Principles of Effective Leadership - Part 1

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Well, I do want us to consider tonight principles for effective leadership. Leadership is really a daunting thing when you think about it. It was difficult for Franklin Roosevelt to persuade Harry Truman to be his running mate in 1944 in the presidential election. Truman wanted to return to the Senate, but the incumbent vice-president was highly unpopular and so after a great deal of coaxing and with extreme reluctance, Truman agreed to run with Roosevelt as VP. On April 12, 1945, Truman was summoned to the White House. There Eleanor Roosevelt told him that President Roosevelt was dead. After a moment of shock and silence, Truman asked Eleanor Roosevelt if there was anything he could do to help her. She shook her head no, and then she added this: “Is there anything we can do for you? You are the one in trouble now.” 

When most of us step into leadership, that is exactly how we feel: we are the ones in trouble now. That’s equally true when it comes to leadership in the church. My goal tonight is to help each of us: to remind us in some cases of things that we know; hopefully to expose you to some things you haven’t considered; but together, for us to become better leaders. Just like we need to be showing progress in our teaching, those of us who are teachers, we all need to be showing progress in our leadership.

So, let me start where we all should start and that is, by making sure we understand the church and how leadership fits into the church. In Matthew 16:18, you remember, Jesus said, “I will build My church.” Christ has a plan for how His church, how this church, should function. No passage in Scripture makes that clearer and Ephesians chapter 4. You are familiar with it. You can turn there with me. This is not where we are going to spend our time, but just remind you. Ephesians chapter 4, verse 7: “But to each one of grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift.” And then skip down to verse 11, “He [Christ] gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ.” That is Christ’s plan for the church. If any church wants to be a biblical New Testament church, it has to follow this plan that is Christ’s plan for every church. If we want to honor Christ as a church, we have to follow this divine program. 

So, what is Christ’s plan? Again, I am just going to remind you, you know this, but there are five distinct parts of Christ’s plan. First of all, as we saw in verse 7, Christ distributes spiritual gifts to the members of the church. Every member, every person who is part of the body of Christ receives a giftedness. Then, Christ appoints the leaders of the church. We saw that in verse 11. There are these positions of leadership that He has placed in His church. Thirdly, the leaders, then, are responsible to according to verse 12, to equip the members of the church: verse 12 says, “for the equipping of the saints.” That’s what the leaders exist to do. That is, the leaders listed in verse 11: the elders; the pastor-teachers. And the fourth part of Christ’s plan is the members accomplish the ministry or service of the church. 

Now what forms does this service in the church take? In other words, what are the members of the church supposed to be doing when they do the work of service in the church? Well, basically the church has three duties: it has a ministry to God, which is worship; a ministry to believers, which is nurture and care; and a ministry to the world, which is evangelism which can include mercy as well. You, every single one of us, you have been given a spiritual giftedness by Christ to enable you to serve in one or a combination of those ways. In Christ’s plan, the members of the church are equipped by the elders of the church to do the service of the church. The fifth part of the plan is the plan results and the growth of the church, verse 12 says, “to the building up of the body of Christ.” That’s Christ’s plan. That’s His plan for this church. It’s His plan for every church. 

So, how do you who are leaders at Countryside fit into that plan? Well, think of it like this: just like the apostles in Acts chapter 6, the elders of this church can’t do all the ministries of this church. You understand that. But not only can we not do all the ministries of the church, we can’t lead all the ministries of this church. So, our role as elders is to identify those who can lead and equip them to lead God’s people. The elders are responsible to identify and train. They are responsible to identify and train the men that God has called to lead the entire church, the elders and deacons, and to identify and train the faithful and gifted people like you whom Christ has gifted to lead the ministries of this church. That is why this seminar. As Jonathan said, many of you have been serving a long time and you could teach this seminar probably instead of me. Others of you are newer and you will benefit greatly from some of the things we will talk about tonight. But there are also going to come others who are coming from different church backgrounds and different circumstances whom Christ has gifted and they will eventually step into leadership roles in this church. And they may not have ever seen what leadership in the church looks like. So, this seminar exists for all of those purposes: to remind those of us who are seasoned leaders; to further encourage those of us who now have experience in that and are growing in that; and to train those who are truly new to what leadership in the church might look like. So that is the goal tonight. We created the seminar on leadership to that end. The elders want to maintain and develop a culture of strong lay leadership. We are so grateful we get a chance to pour into the lives of men that God brings to the Master’s Seminary Distance location here in Dallas. But the elders never want Countryside to become a staff or seminary led church. Our desire is to intentionally structure ministry leadership to include levels of lay leadership that transcend those who come and go as they are trained, prepared and sent out. So that is what this evening is really about. It’s an effort to equip us all in the tasks Christ has called us to. 

Now, leaders, I think you understand, cannot and are not called to do everything. Leaders lead others. I can’t do everything in this church, and you can’t do everything in the ministry that you lead. That’s not how leadership works. So, the question is what are the keys to being a competent leader? How can you and I become the kind of leaders that people respect and follow? What are the principles of effective leadership? Well, there are really only two key principles, and we are going to look at them tonight in some detail. The first one that will occupy this first session is be the right kind of leader. This has to do with who you are as a person. The second half of our evening is we are going to focus on exercising the right kind of leadership. What is effective leadership? What does that look like as you actually carry out leadership in your ministry? That is where we are going tonight. This first session is about you and me. The second session is about how we lead the ministries we have been called to lead.

So, let’s begin then by considering being the right kind of leader—being the right kind of leader. About six years ago, some of you who have been here will remember, I had emergency eye surgery. The problem is a stealthy disease called glaucoma. Pressure slowly builds up within the eye and destroys the optic nerve over time until blind spots begin to develop in your vision. Left untreated, those blind spots eventually grow into total permanent blindness in that eye. I was diagnosed with glaucoma at the eye of 20, it runs in my family. I have nine siblings—all of us had it. My mom had it. It’s part of the polluted gene pool. It is just a reality. Since that time—since the age of 20—in spite of daily eye drops, morning and evening, sometimes a regimen of two, which I do now, and multiple surgeries, including a knife surgery on my right eye, the nerve in my right eye is still damaged. It is damaged forever because of this disease. I have a blind spot that’s a quarter of the size of the field of vision. The good news is the way God made us with so much redundancy, my left eye so covers it that I, day to day, don’t even know it—I’m not even aware of it. Just God’s goodness. Until I was tested, I was absolutely clueless that I had a blind spot in my eye because of blind spot, by definition, is something that you are not aware of—you don’t know it is there until it is diagnosed. 

I thought about that because as frightening as the threat of a blind spot is in our physical vision, far more frightening is the reality that as leaders in Christ’s church we can develop blind spots spiritually. Left untreated, those leadership blind spots can effectively destroy our ministries. Our Lord is the only One that can help us avoid the blind spots that we can easily develop as spiritual leaders. And that is exactly what He does in the text that I want to begin with tonight and that is Matthew 23. Turn there with me—Matthew 23.

Matthew here devotes this entire chapter to Jesus’ last public sermon preached on Tuesday of the Passion week. It was, as you know, a full-frontal assault against Israel’s spiritual leaders. Now, what is interesting about Matthew 23, is Jesus targeted this sermon at two different audiences. You’ll notice, beginning in verse 13, all the way down through verse 36, Jesus directly speaks to and confronts the scribes and pharisees. He pronounced a series of seven woes on them. For example, look at verse 13: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites,”—He’s talking to them directly there on that massive temple mount with a huge Passover crowd listening in. 

But before Jesus spoke to them, in verses 1 to 12, Jesus spoke to the people and to His disciples about them. Look at chapter 23, verse 1: “Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and to His disciples.” Luke is even more specific, it says this in Luke 20:45: “while all the people were listening,” He spoke to His disciples. It is Jesus’ message to His disciples that I want us to think about because it is a lesson on leadership. It is a lesson on being the right kind of leader. Let’s read it together and then we will look at it. Matthew 23, verse 1:

Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and to His disciples, saying: “The scribes and the Pharisees have seated themselves in the chair of Moses; therefore all that they tell you, do and observe, but do not do according to their deeds; for they say things and do not do them. They tie up heavy burdens and lay them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are unwilling to move them with so much as a finger. [But] they do all their deeds to be noticed by men; for they broaden their phylacteries and lengthen the tassels of their garments. They love the place of honor at banquets and the chief seats in the synagogues, and respectful greetings in the marketplaces, and being called Rabbi by men. But do not be called Rabbi; for One is your Teacher, and you are all brothers. Do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven. Do not be called leaders; for One is your Leader, that is, Christ. But the greatest among you shall be called your servant. Whoever exalts himself shall be humbled; and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted.

Our Lord in those twelve verses, diagnoses the most common spiritual blind spots that leaders develop. But even more importantly, in doing that, Jesus also explains how to be the right kind of leader. Christ used the scribes and Pharisees as a negative example of spiritual leadership to His disciples to really accomplish two goals, I think. First of all, to identify the flaws in the leadership of the scribes and Pharisees, but secondly, to admonish His disciples including us not to imitate their leadership. So, in these verses, then, Jesus is really teaching us how to be the right kind of leader: a leader that is the antithesis of the kind of leader the Pharisees were. 

In this really extraordinary passage, Jesus explains to us here the five key commitments of an effective leader. The five key commitments of an effective leader. If you want to be the right kind of leader, first of all, you must demonstrate personal integrity. You must demonstrate personal integrity. Look at verses 2 and 3 again: “The scribes and the Pharisees have seated themselves in the chair of Moses; therefore all that they tell you, do and observe, but do not do according to their deeds; for they say things and do not do them.” Now, you know this, but the scribes and Pharisees together constituted the core of Israel’s spiritual leadership. And of these men, Jesus says in verse 2, “They have seated themselves”—notice—“in the chair of Moses.” We use that same expression, right? We talk about the chair of a university department or whatever. The idea here is that they had seated themselves in the teacher’s chair. That’s the idea. Jesus’ point is that they claim to be the authoritative teachers of the Scripture. 

But what Jesus says next is more difficult to understand, verse 3: “therefore all that they tell you, do and observe.” Now the reason that is a little puzzling is because Jesus often criticized the teaching of the Pharisees, especially their traditions. In fact, He’s going to do so later in this sermon. So, what did He mean by “all that they tell you do and observe”? Well, you have to read it in conjunction with the second half of the verse, because He is making one point when you put the two halves together. He intends to point out the disconnect between what they taught and how they lived. Look at the second half of verse 3: “but do not do according to their deeds; for they say things and do not do them.” The point in verse 3 is that they fail to practice what they preached. In other words, they lacked personal integrity. Nothing will undermine our leadership in this church or in any spiritual enterprise more than a lack of personal integrity: a failure to apply the truth to ourselves. That kind of leadership is no different than the Pharisees. That’s what Jesus is saying. He’s saying to His disciples, “Don’t be like that.” You don’t have to have the Pharisees’ theology or the Pharisees’ lifestyle, remember how Jesus described them? He said that they were whitewashed tombs full of dead men’s bones. They washed the outside of the cup, but the inside was, you know, like the cup on my desk when my assistant doesn’t help me remember that it needs to be washed. It grows things and you know, you just need to rinse it out and it is good to go. They were like that. They were like that inside. Jesus says, “Don’t be like that.”

Now, don’t misunderstand. You don’t have to be all that the Pharisees were. You don’t have to have a secret life of sin to breech your integrity. There just has to be a gap between what you claim you believe and how all the people around you see you live. If you aren’t sure that there’s a gap, ask your spouse; ask your children; ask the people who know best. Not are you perfect? None of us are. My children, I have to seek their forgiveness like you have to seek your children’s forgiveness. I sin. I sin against them. But they know, and this is what is important, that we really believe what we say publicly, and we desire to be that and to pursue that and we are pursuing that with all of our hearts. That is what we mean by integrity. Ultimately, it is the integrity of a leader that establishes the credibility of his leadership. In the church, the most important thing is for you to be consistently a Christian: in private; in your family; with the people you lead. Because Jesus says this will kill your spiritual leadership, if there is a disconnect between what you claim and who you are; what you teach and what you live. 

How can we avoid that disconnect between our lives and our profession or teaching? Let me just suggest a couple of practical steps. First of all, be faithful in daily time in the Word and prayer. That seems so obvious but let me just say it this bluntly to you: when I talk with someone who is struggling with obedience to Christ almost always, I won’t say always because there might be an exception here or there, but almost always, they have neglected their time in personal Bible study and prayer on a daily basis. Almost always. And that is no difference for leaders. Can I just tell you that in spiritual leadership you are so busy that it can be very easy to neglect the most basic spiritual disciplines and what is going to happen to you is what would happen to me or anyone else if you neglect that, your soul is going to shrivel. You are going to open yourself up to temptation. As I tell guys all the time, the more you neglect those things, the voice of those temptations that you have gained a foothold against, and you are making progress against, the voice of those temptations gets louder. So, be faithful.

Secondly, always meditate on the Scripture. Meditate on the Scripture. Don’t have your time in the Word in the morning or whenever you have it and then sort of throw your Bible in the cabinet and you don’t think about it again the rest of the day. I have checked that box and that is done. You have to live in the Scripture. Remember Psalm 1, “The righteous man meditates in God’s Word day and night. You have to live in it for it to live in you. Joshua 1:8: “This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it.” Without meditation, you won’t practice what you profess and what you teach and there will be a disconnect in your personal integrity. 

Thirdly, never tolerate your sin however small it may seem. It is interesting, in Matthew 18:8: Jesus says, “If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; it is better for you to enter life crippled or lame, than to have two hands or two feet and be cast into the eternal fire.” Obviously, Jesus wasn’t saying, “Go maim yourself.” He was saying “Be willing to take radical steps to deal with the sin in your life”—to cut it out of your life. It’s shocking to me how many Christians struggle with sin but never take any serious steps to cut that sin out of their lives. We must pursue personal holiness. When you sin, and you sin just like I do, confess that sin quickly; study what the Scripture teaches about that sin, about the opposite virtue; seek to put off and to put on with that new understanding of the Scripture; ask for the help of the Holy Spirit for Christ’s help as your Savior; and take practical steps to cut that sin out of your life. The first commitment of an effective spiritual leader and my prayer for all of us, is that we would demonstrate personal integrity.

Secondly, in verse 4, love God’s people. Verse 4 says, “They tie up heavy burdens and lay them on men’s shoulders.” The expression that is “tie up heavy burdens,” that expression is used in secular Greek to describe preparing loads that animals or slaves carry. The picture is tying a bunch of smaller things together, tying small sticks or stalks of grain together, so that they can be easily carried. The scribes and Pharisees had done that with their traditions. They had bound all their traditions and ceremonial rules together, along with all the law demanded until it became a heavy load that was impossible to bear. And then they laid it on people’s shoulders. And what a perfect picture of legalism. 

But Christ’s point here is not the heavy load. Even without their added tradition, the legitimate requirements of God’s law are heavy in the sense that there is a lot that God demands and expects. Jesus’ point again comes in the second half of the verse. Look at the second half of verse 4, “but they themselves are unwilling to move them with so much as a finger.” Now, don’t misunderstand, that doesn’t mean that the Pharisees didn’t follow their own rules. They often did so meticulously. Even tithing their spices. Jesus’ point is that they wouldn’t move their little finger to help others weighed down by the load. Here’s what D. A. Carson writes in his commentary on this passage. He says, “They refused to help those who collapsed under their rules.” In other words, they utterly lacked love and compassion for the people that they were supposed to serve. This was a terrible breach in their leadership. True spiritual leaders, Jesus says, are not like the scribes and Pharisees. They have love and compassion for the people they are called to serve. 

Of course, Christ was the perfect example of that loving leadership. Matthew 11:29, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” Or consider Paul, in 1 Thessalonians 2:6, “as apostles of Christ we might have asserted our authority. But we proved to be gentle among you, as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children.” You want a model for ministry—for your ministry—there it is. Be like Paul. Treat the people that you lead like a nursing mother treats her child as Paul says he did in Thessalonica. True spiritual leaders are always tender and loving and compassionate with people. 

How do we manifest this kind of practical love for God’s people? I am not going to go back through this, but I am just going to remind you, we saw it in 1 John, didn’t we? We are supposed to love sacrificially. In fact, just look at that passage. Look at 1 John chapter 3, verse 16, we are supposed to love, and we know what love looks like by this: He, our Lord “laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” He is saying, “Our love is to be a sacrificial love.” We are to put ourselves out for the sake of the people we serve. Our love is to be a practical love. Look at verses 17 and 18 in that same chapter: “Whoever has the world’s goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him? Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth.” Love the people you serve practically. Make the phone call. Take the meal. Have the discussion that is a hard discussion. See if they have a financial need and talk with the elders about meeting that need or maybe you choose to meet it personally. Keep their kids. Visit them in the hospital. Attend the funeral of their loved one. Put yourself out for the benefit and blessing of those you serve. Love God’s people. By the way, biblical love not only shows itself sacrificially and practically, but it shows itself relationally. I won’t turn there because you are painfully aware of this passage—we all are—in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, he lays out the ways that love doesn’t act in its relational interaction with others. This is how we love God’s people. True Christians love God’s people, not with normal human love, but with a divine love implanted in us by the Holy Spirit. And true spiritual leaders are exemplary of that love. They show it sacrificially, practically, relationally. 

So, the greatest commitments that effective spiritual leaders need make are demonstrate personal integrity and love God’s people. A third commitment of effective leaders is seek God’s glory. Look at verse 5: “But they do all their deeds to be noticed by men.” That is an astounding statement. I mean, our Lord who knows the hearts of everyone says, notice again, verse 5: “They do all their deeds to be noticed by men.” And then He gives two examples: the first example in verse 5 is “for they broaden their phylacteries.” You know what those are. Those are those small leather or parchment boxes which contained either parchment or vellum inscribed with Old Testament text from Exodus 13, Deuteronomy 6 and Deuteronomy 11. Why did they do that? Well, because remember Deuteronomy 6 had said that we are to keep the Word of God between our eyes and near our hearts. And so, they wore these boxes with the Scripture on their left arms next to their heart and tied to their forehead between their eyes. Now, you know, of course, that those expressions were intended and originally understood to metaphorical but between the testaments, the Jews began to practice them literally. So, during the public worship and times of prayer, Jewish men wore and by the way, still wear, these boxes. If you are on a flight, El Al flight to Israel or if you are at the Western Wall or you are anywhere there are Orthodox Jews, you’ll see this still done today. 

But the Pharisees went even beyond that. The Pharisees wore them constantly instead of just the time of prayer and they made them bigger to cover more of their forehead and more of their heart. That way everyone could see how much more they were devoted to the Scripture than ordinary people were. It’s like carrying around the family bible. You know, imagine walking to church next Sunday and here comes someone with the family bible. “Look at me! I love God’s Word! Unlike you mere mortals who bring it on your phone.” That’s what they were saying; that was the purpose. 

Christ’s second example, notice in verse 5, is they lengthen their tassels. Now Numbers 15 and Deuteronomy 22 both commanded that men attach tassels or fringes to the bottom corner of their outer garments: a cord of blue. Christ Himself obeyed this command where it is referenced twice in the New Testament. According to Numbers 15, here was the reason: The tassels were to remind God’s people to follow God’s commandments. Well, the Pharisees said, “Look, if other people are serious about the Bible, we are more serious. And if other people are serious about obeying the Bible, we are even more serious about obeying the Bible.” So, they made their tassels longer. Let them drag the ground. “We are even more committed to obeying.” 

Both of these practices in the Scriptural sense were designed to show that a person was devoted to God, and probably even these physical expressions started there. But that wasn’t what the Pharisees were about. They didn’t do them out of devotion to God. They wanted to be recognized and praised for their piety. Christ had warned us about this before. Go back to Matthew chapter 6. Matthew chapter 6 in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus pointed out how dangerous this is, not just for leaders, but for every believer, verse 1 of chapter 6, “Beware”—be on guard—“of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven.” Now just stop there for a moment and think about that. Jesus says, “Here are two people. Those two people do exactly the same thing. One gets a reward, and one doesn’t. What is the difference?” Who you want to notice. Why do we want to be noticed by people? Look at verse 2: “when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets,”—watch this—“so that”—here’s the reason we want to be noticed—“so that they may be honored by men.” The Greek word for “honored” is the word “glorified.” We want to be glorified by men. You see, the sincere Christian leader’s motive is that men will glorify God. The hypocrite’s motive is that men will glorify him. Instead of wanting God’s name to be hallowed, he wants his own name to be hallowed. When we want to be noticed by people—and let’s just be honest, we are all tempted to do this. When we want to be noticed by people, when we want to be glorified, we are embezzling the glory that belongs to God alone. 

You say what does this look like in real life? Well, let me just give you a couple of examples. When we perform some spiritual activity: Bible reading; prayer; evangelism—when we perform some sort of spiritual or some part of our ministry in this church with a desire that or with the intention that others will notice us and glorify us and think, “Wow! He’s great! She’s so wonderful!” When we attribute our ministry’s success to our skills, our vision, our leadership rather than to God alone. I have to remind myself all the time—by the way, this isn’t a bad practice. People are going to thank you for what you do, and they are going to bring praise to you, and you know what, that’s OK. That’s right for them. Render honor to whom honor is due. But what do you do with that in your heart? I’ll tell you what I do every Sunday: I remember 1 Corinthians 4:7, “What do you have that you have not received?” It’s all God’s. When we steal the glory from God—when we focus more on trying to gain or sustain a reputation for godliness than on actually being godly. 

Paul describes his own spiritual leadership in 1 Thessalonians 2:5 and 6 and it was exactly the opposite of this. Listen to what he writes: “We never came with flattering speech, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed—God is witness—nor did we seek glory from men, either from you or from others.” This is a real temptation for leaders. All these things are temptations for spiritual leaders. They are temptation for me; they are a temptation for you. Jesus says to us, “Don’t fall into the trap of being in leadership seeking your own glory.” It’s got to be about God’s glory.

Jesus did that. I love John 17, here’s the heart of a true spiritual leader. This is what Jesus prayed: John 17, “Lifting up His eyes to heaven, ‘Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son, [in order] that the Son may glorify You. . . I glorified You on the earth.’” That was His heart, it needs to be ours as well. By the way, one other important point to make before we leave this one, and that is, Jesus knew that the scribes and Pharisees were entirely about personal glory. Guess what? He still does. When we give into that temptation. We must always seek God’s glory as leaders rather than our own. 

Number four. A fourth commitment of effective spiritual leaders is to cultivate real humility. Cultivate real humility, verses 6 and 7. Now, notice the key word here. It’s the word “love.” “They love the place of honor at banquets and the chief seats in the synagogues, and respectful greetings in the marketplaces, and being called Rabbi by men.” You can tell everything about a person by what he loves. The scribes and Pharisees loved four things: first of all, they loved the place of honor at banquets. At elaborate evening dinners, and there were elaborate evening dinners in the first century, the tables were typically arranged in a U-shape. The chief place at the table, at the center of the head table, the center of the -U, was reserved for the host. Then the honored guest sat on either side of the host. And then the other guests took their places in descending order of importance down the sides of the -U. You didn’t want to be at the top of the -U. That was for the least important people. You wanted to be right next to the host. That was where all the important people sat. If you were seated in a place of honor, it was assumed that you were important. The Pharisees loved the place of honor because they wanted to be thought important.

Notice secondly, they also loved the chief seats in the synagogues. First century synagogues had a raised platform where the leaders read the Scripture and preached. In some of those synagogues, there were also seats behind those who were leading the service. Facing the congregation—think about this: what if we started a new program at Countryside for the really important people in our church and community. We are going to let them sit on the platform behind me while I preach facing the rest of the congregation. That’s the way it was. Christ may have been referring to those seats. Or He might have meant the seats closest to where the scrolls of the Law were kept which were also reserved for those who were really important. Regardless, the point is, the Pharisees loved being seen in the most important seats. 

Thirdly, they also love respectful greetings in the marketplace: “being called Rabbi by men,” verse 7 says. “Rabbi” is a transliteration of the Hebrew word that means “my lord” or “my master.” In the generation before Christ, it had become a title for the teachers of the Law and it soon became terribly inflated with importance. By the time of the Jewish Talmud, a Rabbi was so exulted that his disciple had to obey him without question, never walk beside him or in front of him, and never greet him first. Apparently, that trend had already begun even in the time of Christ. The Pharisees loved the prominence that came with their position. Don’t you love it when a passage doesn’t apply today? Seriously, what are the modern manifestation of this sin for us as leaders? Let me just give you a couple of things to think about. At events like this one or events that are here at the church, do you desire and love being seated in the place of importance? Do you love being recognized as a leader so that people think your important? Do you love and especially seek the company of the important and influential people in our church while you sort of eschew those that are clearly not? Do you love having and being referred to by a title? Are you concerned more with success than faithfulness? 

Now, don’t misunderstand me. It’s not wrong to sit at a head table. It is not wrong to enjoy the company of others. Or for others to honor the position that you have been assigned. Those things are often right and appropriate. That’s not the issue. The issue is what’s going on in your heart. Do you love those things like the Pharisees did? 

Now, notice that on this point, in verse 8, Jesus directly admonished His disciples: “But you”—that is, in contrast to the scribes and Pharisees—“do not be called Rabbi; for One is your Teacher, and you are all brothers.” Jesus says, “Listen, don’t insist on or accept titles that establish you as that kind of exalted authority where everybody bows.” We are fellow students of One Teacher. Verse 9: “Do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven.” The designation “father” by the way, was often conferred upon the greatest of the Rabbis after their death. Verse 10: “Do not be called leaders; for One is your Leader, that is Christ.” Now the Greek word “leader” here occurs only once in the New Testament, in this passage. This word doesn’t mean “leader” in the way we ordinarily mean the word “leader” even as we are using it tonight. The Greek word means “a guide,” “an instructor,” or a “teacher.” What Jesus is saying is that He the Messiah is the only one truly qualified to sit in Moses’ seat, to be the authoritative teacher of God’s word and will. There’s only one chief shepherd and it is Jesus Christ. Don’t love or demand some exalted title for yourself. 

Again, Jesus is not forbidding honoring teachers and leaders. And He is not saying that we are all equal. You know, that is the Declaration of Independence. That’s not the Bible. There will always be those who are our superiors in age, gifts, experience, and position. And we owe them proper respect according to the Scripture. Romans 13:13: “Render to all what is due them. Honor to whom honor.” So, it’s right for people to do that to others, but here’s the key question: If you long for and if you love for people to put you in a different class and treat you as important because you are a leader in this church, then you are violating the Lord’s instruction here. We need to cultivate real humility.

Now, how do we do that? How do we cultivate that kind of humility? I want you to turn with me to one of my favorite passages. It’s 1 Peter 5. This passage has been such an encouragement and help to me; confronted me again and again. What you have in 1 Peter 5 is the path from pride to humility. Who better than Peter is qualified to give this speech? He tells us how to develop a spirit of humility. Now first of all, notice in verse 5, you have a proverb: it’s in all caps; it’s a quotation from Proverbs 3, “God is opposed to the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Now notice in verse 5 that that Proverb is connected to the commands on both sides of it. You have the word “for,” and you have the word “therefore.” The word “for” comes before the Proverb, and the word “therefore” comes after the Proverb. In other words, the Proverb is connected to those commands on both sides in the sense that here’s how you pursue humility. Because God resists the proud, and by the way, the word “resists” is a military word. It literally means “to surround,” “to conquer,” “to put up arms against.” God says, “I am going to take military arms against the proud person. I will not tolerate that. But I give grace to the humble.” As you know, grace is not only for salvation, grace is what we need every day for sanctification, for ministry, for everything we do. 

Now, because God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble, here are the three steps from pride to humility. Number one: in verse five, submit yourself to rightful human authorities. “You younger men, likewise, be subject to your elders.” I think in context, by the way, it’s not talking about young men to older men. The only elders in this chapter, in the earlier part of it, is the leadership of the church. And he is saying, “You want to be humble. Submit yourself to the human authorities God has placed in your life.” Secondly, verse 5 says, serve others in practical, menial ways. We will come back to that one. Thirdly, verses 6 and 7, submit yourself to God’s providence: “Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time.” And in the midst of those troubles, “cast your care on Him, because He cares for you.” You want to be humble, if I want to be humble, this is the path. Submit yourself to the human authorities God has placed in your life, serve others in practical menial ways, and submit yourself to God’s providence in your life. Those three commands on each side of the proverb lay out a roadmap or a path to humility. 

Now just look at the second one, verse 5: “all of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, for [because] God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” “Clothe yourselves” that verb is used only here in the New Testament. It literally means “to tie on the apron of a slave.” It is what distinguished a slave in the first century from free men. When Peter chooses this word, “tie on the apron of a slave,” what do you think was in his mind? You know exactly what was in his mind. The incident recorded in John 13, when Jesus, the eternal Son of God incarnate gets up from dinner, and because none of His disciples would humble themselves to wash the feet of the other disciples, He lays aside His robe, ties on Himself the apron of the slave, and He washes in turn each of the disciples’ feet. So, to clothe yourself with humility is very practical. In other words, do practical, ordinary, menial tasks for the people in your life. That is what he is saying. Tie on the apron of a slave. Do what nobody else wants to do. Serve other people in ways that nobody else wants to serve them. This is how you pursue humility. One of the greatest commitments of an effective spiritual leader is to cultivate real humility. Our Lord had it and He demands it of us. We can’t let the leadership positions we have to go to our head. Again, “What do you have that you did not receive?”

Number 5, a final commitment spiritual leaders make is practice servant leadership. Practice servant leadership. Look at verses 11 and 12: “But the greatest among you shall be your servant. Whoever exalts himself shall be humbled; and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted.” You know what the Lord is saying here? He is saying what He said at other times. He is saying, “Listen, you have got to get the concepts of what makes a person great out of your head.” You have imbibed the entirely wrong paradigm for greatness. It’s not about exerting your authority. “I’m a leader now! I am going to tell these people what to do!” No! I know you don’t do that. I am having fun, alright! This is a temptation, right? We understand this. But Christ says that to be great in His kingdom is to serve everyone. Again, remember He spoke these words here in Matthew 23, He spoke them on Tuesday the Passion Week. What did we just remind ourselves He did on Thursday evening? He punctuated this lesson in a way I promise you His disciples never forgot. Can you imagine? Can you imagine lying around with your elbow on the table eating that meal and Christ Himself gets up because you were too proud to say, “I’m not washing everybody’s feet. That’s for the slave. That’s not for me. I am one of the disciples.” And Jesus does it. Jesus says, “Understand, this is what it means to be great in my kingdom. 

Verse 12 concludes by saying that whoever seeks to attract human notice and praise will be humbled. But the one who humbles himself God will exalt. You see, a true spiritual leader humbles himself in order to see his God exalted. That is what he really wants most of all. When we lose sight that our role is that of a servant, it is because we have forgotten that the church is a body and Christ is the head. I am just a member. I remind myself of that often. I am just a member of the body. Christ is the head. What is my function in the body? I am just the mouth. You know, people can live without the mouth. The body has so many different parts that function is so many different ways. Everyone in the church including us has been gifted to fill a specific function in the body. Ministry is nothing more than filling the role that Christ has assigned us for the benefit of the rest of the body. That’s what it means for you to be a leader in this church. It’s what it means for me to be a leader. It means that we are just here to fill our role to serve the rest of the body for the sake of the head. 

I love the way one author put it. Samuel Brengle put it this way. He says, “The Lord uses me, and it is not of me the work is done.” And then he uses an analogy and I love this analogy. He says, “The ax cannot boast of the trees it has cut down. It could do nothing but for the woodsman. He made it. He sharpened it, and he used it. The moment he throws it aside, it becomes only old iron. O, that I may never lose sight of this.” You see, a godly leader understands leadership is using his or her gift to equip to do others to do the work of ministry. People in the end are not there to serve us. We are there to serve them. J. Oswald Sanders puts it this way in his book on leadership. He says, “True greatness, true leadership is achieved not by reducing men to one’s service, but in giving oneself in selfless service to them.” Our Lord was qualified to say this, wasn’t He? Because no one ever stooped so low from a high position to serve in such a menial way as He did. And that’s what He calls on us to do.

So, our Lord here diagnoses these five deadly blind spots that come with spiritual leadership, but He also instructs us positively. He says to His disciples there on the Temple Mount that Tuesday of the Passion Week. He says, “Listen, here’s the leadership these guys show. Don’t be like that. Instead, put on the opposite of those things.” Make these five commitments to be the right kind of leader. First of all, demonstrate personal integrity. Secondly, love God’s people. Thirdly, seek God’s glory. Number four, cultivate real humility. Number five, practice servant leadership. If you want to be the right kind of leader. We haven’t talked yet about the way you exercise the leadership. We are just talking about us as leaders. If you want to be the right kind of leader, where could you go to find anything more helpful or brilliant than that? This is our Lord teaching us about leadership and He says this is what it means to be a leader in My kingdom. This is what it means to be a leader in My church. And so, may the Spirit of Christ diagnose in each of our hearts our own individual temptations and blind spots and help us to be the right kind of leader. May we exercise the spiritual leadership our Lord taught us to have, and that He so perfectly modeled. Look at that list again: how are you doing with your personal integrity? I am not asking if you are perfect, but are you sincerely genuine? Do you truly love God’s people? Do you care about them? Are you seeking God’s glory and not your own glory in the leadership you are displaying? And in the process of this, are you cultivating real humility, remembering that we need to follow in the footsteps of our Lord, washing people’s feet, not literally but metaphorically? Menial, ordinary ways and practicing servant leadership; not thinking of leadership as something like the Gentiles think of it, some exalted position over others? But thinking of it like our Lord did. This is what it means to be the right kind of leader. Let’s pray together.

Our Father, thank You for these profound words from our Lord. Thank You for the fact that You have preserved and revealed them and preserved them for us in Your word. Thank You for the reminder. Lord, we live in a world where there are so many skewed views of what it means to be a leader. Lord, help us to clear away the rubble of all of those flawed perspectives and help us instead to be the kind of leader our Lord was. Lord, don’t let us fall into any of the traps that come with spiritual leadership. Protect us, preserve us and Lord, help us to commit ourselves to these commitments by Your grace alone and with the help of Your Spirit alone as He pierces our souls with these truths and makes us this kind of people. Lord, thank You again for this time. Continue to use Your word in our lives. In Jesus’ name. Amen