LEAVING A LEADERSHIP LEGACY

Who is the man that fears the LORD?

Him shall He teach in the way He chooses. 

He himself shall dwell in prosperity,

And his descendants shall inherit the earth.  (Psalm 25:12-13)

I want you to picture your ministry as a relay race.  You have an assigned leg to run—we all have an allotted period of time.  You have an assigned lane to run—we all have an appointed place of service.  We carry in our hands a Bible baton.  It has been handed down to us and now the critical moment comes that determines victory or defeat—the exchange—where we hand the truth of Scripture to the next generation of leaders.  All of us are going to leave behind a legacy.  I believe that was on David’s mind as he writes Psalm 25.  From the context, it would seem to me that he writes from the perspective of a seasoned soldier—a battle-scarred veteran—concerned about the future of his kingdom.

Let us leave a legacy of TRUST (v.1-7). 

David’s testimony declares how his trust was rooted in the greatness of God (v.1-3).  We can trust His power to save us.  David knows where to run when he is in trouble.  Experience has taught the king not to trust in his own strength, but in God’s.  I can say that God has never failed me.  

David also trusted in the guidance of God (v.4-5).  We can trust in His precepts to steer us.  This does not exempt us from storms.  The good news is that if we yield the rudder to the hands of the Captain of our Salvation, we can set sail to new horizons and chart a course for those who come behind!

Furthermore, David trusted in the goodness of God (v.6-7).  We can trust His provision to secure us.  David wasn’t a perfect man.  His failures are documented.  That’s why we need forgiveness.  We don’t trust in our goodness, but in God’s.  Remarkably, He uses flawed people for His glory.

Let us leave a legacy of TRUTH (v.8-15).  Having learned these lessons—sometimes the hard way—we must pass on the baton of truth.  

Having a teachable spirit is the key issue here (v.8-12).  An attitude of humility, devotion, and reverence are essential.  No matter how much we know about ministry, we should never stop learning!  

Our success becomes part of the legacy we leave to our spiritual sons in ministry (v.13).  The blessings of God can be transferred to generations to come.  Success can’t be measured in the size of buildings, budgets, and backsides in pews—it is in eternal impact. 

Friends have no secrets from each other (v.14-15).  They share their heart.  There is a depth of intimacy with God suggested here that we can know.  I have been inspired by others who have walked closely with God, and now I want to share the secret of such a life with others.

Let us leave a legacy of TRIUMPH (v.16-22).  Don’t miss the sequence.  We face the reality of the crisis, but we focus on the God who gives us confidence!  If we only give a brief nod to God, then focus on the crisis, we will be defeated by unbelief.  This is not denying reality (v.16-19); not depending on some kind of positive thinking.  Problems are not permitted to be the focus, however (v.20-22).  The focus is on the Redeemer.  He is the God who is always victorious and our triumph is in Him.

That was the legacy of leadership David would leave.  What about us?

THE LIFE OF LIBERTY

 

For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.  (Galatians 3:26)

Patrick Henry said, “Give me liberty or give me death!”  He recognized there is no life apart from liberty.  This is true spiritually as well.  Jesus came to give us life and liberty.  He said, “You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.”  What is this truth?  Our Lord responds, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”  Jesus came to give us life through a personal relationship with Him that sets us free from the shackles of sin and death.  Paul explains further concerning the life of liberty in Galatians 3:15-29.

This liberty is a promise of God (v.15-18).  The word, “promise” is used eight times in Galatians 3:15-29.  Specifically, this promise refers to God’s covenant with Abraham. God chose Abraham in sovereign grace, Abraham responded by faith, and God imputed righteousness (3:6).

Since the covenant preceded the law, the false teachers in Galatia said that the law replaced the covenant.  Paul counters this with an illustration from the secular world (v.15).  A contract between two cannot be negated later by someone not a party to the agreement.  Neither could it be argued the covenant was fulfilled when the law was given, because fulfillment was in Christ (v.16).   Abraham didn’t make the covenant and promises.  God did—unilaterally and unconditionally.

What is given by promise is not earned by obedience (v.17-18).  Like oil and water, they don’t mix.   The Greeks had a word for agreement between partners.  That is not the term used here. Salvation is based on God’s faithfulness, not ours.

If the law did not supersede the covenant of grace, then why was it given? That is presented in verses 19-22.   The law is a compass to show us how far we’ve strayed.  It is plumb line to show how crooked we are.  It is a thermometer to show how sick we are.  This is meant to drive us in desperation to Christ.  The expression, “confined all under sin” (v.22) means “lock up in jail.”  The law sentences us to death row, but that causes us to seek pardon.  We can’t escape, so we must have someone intervene.   Like a mirror, the law shows us we are dirty, but cannot cleanse us.

Children need supervision and a restricted area.  Baby-sitters and playpens set limits that are good for them.   We are put in protective custody (v.23).  We are given a tutor (v.24-25).  In the ancient world this was a slave in charge of minor.  He had moral supervision and was a strict disciplinarian.   This is what the law is to us.  The tutor’s task was finished when the child reached maturity.  The word, “sons” (v.26) means “of full age.”  Christians have outgrown the need of a playpen and baby-sitter.  Adulthood brings freedom from that.  Why would anyone want to return to infancy?

Instead, we are to “put on Christ” (v.27).  In Roman society, when youth came of age, they were given a special toga.  The child of God has laid aside the old garments of sin and put on a robe of righteousness.  In Christ, there is no distinction of skin color, social class, or sexual category (v.28).   The ground is level at the cross.  The Jews thought they were Abraham’s seed because of keeping the law. Paul says it is a relationship to Christ by faith that makes us heirs of Abraham’s promises (v.29).

Only Christ can free us from sin and death.  Call out to Him today!

LEADERS ARE LOVERS

As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones, in whom is all my delight.  (Psalm 16:3)

Jesus loved the church and died for it.  If I am to follow Him, then I must do the same.  I must love the people of God by pouring out my life for them.  I must confess, however, that the way I think about God’s people sometimes is shameful.  Listen in to some conversations that pastors have about members—the putdowns and pejoratives are unworthy of expression, yet out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.

Think of it this way.  I love my children. That love means I do not sweep their sins under the carpet.  It does not mean I do not confront them, correct them, and even chasten them.  Indeed, if I love them, I will!  Yet, I do not air my family’s dirty laundry in public.  It does no good to talk to others about something they are powerless to fix.  Do I not want others to think the best about my loved ones?  That does not mean I embellish their errors, but I maximize their good, while speaking directly to them about their issues.  If I am that way with my biological family, then it follows I ought to treat my church family similarly.

I can be guilty of focusing more on people’s problems rather than their potential.  Jesus called Peter a “rock," long before he was one.  He saw beyond the lump of coal to the diamond He would form through time, heat, and pressure!  Aren’t we thankful God so deals with us?  Perhaps, like Jesus, we should see the saints that way.  Who is a saint?  Well, anybody who has received Christ as Lord and Savior.  I know we don’t always behave saintly.  Someone has well said,

            To live up above with saints that we love—that will be glory;

            To dwell here below with saints that we know—that’s another story!

We sympathize, but we can choose a better way.  David did as a leader of God’s people.  He chose to see them as excellent ones and to express delight in them.  As leaders of God’s church, we must do the same.  Pastors will complain about the criticisms they receive, but maybe the way to end some of that is to refuse to follow the same path by being critical of church members.

Leaders are lovers.  Will you ask God to help you be that kind of leader?  I know I am going to spend some time today searching my own heart and seeking this first fruit of the Spirit.

DON’T LOOK BACK

But Jesus said to him, “No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”  (Luke 9:62)

In ministry, it is tempting at times to look back, but Jesus warned us about it.  He used the example of a man plowing a field.  The farmer must keep his eyes fixed on the ground before him, if his furrow is to be straight. To look back is to go astray and maybe worse—to run into a rock, tree or fence post!

We must not be LIMITED by our past.  We all have a past—some of it is good, some of it is bad.  There are decisions we ought not to have made—and we may still be living with the consequences.  Life has no rewind button.  Regret will only hinder us from getting where we need to go.  “Don’t cry over spilt milk!” is the old saying. On second thought, maybe you do cry with remorse, confess in repentance, but then claim forgiveness and move on.  Failure need not be final.  The pages of the Bible are filled with men of faith who messed up, but moved ahead.  I know as a pastor I have made sinful decisions and others that were just stupid decisions.  We must not cave in to the paralysis of analysis.  Learn from it, but do not be limited by it.  The past needs to stay in the past.

We cannot LIVE in the past.  This is the polar opposite of limiting ourselves by past failures—it is relying on previous successes.  This happens when we do not succumb to regret, but nostalgia.  It is, “The good old days” syndrome.  We idolize the way it used to be—which is seldom as good as we imagined anyway—and this hinders us from embracing the opportunity of the present time.

Paul had this wonderful resolve,

Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.  ‎Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.  (Philippians 3:12-14)

If we are not alert, we can rest on the results of effective ministry, and in the present shift into neutral.  Ministry effectiveness slows and eventually stops when we do.  “The victory of yesterday becomes the sin of today if it keeps us from the challenge of tomorrow.” ((R.B. Oullette).  Let’s grab the plow handles firmly, look straight ahead, and go!  Don’t look back!

INVINCIBLE

Now after the king had burned the scroll with the words which Baruch had written at the instruction of Jeremiah, the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah, saying: “Take yet another scroll, and write on it all the former words that were in the first scroll which Jehoiakim the king of Judah has burned.”  (Jeremiah 36:27-28)

How would you feel if on Sunday morning as you went to the pulpit, the deacon chairman grabbed your sermon notes, cut them up with scissors, and burned them right in front of the congregation?  Would you be sad?  Would you get mad?  Would you turn to flight?  Would you stand up and fight?

Jeremiah, the faithful prophet had been given a message for wicked King Jehoiakim.  He so despised God’s Word as to cut it into pieces and burn it in front of the court officials.  What did Jeremiah do?  He wrote the same message and added to it—a message of judgment for the king and his kingdom.  There is a time to speak to power.  If God gives us a message we dare not flinch in the face of opposition.  The Word of God is invincible!

Old John Bunyan believed that—and preached accordingly.  His arrest was ordered by the king of England, whose tyranny Bunyan had spoken against.  He was imprisoned for twelve years for preaching the Gospel.  His wife, Elizabeth, pleaded his case before the judges.  She was alone, raising their four children, and begged to have her husband released.  Of course Bunyan would be set free on only one condition—that he stop preaching.  Elizabeth’s response, “He dares not leave preaching, my lord, so long as he can speak.”  Was it so?  The judges pressed Bunyan for an answer and this was it: “If you free me today, tomorrow I will speak in the streets that all men have a right to worship God as conscience guides them, and that the state has no right to tell them how to worship.”  It was in the Bedford prison that Bunyan had a dream that was put to paper, and became the immortal, “Pilgrim’s Progress.”  The Word of God is invincible!

I do not know what you are facing, dear brother.  Maybe no one has burned your sermon notes, or cast you into prison for preaching.  Still, if we are faithful to the Word and speak out against the world—we know there will be hostility to some degree.  On the present trajectory in this nation, we are facing increasing opposition to the Gospel.  Some dear sister sits and scowls during your sermon.  A deacon verbally chastens you after the service.  You receive that dreaded anonymous letter attacking your ministry.  Just preach anyway.  Remember, the Word of God is invincible!

THE LEGACY I WANT TO LEAVE

As I approach age sixty, it is a sobering reality that I have rounded the final turn, the homestretch beckons, and the finish line is in sight.  Recently, celebrating twenty years at Pole Creek, serve to remind me that I will someday preach my final sermon there.  Who knows how long my tour of duty will be?  No matter how young you are you have a deadline for the end of your ministry.  What kind of legacy will we leave?  I can think of no better aim than what Paul described to the Ephesian elders:

From Miletus he sent to Ephesus and called for the elders of the church.  ‎And when they had come to him, he said to them: “You know, from the first day that I came to Asia, in what manner I always lived among you, serving the Lord with all humility, with many tears and trials which happened to me by the plotting of the Jews; how I kept back nothing that was helpful, but proclaimed it to you, and taught you publicly and from house to house, testifying to Jews, and also to Greeks, repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.  And see, now I go bound in the spirit to Jerusalem, not knowing the things that will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit testifies in every city, saying that chains and tribulations await me.  But none of these things move me; nor do I count my life dear to myself, so that I may finish my race with joy, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.  “And indeed, now I know that you all, among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of God, will see my face no more.  Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all men.  For I have not shunned to declare to you the whole counsel of God.  Therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood.  For I know this, that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock.  Also from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves.  Therefore watch, and remember that for three years I did not cease to warn everyone night and day with tears.  “So now, brethren, I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified.  I have coveted no one’s silver or gold or apparel.  Yes, you yourselves know that these hands have provided for my necessities, and for those who were with me.  I have shown you in every way, by laboring like this, that you must support the weak. And remember the words of the Lord Jesus, that He said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’ ” And when he had said these things, he knelt down and prayed with them all.  Then they all wept freely, and fell on Paul’s neck and kissed him, sorrowing most of all for the words which he spoke, that they would see his face no more. And they accompanied him to the ship.  (Acts 20:17-38)

This is the legacy I want to leave.  May God help us!

FOR THE YOUNG MAN IN MINISTRY (OLD-TIMERS MIGHT PROFIT TOO)

 

Now a certain Jew named Apollos, born at Alexandria, an eloquent man and mighty in the Scriptures, came to Ephesus.  (Acts 18:24)

If an arrow is aimed in the right direction, it is more likely to hit its target.  A good beginning as a young man in ministry does not insure a great ending, but it surely helps.  Apollos was one who was aimed the right way, and what a difference it made in him and those he served.  There are a few brief helps drawn from his story in Acts 18 which can guide the young preacher.

Develop your communication skills.  Apollos was “an eloquent man.”  While it might be a few exceptional preachers that are worthy of the description, “eloquent,” we must aim at least at being effective!  Pronouncing words clearly, the cadence of the voice, eye contact, and such may not come naturally to us, but we can work at it and improve.  The best sermon poorly delivered will be a waste of your time in preparation and the congregation’s in attendance.

Immerse yourself in Scripture and expound it.  Apollos was “mighty in the Scripture…instructed in the way of the Lord… he spoke and taught accurately….”  Believe it and apply it every day.  Feed your soul or you will not be able to feed your sheep.  This is more than preparing a sermon; it is preparing the servant—being strong in Scripture in our own personal life, so we can speak with authority in the pulpit.  The mandate is to, “Preach the Word!”  (2 Tim.4:2)   We are not to impose our opinions on the text.  That is pastoral malpractice!  Impressive communication can never substitute for inspired content.

Preach passionately.  Apollos was, “fervent in spirit.”  Why should our audience be excited about the sermon if we are not?  This isn’t just about volume, but we are not giving a classroom lecture on Bible history or theology.  We are enthusiastically proclaiming the truth that will transport one from darkness into light, and transform sinners into saints!  That is something to get stirred up about!

Preach courageously.  Apollos spoke, “boldly,” because he spoke Biblically. The temptation these days is to skirt the tough issues and make the message palatable to the culture.  Open the Book and open your mouth, speaking with clarity and conviction.

Listen and learn all your life.  A godly old couple, Aquila and Priscilla “took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately.”  Apollos knew a lot, but he did not know it all.  He was not an arrogant man, but a teachable preacher.  He knew how to talk, but he also knew how to listen.  You cannot teach someone who knows it all!  One thing a young preacher assuredly does not have is experience.  There are lessons learned in the laboratory of life that older, wiser lay people and elderly pastors can teach us.  Our peers are important, but our elders are indispensable.  The white-headed men in suits need to help the spikey-haired men in jeans!  The church needs both.

Exhort the saints and exalt the Savior.  Apollos “greatly helped those who had believed.”  Exhortation is giving people a pat on the back or a kick in the rear, depending on which is needed to move them along, with the discernment to know which is applicable.  Above all keep the focus on Jesus, “showing from the Scriptures that Jesus is the Christ.”  Apollos set that standard for us to emulate.  The ministry is about Jesus and not about us!