Effective Leaders For Christ
2/28/93 R/87 Text 1 Tim. 3:1-7 1 Sam 16:1-12 John 13:1-17
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Today we are seeking to ordain on behalf of the entire
Presbyterian Church, those men and women that we believe that
God has called to serve in the offices of elders and deacons.
Jesus says to all who follow him, "you have not chosen me, but I
have chose and ordained you that you might go forth and bring
fruit." God desires to raise up effective leaders for Christ who
are going to have an impact upon this church and upon the commu
nity it finds itself in.
To be an effective leader, one must be a biblical leader. We
are going to examine the Scriptures together to see what qualifi
cations we find for those who would be leaders. The Bible tells
us that those who are leaders will be held to a stricter stand
ard, and they should be careful how they teach. We teach by the
things we say, the things we don’t say, the things we do, and the
things that we do not do. Everyone here is a teacher today.
If a leader is unable or unwilling to live up to the stand
ards of God’s word, he or she should remove him or herself from
the position of leadership and allow those who are willing to pay
the price to take the reigns of servanthood.
Our text this morning is found in 1 Timothy chapter 3. We
find in verse 1, "Here is a trustworthy saying: If anyone sets
his heart on being an overseer, he desires a noble task". An
overseer is the equivalent of our term for elder. Do you recog
nize that everyone should desire to become a leader? It’s a good
thing for a believer to want to grow and to serve? What is wrong
with a church that can have 180 members and yet struggles to find
12 people to take office for Jesus Christ? What has captivated
our hearts to the point of making leadership undesirable. The
bible says it’s a good thing to set one’s heart on being an
elder.
Our motivation for wanting to be a leader, is that we love
Jesus Christ. Anyone who seeks office merely to be seen or to
exert authority over others, has completely missed the will of
God in this area. In order to be an effective leader for Christ,
we must be willing to be a servant. Jesus defined what a leader
was by picking up a towel and washing 12 pairs of dirty feet. It
would have been easier for Jesus to have said, you wash your
feet, or wash one another’s feet, but Jesus led by example.
Jesus stated it plainly, he who would be leader, must first be
servant of all. We thank God for the six elders and six deacons
who have set their hearts on being servants for God in the capac
ity of leaders.
Verse 2 says, Now the overseer must be above reproach. This
passage is saying, there should not be any obvious defect of
character or conduct in the leader’s life which the malicious can
exploit. The word of God is zeroing in on the fact that the
person’s sexual life must be exemplary. If you are being unfaith
ful in your marriage vows, or if you are having sex outside of
marriage, or you are engaging in homosexual activity, you have no
business holding the office of elder or deacon. This is not to
say that a person may not stumble and fall into sin, but if a
person has decided to engage in a behavior without repenting and
forsaking it, he or she is not worthy of the office.
The word above reproach, is followed by the words, the
ð 7 3 Šhusband of one wife. This qualification is here because of the
prevailing view at the time. The Jewish and a large portion of
the pagan population considered it meritorious for a person to
remain unmarried after death of divorce. Remarriage was seen as
a sign of self indulgence. Paul was concerned that remarriage
would be a stumbling block to those outside the kingdom. It would
not be good for the standards of behavior outside the church, be
higher than those in the church. Here is an example of where we
use our freedom in Christ to become all things to all people, so
that we might win them to Christ. We willingly forgo something
we have a right to do, in order to not be a stumbling block to
someone else’s faith. Since this is not a stumbling block issue
in our society today, it is no longer a necessary qualification.
For Paul tells us in the Corinthians that a Christian is free to
remarry so long as he or she remarries a believer.
The Scriptures tell us that the leader is to be temperate.
The word comes from the Greek word which originally had the
meaning abstaining from alcohol, but here, its used in a meta
phorical sense and means be clear headed or alert. The believ
er’s mind is not to be clouded with things that impair our abili
ty to seek righteousness and justice, or with anything that
hinders us from being able to adequately discern th the will of
God. This includes physical stimulants like "drugs" and social
stimulants like "the praises of others." An effective leader’s
mind must be free of bitterness and unforgiveness for these to
block our ability to hear from God. A leader has to be willing to
forgive past, present, and future hurts. Even in the midst of
the greatest unjust pain and suffering, Jesus said father, for
give them, for they know not what they do. Anyone not willing to
forgive, is not worthy of the office of deacon and elder. That
person will be a cancer rather than a help to the body of Christ.
The Scriptures says a leader ought to be self-control. A
leader should not allow circumstances and the actions of others
determine what comes out of theirs mouths, and what their life-
styles are like. When you take the role of a leader, you open
the door for all kinds of criticism to come your way. People
will accuse you of having insincere and even evil motives, when
you are trying your best to do the will of God. People will
promise you help, and when the time comes to doing the job, you
will find yourself working by yourself.
To be self-controlled, we must all remember to respond like
Jesus responded in that we take the initiative in bringing God
into a situation. Jesus responded to others out of the Father’s
will from his heart. Jesus determined his own life-style. He
never blamed others for the way he acted or responded. He decid
ed when to allow himself to get angry, or to be move to compas
sion, or when to exhort, rebuke, or encourage others. Jesus’s
decision to follow God’s will was not based on what others might
say or do. He was going on with His Father’s will regardless of
whether others did or not.
You’ve got to have self control to be an effective leader
for Christ. Not all the members and friends will behave as
Christians, yet our call to obedience remains the same. We do
not need leaders who are ready to give someone a piece of their
mind. If people tried to make life hard for Jesus, and attempt
ð 7 3 Što get him upset, why should Jesus’s servants expect to receive
any better treatment. Jesus says, whatever they have done to me,
they will do to you also." If you are not willing to pay the
price of your pride being hurt and of disappointment, you’re not
worthy of the office of elder or deacon.
The Scripture says, the leader should be respectable. An
effective leader for Jesus Christ is going to carry him or her
self in a way that brings about the respect of others. The word
encompasses the way we speak, the way we dress, and the way we
relate to others. Profanity, put downs, and gossip should not
spew forth from out mouths. Sexually suggestive clothing should
not be in our public attire wardrobes. No one we talk to should
have felt as though we thought we were better than he or she, be
it a child, an adult, or an unbeliever. A leader must be able to
protect the confidences of others. When something is told in
confidence and effective leader of Christ does not pass it on in
the guise of a prayer request for someone else. One who betrays
the confidence of another, betrays the cause of Christ to love
one another.
The Scriptures states that a leader is to be hospitable. A
leader is called to open his or her home to others. This was of
crucial important in the first century to provide places for
traveling ministers to stay. This call for hospitality applies
to the needy members of the congregation as well. We are exhort
ed in Romans 12:13, to contribute to the needs of the saints by
practicing hospitality. Hebrews 13:2 tells us that in minister
ing in this way to strangers, some have entertained angels with
out even knowing it. The servant leader understands that all he
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or she owns is to be under the authority of Jesus Christ and is
to be used to lift up Jesus, including one’s home.
The Scriptures says a leader is to be able to teach. The
prior qualification to be able to teach is to have learned some
thing. Every elder and every deacon needs to be in somebody’s
bible study somewhere. We need men and women who can bring the
wisdom and counsel from the word of God into our discussions and
meetings. Opinions from the arena of the world are neither help
ful nor productive. The Bible says for all believers to study the
word of God so that they can become workman that need not be
ashamed rightly dividing the word of truth. It also says we are
to long for the word of God as a baby longs for milk. When
people on your care teams seek advice, they need to hear what the
word of God says about a situation, not some ideas you got from a
TV program.
Many Christians are under the delusion, the less they know
from the word of God, the better off they are. Every leader
needs to be willing to submit to the word of God and let it be
the final authority on all matters. It is a sad day, when leaders
say, let’s forget about what the Bible says and do such and such.
If we are not standing on the truth of God’s word, we are not
standing on anything. Every elder and deacon needs to be in
volved in Life-sharing here or Bible study with other Christians
somewhere else. The Bible does not teach, "I can just study by
myself." No leader will be able to teach, what he or she does not
know. In accepting office, you are committing yourself to the
study of God’s word or you should refuse the office.
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Š The Scriptures says leaders are not to be given to drunken
ness. The Greek word indicates "a slave to drink". The bible
makes a distinction between drinking and getting drunk. It
states in no uncertain terms that drunks will not inherit the
kingdom of God. They have given alcohol the place that God
deserves in their lives. We speak of alcoholism as a disease and
rightly so, but God considered it a sin before it became a dis
ease. I exhort your to strive to be a drug free leader for Jesus
Christ. You’ll be the better for it, and it just might save
someone’s life.
The servant leader is not to be violent. The Greek word for
violent means a giver of blows. Some scholars connect this word
with the previous word drunkard and with the brutality that goes
with too many drinks in the form of wife-beating and child abuse.
Other scholars believe that the apostle Paul is hinting at the
rough treatment leaders were attempted to administer to irrespon
sible, lazy, or recalcitrant members in the church who were not
doing their part. Some leaders felt they needed a good kick in
the pants. This may have been true, but Paul is letting the
leaders know that they should not be the ones to doing the kick
ing. Jesus has shown us that our greatest weapon is love.
The Scriptures says the leader is to be gentle. The word
gentle means forbearing and patient. It is used to describe how
Jesus deals with us. Before we write someone off as hopeless,
let us think of what God has tolerated from us. Every leader for
Christ is asking God to work patience into his or her life. Many
times the saints do not act like the saints, and we should know
that from our own personal testimony. Let us not demand perfec
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tion in others, knowing that we too need the gentleness of Christ
in our own failures.
The Scriptures says the leader is not be quarrelsome.
Somewhere the devil has written, "Blessed are they who can argue
about anything and everything, for they will tear the church
apart and keep it from doing anything for the cause of Jesus
Christ." God has not called us to disagree just for the sake of
disagreeing. The story is told of a Presbyterian elder who came
running to a session meeting late. The first thing he said was,
I don’t know what you’re discussing but I want to you know I’m
against it.
If we disagree, let us do so out of the context of the word
of God as being our basis for the disagreement. Let us challenge
one another in the spirit of Jesus Christ. We may not and we
will not as leaders always agree, but we can always behave as
Christians. Jesus said, "Blessed are the peacemakers for they
shall be called the sons and daughters of God."
The Scriptures says, the leaders are not to be lovers of
money. I think more than anything else, this one qualification
kept many from considering the office of elder and deacon. We
voted a few years ago that elders and deacons should become
tithers or move steadily in that direction. Every elder and
deacon should tithe, because every Christian should tithe. If
you can speak of great faith in God but can’t give God $1 for
every ten that you keep for yourself, something is wrong.
If a person will not submit his or her own finances to the
will of God, what right does that person have to have authority
ð 7 3 Šover the money of the church. It is amazing, often times the
people that don’t tithe are the ones with all the mouth over, how
this dollar was spent, and who got that and so forth. If you
love money, you will not be able to spend it in the way that God
desires. Judas’s problems began because of a love for money. He
helped himself to the treasury funds of Jesus and the disciples.
Every time we keep what belongs to God, we become a little more
like Judas. Jesus put it this way, "you cannot serve two mas
ters, either you will hate the one and love the other, or love
the one and hate the other." You cannot serve God and money.
The Scriptures says the servant leader must manage his or
her own family well. The point here is not that your family
should be perfect, but that your life in your family should be
exemplary. Your Christianity is to begin at home. If you do not
live the life of Jesus in your home, then how can you expect to
be effective in the larger family the church. Leaders are en
couraged to take time with their children so that they don’t grow
up wild. Paul’s message is to do your part in making your home
life what it should be, so that neither your children or your
spouse or any other family member can look upon you with disdain
and lack of respect.
The Scriptures says a leader must not be a recent convert.
God knew we would be tempted to elect people because of their
looks, or social rank and influence rather than because of their
spiritual maturity. Samuel almost made the same mistake when he
wanted to anoint David’s brother king because of the way he
looked. There is the danger that when we push spiritual babies
into adult roles, they will become conceited and of little use to
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anyone. God expects growth prior to accepting responsibility.
The Scriptures says a servant leader must have a good
reputation with those outside the church. The church is going to
be judged by its leaders characters and conduct. Unsympathetic
outsiders will give the most unfavorable interpretations on your
slightest words or deeds. If the devil can discredit the lead
ers, he can discredit the whole church. You are going to become
a special target for Satan, so be on the lookout for temptations
you haven’t even thought of lately.
Finally the Scriptures state, 1 Timothy 3:13 "Those who have
served well gain an excellent standing and great assurance in
their faith in Christ Jesus." It’s not simply those who get
elected get a reward in Christ. NO. It’s those who have served
well. They become more secure in the gospel. If you don’t do
anything in the church, you don’t grow, and if you do not grow,
you get bored, and when you get bored, you get out, and when you
get out, you blame the church for not doing anything.
Christians who serve well are the Christians who enjoy Jesus
Christ. They become more convinced than ever that Jesus Christ
is the Son Of God. They discover newer and bolder ways to follow
and witness for Christ.
In being ordained and installed, you are saying you are
willing to strive to live up to the standards that God has for a
leader. It is better to decline now if you are unwilling, than to
be held accountable by God for a lack of integrity. Being a
leader is an honor and a very serious matter. The vows should
never be taken lightly
