How do you recognize a Christian leader?
A sermon on Quinquagesima Sunday
Isaiah 50:4-10, 2 Corinthians 12:1-10
John Maxwell is the head of an organization called “Maximum Impact,” which from its website appears to have the mission of turning men and women into "impactful" leaders. One ministry web site calls him one of the contemporary church’s leading authorities on leadership. I do not mention John Maxwell in order to criticize him, for to be honest, I know very little about him. I do know that his website and similar websites tout one of his books entitled “21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader.”
I was honestly surprised by the number “21” in the title, knowing as I do how much premium is usually placed on brevity and conciseness and memorability in modern communications. Three indispensable Qualities of a Leader” would have been more like it. But 21? How can you keep all those in your head at once?
I’m not surprised that John Maxwell seems to have a thriving enterprise. When you survey Christendom today, particularly American Christendom, leadership seems to be one of its major problems. A man I greatly admire once remarked that Protestants do not have a pope, they have thousands of them. And, perhaps, that would not be such a problem if it were not for the fact that few of them seem to be like any of the others. The Catholics have just one, and that has to be something of an advantage.
But, we are not Catholics, and whether we pay our spiritual allegiance to one pope or a dozen popes, or a hundred popes, we have to ask ourselves this question: how is it that we are to evaluate those all around us who offer us leadership in spiritual things? I know I put myself at some considerable risk of misunderstanding by raising this question with you today, for in the polity of our church I am the most immediate Christian leader you have to deal with. But, the readings for today, particularly Paul’s comments to the Corinthians, more or less force my hand.
You see, Paul’s leadership of the Corinthian Church – his standing as their Bishop, as it were – was under attack by men within the congregation who had some pretty biting, harmful, and rebellious things to say about Paul. They diminished, criticized, and dismissed Paul in order to enhance their own standing within that congregation. Paul writes this section of the 2nd Corinthian Epistle to answer them.
And as it is prescribed for our Prayer Service today, I intend to take a look at what Paul has to say, and then to apply it to those around us who claim our attention to their spiritual leadership. Paul is defending his credentials as an apostle, as the Father of the Corinthian Church, as the leader of the congregation to which he writes. What, then, does he say about those credentials? How are we to recognize leaders like Paul when we encounter them?
The first credential of a leader that emerges here is knowledge of the mind of God. In the contest Paul engages, this credential has the form of direct revelations and visions from the Lord. His detractors are boasting that they have had visions and revelations from God, and on that basis they put themselves forth as leaders and criticize Paul’s leadership.
Paul’s response is a curious mixture of personal embarrassment and oblique testimony about himself. He feels shame at having to mention the revelations and visions he has received, so much shame that he won’t even report them in the first person. He says, “I know a man …” and then goes on to relate the barest outlines of the things he has seen and heard. The reference to the Third Heaven is a colloquial term for the very throne room of God Himself, the Holy of Holies in the Highest Heaven.
It is an astounding claim. And, unlike those in Corinth who boast of what they saw and heard in their visions, Paul will say nothing about what he saw and heard. Indeed, he insists that such a report would be both impossible, and if it were possible, it would be unlawful.
So, Paul makes clear that he has just as much – if not more – standing to boast about visions and revelations as anyone. He knows God’s mind about a great many matters, but he does not boast about it. Why? Because it show him to be what a bona fide leader of Christians should never be: prideful.
A Christian leader must know the mind of God, AND secondly, he must show himself to be a humble steward of it. Paul says, “For though I might desire to boast, I will not be a fool; for I will speak the truth. But I refrain, lest anyone should think of me above what he sees me to be or hears from me.” Paul did not want anyone to think more highly of him than what would be seeing and hearing him as it is. Paul is one of those “what you see is what you get” kind of guys.” Paul was insisting, “take me as I am, not as I claim to be based on things you cannot verify” – such as these claims to visions and revelations. This is humility, this is the opposite of prideful boasting, which Paul insists he will not engage in, though his detractors engage in it constantly.
Indeed, Paul points to some unspecified infirmity which he says he endures precisely so that he would not become prideful and puffed up by the visions and revelations he has received. All we know about this infirmity is that it was an infirmity of the flesh, that it was present in Paul by means of a messenger – actually the word is angel – from Satan, and that God himself refused to remove this for Paul’s own good. The weakness Paul is speaking about becomes, instead, an occasion for God’s grace to be shown in Paul’s life.
And, that brings us to the third quality of a leader which Paul points to in this passage. A leader must know the mind of God, he must be a humble steward of what he knows, and he boasts – if he boasts at all – in the occasions for God’s grace to be shown in his life. Specifically, he endures the hardship which comes from humbly ministering the mind of God to other believers. So it is, Paul writes, “Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in insults, in neediness, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
In all of this, Paul is fundamentally no different than the Savior who commissioned him as an Apostle. Paul sets his own credentials as a leader this way: he knows the mind of God, he is humble as a servant of the stewardship committed to him, and he therefore endures all manner of hardships and difficulties and infirmities, because God stands behind Paul to enable him and to vindicate him at the right time.
This is exactly what we find in the OT reading for today, that Servant Song in Isaiah 50 in verses 4 through 10. In Isaiah’s prophecy of the coming Messiah, he puts the following verses in the mouth of the one who is to come:
4"The Lord GOD has given Me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him who is weary. He awakens Me morning by morning, He awakens My ear to hear as the learned. 5The Lord GOD has opened My ear …
The Servant of the Lord knows the mind of God, just as Paul says a Christian leader should. Indeed, the reason leaders of Christ’s flock need to know God’s mind is because the Great Shepherd of the Sheep Himself knows the mind of God in a way that no other man has ever known God’s mind. He is the Word of God, and in his human incarnation, he was taught – as this Servant Song reveals – He was taught by God himself.
Paul was humble in his stewardship of this knowledge of God’s mind, and so is the Servant in this Servant Song. He sings this:
The Lord GOD has opened My ear and I was not rebellious, nor did I turn away.
And just as Paul resolutely endured persecution and insults and oppression in humble obedience to God the father, so also the Servant in Isaiah 50:
I was not rebellious, nor did I turn away. 6I gave My back to those who struck Me, and My cheeks to those who plucked out the beard; I did not hide My face from shame and spitting.
Paul was confident in the grace of God to get him through such times and to vindicate his faith in God. And, I’m sure the source of Paul’s confidence in his weakness was the example of Jesus Christ, who fulfilled the words of the Servant Song in his passion, crucifixion, and resurrection.
I did not hide My face from shame and spitting,” the servant says, 7"For the Lord GOD will help Me; therefore I will not be disgraced; therefore I have set My face like a flint, and I know that I will not be ashamed.”
This, I suggest to you, is the core of a spiritual leader, one through whom God will minister to his people, whether it is in the Church, in the society, or in the home. Such a leader will know the mind of God, at least with respect to the stewardship he or she has from the Lord. Such a leader will humbly follow through with that stewardship, derived from knowing God’s mind, and such a leader will steadfastly – and even joyfully – face the opposition, the hardships, the insults, the neediness, the persecutions – when they come for the sake of Christ and because of the confidence the leader has that Christ will vindicate his servants even as God the Father vindicated His Son, through the resurrection of the dead, and by placing all power in heaven and on earth in his hands.
So, when you evaluate a leader, when you make your own assessment of a Christian minister – whether he is a pastor, or a missionary, or a teacher, or your husband, or your mother or father – ask these kinds of questions ….
Does this person know the mind of Christ? You know, you can’t make that assessment unless you know something of the mind of Christ yourself! As always, the Bible is our touchstone in these matters. It is not called the Word of God for nothing!
Here is another question: Is this person humble? Is he or she one of those “what you see is what you get” kind of people? Or does he continually point to things you cannot see and check out for yourself, as credentials which you have to accept on the leader’s own word? I think one of the most helpful things about the current media culture is this: it is so full of spin and spin-meisters that most of us are pretty well exercised in detecting that kind of thing when it is offered to us. Humility doesn’t make for flashy advertisements or eye-popping media events. Personalities come and go. Look for the leader who promotes Christ’s message, not his own Christian cottage-industry.
And, here’s one of the most intriguing questions of all you can ask: In what ways, and for what reasons has this leader suffered? Has he suffered at all? Is there any evidence of God’s grace in his life, grace to overcome infirmities, insults, persecutions, hardships? Has this leader been tested by adversity of any kind? And how did he or she respond?
I mentioned earlier John Maxwell’s book “21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader.” Let me read you what those 21 qualities are: character, charisma, commitment, communication, competence, courage, discernment, focus, generosity, initiative, listening, passion, positive attitude, problem-solving, relationships, responsibility, security, self-discipline, servanthood, teachability, and vision.
Certainly all these qualities are admirable. Certainly all of them are assets to any leader. And, perhaps, some of these qualities apprehend what Paul is claiming for himself as the qualities of a leader when he defends his ministry to the Corinthian Christians. But, surely Paul’s description is better, and more to the point, than Maxwell’s. If a Christian leader is like Paul to the Corinthians, if a Christian leader’s life shows the marks and patterns of the Servant of the Lord in Isaiah 50, then such a person is indeed one whom we may follow, for they are following Christ.
And, what about yourself and your ministry? How well do you know the mind of Christ? How confident are you at the prospect of difficulties you might encounter for Christ’s sake? The words of the Servant in Isaiah 50 encourage all of us this way:
10"Who among you fears the LORD?
Who obeys the voice of His Servant?
Who walks in darkness
And has no light?
Let him trust in the name of the LORD
And rely upon his God.
God grant that we may have eyes to see and ears to hear God’s servants as we encounter them in our lives. And God grant that we may become God’s servants ourselves, patterned after those we see in the pages of the Bible, in the example of men like Paul, who himself followed the example of Jesus Christ, the servant of the Lord.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
