I am going to take a view this afternoon on this subject of leadership in the church. Of course, I have to say there is a whole manual on leadership.
I do not think I need to underline or emphasize the fact that leadership is given a very important place in the Word of God.
One feels sometimes, in the kind of Christianity that has developed over the past centuries, that there is no place for the members of the body. The leader is everything. In fact, I must say, in some places the church is considered a backdrop to the minister’s ministry, to the pastor’s ministry.
You are trained as to how to keep your congregation, how to get their support, and how to keep them inspired. It seems almost as if the idea in the New Testament—that the church, the body, is the important thing—has been lost, and the means to the end has been made an end in itself.
Now, in recent years, praise the Lord, all over the face of the globe there has come a new awareness of the body of Christ. I cannot say for myself that it is always correct. But I remember, in the years when I first began to preach, that when one talked about the church as the body of Christ, people were quite puzzled. They looked at you in a confused and puzzled way, as though wondering whether you had come from the moon with some strange doctrine.
The church was something in which you left your Bible, or in which you left a handbag or an umbrella, if you live in Britain, or that kind of thing. A church was a place with a steeple or a belfry; or, if you belonged to another tradition, a place built as a sacred place of worship, but built in a deliberately ugly manner so that the people of God would not see it or become attached to it.
Strangely enough, the people of God became attached to the ugly places of worship just as much as to the beautiful places. But the church was thought of as a building, as a place.
Today, a revolution has taken place, and for this we must thank God. In some quarters it is called grassroots Christianity, but it is a revolution which I think has brought us back to the beginning, back to the essential nature of the church: being really members of Christ and members one of another.
Now, this thought of body ministry, as it is sometimes called—this body of the Lord Jesus functioning and being expressed—seems now to be a very common topic amongst the people of God. So much so that, within institutional circles and denominational circles, there are many such assemblies of God’s people who will consider now the whole matter of the functioning of the body.
Now, we are in danger of forgetting the place of leadership, because we can go too far in the other direction and become headless, so that somehow or other it is just and only a free-for-all. Everyone, therefore, does that which is right in their own eyes, instead of recognizing the place of leadership.
Now, of course, in the New Testament, technically leadership is expressed by elders in the church. These are called sometimes elders, which denotes their maturity and wisdom. Another word used for them is overseers, or bishops—not a bishop, but bishops.
So, in Philippians 1:1, the apostle Paul writes to the bishops and deacons in the church which is at Philippi. Overseers is a very interesting word, is it not? Those who oversee, as if something is developing and growing of itself, but has to be tended, watched over, and supervised—not in a heavy-handed way, but overseen.
So you have these two wonderful thoughts: on the one side, eldership; and on the other side, oversight. Both are the same people.
Now, whether we see the need today that we should have those whom we call elders or not, the fact is that in every company of God’s people—especially any company of God’s children who seek to be a functioning expression of the body of the Lord Jesus—there must be something equivalent to eldership. There must be some kind of leadership, and really that is what we are talking about.
Of course, we are not only talking about eldership, because that is the most obvious thing in the New Testament. We have the deacons as well. In one sense, deacons are also leaders. They are men who care, and deaconesses are ladies who care for certain aspects of the life of the church. They oversee that aspect under the leadership of the elders. Do you see what I mean?
So this matter has no end, actually, to it. Not only has it, as it were, the leadership of the whole local church, but also those aspects of its life which are the responsibility of brothers and sisters.
Now, I do hope that you all see just how important this matter is. In these days of growing anarchy and growing lawlessness, it is even more important that we who belong to the Lord Jesus should understand the necessity and the character of true leadership.
We do not want to come into the category of blind leaders of the blind. But if we look at church history, it seems that wherever we look, that which has begun in the Spirit has ended in the flesh, and that which has begun with true spiritual leadership has ended with blind leaders of the blind.
Now, therefore, as we move into the last phase of human history before the coming of the Messiah, we need to see how important it is for there to be the right kind of leadership. For those of you who have responsibility in the things of God, who have some sphere, department, or aspect of the life of a company of God’s children to care for, I want especially to speak, because I believe that your leadership is absolutely vital.
Now, the first thing I would like to underline is the accountability of leadership. The accountability of leadership.
God held Eli responsible for his sons. God held Adam responsible for Eve. God held Saul responsible for the nation.
It is no less so in the matter of the house of God. In the old days, the high priest and the priesthood were held responsible for anything and everything that happened within the house of God.
Now, let me put it as clearly as I can: whatever God commits to you, He holds you accountable for.
That is why, in the little letter of James, it says:
Be not many teachers, brethren,
for the teacher hath the greater judgment.
In other words, what James was saying by the Spirit of God was: all right, if you aspire to be a teacher, just remember that you have much more for which you are held responsible before God. Better not take on the office than to take it on irresponsibly.
If you are a teacher, you are accountable to God as a teacher. He holds you answerable for that gift, for that function, for that position, for that responsibility which He has entrusted to you.
If you look at 2 Corinthians 5:10, we read this:
For we must all be made manifest before the judgment seat of Christ;
that each one may receive the things done in the body,
according to what he hath done, whether good or bad.
In another place, Hebrews 13:17 says:
Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit to them;
for they watch in behalf of your souls, as they that shall give account,
that they may do this with joy and not with grief,
for this were unprofitable for you.
You are accountable. If God has given you a responsibility over the flock of God, within the household of God, or for the family of God—whether overall responsibility, responsibility for a particular part of His family, or responsibility for a particular aspect of the life of His family in a given place—you are accountable to God for that.
In 1 Corinthians 4:1-5, this is how the apostle argues:
Let a man so account of us, as of ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God.
Here, moreover, it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful.
But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you, or of man’s judgment: yea, I judge not mine own self.
For I know nothing against myself; yet am I not hereby justified: but He that judgeth me is the Lord.
Accountable.
In Matthew 25, our Lord told the story of the talents. This is not to do with salvation. Some people think it is to do with salvation, and therefore, when they come to the last one, they say, “Oh, the poor man has lost his salvation.”
You remember: one man had five talents, one man had two talents, and one man had one talent. The man who had five talents traded them and obtained a further five. When the master came back, he said:
Well done, thou good and faithful servant;
enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.
The man who had two talents—not five, only two—also traded the two that were given to him and increased them to four. He got exactly the same commendation from his lord:
Well done, thou good and faithful servant;
enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.
The one who had only one talent was very afraid. After all, he had only one talent, and he was afraid that he might lose it. So instead of trading it, he buried it. When the lord came, he said, “Here is Your one talent. I knew You were a hard and severe master. I knew You were very, very conscientious. So I buried this one talent.”
The lord was wrathful, and he said, “Take away the talent that he had and give it to those who had.”
Now, this seems terribly unjust to people. “Oh, the poor man has lost his salvation.” He has not lost his salvation. All he has lost is his place in the government of God. That is all.
Those who have learned how to govern, how really to rule in the things of God, how to be responsible, if you like—those are the ones to whom more is given. So, to the one who has, more shall be given; and to the one who has not, what he has will be taken away.
Now, I think this is a very, very important point in this whole matter of leadership and its accountability. We are accountable for what God has given us.
If He has given you responsibility over children’s work, you are accountable to God for the way you handle that work. If God has given you responsibility over the finances, you are responsible for the way that you handle those finances before God. If God has given you an overall responsibility, you are accountable to God for that responsibility.
Now, let us take this matter one step further, because it is very, very important for us to understand this. It is not that God has taken you and you now begin to feel a chip on your shoulder and say, “Well, why has God made me a leader? I just have not got the equipment. I am inadequate. I am unable to do this. I have the greatest sympathy with the one who went and buried his talent.”
This is where God catches you and me right out, because God never calls a person to a task without giving exactly the grace required to fulfil that task. Furthermore, He does not give you any gift or responsibility without the measure of faith you require to appropriate the grace of the Lord.
So both the grace and the faith are commensurate with the gift. If a man is an apostle, he has grace to fulfil his apostolic calling. It is not as if he has something more than you naturally. No: God has given him a calling and therefore has provided the grace necessary for that man to fulfil his apostolic calling and ministry.
If a man is a pastor or a teacher, then he has grace to fulfil his ministry as a pastor or a teacher. If a man is an elder, he has grace given to him to fulfil the very difficult responsibility of being an elder amongst the people of God. If you are a help in the body of Christ, then you will have grace to be a help.
So always there is grace. You will not have a great fund of grace as big as for an apostle if you have only been called to be a help. But you will not have grace only for being a help if you have been called to be an apostle.
Now, does everyone get this quite clear? This is why God is so severe on us in this matter. In other words, no man ought to be a leader who has not been called by God. There is no substitute for the divine ordination of God.
Neither theological seminaries, Bible colleges, institutional church boards, denominational get-togethers, nor anything else can ordain a man for leadership in the work of God if God has not called him.
This is where the enemy has done his worst and most terrible work amongst the people of God, insinuating into our midst many men and women who have no business to be there. They treat us like the world. It is a matter of ambition, status, degrees, and merely academic training—as if we were Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, or communists.
The whole heart of the matter concerning the church is that it is a divine, supernatural, heavenly organism. It is inexplicable to the natural man. Its leadership is produced and created from the right hand of God. It is the Head Who appoints men and women and qualifies them in the body of the Lord Jesus.
Now, this matter is very important. You want a few scriptures? Ephesians 4:7:
But unto each one of us was the grace given
according to the measure of the gift of Christ.
Now, please mark these words very carefully: “Unto each one of us was the grace given according to the measure of the gift of Christ.”
That is why, when the Lord comes to you, as it were, and holds you accountable for a matter, He can be so severe if you have buried the talents you have been given out of fear. You have no business to bury the talents. You are accountable because, if God has called you, if God has given you a responsibility, He has also given you grace commensurate with that responsibility. Therefore, you have no excuse.
Now, the problem is faith. I am talking about faith in the evenings, but here we are back again to the whole matter of faith. It is one thing to be called; it is one thing to know that there is grace available; but it is another thing to know how to appropriate the grace.
We may know as a doctrine that there is grace there, but when all the problems and difficulties pile in upon us in the matter of leadership, we are forced back into the ways of the world, the attitudes of the world, and really the energies of the world. It is also a matter of faith.
If you turn to Romans 12:3:
For I say, through the grace that was given me,
to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think;
but so to think as to think soberly,
according as God hath dealt to each man a measure of faith.
Is that not interesting? Not only grace, but faith. You are to think soberly according as God hath dealt to you a measure of faith. So here we have both grace and faith. Marvelous.
So now, in this matter of leadership, I hope you begin to see one point: none of us ought in any way to get involved in the matter of leadership, in whatever area it is in the church, unless God is calling us and God is obviously qualifying us.
I shall come in a moment to the matter of who will be able to distinguish this—whether you, whether the church, or whatever. But let us make that clear from the beginning: you cannot expect to find grace or faith if you are a square peg in a round hole.
There are plenty of them. I know people who have been square pegs in round holes, trying to fit in for forty or fifty years. Their ministries are as dry as dust. There is no committal of God to them, nothing at all, and yet on they go in a kind of endurance test, somehow believing that they ought to be there.
It is better to come face to face with reality in this whole matter. God holds you accountable for the flock over which He has given you responsibility, for the inheritance of the Lord Jesus for which He holds you responsible, and for the outworking of the purpose of God in that local company of believers.
Now, the second thing I would like to underline in this matter of leadership in the church is that spiritual character is an all-important factor.
Only God can produce leadership. It is not a matter of a title, a status given to us, a position into which we are placed, or training to which we have been subjected.
But in the world—and, I am afraid, in very much of Christendom in Christian things—we have adopted the idea of the world that a man may have a totally immoral character, but if he is a king, he is a king. The idea is that if we give someone a title, dress them up, and train them, of course they will be it.
Leadership is not a question of a title, status, or position. You cannot even produce it through training. Listen carefully to me: we can only train what is there.
If the leadership quality is there, we can train it. I am not against training. I never have been. What I am against is the kind of system by which, whether it is a Bible school or a theological seminary, we put people through some spiritual sausage machine, turn the thing, and squirt them out the other end.
Out they come, sort of fully qualified. They are now servants of the Lord, ministers of the Lord. They have spent years taking something in, like a tape on a tape machine, you understand? Suddenly we get them a degree, and out they go. Press the button, and we go—pause—for years.
Sometimes it takes some people seven or eight years to get over their training. They lose all their originality, all their real inward life with God, because of this false idea that we can produce servants of the Lord. You cannot produce a servant of the Lord. Only God the Spirit can produce a servant of the Lord.
Now, let me say this: training is another matter. There may be a place for Bible training. There may be a place for schooling some in matters of doctrine, truth, and even practice. Training is a principle we see everywhere in the Word of God.
Look how Elijah took Elisha under his wing. Look how the Lord Jesus took the twelve under His wing for three and a half years. Look how the apostle Paul carried a little band around with him. It was his training school on the move, all the time going along with him.
Of course, this matter of training is there. But if you and I think that we can train into being what is not there in the first place, we are going to end with something superficial or, at worst, counterfeit.
Only God can produce leadership. Once the qualities are there, they are there by the Spirit. Now, they can be marred. They can be marred.
I know people who have leadership qualities, but because they have never subjected themselves to discipline, never allowed themselves to be corrected, never allowed themselves to be brought into situations where they are broken, and never been able to submit to any kind of authority, their leadership amounts in value to nil.
We can dissipate what God intends for you and for me. But this matter of spiritual character is all-important, and that is why we have this tremendous emphasis within the Word of God, within the New Testament, on the matter of example. Example.
You do not seem to have shepherds and sheep over these parts at all, but on the other side of the Atlantic we are quite used to shepherds and sheep. In Israel, of course, it is part of daily life. Every now and again, a shepherd trails a whole lot of sheep almost through our front door. It is a very funny thing to be in a capital city and see sheep going across with shepherds, just like they have done it for three thousand years.
But there is a difference between European shepherds and Israeli shepherds. European shepherds follow the sheep, and normally have dogs running around doing the work ahead. Israeli shepherds do not like dogs, normally speaking. The Bedouin shepherds certainly do not like dogs; they have a thing against dogs.
So you will see some little lad who is a shepherd boy out there in front, with two hundred sheep and goats all following him. Wherever the shepherd goes, the sheep and goats go. It is a most extraordinary sight. They lead the sheep.
Now, in the armies of the West—American no less than European or British—all our officers stay in the back. Normally, this is not to be taken as any hit at the establishment, but normally the officers sit at the back and the men die in the front.
One of the businesses in every battle is that the men die in their thousands in the front, while the officers are all safe in the background. Of course, there is military strategy in it, because you want to keep the officer class. You want to keep the brains, because if you destroy them, you may lose a battle.
Now, in the Bible and in modern Israel, the tradition is still followed that officers must lead their men. That is why in every one of the Israeli battles and wars you find an enormous number of casualties, relatively speaking, among the officers. They have to lead their men into battle. They never stay in the background. They always go in the front with the men following them.
Now, the point in the Word of God is that we have to understand this. It is very important for us to understand what God means by leadership, because He wants leaders not who stay in the background directing everything from some safe vantage point. He wants men who are examples, who are pioneers.
If we speak of faith, we must be pioneers of faith. If we speak of devotion, we must be pioneers of devotion. If we speak of sacrifice, we must be pioneers in sacrifice. If we speak of humility, we must ourselves be pioneers or examples of humility.
That is why we have so much in the Word of God about example. Let me give you a few scriptures. 1 Peter 5:1-4:
The elders therefore among you I exhort, who am a fellow-elder,
and a witness of the sufferings of Christ,
who am also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed:
tend the flock of God which is among you, exercising the oversight,
not of constraint, but willingly, according to the will of God;
nor yet for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind;
neither as lording it over the charge allotted to you,
but making yourselves ensamples to the flock.
And when the chief Shepherd shall be manifested,
ye shall receive the crown of glory that fadeth not away.
Ensamples to the flock—not lording it over them, not becoming some petty little dictators in your own little empire, but an ensample to the flock.
Look again at 1 Timothy 3. We have not time to read the whole chapter, but most of you know that it is all to do with elders and deacons. Here is the interesting thing: it is not to do with techniques, methods, or patterns. It is all to do with character.
If you read carefully through, you find the apostle Paul saying, “Now make sure that elders have this kind of character.” The same is true with the deacons, and the same if you turn to Titus 1:6-9. You have exactly the same thing.
In Acts 20, when the apostle Paul is speaking to the elders of the church before he sets sail from Miletus, he says in verse 35 concerning himself:
In all things I gave you an example,
that so laboring ye ought to help the weak,
and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus,
that He Himself said, It is more blessed to give than to receive.
In 1 Timothy 4:12, we read:
Let no man despise thy youth;
but be thou an ensample to them that believe,
in word, in manner of life, in faith, in purity.
Example.
Now, in connection with this, may I make another remark which I think is sometimes overlooked? So important is this matter of spiritual character in those who are leaders that we have a very interesting little word attached to this matter of responsibility in the church, which is often overlooked.
Indeed, people take it as a message for all of us, but it is the little word: “Take heed to yourself.”
Look again in Acts 20:28. Listen to the words:
Take heed unto yourselves, and to all the flock,
in which the Holy Spirit hath made you bishops,
to feed the church of the Lord
which He purchased with His own blood.
Is that not a most interesting thing? He did not simply say, as you would expect, “Take heed to the flock in which the Lord has made you overseers.” He said, “Take heed to yourselves, and to the flock.”
Give your own life as much attention. Do not think that you may not yourself fall. Think that, because of the position into which God has led you, the enemy would work even more to bring you down.
You can talk to others of devotion, and your own devotion can grow cold. You can talk to others about faith and the necessity of faith, and you yourself no longer exercise faith. You may talk to others about purity, and your mind is filled with evil thoughts. You can talk to others about single-heartedness, and you are double-minded and unstable.
You did not begin that way, but that is how you have come. There is a saying that power corrupts, and total power corrupts totally.
It is very true that when we are young in the work, in the things of God, and in the service of God, we can be so lean—no excess flesh—spiritually athletic, spiritually flexible, spiritually alert. But then, when we come to take responsibility and God is with us and we begin to see things developing, we can become lax.
Somehow or other, the tragedy is that in the end we are tripped up.
Take another scripture in this matter. In 1 Timothy 4:16:
Take heed to thyself, and to thy teaching.
There is a very interesting word about teaching. I just say this in passing. How easy it is, when we are young in the Lord and have the fear of God, to be very, very careful about what we teach. How dangerous it is, once we have an accepted and popular ministry, to begin to allow error to creep into our teaching.
Some of us could say so much about movements which I think began in the Spirit but have gone right off the rails on this very matter.
Take heed to thyself and to thy teaching. Never think that because God has been with you and is committed to you, the enemy could not seduce you, or that some kind of doctrine of demons could not be insinuated into your ministry.
Of course, there are other scriptures. You all know them well, but they are not specifically to do with leadership, though they apply in general. For example, 1 Corinthians 10:12:
Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth
take heed lest he fall.
Or Galatians 6:1:
Brethren, even if a man be overtaken in any trespass,
ye who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness;
looking to thyself, lest thou also be tempted.
So spiritual character, in this matter of leadership, is all-important.
Now, may I say something else? The third thing I want to underline this afternoon is the emergence of leadership in the church.
It is a very interesting thing, and I well remember the shock with which it first came to me when I discovered that the apostle Paul never appointed elders on his first missionary journey.
If you think for a few moments, he could easily have done it. After all, he had begotten those churches everywhere, and there they were, thriving in a great spiritual condition. Why could he not take Silas and Timothy—or Barnabas, or somebody else—and go aside for a few days of prayer and fasting? The Lord could say, “Now then, so-and-so, so-and-so, and so-and-so: they are the leaders.”
Then they could have come forward and said, “By revelation, God has shown us you, you, and you are leaders.” They could have been right. They could have been right.
But Paul would have done untold damage to those ones’ spiritual growth if they had been recognized too early.
It is on his return journey that elders were appointed. Of course, that journey was nothing like today. I could go to Toronto, for instance, or somewhere like St. Catharines. I could go up on a plane tomorrow and be back the next day. I could go up there for a few days, have a great time of fellowship and ministry, and then come back. But not in the old days.
The way the apostle went could take anything up to nine months or eighteen months—a journey right the way round and then all the way back. It was on the way back, you see, when time had been given for the organic development of the church.
For those following this carefully, the scripture is Acts 14:23. But I want to add another very interesting one: Titus 1:5:
For this cause left I thee in Crete,
that thou shouldest set in order the things that were wanting,
and appoint elders in every city, as I gave thee charge.
Now, I find this very interesting. Why did the apostle Paul not say to Titus, “Now, Titus, I am going to have to go, and I think it would be a very good idea if we had a time of waiting upon the Lord and fasting. We will get clearly from the Lord those who ought to be the right men”?
Instead, no doubt they must have talked about it, prayed about it, and probably even discussed names at some point, but he left Titus behind in order to allow for the organic development of leadership. Do not over-quickly recognize it.
That is why, in 1 Timothy 5:22, the apostle Paul says:
Lay hands on no man hastily;
neither be partaker of other men’s sins.
It does not mean that you must never roughly take hold of someone. No, of course it does not mean that. It means that you do not recognize somebody’s office, ministry, or position in the household of God too quickly. Do not do it hastily. Wait.
Leadership always emerges through the work of the Holy Spirit. He is the One Who is the custodian of the things of God, and He is, in particular, in charge of the house of God.
Now, how do we see these things? I am quite sure that if it is a question merely of a small matter within the church, there are things which we can take up and drop, if you get what I mean.
People get into a great sweat over this whole thing. They say, “Oh, but you have just said we are accountable to God. I dare not look after giving everyone a cup of coffee at the end of a time of fellowship, not unless the Lord calls me.”
Well, I would have thought it sufficient if one or two brethren approached you and said, “Could you do this?” and you said, “Yes, I will.”
I want to tell you something. It is a most interesting thing to me that when a great argument arose in the early church—which, of course, was all Jewish—in the very beginning they were divided into two types of Jews. I have often thought they were rather like Britishers and Americans.
There were the go-ahead, Greek-speaking Jews, who were always in front of every great drive forward anywhere in the Roman Empire, and the very conservative, orthodox, Hebrew-speaking Jews, who were always holding everything back. They tended to be the deeper ones, but they were rather stuffy.
An argument grew up within the early church about the distribution of money to the widows. The Greek-speaking widows said, “We are not getting the food we should be getting. They are feeding all those Hebrew-speaking widows, and when they come to us, there is no more.”
So the church waited on God. The apostles said, “Let us wait on the Lord,” and together they set aside seven men. The interesting thing was that every one of these men belonged to the Greek-speaking Jews. Every one had a Greek name.
I thought it was a very beautiful thing on the part of the Hebrew-speaking Jewish believers that they said, “All right, all right, all right, we will appoint the others of the opposition.”
But here is the most interesting thing: these people did not remain in their offices too long, it seems. Before long, one of them, Philip, was a flaming evangelist, going all round holding great meetings, hundreds being saved, going out into the desert by the Spirit of God and meeting the Ethiopian eunuch and bringing him to the Lord—and he, in turn, bringing many in Ethiopia to the Lord.
Then we have Stephen, one of the greatest teachers the church has known. Some people believe that Stephen’s words actually underlie the letter to the Hebrews. If Stephen had lived, he would have been the peer of the apostle Paul in teaching ability and understanding.
How interesting this all is. Evidently, the distribution of the funds and the food was not a job for life. It was a kind of training ground, almost a testing ground. Once they proved faithful there, the Holy Spirit moved them on into something far more valuable.
Now, how do we recognize the emergence of leadership? It seems to me that there are two things involved in principle.
One is that the church itself recognizes something. I do not believe that you ever have leaders within the church whom the church does not—if it is a company of spiritual people—intuitively recognize.
The church is amazing in its own way. It can be very young, it can be very failing, and there can be many things that are not right; yet somehow, within the church, if it really is the church, there is a collective intuition about people and about things.
I think that is quite important. The other thing is that it seems to me there has to be recognition from brethren who have responsibility greater than local. In other words, as I see it in the Word, especially in leadership there are brethren who are able to confirm what the church really feels.
So it is like a marriage. Something is terribly wrong in a marriage when a husband has continually to say to his wife that she must be subject to him. When people have to read the riot act continually to one another, something is wrong. When wives have to moan and groan about husbands who do not love them, something is wrong.
You have to throw the book at them and say, “You see what it says? Husbands, love your wives.” There is something terribly wrong, is there not, in a happy relationship?
In a happy relationship, I think many a word a wife whispers is taken as papal infallibility. She does not have to bawl at the top of her voice, “This and this should be done.” She only has to whisper something, and somehow the husband feels it was his own idea.
Is it not so? When there is a really good relationship, it is a relationship of love, order, and one in which you do not often even have to define the various sides. It is only when it breaks down that we have to say clearly, “Look, something has gone wrong. You should be this, and you should be that.”
But when it is the right thing, it seems to me that in the church it is very much like that. There is an intuition within a company of God’s people as to those who really have the right qualities and calling. They feel it inside, and the recognition is confirmed, it seems to me, in the appointment by those outside.
Now, can I come to the end of this afternoon? I do not know whether you are going to have questions as a result of all this, or whether it is all marvelously self-explanatory. How can we recognize leadership qualities?
Now, I am going to warn you right at the beginning that I have here seven questions. I must say that I find it very difficult to find myself here. Nevertheless, I shall give you the seven questions.
First of all, is there an anointing of God in him or her? I put that first.
Is there an anointing of God in him or her? I am not asking whether they have had some experience that knocked them out for forty-eight hours, or whether they lay on the floor and could say nothing. I am not asking whether they have been caught up to the third heaven and heard things not lawful to utter.
I am asking this: does God come down on what they say and do? Does He come through what they say and do?
It is the difference between chalk and cheese: between those leaders of whom you are conscious that it is just human—what they say is human, what they do is human—and somebody else who can say the same words, and immediately you are in the presence of the Lord.
This is not natural charisma. Spurgeon once said, “If a man is going to preach, He does not take a man with half a lung.” You get what I mean.
When God is going to use a person to teach the early church, He takes a brain like the apostle Paul’s and then breaks him, and then puts his brain back together again under the anointing of the Holy Spirit. Then we have something.
The brain itself can do nothing in the things of God. But when God takes the brain and puts it through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, and out into the anointing of God by the Spirit, then we have got something to work with.
So it is with everything. Is there an anointing of God in him or her? Is he filled with the Spirit?
The apostle Paul says in one or two places—though this is not talking about leadership in the local church—“Am I lacking in signs or wonders that I did amongst you, that are the evidence of my apostleship?” When a man is called, there is evidence that he is called. It does not matter how small it is.
There are some people here who are looking after aspects of the work of this conference, and there is a way they do it that just brings you face to face with the Lord. Other people could do the job and all you would see is them. But all the difference when somebody does it under the anointing: then it is God Who comes down upon it and through it.
Is he or she filled with the Spirit? Is it not interesting that nobody was given even the task of distributing food amongst quarrelling widows who was not filled with the Spirit? If the qualification was that they had to be filled with the Spirit to fulfil even so small a function as distributing food, where are we?
Here is my second question: is there a basic faithfulness?
1 Corinthians 4:2 says:
Moreover it is required in stewards,
that a man be found faithful.
Does he or she give the Lord absolute priority? No expediency. No compromise. Does he or she finish what he or she begins? Is there a basic faithfulness in him or her?
Thirdly, is there an essential meekness? 2 Timothy 2:24-25 says that in meekness we should correct those who oppose themselves.
Now, what is meekness? Meekness is to be teachable. Is he or she teachable?
Why is it that when people become leaders they become unteachable? How is it that some small member of the family cannot teach them something? It is a basic insecurity and fear in them. That is what it is: a feeling of inadequacy, so that they cannot receive from anybody lest they lose face in front of them.
But the meek person can learn from anybody. Does he or she have a hearing ear? Have they themselves submitted to authority? Is there an essential meekness in him or her?
Fourthly, is there a serving attitude toward everyone?
Mark 10:43-45. Remember, the Lord said, “Do not lord it over, as the Gentiles love to lord it over one another, but be servants—bondslaves—one to another.” Then He goes on and says:
For the Son of man came not to be ministered unto,
but to minister,
and to give His life a ransom for many.
Is there a serving attitude toward everyone? Is he or she a servant or a boss? A minister or a dictator? A life laid down, or an ambition promoted?
Fifthly, is the love of God the constraining factor?
2 Corinthians 5:14:
The love of Christ constraineth us.
What motivates him or her? Ambition? Power? Success? Self-fulfilment or self-satisfaction?
Now, let me get this quite clear: there is nothing wrong in ambition. I do not know whether there has ever been a great leader in the history of the church who has not had some ambition at some point to be somebody and something. Again, it is a question of whether God has been able to break the sting within it.
There is an idea among some believers that we have all got to be ninnies: take out the backbone, make us all weak, pale, and anemic. “No, no, I do not want to do anything. I do not want to be here. No, no, no, I do not want anything.” That is not so.
You cannot be good soldiers of Jesus Christ, enduring hardship, and be like some of the ninnies that go for Christians. They have got the idea that meekness is weakness—a kind of self-affliction, a kind of severity to the flesh. If you look anemic, poor, and broken—oh, it is nonsense.
These people have wills like iron. They sit in the back row and look as if they do not want anything, but boy, they make their feelings and their will known in every single thing that happens in the church. They are the first to collide with anybody. No, no, no, this is not so.
I would rather have one of those dreadful fleshly types of people who is full of ambition and says, “I want to bust the lot,” and then God gets hold of them.
If we had known Saul of Tarsus before he was saved, I imagine that man had ambition. He was like a flaming fire, like a meteor, until God paralysed him. Then he became the great apostle Paul.
I am only saying this to correct any false idea that what it means is that we do not have any ambition. We just sit there doing nothing. We become passive little ninnies who never open our mouths and never want anything. It is nonsense.
The Book says:
He that desireth the office of a bishop
desireth a good thing.
But then it says, “Make love your aim.” Such ambition has to be dealt with. Still, here we have this question: is the love of God the constraining factor?
A man cannot help having ambition if he is ambitious by nature. But if the love of God has got into him, then there are all the glorious possibilities that God will take him to a place where he will meet his Waterloo, his end, and come out the other end a new man in Christ, in reality.
Perfect love casts out fear and insecurity. I think there is an awful lot of insecurity amongst leaders. That is why they snap and snarl. That is why they get all funny when challenged on anything, or sometimes cannot take any criticism or suggestion. It is a basic feeling of inadequacy and insecurity.
When God has called us, we can take it all to God. Like Moses, we fall on our faces before the Lord and say, “Now, Lord, what shall we do?”
Sixthly, is there a purity of heart? Is there a purity of heart?
Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they shall see God.
Are there unsettled issues in that life—serious issues, basic issues? Now, all of us have issues all the way through life, but are there basic issues unsettled in that life? Is there double-mindedness? Are they seeking to serve God and mammon?
Purity of heart. May I say this for your encouragement? Most people think of Jacob as the most twisted character in the whole Book, the one whom you would think most opposite to pure in heart. Yet he saw God.
I contend that, deeper than all the twistedness of his nature, Jacob actually was pure in heart. Deep, deep down, he wanted God and he wanted the things of God with all his heart. The trouble was the way he tried to get them.
When finally he saw the Lord face to face and lived, he was a different man and became a prince with God and with men. Pure in heart.
Just because we have problems does not mean that we have not, right deep down within our being, a heart for God. It is that which finally brings a person through.
Lastly, is his or hers a life laid down?
When a person lays down their life, they lay down their life. They do not take it again. A person taking up their cross was a person whose life was already over.
They had no compromises, no issues to settle, no point of expediency. Their life was over—just a short few steps from the sentence to the place of execution.
That is what Jesus meant when He said:
If any man would follow Me,
let him deny himself,
take up his cross,
and follow Me.
In other words, give up all right to yourself. Is his or hers a life laid down?
These questions help us to distinguish whether the qualities of leadership are in a person or not. A very high standard—but only God knows the kind of standard we need in these days.
Should we just bow together in a word of prayer?
Now, Lord, we just bow here in Thy presence. Lord, we pray that Thou wouldst help us in this whole matter of leadership. Such a big matter.
Lord, all of us want to please Thee. We want to be those, Lord, who serve Thee in the church, who really are functioning in the place that Thou hast called us to, discharging the responsibility thus committed to us.
Heavenly Father, we pray that every one of us, whether we have five talents, two talents, or one talent, may by that grace and faith made available to us increase what Thou hast given, and realize the full potential of what Thou hast given to us.
Dear Lord, left to ourselves we shall all fail. We shall make a hopeless mess not only of our own lives and ministries, but, Lord, of the church itself. Save us from ourselves, Lord, we pray.
Grant that we may be so filled with the Holy Spirit, and may know, Lord, what it is to walk in the way of the cross, that, Lord, we shall be enabled to fulfil the ministry Thou hast given us, and may hear finally that, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.”
Lord, we ask this for the glory of Thy name. Amen.