The Perfect Leader
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
By Pastor Jim May
There is no one that I would rather follow than the Lord Jesus Christ. I have been led by a lot of people throughout my life; some in the military, some in the job market and some in the church. Some have been good leaders and some have been not so good, but none could match the perfect leadership of Jesus.
I remember one Colonel that led our unit in Vietnam who was probably the worst leader that I ever had. He literally went off the deep end. He forced us to stand at attention while rockets were incoming just a few hundred yards away. He stood us in the hot sun for hours waiting on him to get ready to give us a speech and when the speech came all he is did was tell us that the only way to truly know that any Vietnamese was an enemy was that he would have his right sleeve rolled up to his elbow. If both sleeves were down or if both were rolled up, he was a friend. I don’t know if any of those guys ever had a long sleeve to roll either way. It was always hot were we were stationed in the Mekong Delta, far too hot to worry about sleeves. He might have been a leader, but no one cared to follow him.
I’ve had some good leaders on the job and in the business world. They did their best and taught me a lot, but they could never give me every answer because they didn’t know the answer themselves. They could only lead as far as they had learned to follow to that point in time.
Thank God that He is the perfect leader. God has all knowledge, infinite wisdom and a full understanding of who and what we are, so he knows how to lead us in the right paths.
There are many scriptures that show us the kind of leadership that Jesus has but one of my favorite passages concerning his leadership can be found in the 23rd Psalms.
Psalms 23:1-6, "The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever."
The world is filled with two types of people, leaders and followers. We all begin as followers, and in one sense of the word, we never cease to be followers, especially of Christ. But there comes a time when we are called upon to be the leader that God wants us to be. You may lead your family; you might lead people on the job; you might just lead a class, or God may even call you to lead a ministry, but regardless of where you are called to lead, you are still a leader.
If you are going to lead, then it stands to reason that you would want to become the best leader you can be, and of course that can only be attained by following the example of the greatest leader of them all.
What are the qualities that make for a good leader?
We can find one clue in the story of God’s leadership as He led the Children of Israel out of Egypt to the Promised Land.
Deuteronomy 8:2, "And thou shalt remember all the way which the LORD thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments, or no."
A good leader knows that he cannot teach or lead others without taking them through some hard times. There is always a lot of change that has to happen as people grow and become what God wants them to be.
There is a testing and proving time that must come. In the church, we are led by God into times of testing and trials. These are not times that we are tempted to sin, but times when we are put into a position that we must trust God even when we don’t know what He is doing.
When we went into the military, there was a time of testing and trials that we had to go through. First we had to be broken down to learn to humble our will before the will of the commanders. We couldn’t be just individuals anymore. We had to learn to act like a time; kind of like the old motto of the Three Musketeers, “One for all and all for one”. That’s the only way to survive in a combat situation, every man watching out for every other man. No one can win the battle alone.
Isn’t this true in serving the Lord and being a part of His church? God must bring us to the place that we no longer live only to ourselves. We must humble ourselves before Him and allow Him to mold us into a Body of Christ and a family of Christians that can act with one mind and one accord. We are allowed to keep our individuality so that we may use our talents for God, but then God takes us and molds us into a church, all going in the same direction with the same dream in our spirit; to make Heaven our home.
The adjusting time isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes in the military it was hard having to run the obstacle courses, or make the forced marches, or stay up all night on guard duty, but it was necessary to train us to think like soldiers.
It isn’t always easy learning to be the Christian that God wants you to be. It’s hard to face the tribulations, trials and tests to allow our spirit to be humbled before God and to build our faith and trust in Him. It’s hard sometimes to get up and get to church and learn to be faithful in all situations. But it’s the endurance of those hard things that make us strong in the Lord.
What would my Drill Sergeant have said if I told him, “I don’t want to go to war”? I’m tired and I didn’t get much sleep last night. I think I’ll just lie in my bunk and rest all day.” What if I told him that I only feel like marching on Monday morning. I learned all I needed that one time a week and I wasn’t going to do it any other day.”
What if you tell your boss tomorrow morning, “I’m not coming to work today; I went yesterday and one day a week is all I need to get by?” What if you told him, “I just don’t feel good, I think I’ll stay home and watch some TV.” How long do you think you would have that job?
I know what would have happened. I’d still be doing pushups and that sergeant would still be screaming in my ear telling me to shape up. None of those excuses would stand with. My boss would have said, “don’t worry about it, just stay home and rest – for the rest of your life. If you can’t come to work, I don’t need you.”
But those are the same excuses that we give to Jesus and we expect Him to bless us for being that way just because we show up once in a while.
Matthew 24:13, "But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved."
2 Timothy 2:3, "Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ."
Being a Christian isn’t going to be a life filled with a bed of roses. The Lord is the great leader and he will lead you into trials and tests to prove your faithfulness, to test your faith and trust in him, and you must pass the test; you must change; because if you don’t, you fail and become an unprofitable servant that will never enter Heaven’s gates.
Another thing that a great leader does is that he stretches you beyond your limits and tries to force you to do things that you don’t believe you can do.
Deuteronomy 32:11-12, "As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings: So the LORD alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him."
God made Jacob stretch and grow. He would bring him to high places and let him fall to see if Jacob would learn to fly about his own worldly thinking. Jacob was a conniver; a thief and a liar. He learned to run to mama when he was in trouble with Esau. He stole the birthright of his brother. He lied to Isaac his father and then ran for his life.
A mother eagle takes her chicks on her wing. They soar above the clouds on her back and suddenly turns over and allows the chick to fall. That chick will scream, kick and flap its wings frantically trying to catch some air. Sometimes they will fail and the mother eagle swoops down and rescues them in mid-air, then takes them up and starts over again until that chick can fly on his own.
God stirs your nest every once in a while. Don’t get too complacent. Don’t get too comfortable with where you are right now. If you do, then you can expect a stirring. God wants you to continue to grow in Him. He wants you to ever grow stronger, more reliant upon Him and more faithful. God is going to stretch you and force you to become more than you are today.
I learned to do things in the military; things in the business world and things in the church that I never dreamed possible, because I was forced to stretch and grow. I learned to stay up all day, and all night, and then all day again and then go on guard duty and still stay awake. I learned to speak to people, to relate to them in almost any circumstance; to get the message across – and that was way outside of my box. I learned to pastor a church; to purchase buildings and manage the church business and still maintain a job – things that I never thought I could do. But God was stretching and He still is. God isn’t finished with us yet and it remains to be seen where He is going to take us, but we are going to have to stretch and grow before we can get there.
A good leader will always lead you to an ultimate goal. What is his dream for you? Where is he taking you? A leader in the military is leading you to be a good soldier, and hopefully to lead to you a victory over your enemies. A leader in the job is trying to get you to be a productive employee and perhaps even grooming you to become a leader in the company. Jesus is leading us to an eternal reward and a perfect place of peace and joy. There is a goal in mind. There is a dream that lives on.
Everything that God does has that once purpose in mind – to help you make it through. Like a good shepherd, He is constantly turning you, leading you and walking before you so that you won’t be lost in the wilderness of sin. Like a loving Father, God often leads you to some smooth paths and quiet places so that you can gain strength that you will need before the next trial begins.
A good leader also knows when it’s time for you to become the leader yourself. He will train you, teach you and guide you, but there comes a day when he will say, “I’ve led you far enough, I’ve taught you enough that you go out on your own now, so go out and become all that you can be.”
Jesus did the same thing to his disciples and he does the same for us. He never leaves or forsakes us and always stands by to direct our paths, but He also expects us to go and become leaders in our own right by his power.
Paul gave us a picture of what God expects of us as grow to become leaders in the church in Hebrews 5:12-14, "For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe. But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil."
Its time we stepped out by faith to become the leaders that God wants us to be. The church will never grow, and people will never come to be a part of this ministry if we aren’t ready to step into place and lead them to the cross.
God is a perfect leader, and I want to be a perfect follower. Where He leads me I will follow.
Keep your eyes on Jesus and follow Him! Be all you can be in Jesus!
