The Work of a Leader in God’s Church
1 Peter 5:1-3
When you think about leaders in the church, Elders and Deacons, what exactly do
you think these men are supposed to do?
Are church leaders supposed to run a church like a corporation?
Do they sit in the ivory tower and rule on high?
Are the leaders called to be board members, discussing church
business and casting votes?
Or is there something more to being a church leader?
Last week we looked at the qualities a leader in God’s church should possess.
Today we are going to look at the various ministries, a leader in the
church is called to do.
If the church will rise and fall with its leadership,
it’s important that not only the leadership knows what it is called to do,
but the church also needs an understanding of
the calling of the leadership.
Being a leader in God’s church is a tough job.
It takes a lot of time.
You are subject to a lot of criticism.
You are often called on to deal with uncomfortable or difficult situations.
Not the least of which is to do so without hurting any ones feelings, or making anyone mad.
You are trying to motivate and depend on people, who are not drawing a pay check,
but are volunteering their time.
Leaders in God
’s church are responsible for what goes on in God’s church.The leaders have to make financial decisions.
They have to have a vision for the future.
They must be willing, to take people out of their comfort zones at times.
Our focus this morning, will be the various ministries an Elder in the church should be focused on.
As the Overseers of the Church, their ministry is critical to the life of the Church.
If they fail to understand their role, if the church fails to understand their role,
then the church will fail in fulfilling its purpose.
Let us look at four important ministries of an Elder in God’s church!
Let’s also remember, that much of what we say this morning about the Elders of the church,
also applies to all of us as Christians.
I. SELF-DEFENSE
MINISTRY (ACTS 20:28)
When the Apostle Paul called the elders from the church at Ephesus to come meet with him in Miletus, he shared some things they needed to hear.
Paul tells the Elders the following:
Acts 20:28 (NLT) “So guard yourselves and God’s people. Feed and shepherd God’s flock—his church, purchased with his own blood—over which the Holy Spirit has appointed you as elders.
One of the important ministries of an elder in God’s church, is the
ministry of self-defense.
I am not talking about getting your black-belt in karate or some other martial arts, I’m talking about protecting yourself spiritually.
Paul encourages the elders to be on guard for themselves.
To guard means to attend to, to be cautious, and to keep
watch.
Gareth Reese in his commentary on the book of Acts states:
Elders are to be cautious, to give attention first of all to their own life and faith. Any leader has temptations peculiar to his position, and connected duties to his office. The faithful ministry of any elder must grow out of a faithful life. Hence the first concern must be to establish their own faith. (Gareth Reese, Acts Commentary, page 750, College Press Publishing, 1976)
Effective ministry, is not mere outward activity;
it’s the overflow of a rich, deep relationship with God.
All of us, but especially leaders in God’s church, need to give special attention to our faith.
We all have spiritual weaknesses.
If we let them go unprotected, it will cause us trouble in the long run.
We have to do everything we can to protect ourselves, from the traps
Satan puts in our paths.
Guarding ourselves is something we are too do continually,
we are not to wait until we are attacked,
we are to look for the enemy to come,
and stop him before he gets into our lives.
There are at least three ways we can do that:
A. The way we can defend and protect ourselves, is by reading God’s Word.
B. We need to make sure we are accountable to one another.
We need to make sure, we are not afraid to share some of our struggles with sin
with others we trust, so that we can receive encouragement,
to be able to overcome what temps us.
C. We can protect ourselves with prayer.
Have you ever been tempted and in the midst of the temptation,
just called out for Satan to leave you alone?
There is power in prayer.
The devil
only gets ground we give to him!
What steps
are we taking to guard ourselves, from the attacks of the devil?
If leaders are falling prey to the snares of the devil,
it will have a negative affect on the work they are called to do.
Do everything you can do to make sure the devil cannot get a foothold into your life.
Keep the doors of sin closed,
do not even crack the door open, lest the devil put a foot in the door.
We all need to get a black-belt in spiritual self-defense.
II. PRAYER
MINISTRY (ACTS 6:4)
In Acts 6, the church was only three to four years old.
The church would have consisted of maybe upwards of 20,000 people in and around Jerusalem.
The Apostles were still in Jerusalem at this time.
The Apostles were the leadership of the church in its early stage.
There was a complaint by the Hellenistic Jews,
concerning a perceived neglect of the care of their
widows.
During this time there were two classes of Jews.
The Hellenistic Jews, were Jews who were born of Jewish parentage,
outside of Palestine, and who spoke Greek as their first language.
The Hebrews were Jews born in Palestine, and Hebrew was their first
language.
It appears the church leaders (the apostles at this point)
were getting bogged down in trying to take care of all the
various needs of the church.
The leadership was struggling.
In Acts 6:1-4 we read:
In those days when the number of disciples was increasing, the Grecian Jews among them complained against the Hebraic Jews because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food. 2 So the Twelve gathered all the disciples together and said, "It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables. 3 Brothers, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them 4 and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word."
The leaders were so busy trying to meet all the various needs of the people,
they were neglecting the Word of God and prayer.
It’s not that these things were not important, they were!
But there were others who could step in and do many of these things.
So they appointed another group of leaders, called Deacons.
Actually the term is “servant.”
These servants would work with the Apostles.
They were given the specific responsibility,
of taking care of the needs of the widows.
This freed up Apostles so they could better fulfill their responsibility of oversight of the church,
which included the ministry of Prayer and the Word of God.
Prayer is so important.
A prayerless leader, will not be a good leader in God’s Church.
A leader needs to be devoted to the ministry of prayer.
What ever Jesus did, He prayed about it.
Given the task and responsibilities a leader has in God’s Church,
you want him to rely on prayer.
Personally, I appreciate hearing the leader of the free world,
takes time to pray about things, and is not afraid to
admit it, and ask for prayer from us.
Prayer
should be evident in the lives of those who are leading our church.
If we try
to do things on our own, without prayer, we will fail.
Everything we do MUST be bathed in prayer.
The leadership of the church, make many decisions, that affect the spiritual lives of many people.
They make decisions, that affect the ministry of this church;
you want them to pray about it.
A person devoted to prayer, is not afraid to be bold and confident before God.
As we considered adding on to the church several years ago, our leadership knew that doing so would have a tremendous impact on the congregation, in many ways.
So they prayed about it, they sought God’s guidance.
And God gave them the confidence to go on.
Because that project was bathed in prayer,
we now have a great addition to our facilities.
And we are glad to say, one that we anticipate will be payed off within the next two or three years.
When a
congregation selects leaders, they need to be sure they are selecting men of
prayer.
John Bunyan said, He who runs from God in the
morning, will scarcely find Him the rest of the day.
III. MINISTRY
OF THE WORD (ACTS 6:4)
In Acts 6 the Apostles regretted they were neglecting the Word of God.
So they committed themselves to the ministry of the Word.
In 1 Timothy 3:2 we are told an Elder is to be able to teach.
You cannot teach without knowing what you are going to
teach about.
Leaders in a Church are to be in
tune with God.
They don’t have to have a PHD degree in Bible,
but they need to know enough, so they can teach another about Jesus
and have an understanding of the principles
contained with in it.
These men realized they needed to continually increase in their knowledge and understanding of God’s Word.
The more of the word of God you know,
the more of it you let penetrate your heart,
the more you will grow and mature.
That’s why it’s important for the leader in the church, to be here learning on Sunday morning, Sunday evening, Wednesday evening, etc.
But remember, we are not called to just know the facts;
we are called to know the word of God in an intimate way;
the way a husband and wife know each other.
It is hard to make spiritually based decisions, if we do not know
God’s Word.
1 Corinthians 1:20-25 (NIV) 20 Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. 22 Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24 but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength.
Sometimes spiritual decisions will not make sense to the world.
It takes a depth of knowledge and relationship with God to
see this.
A prayerless leadership, with no grasp of God’s Word,
will not be able to lead God’s church in effective
ministry.
IV. SHEPHERDING MINISTRY (ACTS 20:28, 1 PETER 5:2)
1 Peter 5:1-3 (NIV) 1 To the elders among you, I appeal as a fellow elder, a witness of Christ's sufferings and one who also will share in the glory to be revealed: 2 Be shepherds of God's flock that is under your care, serving as overseers--not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be; not greedy for money, but eager to serve; 3 not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock.
In Acts 20:28, Paul encourages the Ephesian Elders to shepherd the flock.
1 Peter 5:2 tells the elders to shepherd the flock of God.
Elders are not men who just come to a “board” meeting, to take
care of “church business.”
Taking care of business, is part of what they do, but they are called
to shepherd the church.
A shepherd does many things for sheep.
The shepherd takes the sheep to food and water.
The shepherd protects the sheep from danger.
Cares for the sheep when they are injured.
The shepherd looks for the lost sheep.
The shepherd knows his sheep, because a shepherd spends a great deal
of time with the sheep.
1 Peter
5:2-3 speaks to the manner of shepherding the church.
You cannot
drive sheep, like a cowboy drives cattle, you must lead them.
A leader in God’s church, is one who leads the church, not one who drives the sheep.
In Jesus day, shepherding was not a part time affair, or one for a person with no heart for it.
The shepherd smelled
like the sheep, because they were so involved with them.
Some want to take care of the church from a Sheriff model.
They are there to throw their authority around,
they are the type that will say it’s my way or
the highway.
In his book,
“They Smell Like Sheep”,
author Dr. Lynn Anderson states:
“A
church leader who has to ASSERT his authority, doesn’t have much.”
(p33)
Some will try to lead the church from the corporate CEO model.
They try to rule on high, distant from the flock.
In
Hebrews 13:20, Jesus is called our great shepherd!
Leaders in
God church need to have a deep love for the church they are leading.
They need to be involved with the sheep.
They are called to lead the church not drive
it.
A church needs leaders who are visionary.
Leaders who can catch a vision of what God wants for His church.
Not leaders who fight to the death, to keep the status
quo.
Helen Keller once said, “The most pathetic person in the world, is someone who has sight, but no vision.”
Churches need men who lead out of conviction and excitement,
and with an eye toward the future.
Most
people see challenges and say
“Why”, visionary
leaders say “Why
not.”
Visionary leaders realize we serve a BIG God, and are not afraid to
ask big things of Him!
CONCLUSION
The work of a leader never ends, but being a leader in God’s church is a
privilege and an honor.
It’s a responsibility, that takes a lot of work and a lot of prayer.
As Christians, we are called to submit and obey our leaders, as they have a huge responsibility on their shoulders.
Hebrews 13:17 (NIV) 17 Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account. Obey them so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no advantage to you.
The leader in God’s church has many areas of responsibility.
Let us encourage and pray for our leadership.
We have been so blessed in this church with Godly men, who have been willing to lead.
Let’s prayer for our leaders:
For a real desire to Draw Close to God.
To Serve God.
To Honor God in their lives.
To be Effective Shepherds for God.
To love the sheep in their flock.
To encourage and strengthen their flock.
To be willing to Give their All to God and the Flock under their care.