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Getting the job done
It’s September which is a special time of the year for sports fans.
It’s footy finals time.
Next weekend will come the GF and either GWS or Richmond will, at the end of a long game hold the trophy a loft.
They will have been the only truly succesful team.
As the goal of any AFL team is to win the premiership.
How does a good team win the GF? Lots of hard work, energy and effort by lots of people, but actually one of the main ingredients is good leadership.
A coach is all important.
When teams play badly, the get the boot.
When they play well they share the glory.
Every team needs a coach, to lead the team to victory.
More than that, the coach, if he is any good, needs a player leadership group who can make his vision reality on the field.
Leaders who raise up leaders who work together with the team to get the job done.
That’s what we’re talking about today as we come to our 4th conviction.
1. Jesus Christ is head of the Church
2. And he has sent us to make disciples
3.
By word, prayer and service
4. Supported by fruitful godly leaders
5. God being our provider, and us stewards of his gifts.
Leadership in the New Testament Church
Last week in Acts 6:1-7 we hear about how the early church had a fellowship/service problem.
Widows from different ethnic groups were been treated differently, not on purpose, simply because things weren’t been managed well.
In order to not let this issue sidetrack the church from keeping everything in good order, and to make sure the Apostles could focus on teaching the word, and prayer, they raise up and commision new leaders.
The Apostle Paul was also keen on establishing leaders to support the church’s disciple making mission.
Paul has been on a church planting mission.
A disciple making mission.
Effectively ever since he was knocked off his horse by Jesus on the road to damascus (Acts 9).
From that point onwards, the book of Acts charts much of Paul’s journey, and it records the many towns and cities which he visited, preached and set up new fellowships of believers, or churches.
Paul didn’t work alone.
He was always training someone else.
In Acts we read about,
Paul and Silas (Acts 15-17)
Paul and Timothy (Acts 16-20)
Not mentioned in Acts, but he appears in Paul’s 2nd letter to Corinth 9 times and obviously is written to by Paul in the letter to Titus
Paul and Titus.
Timothy and Titus were sent by Paul to continue the work of building up the church.
Of making disciple making disciples.
And in Paul’s letters to both men, Paul encourages them that they too need to raise up leaders.
Fruitful, Godly Leaders
What kind of leaders did Paul tell Timothy and Titus to recruit?
And to Timothy?
I’m not going to get into what’s an elder according to Paul and how is that different to a deacon.
And how to elders and deacons correlate to say Bishops, Priests and Decons, Lay Readers, Parish Councillors, etc in the Anglican system.
Instead I want to argue that what we have here is the bar raised high for leadership in the church, no matter what name you give it.
That these passages invite us to consider:
What kind of standards should you hold me to?
What standards you should hold our staff to?
What kind of leaders will you nominate and elect for PC?
Orthodox
Our leaders must believe the right stuff.
Because their job is to gaurd the truth of the gospel.
Our leaders must believe the right stuff, because right belief leads to right behaviour.
That is what’s going on inside us will manifest on the outside.
As Jesus said,
Leaders need hearts full of gospel truth.
And hearts full of gospel truth are going to lead to all the other things Paul calls Titus and Timothy to look out for in someone who will become a fruitful and godly leader:
Above reproach/Well Respected
(Titus - “Blameless”)
Not perfect.
Thank goodness!
But rather of good public reputation.
In what areas?
That’s what follows:
Faithfulness in Marriage/Sex
Mentioned by Paul in both our readings.
Leaders are required to be godly in their sexuality.
For us as Christians, we know what that standard is.
Faithfulness in marriage, or if you’re not married, then abstience outside of marraige.
If you haven’t demonstrated this, Paul says, you’re not fit to be a leader.
It’s a great shame that the Anglican Church in many places in both Australia and throughout the world, has failed on this.
Bishops and Priests, leaders now advocate ungodly living.
Promoting homosexuality and seeking to bless it in the church.
It’s of no great surprise to me, that where the church has done this, say yes to same-sex marraige, it has gone into decline.
For the leaders are now no longer seeking to be faithful to the scriptures, or Godly in their practice.
They no longer hold to sound doctrine and this is just one example of how it works out in practice.
Self Controlled
Under this heading I included from both the readings the kind of, self-controlled in many aspects of life, lives that leaders should life:
Temperate, self controlled, respectful, disciplined, not overbearing, in control of his temper, not given to drunknenness, not violent, in control of his money and the way he uses money.
Again it’s not perfection.
But it is a publicly demonstratable outworking of the fruit of the spirit of self-control in the leaders life.
Able to Manage Family and therefore the Church
Paul’s argument in both Timothy and Titus is that the leaders home life will be a good reflection for how the leaders church family life will go.
That if the leader can’t manage his own family, how could he manage the church family?
Pray for my parenting and husbanding, lest I disqualify myself!
I think the story of Eli the priest in 1 Samuel is illustrative here of what Paul is talking about.
Eli’s sons became priests but they were immoral and greedy and in 1 Sam 3:13 we read:
It’s Eli’s failure to act that is the problem.
I don’t think we nesecarily hold leaders accountable for the actions of their children, unless they have failed to address those actions once identified.
If Amity was stealing and I did not deal with that, but just ignored it, then how could I deal with some area of discipline required in our church family?
It’s not absence of bad children, but abscence of parental involvement and discipline that I think Paul is concerned about here.
Because at the end of the day if we want leaders who are going to help us grow as Christians, they are going to have to discipline us.
Tell us we’re not doing the right thing and lovingly corret us.
Just as parent lovingly corrects their child.
Able to teach
Not enough to simply be orthodox in belief.
Or morally upright in behaviour and standing in the church.
The leader needs to teach.
Why would Paul include that?
Because we have one job as a church.
To be disciple makers.
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