Mund 10 Year Celebration

Have you ever had a leader who led you in the wrong direction?

Leadership is a great responsibility.

Leaders have the ability to lead us in the right direction and give us instruction.

Leaders also have the ability to lead us in the wrong direction and deceive us.

I recall a time in my life where I led in the wrong direction. My wife and I went on a hike at state park by the dam for our anniversary.

The trip started out find and I typically have the God given ability to always know where I am at and to always be right about directions (lol)

We start down the trail and I know where the car is at all times until… We get in the middle of the woods.

I somehow and let me tell you this never happens to me. I am usually the one correcting seri when it comes to directions. Siri usually listens to me or ask me for directions.

So I was telling Amy what trail we should take and for some reason I kept giving us wrong directions and I was leading us in the wrong direction. Each time I chose a new path I chose a path further from the car.

Let me tell you though if you are going to be lost in the woods then make sure you get lost in the woods with your wife. You will find out how much you love each other.

At one point on this hike, I decided that we were just following ourself around so I would blaze a new trail. I started getting off the trail and walking through thorn bushes.

Did my wife follow me on this one?

No

I eventually joined her back on the trail and we found our way back to the car and did not have to spend the night in the woods.

Leadership carries a massive weight of responsibility.

Hebrews 13:17 HCSB

17 Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account, so that they can do this with joy and not with grief, for that would be unprofitable for you.

More than a hike Spiritual leaders keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account.

Spiritual leaders have a great responsibility to lead us in the right direction as they keep watch over our very souls.

Spiritual leadership comes with great responsibility so

What is our response to this great responsibility?

Obey your leaders and submit to them.

A leader who strives to lead us to obey the word of God is a leader who we should follow and submit to.

Cameron’s greatest passion is a right and proper interpretation of the Word of God. He is constantly learning and striving to insure that in everything we do at Bridge of Faith we have a right and proper interpretation of the Word of God.

This is one reason Bridge of Faith has stayed grounded over the years because of Cameron’s faithfulness to a right and proper interpretation of the Word of God.

If a leaders passion is for those who follow them to rightly and properly obey the word of God, then we should desire to obey and submit to them.

Just this week I was speaking with one of our principals of our schools and he was sharing with me how kids are really struggling after quarantine with respect for authority and respect for each other.

You can see that as parents we have the opportunity for our children to shine the light of Jesus in how they treat leadership. This can start in how you train your children to handle those who are Spiritual leaders that are striving to lead us to obey the Word of God.

1 Thessalonians 5 instructs us further on how to handle those in leadership among the body of believers.

1 Thessalonians 5:12 HCSB

12 Now we ask you, brothers, to give recognition to those who labor among you and lead you in the Lord and admonish you,

Give recognition:

That is to respect and includes appreciating them and their work.

This is plural

so those meaning not one single person.

who labor and lead you in the Lord

Admonish you: This means to correct the wrong. If a leader never corrects you when you are wrong, then are they really leading.

I can not count on two hands or two feet over the 10 years of Cameron’s ministry here that he has corrected or admonished me.

1 Thessalonians 5:13 HCSB

13 and to regard them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves.

To regard:

To esteem, value, and respect

As church members, we are to esteem, value and respect our leaders because of their work.

Today we celebrate 10 years of Cameron and Jodi serving us here at Bridge of Faith. Their work is evident. Cameron’s work over the past 10 years is evident.

At our church, there is the Spiritual work that is evident but there is also the physical labor.

Just this week there was a water line break in the Village and Cameron was in the middle of the mud with the other guys working to fix the problem.

We are to value our leaders.

This is a constant attitude

Those who come from an Assembly of God background tend to do a little better job than those of us who didn’t.

The Bible Knowledge Commentary 5:13

Paul taught that all should be held in esteem because of the nature of their responsibilities before God. Not just some respect, but the highest respect is due these leaders, and it is to come from an attitude of affection (in love) for them, again, because of their work, if for no personal reason.

Be at peace among yourselves

Maintain peace with each other. This peace comes by following the instructions above.

Often time the lack of peace comes when church members disobey these commands and start to create the lack of peace.

Something must be said about the followers here at Bridge of Faith. For a leader to stay 10 years something must be said about the followers.

The leaders and followers

Philippians 2:1–11 HCSB

1 If then there is any encouragement in Christ, if any consolation of love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, 2 fulfill my joy by thinking the same way, having the same love, sharing the same feelings, focusing on one goal. 3 Do nothing out of rivalry or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves. 4 Everyone should look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others. 5 Make your own attitude that of Christ Jesus, 6 who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be used for His own advantage. 7 Instead He emptied Himself by assuming the form of a slave, taking on the likeness of men. And when He had come as a man in His external form, 8 He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death— even to death on a cross. 9 For this reason God highly exalted Him and gave Him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow — of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth — 11 and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.