Becoming A Leader in Love

One of the joys of having the freedom in the Lord to just do whatever's next. No one can get uptight because we're following a different flow that's in the bulletin. But it does make it difficult on the people who make this all possible, particularly guy on the sound system because he's got all these tapes and if I'm in the wrong microphone, it's so I appreciate his patience and bearing with me. Okay, John 13, we'll be reading that in a moment. Grant began us so beautifully last week on the subject of discerning leadership in our body. And. We're learning as a fellowship how to recognize the marks of biblical leadership and what the implications of those marks and qualities would be on our fellowship. But I thought that for some, all of this might be simply like hearing the stock report on the evening news if you don't have any stocks. If you're a person, perhaps a new believer, or maybe you're new to the community and you say, well, what does all that matter? Perhaps you've been here all along and you've been a believer for a while, but you just don't sense that God has anything of leadership potential in you. And you say, I expect I need to know what they're talking about so I can see these people. But really what does it matter to me? It's not going to have any direct bearing on my life. But the Lord really deeply touched me this week with the truth of the. The need for us all to see leadership as he sees it. And that is in one fashion, one of many. I should say that leadership is in many ways a prototype. Who knows what a prototype is? I think of prototypes primarily. I think just from my own background of automobiles. And I see a sleek looking car that comes out and they say in 10 years, this is the car that you'll be driving. Ten years later, I'm still driving the same one. But they say that this is what it's going to look like. In fact, this is the first of many to follow. And as I was praying and asking the Lord, what about leadership and how does it affect all of us in terms of where we live? I was really taken back by the fact that the Bible teaches literally that we become what our leaders are. We become what our leaders are. That's why Paul would say to the Corinthians and the Thessalonians, imitate me as I follow Christ. That's why Hebrews chapter 13 says, imitate the faith of your leaders. Now this is an awesome responsibility on the Shoulders of your leaders. And that's another whole subject. And I want to quickly say here that we're not advocating people worship or people following. And I don't want anyone to think that I'm saying that we're trying to make little robots of the leaders. But what I am saying is that the qualities of life that you see in the leadership of a body will be ultimately, as a whole, the quality of life that you'll see in that fellowship. You show me the leaders of a fellowship, and I can tell you basically what's going on. There will be some exceptions, some people that will rise beyond their leaders or fall beyond their leaders, if you want a biblical pattern. But as a whole, the fellowship will never go beyond its leadership. And so when the body recognizes its leaders, it's in effect saying, that's the kind of people that we're to become. Now, this is an awesome thing to me. And what it ultimately means is that as we discuss and share about the biblical pattern of leadership, we want to see that which we are going to all become. Because Hebrews, for example, in chapter six tells us very clearly that we ought not to still be drinking the milk, but rather we should be eating the meat. And the writer of Hebrews even exhorts them and says, you should be teaching instead of always receiving and so on. And so ultimately, what we're saying is we're all moving along in this pattern and we're all becoming like those that the Lord raises as leaders. Now, that means an awful lot when it comes down to talking about leadership over the next few weeks, I trust that you'll be seeing that which you are becoming, not just simply making a list of characteristics so that you can point out who the leaders are. Do you know what I'm saying? This is for you. This has weight in your life because this is what God wants to make all of us. He wants us to become leaders in love. Becoming leaders in love. We talk about leadership. All of Christian leadership starts at a fundamentally different point than the world, doesn't it? The world measures leadership in terms of ability and giftedness and success, all that kind of thing. The Bible has an entirely different criterion, beloved. We see it in John 13. It's worth noting that these words and this action of Jesus that we'll study a little more in depth here in a moment occur immediately following in the sequence of the Gospels, the question of James and John, of sitting at the right hand of the Lord and being the greatest, as it were, in the kingdom of heaven. We'll see that in Luke 22, and here, Jesus not only answers that question, but then demonstrates his answer by what follows in this very precious passage of Scripture. Leadership. And the world runs absolutely contrary from a starting point than leadership in the body of Christ. We tend to measure it in all the different parameters and all the different gages. And you know something? One of the great failures of the church today is that they started measuring leadership the same way and they started importing the people to be their leaders, who are the leaders in the secular society. And what happened to the church, it became like their leaders, right? Becoming leaders in love. Now, when we think of ministry, we automatically equate leadership with ministry, don't we? And so you think of the person who speaks, you think of the teaching function, or you think of the evangelist, or you think of the person with the healing ministry, or the person that somehow has written some books or has a seminar, and they're the leaders in the body. But do you know what the word for ministry is in Greek? Got to jot this down if you're taking notes this morning. It's diakonos. D, I, A, K, O, N, O, S. That's the noun form. And that's the word from which we get deacons. And it literally means in the Greek, one who serves. Or specifically one who waits on tables. One who waits on tables and brothers and sisters. In the New Testament, ministry takes place when service takes place. Now, let's not say that there's not a ministry in the teaching. I fully believe that this is my way of serving you. But where I would be mistaken is if I equate this and say, that's all, that this is ministry, and therefore you're not ministering unless you're doing what I'm doing. And I think it's very significant that the New Testament specifically says ministry. Diakonos is serving. The other night, I have to tell you this, the other night, remember last week, Jim Beck and Diane Graff stood up and said, come to our wedding. Well, many of you did. And it was an exciting time. And Friday night, members of the community put together a rehearsal dinner for Jim and Diane that was just lovely. And I mean, there was such a testimony and how that thing came forth. And a lot of the families from both sides, neither one of the families of these young people had been involved at all in. In Northway. And so to them, it was an expression of life, and it was beautiful without even having to come out. We didn't wave verses under the plates and stuff, eating their chicken. Oh, we didn't do any of that. But we loved them and we served them. I think Jesus was at that dinner, I really do. His life was evident there. And there was ministry taking place because there was service being given. There's many things to be known for as a church. How many of you know of a church with a good youth program? Don't put your hand up. How many of you know of a church with a good ladies ministry? Ladies program? How many of you know of a good television program and all these things? Well, that's the ministry. And the successful churches are the ones that have all these things happening. There's nothing wrong with those things. But beloved, those are not equivalent to ministry. The highest call of a church in ministry is the call to serve one another. And I'll tell you, I believe that our culture would absolutely be rocked back on its heels if we could become a serving church, a church that ministers in service to one another and to the community, because we don't see it anymore. You know, the Jews equated ministry with being subservient, and they didn't like to do it, as evidenced in this passage. In a moment, the Greeks thought it was the worst thing they could possibly do. It was absolutely a subjugation of their own egos. And they said, I'm not going to involve myself in doing anything of the sort to them. To wait on a table was the same as saying that I was a slave and had no value or worth whatsoever. So you see, in Jesus culture, it was just like today. The lower things, as it were, people stayed away from, they didn't want to be involved in. And I want to say to us, beloved, listen to me. We're in danger of getting so big so fast that we blow right past this thing of serving, that we become a church that functions and has a great time together at all of our events. But during the week, there's not care. There's not a laying down, there's not a calling up and a carrying over. There's not a getting together, not a giving and a receiving. And I glory as much as you glory in all that the Lord does with us Sunday by Sunday. But I want to glory even more in what he does Monday to Monday and Tuesday to Tuesday, day by day. There's no higher call than the call of being a servant church. Now, what does it take for us to become leaders in love? Here we are in John 13. Turn there with me if you haven't already. And let's read the first five verses now before the feast. Of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. And during supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands and that he had come from God and was going to God, rose from supper, laid aside his garments and girded himself with the towel. And then he poured out water into a basin and began to wash the disciples feet and to wipe them with the towel with which he was girded. Then look down with me at the conclusion of this episode in verse. Well actually not in the conclusion, but interjected in here, beginning in verse 12, when he had washed their feet and taken his garments and resumed his place, he called to them, do you know what I have done to you? You call me teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. See, there's no contradiction between being a teacher and being a servant. 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 as I have done to you. And then verse 34 and 35, a new commandment I give to you, that you love one another even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. I see in this action of Jesus washing the disciples feet four attitudes that are characteristic and fundamental to being a people who are becoming leaders in love. The first thing that I see there, let me just set this in a little bit of a framework so that we don't get it out. Jesus is about to go to the cross. And many times I know when I read this, I would think when Jesus says, you ought to love one another as I have loved you, I always used to think, well, he died for them, right? And you say, gee, I die for my brother in Christ, and so on. But notice when he says that, has he died yet? No, he hasn't died yet. And consequently he's talking about something that's already taken place. It's the past tense, the aorist tense, I have loved you. And so he's talking about this demonstration of love. I think he's talking about it over the sweep of his experience, but specifically caught up in a very precious experience of the washing of their feet. All right, and here's what he says, here's what he does. We could talk a little bit about his identity and the fact that he was secure in verse three. He knew where he'd come from and where he was going. Listen, if you don't know who you are and where you're going, you'll never be able to do what we're talking about. If you're not secure in your identity as a son of God or a daughter of God, then you won't be able to take the next step and lay down your life. Don't even. Don't make yourself miserable trying to be good. Okay, four attitudes. Here's the first one. The first thing that Jesus did in verse four, he rose from supper. Now, this pictures to me the fact that there comes a time in every Christian's life, and there may come a number of times, when you have to push away from the table, when you've been there feeding long enough, when you've been moving from one study to another and one fellowship to another and one group to another, and you spend 98% of your time ingesting spiritual food. You've got to put. Now, we all need that. We need to be fed. I know that we and the servants council see Sunday morning as a feeding time so that you can be prepared to go back out into the world. But if all we ever do, brothers and sisters, is get together so that we can be fed, and all that we ever do is go to this study here and that study there and hear this teacher and that evangelist and this prophet and so on. And all we ever do is pile up tapes and listen to so that we're getting fed and we never push away from that. It's interesting. I believe, that we feed ourselves to death. A spiritual deadness comes over us rather than an increasing. It's like the Dead Sea, you know, the Dead Sea only has one inlet and no outlets. Just keeps pouring in there, but it stagnates. You got to have that outlet, got to have that expression, Jesus rose from the table and involved in this is initiative. Nobody came to Jesus and said, would you wash my feet, Jesus? He took the initiative. I don't want to insult anybody's will here, but would you just say that word, please? Initiative. Say it again. Initiative. What does that mean? That means that you must be willing to take the first step, right? In whatever fashion we're talking about. There are very few who have enough courage to take the first step, but who will wait until somebody comes to them and says, would you please? There's so Much involved with pushing away from the table and taking the first step. We pray frequently in the men's prayer meeting for initiative in the body, that people would rise up and say, I'll help there. I'll do this. I'll make myself available. And that takes a big step of faith. For many people, initiative is a vital thing. All right. Now, the second thing that Jesus did here. Is he laid aside his garments. Now, don't be shocked by this, but what it really means is that Jesus literally stripped. That's what the word means. I don't believe that it was any kind of a lewd display or anything like that that somebody would want to twist it into. He went off to the side, took off his robe, completely disrobed, and then, as we see, he girded himself with a towel. Now, what does that mean to us? What does that mean to our attitude as a servant? The first thing it doesn't mean is it doesn't mean that we all have to, in some fashion, follow Jesus and that literal act of stripping down. Okay, I say that seriously because there's a tendency among many people to do exactly what the Bible says. Jesus stripped down. I'm going to strip down. Well, I usually say to them, Jesus was crucified. And the spiritual meaning of that is clear to us, isn't it? We die to ourselves, but that doesn't mean we climb up on a cross like they do in the Philippines and drive spikes into their hands, right? So let's see it. There's a spiritual application here, not a literal physical one for us. What does it mean to lay aside our garments? Who can remember all the way back to April or May? And we were talking about the prodigal, and we sung a song called the Robes of Righteousness. I am covered over with them robes of righteousness, which Jesus gave to me. What did the robe stand for? What did the robe stand for that the Father gave the prodigal? No one remembers. No, it stood for something that the Father restored to the Son when he came back. Authority. Bremer, remember that he gave the authority to function as a son over his empire once again. Garments in the Scriptures always refer to authority. Mark that down. Now, that's something we don't want to relearn over and over again. You don't know what that does to a teacher. We had one who got it. She was in college, probably then, too, you were here. Praise the Lord. Well, it specifically refers to authority. And what I see this as meaning, beloved, is that Jesus took off the garment of authority. He laid aside his rightful authority as the Son of God. And what we are to do is to lay aside our authority over one another in whatever fashion it might be. And to me it has everything to do with the matter of being vulnerable. You can't be a servant unless you're willing to be known apart from all of your titles and accomplishments and all of your securities and all of your accumulated achievements. That's what we're talking about is we're saying in order to be a servant, you need to be vulnerable. You need to be able to say, the only thing I bring to you is myself. Not my pedigree, not my accomplishments in this field or that field, but I just come to love you. How many of you know that it requires something of you, of a laying down of your own image of yourself perhaps in order to do that for somebody else. And we need to be men, for example, who deal with one another apart from our corporate position. And we need to be women who are willing to let other women see us as we are and not put up some kind of an error of something that we're not. We've got to lay aside our garments and our authorities so that we might be vulnerable. There's so many cover ups in the body of Christ, aren't there? You know, one thing that you've got to lay aside as well is the COVID up of reclusiveness, the willingness, you know, people. You can be very out here where we are, you can be very safe over on Nottingham Court or whatever, field club estates and never really be accused of doing anything wrong by staying in your house. But that in a sense is a garment, isn't it? That's your way of hiding behind what you've got. And you can stay there. And you're not in any overt sin. I mean, you're not doing anything that's wrong, but you're withholding, you're not serving. It takes a willingness to lay aside all those things and say, lord, brother, sister, here I am, I'm available. I'm leaving my refuge, as it were, coming out there and being open with you, being available to you. You know, and I also have to say this. There's a truth that we become one as we identify with one another in need and in hurt. Much more so than we become one by identifying in strength. And when you're vulnerable enough to let your needs be known and your weaknesses known and identify just the same in that regard, that's when you really become one with somebody. You don't Become one in strength. That's why the Bible says iron sharpens iron, because strength grates against strength. But there's a melting together. Why do you think there's so many organizations that are based on mutual need, you know what I'm saying? Like the Alcoholics and Anonymous? Because need binds people together. All right? The third thing that Jesus did is he girded himself with a towel. In my mind, this has to do with preparation for being a servant. You may have the willingness, you may even be willing to lay aside all of the facades and all of the garments and so on and so on, but you need to be prepared to meet the needs that are out there. And it may cost you some sort of a readjustment of what your priorities are and everything else. I thought of one illustration of a man who I know sees one of his ministries is sharing God's word by passing out tapes. And anywhere he goes, he has a little supply of tapes. Well, he wants to be prepared to be a servant to other people, to this ministry of tapes. And for Christmas, you know what he's getting? A duplicator. You got it? He's getting a tape duplicator. That's what he wants as a Christmas gift from his family. He's being prepared. Now that's a physical illustration. There's a lot of spiritual ones, too. We need to be able to say to those around us, I want to help and I'm prepared to help. And the towel represents the fact that when you see Jesus wrapped that towel around him, then he would bend down and by the edge of the towel, he would just wipe off those feet that he'd washed. That was his equipment. You've got to be out there and be available. You've got to be prepared to give of yourself. I heard someone quote this on this verse and said something and I really appreciated they said, linking the laying aside of the garments and the girding up of the towel, that transparency never requires indecency. I like that, that you can be vulnerable and transparent, but it never requires you going so far as to being exposed. And I appreciated that. You need to be equipped. There are people here who have need of those to help in their homes. If God's calling you to be a servant in their home, then you need to be out there, available, making yourself known, bringing your equipment. If God's calling you to be a nursery aid to serve the body in that fashion, you need to be available. You need to come maybe not having your best clothes on, you're going to Be sitting in a nursery and burping the little ones. All right. The fourth thing that Jesus did, fourth attitude, is that he washed their feet. This, brothers and sisters, is follow through. He could have done all the rest and never done the job, right? Could have gotten away from the table, stopped feeding himself, could have taken off his garments and laid aside his authority. He could have girded himself up with a towel and been prepared for the ministry and gone and sat back down again, right? There's a lot of us who are very well intended but somehow never get past the point of making the call or going out in the car. A lot of us who want to but don't want to enough that we do anything about it. And I just think follow through is so important in this matter of being a servant. Becoming a leader in love requires that you follow through and do it. Now, this matter of washing your feet was not a glorious call. Do you know that back then, how much asphalt did they have? Zip. So every place they went it was in dusty rocky roads. And washing the feet was generally the job of the lowest servant on the whole class of servants who worked in a particular household. And so when Jesus, you see, you have to see the minds of the disciples was, well, the servant didn't show up. But I'm not going to wash Peter's feet and I'm not going to wash James feet. I might wash Jesus feet. And can you see that? Can you imagine the expression on those men when Jesus got up and did the very thing that all of them were saying to themselves, I'll never do that. Washing feet is basically a pretty nasty job. Just think about feet in the first place. I mean, feet aren't really the focal point of most of our anatomy, are they? I'm waiting for the time the commercial comes on when a 21 year old girl and her 41 year old mother who look alike, stand there and you can't tell us apart by our feet, you know, So it's not something that we ordinarily pay any attention to, right? At the best our feet are awkward and at the worst they're really just foul. Don't chuckle too loud, you give yourself away. Put your odor eaters back in there. But they symbolize, again, not the literal physical part as much, but they symbolize to me where a person has been. Feet take you where you're going and a servant is willing to come to a person and meet them at their point of need, wherever they've been. And that's what the Lord calls us to Be is a people who reach out to one another wherever we've been, whether it be a great and glorious past or a terrible, pockmarked, crushing kind of life. Wash one another's feet, meet one another where we've been, accept one another right where we are. And so Jesus says, that which you've seen me do, you do as well. You say, well, where do I begin? I know I want to be this kind of a person and I see that I need to change some of my attitudes and so on. But where do I begin? Well, beloved, I thought about this an awful lot because I feel like application in this matter is very important. And if I want to become a leader in love, a servant as we see depicted here, the very first place that you can turn and look. For those of you who are in home groups, God has given you a little band of people with whom you can become this kind of person. I'll tell you this, if you try to set out in this big group here and say, well, I'm going to be a servant of that body, you may find something to fit into and praise the Lord for that. But the odds are that you'll be overwhelmed. And that's one reason why we hold back. I'm not going to sign up for the nursery because I'll be the only one that'll do it and I'll be in there for the next 16 years. So we start in a small band of people that we can be accountable to and close to. It starts in the home groups. It may even start this morning in a few moments in your prayer circle. God may show you somebody's feet that are really dirty and he'll call you to wash them. If you're willing to lay aside your garment and be girded with a towel, it may happen in your neighborhood. It doesn't have to be another Christian that you serve. The families of the people involved in that dinner on Friday night were touched and they were largely non believing people. It may happen at your job, but above all it's got to happen in your home. That's where the cost can be the greatest sometimes because we've got those garments on there really tight. We don't want to be cast out of any kind of a security that we have there. Well, I'm making the money and bringing home all the provision. It's your job to do this. Well, I can't be with the kids this weekend because I've got my golf game after all, the Lord's dealing with that weather. But might be indoor tennis or whatever it might be. You know what I'm saying? We're looking at here beginning in the home, then in the immediate circle of those that the Lord's brought us into. Then in the larger body, ultimately in the world. But only you can make the application. Beloved, do you see that Jesus? Here, look at these words. They're important. We'll conclude with this. You call me. You call me teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I, then your Lord and Teacher have washed your feet. May I suggest to you that if you feel like it, you wash one another's feet. Does the Lord say that you ought to? He commands. He says, if I did it, then please don't ever think that it's going to to be beneath you to do it. And beloved, as we ask the Lord to raise up leaders and to have our leaders recognized, let them be those who lead in love, who serve according to the call of God in their life. And I pray that all around our fellowship we're going to see more and more people coming up, laying down their life. I just yearn to see it. I want to be known in the North Hills as a church where people serve other people. Because the Lord Jesus will be glorified. And in fact it says in John 13:34 that what all men will know, we are his disciples. That kind of love. Praise the Lord. Amy's going to sing a song right now that talks about being a servant. And it's a servant of the Lord, whereby serving him we are equipped and able to serve one another. Why don't you just close your Bibles up and let this minister to you as she sings it?