Paul: A Model Of Christian Leadership Series

The world is full of all kinds of models of leadership. Some good, some not so good. Have you

ever had a boss like this? You know, in my life I've had some good bosses. I've had some ones

that not so good. I've had ones that I've learned from, that have encouraged me. I've had others

that were screamers and yellers. But the leader in where you work, in your home, in your

ministry really make a difference in your life. Think about as you've changed jobs. As you've

gone from a job with maybe a manager or a leader like this to a leader that was encouraging and

caring. Or the flip side, you had a really good job with a really good leader that all of a sudden

you ended up working at a place like this.

Here as we get into our study of Philemon, we're going to see Paul interacting with Philemon,

and Paul really becomes a model or demonstrates a model of Christian leadership. So today

we're going to look at three aspects of leadership. We're going to look at partnership, we're going

to look at motivation, and we're going to look at empowerment. We will see these through Paul's

communication here in this letter.

Now each of us in our lives are at some point on the balance of leadership. Sometimes we're

leaders, sometimes we have people that lead. That could be ten times throughout the day. Maybe

if we're in middle management and we're going from left to right. So we have the opportunity to

affect those that we lead; at the same time we are affected by other leaders. How we

communicate and how we're communicated with has a huge impact on our value of self-worth.

Right? This isn't really just about work. Think about at home. If you're married, you at least

should know how you communicate and treat your partner has a huge impact on the relationship.

The same is true in ministry and the church. How individuals lead has an impact on the

ministries.

Now Paul gives instructions to Timothy and Titus about sort of what the leadership structure of

the church should be. But I'm talking about the interpersonal interactions. I think for me, my role

here at the church along with Pastor Scott is to lead. But I view myself as a partner in the

ministry where we both serve a common goal. I have the expectation that those that are in

leadership in ministry have that same view that, yes, they are in a position of leadership, but they

are there as a partner. But to be clear, leaders at some time do need to assert their authority. But

knowing how and when to do that is what differentiates an acceptable leader from an exceptional

leader. We're going to see that today with Paul.

So we're going to look at this very short book, at 335 words. It is the third shortest book in the

Bible. But Paul uses all of those words to the fullest to model Christian leadership.

I think it's important when we start a new letter that we look at a bit of the history of the letter.

So I'm not going to bore you too much. This is only going to take a few minutes, but I think it's

important to sort of see where this letter fits into Paul's body of work.

Paul is attributed with writing thirteen letters in the New Testament. Typically they're divided

into two groups – the letters that are to the churches and the letters that are to individuals. Now

there's some debate over Hebrews, but we're going to say that he didn't write that for today. So

we're going to say we have thirteen letters here. But there's another way to divide them and that

is how Paul describes himself, how he introduces himself.

So in nine letters they’re a little bit different organized here, Paul describes himself as an apostle.

It's a way to sort of “Listen, hey, I have some instruction to give you. I'm telling you who I am

and this is my role.” When I worked with the youth, I used to ask them, “How did the Ten

Commandments begin?” And they’d always begin with the first commandment and I'd say, “No,

it actually begins with God telling Moses – I am the LORD your God, who led you out of the

land of Egypt.” God is establishing his authority to be able to do that. So Paul here in these

letters, says, “Hey, I'm an apostle, I have the authority to share what I'm sharing.”

But in four of his letters (the four that are listed here on the bottom right), he gives thankfulness.

He opens them in a very different way because the message he's trying to convey is different. So