Sermon Transcript
Maybe just get us going. But there was one funny moment where— there’s a couple funny moments. One funny moment when I had them exchange their rings, right, as part of their vows. And one of them, I’ll let you figure it out, at one point I said, with this ring I thee wed. So they’re repeating, and this person said, with this wing I thee wed. And then the other— okay, now you’re gonna know who it was if you know the order— came back when it was her turn.
Okay, there you go. When it was her turn, I said, with this ring I thee wed. She said, with this ring I thee wed. I was like, we are seeing how this is going to— no. It was really, really fun. The best part was when I was doing the whole rehearsal, I was like, hey guys, let’s just go over these vows.
They might sound straightforward, but trust me, let’s practice them. But yeah, anyways, they’re happily married. Anybody know where their honeymoon is? You guys know? Anybody?
When or where? Where? They’re doing a short thing in Half Moon Bay. Half Moon Bay. And then Hong Kong.
And then Hong Kong. Not bad. All right. We’ll be praying for them as they travel and as they are starting their lives as a married couple. All right.
So today, again, we’re in Acts 20. And we’re continuing our study through the book of Acts. We’ve been in it since what? September? And last week, we looked a little bit at Acts 19.
This week and next week, we’re going to be looking at Acts 20. As we continue our way. And today the topic is really Christian leadership. Okay, Christian leadership. One of the classic texts on leadership in the Bible, a biblical perspective on leadership.
Now when I say, you know, who is a good leader, you know, who would come to your mind? You know, I imagine if you’re a product of this culture, many of us, if you’re thinking, you know, present or past, a lot of us would think the late Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs was a good leader. How do I know this? Our culture’s been absolutely obsessed with him, to put it mildly, right?
You guys remember when that book, Walter Isaacson, his biography came out on Steve Jobs’ life? Everybody in this area was reading it. Did you guys see that? Like a few years ago, everybody was reading it. I remember when I was flying to another part of the country through San Jose, from San Jose to another part of the country, walking through the terminal and just seeing countless people with this physical book in their hands.
Like, you know, people actually still have the physical book in their hands, and they were reading it. I’ve never seen that. The only time I see people looking down is usually at the phone Steve Jobs probably invented, right? And the funny thing was too, when I got onto the airplane, I saw 2 others reading that book in the same flight. Have you ever seen 2 other people reading?
And I say others, by the way, because I myself was reading the book on that flight. I’m not joking. And then I get off the plane, I think I was in Atlanta or something, and I don’t see the book really, and then I get back on the plane to come back home, and the terminal, and you see it again, right? Our culture’s been absolutely enamored with Steve Jobs and what he was able to accomplish, right? And he was a great leader in many respects, but is he the pinnacle of what it means to be a good leader?
Is that the standard for how we are to lead? The reality is we’re all leaders. Many Christians actually don’t think of themselves as leaders, but we’re leading in the corporate, you know, in the workplace, whether you’re, you know, obviously leading those underneath you or you’re leading up. Or maybe it’s in the classroom. Students, you guys are leading your peers, influencing them.
In the home, right? Grandparents, parents, you know, older and younger siblings. I’ve had younger siblings lead me and influence me in very good ways. But we’re all leading. Some of us don’t realize that we’re leading.
Some of us do realize we’re leading, but we don’t know what to make of it, how to live it out. And it seems to me no wonder, because the modern image or model of what makes good leadership seems to be this charisma, this prowess, this, you You know, authority, that oftentimes we just think, you know what, I don’t have that. Well, what does the Bible say about leadership? The interesting thing to me as we look at the Bible today for a biblical perspective on leadership, it is actually very counterintuitive to this culture, it seems to me, and yet incredibly practical both to the Christian and non-Christian. And how we can be better leaders and actually even be the leaders we were meant to be to begin with.
So we’re going to look at that today, and we’re going to draw out some principles as Paul shows us here. So let’s get into the text, and we’ll read it and then come draw some principles. So Acts 20:17-38.
So Paul’s traveling here. From Miletus Paul sent to Ephesus for the elders of the church. When they arrived, he said to them, you know how I lived the whole time I was with you. From the first day I came into the province of Asia. I served the Lord with great humility and with tears and in the midst of severe testing by the plots of my Jewish opponents.
You know that I have not hesitated to preach anything that would be helpful to you, but have taught you publicly and from house to house. I have declared to both Jews and Greeks that they must turn to God in repentance and have faith in our Lord Jesus. And now, compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem. Not knowing what will happen to me there. I only know that in every city the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are facing me.
However, I consider my life worth nothing to me. My only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me, the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace. Now I know that none of you among whom I have gone about preaching the kingdom will ever see me again. Therefore, I declare to you today that I am innocent of the blood of any of you. For I have not hesitated to proclaim to you the whole will of God.
Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood. I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. Even from your own number, men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. So be on your guard.
Remember that for 3 years I never stopped warning each of you night and day with tears. Now I commit to you— now I commit you to God and to the word of his grace, which can build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified. I have not coveted anyone’s silver or gold or clothing. You yourselves know that with these hands of mine I have supplied my own needs and the needs of my companions. In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: It is more blessed to give than to receive.
When Paul had finished speaking, he knelt down with them and prayed. They all wept as they embraced him and kissed him. What grieved them most was his statement that they would never see his face again. Then they accompanied him to the ship. So here’s the context.
Paul is wrapping up his 3rd missionary journey. Okay, he’s had 3 missionary journeys. This is the last one where he’s gone out and each time he’s planted churches around the Mediterranean. Okay, and as he’s done that, he’s also circled back on these trips to kind of invest and encourage those plants and their leadership that had been built up after he established them. Well, this is the final tour, if you will.
This is his final passing of the baton. And he’s sailing past Ephesus, the peninsula there, and he decides to send for the Ephesian elders. Apparently, we don’t know exactly the reason why he didn’t go up there, but he sent for them to come be with him. And it’s at this time that he really says, look, guys, this is what you got to get when it comes to leading. I’m not going to be here any longer.
I’m going on to Jerusalem. But you need to understand this when it comes to your leading the people. And it was obviously a very emotional scene. But who he was talking to were the pastor-elders, okay, of Ephesus. The pastor-elders is kind of a one word there, hyphen, right?
Think of, like, the Dave Gudgels, Pastor Dave Gudgel, the Steve Cliffords down at Westgate. You know, Dave Whitaker down at Morgan Bible, these pastors and elders who were leading what we believe to be house churches there at the time. So in one sense, this is very directly applicable to church leadership, right? I mean, he’s talking to pastors, elders. If you’re leading a church, listen up.
This is very directly applicable to you. But it is also very helpful to those of us who are leading elsewhere as well. And we’ll see that in some of these principles that we draw out. That Paul models and describes here in Christian leadership. So we’re going to go through these, but number one, we see here Christian leadership starts with the leader’s own personal integrity.
Okay, look at verse 28. It’s in a number of places, but verse 28 gets at it pretty clearly. He says, exhorting them, keep watch over yourselves and the flock. Keep watch over yourselves. Christian leadership starts with the Christian leader’s personal integrity.
Now, the famous Greek philosopher Aristotle, some of you may know this, wrote a work called Rhetoric that basically talks about the dynamic in leadership and communicating. And he talks about some of this, how personal integrity is so important. What he says is really leadership and communication really boil down to 3 things. He says logos, pathos, and ethos. Okay, real quickly, logos, you know, where we get our English word logic, right, has to do with the words we use.
That, you know, the words and the words we select really influence others. It’s important to craft that carefully. Okay, pathos, you know, where we get our English word empathy, sympathy, you know, it has to do with feeling. It’s considered with the leader’s passion, right? Maybe charisma.
And you already start to see that there’s a combination that can happen even between these 2, that if a leader projects herself or himself with strong words and passion, it starts to become a really strong— there’s strong synergy there. Well, then finally, he said the 3rd thing is there’s ethos. And ethos is where we get our English word, for example, ethic, right? It has to do with the leader’s character, integrity, right? And what’s fascinating about this work that he wrote is at the very beginning, he kind of, he says it this way.
He says, look, at the end of the day, about half, if not more than half, really comes down to your ethos as a leader. It comes down to your character. It comes down to who you are as a person. And look, we get that, right? We want to follow people who are credible.
Are trustworthy, right? So he says this. He says half, if not more, of all that— your influence as a leader comes down to your ethos. But since we can’t really talk about— we can’t really teach that in a classroom setting, it’s really more of who you are, we’re going to go ahead and skip that and go on to logos and pathos. Which, think about that for a second, right?
It’s fascinating. He’s saying it’s basically all this, your character, right? But we can’t really do anything about that. And Paul is saying, we got to start there. We got to— Christian leadership starts with personal integrity.
In what ways? Well, we see that in a number of places here in the text. Look at verse 19. You know how I lived the whole time I was with you. From the first day I came into the province of Asia, I served the Lord with great humility.
Humility. Now, is humility a virtue? Is humility a trait you would ascribe to being a great leader? Is that something you’d put on the top of your list of what it means to be a good leader? Humility?
Have you read Jim Collins’ book Good to Great? It’s a really good book. I love it. It’s about leadership, but he comes at leadership from a completely different perspective than most books on leadership come from. Most books on leadership are basically, here’s words of wisdom.
In fact, I read Colin Powell’s It Worked for Me. That’s what most leadership books are. Hey, this worked for me, have at it, right? Jim Collins’ book is interesting because it’s different in the respect of it’s essentially a research paper. Like, he’s looking at almost exclusively empirical evidence.
Even the interviews he compiles with all these companies that he goes to speak with, he enumerates them and looks at the data and statistics of the company. What he did was he looked at, I think, about 5 companies And he came up with a metric system of what determined a great company versus a good company. If you want to look at that, read the book. But he decided, you know, I’m going to look at these companies that have made the jump and are really great companies. They’re really effective, productive, all that sort of thing.
And so what he did is he looked at all the numbers. And what he found was, duh, a lot of it has to do with the leader. But there’s certain traits that a leader has that helps a company go from Good to Great, and one of those is humility. Now, what’s so interesting when you read this part in the book is this is how— this is the sense in which Jim Collins makes this point. He looks at the evidence and then he says it’s about humility.
He says this: Reader, you’ve got to understand, you’re not going to get this. This is counterintuitive, but humility is a desirable trait for a leader.
You’re not going to believe this. Is what we found helps a company go from good to great. A leader like that. Humility. Now, should this surprise the Christian?
Listen to some of these texts. Matthew 23:12, for those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. Psalm 147, the Lord lifts up the humble. 1 Peter 5:6, humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time.
What Jim Collins discovered, in other words, is what the Creator has been saying. We’ve been designed to do this all along. Now, if you want to go more spiritual with it, it’s because it helps us remain dependent on our Creator. Jesus talks about that. And when we’re dependent on Him, things work out because He’s actually designed how things work.
But more practically speaking, down to earth, what So what does this mean?
It seems to me humility means when the leader isn’t so much focused on what he or she should achieve, like what credit they should deserve, but is more invested in the greater good. And in the case with Jim Collins, it means the greater good of the company, right?
In other words, it seems to me there’s many implications. Here, right, as you think about your context, where you’re leading, where you’re influencing others. But it seems to me, for example, that Christian leaders ought to be quick to deflect praise and absorb criticism, right? That would be a humble task, right? If you’re on a team— you guys remember Steph Curry’s MVP speech?
Did you guys watch that? It was great. Go Warriors, by the way. He was doing his speech and he spent the first few minutes praising God, thanking God, personal Savior Jesus, which that’s a hard thing for an athlete on that stage to do. And then he spends the rest of his time basically talking about all his supporting actors, family, friends, through tears.
It seems to me that when leaders lead this way, it’s— these are the people we want to lead anyhow, right? Excuse me, we want to follow anyhow, right? So humility is part of integrity. Paul models at least one more here. We’ll look at one more.
Verses 33 through 35, he says, I have not coveted anyone’s silver or gold or clothing. You yourselves know that with these hands of mine I have supplied my own needs and the needs of my companions. In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak. What’s he saying? He’s saying— he was elevating honesty.
Right? In particular, in this instance, not coveting gold, silver, working with his own hands. In particular, when it came to finances, he was above reproach when it came to his dealings with finances. Christian leaders need to be honest even when nobody’s looking. Now, this trait too seems to me to be a little counterintuitive to our culture.
I mean, would we put at the list— on a list of great leaders’ traits Honesty up there? You know, maybe, maybe not. I did a quick Google search of good traits for leaders, right? And I found 2 articles, one by Forbes, one by CNN, that actually did put honesty very top— very near the top. And one of them, I think the CNN one, actually put honesty on the top.
And again, saying, you’re not going to think this naturally, but honesty is very, very important as a good leader. How do we know this? Well, Aristotle’s been saying it forever. Paul, it’s here. We need to be honest.
We need to be— we need to live with personal integrity. And you know what? And here’s the reality. This is, of course, just a real challenge, right? To live with integrity.
There is just going to be temptations a-many, as you know, that are going to want to compromise your integrity. But can you forsake I mean, the call of the Christian is not to forsake humility, not to forsake honesty, or this list of virtues that we know of, right? But to take this seriously, even when nobody’s looking. Christian leadership starts here. Number 2, Christian leadership is faithful to commitments even when it’s painful and difficult.
Again, look at verse 19. I served the Lord with great humility and with tears and in the midst of severe testing by the of my Jewish opponents. Now, this is really interesting. I mean, there’s a lot of reference to tears in these short— in this little text here, right? Now, for Paul, that meant he had a real temptation to quit, right?
These plots— we know, having moved through these chapters now in Acts 8, that when Paul went into these towns, he was proclaiming the gospel, and people weren’t always the happiest with that, right? And actually, in more than just verbal persecution, he also faced bodily harm, even death threats. But what Paul is saying here and highlighting for these leaders is he didn’t bail. He remained steadfast as long as God had him there. We can’t quit.
One obvious parallel, it seems to me, is in Christian marriage. You know, in marriage, we are leading and influencing the other. Okay, now this is not a sermon on that, okay? It’s just an illustration. But we are leading and influencing our spouses, okay?
How are we going to be doing that? You know, yesterday, of course, read the vows that Michael and Tiffany repeated. You know, faithful to each other for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, right? The point is They have to remain faithful to each other. Actually, there always comes a point in premarital counseling— premarital counseling is such an interesting, fun thing for me as a pastor because so often couples come in— none of you YOPros have done this, by the way— you guys come in and it’s like everything’s glossy-eyed.
Like, you know, I’m trying to share, hey, you know, this might be some helpful stuff, you know, let’s look at the Scripture, but most people are just like, yeah, yeah, we’re getting married, right? I mean, that’s kind of the feeling. There’s one point in the marriage, you know, that I always try to stop— I always try to say, and this is more just, you know, to state the obvious, hey, there’s going to come a time where things are going to probably get rough for you. Things are going to get challenging, and your call is to remain faithful to each other. You know, there’s a similar principle playing out in Christian leadership.
Now, in the corporate world or even in the local church, is there a till death do us part clause? Of course not, right? But I think what Paul is saying is we can’t just bail when we feel like it, right?
We can’t just bail when we feel like it. You know, Paul is modeling here for Christians to remain faithful to other Christians, even non-Christians. But how do we do this practically? How does this play out? It seems to me we are not to enter into relationships as consumers, but we are to look to the needs of others first, asking ourselves questions not, are these people cool?
Are these people nice? Are these the type of people I’d like to hang out with? But rather, how can I serve? How can I build them up, help them grow? And our model, of course, in this is Jesus.
So Christian leadership is faithful to commitments even when it’s painful and difficult. The next principle is very much like it. Number 3, Christian leadership cares more about the people than what I can get out of them. Look at this in verses 28 through 31. Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers.
Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood. I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. So be on your guard. Now, these verses are packed with thoughts and insights, but first look at the temptation that leaders face.
Do you see that here at the end? Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw disciples after them. The temptation is to make followers of us, of ourselves. But Paul is saying it just can’t be that way in the least. It can’t be that way in the least.
Do you see that? And look, as I read this verse one more time, listen for all the references to the Trinity.
Verse 28, keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he has bought with his own blood. In other words, the people that you lead and influence ultimately belong to God. They are his care, his responsibility. In other words, he gives us responsibility, not ownership.
We need to care for people for who they are and not so much what we can Now, that’s an interesting thought to think about here in Silicon Valley, right, where everything’s driven by the bottom line. But look more at some of these— the metaphors here and the words here that are just so helpful in understanding how we are to do this. Verse 28, keep watch over all the flock. If you’re the underlining type, underline that word, all. All people.
Socioeconomic status, political affiliation, Here’s a fun one, personality type. You know, are there any people that you work with that just grate at you, right? Either you lead them or you’re, you know, they lead you, which is probably the worst combo, right?
We need to stay faithful as long as God’s calling us there. Look at, you know, he talks about the flock, shepherding sheep, right? What’s the deal with this metaphor? Well, you know, there’s— I feel like it’s almost become kind of a modern Christian cliché, but have you heard this thought that sheep bite, right? You’ve heard that?
Listen to how John Stott, pastor, author, tries to put this metaphor tactfully. He just— he’s very admirable here. Sheep are not at all the clean and cuddly creatures they may appear. In fact, they are dirty, subject to unpleasant pests, and regularly need to be dipped in strong chemicals to rid them of lice, ticks, and worms. They are also unintelligent, wayward, and obstinate.
I hesitate to apply the metaphor too closely and characterize the people of God as dirty, lousy, or stupid. But some people are a great trial to their pastors. And being a good pastor himself, he then says, and vice versa. And their pastors will persevere— actually, let’s bring out the lens a little bit— and leaders will persevere in caring for them. Christian leaders will persevere in caring for them only if they remember how valuable they are in God’s sight.
They are the flock of God the Father, purchased by the precious blood of God the Son, and supervised by overseers appointed by God the Holy Spirit. If the 3 persons of the Trinity are thus committed to the welfare of the people, should we not be also?
Listen to how Jesus helps us understand the metaphor of shepherding and sheep, describing the Good Shepherd in John 10:11. He says, the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. But they will never follow a stranger.
In fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice. What is Jesus saying? What is Paul saying here in terms of caring for people is we need to know them. We need to know all that’s going on in them, celebrating the good, mourning with them the bad, knowing them by name. We need to invest in them, which means, you know, scars, warts, and all, right?
Even as we have scars, warts, and all, right?
But then look at Paul’s motivation in all this. Verse 36, when Paul had finished speaking, Luke, the author of Acts, tells us, he knelt down with all of them and prayed. They all wept as they embraced him and kissed him. What grieved them most was his statement that they would never see his face again. Then they accompanied him to the ship.
Look, you don’t have this sort of impact on others if you don’t love them.
It all comes down to love. We got to be motivated out of our love for others, which means sacrificing for others, putting others others above our own needs, considering their needs over our own, which means it takes physical time, emotional energy, right? In the real world, it’s not always easy.
But we need to get to know them and invest in them. By the way, even when we’re not necessarily leading them from a formal position. I think I’ve shared this story in a YoPros Plus Excuse me, Yopros message. I don’t know if I’ve shared it in a worship service here, but it’s worth repeating. When Cindy and I were in China, she was launching the e-commerce business for Gap retail there.
It was a pretty cool thing. But what’s interesting about Cindy and how she leads— and I was just going to embarrass her here— is she’s, you know, when I was reading Good to Great and it was describing these leaders who are humble, faithful to the greater good, working with other people even when they’re swamped. If you look at my copy of Good to Great, you’ll just see Cindy in the margin. Like, just turn the pages, you’ll just see, oh, that reminds me of Cindy. And that’s what I love about her.
That’s what a lot of people love about her in the workplace especially. But one day in the middle of a busy launch season, just in the middle of when they’re just hammered to the floor. She was buzzed into a conference room by this gal who was crying uncontrollably. And this gal told Cindy that her husband had left her for another woman. And, you know, it’s tragic.
They had a little kid together, and he made it clear that he wanted nothing to do with the relationship going forward. And she said to Cindy something like, you know, I didn’t know who I could tell, but something in my heart told me I could tell you. Now what’s incredible about this is Cindy was not her, like, chain of command leader here, right? This woman was not reporting to Cindy, but she had seen Cindy influencing in her leadership role on other teams what she’s doing. She said, you know what, that’s the person I need to turn to.
And the fun part about this story is this, this gal later put her faith in Christ, and she’s doing excellent. She’s doing great. So much joy, peace.
Now, I use this example for inspiration, right? But let’s be real here. How well do we do this on a regular basis? In your leading, do you do this well? I mean, does Cindy?
Do I? Do any of us do this well? Not really. When it really comes down to it, we really don’t do it well.
We don’t, right? I mean, the reality is we compromise on our integrity.
We put our own agendas before the needs of those around us. We bail on people when we know we shouldn’t, right? The interesting thing here too is if you look at Paul’s letters that he goes on to write, and then even the last book of the Bible that the Apostle John wrote, you’ll find that the Ephesian church actually struggled quite a bit, which, if we, you know, do the math, it means that the leaders there dropped the ball. These leaders who were spending time weeping with Paul, they struggled in this. So what’s the answer?
How do you and I lead the way God calls us to lead? This is the best part. I love this. Number 4, Christian leadership finds its ultimate source of help in God and the Word of his grace. Do you see that there in the text?
Verse 32, now I commit you to God and the Word of his grace, which can build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified. Now, pardon me for being a little technical for a second, but this is what the Reformers called— and And I’m going to read this because it’s in Latin. Simul istus et peccator, which means we are simultaneously justified and accepted in God while sin is still operating in our lives. Right? In other words, God loves us infinitely because of what Jesus did for us on the cross.
When we believe on his name, we receive forgiveness from sins. And yet, you and I, we’re going to mess up. Right? Than we probably care to think about this side of heaven. So what do we do?
What’s the answer? What this text is saying is this. You can look at it from this perspective. Imagine if Paul were saying, you see this list that we’ve pulled out, these principles, these 3 principles? There’s more here, OK?
You think you can just do them and you’re good? And you’ll be successful as a leader? You think you can just try real hard and you’ve got it? Well, you can’t, is essentially what verse 32 would say to you. You have to rely on God and the word of his grace.
Now, what does that mean? It means God is saying to you, at the end of the day, I’m the one who purchased the people with my blood. I’m the one who ultimately cares and leads through you and leads and cares you as well as you’re leading others. As you’re influencing others, and you have to depend on me. Remember earlier I said our model in this is Jesus?
Is he not? Jesus is the ultimate leader, right? The ultimate boss, the ultimate entrepreneur, the ultimate CEO. He’s the Creator. How did he view leadership?
Man, there’s this one text I’ll read here for a second that even the way Paul The way Paul reflects leadership is just a dim reflection of what Jesus showed us in his life. Look at this. In Mark 10, I think it’ll be on the screen for you, verses 42 through 45, here’s what Jesus said to his disciples before he went to the cross. He said— he gathered them together and said, you know that the rulers in this world lord it over their people, and officials flaunt their authority over those under them. But among you it will be different.
Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must be the slave of everyone else. For even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many. Jesus is saying, look, if there’s anybody who could come down as a leader and demand perfect work, perfect leadership in us, it is Jesus. And yet look at what he displays for us. He came to model how to serve first and not even be served, going all the way even to lay down his life for us.
And this is actually the gospel, the good news message available today. Jesus, in the greatest act of leadership of humankind, laying down his life that we might have forgiveness of sins, that if you receive his name, if you believe on his name, you can have forgiveness of sins. I’m going to give you an opportunity to receive that today. In a few moments when we pray. But as leadership, do you— as we lead, do you see how empowering this is?
On one level, it means if you have compromised your integrity, there’s grace and there’s forgiveness. It means if you have lorded your leadership position over others, there’s grace and forgiveness. If you’ve bailed on your commitments, there’s grace and forgiveness. But more than grace and forgiveness, forgiveness, it acts as a wellspring bubbling up that we might help people see whom they ultimately need, and that is God himself, who we need just as much as anybody else. And that, in fact, is ultimately our call in leadership, to help lead and influence people toward the love of Jesus Christ.
I had the cool opportunity to hear Pat Gelfand I was listening to a talk yesterday, and he’s the CEO of VMware. You may have heard of it. It’s just this big company here, right? And he talked about his role at the company like this. He said, he said, as I see it, I am the senior pastor of 20,000 people at VMware.
How cool is that, right? I’m the senior pastor of 20,000 people at VMware. This is our task as Christ followers. You are a leader. You are an influencer.
It might not be over 20,000 people or 2,000 people. It might be 200 or 20. But our call is to help influence people towards the love of Jesus in these ways that Paul displays, and knowing that when we mess up, which we will, there’s grace and forgiveness. That ultimately the leader who’s working through you and working his plan out altogether is God himself. I want to close our time reading the words of a pastor from centuries ago.
He challenges us with this. Oh, then let us hear these arguments of Christ wherever we feel ourselves grow dull and careless. Did I die for them, and will not you look after them? Were they worth my blood, and are they not worth your labor? Did I come down from heaven to earth to seek and save that which was lost, lost, and will you not go to the next door or street or village to seek them?
How small is your labor in condescension as to mine! I debased myself to this, but it is your honor to be so employed. Have I done and suffered so much for their salvation, and was I willing to make you a coworker with me, and will you refuse that little that lies upon on your hands. Let’s pray.
