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Jesus Is Better - 18
Introduction
On Tuesday, June 6, 2016, the good citizens of Huesca, Spain were awakened to a crazy scene unfolding at 4:30am.
Local police responded to calls claiming that hundreds of sheep were roaming the streets.
And that is exactly what occurred.
[video of sheep] The one question that needs to be asked upon seeing that sight is this: Where is the Shepherd?!
He was found within minutes and promptly redirected the sheep back to where they had been earlier.
Apparently the sheep had broken free from their pens and the watchful eye of their shepherd.
In a short amount of time they were back at home, safe and sound.
The importance of good leadership cannot be overstated.
These animals could have been lost, hurt, or even killed by motorists.
Leadership is critically important.
Did you notice what the sheep were doing while they were leaderless?
They intuitively began to follow each other…round and round a traffic roundabout.
They were going absolutely nowhere!
If you want to get somewhere, leaders are essential.
Every year the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University conducts a “National Study of Confidence in Leadership.”
The results from the most recent study show how important leadership is.
—69% of Americans think we have a leadership crisis in America.
—70% agree that unless we get better leaders, the US will decline as a nation.
—81% feel that the problems we face today can be solved through effective leadership.
God agrees.
From the very beginning of his creation, God has placed leaders and systems of leadership over his people.
Ironically, God’s favorite image to use for this is declaring us to be “sheep” and his leaders “shepherds.”
In the book of Genesis, leadership was found in the patriarchs like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
They led their very large families in faith and toward God’s will for them.
In Exodus we are introduced to Moses who will lead the nation of Israel through their wanderings in the desert after God delivers them from slavery in Egypt.
Moses will faithfully lead the nation to freedom, confront their sin, and ensure God’s will is fulfilled.
How did God prepare Moses for that 40-year journey?
By having him be a shepherd in Midian for the previous 40 years.
After Moses, it’s Joshua.
Then the establishment of the system of priests and religious leaders.
Then the Judges.
Then the Kings.
Then the Prophets.
Once we get to the NT, we see Jesus as our sacrificial Lamb whose sacrifice will forgive our sin, but also referred to as the Chief Shepherd in .
He is the ultimate leader over God’s people.
Once the church is established, those leading it were the Apostles.
They set doctrine as revealed by the Holy Spirit.
They confronted sin.
They ensured God’s will was done in the church.
As the Apostles began to die off, God set up a system of leadership in the church through a group of men called Elders.
Each congregation were to have an appointed group of men set over them who would faithfully lead that church.
These men would be qualified to serve in that role based on their character.
Their community influence, their wealth, their business success, their talents were not to be a factor.
In the church our leaders are to be chosen based on the maturity of their faith and the strength of their character.
Several primary passages of the NT speak to the qualifications for Elders and their functions of leadership in the church.
, , , .
Because these passages are so very clear about the nature of church leadership and their qualifications, we are able to see that their leadership is to be a different kind of leadership.
It is not the same as business leadership.
It is not the same as political leadership.
It is not the same as military leadership.
Though we can learn much from those forms of leadership, Elders are to lead pastorally.
In fact, one of the words the NT uses to describe their role is rightly translated as “shepherd.”
Since these shepherds are placed “over us” (as the NT describes) by God, that means they have authority.
Though that is not a popular word in today’s culture, it is an important one.
God has always set leaders over his people for the purpose of exercising God’s authority in very real, tangible ways.
We will come back to this in a few minutes.
TS - of all the passages in the NT that speak to and about the leaders, there are a couple of them that are unique.
They are unique because they speak not only to the responsibility of the leader, but to the responsibility of those who are following.
is one of those passages.
It may seem a bit odd to end this letter with an emphasis on leadership.
But it really makes perfect sense.
He’s been pleading all this time that Jesus is Better.
Maintain faith in, and faithfulness to, this Better Jesus.
Stay the course.
Cross the finish line.
And if they want to see what that looks like in a very real way, all they have to do is look to the leaders around them who are setting the pace.
Here is how he phrases it:
- 7 Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God.
Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith.
Let’s take a minute and break this verse down to see both the follower’s responsibility and the leader’s responsibility.
—Leader’s Responsibility #1 - Teach the Bible
The primary responsibility of leaders in the church is to communicate God’s Word in whatever environment they find themselves in.
Whether that is at church, in a classroom, LifeGroup, or in someone’s home.
They are to so deeply know God’s Word that they are able to come alongside others and offer counsel and direction…not from their opinions or personal wisdom, but directly from the Bible.
In fact if you read through the qualifications for Elders in and , you will see that there is only one qualification that is listed that is not character based.
Elders are to be “able to teach.”
—Leader’s Responsibility #2 - Set an Example
If followers are to imitate a way of life, then leaders are to live lives worthy of imitation.
This is one of the reasons that Elders cannot be new Christians.
They have not come to the point of enough maturity in their faith.
They haven’t walked far enough down that road for others to follow them.
This is also typically why Elders are older in age.
Though spiritual maturity and age are not always synced up, typically those who have been faithful over a large portion of their lifetime are better equipped to be Elders.
- 16 I urge you, then, be imitators of me.
- Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.
So we must ask of existing Elders, those who would consider becoming Elders in the future…Is your life worth imitating?
—Follower’s Responsibility #1 - Remember
God is big on having us regularly remember important items of information.
Countless times in the OT God would remind the Israelites that he was the one who rescued them from slavery in Egypt.
In God says that he blesses the one who “meditates” on his law day and night, keeping it always at the forefront of their mind.
Perhaps the greatest example of God’s desire for us to remember is in the institution of the Lord’s Supper (communion).
- 19 And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you.
Do this in remembrance of me.”
Each week when we gather together we take communion so that we remember.
We remind ourselves of Jesus’ sacrifice and that it is the centerpiece of who we are and what we do.
This word used here for “remember” is the Gk.
word “mnemonic” where we get our concept of a mnemonic device.
If I asked you to say the ABC’s you’d likely sing the song in your head.
Or if I asked you to tell me the colors of the spectrum, you’d tell me ROYGBIV.
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