Leadership Matters
Notes
Transcript
Leadership Matters
Leadership Matters
1 Peter 5:1–5 “So as your fellow elder and a witness of Christ’s sufferings and as one who shares in the glory that will be revealed, I urge the elders among you: Give a shepherd’s care to God’s flock among you, exercising oversight not merely as a duty but willingly under God’s direction, not for shameful profit but eagerly. And do not lord it over those entrusted to you, but be examples to the flock. Then when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that never fades away. In the same way, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. And all of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
Exordium.
Leadership Matters.
In business, in politics, in schools, in the workplace.
leadership makes a huge difference in the direction, culture, and vision of an organization.
and that’s especially true when we’re talking about leadership in the church.
I don’t care if you’re talking about a mega church with 1500 people in stadium seats, or a tiny little church like ACC, leadership matters.
The people in charge matter, and the structure of the leadership, how leadership is arranged in the organizational chart really matters.
For the church that Peter is writing to here in the book of 1 Peter, leadership really mattered.
Over the past several weeks we’ve been talking about this letter that Peter has been writing to the churches scattered in pontus, galatia, cappadocia, asia and bithinya.
And we’ve been exploring the theme “Scattered” How God’s people survive and thrive in exile.
We’re talking about a church that is living in the world, being persecuted, being ostracized.
They are in desparate need of some hope, guidance and leaership from the apostle Peter.
And as we turn to chapter 5, peter is turning to the leaders of these churches in the midst of their suffering, and turmoil, and he’s encouraging and empowering them to lead the churches through the season they’re in.
For the scattered churches, leadership matters.
And for the church today, leadership matters.
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If you go to any website of any church in america, you will find, somewhere, a leadership page, where you can read a bio of the people in charge at that particular church.
And most of the time, you’ll find someone with the title “Lead pastor” or “head pastor” or something like that.
We don’t have a lead pastor here at ACC.
Here at ACC, we have a phrase we like to say, Ron says it a lot. “What does the Bible say”
what does the bible say about how the church ought to be structured.
Narratio
First thing: Get everyone on the same page, and look at how the Bible describes church leadership:
When they had appointed elders for them in the various churches, with prayer and fasting they entrusted them to the protection of the Lord in whom they had believed.
Book of Acts: Apostles appointed elders
Men in the church who the apostles could trust, knew and understood the gospel message, had families, life experience.
Always a plurality, never one. Leadership by committee.
As the church grew, the elders, then appointed people to serve and lead under them. Deacons or Ministers.
At ACC, we have two elders and one minister. Ron and Stew are your Elders, I am a minister, and serve under them.
Those are the two positions, or offices in the church. Elders and deacons, or ministers.
With Everyone on the same page,
As we get into chapter 5, peter is addressing the elders of each of hte churches, the men who work together as a commitee to run the churches
(The importance of having people on the ground leading the church in the midst of suffering)
Propositio
So as your fellow elder and a witness of Christ’s sufferings and as one who shares in the glory that will be revealed, I urge the elders among you:
Peter is writing to a group of churches in crisisis. They’re going through persecution...
Last week we talked about how Peter is writing to share a message of hope.
When the church is in crisis, Peter turns to the leaders there in the church on the ground.
And he says “As a fellow elder” as one who was a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as one who shares in the glory to be revealed.
In other words, he is identifying himself with them, and saying, look, You guys are the ones there in the churches.
I know you’re looking to me for guidance and leadership, but I need you to understand that you, elders, you are leaders in the church.
The apostle peter can’t be there with you day in and day out.
It takes months for a letter to get circulated to the churches, and so he says to the elders: I urge you:
Confirmatio
Give a shepherd’s care
Give a shepherd’s care to God’s flock among you...
NIV: Be shepherds
ESV: Shepherd the flock.
The word shepherd is where we get our modern term Pastor.
1. Shepherd the Flock
1. Shepherd the Flock
Right off the bat I want you to notice:
Who’s flock is being described? It’s God’s flock
The elders in the church, collectively have a role to play in taking care of the flock. because it’s not their flock. And they’re going to have to give an answer to the spiritual well being of the flock that God has entrusted them with.
What does it look like to give a shepherds’ care? to pastor the flock?
Watch out for yourselves and for all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God that he obtained with the blood of his own Son.
I know that after I am gone fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock.
Even from among your own group men will arise, teaching perversions of the truth to draw the disciples away after them.
1. Shepherd the Flock
1. Shepherd the Flock
A big role of the shepherd is to protect the flock from wolves. To protect the church from false teachers.
Paul in Acts even goes so far as to say, there might even be people from among you who lead people astray. People who wear the title Elder, or Pastor.
And it’s the job of the elders to be on guard in the church from bad ideas creeping their way into the church.
And in order to do that, guess what, the elders of the church need to know their word well enough to spot bad teaching.
It’s a duty of the elders to be educated in scripture, and to know what is true and good, so that they can easily pin point when somethings not right.
Here at ACC, our elders have great relationships with Summit, our local bible college, they attend bridge seminars, and elders seminars, they have relationships with other elders of other churches.
They’re constantly in their Bibles, constantly in study of the Word, because it’s their job to protect you from bad teaching.
Main Point 2
...exercising oversight not merely as a duty but willingly under God’s direction, not for shameful profit but eagerly.
The role of elders in the church is to Oversee the church.
2. Oversee the Church
2. Oversee the Church
In the Bible there are three different words used to describe the elders of the Church
Elders, Pastors/Sheperds, Overseers, bishops.
Their job was to make decisions for the church.
We have an example from Acts 15,
The early church was in debate over the issue of circumcision, as gentiles came into the church, the question was, well, the Jewish people are required to be circumcized to be in covenant relationship with God.
They’re required to follow all of the Law of Moses, and the old testament. But what about those who come in who aren’t jewish? What should they be required to do?
Both the apostles and the elders met together to deliberate about this matter.
They made decisions by getting together and discussing the issue.
2. Oversee the Church
2. Oversee the Church
They went to scripture, they had debates. They considered all of the arguments that everyone was making.
And here in acts 15, you know what they ended up doing?
they made a compromise.
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Why do I bring this up?
After the end of the new testament, one of the first Biblical principles that was done away with was the idea of having multiple elders in Charge.
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That’s where this idea of having one single “head pastor” or lead pastor in charge came from.
But if we’re going to be a church that takes this book seriously, we have to take seriously the idea that the church was never meant to be led by just one person.
Shepherd the flock
Oversee the Church
Main Point 3
And do not lord it over those entrusted to you, but be examples to the flock.
There is no leadership principle as powerful as the principle of leading by example.
3. Set the Standard
3. Set the Standard
In the military there is a phrase you hear a lot “Set the Standard”
when you hear someone say the phrase “set the standard” what they are saying is, whatever it is you are doing, do it in such a way that everyone around you can look to you as the example to follow.
An elder must be blameless, the husband of one wife, with faithful children who cannot be charged with dissipation or rebellion.
For the overseer must be blameless as one entrusted with God’s work, not arrogant, not prone to anger, not a drunkard, not violent, not greedy for gain.
Instead he must be hospitable, devoted to what is good, sensible, upright, devout, and self-controlled.
He must hold firmly to the faithful message as it has been taught, so that he will be able to give exhortation in such healthy teaching and correct those who speak against it.
The elders of the church should be living lives that sets the standard for the rest of the church.
Paul tells the church in corinth
Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ.
Peter gives these instructions to the elders of the church and encourages them to take the torch and lead the church through these tough situations because.
Then when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that never fades away.
Remember when we talked about how the flock belongs to God, and the elders are put in charge of being shepherds over God’s flock?
Refutatio (Optional)
Leadership matters:
And I hope, that by this point you’re convinced, I’d love for you to turn to Ephesians 4 with me.
And he himself gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers,
to equip the saints for the work of ministry, that is, to build up the body of Christ,
until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God—a mature person, attaining to the measure of Christ’s full stature.
So we are no longer to be children, tossed back and forth by waves and carried about by every wind of teaching by the trickery of people who craftily carry out their deceitful schemes.
my Goal as a preacher, as a minister, is to equip you with the tools you need to be able to know what is true.
It is very easy to take the words of this book and twist them.
It is very easy to take God’s word and to twist it and manipulate it and take it out of context.
And when you manipulate God’s word, it’s very easy to manipulate people with it.
I wish it wasn’t true. but there are plenty of people out there who are perfectly content with taking God’s word and twisting it
It’s exactly what Satan did to Jesus when he took him out into the desert. Satan quoted scripture and twisted the Word ofGod to try to convince Jesus himself to bow down to him.
Paul says in 2 cor 11, that satan himself disguises himself as an angel of light.
Therefore it is not surprising his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness, whose end will correspond to their actions.
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God thought about this, when he instituted the church, when he put the churches under the care of multiple elders, so that there would be checks and balances. So that no one single person has the ability to take the church down a bad direction.
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Peroratio
Pray over Elders.
