Gifts of Leadership #2

The Necessity of Spiritual Courage for Leadership

0:02 Pick up where we left off at the end of the previous hour as I am seeking to set before you the fundamental components of the gifts essential for sanctified leadership having sought to prove from the scriptures that such gifts are necessary considering both the explicit and the implicit testimony of the word of God I have thus far sought to demonstrate that the components are more than an ordinary degree of spiritual discernment secondly, more than an ordinary measure of spiritual wisdom now thirdly, what I've called more than an ordinary degree

0:42 of spiritual, or we might put parenthesis, moral courage and I use the word spiritual because there is a kind of natural courage that a man may have and yet be more than an ordinary degree of spiritual courage and yet be more than an ordinary degree of spiritual courage a coward in matters of spiritual warfare and courage so perhaps I ought to make it a hyphenated thing you struggle with words all the time but hopefully as we turn to the scriptures and seek to illustrate it the matter will become clear if a man is going to lead and we are to have reason to believe as we soberly assess ourselves and are assessed by others that God has endowed us

1:27 with the gifts essential to why we are so important and we are to have a wise and helpful leadership in the cause of Christ's church then surely an element of that endowment will be more than an ordinary degree of spiritual courage now I want to establish from the scriptures that it may have nothing to do with one's natural temperament now if I say among the prophets reticence, fearfulness the consciousness of being just a kid totally unprepared for a message of confrontation of judgment has the prophet's name come to your mind yet?

2:12 Jeremiah remember when the Lord spoke to him he said Lord I'm but a child he said say not I'm but a child because I will be with you wherever I send you I myself will go with you I'll be with your mouth and God took this naturally introspective sensitive we might say somewhat effeminate without any moral pejorative involved in that man and he made him not only someone who confronted the nation but constantly preached into the teeth of the host of the false prophets who said you're God's covenant people Jeremiah's just got a sour temperament and all this prediction of judgment

2:57 is nonsense you're God's people all will be well but God helped Jeremiah to be faithful even though it meant being put down in a slime pit and having ultimately to be drawn up out of that pit and in the New Testament a careful study of the life of Timothy would clearly indicate that by nature and temperament Timothy had a problem with natural reticence and timidity Paul had to say to him do not be ashamed of me or of the testimony of the Lord he had to encourage him to stir up the gift of God and I wonder if the exhortations repeated throughout his letters to him these things command and teach

3:42 let no man despise you that we get the definite impression that if Timothy were amongst a group of men we wouldn't immediately say there's the guy that will rise to the top and be the general barking the orders we'd say he's forever doomed to be carrying the slop bucket out to the cows and to the pigs he'll be bottom man on the rung in terms of his natural temperament so this matter of spiritual courage may or may not have anything to do with one's natural temperament but rather it has to do with a divine endowment that is a combination of a number of spiritual dynamics in which the spirit of God makes a man so convinced that accountability to God

4:26 God's faithfulness his promised aid and help by the spirit that all of us of those factors so dominate his mind in a situation where moral spiritual courage is needed that native temperament and reticence are overcome by the grace of God now without this without this how can a man do the work of public and private confrontation essential to biblical oversight is there such a thing as biblical oversight without new to tell and admonition not only parakaleo exhortation

5:10 which can be comfort encouragement but nuthateo pointing out another's wrongs seeking to correct reprove rebuke exhort with all long suffering and teaching is the charge given to Timothy in 2nd Timothy chapter 4 the servant of the Lord must not strive but be gentle to all men apt to teach yes but that same servant is told then that sin reproved before all that others may fear it's amazing how people can fasten on one aspect of an apostolic admonition and make their whole theology of the ministry turn the servant of the Lord must not strive but be gentle

5:54 ah yes that's right he must not be combative and dealing with certain people he must never think it's a battle of wills and therefore if I crank up the energy of my will and intensify the convincingness of my arguments I'll batter them down no no Paul said look look ultimately the issue of this is in God's hands if peradventure God will give them repentance to the acknowledgement of the truth Timothy don't be combative but to that same Timothy he says those that sin and probably referring to even elders fellow leaders reproved before all that others may fear that's threatening yes it is there is a place for sanctified threatening and responsible leaders

6:38 Paul says how do you want me to come to you you want me to come with a rod or in spirit of gentleness you determine it by the way you respond to my letter and you see without moral courage how will you know that your gentleness is not cowardice you won't know you won't know and I believe there's many a man hiding his moral and spiritual cowardice under a cloak of gentleness we need by the grace of God a more than ordinary degree of gentleness of spiritual courage not only for those dimensions of public ministry and the appropriate text but the private ministry Colossians chapter 1 where Paul says

7:23 whom we preach warning every man admonishing every man teaching every man in all wisdom that we may present every man perfect or mature in Christ and brethren you know as well as I do already it is far easier to give appointed courageous rebuke reproof admonition in public than it is to front someone eyeball to eyeball in the privacy of your own study and say with Nathan-like faithfulness you are the man you are the woman

8:07 and without moral courage we are not fit to lead God's people we are called to proclaim doctrines that are offensive to everything in human nature by nature proclaim doctrines things about God his being his government his ways his salvation which in terms of the world's assessment is either in the category of stumbling block or foolishness and Paul said when I came to Corinth I knew that when I'd look out in the face of the Greeks and I start saying that in some absurdity you're carpenter out of Nazareth is all the wisdom

8:51 of the ages they're going to laugh me to scorn and say this is foolishness you mean what's eluded the great minds of our great philosophers is all summed up in your Christ whom you proclaim as the wisdom of God and the power of God in weakness that ends up in seeing him immolated and an instrument of execution at the hand of the Romans come off it Paul foolishness and they said to the Jews I preach a Messiah crucified it's the death stick it's the scandal on it's the thing that springs the trap and shuts their minds off from anything more and he said when I came I knew that the mindset was totally antithetical

9:34 and it took moral courage to say but I determined I determined to know nothing among you say Jesus Christ and him is crucified and in those who are called I knew God would make that very message the wisdom of God and the power overcoming all the native prejudice in Jew and Gentile well brethren you can't do that and be true to your message publicly or privately without the grace of moral courage and the times when you've got to call a congregation together and just as a father with his family notices certain trends where there's been an erosion of respect for mom you call the kids together and say kids dad's noticed over the last three or four weeks I don't hear the word please when you're asking things of your mother I don't hear thank yous

10:20 like they ought to be heard and as the head of this house I'll not raise a brood of ingrates the next time you ask something of your mother and don't say please I've instructed her not to give it to you even if you must miss a meal miss your snack not have your clothes ready and ironed and washed etc furthermore if she does anything for you don't say thank you I'm directing her not to give it to you the next time what kind of father is there who doesn't have the moral courage to gather the family together and have a family powwow where necessary or if something has shattered the family what kind of father is it who doesn't have the moral courage to gather the family together and impart the consolations

The Unique Nature of Rule in Christ's Church: Servant Leadership

11:04 that are necessary without any semblance of maudlin weakness or sentimentality well brethren these things are vital and I say no one is fit to lead in God's house who has not been given more than an ordinary degree of this element that I've described as spiritual courage but then fourthly the manifested gifts to rule the fourth component a more than ordinary degree of the spiritual disposition consistent with the unique nature of rule in Christ's and what do I mean by that well you'll notice

11:48 the text that I've listed is Matthew chapter 20 A text that I trust all of us will frequently meditate upon as we anticipate and continue to aspire to service in Christ's church. Passage, in its culminating statement, marvelously opened up by Pastor Hughes in our pastor's conference.

12:15 But beginning with verse 24, And their great ones exercise authority over them. They lord it down upon them. They stand upon their dignity.

13:00 Not so shall it be among you. Not so shall it be among you. Among you who will constitute, what? The leaders in my kingdom.

13:12 This is ten apostles. Not so shall it be. Not so shall it be among you. But whosoever would become great among you shall be your minister or servant, your table waiter.

13:24 And whosoever shall be first among you shall be your bond slave, your doulos. Even as the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many. When I speak of a more than ordinary degree of the...

13:45 The spiritual disposition consistent with the unique nature of rule in Christ's church. This is what I'm talking about. That not so shall it be among you. It is a rule that is antithetical to the rule in corporate America.

14:04 To the rule in the military.

14:08 It is rule. Yes, but it is rule from the posture and the spirit of Christ-like servanthood. Even as the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister. And Peter could never forget the impact of those words.

14:25 For when he charges the elders, the only other place in the New Testament where the verb katakurieo is found.

14:33 In 1 Peter chapter 5. The elders among you I exhort who am a fellow elder. Here's your task. Perform the manifold functions of a shepherd to a flock.

14:45 Poimaino in the imperative. Shepherd the flock of God which is among you. Exercising oversight. Here we have the task of leadership laid upon the elders.

15:00 The flock doesn't tend itself. No, the shepherds are to shepherd the flock. Here is aggressive, hands-on, extensive, broad-spectrumed leadership. Shepherd the flock of God.

15:16 Exercising the oversight. But then those three couplets of contrast. Not of constraint, but willingly. Not as someone conscripted against his will.

15:28 But one convinced it is the will of God. Not of constraint, but willingly according to the will of God. The second contrasting couplet. Nor yet for filthy lucre base gain, but of a ready mind.

15:41 And the third. Neither as katakurieo. Neither as lording it over the charge. Nor as lording it to you.

15:50 But making yourselves ensembles to the flock. You see, there is no neutralizing of the consciousness that they are still the shepherds. As the shepherds, they are to be examples to the flock. For the flock are not dumb sheep.

16:09 They are intelligent image-bearers of God. United to Christ. Indwelt by the Spirit. And you are to shepherd them.

16:18 You are to execute. You are to exercise oversight. But you are not to do it in the way that my Lord forbade us to do it. And I wonder, I only wonder, if the same one who begins the letter by identifying himself as an apostle, here when he comes to charge the elders, he doesn't say, the elders therefore among you I exhort who am an apostle.

16:43 And you better listen to me. I'm an apostle. But he says who am a fellow elder. I wonder if in that.

16:51 In that very designation in this context, Peter is not showing the overtones of the words of his Lord, having fastened himself upon his heart, not lording it over. I will not put myself on my pedestal and talk down to you. I'll put my arm around you and talk to your heart.

17:13 Fellow elder. Fellow elder. Did that neutralize his position as an apostle? No.

17:19 But it reveals a dimension of his disposition. And brethren, with people attacking the whole concept of bona fide authority and aggressive broad spectrum leadership on the one hand, and others saying no, if everyone has the spirit, you remember what the 250 said to Moses and Aaron, you take too much upon you. We all have the spirit. What they meant is you ain't putting enough upon us.

17:50 We want to cut in on your turf. God's made you the chief honchos, and we want to be the chiefs. Now, there's that spirit on the one hand of brethrenism, and on the other, there is this denigration of the whole concept by people who say that they do believe in rule by elder, but what they mean by rule by elder is simply you're a little catalyst standing on the side just occasionally nudging God's people in the direction you think they ought to go. No, we don't neutralize all of the biblical teaching that we've covered in other segments of the pastoral theology course, and we'll cover for some of you, God willing, when we come to those sections when we speak of this,

Owen on Spiritual Rule vs. Worldly Power

18:31 but, but, surely any gift to leave that warrants our assumption of the office will have as one of the discernible components this more than ordinary degree of the spiritual disposition consistent with the unique nature of rule in Christ's church. And so often, when I've struggled, with something, and think I'm beginning to see it, I read Owen, and I say, you dummy, why didn't you start with Owen and save yourself all the trouble? But you see, it's when you're struggling and someone else articulates something, it means all the more, so the struggle is not lost. But on page 514 of volume 4,

19:15 this is what Owen says in underscoring this very principle, that this rule, that is in Christ's church, is spiritual, and has nothing in common, common with the administration of the powers of the world. Nothing in common. It hath, I say, no agreement with secular power and its exercise, unless it be in some natural circumstances that inseparably attend rulers and ruled in any kind. As our confession says, there's some things concerning the worship and government of the church of Christ common to all societies, where we need the light of nature, and Christian prudence, and the general principles of the word.

19:59 Owen says, granted, there are certain dimensions there, but in terms of its whole, we would say, philosophy of leadership. It has nothing to do with the administration of the powers of the world. It belongs unto the kingdom of Christ and the administration of it, which are not of this world. And as this is well pleaded by some against those who would erect a kingdom for him in the world, and as far as I can understand of this world, framed in their own imagination, unto a fancied interest of their own, so it is as pleadable against them who pretend to exercise the rule and power of his present kingdom after the manner of the potestative administrations of this world.

20:43 Another word that is not in most of our working vocabulary. When our Savior forbade all rule unto his disciples after the manner of the Gentiles, who then possessed all sovereign power in the world, and told them it should not be so with them, that some should be great and exercise dominion over others, but that they should serve one another in love, the greatest condescension unto service being required of them who are otherwise most eminent, he did not intend to take from them or divest them of that spiritual power and authority in the government of the church

21:28 which he intended to commit to them. He wasn't going to make them less than apostles. No. His design was to declare what that authority was not and how it should not be exercised.

21:42 A lordly or despotical power it was not to be, nor was it to be exercised by penal laws, courts, and coercive jurisdiction, which was the way of the administration of all power among the Gentiles. And if that kind of power and rule in the church, which is for the most part exercised in the world, be not forbidden by our Savior, no man living can tell what is so. For as to meekness, moderation, patience, equity, righteousness, they were more easy to be found in the legal administrations of power among the Gentiles than in those used in many churches.

22:26 But such a rule is signified unto them the authority whereof from whence it proceeds was spiritual, its objects the minds and souls of men only, and the way of whose administration was to consist in a humble, holy, spiritual application of the word of God or the rules of the gospel unto them. And the end of this rule is merely as and solely the edification of the church. And the edification of the church consists in the increase of faith and obedience in all the members thereof, in subduing and mortifying sin, in fruitfulness and good works,

23:08 in the confirmation and consolation of them that stand, in the raising up of them that are falling, the recovery of them that wander, in the growth and flourishing of mutual love and peace. And whatever rule is exercised in the church unto any other end is foreign to the gospel and tends only to the destruction of the church itself. Brethren, that paragraph we ought to go back to again and again. The rule committed to us is a rule calculated by the blessing of God to issue in the increase in faith and obedience of all the members.

The Spirit of Christ in Bearing Insults and Maintaining Love

23:49 The subduing and mortifying of sin, fruitfulness and good works, confirmation and consolation of them that stand, raising up the fallen, recovery of the wandering, the growth and flourishing of mutual love and peace. And this is to be done in the spirit of our Lord Jesus, who came not to be ministered unto, but to minister. In the language of Romans 15, we that are strong ought to bear with the infirmities of those that are weak and not to please ourselves, even as Christ was. Please, not himself, but as it is written, the reproaches of them that reproach thee are fallen upon thee.

24:30 You see, the man who doesn't have this spirit and finds that he's been insulted, he's been ignored, he's been misjudged, all kinds of things, you're the lightning rod in any place of spiritual leadership. If he doesn't have the spirit of Christ, he's going to constantly be tempted to develop, if not patently in his words, in his spirit, an adversarial relationship, between himself and his people. And if a seasoned man like Moses can fall in this area at the end of his life, wherefore let him that thinketh he stand take heed lest he fall. And God punished him for it.

25:14 Okay, you rebels! You want water? I'll give you water! God said, speak to the rock.

25:20 He struck it twice. He blew his cool. He lost his temper. He got irritated.

25:26 He lorded it over that recalcitrant bunch. And God says, because of this, Moses, you'll see the land, but you'll not enter it. As a young man, I used to wonder, I'd read that, and I'd say, Lord, that doesn't make sense. He's a ripe saint.

25:43 He's got more grace, more experience. If he's going to blow his cool, it's when a hot-headed young man is provoked. That's when you...

25:52 Well, now that I'm not as old as Moses, but I've seen my three score and ten, I understand that passage like I never have before. By the grace of God, you've walked before some people for three decades. And with all your sins and failures, you've never once given them occasion to be ashamed that they were a member of the church. Your name has never been justly associated with immorality, with the illegal and the sinful desire for money and things, etc.

26:24 And yet, and yet, if there are ten ways to construe something you've said or done, nine of them positive and one negative, they'll fasten on the negative construction and speak about it as though it were fact. And you feel inwardly, what in the world must I do? Gaining the confidence and a little bit of the prejudice of goodwill from some people. And you say, I have found that spirit in me.

26:53 You say, I don't need to take this crap. I don't need to take this. Who needs this? That's what your spirit will say.

27:02 You come back to this, not so shall it be among you. What did he bear? From his own. This struck me in preparation for that recent ministry where I had to work in John 17.

27:18 On the eve in which he said that the shepherd's going to be stricken and the sheep will be scattered. All of you are going to turn from me and Peter, you're going to deny me. But look what he prays for that bunch in John 17. Father, keep them, preserve them, unify them.

27:39 That's the spirit that's got to be in us. The spirit of the apostle who says, the more I love, the less I be loved. So be it. You Corinthians, our heart is open to you.

27:49 Our mouth is open to you. You're not restricted in our hearts. But it's obvious we're restricted in yours. But I'm not going to go tit for tat.

27:57 I'll let my open heart be the very theater in which you'll hurt and wound me. But I won't close my heart to you. Brethren, it's something of that spirit that our Lord Jesus says. Not so.

28:11 Shall it be among you. There is a spiritual mindedness in the concept of rule. Humility and servanthood in the posture of that rule. And without it, a man will be a tyrant in a situation that holds to a biblical view of rule by elder.

Spiritual Force of Character: Masculinity and Resoluteness

28:29 And that rule will indeed become a form of tyranny. But then finally, and I must hasten to this fifth component of the gift of leadership. Essential in the servant of Christ. A more than ordinary degree.

28:48 And here you really wonder what's happened to my own head when I use such nebulous words. More than ordinary degree of spiritual force of character. Now what in the world do I mean by spiritual force of character? Well this is what I'm trying to say and then I'll hide behind Dabney.

29:10 I'm talking about a man that regardless of all of the factors that make up his Christian manhood, he has an unmistakably masculine character. You cannot have people who think biblically about male and female roles following an effeminate man. Alright? Now it has nothing to do with the breadth of his shoulders.

29:33 It has nothing to do with his height. But when you're in the presence of a man who's a man, you know you're in the presence of a man and you never have to scratch your head and say what is it? What is it? You can say he's a man of God without having to pause and swallow the word man.

29:54 Or say he's a mmm of God. No, he's a man of God. That force of character, that sense that his godly manhood is indeed distinctively present. Soundness of judgment.

30:12 He's not a scatterbrain. This would bring in the biblical requirements of Sophron, of sober-mindedness. Good judgment. Resoluteness of purpose.

30:24 You sense in the presence of this man that it's safe to lead him because, to follow him, because he doesn't mark out a path unless the light of scripture is on that path. And before he seeks to take you there with him, he shows what scriptures mark out that path and constitute the guidelines of that path. And there's resoluteness of purpose. You sense in that man that he's not a fair-weather Christian.

30:52 Not a mister facing both ways. But someone whose disposition is one that echoes and imitates his Lord who set his face to go to Jerusalem. And so resolute was his bearing that it brought fear. I remember when I had to preach that out of the Gospel of Mark.

31:12 All I could do was preach around it. It's one of the most, it's one of the most fascinating passages in all of the Gospels. When they saw that his face was set toward Jerusalem, it says they were afraid. There was something so resolute and seriousness of demeanor.

31:30 As our brother underscored in the previous hour, and I had to utter a couple of amens. We don't believe in a carnal somberness. Christ, by his grace, when he brings us into the kingdom, the scripture says the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. But this matter of jocularity and feeling we've somehow got to make our message acceptable by lacing it with planned and forced humor, it is a stench in the nostrils of God and it undercuts our ability to lead.

32:09 You can't follow a clown into heaven and hell issues. You can't do it. You may laugh at a clown who stands on the brink of hell, but you sure are about to follow him. And I'll never forget A.W. Tozer

32:24 who had a very, very keen natural sense of humor. And at times it got out of hand with him. And when it did, he would confess it. One man told me at one time he walked right off a platform filled with a sense of shame that he had abused it.

32:39 But he said, I had to settle early in my ministry. I could either be a clown or a prophet, but I couldn't be both. And I decided I was going to be a prophet. And he meant in that sense I was going to be God's mouthpiece, delivering the message in a context of my sanctified humanity that makes people feel safe in entrusting to me in a proper sense the concerns that have to do with eternity.

33:05 Now brethren, if we are to be leaders given by Christ to his church, then surely we must have more than an ordinary degree of that spiritual force of character. And it manifests itself in all kinds of personalities and body shapes and builds and absence or presence of facial hair and chest hair and all of the rest. As I said to someone on one occasion, I'm not saying. I think it was when I preached the last academy message or somewhere in the past, not too distant, on this matter of being distinctively masculine.

33:43 I'm not talking about someone looking like an ex-NFL linebacker and having hair come up over the top of his buttoned shirt and having five o'clock shadow by ten in the morning. I'm not talking about that. These elements I have sensed in men whose physical build and whose clean face is probably only shaved once a month. And yet I wasn't in their presence three minutes before I sensed this spiritual force of character.

Tozer and Dabney on Prophetic Character

34:08 And it was there. How do you describe it? I've talked around it. As I close, listen to Dabney.

34:15 Dabney addresses it, attempts to address it. On page 31, volume two of his discussions on his essay on a call to the ministry, the scriptures which define the necessary qualifications of the minister may be digested in substance into the following particulars. A hearty and healthy piety, a fair reputation for holiness of life. Now listen to the third one.

34:43 A respectable force of character, some Christian experience, and aptness to teach. But he made this one of the three of five basic things. Let us repeat the remark that these particulars are given by the Holy Spirit as a rule by which the church is to judge in calling as well as the candidate in obeying the call. And then he goes on to amplify this matter.

35:12 And then he says this. The three qualifications next mentioned, fair reputation for sanctity of life, integrity, a respectable moral force of character and some degree of Christian experience may be grouped together. And here is the classic statement. The man whose Christian character does not command confidence and respect would, as a minister, only dishonor God and his cause.

35:40 Yet it is every man's duty to reform those inconsistencies by which he has forfeited the respect of mankind, whether he is to preach or not. And having thoroughly reformed them, he may find his way open into the pulpit. The minister must have some force of character. Now he is going to describe it in the negative way, the absence of it.

36:01 The feeble, undecided, shuffling man who cannot rule his own family nor impress and govern his inferiors by his moral force had better not preach. There may be cases where this weakness of character is found incurable although coexisting with genuine piety. Very perceptive insights. A man may have genuine piety but lack this force of character, what I have called more than an ordinary degree of the spiritual force of character.

Cultivating Essential Leadership Gifts

36:40 And then Dabney goes on to say for this very reason you don't go pushing novices into the ministry. Because some of these things simply takes time for them to develop to the point where they can be seen and as we observe God's people we see them beginning to gravitate to an individual as they begin to recognize without even being able to define it this quality of this spiritual force of character. So brethren, I lay these things before you as the third category of those gifts essential for one who would aspire to the office of an overseer. Not only the gifts

37:24 peculiar to the mind, peculiar to a gift of sanctified utterance, but these things connected with an ability to rule and to govern in Christ Church. And I remind you for the sake of the brethren visiting with us that on the front end I qualified and said these things must not necessarily be present and all discernment at this point in your preparation. However, before you allow any group of men to lay hands upon you and any church formally to receive you as a gift of Christ they must be present. They must be present.

38:04 And any time you wait for the cultivation of any of them that are lacking is not time lost. A man with these biblical requirements will accomplish more in five years than a man lacking any one of them will accomplish in twenty. And God knows we don't need more half-formed men in places of leadership but those whom God has endowed with the graces and gifts to be His servants. Amen.

Closing Remarks

38:34 Well, our time is gone. I've gone a few minutes over. I'm sorry that I've done that, brethren. I just lost contact with the clock at several points and I hope this has not caused inconvenience for any of you.

38:47 Those of you who must leave feel free to leave. Some of the men have work commitments.