I. Two weeks ago I talked about the need for leaders, and the need for us all to get involved doing what it is that God has gifted us to do, to see that this church becomes what God wants it to be, and has the impact on this community that God intends it to have.
A. It would be unfair to ask you to be leaders and to use your gifts if I didn’t help you to understand what it takes to be a leader.
B. I know that there are a lot of people that don’t think that they are leadership material, but more times than not it is because they don’t understand what being a leader is.
C. Being a leader is being a servant. Jesus was the greatest leader that has ever walked the earth, and that was because he was a servant beyond all else.
D. It’s a popular thing today to write a purpose statement to define what it is that you want to accomplish, or feel that you need to accomplish.
E. If Jesus is the Leader that we are to model our leadership after then we need to look at His purpose statement.
F. I think that we can find that in (Mat 20:25 -28 NIV) Jesus called them together and said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave-- just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."
G. I know that a lot of you don’t think that you are leaders, but I know that you are wrong. Because everyone is leading someone whether they think, they are or not.
H. No matter who you are there is someone that is looking up to you and following your example. That makes you a leader.
I. Being a leader does not necessarily mean that you are the one that is out in front, but it does mean that you have someone that is following your example, or who is looking to you to help them know what to do.
J. If you are, husbands would you please stand up. If you are, a wife would you please stand up. If you are a parent and you are not already standing, please stand up. If you are a member of a church would you please stand up. If you have, friends would you please stand up.
K. If you are standing, you are a leader in some way. You can sit down now. If you are a leader then whether you are in a leadership position in the church right now or not, you can benefit from learning how to be a better leader.
L. For the next six weeks I am going to be preaching about leadership, and I would like to ask every one of you to make a commitment to yourself to be here, and if you see that there is someone that is not here I hope that you will call them and ask them to be here.
M. Whether you are leading a corporation, a department where you work, your own business, a Sunday School class, a committee, Your home, your children, or your friends, it will help you to learn about what it means to be a leader. And, most importantly if you are a Christian it will help you to learn to be a better leader, because God intends that all of us be leading someone.
II. Most people have heard of a Lear Jet, it is a small jet that is named after the man the developed it Bill Lear.
A. Bill Lear held more than 150 different patents of things he invented, including automatic pilot, car radio, and eight track tapes if you can remember what they were. If you are less than 30, they were the things before CDs, and cassettes.
1. In the mid 1950s Bill Lear saw the potential market for small corporate jets, it took thirteen years for him to make the dream come true, and in 1963 the first Lear Jet flew.
2. In 1964 Bill Lear delivered his first Lear Jet to a client. His success was immediate and he quickly sold many planes.
3. Not long after, Lear learned that two of the Jets had crashed under mysterious circumstances, and he was devastated. At that time there were 55 Lear Jets owned, and he called and told the owners to have the Jets grounded until he found out what the problem was.
4. The danger of more lives being lost was more important to him than adverse public reaction.
5. Lear researched the problem and couldn’t nail down the exact cause on the ground, so at risk of his life he set out to recreate the problem while flying one of the Jets.
6. He nearly crashed himself and was able to figure out the problem and create a new part that would correct it. He then had the new part installed on the 55 planes in service.
7. Grounding the planes cost Lear a lot of money and it took two years for him to build the company back to where it was when the problem occurred.
B. Bill Lear was willing to risk his success, his fortune, and his life to solve the problem, but not his integrity. That is character!
C. How a leader deals with the circumstances of life tells you a lot about their character.
D. Crisis doesn’t necessarily make character but it surely reveals it.
E. When someone faces problems, it makes them choose one of two paths, character or compromise.
F. Every time a person chooses character over compromise it makes them stronger, even if it creates a negative that they have to overcome.
G. The development of character is at the very heart of our development not only as leaders, but as human beings, and definitely as Christians.
H. What do we need to know about character?
1. Character is more than talk!
2. Anyone can say that they have integrity but action is the real indicator of character.
3. Your character determines who you are.
a. Who you are determines what you see.
b. What you see determines what you do.
4. We can never separate a persons’ character from their actions. If someone’s actions and intentions are constantly working against each other then we need to look to their character to find out why.
I. Talent is a gift but character is a choice.
1. We don’t have control over a lot of things in our lives, we don’t get to choose our parents, where we’re born or our up bringing, but we can choose our character.
2. As a matter of fact we create our character, we can cop out or dig out of a bad situation, we can bend the truth or stand for it and under the weight of it, we can take the easy way out or pay the price.
3. The way you choose to live your life creates your character and your character creates who you are.
J. Character brings lasting success with people.
1. To be a leader at any level you have to have success with people, a proverb says if you think you are leading and no one is following you are only taking a walk.
2. In the church, your profession, or your family, followers don’t trust leaders whose character is flawed, and they will not continue to follow them. We saw that at American Airlines recently. When people questioned the leader’s character, right or wrong they quit following.
K. We will never be better than our character.
1. Proverbs in the bible says that, in so many words "As a man thinks in his heart so is he."
2. Our character determines who we are, and we are the ones who develop it
3. A man took his daughter to a carnival and she ran to a booth and told the man there that she wanted cotton candy. He handed her a huge ball of cotton candy, and her daddy told her, "sweetheart are sure you can eat all of that." She said "don’t worry daddy, I’m a lot bigger on the inside than on the outside."
4. That is what character is, being bigger on the inside than what we face on the outside. As leaders we have to develop our character, and we develop the right kind of character by making a commitment integrity. We have to decide that we will not compromise what we believe in regardless of the consequences or the struggles that it might bring.
III. The next thing that we need to look at is commitment.
A. Michelangelo was probably the greatest artist of all Western civilization, it is said that he was born to be a sculptor, and he sculpted his first masterpiece at age 21.
B. But when he received an invitation from Pope Julius II to sculpt a tomb for the Pope, but he was then asked to work on a painting project instead.
C. At first he refused, because he had no desire to paint twelve figures on the ceiling of a small chapel in the Vatican, but he accepted the assignment.
D. Once he accepted the project he committed himself to it and expanded it from twelve figures to more than four hundred figures and nine scenes from the book of Genesis.
E. For four grueling years he lay on his back and painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, it wore him down, and even damaged his eye sight.
F. He later said "After four tortured years, more than four hundred over life-sized figures, I felt as old and weary as Jeremiah. I was only thirty-seven, yet my friends did not recognize the old man I had become."
G. His commitment to his task caused other artist to change their style of painting and still affects art today. His talent was great, but it would not have matter, if it were not for his commitment.
H. When he was asked why he was working so hard in a dark corner of the Sistine Chapel that no one would ever see, He replied, God will see.
I. The world has never seen a great leader who did not have commitment. Ed McElroy the president of USAir says "Commitment gives us new power. No matter what comes to us-sickness, poverty, or disaster-we never turn our eye from the goal."
J. Commitment means different things to different people.
1. To the Boxer, its getting off the mat one more time than you have been knocked down.
2. To the Marathoner it is running another ten miles when your strength is gone.
3. To the Soldier it’s going over the next hill, not knowing what’s waiting on the other side.
4. To the missionary, its saying goodbye to your own comfort to make life better for others.
5. To the leader, it’s all that and more, because everyone that you lead is depending on you.
K. People will believe in you enough to follow you and benefit from what you have to share only if you believe in your cause enough to commit to it.
L. If we want people to believe in what we are trying to do as a church we have to be committed enough to it make them believe, it is worth committing to themselves.
M. If we don’t believe in it enough to commit our time and energy to it why would someone else see it as something they should commit to.
N. Commitment starts in the heart.
1. Everybody seems to want everything perfect before they will commit themselves to anything, but that is not the way it happens.
2. Commitment always comes before achievement. Things will not get to the point that they are suppose to be if you have not committed yourself to make them that way before you start.
3. In the Kentucky Derby the winning horse effectively runs out of oxygen after the first half mile, and goes the rest of the way on heart.
4. Michael Jordan says "heart is what separates the good from the great."
5. If we want to make a difference in the lives of people and for God we have to look to our heart and make sure that we are really committed.
O. Commitment is tested by action.
1. It is easy to talk about commitment. It is another thing all together to do something about it.
2. Action is the real measure of commitment.
3. Arthur Gordon says "Nothing is easier than saying words. Nothing is harder than living them day after day."
4. Things will not get to the point that they are suppose to be if you have not committed yourself to make them that way before you start. Commitment is just a word until we follow through with it. And what we say we believe as Christians is just words until people see us live and commit to it.
5. In (Luke 9:62 NIV) Jesus replied, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God."
6. What that basically means is that until you are committed enough to what you believe, to not think about turning back it is only words, and you are not committed enough to follow through.
P. Commitment opens the door to achievement.
1. There will always be obstacles and opposition, but if you are truly committed they will not stop you.
2. David McNealy says "Commitment is the enemy to resistance, for it is the serious promise to press on, to get up, no matter how many times you are knocked down"
3. If you want to get anywhere worthwhile, you have to be committed, because anything worthwhile doesn’t come easy and the only way that you get there is to decide that you will settle for nothing less.
Q. When it comes to commitment there are only four types of people:
1. COP-OUTS. People who have no goals and commit to nothing.
2. HOLD-OUTS People who don’t know if they can reach their goals, so they are afraid to commit to trying.
3. DROP-OUTS People who start toward a goal but quit when the going gets tough.
4. ALL-OUTS People who set goals, commit to reach them, and pay the price to get there.
R. God needs more all outs. We as a church need more all outs. We need teachers who make a commitment to teach to the point that not being here to do it, is not an option, and not being prepared is not an option.
S. We need leaders, who take responsibility and never let not getting the job done be an option. If we say that we believe in God and that we believe that He is the only way to heaven then we need to be committed enough to Him that others can believe it enough to be committed to him by what they see in us.
IV. If we are going to make a difference in the world we live in then we have to have Character, and Commitment.
A. Talent is gift but character is a choice.
B. We will never be better than our character, and we are the one’s who develop it.
C. Commitment starts in the heart. Commitment is tested by action. Commitment opens the door to achievement. When it comes to commitment, there are only four types of people:
1. COP-OUTS. People who have no goals and commit to nothing.
2. HOLD-OUTS People who don’t know if they can reach their goals, so they are afraid to commit to trying.
3. DROP-OUTS People who start toward a goal but quit when the going gets tough.
4. ALL-OUTS People who set goals, commit to reach them, and pay the price to get there.
V. Remember Character is more than talk!
1. Anyone can say that they have integrity but action is the real indicator of character.
2. Your character determines who you are. Who you are determines what you see. What you see determines what you do.
A. Talent is gift, but character is a choice.
B. Character brings lasting success with people.
C. We will never be better than our character.
D. Character is being bigger on the inside.
E. Commitment means different things to different people, but it is basically devoting yourself to something and not letting anything keep you from your devotion.
F. People will believe in you enough to follow you and benefit from what you have to share only if you believe in your cause enough to commit to it
.
G. If we want people to believe in what we are trying to do as a church, we have to be committed enough to it make them believe it is worth committing to themselves.
H. If we don’t believe in it enough to commit our time and energy to it, why would someone else see it as something they should commit to?
I. Commitment starts in the heart.
J. Commitment always comes before achievement. Things will not get to the point that they are supposed to be if you have not committed yourself to making them that way before you start.
K. Commitment is just a word until we follow through with it.
L. Commitment opens the door to achievement.
M. If you want to get anywhere worthwhile, you have to be committed, because anything worthwhile doesn’t come easily. The only way you get there is to decide that you will settle for nothing less.
N. I hope that you will devote yourselves to developing the qualities of a leader for the benefit of your family, your friends, the people that you work with and for, and the people that God is depending on your service to lead to Him, but mostly because you service is to God who has given you so much.
