Calling the Leaders Out!!

Fall family outing at the Webb farm, Saturday October 24, starting at 4 pm. (Please bring a covered dish , dessert drinks, chili, etc.! The church will be providing the hot dogs and buns!)

There will not be a youth meeting this week due to Fall Break. (You are welcome and encouraged to join either the adult’s Bible study, or the young adult’s Bible study class. Both of which start at 6:30.)

Thank the Scoville family for the AMAZING job they did with the men’s breakfast and work day yesterday morning!!!!

I was engaged in two different discussions this past week, with two different brothers in Christ of mine and in those discussions, we talked about the place that God has me right now, as a pastor and a teacher, which is a place that I would call my heart’s desire. (If you remember, I mentioned recently about the very well known Psalm 37:4, which says, “Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.” So, when our desires begin to be our delight in doing God’s will, then He will most definitely give to us the desires of our hearts, because our desires will be His perfect will for our lives, AMEN?!!) And so, the desire of my heart and the place that God has me right now as a pastor, is in getting the people in this congregation and in any other place that I can have an influence on, in LOVE with the reading and teaching and the hearing of God’s Word!

You see, if each one of us, individually, become radically in love with reading God’s perfect Word each and every day of our lives, more so than we desire anything else in our lives, then this will enable us to advance towards the greatest of the commandments, which says, that “You are to love the Lord your God with all of your heart, all of your soul, with all of your mind and with all of your strength!”

If you don’t love and desire the Word of God in your life, then you will not understand how to love God with everything that you are and you will never grow in your relationship with Him. The Bible is very much His love letter to us, it is His book of instructions for us and our lives, and it’s His daily conversation with us, as His children! (And that’s not taking the place of prayer and the indwelling voice of Holy Spirit in our lives, but rather it’s an adjunct to these other ways that we communicate with God!)

Or, as the Spirit of God says of His Word in Hebrews 4:12, “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”

And you see friends, that’s why many people do not want to engage God in His Word. Because the Word permeates and penetrates our hearts and our minds and it shows us those dark places in our lives that we do not want discovered and brought out into the glorious light! To people who are living against God’s Word and His will, the Bible is not a place they want to frequent, because it exposes to them, the ugliness and the sin in their life and makes them accountable for it! In fact, the very next verse after Hebrews 4:12 that I just read about the Word of God, verse 13, tells us that, “No creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.”

And not only does God’s Word expose and show us the darkness inside of ourselves and the sin that many harbor inside, but still to others, it shows the believer how they must leave their old life behind and embrace the life of Christ and serve Him and others.

For this reason, the great Apostle Paul said to the body of Christ in Philippi, in Philippians 3:18, “For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ.”

As I have said many times before, the thoughts of a savior and an escape from eternal damnation, sounds great to many people. And many people jump at that type of insurance policy, as many “pastors” sell the gospel to people in such a manner.

But when you begin to talk about the weight of the cross and of how it demands these people to leave their desires and cares for this world behind and take up that cross and walk after Jesus, this is where many people step off of the salvation train and walk it alone!

And if you read in the Word of God at all, and allow it to speak to you, as guided by God’s blessed Holy Spirit, it doesn’t take long to see that salvation and the cross go hand in hand.

The cross was extremely costly to Yeshua and the freedom that it affords you and I from our sin and the bondage to this world and the god of this world, becomes costly to us as well!

True salvation is not an insurance policy, but rather it’s an invitation into a whole new way of life, both here and now, as well as the life that follows!

I just read to you the passage from Philippians 3:18, that mentioned of those who walk as enemies of the cross of Christ, right?

Well, listen to what Paul said to the people in Philippi, in the verse preceding that one. Paul said in verse 17, “Dear brothers and sisters, pattern your lives after mine, and learn from those who follow our example.”

It is the theme of this verse that I want to dwell upon this morning.

Paul said to the people, “Pattern your lives after mine......join in imitating me.”

In fact, Paul said this time and time again to the new believers that he was encountering.

Besides the passage in Philippians 3, Paul said in

I Corinthians 11:1,

1 Corinthians 11:1 ESV

1 Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.

I Corinthians 4:16,

1 Corinthians 4:16 ESV

16 I urge you, then, be imitators of me.

I Thessalonians 1:6,

1 Thessalonians 1:6 ESV

6 And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit,

When someone is imitating you and what you are doing, they are following your..........LEAD, right?

Like the game that we all used to play as children, “follow the leader”.

When you first start a new job, many times over, the manager will put you with someone who is very accomplished at the job and tell you to “shadow” them, or do what they are doing, until you get the hang of it, right?

So, you are learning by example, you are following that person’s lead.

Throughout the Bible, God always established men and women as leaders. That is, men and women who God used to operate through, in order that others might see and follow the will of God.

And for good reason. Left alone for very long, and people will return to their carnal, sinful nature time and time again!

Look at what took place following the Exodus period with the children of Israel.

Moses was God’s chosen leader to lead and direct the nation of Israel from slavery in Egypt and into the promised land of Canaan.

And throughout the 40 years of this journey, the people constantly gravitated back to their sinful and carnal mindsets, right? (Which is actually why the journey lasted for 40 years, instead of several weeks!)

As the saying goes, “Sin will take you farther than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay, and cost you more than you want to pay.”

And at the end of Moses’ time as the national leader, God had already chosen Joshua to replace Moses and fulfill the task of leading the people into Canaan.

Moses, before he died, directed the priests to constantly keep reminding the people of God’s laws and then in his final address to the nation of Israel, he said to them, “Today I have given you the choice between life and death, between blessings and curses. Now I call on heaven and earth to witness the choice you make. Oh, that you would choose life, so that you and your descendants might live!”

Moses died and then Joshua became God’s chosen leader for the nation of Israel.

And before Joshua died, he made a similar petition to the people of Israel, where he said to them, “choose for yourselves today whom you will serve: whether the gods which your fathers served which were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”

And as soon as he said this, the people all declared, “We would never abandon the LORD and serve other gods. So we, too, will serve the LORD, for he alone is our God.”

And then the Bible records an amazing thing in Judges 2:10-13, where it says, “After that generation died, (Joshua and the leadership under him), another generation grew up who did not acknowledge the LORD or remember the mighty things he had done for Israel. The Israelites did evil in the LORD’s sight and served the images of Baal. They abandoned the LORD, the God of their ancestors, who had brought them out of Egypt. They went after other gods, worshiping the gods of the people around them. And they angered the LORD. They abandoned the LORD to serve Baal and the images of Ashtoreth.”

In other words, when the leaders died and no one continued teaching the new generation about God and of His ways and leading them into the will of God, then the new generation completely abandoned God and went after the world!

And that process has never stopped happening, to this day!

When men and women cease to step up and assume the role of leadership that God orchestrated and called us into, the next generation suffers and falls away from God.

It’s a slow fade and it goes almost unnoticed by people for a time and season, but when Christian men and women cease to lead others to the Christ and they cease to lead people down that narrow path, according to God’s Word, then eventually you see the repercussions!

God has always expected His children to lead others into His ways and according to His will for their lives!

Going back to the book of Ezekiel and from where Pastors Linus and Karen taught from last week in Ezekiel 22, we find God saying, “I looked for someone who might rebuild the wall of righteousness that guards the land. I searched for someone to stand in the gap in the wall so I wouldn’t have to destroy the land, but I found no one.”

God was and is looking for His people to “stand in the gap” and to lead others according to His will.

Whenever people begin to forsake leading the generations in the ways of God’s Word, there are always consequences.

That is basis behind Proverbs 29:18 and Hosea 4:6,

Hosea 4:6 ESV

6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from being a priest to me. And since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children.

Proverbs 29:18 KJV 1900

18 Where there is no vision, the people perish: But he that keepeth the law, happy is he.

When people stop leading others in the Word and the will of God, then the people perish!

You and I are called by God to lead others. You are born to lead! You have been commissioned and called by the Lord Jesus to lead others to Him and in the path of righteousness, according to His Word!

If you are a single man, a single woman or a child, who knows the Lord Jesus as your savior, then you are called to lead others!

If you are a husband or a wife, then you are called to lead in your home!

And especially the husbands and fathers. You are called to lead your family to Jesus. That is your spiritual leadership role in the home. It is a God ordained role and it also what we will be mostly dealing with on our men’s retreat in November! (Show t-shirt images)

Getting godly men, “real men”, to step up to the plate and begin assuming their role as the spiritual leaders in the homes!!

Look, everyone single one of you in this room right now, has a call of leadership on your life!

Each calling may be different, according to the will of God for your life, but the call to lead others is there, none the less!

Jesus came and set the perfect example of what a godly leader is to look like!

A godly leader is to be a “servant” leader, right? Isn’t that what Jesus taught and modeled with His own life?!

Jesus taught us that a leader in the kingdom of God does not care about titles and accolades and man’s approval of him/her. In fact, Jesus showed us that we are to lead without any regard, or concern for these things.

Paul reminds us of this in Philippians 2:5-8,

Philippians 2:5–8 NLT

5 You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had. 6 Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. 7 Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form, 8 he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross.

Jesus walked away from His position of deity in His Father’s house and came here and served as a slave to lead others in that same path!

In Isaiah 53, we see Jesus called the “suffering...............servant”, right?

The corporate/business world’s version of a leader is different to that of a kingdom leader!

In the corporate mindset, if you are privileged and deemed worthy of a leadership title and position, then you are at a higher level than the others and above their status.

MENTION ABOUT MY TIME AT LIFE CARE AND THE WAY THAT I WAS BEING TAUGHT TO LEAD!

Question: How often do you see the CEO, of a Fortune 500 company cleaning the toilets in their building, or picking up trash?

And Jesus showed us other things about what being a true leader looks like:

A leader is someone who is bold and confident. They know who they are and they know who is empowering them!

In John 8:14, while being harassed by the religious hypocrites, Jesus said, “Even if I do testify on My own behalf, My testimony is true and reliable and valid, for I know where I came from and where I am going!”

Jesus knew who He was and who His Father was and because of this, Jesus walked in confidence and was always at the front line of confrontation with the false teachers of His day!

A leader is someone who is not afraid to step out of the crowd and away from the norm and move forward!

I know that many of us are uneasy about being a leader, especially if you were raised in a home where confidence and empowering were not present by your parents. (Jewish homes are all about empowering and establishing confidence!)

But the Bible reminds us that as followers of Jesus, we do have to fear who and what we are.

II Timothy 1:7, “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.”

Through the indwelling of Holy Spirit in the true believer, we have power and confidence to be who and what God called us to be.

You may not think that you have the mind of a leader, but according to the Word of God, you do!

I Corinthians 2:16 reminds us that as Christians, “we have the mind of Christ.”

A true leader is not afraid to go at it alone! Wherever God is calling you and whatever He is asking you to do, you shouldn’t worry about others in the crowd not coming alongside of you and agreeing with you and going with you!

We do not lead to please men, but rather we lead to please God!

This is one of the main reasons why the liberals HATE President Trump...........because he does not follow their agendas. He is not afraid to go alone when he knows that something is right and needs to be done for the good of this nation!

President Trump is confident in who he is and he believes in the path that he is on!

MENTION ABOUT MYLES MONROE AND HIS ANALOGY OF THE LION AND THE EAGLE!

Jesus made the following statement in Matthew 15:14, “So ignore them. They are blind guides leading the blind, and if one blind person guides another, they will both fall into a ditch.”

There are numerous warnings throughout the Bible of false teachers and of those who will “lead” others astray.

The analogy of the “blind leading the blind”, shows that there can be and are, religious “leaders” who are teaching wrong versions of the gospel and who are leading others down the wrong path!

We know that there are most definitely blind secular leaders in our society. They are blind to truth of the gospel and they lead others into godless and immoral decisions!

People lead to believe that murdering an innocent baby is part of a woman’s health!

People led to believe that two people of the same sex are compatible for marriage, even though they ignore the biological evidence that says it is completely incompatible!

Leaders look for the good in other people and find ways to bring out the good and the best gifts in another person. (Leaders do not run around gossiping and sharing the travesties and faults of others!)

Jesus knew all of the faults of the 12 as soon as He found them! But do you see Jesus brow beating them and telling their faults to the others behind their backs? NO! Jesus spoke into them life and purpose and brought out in them who and what they needed to be!

Leaders lead by example, not just by what they say. (People are watching us as leaders in the Body of Christ and they are developing their concepts of what a leader is in the body based largely upon what they witness from us!)

If you are serving in ANY form of leadership in the church right now, I want to both encourage you, as well as call you out. Others look up to you as a leader and they define leadership based on your example to them. If someone sees that you, as a leader, are not engaging and supporting the church and its ministries and functions, then their mindset is going to be, “Why should I show up to help, when the leaders don’t even do it!” YOU MUST LEAD BY EXAMPLE, JUST AS JESUS DID!

Leaders are unique from other people for one very distinct reason..........they think differently than other people! (When everyone else says that it can’t be done, the leader believes in who they are and they believe in who has called them to leave! And failure in the kingdom doesn’t exist!)

Jesus opened up the kingdom and told us that if we ask for something to be done and we believe that it will be done for us, then it will be done! We are to think differently than the world does! (Now, this is subject to the will of God and not for our every whim and want!)

“Leadership is not about power..........it’s about empowering people!” - Myles Monroe

“Leadership is not about manipulation, but about inspiration. They don’t manipulate people, they inspire people!” – Myles Monroe

“We need to be empowering future leaders…..not enabling future followers!!”

We need to leading others into showing the love of Christ. Mother Teresa of Calcutta said this in her acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize:

“Our poor people are great people, are very lovable people, they don’t need our pity and sympathy, they need our understanding love. They need our respect; they need that we treat them with dignity. And I think this is the greatest poverty that we experience, that we have in front of them who may be dying for a piece of bread, but they die to such dignity. I will never forget when I brought a man from off of the street. He was covered with maggots; his face was the only place that was clean. And yet that man, when we brought him to our home for the dying, he said just one sentence: I have lived like an animal in the street, but I am going to die like an angel, in love and care, and he died beautifully. He went home to God, for death is nothing but going home to God. And he having enjoyed that love, that being wanted, that being loved, that being somebody to somebody at the last moment, brought that joy in his life.”