What To Look For In A Leader Series

What To Look For In A Leader

Acts 27:1-44

We are only 19 days from Christmas, which is exciting. But did you know we are only 11 months from the presidential election? How exciting (NOT!) That means 11 months of political ads, debates, polling data, and pundits pontificating about potential possibilities.

As the United States electorate considers each candidate, no doubt there are many things that influence someone's decision to vote for a particular person. Some are influenced by substantive things like a candidate's position on important issues, others are influenced by other things that are perhaps less substantive - like how a person looks, or their tone of voice, or even their hair style.

55 years ago presidential politics changed forever when Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy participated in the very first televised presidential debate. Observers at the time noted that if you listened to the debate on the radio, Nixon was the clear winner because of his command of the issues. But if you watched it on TV, Kennedy was the clear winner because of his command of the camera. As we all know, Kennedy went on to win.

The title of my message this morning is, "What To Look For In A Leader." Certainly, one of the qualities we would hope for in a president would be the ability to lead. This is fundamental to any organization no matter how large and no matter how small. From political positions, to corporations, civic groups and obviously Christ's organization (and the only one that will last for eternity) - the church. Even in the most basic and fundamental organization in society - the family - the ability to lead well is an invaluable commodity. Would you agree that there is a dire need for effective leaders?

Leadership is the topic of much conversation, seminars, books, websites conferences and training opportunities. This is true in the secular world as well in the Christian world. I've got a whole section in my personal library on the subject. And new books with intriguing titles are released ever year.

But if you were to pull together all of the typical patterns of leadership that the world offers, their definition of a leader would include someone being a strong, natural, dominating kind of personality. The world would say a true leader is one who is a visionary, risk-taker, action oriented, courageous, energetic, and in some ways, egocentric. They believe so much in themselves that they know they alone have the answers and therefore they alone know how to solve problems.

This is the world's picture of a leader. It's very different from what the Scripture says and yet there are some similarities. And if you were to look in the Scripture to try to find a pattern for leadership, where would You go? I can find a pattern for a leader who is an elder in the church and there are clear qualifications delineated there in 1 Timothy and Titus. But who are some examples of leaders we could look to?

Well, in the Old Testament you could go back to Moses. Moses was definitely a leader. He led the people of Israel out of captivity with some very courageous actions. He also took some great advice from his father-in-law and learned how to delegate and lead the whole of the nation of Israel - literally 2 million people - around the wilderness for 40 years - no easy job.

If you were to look in the New Testament for someone who demonstrated leadership capability, obviously you would look to the Lord Jesus Christ who is perfect in everything He did and was for certain the perfect leader.

But if you want a human model I don't think anybody is better than Paul. Paul is my hero as a leader. He is a true leader of people. Now his ability to lead had nothing to do with titles because he really didn't have any title. He wasn't a king, he wasn't a governor, he wasn't a statesman. He wasn't a nobleman of any kind. He was, however, a leader. And I don't know if there's another passage that portrays Paul's leadership ability quite as strikingly as the passage before us today, Acts 27.

This is sermon #45 in our series through the 28 chapters of Acts. We'll conclude this series next week (DV). The first 12 chapters primarily focus on Peter and his ministry, but by the time you get to the end of chapter 12 and then into chapter 13, the rest of the book almost exclusively focuses on the apostle Paul. Now no doubt, his leadership ability and acumen has been on display as we've seen him undertake and lead three different missionary journey's throughout Judea, Asia minor and into Europe. The last several weeks we've seen his leadership on display as he has testified before a Jewish mob, the high council of Israel, Roman officials, Governor Felix, Governor Festus, and last week King Agrippa and his wife Bernice.