I'd like you to turn with me to
Nehemiah this morning, and we're going to read
the whole of the first chapter, and the
first two or three verses of chapter 2.
Nehemiah chapter 1, we're going to read the
whole of the first chapter, the first three
verses of chapter 2, and my reading is
from the New American Standard Version of the
Bible.
The words of Nehemiah, the son of Hekeliah,
now it happened in the month Chislev, in
the twentieth year, while I was in Susa,
the capital, that Hanani, one of my brothers,
and some men from Judah came, and I
asked them concerning the Jews who had escaped,
and had survived the captivity, and about Jerusalem.
And they said to me, the remnant there,
in the province, who survived the captivity, are
in great distress and reproach, and the wall
of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates
are burned with fire.
Now it came about when I heard these
words, I sat down and wept and mourned
for days, and I was fasting and praying
before the God of heaven.
And I said, I beseech thee, O Lord
God of heaven, the great and awesome God,
who preserves the covenant, and loving kindness for
those who love him, and keep his commandments,
let thine ear now be attentive, and thine
eyes open to hear the prayer of thy
servant, which I am praying before thee now,
day and night, on behalf of the sons
of Israel, thy servants, confessing the sins of
the sons of Israel, which we have sinned
against thee.
I and my father's house have sinned.
We have acted very corruptly against thee, and
have not kept the commandments, nor the statutes,
nor the ordinances, which thou didst command thy
servant Moses.
Remember the word which thou didst command thy
servant Moses, saying, If you are unfaithful, I
will scatter you among the peoples.
But if you return to me and keep
my commandments and do them, though those of
you who have been scattered were in the
most remote parts of the heavens, I will
gather them from there, and will bring them
to the place where I have chosen to
cause my name to dwell.
They are thy servants and thy people, whom
thou didst redeem by thy great power and
by thy strong hand.
O Lord, I beseech thee, may thine ear
be attentive to the prayer of thy servant,
and the prayer of thy servants who delight
to revere thy name, and make thy servant
successful today, and grant him compassion before this
man.
Now I was the cupbearer to the king.
And it came about in the month of
Nisan, in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes,
that wine was before him.
And I took up the wine and gave
it to the king.
Now I had not been sad in his
presence.
So the king said to me, Why is
your face sad, though you are not sick?
This is nothing but sadness of heart.
Then I was very much afraid.
And I said to the king, Let the
king live forever.
Why should my face not be sad when
the city, the place of my father's tombs,
lies desolate, and its gates have been consumed
by fire?
As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of
Galilee, Matthew tells us he saw two brothers,
Simon, called Peter, and his brother Andrew.
They were casting a net into the lake
because they were fishermen.
Come, follow me, Jesus said, and I will
make you fishers of men.
At once, at once, immediately, they left their
nets and they followed Jesus.
We see from this passage which we've just
read that Nehemiah's concern for the rebuilding of
Jerusalem was so great that King Artaxerxes could
see that concern written all over his face.
So with royal permission, he makes for the
city.
If you read on in Nehemiah, you'll find
that he carries out an initial survey of
the situation, and then he says to the
local people of Jerusalem, come on, let's rebuild
the walls of Jerusalem.
And they immediately reply, yes, let's start rebuilding.
And they immediately began the great work.
Think, thirdly, of Lot, compromised by the sin
of the city of Sodom.
He is warned by two heavenly visitors of
the coming judgment of God on the city.
Those visitors give him opportunity to rescue his
family.
And he goes to his sons-in-law
with an urgent message.
Hurry, get out of this place.
The Lord is about to destroy this city.
But we're told that his sons-in-law
thought he was joking.
As far as we can ascertain, they took
no notice of what their family head had
to say.
And as far as we know, they perished
in God's judgment on that city.
What does cause people to follow some leaders,
leaders like Jesus and Nehemiah, and yet not
others like Lot?
That's the issue we're going to consider together
for the next 30 or 40 minutes.
And it's a very vital issue indeed.
I spend a great deal of my time
in conferences and committees with a great variety
of missionary and evangelistic societies.
But though the variety of these societies is
great, the cry coming from them is consistent.
It is a cry for leaders.
Can you, from the ranks of OM, provide
us with leaders?
Not just energetic individuals who get a lot
done themselves.
And not just theorists who come up with
great strategies and wonderful plans.
It seems there are enough of those.
Plans to evangelize the world, for example.
By the year 2000, now number not in
the hundreds, but in the thousands.
And that's great.
Programs are wonderful and necessary.
But people don't follow programs.
They follow people.
They follow leaders who inspire them.
We need men and women who have a
vision.
That's important.
But equally, we need men and women who
can communicate that vision to others.
And can go even further and inspire people
to enter into partnership with them to fulfill
their God-given visions.
How many Christian unions up and down the
country or churches or youth groups are surviving
through the committed minority?
Often a very small number of people.
8, 10, 15, maybe 20.
And if you pull that committed minority out
of the Christian union or out of the
church, there would be probably considerable collapse.
How can we motivate others to follow us
in our God-given visions?
Well, first of all, we must appreciate what
many might call natural factors.
There are personalities, charismatic personalities, we might call
them, who seem naturally to draw others after
them.
We speak of some people, don't we, as
natural leaders.
I look at my own children growing up,
and I've got to be a bit evasive
here as they're in the congregation.
But it's obvious that one of these kids
in a situation immediately starts thinking, now, what
should be done here?
Immediately, he or she is beginning to look
for a strategy to find their way out
of the difficult situation, possibly, that the family
or the children have got themselves into.
If there are problems, he or she is
immediately looking for answers to those problems.
And I notice that when that individual takes
a lead, the others tend to immediately follow.
Clearly, certain personalities have both great opportunity and
great responsibility here.
They have the ability to influence and inspire.
It's an ability which is very, very difficult
to define or to quantify.
It's not that all extroverts have the ability
and all introverts don't.
Far from it.
Moses is described as the meekest man on
the face of the earth.
And yet he was certainly one of the
most effective leaders the world has ever witnessed.
Those with this ability, then, have great responsibility.
History shows that this ability can be used
to bring havoc and destruction.
Hitler had this ability in incredible measure, inspiring
people to believe things and to do things
which today they find so hard to understand
that they ever believed or ever practiced.
In the history of religion, there are so
many examples of those who have used this
ability and they've dressed it in religious clothing.
And that's a powerful combination.
This ability to influence and to inspire, dressed
in religious garb, has been used to lead
millions, if not billions, astray.
Obviously, in God's hand, under the control of
God's Spirit, this ability can be mightily used
for the glory of God and for the
Church's development and extension.
In Romans chapter 12 and verse 8, we're
told by the Apostle Paul that leadership, or
the ability to rule in the Church, is
a God-given gift of the Spirit.
Just as much as the gift of prophecy
or the gift of faith, there is the
gift of leadership.
And those who are given the gift of
leadership, says Paul, are to govern diligently.
The Amplified Bible says they're to govern with
zeal and with singleness of mind.
So if God has given you the ability
to lead, Paul says you must commit yourself
to it with zeal, realizing the opportunity which
is yours.
But you must also commit yourself to it
with care, realizing the responsibility which is yours.
So I think that must be our foundation
point.
When we ask this question, why are some
people followed and others are not?
The foundation answer must be that leadership in
the Christian Church is a God-given gift.
People are anointed by the Holy Spirit to
lead others in the Church.
But it's also true to say that in
those who possess this gift there are certain
commonalities.
And I want to look with you this
morning at four common points which I perceive,
as I study the Bible and as I
look at people today, who have this ability
to influence and to inspire others.
Four very simple common points.
The first is that they are people of
vision.
They are not merely maintainers.
They are visionaries.
Now I was reading an article recently on
Margaret Thatcher, and I'm sure you'll forgive me
for that.
It was by no means totally complimentary, surprisingly.
But the author had to concede, and I
think we would all agree, that she is
a woman with vision.
We may not like her vision, but we
can't deny the existence of her vision.
And the author went on to say this,
there are really only a handful of prime
ministers who in their period of office have
radically changed this nation.
The majority, he argued, are merely maintainers, whether
they are socialist or Tory.
They come in, they alter a little here
and a little there, but basically they are
maintaining.
After Margaret Thatcher, the nation will never be
the same again.
Now the church needs consolidators.
The church needs maintainers.
Paul needed his Dr. Luke or his Barnabas.
But how we need in every age our
share of visionaries.
Every church, every Christian union, in every generation
of the church, needs such people.
Those who are willing not just to get
their direction by asking, what will be most
acceptable with the majority?
But those who are willing to get before
God and in discussion with brothers and sisters,
hear what the Lord is saying.
And then to go out, seeking to lead
others in the fulfillment of God-given goals.
Quite simply, a leader must have a dream.
A Christian leader must sense, must recognize God
-given objectives.
When Nehemiah came to the city of Jerusalem,
he had no doubts of what God wanted.
He may have had many, many questions about
how it was ever going to be achieved,
but he knew from God what God wanted.
When Moses came to the palace of Pharaoh
and when he appeared before his own people,
again, there was no doubts as to what
was to be done.
We know Moses had many, many questions about
whether he was the man to do it.
But his objectives were clear.
When the Lord called Simon and his brother
Andrew, he was able to inspire and to
influence with a clear, succinctly expressed objective.
Leave your nets, follow me, and I will
make you fishers of men.
I want you all to pause for a
moment.
We're just going to take a minute to
do this.
And I want you to think for a
moment of what you are involved with in
the work of God.
I hope you're all involved, crucially, at some
point in the work of God.
Maybe it's in your Christian union or your
school union or your church.
I want you to think of it.
And for one minute, I want you to
think in the presence of God, what am
I aiming for?
What is my objective in that Christian union
responsibility or in that church responsibility?
And I want you to think in two
realms.
I want you to think long term.
What's the long term objective?
Where are we going?
What are we aiming for?
And I want you to think short term.
Where do I want it to be next
month?
Where do I want it to be at
the end of 1990?
Will you just take a moment just to
bow before God and to think of an
area of responsibility with which you're involved and
ask yourself those two questions, long term and
short term.
What's my dream?
What's my God-given objective?
Now I would imagine that if this is
a normal group of people, and I have
no reason to believe you are abnormal, you
will not have been able to very clearly
define the specific objects of your ministry.
Long term will probably have been easier than
short term for you.
I wonder if you're willing to give time,
maybe as a result of this Leadership Weekend.
Are you willing to give time to work
on such objectives?
I received a letter just about a month
ago from a leader about eight years younger
than me in OM.
And this brother wrote to me and he
said, Are you willing to get before God
with your fellow leaders in your area leaders
group?
Are you willing to give, say, two or
three days, put time aside, and really seek
the Lord and ask God, what is the
ethos of OM to be in the 90s?
What are the objectives?
What are the goals of OM in the
90s?
Are you willing, he challenged me, to give
two, three days to work through such objectives?
We would be foolish, wouldn't we, if we
weren't willing.
You've probably heard of the famous American football
incident.
My knowledge of American football is extremely limited,
but I'm told of an amazing story about
a man called Roy Regals.
In the Rose Bowl game for the University
of California, he picked up a fumbled ball
and ran triumphantly the length of the field
to touch down, tragically, at the wrong goal
line.
He didn't fail, did he?
In what he set out to do, he
had a clear vision, but he was heading
in utterly the wrong direction.
We'd be fools in OM if we weren't
willing to give time to get before God
and say, Lord, where do you want us
to go?
What do you want of us?
And I suggest to you this morning that
if you're involved in Christian leadership, you would
be equally foolish if you were not willing
to give similar time.
So if people are to follow you, you
need vision, you need direction, you need a
dream.
And in Christian leadership, it's so crucial that
that vision is God-given.
In passing, let me say that you can't
possibly be a Christian leader unless you are
a Bible student.
It's impossible.
If you're to maintain a God-given vision
in today's world, you're going to need to
be a Bible student.
So much is being thrown at us today,
so many suggestions, so many ideas, so many
plans.
How can we discern what is God-given?
How can we know what is from God?
Well, Hebrews 5 and verse 14 gives a
big part of the key.
Solid food, the food of God's Word, says
the writer, is for the mature.
And through constant use of this book, the
writer says they will be able to distinguish
good from evil.
You'll be able to distinguish what's right and
what's wrong as you hear from God through
His Word.
Bible study, crucial to Christian leadership, crucial to
maintaining that first necessity, a God-given vision.
Secondly, those whom others will profitably follow, fruitfully
follow, must be people, and this is so
simple, who take their leadership responsibility seriously.
But I would want to immediately follow that
statement by stressing that this fantastic possibility of
knowing what God wants does not deliver us
from the necessity of hard work.
We all know the dangers of easy guidance.
You've probably heard the story of the Bible
college student who went into the principal's study
and he said, well, I'm convinced now, sir.
God wants me to be a missionary.
My only problem is, I don't know which
country.
And the principal said, well, just keep praying,
be patient, and God will certainly reveal His
will.
And out he went, very happy with the
answer.
He was walking down the corridor and a
student friend came up and gave him a
sweet.
A minute later he was dashing back into
the principal's study, I've got it, I've got
the answer!
The principal said, well, how on earth did
that happen?
This student gave me a sweet, I was
unwrapping it, Brazil nut.
There it is, Brazil!
It's as clear as a pike's stamp.
And the principal said, well, what would have
happened, young man, if he'd given you a
Mars bar?
John White, in his book, Drawing Leadership Lessons
from the Example of Nehemiah, points out this
need for hard work and responsibility.
Let me just remind you of chapter 1
and verse 2.
Nehemiah met with Hanani and some others and
he questioned them about the Jewish remnant that
survived the exile and also about Jerusalem.
If you read on through the book, you'll
find that as soon as he got to
Jerusalem, he made a tour of the walls,
assessing the damage to the walls, assessing the
overall situation.
What was he doing?
He was working hard.
He was gathering facts so that his God
-given vision could be translated into a clear
action plan.
As John White comments on that, waiting on
God does not mean that detailed information and
research are unnecessary.
I would add to that that to walk
by faith does not mean, does not mean
you don't research all the issues, identify all
the problems.
To walk by faith, on the contrary, means
that with whatever knowledge of the problems you
can discover in advance, you move forward, trusting
God for the solutions as you go.
Talking about Christian living and discipleship, Jesus showed
the importance of research and planning.
You remember his two telling illustrations.
He said the sensible builder doesn't set out
to build his tower without counting the cost.
The sensible and successful general will not go
to war without making full use of his
intelligence services.
So whilst I would want to insist that
people follow people rather than programs, and while
I would want to stress that we don't
just want an excellent program dreamed up by
an efficient theorist.
We want to know the mind of God.
I would equally want to stress that careful
research and planning, hard work that will lead
to a program or a plan of action
are vital for responsible leadership.
After all, we are leaders of people, aren't
we?
One great danger in leadership is to abuse
people through underuse or overextension or by complete
confusion.
How often I arrive at an OMT when
I get talking to people about their experience
and they'll say, well, it's fine.
They're evangelicals, you see, so they start like
that.
Well, it's fine.
But to be perfectly honest, I don't quite
know what I should be doing.
To be perfectly honest, I don't really know
why I'm here.
Why I'm here at all.
Now, that's great, isn't it?
They've probably made sacrifices to be there.
Others are probably giving sacrificially to help them
stay there.
But they are underuse.
And though not intentionally, they are being abused.
Two crucial aspects if you are to be
the kind of people, person, who will lead
others.
You need that God-given vision.
But that doesn't deliver you from the hard
work and research which is necessary to put
a plan of action together for your situation.
That leads me thirdly to a third qualification.
And that is that those who lead in
the work of God must be committed to
people.
It's not true of all the secular world,
but sadly it's often the case.
In the secular world, people are used to
fulfill programs.
People are used to fulfill programs.
In God's work, the person is vital.
So much so that often one of the
great advantages of the program is that through
it, the individuals participating are refined.
They are brought to maturity.
A Christian leader, I say again, is a
leader of people.
Those people are vital to the leader.
Their development, their spiritual encouragement and spiritual reality.
I'm afraid that OM, which has a tendency
to considerable activism, often fails at this point.
You could write over our opportunity, program complete,
goals achieved, people hurting.
Their true needs not met.
Just turn over if you're still open in
Nehemiah to a lovely section in chapter 5.
I was so challenged by this.
Earlier this week, in fact.
Nehemiah chapter 5.
Look at verses 15 to 19.
Nehemiah speaking to God.
But the earlier governors, those preceding me, says
Nehemiah, placed a heavy burden on the people.
They took 40 shekels of silver from them
in addition to food and wine.
Their assistants also lorded it over the people.
Now there's the boss mentality.
The boss mentality.
With personal gain a high priority.
Now look at Nehemiah's servant mentality.
But, out of reverence for God, I did
not act like that.
Instead I devoted myself to the work on
this war.
Verse 17.
Furthermore, 150 Jews and officials ate at my
table, as well as those who came to
us from the surrounding nations.
Each day one ox, six choice sheep, and
some poultry were prepared for me.
Every ten days an abundant supply of wine
of all kinds.
In spite of this, I never demanded the
food allotted to the governor, because the demands
were heavy on these people.
Remember me with favor, oh my God, for
all I have done for these people.
See the place that people had in Nehemiah's
thinking.
Yes, he had a program.
Oh, he had a vision.
But he wouldn't tread on people to fulfill
that vision.
The greatest example of leadership, of course, is
the Lord Jesus.
In Hebrews 2 and verse 10, Jesus is
called the pioneer of our salvation.
In chapter 6 and verse 20, he's referred
to as the forerunner.
Now those two words you could translate in
modern language with the word pace-setter.
Jesus is the pace-setter for his people.
He's the one who has gone before us,
blazing a trail ahead of us into heaven.
Now think of a pace-setter.
He doesn't live for himself, does he?
He lives for others.
There's James May setting the pace for Syed
Awita.
He's got no thought of personal triumph.
His one concern is to bring the best
out of Awita, to encourage him forward, to
encourage him to triumph.
His task is to help him, Awita, to
reach his fullest potential.
Are you willing to give your life for
a similar purpose as a Christian leader?
We've been thinking of those in your Christian
union or your youth group who may be
massively underused.
Their potential is untapped.
Indeed, it's unknown.
Others, because of overextension, may similarly be performing
well below their potential.
You know, they're waiting for someone to get
alongside them, to work with them.
Someone who will possibly bury their own prestige
and their own position for the sake of
that person.
You may well find that as that person
you are coaching develops, they will leave you
far behind in a number of areas.
After the conversion of Saul of Tarsus, we
read in Acts chapter 9 that he tried
to join the disciples in Jerusalem, but they
were all afraid of him, not believing that
he was a disciple, but Barnabas, verse 27
of Acts 9, took him and Barnabas brought
him to the apostles.
Soon Paul has to flee from Jerusalem and
returns home to Tarsus.
Probably Paul will never be heard from again.
His massive God-given talents will lie undeveloped.
But what do we read in Acts 11,
25?
Then Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for
Saul, and when he found him he brought
him to Antioch.
Antioch.
It was from that city that the great
international missionary drive of the church began.
There's a sense in which we are here
this morning as a result of that church
in Antioch.
And you can trace it all back to
one true leader.
Possibly not a highly charismatic character, possibly not
a powerful preacher, he was Barnabas.
The son of encouragement.
The one who got alongside raw material like
Saul of Tarsus and pace set, coached him
forward until his full potential was released for
the glory of God.
One of the essential tasks of the true
Christian leader then is to discover the potential
in people to give yourself to that person
until that potential is released.
Let me just quote John White once more.
There has always been a true elite of
God's leaders.
They are the meek who inherit the earth.
They weep and pray in secret and defy
earth and hell in public.
They tremble when faced with danger but die
in their tracks sooner than turn back.
They are like a shepherd defending his sheep,
a mother protecting her young.
They sacrifice without grumbling, give without calculating, suffer
without groaning.
Listen to this.
To those in their charge they say, we
live if you do well.
That's pace setting.
We live if you do well, such leaders,
says White, their price is above rubies.
They are the salt of the earth.
You willing for that kind of leadership?
Leading through a desire not to push yourself
forward but in order to bring others forward
for God's glory.
Very briefly, a fourth crucial quality in the
leader who deserves to be followed and that's
example.
Example.
People may follow for a time the instructions
or the vision described by a gifted orator.
But people are actually looking for someone to
model.
Someone who doesn't just say it but is
it.
Paul must have been a tremendous inspiration and
model to Timothy.
He's able to say to him just before
his execution, he actually writes this down.
You know all about my teaching.
All about my way of life.
And so on and so on.
Earlier he sent Timothy to the Corinthian church
and in an accompanying letter he wrote this.
I'm sending to you, Timothy, my son and
my love who's faithful in the Lord.
He will remind you of my way of
life in Christ Jesus which agrees with what
I teach everywhere in every church.
Wow.
A leader who can write such a letter.
He's going to tell you about my way
of life and what I live agrees with
what I say in every church.
Paul had nothing to hide.
He could quote his life as an example.
They knew that what he said it was
his sincere goal to be.
And that must be the aim of every
leader.
Some leaders keep their distance from the people,
don't they?
Now I realize, of course, that leaders have
to be protected.
They can't give themselves to everyone.
But the desire of the leader must be
identification not separation.
Leadership must be by example not just by
instruction.
Again, this is clearly seen in Nehemiah.
Did you notice identification in the prayer of
chapter 1?
Look at the middle of verse 6.
I confess the sins we Israelites including myself
and my father's house have committed against you.
We have acted very wickedly towards you.
And so on.
There's Jesus coming to Jordan to be baptized
by John.
Where's he standing?
He's standing in line with sinners.
Jesus, the son of God standing in line
with sinners.
He had no sin.
But if he is to lead many sons
to glory he will identify himself with those
people.
He will not, as their leader, seek to
be above them separate from them but he
will do all in his power to identify
with them.
Examples.
Models.
For people to follow.
Important in every Christian union, church or youth
group up and down the land.
May I just make one final point.
We need to identify sufficiently closely with people
so that they can see our weak points
experience our failures as well as see and
hear of all our successes.
Few things I find encourage people more to
take on leadership than to realize that leaders
whom they admire are weak, faltering humans.
Just like them.
You know, I think the Corinthians must have
got a bit of a shock when they
received Paul's second letter.
Paul had opponents in Corinth false apostles who'd
come down from Jerusalem where the great church
was and they were setting up a kind
of anti-Paul faction in the church and
these apostles came with signed letters of recommendation
from Jerusalem.
And they seemed qualified, competent strong, eloquent leaders
and Paul was so different.
Isn't it a criticism of Paul?
It's really nice.
2 Corinthians 10 verse 10 Some say his
letters are weighty and forceful but in his
person he's unimpressive and his speaking amounts to
nothing.
Nice people, weren't they?
Paul, you write a pretty strong letter but
when you hear, you don't look much and
you can't speak to save yourselves.
Nice people indeed.
But you read his letter.
I'm sure the Corinthians expected Paul to write
back and quote all his strong points in
his defense.
After all, he couldn't be seen to be
weak.
Could he?
Surely he'd lose all his authority, all his
influence.
On the contrary, he writes back boasting, glorying
in his weakness.
Because through his human weakness he is convinced
the power of Christ will be displayed.
Am I willing to get alongside the people
I lead to truly identify with them to
be an example or do I feel that
I must maintain my strong self-assured image?
I must remain somewhat separate I can't afford
to be truly seen or known.
It's interesting that Jesus shared a common room
with his disciples.
They lived from a common curse.
Can you imagine the instruction the inspiration they
must have received simply from being with him?
Remember Luke chapter 11?
One day Jesus was praying.
When he finished, one of his disciples said
to him Lord, teach us to pray.
Just as John taught his disciples.
They were with Jesus.
They saw him rising a great while before
day and going off into the mountains.
They saw his life of prayer and they
said Lord, we want it.
Teach us to pray.
The power of example.
Will they follow?
I believe people are looking for examples.
Those upon whom they can model their lives.
They will be people of vision who are
willing to work seriously at their responsibility.
And part of that work will be a
patient commitment to people.
To see their fullest potential realised.
And I believe brothers and sisters that God
is looking for such people in his church,
in this nation today.
May God bless his work.