Leadership Seminar 1: Understanding Leadership - Chris Hamilton
00:00:00.720 | A man who says I'm not a leader and acts accordingly is either uninformed or he's
00:00:07.920 | living in rebellion against God's design. Men were created to lead in a culture that is intent
00:00:15.440 | on limiting and even destroying male leadership. Obedience to Christ requires you and I to swim
00:00:23.360 | hard against that tide for the benefits of our family and the church and for the glory of God.
00:00:30.640 | Why did God create you as a man and not a woman?
00:00:36.560 | In short, it is, it was to be a leader, to be a provider, and to be a protector.
00:00:48.240 | That's not everything, but at its base, the foundation and core of what you are to be
00:00:54.320 | as a man before everything else is a leader, a provider, and a protector. You can do a lot of
00:01:01.040 | other things in life, but you will never find contentment outside of God's perfect design
00:01:08.160 | and fulfilling his most basic purposes and role for you and I. To understand your fundamental
00:01:15.840 | role on the earth, we must, and we will, go back to the beginning, to Genesis.
00:01:21.680 | Man being created a leader is central in the beauty of creation, the perfection of
00:01:30.000 | the Garden of Eden, as short as that was, and then it is central to the fall of mankind.
00:01:38.320 | Romans 5, 12 says, "Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world,
00:01:46.080 | and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned." You've probably heard that
00:01:51.760 | verse before. That verse tells us that Adam sinned first, doesn't it? It was through Adam that sin
00:02:00.320 | entered the world. There's a verse in 1 Timothy, chapter 2, verse 14, that says, "It was not Adam
00:02:08.640 | who was deceived, but the woman being deceived fell into transgression." These verses have been
00:02:16.160 | pitted against each other by those with an alternative agenda to claim that there's some
00:02:22.560 | kind of confusion. Some have used 1 Timothy 2, 14 to indicate that Adam was not deceived and
00:02:29.680 | therefore Eve sinned first. But as Romans says, sin entered the world into the world through Adam.
00:02:38.320 | Are these in conflict? Which is it? Was Eve the first to sin or was Adam?
00:02:46.480 | And that question is critical because, first of all, the Bible's not contradictory,
00:02:55.440 | but the reconciliation of the apparent conflict that is presented in these verses
00:03:01.200 | explodes with import and meaning for every man on this earth, including you and me.
00:03:06.960 | If you understand that the first sin in the Garden of Eden was not eating of the tree,
00:03:13.440 | it all falls into place, and the obligation of every man to lead jumps off the page.
00:03:22.800 | Conversely, if you believe that the first sin was eating of the tree,
00:03:26.640 | you cannot reconcile these two verses and you miss God's purpose for man. We learn from Genesis,
00:03:36.160 | chapter 3, and if you have your Bible, you may want to turn back to Genesis 3,
00:03:40.080 | that we learn there that in the race to sin first, it was almost a tie.
00:03:47.920 | But Adam won or lost. He sinned first. Adam's sin was this. He failed to lead his wife and
00:03:58.160 | to protect her from the snare and the trap of sin. That was the first sin in the garden.
00:04:04.080 | Adam's sin is explicitly described in Genesis, chapter 3, verse 17. When God is pronouncing
00:04:13.440 | the curse on the woman, the serpent, and the man, and in verse 17 is the indictment,
00:04:21.040 | and after that is the punishment. The indictment is to Adam he said, "Because you listened to the
00:04:29.280 | voice of your wife and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying you shall not
00:04:36.640 | eat from it, cursed is the ground because of you, in toil you will eat of it all the days of your
00:04:41.680 | life." What does that mean? What happened? Well, Adam didn't lead, and he joined Eve in her sin.
00:04:53.760 | See, that word "listen," the word "because you have listened to the voice of your wife," that
00:05:00.000 | means to hear, to obey, to yield, and consent. Adam did all of that. He yielded to the will of
00:05:08.480 | his wife Eve, and as you read the devastating passage at the beginning of chapter 3 in Genesis,
00:05:18.720 | the account of the first sin, you see what happened. And as I read this, I want you to
00:05:26.000 | ask yourself the question, "Where is Adam?" Verse 1, "Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast
00:05:33.840 | of the field which the Lord God had made, and he said to the woman, the serpent said to the woman,
00:05:39.520 | 'Where is Adam?' Indeed, has God said, 'You shall not eat from any tree of the garden?' The woman
00:05:46.800 | said to the serpent, 'Where is Adam?' From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat,
00:05:53.680 | but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden God has said, 'You shall not
00:05:58.160 | eat from it or touch it or you will die.'" Verse 4, "The serpent said to the woman, 'Any sign of
00:06:04.560 | Adam yet? You surely will not die, for God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will
00:06:11.120 | be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.'" Verse 6, "Where's Adam? When the woman
00:06:18.160 | saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was
00:06:23.040 | desirable to make one wise, she took," where's Adam? "She took from its fruit and ate." Ah,
00:06:33.680 | here's Adam. "She gave also to her husband with her and he ate." Adam is mentioned for the first
00:06:43.120 | time in verse 6, but the answer to the question, "Where is Adam?" is clear. He was right next to
00:06:51.440 | Eve the entire time. He allowed Eve to be deceived and to act on that deception, and then he joined
00:07:00.800 | her. And sadly we know from 1 Timothy 2, what I already read you, is Eve was deceived, but Adam
00:07:08.320 | was not. He watched his wife act on what he knew was a lie. He did not protect her, he did not lead
00:07:18.720 | her, exactly as it says in Genesis 3 17. He failed in his role as the spiritual and physical leader
00:07:27.200 | and ceded his leadership, the leadership of his wife, to Satan. In Adam's original sin is a
00:07:36.640 | profound lesson and a warning and an explanation, if you will, of God's design for man. Every man
00:07:45.440 | is to lead. That is what we were created to do and be. You and I were not all created to be presidents,
00:07:54.000 | the CEO, a military general, head coach, elder, whatever the titles are,
00:08:03.040 | not all of us were created to do that, but you were created to lead a woman.
00:08:11.600 | With rare exception, every one of us was created to be a husband, and should the Lord provide
00:08:16.640 | children to be a father. There was one time in the creation account in Genesis 2 when God said,
00:08:22.800 | "It is not good." You all know what that is, right? It is not good for a man to be alone in all God's
00:08:30.960 | men said. Oh man, that was weak. We'll work on that. A few more sessions, we'll work on that.
00:08:40.640 | It is not good for a man to be alone. I will make him a helper suitable for him.
00:08:44.560 | Marriage is not optional. Leadership is not optional. If you're single, prepare accordingly.
00:08:54.560 | If you're married, it's already a reality.
00:08:58.320 | For those who are single, 1 Corinthians says you've either chosen or you've been called
00:09:07.280 | to singleness, to devote yourself to ministry without encumbrance or distraction.
00:09:12.400 | The only context for that ministry is in the church. You are not relieved from being a leader
00:09:20.800 | if you're single. That is why every man in the church is called the biblical spiritual leadership.
00:09:27.040 | By the way, this is not to say that women don't lead. I want to clear that up,
00:09:33.040 | of course. The Bible describes many women in leadership roles. History provides many
00:09:38.960 | examples, innumerable examples of effective female leadership. However, in this series,
00:09:46.320 | we're going to be exploring the context, the qualification, and the demands on you and I
00:09:52.240 | as a man to lead. One more time, leadership for a man is not optional,
00:10:01.280 | but we must be and we will be careful to explain exactly what that means
00:10:05.360 | in this session and in coming sessions. There's a handout, and it's designed for you to take notes,
00:10:12.560 | to fill in some blanks, and one of the blanks there that you need to fill in that you've
00:10:17.920 | probably gotten by now is male equals leader. A man is a leader, and in this world, the connection
00:10:26.720 | between male and leader is purposefully and regularly tangled up in cultural and practical
00:10:32.320 | challenges. Brad mentioned that situation that we live in in our current culture. The concept of
00:10:40.160 | leadership, as with everything else, is clear in the Bible. It's muddled, confused, and twisted by
00:10:46.480 | the world, and this shouldn't be a surprise. Satan is the ruler of this world, and he commenced his
00:10:54.080 | attack on manhood almost immediately in the Garden of Eden. We just read about it, and that attack
00:11:01.840 | led by Satan has not ended. Satan is the father of lies, and as with everything else, he has
00:11:10.240 | sustained the battle to defeat biblical manhood armed with lies. Many of those lies are accepted
00:11:18.400 | and adopted by men in the church without even realizing it. I'm going to give you a list here
00:11:26.240 | of common beliefs about leadership that are in fact not true. First, the most skilled man is the
00:11:34.880 | leader. The wealthiest man is the leader. The most popular man is the leader. Popularity is a necessity
00:11:46.560 | for leadership. In fact, it's a qualification. It's not true. The best communicator is the leader.
00:11:54.800 | Or said another way, a man that is not a great communicator cannot lead. That is not true.
00:12:04.960 | The strongest man physically is the leader. Said another way, physical weakness disqualifies a man
00:12:15.200 | from leadership. That's not true.
00:12:17.760 | A Christian man has an obligation to seek promotion in leadership roles outside the church.
00:12:26.080 | That's not true. Here's one of the most insidious deceptions even in the church,
00:12:35.520 | and it's this. Home is the one place where a man can relax and put the leadership stuff in neutral.
00:12:44.000 | After all, the pursuit of leadership at work allows us to provide for our family,
00:12:51.440 | and goodness, isn't that what we're called to do? Therefore, when I come home at the end of the day,
00:12:57.280 | I'm going to let my wife take care of all of that. None of that is biblical. None of that is true.
00:13:08.400 | Leadership success outside the church is a qualification for leadership in the church.
00:13:13.760 | That's not true. Another deception is that a leader must never show humility.
00:13:22.560 | Humility is another word for weakness, and weakness is the death of leadership.
00:13:29.120 | That's not true. And I could go on. There's a lot of things we believe about leadership
00:13:38.080 | that the Bible says are diametrically opposed to God's design for leadership. All these false
00:13:45.600 | concepts of leadership are dispelled by the Bible, and we're going to be addressing these in coming
00:13:50.240 | sessions. These falsities confuse and diffuse the clarity and the simple truth of the Bible,
00:13:57.120 | and that's to our peril. One of the factors that's confusing is the two types of leadership that we
00:14:04.960 | see, particularly those of us in the church, that we see in front of us all the time -- secular
00:14:12.000 | leadership and spiritual leadership. And understanding the difference between those two
00:14:18.800 | is important, and we're going to spend the rest of our time addressing that. I think it helps both
00:14:24.640 | in understanding what the Bible has called you to and to recognize the difference between that
00:14:29.760 | and secular leadership, and let's define terms. This is my definition. A biblical spiritual leader
00:14:39.680 | is a Christian who loves, serves, and directs those in his care in accordance with what the
00:14:45.920 | Bible says about the appropriate exercise of leadership. A secular leader is a secular man
00:14:54.960 | directing those in his care in accordance with his education, his training,
00:15:01.280 | the latest fad in management theory, or his own desires and goals.
00:15:07.040 | And just a footnote, there are secular leaders in churches all over the world.
00:15:13.840 | It's one of the greatest dangers to the church. The distinction between a biblical spiritual leader
00:15:22.480 | and a secular leader is important. We're called -- you and I are called to biblical spiritual
00:15:27.760 | leadership. For many here tonight, what we know and understand about leadership is almost entirely
00:15:34.640 | secular, and we get into a lot of trouble taking what we learned at work about leadership in terms
00:15:44.320 | of thinking and methods and principles, and we take that to our home or we bring it into the church.
00:15:52.000 | Many men have an understanding of leadership that they know from work or observation in the
00:15:55.920 | secular world, and they bring that to their leadership in the church, and this can be
00:16:00.560 | dangerous since biblical spiritual leadership required by the head of the church is very
00:16:07.200 | different from the principles of secular leadership. And one way to understand the
00:16:11.920 | vast difference between those two is to consider how successful leadership is measured
00:16:18.320 | in the secular world compared to how the Bible describes successful spiritual leadership.
00:16:24.480 | Successful secular leadership is measured almost entirely by results,
00:16:34.080 | and if you work in the world or you observe the world, you know this is true.
00:16:40.320 | Successful secular leadership is not measured by effort, just win. Results such as profit for a
00:16:49.600 | CEO, wins for a coach, a military victory for the military,
00:16:55.520 | or any other metric you can think of is generally how secular leadership success is defined.
00:17:01.760 | A coach in the NFL who delivers four wins in a season will likely be unemployed at the end of
00:17:09.920 | the season and will not be considered to be a great leader. That same coach a few years later
00:17:17.840 | wins a few Super Bowls. The assumption is that's a great leader. Similarly, a CEO either delivers
00:17:26.880 | the profits or he'll be replaced by someone who will, a better leader.
00:17:33.760 | Successful secular leadership is measured by results. Biblical spiritual leadership
00:17:41.680 | is entirely different. The results are the Lord's. Successful spiritual leadership is
00:17:50.080 | faithful effort and work, not the results. First Corinthians 3, 6, and 7, "I planted,
00:17:56.720 | I watered, but God was causing the growth." Do you see it? We plant, we water,
00:18:04.960 | God causes the growth. So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything but God
00:18:11.760 | who causes the growth. You see our role as biblical spiritual leaders is to plant and to water and to
00:18:18.880 | pray for God to take it from there, to do what he will. In fact, taking credit for the results
00:18:25.840 | is stealing the glory of God. Secular leadership is not measured by effort. It is measured by
00:18:34.400 | results. Spiritual leadership is measured by effort and not results. There's another example of
00:18:45.040 | the difference between secular and spiritual leadership, and that is personal morality.
00:18:54.240 | A secular leader that delivers results is successful regardless of the state of his
00:18:59.440 | personal life. Secular leadership is rarely, if ever, evaluated based on personal or private
00:19:08.400 | morality. The current crop of politicians in this country is evidence enough of that, isn't it?
00:19:16.880 | If a field general in the military wins the war, his personal life matters to nobody.
00:19:22.880 | He's called a successful leader. His personal life can be a complete wreckage, and he's still
00:19:29.760 | considered a great leader. This is not so for biblical spiritual leaders. This is a very big
00:19:37.680 | difference. Secular leaders hide their personal life. They're expected to hide their personal
00:19:44.640 | life. Biblical spiritual leaders are called to live life in a fishbowl, under the spotlight,
00:19:51.440 | for everyone to see. Your life, men, as a leader is to be an example, not in private,
00:20:00.080 | but in private and in public. And this is best described in Hebrews 13, 7.
00:20:06.720 | "Remember those who led you, who spoke the word of God to you, and considering the result of their
00:20:14.240 | conduct, imitate their faith." Your personal and public life are the same. They should be the same,
00:20:22.560 | and the faithfulness and fidelity demonstrated in your life is that measure of success.
00:20:29.200 | This is the result that matters in biblical spiritual leadership, the consistency,
00:20:38.400 | the integrity, and the fidelity of your life. Why? Because those who follow you,
00:20:45.200 | you want them to say, "I remember him. He led me. He spoke the word of God to me,
00:20:52.240 | and considering the results of his conduct, I was able to imitate his faith." That's spiritual
00:21:01.280 | leadership. So, we've seen dramatic differences between how successful secular leadership is
00:21:09.680 | evaluated and how spiritual leadership is defined, and there's one more difference to think about,
00:21:14.400 | and that is this. The methods of good and successful leadership, secular leadership,
00:21:22.240 | are constantly changing. If you're one of those men who loves to read leadership books, you know
00:21:28.400 | there's always a new book to read, and it always says something a little bit different.
00:21:32.240 | That industry is massive, and it's driven by successful people and their new ideas.
00:21:40.880 | The successful businessman, usually designated such because of his wealth,
00:21:47.120 | is asked to write a book or speak at a conference or teach a class in a university on leadership.
00:21:55.360 | His personality and experience define and animate his explanation of how he achieves success and how
00:22:02.480 | you can lead just like him. This creates a large amount of material out there on leadership,
00:22:09.040 | and I can make the case from the leadership body of knowledge that successful leadership is either
00:22:16.080 | emotional or stoic. I can make the case from the body of knowledge that successful secular
00:22:23.600 | leadership is angry or that it's gentle. I can make the case from books that it's intense
00:22:32.320 | or that successful leadership is laid back, hands-off, all kinds of contradictory evidence.
00:22:40.800 | The contrast is that biblical spiritual leadership success, if you will, and methodology is simple,
00:22:50.080 | it's clear, and it never changes. It's not subject to changes in culture,
00:22:56.640 | nationality, language, politics, or personality.
00:23:00.960 | Effective and biblical spiritual leadership is always based on exemplary character,
00:23:07.040 | a faithful life, and doctrinal fidelity. That's it. Hebrews 13.
00:23:16.560 | "Remember those who led you, who spoke the word of God to you,
00:23:20.720 | and considering the results of their conduct, imitate their faith." That's biblical spiritual
00:23:30.400 | leadership. So secular leadership is measured by results. Spiritual leadership is measured by
00:23:36.800 | faithfulness in mission and in life. Let me illustrate it this way. You've heard the saying,
00:23:44.160 | I think, maybe I'm going to date myself here, that you can lead a horse to water,
00:23:48.240 | but you can't make it drink. Have you heard that? Well, let's not talk about horses.
00:23:52.720 | Let's just say you can lead people to water, but you can't make them drink. Same principle.
00:23:58.320 | A secular leadership expert will tell you that the success of your leadership is to get them to the
00:24:06.560 | water, and the measure of success is whether they drink it. If they do, you're successful. If they
00:24:17.040 | don't, you're not successful. Spiritual leadership, using that same story, is saying you get them to
00:24:26.480 | the water, you drink it yourself, and you pray that they follow your example. That's the significant
00:24:36.560 | difference between secular leadership and biblical spiritual leadership. And of course,
00:24:43.840 | what we're dealing with here is not drinking water, but you're leading them, let's say,
00:24:48.880 | to the truth of God's Word. You're explaining it to them. You're showing them by your own life,
00:24:57.040 | and that's the line, and you pray that the Lord takes it from there, to the praise of Christ and
00:25:03.200 | to the benefit in their own life. There may be no better illustration. Again, continuing in this
00:25:10.960 | theme, I want you to understand there's a difference between secular leadership and
00:25:16.320 | biblical spiritual leadership, and I think there's a great illustration of this contrasting secular
00:25:23.200 | worldly leadership with biblical spiritual leadership in the life and experience of one man
00:25:31.680 | with two names, Saul and Paul. He's the same guy. He was saved.
00:25:40.400 | Before he was saved, he was referred to in the Bible by his Jewish name
00:25:46.960 | of Saul. He was a religious leader in a fairly young age. He was appointed a Pharisee,
00:25:53.120 | and his leadership is described in some detail in the Bible.
00:25:58.640 | He was radically saved. You can read about that in Acts chapter 9, and was thereafter known as
00:26:04.160 | the Apostle Paul. His leadership as the Apostle Paul of the new church is well documented in the
00:26:11.920 | New Testament. Same guy, entirely different leadership, and I want to look at that contrast
00:26:19.040 | tonight. Saul's leadership was natural. He was a natural leader. His leadership was unbiblical.
00:26:28.960 | It was incredibly effective, and it was violent. Paul's leadership had some similarities to Saul's.
00:26:37.120 | He was the same guy, but now he's saved. Paul's spiritual leadership was biblical. It was in
00:26:47.120 | accordance with God's design. It was appropriate in the context, and as a result, it was significantly
00:26:53.360 | different and amazingly effective. Let's look at several passages where Paul compares and contrasts
00:27:02.240 | his leadership before Christ and after Christ, and I'll let Scripture provide the biography of Saul
00:27:09.520 | and Paul. Same guy. We start in Philippians 3, and on your handout, there is a box with two squares.
00:27:22.000 | On one side, it says Saul, and on the other, it says Paul, and as we go through these passages
00:27:27.360 | pretty quickly, I would encourage you to just note what are the characteristics of Saul's leadership?
00:27:35.120 | What are the characteristics of Paul's leadership? I think you'll see the dramatic difference.
00:27:42.240 | Philippians 3, starting in verse 4, Paul says about Saul, same guy, "If anyone else has a mind
00:27:52.960 | to put confidence in the flesh, I far more circumcise the eighth day of the nation of Israel,
00:27:58.800 | of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews, as to the law of Pharisee, as to Zeal, a persecutor
00:28:05.920 | of the church, as to the righteousness which is in the law, found blameless." Those are the bonafides
00:28:12.960 | of Saul. Paul is saying that Saul's leadership was confident, it was qualified, it was recognized,
00:28:21.840 | it was passionate, and he even says he had a good reputation. It was qualified.
00:28:28.240 | He talks about confidence in the flesh. He was a confident leader.
00:28:34.320 | He talks about his qualification. Saul had the right pedigree, the right education,
00:28:40.480 | the right training. He came from the right family. He was an intelligent man. He had
00:28:44.960 | the right friends, the right social standing, all of it. Saul had the package. He was even
00:28:51.760 | circumcised on the eighth day, and he puts that in there basically to say he was qualified on every
00:28:57.840 | level. He was appointed a Pharisee. Other people recognized Saul's leadership and put him in
00:29:05.920 | to a very coveted role. His leadership was passionate. He talks about zeal,
00:29:14.000 | and we'll see more about this in another passage, but that word "zeal" in verse 6
00:29:20.800 | is a word that's used to describe the highest virtue ascribed to religious Jews of that day.
00:29:28.880 | If you wanted to lead the Jews, you needed to lead with zeal.
00:29:34.640 | All of that describes a strong, natural leader.
00:29:39.120 | He was highly effective, and he was a very successful leader in a false religion.
00:29:49.120 | Yet none of those skills impressed God.
00:29:51.120 | This is Paul's point in Philippians 3, by the way. If you look at the context of this later,
00:29:58.560 | that's Paul's point. None of those impressed God. All these great qualifications did nothing
00:30:03.360 | to qualify him for spiritual leadership. Success outside the church does not qualify you for
00:30:10.720 | leadership in the church. Throughout Paul's account of his life, there's another stark
00:30:16.960 | contrast that I think we need to look at. Saul's actions, his actions and his leadership were
00:30:24.800 | motivated by a love for the mission and an absolute hatred for the people that got in the way.
00:30:31.040 | And we want to see this in Acts 7, 8, and 9. The end of Acts chapter 7 is a description of the
00:30:40.480 | murder of Stephen. Stephen had just confronted the religious leaders. You can read it later.
00:30:46.560 | We don't have time. I think you'll get the point here in a moment.
00:30:49.520 | They didn't really like what Stephen had to say. In Acts chapter 7, verse 54, it says,
00:30:57.200 | "Now when they heard this," these are the people that Stephen had just confronted with the truth
00:31:02.000 | of the gospel, "they were cut to the quick and they began gnashing their teeth at him."
00:31:06.880 | Can you imagine that scene?
00:31:08.320 | Verse 55, it goes on to say, "Being full of the Holy Spirit, Stephen gazed intently
00:31:15.840 | into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.
00:31:20.080 | And he said, 'Behold, I see the heavens opened up and the Son of Man standing
00:31:23.840 | at the right hand of God.'" They did not like that response. Verse 55, or 58, 57, excuse me,
00:31:32.480 | "But when they cried out with a loud voice and covered their ears, and they rushed at him with
00:31:36.960 | one impulse, when they had driven him out of the city, they began stoning him. And the witnesses
00:31:43.200 | laid aside their robes at the feet of a young man named Saul." It's the first mention of Saul
00:31:51.200 | in Scripture. We learn a few things in that short phrase. He was relatively young,
00:31:56.480 | and yet he was already a leader. The fact that people would lay robes at his feet
00:32:03.520 | indicates he was one of the leaders, if not the leader, of the murder.
00:32:08.480 | "Stephen dies," goes on in Acts chapter 8, verse 1, "Saul was in hearty agreement with putting him
00:32:18.480 | to death. And on that day, a great persecution began against the church in Jerusalem, and they
00:32:23.760 | were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles." Verse 2,
00:32:29.680 | "Some devout men buried Stephen and made loud lamentations to him, and they were all scattered
00:32:35.520 | throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria. But Saul," it says in verse 3, "began ravaging the church,
00:32:43.920 | entering house after house, dragging off men and women. He put them in prison." Saul was a hater.
00:32:53.440 | He was an incredible leader. He loved the mission, and he hated the people that got in the way.
00:33:02.000 | And Acts chapter 9 says, "Now Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the
00:33:08.000 | Lord, went to the high priest and asked for letters from him to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if
00:33:13.120 | he found any belonging to the way," which is a way of saying Christians, "if he found any Christians,
00:33:20.400 | both men and women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem." Saul was driven by hatred.
00:33:31.760 | His leadership was an extreme of strong, effective, we don't like it, but it was effective,
00:33:39.040 | godless, and secular leadership. Now the contrast. We're going to look at Paul.
00:33:48.080 | Remember, same guy. You can read later in Acts 9, the amazing transformation of Paul
00:33:56.400 | on the road to Damascus. Now you know what he was going to Damascus to do.
00:34:01.040 | And Christ saved him. And later, Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians chapter 2
00:34:09.280 | about his leadership that was motivated and marked by love. You can't miss this contrast.
00:34:15.360 | Verse 7, "But we prove to be gentle among you, as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her children.
00:34:23.200 | Having so fond an affection for you, we were well pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of
00:34:29.040 | God, but also our own lives, because you had become very dear to us. For you recall, brethren,
00:34:34.560 | our labor and hardship, how working night and day, so as not to be a burden to any of you,
00:34:40.960 | we proclaim to you the gospel of God. You are witnesses, and so is God. How devoutly and
00:34:48.080 | uprightly and blamelessly we behave towards you believers, just as you know how we were exhorting
00:34:54.480 | and encouraging and imploring each one of you as a father would his own children." What a difference.
00:35:00.640 | Gentle, fond affection, imparting his life. He's describing how he's giving himself up for them.
00:35:08.240 | He's laboring on their behalf, his blameless behavior towards them,
00:35:13.120 | exhorting them, encouraging and imploring. That's biblical spiritual leadership.
00:35:23.120 | How many of us in this room have a wife who would describe our leadership that way?
00:35:31.040 | How many of us with children might agree with that description of our leadership?
00:35:38.400 | That's what biblical leadership looks like. And as we'll see, the theme of Paul's loving
00:35:45.280 | and purposeful leadership of the same people he once tried to exterminate
00:35:50.400 | is a dramatic illustration of the power of the gospel and what biblical spiritual leadership
00:35:58.480 | looks like. First Timothy chapter 1, starting in verse 12, the autobiography of Saul and Paul,
00:36:10.640 | same guy, written by Paul, describing his leadership before Christ, his leadership after
00:36:18.400 | Christ. "I thank Christ Jesus, our Lord, who has strengthened me because he considered me faithful,
00:36:24.720 | putting me into service, even though I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a
00:36:29.760 | violent aggressor. Yet I was shown mercy because I acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of
00:36:36.400 | our Lord was more than abundant with the faith and love which are found in Christ Jesus. It is
00:36:42.320 | a trustworthy statement deserving full acceptance that Christ Jesus came in the world to save
00:36:47.200 | sinners, among whom I'm foremost of all. Yet for this reason I found mercy." What does this have
00:36:55.840 | to do with leadership? You'll note the ungodly leadership of Saul describing his pride, his
00:37:03.600 | zealotry, his credentials, his hatred, contrasted with the biblical leadership of Paul, same guy,
00:37:12.960 | who was humble, expressing gratitude and recognition that God empowered and drives
00:37:21.920 | his leadership. Saul, the hater, the very effective leader, was a blasphemer, a persecutor,
00:37:31.920 | a violent aggressor, and he calls himself ignorant and godless.
00:37:37.280 | Paul, the biblical spiritual leader, was thankful and humble. He understood that God strengthened
00:37:47.680 | him. God considered him faithful. God put him into service. God extended him mercy and grace,
00:37:57.200 | and God was patient with him. He says all of that. It was all about Christ
00:38:02.800 | for Paul, not his own skills, not his own knowledge, his experience.
00:38:09.520 | He understood that Saul did not do God any favors by switching sides.
00:38:17.040 | Paul understood that in spite of his history and his weaknesses, God picked him
00:38:24.640 | up and used him, and any and all of us would do well to regularly remind ourselves of that truth.
00:38:31.600 | Our leadership, yes, it's commanded by God, but it's motivated and animated by God.
00:38:40.240 | In 2 Corinthians, starting in verse 11, we're not going to look. It's a long passage. It extends
00:38:46.240 | into chapter 12. You can read it later on. There's an extended description of Paul's leadership
00:38:52.480 | that can be summed up as sacrificial service. That's biblical spiritual service. He describes
00:38:59.040 | imprisonments, beatings, enduring 39 lashes five different times, being beaten with rods. He was
00:39:05.360 | stoned. He was shipwrecked. There's a long list of dangers that he endured. All was endured for
00:39:11.200 | the sake of Christ and for the building up of Christ's church for the people that he once
00:39:19.360 | wanted to kill. What a contrast from aggressive violence to strength and courage in the face of
00:39:28.160 | unspeakable persecutions. His leadership was once animated by hatred. It became driven and sustained
00:39:36.480 | by love, and it manifested itself in service to the people he was called to lead. In Galatians chapter
00:39:45.440 | 1, it's another autobiographical passage where Paul, in the context of a larger point, is describing
00:39:52.720 | two types of leadership, Saul's and Paul's. Same guy. It's very clear, "For you have heard of my
00:40:02.000 | former manner of life in Judaism, how I used to persecute the church of God beyond measure and
00:40:07.120 | tried to destroy it. And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries, among my
00:40:12.640 | countrymen, being more extremely zealous for my ancestral traditions." That's a description of
00:40:20.880 | Saul's leadership. It was mission-oriented, it was successful, and it was an example to other
00:40:25.360 | people who wanted to be like him. He was advancing beyond anybody else. Verse 15, those amazing words,
00:40:32.800 | "But God changes everything. The God who set me apart even from my mother's womb and called me
00:40:40.960 | through his grace was pleased to reveal his son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles."
00:40:47.440 | Saul's leadership was mission-oriented, it was successful, it was an example. Paul's leadership
00:40:54.480 | was very different. It was humble. It was a different mission. He talked about preaching
00:41:00.960 | Christ now. It's a completely different mission. It's hard work. You can read later in Galatians 1
00:41:08.080 | and into chapter 2 that Paul had to study and learn and prepare for leadership. It took work.
00:41:16.480 | You know, he was exceptionally well-trained and learned it as Saul,
00:41:22.320 | and none of that qualified him for spiritual leadership. He understood he knew nothing.
00:41:28.960 | Leadership takes preparation and training. He speaks of a zeal, a different zeal,
00:41:34.960 | an unbending fidelity to truth and holiness against the backdrop of love, not hate.
00:41:41.680 | And he was courageous. I love this.
00:41:46.640 | Galatians 2.11, "When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face because he stood condemned."
00:41:56.560 | And you may say, "Whoa, what's the context there?" Don't worry about it. Just think about this for a
00:42:01.360 | minute. This is Paul. You can see that Paul hasn't changed in personality or leadership skill, right?
00:42:09.840 | He's not afraid to call somebody out to their face.
00:42:13.200 | You can see a bit of the old Saul and the new Paul. The difference is the old Saul probably
00:42:20.160 | would have done what to Cephas? Killed him or wanted to. The new Paul addresses the issue in
00:42:28.000 | a biblical way, still deals with the issue. But verse 11 says that Cephas stood condemned,
00:42:35.360 | and that wasn't Paul's condemnation. It was condemnation before the Lord where there is a
00:42:41.440 | sense of Paul's motivation to warn others, but also to correct Cephas so that he would avoid
00:42:48.880 | the consequences of that condemnation. That's biblical spiritual leadership. Paul's leadership
00:42:55.200 | was different from Saul's. Same guy, new heart, different leadership. And this section of Galatians
00:43:03.920 | ends with a very important verse that is a reminder. Biblical spiritual leadership is not
00:43:10.160 | about the advancement of our agenda. Secular leadership is about agendas, goals, missions.
00:43:18.240 | Our agenda is about somebody else's goals, somebody else's mission. Galatians 2,
00:43:25.200 | "I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who lives, but Christ lives in me,
00:43:32.800 | in the life which I now live. I live in the flesh. I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me
00:43:41.520 | and gave himself up for me. Why would I not give myself up for those who the Lord has put under my
00:43:48.960 | care that I've been called to lead?" Once again, you see the repeated themes of humility, gratitude,
00:43:56.400 | faith, service, and submission to the aims and the agenda of somebody else, Jesus Christ.
00:44:06.640 | Saul was successful based on social standing, his credentials, and the example of his hateful
00:44:14.000 | and violent zealotry. Paul was transformed. He had a different mission, different motives,
00:44:20.880 | and an entirely different mode of leadership. Let me close the circle.
00:44:28.640 | Men, brothers in Christ, you are a leader. You may feel like you're not very effective,
00:44:38.080 | you may be a bit confused, and perhaps you've never considered the non-negotiable nature of
00:44:45.040 | that calling, but it's your burden to lead in a biblical way. It's also your joy to know that God
00:44:53.360 | has put you into service and he will bless faithful leadership. It's also your confidence
00:45:01.360 | that successful leadership is not measured by results, but in your fidelity to truth,
00:45:07.760 | your own submission and obedience to Christ, and in your love for those who are in your care.
00:45:16.960 | A lot of men listen to something like this and they conclude, "I can never do this.
00:45:21.840 | I'm not Paul. I'm not eloquent. I'm afraid. I'm weak.
00:45:29.200 | You tell me I'm supposed to lead my wife, but you don't know my wife?
00:45:34.240 | You tell me I'm supposed to lead my children, but my children don't want me to lead them?"
00:45:43.680 | I want to encourage you with Paul's description of his own leadership as we close.
00:45:47.600 | First Corinthians chapter 2, verse 1, "When I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority
00:45:54.080 | of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God, for I determined to know nothing
00:46:00.640 | among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much
00:46:07.520 | trembling, and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but it was in
00:46:14.160 | demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men,
00:46:19.920 | but on the power of God." You may feel like you have all the weaknesses that Paul has and more.
00:46:27.680 | You need to understand that biblical leadership is a demonstration of the power of God,
00:46:34.720 | the Spirit of God, and the gospel. So men, be on the alert, stand firm in the faith,
00:46:44.080 | act like men, be strong, lead. Every man in this room was built to lead.
00:46:54.640 | Let me close this in prayer. Lord, thank you for your word again. Lord, I pray for every man in
00:47:02.800 | the sound of my voice, that you would capture their hearts, that you would use your scripture
00:47:09.360 | to inspire their leadership, to inform their leadership. And Lord, as we go through this
00:47:17.120 | series alongside our studying Ecclesiastes, Lord, it's our desire that when it's all said and done
00:47:23.360 | that we fear you and we obey you, and that our leadership is a picture of what you would have
00:47:29.680 | it to be. Lord, be with these men now as they go to discussion groups. Lord, I pray that it is a
00:47:35.520 | fruitful time. It is a time of reflection on your word and the truth of it and the application to
00:47:40.960 | each of our lives. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.
00:47:45.760 | [BLANK_AUDIO]