Foundations of Leadership I

They were and move them where he wanted them to be. And that's really encouraging to me lots of times when I don't feel adequate for things. So three affirmations, three things just to keep in mind. And if you're here, I know some of you here tonight for the first time in what you call leadership setting, and you need to be affirmed in that, that you're here because the Lord wants you. You're here to follow Him. And regardless of how you feel about it, you're beginning a process that will take you on the road where God wants you to be. Now, what is our purpose going to be? What is our purpose going to be over the next weeks? And in discussing leadership training, we felt very strongly that this will probably be the first phase of several phases of leadership training. I don't know about the calendar of all that and so on, but this will be one of many. There's a twofold purpose I want you to grasp. It's to encourage and strengthen your personal relationship with the Lord Jesus. To encourage and strengthen your personal relationship with the Lord Jesus, as well as your ability to impart that life as well as your own ability to impart that life in your own special sphere of ministry. And as I'm going to develop a little bit later on, Leadership training that's understood simply as a gathering of techniques and methodologies really falls short of the mark. But leadership training that simply talks about the glories of following God with all of your heart oftentimes leaves you sort of in a muddle and unsure what to do. And in fact, I think one of the problems that I have observed, and this is true at North Way, is that a lot of people don't really know what it is that they're doing in leadership. They don't really understand what they're supposed to be doing as leaders. And I'd like you to take a minute right now to answer that next question. Would you thoughtfully, what is your primary goal? Go ahead and take a minute and answer that question. Write out your answer. In other words, what do you feel you're trying to accomplish ultimately. As you. Serve in the body? Take another minute and turn to one other person. So in two, share, here's my ultimate goal. This is really what I'm after. Go ahead. Let's have a few responses. What's your primary goal in leadership? Okay, we'll move right along from that. To present. Every man perfect or mature or complete in Jesus Christ. All right, others. Can anybody improve on that one? Come on. Come on. You get some perfect disciples, tried hard to improve on that, didn't. All right, I have to say that ultimately those two scriptures, the other one that Chuck shared in Matthew 28:19, is the fundamental summons of the Lord Jesus to go and make disciples of all nations. And those two scriptures really do, in my estimation, strike right at the core of what it is that we're to do. And that is making disciples, not just converts. How many of you were victimized for years as a Christian because you were converted every Sunday morning, Then live like you knew nothing for the rest of the week and then were converted again. But to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, teaching them to do all things which I have commanded. Alright. Secondly, and in that presenting every man mature in Christ or perfect in Christ. And we're going to see a little bit later why this is so important because where most people miss it in ministry is they see things in general terms. They don't see them in specific lives, in terms of specific maturities and by the grace of God, that's what we're going to begin to see while we're together. Now on your sheet there, I listed. The fundamental point of view of our functioning here in the next eight weeks in terms of leadership training. I said there that there are three concurrent interwoven threads of truth that we're going to be focusing on. The first one is that during these weeks we are trusting that you're going to see more of the heart of God and know more of the purpose of God for your own life. In other words, your relationship with the Lord is going to be the fundamental basis of what you give to other people. And so we want to foster that. And if you don't find yourself more yearning to be with God as a result of these meetings, then I'm going to be disappointed. If you don't want more of God himself as a result of being together, then we will have missed one of our primary goals. As far as I'm concerned, we want you to want more of God. Because. It'S as you have more of him that you're going to be overflowing with more to give. But that out of context, which brings us to number two, will leave you in some sort of a spiritualized self interpretive mode which really does no good to anybody at all. And the second thing is that love relationship with the Father is worked out in the body of Christ. I don't know how I can say it more plainly, but there's Only one head, and that's who Jesus. All the rest of us are just parts. No matter how important a part, you may perceive yourself to be beloved by yourself, you will not fulfill God's purpose. And ultimately you will be an ugly, even grotesque, perhaps aberration of God's purpose. And I know that this sounds, you know, I'm talking extremes here, but so many of us, when we begin to get what we feel, a revelation of God because we don't think anyone understands us, we sort of draw back and well, if brother so and so was really more spiritual, I could share these things with them, but they don't understand and they think I'm weird. And well, we need to understand that as we know more of God, it doesn't push us away. It should in fact draw us near to the body of Christ. To me, one of the evidences of real spiritual encounter is an increasingly submitted heart. And when you don't see that, it's an evidence to me that people are making up their spiritual revelation. It's not really God. When God reveals things to you, the fruit of it is a submitted, willing, serving kind of a heart. Third thing, the third thread, various methodologies of ministry which are most effective in expressing and imparting this life that you're growing in. A little later, I'm going to give you a sheet which lists some of the various how to's that we're going to talk about. We really have set ourselves to make this specific and practical and applicable to your situations. It doesn't do a lot of good if you get into a situation. You don't really know how to get underneath that surface so that your ministry can be effective. How many of you ever been talking to somebody? Just today in our Bible study. Let me give you an illustration. One of the brothers was saying how he'd had a discussion about religion with a Jewish friend of his. Now, this brother happens to be a newer Christian, and he was saying that this Jewish friend of his really thought all this Jesus stuff was off the wall and he had no reason to believe any of it. And he said, in fact, when you get right down to the Bible, how can you show me that it's logical that Jesus was even the Messiah? And you see, this brother of ours had all this zeal, but he had no idea as to how to really address that specific point. He wasn't able to share his faith in a way that was logical and clear. Therefore he said, well, I don't really know. It was interesting. As we went on one other Brother in the Bible said he gave him. You know that story. See, the Jewish guy said, well, Jesus was a great prophet, but what's the argument, the logical reasoning argument, if Jesus was a great prophet, but he wasn't the Son of God, what's the problem there? He said he was. And great prophets don't lie about who they are, right? See, and if he'd known that, he could have addressed that man and perhaps had an opening to bring him to faith. We need those specifics and our goal is to work those in. Okay? Now, as I was thinking about maybe why we're going to do this, it occurred to me that perhaps some of you don't realize the significance of these leadership meetings because most of you have an opportunity to just see things from your part more than you do from the whole. But let me give you five reasons we do have an overhead for this as to why we need to really address these subjects over the next several weeks. Alright? First of all, the Lord Jesus had a mission. And He Himself set the model for fulfilling his great commission, which we said was our goal as well, to make disciples. He gave us the model. What was his model? What was the model of leadership development in the Lord Jesus? What was the model of the formation of lives? He had 12 disciples that he poured his life into. That was the framework of how he operated. So he gave us a model. Now, that doesn't mean that we all run around with a little band of people following us because we're not Jesus, right? But there are a lot of things that we can learn about how we function in relationship. And over the weeks we're going to see some of those, some of them even tonight. The second one. Is that without strong biblical leadership, without it, people fall into sin. There's some interesting scriptures about what people do without strong leadership. Are you familiar with what happens in Judges when the people don't have godly men and women raised up over them? The Judges saved them from all kinds of terror and so on. It says in for example, Judges 2:11, the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals. And they forsook the Lord, the God of their fathers who had brought them out from the land of Egypt. You see, when they ran, when they came to the point that their leadership was no longer over them, the ultimate was what at the end of Judges, everyone did what was right in their own eyes. Now flash that back up again, Paula, would you? How many of you have seen now that most of you have been Here a while, you see that even in your own heart, there's always this inclination away from submission to authority, away from giving yourself in service. You have to fight it all the time. You always have to bring in discipline, your fleshly desires. There's the constant battle, and it's a battle the Holy Spirit will win by faith in each of us. But there's that tendency in our old nature to draw us away from the things of God. Now, let me tell you that the smaller the community, the more likely there is to be strong commitment. The larger the community, the less likely it is and the more difficult it becomes. Now, the greatest illustration of that is what is the most profound expression of commitment that we know in relationship. Marriage. How many are involved in marriage? We had some threes over here I didn't like. Okay, all right. And you're able to work out marriage commitment at the most profound level. But as you go on, when we had 150 at North Way Christian Community, we were able to bring about a steadiness of commitment and a sense of moving together in direction and so on, much more easily than we are now. And if God would choose to continue to bless us, and I believe he would because it honors him to see fruit borne in the kingdom, it's going to be more difficult. So we've got to see that without biblical leadership, people will fall into sin. They'll fall away. We've had a lot of people say in the last few months that they're yearning for a little more of the definition of the way we're to go and this kind of thing. Third thing, biblical leadership does not blame the people, but blames themselves when there's failure. How easy it is when your home group begins to wander away to find the reasons why they just weren't a very committed group, or how easy it becomes to fault the ones who don't show up at the Bible study or who aren't part of the ministry meeting on a consistent basis. How many of you saw Karate Kid? Go ahead, confess it. Okay. A bunch of you. One of the classic statements in that movie that stuck with me. I saw it six times. Is when the Japanese instructor is confronted by the young boy who's learning karate from him. And he's saying that these other guys that are picking on him, they're just awful, and they're terrible students, and they're terrible students of karate and everything. They abuse it and that kind of thing. And this Japanese instructor, he's just a very simple guy, but he said one thing I learned he said, there are no poor students, only poor teachers. That's an interesting observation, isn't it? There are no poor students, there's only poor teachers. And that's something that we don't want to hear sometimes. In other words, if instruction is to be brought and imparted, then there's got to be a way to do it. If God's charged you with those lives. And I know that that sounds maybe a little bit difficult for some, but I think that that basically is true. The Lord will give you a way. All right. Fourth, there's a tremendous opportunity for growth that I believe. When I say opportunity, I don't mean opportunity for us. I mean opportunity for the fact that God is merciful and desirous, that none should perish. And I agree in my heart with a number of Christian ministries that I'm frequently exposed to that believe that God is moving, setting in order many things that one day, in fact unfolding in the days ahead will be an increasing harvest. We're seeing a lot of the raging, the spiritual warfare for that harvest now. But brothers and sisters, unless leadership rises at the body at North Way, and I believe this is an expression that it will, we're going to get to see this harvest sort of pass us by because we're not going to have the leadership trained to unfold these people already. Already that's somewhat strained in our fellowship that we have the leadership here, but it's not really clear how you get to them and how they get rolling and that kind of thing. So I feel very strongly that one of God's injunctions to us is to have leadership rising up so that as new believers come in, there'll be clear channels of unfolding before them. All right? And finally, we need to study this because really, for many of you, it's going to answer to something deep inside of your heart that you know that God has a purpose for you. And unless you study the life of Jesus and the principles of the Word of God in relationship to leadership development, you won't be fulfilled because God has more for you than you're living in. And I just think that many, many times people. Battle problems rather than seize opportunities. And God wants to raise a number of us up into moving ahead in opportunity. And this is going to, I believe, set a number of people free from some cyclical problems because it's going to give you a different focus. Okay, any questions about this sort of introduction? And now I'm going to just wait a minute. If you have any questions, then I'm Going to go on and just share a few minutes more and then have you do something together in a group. Any questions about this sort of introduction part? Really isn't a lot of controversial stuff there. It's just a matter of setting a foundation. No. Okay, handout people. Everyone else, stand up for a second. Okay. Just take a stretch break and grab the second sheet, would you? It. Okay, A few more up here. Does anyone else need a sheet? Okay, let's be seated. Once again. It. Where is that? Might have taken it out my office. How many of you have received some form of leadership training in your particular career or job field? A lot of you. Most of you. What are some of the definitions that you were generally given as to what good leadership was about? Let's shoot out a couple of those. Jane. Yeah, the ability to get people to do something they don't want to do. Right. Okay. What else? To be an encouragement. All right. To learn to train, to be someone that can train others to do something. Okay. I heard. To be an example, to set goals. Now this is all in the secular world, right? Okay. To set goals, to get things done. Eh? Alright. Tuning your communication so that what you intend to see happen is clearly understood so that it can happen. All right. Training. Yeah, we heard that one too. All right. That ingredient of once it's out there, then someone's accountable to see that it gets done and that kind of a thing. All right. Creating a climate in which you can exist and so that the relationship develops and you're not just out there barking commands and so on. And all these things have very significant importance. They're all valuable. But the world's idea of leadership and the biblical idea of leadership are not the same. And if we would set ourselves to develop just sort of a non biblical view of leadership, we could come up with a lot of good information. In fact, in seminary, a lot of seminaries use books by Peter Drucker and other management kind of people that are designed to teach you effective training and tools for motivation, those kind of things. But they're okay, but they're not really what God would have us to use. So I felt that where we needed to go was to see the life of Jesus as the ultimate model of leadership. Recognizing initially. One thing that I want us to clear up, people often respond to this that, well, he was the son of God and he could do the things that I can't do. And it's really frustrating for me to hear you talk about this because I could never do it. And I want to say Right off that we're here to learn what Jesus did and how he did it. But understand that it's his life in us, flowing through us, that's going to make it happen. So don't be intimidated and think, well, I can never do what he did. He knows your limitations, but if you're yielded to him, you're going to see change because he's going to identify specifics in us that he can adapt and change. I look around and see all different ones that I've had conversations with that have said things like, well, I'm not really like that, or this isn't really my niche, or whatever, and God wants to address that and round you off and make you just all the more usable for Him. Now let me give you just my concluding part of this evening. Five characteristics of Jesus leadership. The first one is that he focused on individuals. It's on your sheet, right? The leadership of the Lord Jesus focused on individuals. I see one very serious concern that I've developed and something that I see frequently is people tend to think of their leadership role in terms of fulfilling a task that they have in terms of preparation for the meeting. Well, if I just get it done, we're meeting tomorrow night, I got to get the Bible study done and then I'll have fulfilled my leadership role. Or if I simply get the lesson done for the kids, then I've done what I'm supposed to do as a teacher, or if I rehearse the music, then I've really fulfilled my music leadership responsibility. Now, I need to say this in the strongest language because it is, to me, one of the most blatant weaknesses in our community is that we too often think in terms of just being there or doing it rather than seeing people develop. And Fred's going to help us to get a clear handle on how we can sort of see that happening in just a few minutes. Isn't it interesting that Jesus, when he spoke to Peter after the resurrection, he appeared to him and Peter was fishing and we jumped off the boat and so on. Really funny story. In a way, we see ourselves in Peter. But what does he say? If you love me, Peter, feed my lambs. Just feed my lambs. Give my lambs some of the bread of life. Love them, feed them. And I feel so strongly that we often just look at it in terms of getting our material organized or just being there and putting our 2 cents worth in and home group leaders. You need to see yourself affecting individuals, building relationships as God would lead with individuals. Those of you who are in other responsibilities as little cell groups. And when I say cell groups, by the way, I'm talking about Bible studies. I'm talking about, like the women's ministry groupings. How many women's ministry small group leaders do we have today? Anybody good? Five or six of you? Great. You're cell group leaders. Okay. That's the whole. Anyone that meets with a group of folks for growth, It's not what God's called us to, to simply make that group work. I just need to say that many times that can pull you away when the group's working great. It can pull you away from your real objective. Do you know that? You know, good meetings can be a detriment to true ministry. They can't. If that's all that happens and you're not building relationships and you're not seeing individuals developing, that can be a detriment because you think you've done the job, because you had a good meeting. Paul, when he was addressing the flock at Ephesus of the elders, rather of the flock at Ephesus, was saying to them in very specific personal terms, he reflected that personalness of Jesus and his leadership. Remember that scene in Acts 20 where he had them come meet him on an island and he sat down and told him he wasn't going to see him again. And he specifically charged them with some personal things to watch over the flock and watch out for this and watch out for that and guard against this. And I just see all through that. Individuals, watch out for individuals. And when one of your flock, as it were, strays off, what do you do about it? Well, I give them a call. Why haven't you been at the meeting? Maybe they need to hear you say. Gee. I sure have missed you. Anything I can do for you? You see, sometimes they think of good discipling as being, as long as I'm at the meeting, I'm okay. Well, we're not here to build meeting people. We're here to build disciples, right? So let's ask God to give us a heart for individuals and not just meetings. Okay? Second thing, the Lord Jesus focused on the authority of the Scriptures. How many of you would say that one of your struggles in being an effective leader is you don't really know how far you can go in your. Encouragement in specific areas of growth with another brother or sister? It is a tender area, isn't it? We know we're not to lord it over people and to tell people what to do, but how many of you have longed, and I'm talking about cried out in your heart wishing someone would help you to address something in your life that you know wasn't right. And you wish that someone come along and just helped you to get through that you knew you couldn't do it on your own. And I want you to know that I feel strongly that the word of God, that Jesus used the word a lot because he knew that it was an authority that God had given, an ageless authority. When you read the Gospels carefully, there's some interesting quotes that Jesus kind of lambastes the Pharisees with. There's some of the high points, really. One of my favorites is in Matthew 15, where the Pharisees are coming and they're criticizing Jesus and the elders for not washing their hands when they eat. And he says, why do you transgress the commandment of God? For the sake of your traditions? And then they talk about that, you know, if you held out your offering and said, well, I don't have to take care of my mom and dad because it's offering to God and all that kind of thing. And then here in 15, it's talking about God commanded, honor your father and mother, and he who speaks evil of father and mother, let him surely die. But you say, if anyone tells his father, his mother, what you would have gained from me is given to God. That's that whole thing of Korban. It's called, he need not honor his father. In other words, they were distorting the law for their own gain. So for the sake of your tradition, you've made void the word of God, you hypocrites. Well did Isaiah prophesy you see, he's referring to the Word as his authority as to their style of life. When he said, this people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. In vain do they worship me teaching his doctrines the precepts of men. What I'm saying to you, brothers and sisters, is that I feel that it's right for us to use the Word of God as an instrument of authority in our ministry to people, so that we call people to the Word, not to our standard, not to what we think is righteousness. But if we see a person who's failing and probably don't want to be failing, but we can come alongside of them with a word and encourage them by the Holy Spirit, that God wants this Word to be lived out in them rather than just subjective, well, I sure wish that you wouldn't beat your wife like that. We've got to understand that the Word of God has Some real directives that our life to not keep them as death. Jesus said, thy word is truth in John 17. Sanctify them in thy truth. Thy word. That's what brings sanctification or holiness. Jesus often fulfilled the quotes of the Old Testament in the New by his very presence. I had an illustration here in Matthew 15. Now, the third thing that Jesus did that in his life, he focused in his development of leadership, rather on the impartation of his own life. Now a couple things here very quickly. This does not happen between now and the 15th of the month. Jesus did not simply grab a few dozen or so guys with him and go off and say, here's what you need to know about me and here's what you need to know about God and miracles. How many years was he with those disciples? Three to three and a half. Interesting little tidbit. Approximately how much of the Gospels, approximately how much of Jesus ministry is recorded in the gospels? Does anyone know? In other words, the total number of days or so is covered in that ministry? 33 to 34. In other words, if you chronologically pull it all apart, about 33 or 34 days of ministry are discussed. So over three years is never even mentioned that he spent with those disciples. And of course John tells us, doesn't he, that if all the things he did were written, all the books in the world couldn't hold them. But apparently you see this Jesus, he just yearned to be with those men, imparting his life. And Fred and I agreed that one of the key things that we need to tell you tonight and have you grab hold of that the things that we're going to be sharing may not change the people you relate to tomorrow, but over weeks and months you will see lives change. Now, I'm going to embarrass somebody here, but I'm going to do it anyhow because I think it's just a beautiful illustration, one brother that's here tonight that I have seen change. And it didn't happen in the first six months or a year or two, but I've seen him grow up into Jesus, into a man of a real heart's love for God. And I believe a growing strength in ministry is Blaine. I knew Blaine first met about seven or eight years ago and he's strong willed, just a real bugger, right? And really, I have to honestly say in the first couple of years, you know, Blaine developed sort of a friendship mentality and I don't know, he could speak to this probably better than I could, but I think it Just it's been over years that our lives together have mutually, and I'm going to talk about this, mutually built up one another. And so over the seven or eight years that have now transpired, significant growth has happened. But it didn't. If I, you know, in the first year looked at Blaine and said, well, Blaine, we've been at this for a year now and you really are still a bugger. Are you going to do anything about it? And I'm not me, I hope I'm not being unkind, but I think he knows he had a lot of heavy things going on then. And the point is, beloved, that it just takes time. It doesn't happen overnight. Jesus spent time with the 12 and he focused in on how many? Three he had. The three that he cherished, Peter, James and John. And he took them aside many times on his own. You may be doing that too in your home groups or in your cell groups. There may be just one or two that you really feel drawn to. Now, I recognize that your full time job isn't to pursue these people and I know that. And that puts limitations on you. You say, hey, I'm exhausted as it is and you're telling me I have to look out for people. I'm just saying that ministry leadership ultimately is development of people's lives. And Jesus demonstrated this so clearly. It's formation, not information. Leadership is formation, not information. One of the things that Jesus did to impart his life was to serve the people that he was with. He served them, he did things with them that blessed them. One of the things that I find interesting is once we get into leadership, we do develop a mentality. I confess that it's true even in my own life that now I'm in leadership and I'm really too busy. There are other people who aren't quite as busy as I am that can do some of the service things. So it's interesting on a Thursday evening after a TNT or a Sunday morning when we call for brothers to help carry down the speakers, how few of you people are up there? Hey, I'm doing some counseling. Come on. You'Re busy. It just slips into us and we become insensitive to some basic needs. Painting a house, well, there's a lot of people that can go help and paint a house. I've got other things now. I'm in leadership. Really. Watch out for that. That's a little deception that gets in there. You need to be an example to the others that you're trying to cultivate into that kind of a thing. All right, quickly, number four. Jesus ministry was a ministry that focused on prayer. And boy, could I talk a lot about that. I think tonight, just for the sake of allowing time, I believe that we are very susceptible to thinking that God will get it done one way or another. In other words, when it comes to leadership development, God will more or less make it happen whether or not we pray. Church. Can I say to you that nothing alarms me more in my spiritual shepherding here at North Way than to think that we would launch out to do things without prayer. And it was interesting to me today, and I'll have to say this sort of. It was both a joy and a disappointment this morning at the warehouse as we had our first meeting in this enlarged facility. The joy was that we had 12 gals join us for prayer and intercession and to knit their hearts with ours. And I really appreciated that. The disappointment was there wasn't a single new brother there. And I felt that I quite plainly made it clear that that would be a time of significance to some brothers, that it would be a good time to begin in the habit of prayer with us. And you see, it's falling on the shoulders of a few to pray. And I'm not just talking that Tuesday, Friday isn't the only barometer of that. I know that. But I think it's indicative and we just need to see prayers at the basis. If you're not praying for your individual people consistently, they will not. They will not grow in that relationship with you. They may grow because somebody else will be praying for them. They will not grow because of you if you won't pray for them. Jesus poured out his heart in Mark, chapter one, Healing, delivering, setting free. And then what did he do? Turn to Mark one, Would you, while you're there? Mark 1. That evening at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. These scenes where Jesus just gets the whole crowd, you know, and the whole city was gathered together about the door. And he healed many who were sick with various diseases and cast out many demons. And he would not permit the demons to speak because they knew him. There's an exhaustion that's taking place here, a draining out of his spiritual energy. And in the morning, a great while before day, he rose and went out to a lonely place. And there he prayed. What a picture that is to me, following a long day when most of us feel like we deserve to be in the sack. Until a quarter to 10, Jesus was up praying. I'm not trying to lay a Guilt trip on those of us who have heavy schedules. I'm just saying Jesus priority was prayer. And I don't know that we can develop leadership without that being a priority in our lives. Do you say Amen to that? Just other references. I talked this Morning in Matthew 21:12 16 about the temple of God being a place of prayer. You might want to look that up later. Two other things about prayer. It's interesting that when Jesus goes to Gethsemane to fight that great battle before he went to the cross, he says that he went to the place, you look it up, the place he'd been there