For this week and next week we’re taking a break from Luke’s gospel, and instead we’re going to consider the theme of Christian leadership. Now that’s like saying, we’ve got a couple of hours to build something, so let’s build the tallest building that’s ever been built. It’s a massive topic, so we’re only going to scrape the surface of it. But it’s a surface worth our scraping. You see, what we have done this morning with Mark is really just recognize what God has already done. Mark’s been called by God to be a pastor, and as a church we recognize that. But what kind of a pastor, what kind of a leader should Mark be? What should mark his life as he grows and develops in this calling, what should be the emphases of his ministry, what should be the hallmarks of his character? And that’s not just a question for Mark. I mean, I could just sit Mark down in the office and say what I’ve got to say to him and let you guys get home for an early lunch! What does it matter to you what sort of a leader Mark should be? Well, firstly, what I am going to say doesn’t just apply to Mark, it applies to any of you who are, or desire to become, leaders in the church, in what ever area you serve. It applies to the husbands and future husbands among us as we seek to lead in our families. And whilst what I’m going to say this week is specific for the church, it’s still relevant as you lead in the workplace. But alongside all of that are the sobering commands in the Bible of what our attitude should be like to our leaders. Just listen to a few of them: 1 Thess 5:12-13: ‘we ask you, brothers, to respect those who labour among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work.’ Or Hebrews 13:7: ‘Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith.’ And finally, Hebrews 13:17, ‘Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account.’ Now, in our cynical western culture, when it comes to our attitudes to leaders, words like respect, and highly esteem, and imitate, and obey and submit to, seem like a foreign language. No-­â€one speaks like that anymore! So who is that leader that Mark is to set his heart to become, that warrants the word of God saying respect, esteem, imitate, obey, submit. What could that possibly look like? What will that look like for Mark, for myself, for the elders and for any of you whom God calls to lead? And if this is to be your attitude to your leaders, how will you, the church members, know the kind of leaders you should choose here, whether that’s as elders or future pastoral staff? And when you leave here, and look for a new church elsewhere, how will you identify the leaders you could respect, esteem, imitate, obey, submit to and go to their church? What does that kind of leadership look like? I’ve told some of you before of a beach BBQ we went to a year or so ago, and I was chatting to a young couple and asked them what they were doing in Lausanne, and they told me, and they then asked me what I was doing, so I told them – I’m a pastor of an English speaking church, and the lady’s response was extraordinary, it was one of almost physical revulsion, this look came over her face and she just turned away from me. I never had that when I told people I was a doctor! Now her response was perhaps extreme, but all of us will at one time or another meet that kind of response when you admit to being a Christian – who believes that stuff anymore? Are you mad? But if there’s not incredulity, there is at least – if you tell someone you’re a pastor -­â€ the attitude, ‘besides, what on earth do you do all day?’ Well, those twin criticisms, 1. you’re deluded and 2. You’re exploiting people, or at least sponging off them, were the same criticisms the apostle Paul faced from his opponents in Thessalonica. And in answering them Paul spells out for us the characteristics of the leader Mark and the rest of us should aim to be. Read 1 Thessalonians 2:1-­â€12 Characteristic 1: A leader with the gospel as his centre. Now there are a multitude of things a leader could make his emphasis in ministry. It could be a theological system – and you bang on about Calvinism or Arminianism. It could be end times prophecy, and that’s your thing. It could be the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and that’s the focus. But Paul made his the gospel. V2: We had boldness in our God to declare to you the gospel of God. V8: we were ready to share with you… the gospel of God. V9: we proclaimed to you the gospel of God. So, in as much as a leader is a man with a message, that message has to be the gospel, the good news of all that God is doing in and through His Son Jesus. The good news that God cares for the glory and the honour of His name above all things, that God is God-­â€centered, not man-­â€centered. The good news that from the foundation of the earth God has been working out His purposes in His steadfast, never ending love, to bring to himself a people from every tribe and tongue and nation to declare His praises. The good news that through the death and the resurrection of Jesus, that is made possible: that through God’s grace – his free, undeserved, unearned grace we can be reconciled to Him. But, did you notice how Paul describes the gospel? Each time, it’s the Gospel of God. It’s God’s gospel. It’s not Paul’s gospel or anyone else’s gospel. And Paul and his team, and Mark and myself and any other leader in the church, to quote Paul in v4 has been ‘entrusted with the gospel.’ A leader is a steward. He’s been entrusted to guard and to speak of and to pass on that which belongs to someone else. So he doesn’t have rights of ownership on it. So he can’t change the bits he doesn’t like. He’s got no freedom, no authority to do that. He can’t add bits he wishes were there, and he can’t water down the bits that he wishes weren’t there. When the temptation comes to do that, and believe me it comes, when he looks at what the Bible teaches so clearly, and thinks, ‘I can’t stand up there and say that, Jesus, what will they think of me?’ he has to resist that. His message must be the gospel. God’s gospel. And when other things would draw a bigger 3 crowd or get you more fame, or win you more friends, or be easier to swallow by your hearers, a leader has got to stick to the gospel. And because he’s been entrusted with it, he knows he’s got to pass it on to the next generation. That’s why Paul says to Timothy in 2 Tim 2:2, ‘What you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.’ Paul was entrusted with the gospel, so he entrusted it to Timothy. And now Timothy must pass it on again. So the leader who knows he’s a steward, will be entrusting the gospel to others. You know, in some hospitals, they put signs up that say something like, ‘this is a teaching hospital’ and then something underneath that basically says, so don’t complain if you get seen by a medical student! And that should be true of the church. It should be a training ground for the next generation of leaders. And if that means hearing the odd sermon that’s a stinker or a worship set that never flies, or a great idea that in retrospect wasn’t, as a church we can rejoice in that, because we’re looking to entrust it to the next generation. But as well as the gospel determining his message, Paul makes it clear that it also determined his methods. Listen to what he says in v3: ‘For our appeal does not spring from error [that’s the message – it’s the truth, God’s truth] or impurity or any attempt to deceive.’ So whilst the message was genuine, so too were his methods. He never tried to deceive them, or manipulate them. He didn’t need to whip anything up – because he was confident that God’s word, in the Spirit, has all the power it needs. That’s why he could say in 1:5, ‘Our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction.’ Paul didn’t need to fake a lion’s roar, he just let the lion out of the cage. But there’s one last way a leader must make the gospel his centre, and that’s in his own life. He needs to know it and experience it personally. He needs to know that God’s love for him – and for those he leads – is not dependent on performance. He needs to know that God doesn’t love him less – or more -­â€ because he can or can’t draw the crowd the guy down the road draws. Those of you who lead in industry or academia, you need to know the gospel in your heart, that His love for you is not conditional on how well you are performing. All of us need to know the internal power of the gospel, that we are loved and accepted because of Jesus. Mark, and every leader has got to know the gospel in his heart. And that will save him from the snare of living to please man. Characteristic 2: A leader who lives to please God v4: ‘Just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts.’ No one can accuse us of trying to butter you up, or impress you, Paul says. We didn’t live to please men. Now Proverbs tell us (Proverbs 29:25), ‘The fear of man lays a snare.’ But why? Why is the fear of man, living to please man a snare? Why does Paul make a point of them not living like that? Well, of course, if you’re living to please people you will be tempted to add to or substract from the gospel. You will want to water it down and try and make it more palatable. And you’ve got to avoid that at all costs. 4 But there’s another reason why this living to please people matters. And it’s the issue of where you get your sense of reward from. If you get your reward from what people think of you, you are going to be sunk, because what people think of you as a leader is going to go up and down. Take Moses for example. From the time God called him to stick his head above the parapet, and lead the people of Israel, until his death, there was one cycle after another of the people alternately thinking he was a hero and the best thing since sliced bread, to them wanting to kill him. It’s the life of a leader! And if as a leader your reward or sense of self worth is tied up with what others think of you, you just won’t last the distance. You need a rock to stand on, and that’s the gospel, not the sinking sands of popular opinion. But a leader who lives to please people isn’t just walking himself into a snare, he’s taking his people with him. You see, we all need individuals in our lives who are prepared to tell us the hard things. Who are prepared to tell us the truth. As Proverbs 27:6 says, ‘faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy.’ A faithful friend, a faithful leader, will, at times, be prepared to say things to you that you don’t want to hear, that won’t please you. If they didn’t they wouldn’t be your friend. But if Paul wasn’t living to please people, neither was he living to please himself. V6: ‘Nor did we seek glory from people.’ We didn’t do this to build a big name or a big church or buff up our reputation. Nor was he doing it, v5, ‘with a pretext for greed.’ – He wasn’t doing it to line his pockets, so he could have his own private Learjet. He’s not in this for himself. Rather, he says, in v4, that he served and spoke, to please God. As John Wimber used to say, Paul was living for an audience of One. He lived to bring pleasure to God. And all of us, Mark, leaders, fathers, everyone, we are to find our pleasure in those things that please God and bring Him glory. And there’s good reason to live like that. In v4 Paul says that it’s ‘God who tests our hearts.’ In v5 he says, ‘God is witness.’ And knowing that God is the judge of our hearts, and that as stewards we will one day stand before God and give an account for what has been entrusted to us, should teach every leader profound humility. So such a leader, living to please God, knows it is what he is like in private, when the lights are out, when he’s off the stage, that matters. It’s not the public image, it’s what his wife or his kids think of him. It’s not what his public prayer life is like but what his private prayer life is like. Because he knows who sees his heart and he knows who he is living to please. But to live to please God and not man, with the unadulterated gospel as your centre, is going to take courage. Characteristic 3: A Leader of courage: v2: ‘Though we had already suffered and been shamefully treated at Philippi, as you know, we had boldness in our God to declare to you the gospel of God in the midst of much conflict.’ 5 Now Paul and his team had come to Thessalonica from Philippi, and it was in Philippi that they were publically stripped and beaten with rods, illegally imprisoned and put in the stocks, despite the fact that they were Roman citizens. And all because of the gospel. But when they got to Thessalonica, they stood up and did it all over again. And that takes courage. But it’s not just physical adversity, or facing opposition outside the church that requires courage. Mark Driscoll has said that the role of elders in the church is to feed the sheep and shoot the wolves. Well, it takes courage to shoot the wolves, the false teachers who get an audience in a church. Few of us like conflict, and if you feel called to feed the sheep, you hate the thought of mistaking a sheep for a wolf. But if you’re not prepared to aim and shoot it’s the sheep who ultimately get mauled. So, given the way the world is going, Mark is going to need plenty of courage. But notice where that courage comes from. Paul doesn’t say that boldness comes from his force of character, or his charismatic personality, or the number of his post-­â€graduate degrees or even his good looks, which is just as well for Mark. His boldness was ‘in our God’. Like an athlete who keeps running through the pain barrier, running for the prize, Paul’s inner courage, his inner strength came from God. And that is the well from which Mark and every other leader, must drink; that is the dynamo, the power that must keep him running in the face of adversity. He must stay connected to the Power from on high, drawing it down, into his own heart. Now, you could hear all this about boldness and sticking to the truth, and not living to please people and think, ‘but won’t this end in the kind of leadership that walks over people, the kind of harsh, authoritarian leaders none of us want to see.’ Well, not if you grasp the 4th characteristic of a leader. Charateristic 4: A Leader with the heart of a mother. Now, before you think I’ve gone soft and Mark and I are going to start wearing dresses and all the rugby players head for the door, look what Paul says: v7-8: ‘We were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children. So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also ourselves, because you had become very dear to us.’ So the kind of leader we’re talking about here, the kind of leader Mark and myself and anyone else called to leadership should aspire to be, whilst he mustn’t be a people pleaser, he’s got to be a people lover. He’s got to love people. He’s got to care for them, be affectionately desirous of them. Paul could say that he and his team were gentle among the Thessalonians. Now gentleness is hardly a word you hear in the context of leadership, is it? Strength, confidence, assertiveness, authority maybe, but gentleness? Yet that is how Paul says he and his team conducted themselves. And the type of gentle love he’s talking about is the love of a mother for her new-­â€ born baby. She feeds it, cares for it, gets up –multiple times -­â€ in the night for it. She literally pours out her life, her strength, her energy, that this little one might grow and thrive. Its almost as though she grows physically weak that her beloved child might grow strong. She puts herself, her needs, her interests 6 second to those of her child. And Paul says, that’s the kind of leaders we were. We didn’t just share the gospel with you, we shared our lives. You see, you can have all the truth right. You can have the doctrine nailed. You can spot a wolf at 100 metres and shoot it dead. You can speak the truth with courage. But it all has to come through a poured out life. This kind of leader’s life is an open book to his people. But a leader doesn’t just need the heart of a mother. In the wisdom of God, he needs the heart of a father as well. Characteristic 5: A leader with the heart of a father. V11-­â€12: ‘For you know how, like a father with his children, we exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and charged you to walk in a manner worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory.’ Like a loving father, Paul had an end in view for those he led. He wasn’t just going through the motions of church on Sundays and homegroups mid-­â€week and if we can just keep them busy with meetings we’ll keep them out of trouble. No, like a father who wants the very best for his kids, he has a vision for how he wants them to turn out, where he wants them to get to. And that is God’s kingdom and eternal glory. He wants to get them to the last day. He wants to see them standing glorious before Jesus, in His kingdom. And to that end he exhorts, encourages and charges them to walk in a manner worthy of God. Like a loving father urging and cheering his kids on, he wants to see these Christians living like Christians, fighting sin, embracing holiness and being transformed from one degree of glory to another. And in that, Paul was their example. V10: ‘You are witnesses, and God also, how holy and righteous and blameless was our conduct toward you believers.’ Paul and his team were examples in a way loving fathers should be examples to their watching children. Were they perfect? No, Paul never claims that, but they were examples. So what are the characteristics of a leader who we could respect, esteem, imitate, obey and submit to? A leader with the gospel as his center. A leader who lives to please God. A leader of courage. A leader with the heart of a mother and a leader with the heart of a father. Now, can anyone, in themselves, claim to live up to this, or be sufficient for this? He’d be a fool to, wouldn’t he? We are all works in progress. It’s why Paul says in 2 Cor 3:5-6, ‘Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant.’ No leader will ever be sufficient in himself, the sufficiency has to come from God. Now as I close, ask yourself, how can you help Mark to be this kind of a leader? Well, as the French philosopher de Maistre said, ‘every nation has the government it deserves.’ And in some sense, every church has the leaders it deserves. And if it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a church to nurture a young leader. So pray for him, encourage him, love him. And watch him grow.