Leaders Serving God

It is vital that we are sensitive to the will of Christ, so that we in no way hinder what God is doing in the church. We need a leadership team that consists of people who are willing to wholeheartedly lay their lives down for the church. Certain characteristics are lay down by Paul, of the type of person that God wants in leadership; we must make sure that, as we prayerfully consider, we choose people whose lives are in line with those characteristics.

External Links:Listen to the online sermon (Podcast) »

Firstly I want to refer to the foundation we have in Christ. The one thing that was the foundation of Paul’s testimony was the Lord Jesus Christ. If you are a Christian, it means that everything has become new. You have a different way of looking at things, a different reason for living.

If I’m a Christian it means that He is the Lord of my life; I am a new creation in Christ. The future is how God will work what He wants to do in His church. As time marches on the church will be added to. The church is people. There are a lot of people outside of the church worldwide who have a great need in their life. It’s true that for some people, when they meet you, it is as if they are meeting a representative of the Kingdom of God. You know what God has done in your life and through you He can meet other people who need help because they are without God.

2 Corinthians 5:17

God is building His church in His way and in His time. It is God that gives the increase, not he that plants or he that waters. We are labourers together with God. When we talk about sharing our faith, the sharing of our faith is to do with what God wants to do in meeting the needs of others. Anyone who is involved with leadership in a church is simply in line with what God wants to do in His church. This morning I’m going to refer to various aspects of church leadership. One thing which is apparent, as you read the New Testament, is that there is no set template. I can’t turn to a chapter in the Bible and say here are the verses, this is what we must do today. What there are though, in Scripture, are specific guidelines and principals, bearing in mind that this is all set in the context of what God wants to do.

I’ve explained before that when the apostles were alive, they could refer to what Jesus had told them. When they got older and the church grew, it went from Jerusalem, to Judea, to the uttermost parts of the earth. As the church grew buildings weren’t immediately built. There were just houses, people’s houses, in which people gathered. As the church grew, Paul and Peter, wrote various letters to ensure that there was an input to steer things the right way; to ensure that Jesus Christ was the one that was uplifted; that He was the focus. Obviously, as people were added to the church, there was a growing need for some sort of order. So various things needed to be done to ensure this happened. You find that in different letters Paul wrote, he wrote of specific situations to put right what had gone wrong. For example, in the problem of the widows:

1 Corinthians 7:8-9

1 Timothy 5:11-14

From Corinthians it would seem that it were better for widows to stay single, but in Timothy it shows that it is better for them to remarry. So, he spoke specifically according to the situation. Elsewhere it talks about whether women should have a head covering. In Corinthians Paul’s conclusion was that it was better that women should have a head covering in the church. That was just what Paul thought was appropriate in the religion and customs of that time, so that the Gospel could be furthered.

1 Timothy 2:8-15

That is all to do with a particular situation in the church that Paul wrote to Timothy about. Does that mean that, if you are woman here, you have sinned because you have opened your mouth? No it doesn’t. Some people lift that up out of context and consider it to be very important. The letter to Timothy was written for a specific reason:

1 Timothy 3:14-16

Paul wrote this because he was worried that he was not going to be able to see Timothy. There’s something about the church, which is the bride of Christ, which is of utmost importance to the future. The church is where it’s at as far as God displaying His glory. It’s the church, by God’s Holy Spirit, the love of God. ‘Behold how they love one another’, it was said of the early Christians. There was a common cause between them, and a willingness to lay down their lives for each other.

The second book of Timothy was written to address the issue of the false doctrine that had been brought into the church. Paul wanted Timothy to know how to deal with those people who had brought in the false doctrine.

In the way that Paul wanted Timothy to know how to organise things, it was the more the case that he wanted Timothy to appoint leaders. In similar vein, he wrote letters to Titus, to appoint leaders to all the churches in Crete. In Timothy, when Paul wrote to him, he outlined various pointers that he should note when choosing leaders. We want to get the right people to be part of a pastoral team. There are a few verses in Timothy which point what a pastor should be like:

1 Timothy 3:1-12

So there are certain characteristics of the type of person that God wants to be involved in leadership. Paul also wrote Titus, saying similar things:

Titus 1:5-10

This isn’t someone who is chosen at random, this is someone who has a heart for doing what God wants, someone who is prepared to lay down their lives for the church. We don’t want someone who is appointed, and then feels it isn’t really something that they want to do wholeheartedly. Jesus Christ lay down His life for the brethren. I want the leadership to become less of me, and more of others. The fact that there is a team means that there is an accountability built in there. The bottom line is that there needs to be the right people in leadership.

1 Peter 5:1-4

In the letter to Timothy Paul told him not to appoint a novice. He didn’t say that to Titus because that weren’t actually that many older people in the church at Crete. So you can seen that Paul was keen for it to be right in each place, according to the contextual situation of that place. I do not think that there is a set number of leaders per size of church; no, you want the right number of leaders. It is paramount that everyone is cared for in the church, so it is obvious that as the church increases in size, the leadership group will also increase in size.

The review group also discussed the role of women:

Romans 16:1-16

There are nineteen men and nine women mentioned there. They were probably not all in leadership, but it does show that women had a role to play in God’s church. If we are thinking about the leadership, must it always be male? There are particular things that Paul attributed to particular locations, but overall the ultimate authority in a church should be male. So, I think we should make sure we nominate people who have the right qualities, male or female. But I do think, that the males in the leadership will have the final word in a decision.

I don’t want for us to hinder God’s purposes in any way. I do not have a hidden agenda. The agenda is: to lift up Christ and share our faith with others, so that He may draw people to Himself through us. We may start with a small team and then that will be added to later, as God wants.

This is all set in the context of our desire to be sensitive to what God wants to do, so that He may fulfil His will.

Matthew 16:18

‘The gates of hell’ in those days referred to death. It doesn’t matter what voices are being sounded against it, God will build His church.

Ephesians 4:15-16

This applies to each one of us. We must not have any thoughts of scoring points off each other; we must love one another. That means being willing to lay down your lives for each other; it’s not about me, it’s about others.