCelebration.org.

Until next time, keep connecting with God, connecting with others, and living on mission.