Convictions - Supported by fruitful godly leaders
Our Convictions • Sermon • Submitted • Presented • 32:16
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· 24 viewsAs a church we believe that Jesus is the boss, and he has sent us on a mission to be disciple makers. We do that by word, prayer and service. But the task is too big for one or two. That's why we need to raise up the kind of leaders the bible describes, (fruitful, godly ones), in order to see the church be filled with disciple making disciples.
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Getting the job done
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
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
Fruitful, Godly Leaders
What kind of leaders did Paul tell Timothy and Titus to recruit?
6 An elder must be blameless, faithful to his wife, a man whose children believe and are not open to the charge of being wild and disobedient. 7 Since an overseer manages God’s household, he must be blameless—not overbearing, not quick-tempered, not given to drunkenness, not violent, not pursuing dishonest gain. 8 Rather, he must be hospitable, one who loves what is good, who is self-controlled, upright, holy and disciplined. 9 He must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it.
And to Timothy?
2 Now the overseer is to be above reproach, faithful to his wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, 3 not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. 4 He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him, and he must do so in a manner worthy of full respect. 5 (If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God’s church?) 6 He must not be a recent convert, or he may become conceited and fall under the same judgment as the devil. 7 He must also have a good reputation with outsiders, so that he will not fall into disgrace and into the devil’s trap.
8 In the same way, deacons are to be worthy of respect, sincere, not indulging in much wine, and not pursuing dishonest gain. 9 They must keep hold of the deep truths of the faith with a clear conscience. 10 They must first be tested; and then if there is nothing against them, let them serve as deacons.
11 In the same way, the women are to be worthy of respect, not malicious talkers but temperate and trustworthy in everything.
12 A deacon must be faithful to his wife and must manage his children and his household well.
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
Orthodox
9 He must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it.
9 They must keep hold of the deep truths of the faith with a clear conscience.
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,
45 A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.
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
Above reproach/Well Respected
2 Now the overseer is to be above reproach, faithful to his wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach,
6 An elder must be blameless, faithful to his wife, a man whose children believe and are not open to the charge of being wild and disobedient.
(Titus - “Blameless”)
Not perfect. Thank goodness!
But rather of good public reputation. In what areas? That’s what follows:
Faithfulness in Marriage/Sex
Faithfulness in Marriage/Sex
Mentioned by Paul in both our readings.
2 Now the overseer is to be above reproach, faithful to his wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach,
6 An elder must be blameless, faithful to his wife, a man whose children believe and are not open to the charge of being wild and disobedient.
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
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
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:
13 For I told him that I would judge his family forever because of the sin he knew about; his sons blasphemed God, and he failed to restrain them.
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
Able to teach
2 Now the overseer is to be above reproach, faithful to his wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, 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. And how will we make disciples if we can’t teach others the faith?
Our leaders need to be reproducers of the faith.
Hospitable
Hospitable
We heard last week about how we are to make disciples by word, prayer and service.
Hospitality is the service part of the leaders life. They are not just to be orthodox in belief, that is devoted to the word and prayer. But in their own life they must be hospitable.
Ellisa and I try to have a hospitatble rectory. Not just to people from church but to those outside it too.
Our leaders need to have a generosity of heart to others and a willingness to serve them and welcome them.
Why are the standards so high?
Why are the standards so high?
A leader’s job is to reproduce. Our leadership genetics matter.
You can’t reproduce what you are not.
One of the horrifying things about being the senior leader in a church is that often times the church will start looking a lot like it’s leader. Part of that is ok. Especially in as much as I live up to the standards Paul outlines in our readings today. But it’s sort of terrifying to think that the church will look like me in both my good and my bad ways.
So how do we stop our church looking 100% like me?
The best way to work against that, is to make sure we have other leaders who compliment me.
And to do that… we need to raise up fruitful, Godly leaders.
We need to raise up fruitful, Godly leaders
We need to raise up fruitful, Godly leaders
If we truly believe that Jesus Christ is head of the church, and he has sent us to make disciples, by word prayer and service, supported by fruitful, Godly leaders… then that is our task.
If we’re going to do thistask. Then not only do we need to get on with the job of making disciples, but in order to do that well we need to train and develop leaders.
Identify leaders, empower and release them, send them out.
Maybe this is you? Has God given you a desire to lead his people? You desire a noble task. (1 Tim 3:1)
Are you up to God’s high standards?
Let’s discern your giftedness
Eph 4 - people are gifted for leadership. This is what will ultiamtely make them fruitful. We need to train people yes, but God also needs to have given them the gift. The only way to often figure that out is to have a go at something and see what happens.
One we identify leaders and train them we must be willing to send leaders to other churches.
The church I grew up in, myself, at least 2 other rectors, a school chaplain, 3 missionaries, a Registrar.
I notice this in Melbourne too. There were a bunch of leaders who had come from one particular church who had clearly focussed on leadership development back in the late 80s through to the mid 90s.
So good at leadership development that we don’t have enough things for them to lead here.
Could we be a church like that?
Provide opportunities for people to serve in leadership (provide they meet the standards)
To become a leadership factory you need to give people the chance to lead. I remember when the minister at my church took me out for a coffee when I was 17 one of the ministers at my church, a young Stephen Carnaby, gave me opportunities to lead services, trained me to preach, included me in the service leadership team.
The minister who followed him eventually asked me to run the whole youth group which ended up having about 100 kids coming along.
All those opportunities I had in my late teens and early twenties helped me discern my call and mean I’m no standing here today.
We need to do likewise.
Value and train godly lay leaders
The can be a danger that when we start talking about leadership we pivot all our focus and attention on paid church ministry.
But actually to be a disciple making church we need committed lay leadership. People who are leaders in the church and who also work out there in the world.
I have more to do on this area. But if we believe that leaders are key for our disciple making task. Then we must make leadership development a key priority. Will you join me in praying and seeking God’s wisdom for how we can do that better going forward?