afternoon everybody and welcome to Steadfast Baptist Church. Go ahead and
find our seats. We will get started. We've all found a seat. Let's grab a
hymnal and go to song number 207. We found a seat. Let's grab a hymnal and go
to song number 27. God, but what I received, a sinner saved by grace. Song number 207.
We'll sing it out together. We just thank you once again for saving us by grace but
giving us a great church to attend. We just ask that you help us lift up our
voices unto you and fill us with your spirit. In Jesus name we pray. For our
next song, let's go to song number 8181. Can all look forward to when we see
Christ. Song number 8181. When we see Christ. I'll give it our best, sing it out
together. So much for coming to Steadfast Baptist Church. If you didn't
already grab a bulletin, if you need one, just lift up your hand real quick whenever
ushers can come by and get you guys a bulletin. On the front we have our Bible
memory passage, Jude chapter 1. Verse of the week is Jude 3rd and if you can
quote that to a non-family member you can receive a prize. On the inside we
have our service times, soul winning times and church stats down below. On the
right is a list of our expecting ladies. Upcoming events we have our Mother's Day
brunch coming up this Saturday. Looking forward to all of the ladies getting to
participate in that. Soul winning marathon is in Cleburne, Texas May 24th.
May 31st is gonna be a Durant, Oklahoma soul winning marathon if you'd like to
participate. The Father's Day floats on the 15th and then we have a Shreveport
marathon June 28th. So lots of different soul winning marathons. Of course I'd
like to announce also May 15th through the 18th is a King James Bible
conference that's held by one of our friends Pastor Aaron Thompson. It's gonna
be in Vancouver Washington at Sure Foundation Baptist Church. I was invited
to go up there and preach and I'm gonna actually be preaching that Sunday so I
won't be here that one Sunday but I'm excited to go up there and see them. I
haven't visited them in a while so if you'd like to check out some extra
preaching on the King James Bible they're gonna be putting out that
information. I think we're gonna be doing like Baptist bias shows throughout the
whole weekend to just interview different preachers and stuff at that
conference and so just to put that on your radar and then also on the back is
our prayer list. We'll go over that here as a church family. We then continue to
pray. I guess we have a praise report about the Naimes. We should probably
update that in the bulletin but their grandmother does have a praise
report about recovery. Continue to pray for her too. Also the Carlson's if you pray
for her parents for their health. Continue to pray for Miss Miller's
friend's mom who has cancer treatments. We continue to pray for the Scotts for
both their parents for Brother Horace and Miss Grace and then also if you
pray for Miss Olivia. Continue to pray for Brother Garcia's health. We've been
praying for Miss Larky's harm. I think it's been doing a lot better and so
that's that's great. And then pray for Brother Brad's father and sister for
their health. Also if you pray for his work. Continue to pray for Miss Morris's
health. Also Miss Cindy had a friend Miss Angela. If you pray for her health. We've
been praying for Brother Stewart's mother who had been recently diagnosed
with Alzheimer's. If you pray for her. Continue to pray for Brother Goodwin and
for his work. Also for Brother Alberto and his work. If you pray for Brother
Jared's co-worker who's asking for prayer for health and then Brother Alex
for work as well. So we'll say a quick word of prayer as a church family. Thank
you Heavenly Father so much for our church. Thank you for all the expecting
ladies. Please be with them during their pregnancies. Please help them with their
delivery. I pray that you'd also bless those who have recently given birth. That
you'd bless their children and help them to keep recovering. I pray that you would
just bless those that need healing or need health. That you could please just
give them favor. So many struggling with cancer or various illnesses. I pray if
possible you just grant them a miracle. Please give them comfort and give
them peace during this tribulation and difficulty. I pray that you could just
bless our church family that needs help with their work or with their job. I pray
those of our family and friends that need to hear the gospel. That you give us
the opportunity to give them the gospel. I pray they'd also bless their upcoming
soul-winning events and our soul-winning conferences. I pray that
you'd also bless our evangelists in the Philippines and continue to bless the
work they're doing over there. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. We'll go ahead
and sing our Psalm of the Week Psalm 146. Psalm 146 in our Psalm binders.
Psalm 146. Psalm 146 in your binders. Let's all sing it out together loudly on that verse. Psalm 146.
Praise ye the Lord, praise the Lord, praise the Lord, praise the Lord, praise the Lord. Go ahead and turn in your Bibles to Matthew chapter 20. The book of Matthew chapter number 20.
Matthew chapter number 20, the Bible reads, "For the kingdom of heaven is likened to a man that is in householder, which went out early in the morning to hire laborers into his vineyard. And when he had agreed with the laborers for a penny a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And he went out about the third hour, and saw others standing idle in the marketplace.
And said unto them, Go ye also into the vineyard, and whatsoever is right I will give you.
And they went their way. Again he went about the sixth and ninth hour, and did likewise.
And about the eleventh hour he went out, and found others standing idle, and saith unto them, Why stand ye here all the day idle?
They say unto him, Because no man hath hired us. He saith unto them, Go ye also into the vineyard, and whatsoever is right that shall you receive.
So when even was come, the lord of the vineyard saith unto his steward, Call the labors, and give him their hire, beginning from the last unto the first.
And when they came that were hired about the eleventh hour, they received every man a penny.
But when the first came, they supposed that they should have received more, and they likewise received every man a penny.
And when they had received it, they murmured against the good men of the house, saying, These last have wrought but one hour, and thou hast made them equal unto us,
which have borne the burden and heat of the day. And he answered one of them, and said, Friend, I do thee no wrong. Didst not thou agree with me for a penny?
Take that as thine, and go thy way. I will give unto this last even as unto thee. Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own?
Is thine eye evil, because I am good? So the last shall be first, and the first last, but many be called, but few chosen.
And Jesus going up to Jerusalem took the twelve disciples apart in the way, and said unto them, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem,
and the Son of Man shall be betrayed unto the chief priests and unto the scribes, and they shall condemn him to death,
and shall deliver him to the Gentiles to mock and to scourge and to crucify him, and the third day he shall rise again.
Then came to him the mother of Sebedee's children with her sons, worshiping him and desiring a certain thing of him.
And he said unto her, What wilt thou? She saith unto him, Grant that these two my sons may sit,
the one on thy right hand, and the other on the left, in thy kingdom.
But Jesus answered and said, Ye know not what ye ask. Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of,
and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with? They say unto him, We are able.
And he saith unto them, Ye shall drink indeed of my cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with.
But to sit on my right hand and on my left is not mine to give, but it shall be given to them for whom it is prepared of my Father.
And when the ten heard it, they were moved with indignation against the two brethren.
But Jesus called them unto him, and said, Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them,
and they that are great exercise authority upon them. But it shall not be so among you.
But whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; and whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant.
Even as the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many.
And as they departed from Jericho, a great multitude followed him.
And, behold, two blind men, sitting by the wayside, when they heard that Jesus passed by, cried out, saying,
Have mercy on us, O Lord, thou Son of David. And the multitude rebuked them, because they should hold their peace.
But they cried the more, saying, Have mercy on us, O Lord, thou Son of David.
And Jesus stood still, and called them, and said, What will ye that I should do unto you?
They said unto him, Lord, that our eyes may be opened.
So Jesus had compassion on them, and touched their eyes, and immediately their eyes received sight, and they followed him.
Let us pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for allowing us to come to church.
Thank you for Set Fast Baptist Church. Thank you for Pastor Shelley.
I just pray that you would bless Pastor, fill him with your Holy Spirit, to preach your word unto us, Lord.
Pray that you would give us an open heart to receive it and make applicable changes in our lives.
Pray us in Jesus' name, Amen. Amen.
So last week we were going through the book of Matthew.
We were in chapter 20, and I didn't finish this entire chapter.
And so I want to focus in on the last portion of this chapter this evening and preach about that.
Now I want to actually start out of order.
Look at verse 29, the Bible says, "And as they departed from Jericho, a great multitude followed him.
And the old two blind men, sitting by the wayside, when they heard that Jesus passed by, cried out, saying,
'Have mercy on us, O Lord, thou son of David!'
And the multitude rebuked them, because they should hold their peace.
But they cried the more, saying, 'Have mercy on us, O Lord, thou son of David!'
Jesus stood still and called them, and said, 'What will ye that I should do unto you?'
They say unto them, 'Lord,' that their eyes may be opened.'
So Jesus had compassion on them, and touched their eyes, and immediately their eyes received sight, and they followed him.
So here we have a story of Jesus healing two blind men.
Now I want you to keep your finger here, because of course we're coming back.
We're going to Mark chapter 10, Mark chapter number 10, where this exact same story is being brought up, but a slightly different way.
Now, we notice that they cried out, "Son of David, have mercy on me."
They're calling on the name of the Lord, in a sense.
They're calling the Lord, and He comes over, He asks what they want.
They ask to be healed. He heals them immediately.
Now, God, I believe, uses a lot of carnal truths to expound spiritual truths.
One of the carnal truths that's constantly brought up in the New Testament is how Jesus just heals people and just heals them immediately.
And this is a picture of spiritual healing because in the same way that He healed someone physically just right on the spot,
spiritual salvation is also a moment in time.
Spiritual salvation is not a lifelong process. The Bible calls salvation being born again.
Birth is not a lifelong process. Birth is a moment of time. And salvation is a moment of time.
And that physical healing was an immediate physical healing in the same way that spiritual salvation is an immediate spiritual salvation.
Now, to kind of get a little bit more depth into why this person was saved, it says in verse number 46.
Let's read the story again. And they came to Jericho. And as he went out of Jericho with his disciples and a great number of people,
blind Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, sat by the highway side begging. And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth,
he began to cry out and say, "Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me." So many charged him that he should hold his peace,
but he cried the more a great deal, "Thou son of David, have mercy on me." And Jesus stood still and commanded him to be called.
And they called the blind man, saying unto him, "Be of good comfort, rise, he calleth thee."
And he casting away his garment, rose and came to Jesus. And Jesus answered and said unto him,
"What wilt thou that I should do unto thee?" The blind man said unto him, "Lord, that I might receive my sight."
And Jesus said unto him, "Go thy way, thy faith hath made thee whole."
And immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus in the way.
Now the reason why I went to Mark to compare this is because Jesus actually provides an explanation here
in Mark as to what actually healed this guy or what caused him to receive his sight and that was his faith.
Because this physical salvation was received by faith in the same way that spiritual salvation is also received by faith.
We believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and that's what saves us.
How did he exercise his faith? How did he put his faith in Jesus?
Well, he called on his name, didn't he? He said, "Thou Son of David, have mercy on me."
And in the same way, when we go out and preach the gospel, we help people to call upon the name of the Lord,
asking for his mercy, and it's their faith that saves them.
Because you could call on the name of the Lord and not believe and not be saved.
It's not just saying, "Son of David, have mercy on me," that saves you. It's your faith that saves you.
And the same way, when we go out and help people call upon the name of the Lord to be saved,
it's not the calling that saves them, it's the faith in their heart that saves them.
But the way they exercise that faith is by calling on the name of the Lord
and by believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, and they receive that sight spiritually.
Notice you also can't follow Jesus until you're saved.
In the same way that you can't follow someone until you can see,
you can't follow Jesus until you're saved.
And so all these people that are "following Jesus" that are not saved, they're not actually following Jesus.
They don't know what they're following, they're spiritually blinded.
Going back to Matthew chapter number 20, so that's a great picture.
I believe I've taught in the past a whole sermon on salvation by faith in the book of Matthew.
I'm not sure if I really went to this because that was actually in Mark,
but here's just another story where salvation was clearly by faith.
If you compare it with the book of Mark and you see, oh wow, this guy believed in Jesus Christ,
that's what gave him his physical sight, and that's a picture of spiritual salvation that is by faith.
The blind guy didn't have to do any works. He didn't have to repent of his sins.
He didn't have to get baptized. He didn't have to give up something in his life.
He didn't have to surrender his life. In fact, he can't follow Jesus until he sees,
because you can't follow Jesus until you get saved. You don't follow Jesus to get saved.
You follow Jesus because you're saved. But you cannot follow Jesus to get saved because you're blind.
We have to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and that's what saves us.
And then later, then we can follow Jesus. Of course, this blind man chose to follow Jesus.
He didn't have to. He could have chosen to just go on his way.
The Bible brings up ten lepers that are cleansed, and nine of them don't even come back to say thank you.
Can you imagine having some incurable disease and being miraculously cured of it
and not even be willing to say thank you to the person that did such a thing?
Well, unfortunately, in Christianity, a lot of people are going to get saved and accept salvation as a free gift,
and yet they're really not going to do much for Jesus Christ.
In fact, we should pretty much anticipate that ninety-some percent of people that get saved
will probably do almost nothing for God, nothing for Jesus Christ,
but they're still going to heaven, and we don't have this attitude where
because we do do something for Jesus, or because we do follow,
that we're the only saved people, no salvation is still the free gift.
But of course we serve Him because we want number one, for Him to be pleased with us,
and number two, to receive rewards, and that was what's brought up in Matthew 20.
I covered this in great detail last week, about there's rewards,
we need to serve Him, it's super important.
Now there's another concept that's being brought up here, and I really want to focus on this,
this is really why I'm giving you a title for the sermon this evening,
is servant leadership versus the Bible.
Servant leadership versus the Bible.
Now let's read this passage and we're going to dig in a lot.
It says in verse number 24, and when the ten heard it, what was the ten that heard it?
It was about them sitting on the right hand or left hand of Jesus.
If you remember the context, these two brothers, the sons of Zebedee, the sons of Thunder,
want to have a high position in the kingdom of God.
And when the other ten disciples hear it, what does the Bible say?
It says, "They were moved with indignation against the two brethren."
They're mad, because they want a high position of authority, right?
They want to be high ranking.
There's competition, right?
Verse 25, "But Jesus called them unto him and said, Ye know that the princes of the
Gentiles exercised dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon
them, but it shall not be so among you.
But whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; and whosoever will be
chief among you, let him be your servant, even as the Son of Man came not to be ministered
unto, but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many.
So here in this passage, the Bible's bringing up Jesus Christ answering kind of the thoughts
or the situation of wanting to be great.
Now notice that Jesus does not say there's anything wrong with being great.
There's nothing wrong with even wanting to be great.
He says, "Hey, if you want to be great, here's how you accomplish it."
He doesn't say, "Don't try to be great.
Don't want to be great.
No, we should want to be great in the Kingdom of God.
We should even have a desire to be great.
We should even try to be great.
We have to understand how to become great.
How do you become great?
It's not by having some lofty position where you can boss people around,
but rather it's just by serving people and doing ministry.
Now, some people will take this passage and wrongly apply lots of it
to all kinds of aspects of your Christian life or just a life in general.
And I've heard this terminology used a lot called "servant leadership."
Who's ever heard this concept being taught, okay?
Who's heard this concept being taught at like their job or something like that?
Yeah, a lot of people have heard this in the workplace, in the job.
I kind of have run into this concept mostly in my job or workplace.
There's been a lot of companies I've worked for
where they put me in a position of "team leader".
And as a team leader, you essentially have zero authority
and you're responsible for other people's actions.
And it becomes very frustrating because you're thinking like,
"Well, this guy still has free will and even though I can do a good job,
I can come to work early and I can work hard
and I can try to care what the company's doing,
I can't really make other people do that."
And then when they fail or they don't do good,
I don't have a way to incentivize them,
either through reward or through punishment,
to cause them to do anything differently.
All I can do is just do my job.
And what I've noticed is it's not very effective.
What I've noticed going to high school,
going to college, and being in the workplace,
is that when you're on team projects,
it's usually a lot of just one person and not so much team.
And it's not because you don't want there to be a teamwork,
it's not that you're not willing to receive cooperative unity on a project,
it's just that a lot of people are lazy,
and a lot of people don't want to work hard,
and a lot of people won't contribute,
and a lot of times when you have these "teams,"
it's just one person doing the job of four,
or one person doing the job of two,
or one person doing the job of a lot of people.
In fact, I worked for a company, it was like software development,
we had like nine or ten people on the team,
and a lot of times I had to do the work of all ten.
And it's not because I wanted to, it's not because I'm special,
it's just because, hey, the thing's got to get done,
someone's got to do it, and boy, I'm not going to be the one that not do it.
And at the end of the day, it's not like, oh, well, as a team leader,
I can really enforce, you know, the rules or punish people if they don't do it,
and at the same time you get sometimes yelled at if the job doesn't get done,
so you just figure out a way to get it done.
And what I've noticed is that servant leadership,
being taught in a lot of major, large corporations and companies today,
is kind of a failure from my personal opinion, okay?
It's kind of a failure, and I believe it's not biblical either,
and I want to explain, you know, what I think about this topic.
Now, first of all, let's explain what this topic or this passage is saying,
and then let's talk about what servant leadership is according to online,
what the world says about it,
and then we're going to kind of contrast the two here a little bit.
So, number one, what is the passage really saying?
Well, number one, it's saying that there's a difference between exercising authority upon people
and being their minister.
So, this has to mean something, okay?
Obviously, when Jesus Christ came to this earth,
He did not just sit on some throne and have a bunch of people come serve Him, did He?
He actually came in a lowly position, and He went out and ministered.
Now, the Bible says, look at what it says in verse 28,
"Even as the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto."
Here's a question, was Jesus ever ministered to, though?
Yes, He was.
I can show you many places in the Bible where it says
the women came and ministered unto Jesus, okay?
We have women who washed His feet.
We have--with her hair.
I mean, she definitely ministered unto Him.
The Bible talks about many women ministering unto them
of their things and of their substance, okay?
So this is not saying that you can't be ministered unto.
It's just saying, what is the purpose of Jesus' life
or what is the purpose of Christianity?
The purpose of Jesus Christ's life was to serve other people.
That is His main goal.
And the main goal of Christianity is to serve.
It's to work, not to be served.
That does not mean you can't be served.
It just means your role is not to just be served.
It's to serve.
So let's contrast two people in your Bible.
Jesus Christ and Herod, King Herod, both kings, okay?
Whenever you came to see Jesus, what did he do for you?
He preached you the Word of God.
In some cases, he fed you.
In some cases, he healed you.
In some cases, he gave you counsel.
So what is he doing?
He's serving you.
He's serving you the Word of God.
He's serving you food, literally, in some cases.
He's getting people baptized through his disciples.
He's basically just doing work for the people.
The people come to him, he does work for them.
Okay, let's talk about King Herod.
What do they do?
Herodias' daughter comes to Herod.
What does she do?
She dances for him.
She performs for him.
King Herod is not doing anything for Herodias' daughter.
She's coming to serve him and to perform for him.
So, if we think about a king, he's there to be served.
If we think about what Jesus is doing, he's there to serve.
Now, does that mean that Jesus doesn't have authority and Herod does?
No, they both have authority.
It's just that Herod uses his authority for selfish means
and Jesus Christ uses his authority to serve other people.
So really, I believe you understand what this passage is saying.
It's not saying that we can't have authority or use authority.
It's saying what's the purpose of the authority you have?
How are you using it?
The disciples have authority.
The Bible says that Jesus Christ gave power and authority
under the disciples to cast out demons.
But what was that purpose?
It wasn't to go around and be puffed up and be like,
"Look how amazing I am. I can cast out devils."
It was to just genuinely help people.
It was to do good unto people, right?
When we think about government,
government in America is in theory supposed to be a servant of the people.
In many cases in the world, the actual title of government officials is minister.
In fact, sometimes it's called the prime minister.
Why? Because they're supposed to be a servant of the people.
The president is supposed to serve the United States.
The governor of Texas is supposed to serve the state of Texas and its people.
The mayor of whatever Dallas, Fort Worth, Arlington, Cedar Hill, whatever area, whatever city,
they are supposed to serve the people.
They're not put in a position to be served,
they're put in a position to serve the general public
and the general populace.
And the same way in Christianity,
it is supposed to be a service type industry
where we are serving the people.
A pastor is put in a position of authority
not to have people come and serve him,
but rather he serves the people.
What is the primary goal of a minister?
It's to feed the sheep.
He told Peter, feed my sheep, feed my lambs,
feed my lambs, feed my sheep.
What are we supposed to do as preachers and as pastors?
We're supposed to serve.
We're supposed to serve you the Word of God.
Think about what a pastor does beyond that.
Evangelizes.
He's going out and serving just the unsaved
by preaching the gospel unto them.
What's another thing he does?
Well, he performs weddings.
He performs funerals.
He performs just general counsel.
He's just basically giving of his time and effort
to just make sure the church of God and the house of God
is running smoothly.
What is he doing?
He's just serving in general.
And what is his work called?
It's called the ministry.
So here's the thing.
Christianity is ministry, okay?
I don't like the term servant leadership
because it's not found in the Bible.
You can never find this term found in the Bible,
and I don't believe you can find this concept
taught in the Bible.
But you can find the word ministry.
Now, ministry is just like serving.
Just serving, service.
That's good, okay?
But I don't believe in this, quote, servant leadership idea.
Now, when also we talk about serving as a pastor,
that doesn't mean that you don't have authority
and you can't exercise your authority.
I want to show you some passages.
Let's go to Titus chapter number two.
Go to Titus chapter number two.
In Christianity, there's nothing wrong
with even desiring to be a pastor.
Because, you know, he talks about,
hey, if you want to be chief,
or if you want to be great,
then you have to do these things.
You have to serve, right?
But think about it, first to me, the chapter number three,
if a man desire the office of bishop,
he desire the good work, right?
So he's just saying, look, you want to be great.
You want to be a pastor, then you better want to work.
It's not a position to be served, it's a position to serve.
Hey, you want to be in church
and you want to have a higher position in church,
you better be willing to do more work.
You want to be an usher?
It's more work than just coming to church.
You want to be a soul winning captain?
It's more work than just showing up at church.
Hey, you want to be in the music ministry?
It's more work than just showing up at church.
Hey, you want to be an evangelist or a deacon or a pastor?
It's going to be more work than just showing up at church,
because Christianity is work.
It's the ministry.
We're ministering.
We're doing the work of the ministry.
And so he's trying to get them in the right mindset.
Hey, you want to be great?
Good.
Well, get ready to do some work.
Because you remember in the prior part of Matthew chapter
number 20, he's saying, hey, you want
to sit on the left hand or the right hand?
OK, great.
Well, you're going to have to be a living sacrifice.
You're going to have to go through a lot of tribulation,
a lot of persecution.
Hey, you want to be a great position in Christianity?
Well, you're going to have to do some work, right?
Who in Christianity is going to be great by doing no work?
No one.
Hey, you want to be great in Christianity?
Get ready to serve.
Get ready to put to work, right?
That's the whole goal of Christianity is to do work.
And you know what?
Think about this.
If this is the mindset of Christianity,
I wonder why this religion just triumphs
over all other religions.
I wonder why this religion is the one that constantly builds
civilization throughout history.
I wonder why this civilization is one that built America
and built a country that's greater
than any other country at this time.
It's because Christianity teaches you to work
and to serve and to do something.
But you know what?
Christianity does not teach that there's no such thing
as hierarchy or authority or punishment.
No, no, no.
All of that can be in correlation with working.
Religions that teach you to just lay around and be lazy,
lay around and just boss everybody around
and just do whatever you want,
those are the religions that fail, have horrible inequalities
to types of living.
And so, you know, Christianity is one that's hey,
we're gonna put in the work and you put in the work,
God rewards you.
And of course, then this religion just keeps working
and getting better and better and better.
But you know, when people don't wanna work,
you know, Christianity doesn't work.
Christianity only works with people that want to work.
Now Titus chapter number two,
I wanna show you this verse 'cause it's important.
Look at verse number 15.
This isn't talking about the pastor.
These things speak and exhort and rebuke with all authority.
Let no man despise thee.
How could this verse be true if in Matthew 20,
the Bible saying, hey, you can't use your authority.
Don't boss people around.
Don't tell people what to do.
No, no, no, the Bible saying rebuke with all authority.
Okay, but here's the thing.
Why would I exercise authority as a pastor?
It would be to get the work done.
It would be to further the goal and the mission
of the church, right?
It would be for servant authority, not selfish authority.
Now, if I'm going around just bossing people around
and telling people what to do for just to help me,
like hey, wash my shoes, buddy.
Wash my car, buddy.
Hey, you know, I need 50 bucks now.
Hey, close the doors.
Let's close the doors and we're not leaving
until everybody gives $100 on the plate
or something like that.
Pastors do that.
And the Pentecostal churches, you know what I mean?
There's some weird stuff out there.
There are Pentecostal churches
where they literally lift up their pastors.
They call them apostles, which is wrong,
but they'll lift them up in chairs
and they will parade them up and down these aisles, okay?
There's false religions like Catholicism
where the pope will just sit on a stage
and then they'll have people come up
and they'll perform circus acts for the pope.
Who's seen this video before?
Yeah, there's the popes on the stage.
People just come up, they just perform circus acts for him.
People are coming up and singing,
performing and doing all these different things for him.
Look, that's not a public servant.
That's not someone doing the work.
That's someone exercising authority and lordship
for their own selfish ambition, right?
Or for their own selfish wants and desires.
Having someone fan you and feed you grapes
and doing all this stuff.
You know, that's not really being a servant, is it?
Now again, there's nothing wrong with being paid
as a servant.
Obviously we pay our president,
we pay our government officials,
we pay our pastors,
we pay these people that do this work
just so they can have a living.
But again, they're doing work
and their main goal is to serve.
Wouldn't it be great if all of our government
had the mindset of like,
hey, I'm really here to serve the people
and not to see, hey, you know what?
Let's see if I can pass this law
that allows me to do insider trading.
How does that serve the general populace?
Let me pass this law to where this pharmaceutical company
is gonna get granted this contract
and that pharmaceutical company is gonna give me
millions of dollars in line in my pockets.
How is that really serving the people, okay?
How is that, oh, I have a part owner
in this military complex industry
where we produce tanks or something like that
and then let's just go ahead
and bomb one of our own buildings like 9/11 on 9/11.
Let's just bomb the two trade towers
and then let's invade Iraq and then, oh, wow,
let's give all the government contracts to myself
to build more tanks, to invade a foreign land.
I mean, this isn't serving the people and in the same way,
obviously as pastors, as ministers, as Christians,
we shouldn't be making decisions for selfish gain
or trying to exercise lordship.
We should obviously be a servant, we should be a minister.
What I don't really like is this mentality
or this attitude that says, yeah, we're all servant leaders
so we can never exercise any kind of authority in any way
or we can't boss anybody around
or there's no consequences to bad actions.
Now, to play a little bit of catch up,
first of all, you know, I've always kind of had
a negative attitude towards this concept,
but I was willing to change my mind, okay?
But I wanted to say, you know, let's just go look online.
Let's just see what servant leadership is.
Where did this thing come from?
And if it's biblical, let's embrace it.
Let's agree and amplify.
That's how I always feel, okay?
If it's biblical, I just agree and amplify.
People keep saying I preach damage control sermons
and I was like, I agree and amplify, all right?
And in the same way, you know,
when it comes to the servant leadership definition,
I'm just gonna say, what is it?
So you just look it up.
You can look at this up on Wikipedia.
You can look this up on LinkedIn.
You can look this up on all kinds of books.
Everybody agrees that basically the servant leadership idea
came from one person.
It came from a guy named Robert Greenleaf, okay?
Robert Greenleaf who wrote a book in 1970
and it was all about servant leadership.
Now, Robert Greenleaf, I'm gonna, before I get,
I'm gonna talk about him for a minute,
but I'm putting that on pause.
I wanna stick with me coming up
with a servant leadership idea or definition.
In my mind, I'm thinking like,
well, if you're teaching servant leadership,
you're teaching something that's different, right?
If you're advocating for servant leadership,
then you must be against something.
So I found another article that's titled
traditional leadership versus servant leadership.
So, and really this is where I see
the rubber meet the road.
A lot of people are kind of getting
against this quote traditional leadership
versus a quote servant leadership.
So there's an article out there,
it's really popular, it's one of the top results.
You type in servant leadership,
it's one of the top results that came up.
It's a LinkedIn article, somebody wrote it,
and they give attribution again to Robert Greenleaf
on him being the founder or the first person
to really popularize the idea of quote servant leadership.
Now, in this article, I'm gonna read a little bit.
He says, where did the term servant leadership come from?
The phrase servant leadership was coined
by Robert K. Greenleaf when he first used it
at the time in his essay that was published in 1970.
In his essay, Greenleaf explains the term servant leader
and talks about the reason for coming up
with a new leadership approach.
So he's basically saying, up until 1970,
everybody's kinda having this one philosophy for leadership,
for running companies, for running businesses,
and he's coming up with the quote,
new way to approach leadership.
Now, typically, if you just understand history as a large,
the 1970s is not really a bright spot for new ideas.
I'm just throwing that out there, okay.
Not to say there couldn't have been a good idea,
but I'm just gonna tell you that the free,
hippie love movement was not really generating
a lot of good ideas, okay.
Anything that's new should also just be suspect.
Okay, you should always just kind of be leery
of something that's quote new.
Now, they're contrasting this with quote,
traditional leadership.
Let me give you the definition of traditional leadership
according to this article.
Traditional leadership approach,
the leader encourages people to do their jobs
by providing them with guidance,
direction and motivation.
The main focus of a traditional leader
is to improve the business position of the company
or organization in the market.
Now I read that and I thought, wow, that sounds great.
'Cause I was thinking like,
why do we even need to fix that?
Okay.
But then servant leadership in contrast,
what they're saying is instead of focusing in
on the goal of the company,
instead of focusing on the mission statement,
instead of focusing on what the company
really needs to be doing and achieving,
you need to just focus on the people
that are underneath you.
And just making sure that their lives are good
and just making sure that they're being improved
and that their emotions are good
and just taking care of them.
So instead of thinking about what the company
should be doing, you're just thinking about
the few people that work for you
or the few people that are under you
in a potential hierarchy structure, okay?
Now, in some ways, obviously, you know,
thinking about people underneath you
is not a bad thing, is it?
There's nothing wrong with caring
about the people that work for you,
caring about your servants.
The Bible has a lot of verses on this.
And really, when I read this article,
I would say 80% of it, 'cause there's 10 points,
80% of it is fluff that just applies to both sides.
And they just make a lot of arguments
that are just pretty much just like,
yeah, sounds good, okay?
There's really only like two arguments
that they actually make that really contrast
these two approaches when it comes to, quote, leadership.
But number one, they said, you should be a good listener.
And I was like, okay, how is the traditional
leadership approach say, don't be a good listener?
It doesn't go to Proverbs, it would go to book of Proverbs.
I'm gonna look at a lot of verses with you.
This is a Bible study.
Let's look at a lot of verses.
We're looking at Proverbs and jumping through
in different places, but it says servant leaders
always listen to people before they speak their minds.
They want to know what their people think
and how do they feel.
To improve your listening skills, it is important
that when you talk to people, you give them
your undivided attention and notice their tone
and body language while speaking.
There's a thing, a lot of that's just good general advice.
I agree.
Hey, we should be good listeners.
Anybody that works for you, you should consider
what they have to say.
You should take notice.
You know, we don't want to take this to an extreme though.
Just because someone that works for you wants to talk to you
or give their opinion, I don't think that means
you should always listen.
Now, let's look at some positive verses about this.
Proverbs 18, look at verse 13.
The Bible says, "He that answer the matter
"before he heareth it, it is fall in shame on them."
So that enforces the idea or the principle
that hey, you should consider what people have to say
before necessarily giving an answer.
But let's consider some other verses.
Look at chapter 14, verse 23.
Chapter 14, verse 23, "In all labor there is profit,
"but the talk of the lips tendeth only to penury."
Hey, too much talking is a bad thing,
just general by the Bible.
And really when it comes to work,
what I've noticed is there's a lot of people
that just wanna sit around and talk all day
and not actually accomplish any work.
And it feels like the servant leadership
is almost trying to give a place for this type of attitude
where well, let's make sure everybody
gets a chance to talk on the team.
I've been in team meetings where it's like,
let's go around the room
and let's hear what everybody has to say.
And it's just thinking like, no, please no.
Please not them.
It's like, not this person.
I don't wanna hear what they have to say.
Look at Proverbs chapter 10, verse number 19.
Hey, and sometimes as a boss,
you wanna give your employees an opportunity
to hear what you have to say.
But you know what?
We don't have time to just sit here
and talk about all your feelings and how you think
and all your ideas.
We're just gonna get some stuff done, okay?
Proverbs chapter 10 verse 19 that says,
"In the multitude of words, there wanteth not sin,
"but he that refraineth his lips is wise."
A general principle in life is that we shouldn't
just be talking all the time anyways.
So again, I'm worried about this point,
but just to say this, being a good listener
is not a point for servant leadership.
You should be a good listener,
whether you're doing traditional leadership
or servant leadership, it's really all the same, okay?
Go to, keep your finger in Proverbs if you're coming back,
go to Romans chapter 12 for a minute,
go to Romans chapter 12.
Here's a second point they said,
is that servant leaders feel for their people.
So it says, have empathy.
It says, don't turn a blind eye
toward their problems and issues.
It says, try hard to resolve issues
by fulfilling the needs and wants of the general public.
Well, again, I don't see how,
if you have a traditional leadership approach,
you can't have empathy for your employees.
Again, it's just kind of like a fluff point.
But the Bible does teach,
just like Romans chapter 12 verse 15,
rejoice with them that do rejoice
and weep with them that weep.
Be of the same mind, one toward another,
mind not high things,
but condescend to men of low estate.
Be not wise in your own conceits.
We should sometimes put ourselves
in someone else's position
and think about how they feel
and think about their feelings
and we should consider other people.
But just generally speaking,
that again does not apply to this quote,
servant leadership versus traditional leadership.
You can do that no matter what.
Go over to James chapter five,
go to James chapter five.
Now the third point was weird to me.
It says, heal those around you.
I'm thinking like, well, first of all,
I can't physically heal anybody.
I don't know if we're going to the second part
of our sermon that we already talked about,
like physically healing people.
But it says this, a servant leader is capable
of healing people with a focus on their emotional health
and a feeling of completeness.
I'm just gonna say that that's a garbage statement, okay.
I'm like, what does that even mean?
Like a servant leader is capable of healing people
with a focus on their emotional health
and a feeling of completeness.
This is just words without meaning.
This is like non-denominational preaching right here, okay.
When they just start saying stuff,
and it's just like, man, I have a feeling of completeness.
I know what you mean, man, and I can heal you, okay.
I would run away from this person.
I would not think like this guy's gonna heal me, okay.
But the Bible does bring up healing,
and I don't think it's always
in the context of physical healing.
Look at James 5 verse 16.
Confess your faults to one another and pray for one another.
That you may be healed.
The effectual fervent prayer
of a righteous man availeth much.
You know, sometimes just confessing your sins,
dealing with issues, and praying to God,
that can help your mental health.
And you know what?
Sometimes telling somebody what the Bible says
and getting them to take ownership for their actions
can help them with their mental health,
not allowing them to just keep dwelling on issues
or unresolved conflict, okay.
And I believe we should consider mental health of people.
You know, when it comes to an employee relationship,
if I have an employee,
I don't want to just have unresolved tension
and issues and whatever.
I think, yeah, sometimes we should talk to them,
address issues and try to fix them and try to move on.
And hey, tell people they need to forgive or whatever.
Go if you would to Proverbs, go back to Proverbs 27,
a Bible verse that I also had written down,
2 Corinthians 2 verse 7.
So that contrary wise,
you ought rather to forgive him and comfort him,
lest perhaps such and one should be swallowed up
with over much sorrow,
wherefore I beseech you that you would comfort,
confirm your love toward him.
The Bible talks about someone who messed up,
did something that's wrong,
and then they tried to get it right.
They tried to repent, they tried to restore.
And it's just saying, hey, if someone did that,
let's let it go, let's forgive this person, let's move on.
And then here's something that's really important.
It says, confirm your love toward him.
Sometimes, you know, as much as we don't wanna do it,
it's good to just verbally tell somebody
positive things about them.
Just say, hey, I love you, man.
You know, you don't have to be gay or whatever.
(audience laughing)
But like, I mean, you know,
sometimes when you're talking to your bro,
you can just be like, love you, bro.
Love you, man.
And it's not weird.
Sometimes people just like, it's just helpful.
It's just helpful to tell people, hey, I really like you.
Hey, no hard feelings.
Hey, I consider you a close friend.
Love you, man.
You know, and move on with your life.
I've noticed that if you add man, it's less gay, right?
Because if you say like, I love you,
you might get a weird, like guys might be kinda like, ugh.
But if you say, I love you, man, love you, bro,
like it's way cooler, okay?
Eases the tension, all right?
But hey, we should heal those around us.
And again, by doing what?
Praying for each other, telling people the hard truths,
forgiving people, and sometimes confirming our love
by just genuinely telling them, hey, love you, bro,
whatever, love you, sis.
That's how y'all can do it, right?
Here's another one, be aware.
Servant leaders are fully aware of themselves.
I have no idea how this has anything
to do with servant leadership.
Be aware.
Okay, well, Proverbs 27 verse 23 says,
be diligent and know the state of life locks, right?
So, okay, be aware.
But that's, again, a point for both sides.
We're finally to a point, though,
where there's some contrast.
And I want you to go to 1 Samuel chapter 11,
go to 1 Samuel chapter 11.
Number five point, this is where they stuff in
the real, the real meaning here.
Persuade without being forceful, okay?
Now this is where we actually see a true contrast
between a quote traditional style
versus a servant leadership style.
This is their definition.
A good leader is capable of convincing people
in different ways.
Quote, leaders never make use of their authority
to make people do something.
What?
Let me read that again.
Leaders never make use of their authority
to make people do something.
Here's a question.
What's the point of having authority
if you literally never use it?
Who's in charge?
No one.
And again, that's where this mentality often,
unfortunately, ends.
Is where no one's in charge.
There's not really anybody
that can actually enforce anything.
And they just don't believe in actual hierarchy
in the kingdom of God, which is unbiblical.
The Bible teaches hierarchy even amongst us,
not just a flat organization with just Jesus above us.
No, there is hierarchy below that as well.
There's under shepherds in the kingdom of God.
There's obviously apostles and prophets and teachers,
and there's evangelists and deacons,
and there's positions of authority.
Obey them that have the rule over you,
is what the Bible says.
Obviously, we have pastors and bishops as the overseer.
The Bible literally calls them the overseer.
They're not just some random person
that has the exact same level of authority.
No, they have a higher level of authority.
That's why the pastor is told to rebuke with all authority.
That verse can't even be true
if you're doing this, quote, servant leadership,
which is saying leaders never make use of their authority.
Well, that's just not biblical.
And let's see if King Saul agrees with you, all right?
Look at verse number six.
The Bible says, "And the Spirit of God came upon Saul."
Now, anytime the Bible says
the Spirit of God came upon Saul,
that's your clue that this is how God feels,
not just King Saul.
So the Spirit of God came upon Saul
when he heard those tidings
and his anger was kindled greatly.
You know what?
Sometimes the Spirit of God caused you to be mad.
Oh, I don't like, you have a bad spirit, you're angry.
Well, that could be the Spirit of God.
The Spirit of God can cause you to be angry.
It's a righteous anger towards evil, sin, oppression.
He says, "And he took a yoke of oxen and hewed them in pieces
and sent them throughout all the coasts of Israel
by the hands of messengers, saying,
'Whosoever cometh not forth after Saul and after Samuel,
so shall it be done unto his oxen.'
And the fear of the Lord fell on the people,
and they came out with one consent."
Hey, sounds like a servant leader here, huh?
Where he's just, I'm going to go out
and just see who comes with me.
No, he chops up a bunch of animals,
sends it to everybody and says,
"This is going to happen to you if you don't come with me."
That sounds like force.
That sounds like exercising some of the authority
that he just got.
I mean, he just got authority.
Here's another thing about King Saul.
He exercised his authority immediately.
You know, King Saul didn't "earn it."
King Saul didn't do a bunch of works
in order to prove that he has this authority.
Just first thing, all right, let's just go ahead
and exercise the authority that I got.
I believe that you have the right
to exercise your authority the second you have it.
I don't think that as a husband,
you can't exercise the authority of a husband
on your honeymoon.
You have it right there then and there.
As soon as you're put in position of authority, you have it.
And look, if you know me, you know that's how I feel.
Whenever I was gonna become the pastor of this church,
I made a video, all right, before.
And I said, if you make me your pastor,
day one I'm firing Adam Fannon.
That's what I said.
I didn't say like maybe,
I didn't say I'm gonna earn your respect first.
I didn't say I'm gonna come in and pat you on the back.
I didn't say I'm gonna come in and talk to everybody
and get their opinions on things.
I said, hey, day one fired.
And you know what I did on day one?
I fired him.
That's how it works.
But I at least told you,
I said, hey, if you make me your pastor,
this is what's going to happen, okay?
But it wasn't like, hey, I'm gonna make sure
to see how everybody feels and see what's going on.
No, no, no, this is what's going to happen.
And look, if you have a position of authority,
if you're hired into a company,
you should exercise the authority that's granted unto you.
Why would they give you authority
if they didn't want you to use it?
If you've been given authority,
you should use that authority.
Now here as a pastor,
do you use that authority for selfish ambition
or do you use it for the work of the ministry?
You should use it for the work of the ministry, right?
As a husband, you're using your authority
for the betterment of your wife,
for the betterment of your family.
Obviously we want to be benevolent
with the authority that's been given unto us.
But you know, what was the whole point of this passage?
You probably forgot, you probably didn't,
you know, haven't read this recently,
but there was a bunch of his brethren
that were threatened to have their right eyes ripped out
and become slaves.
And if he doesn't get a bunch of people to come help him,
they're going to get their right eyes ripped out
and they're going to become slaves.
So for their benefit, he's saying,
hey, yeah, I'm kind of forcing you
and twisting your arm a little bit here,
but it's to save these people.
And at the end of the day, yeah,
pastors sometimes might twist arms a little bit
or come in here and cause ruckus a little bit,
but you know what, it's so that we'll get more people saved.
It's for the work of the ministry.
It's for the church to be healthy and to be successful.
It's for the work of God.
That's why we exercise the authority that we have.
This is stupid.
This is what it says in the rest of this article.
We should just instead motivate and encourage people
to take the desired course of action.
A leader is not forceful or bossy.
It felt like King Saul is pretty forceful,
I'll just be honest with you.
Go over to Proverbs 29, go to Proverbs 29.
I'm gonna speed up through some of this.
Number six, they say, is we need to conceptualize
and communicate a vision.
A servant leader can help build a concept for people.
This includes the task of creating a vision
and mission statement to provide a sense of direction
for the entire team.
Now again, this is what's funny to me.
This whole point seems to undermine their entire view
because traditional leadership is all about the vision
and then it's like, oh yeah, by the way, create a vision
because that's the only way to actually accomplish something.
They realize that and they're like, oh yeah, by the way,
we actually have to do the real thing, okay?
But again, that is a great point in the Bible.
We need to cast vision as leaders.
Anybody that's in a position of leadership, authority,
you need to cast vision.
Look at Proverbs 29 verse 18.
Where there is no vision, the people perish.
And I'm gonna show you that when we take
this servant leadership concept to its extreme,
this verse comes into great view
because you see people literally perishing
as a result of this, quote, servant leadership mentality.
Number seven, they say you need to channel foresight.
A good leader can anticipate future events
and how they will impact everyone.
Again, anticipating the future has nothing to do
with whether you're applying a servant leadership mentality
or a traditional.
I would technically argue the traditional's probably better
because if you're anticipating market conditions
and you're considering the wellbeing of your company,
you're probably gonna be better off
at anticipating the wellbeing of your company
than if you're just focused on little Johnny and little Susie
and how they feel about everything.
And you know, if you actually care about Johnny and Susie,
you know what you'll wanna do?
You wanna make sure that your company's successful
so that you're bringing enough money
to pay Johnny and Susie
so they can actually have a life.
Because I'm just so hyper-focused on Johnny and Susie
that we fail as a company and then we all lose our jobs.
Then I really didn't bless little Johnny
and little Susie, did I?
So it really doesn't make any sense.
It's a complete failure.
It's a bad idea, okay?
It's a bad, bad idea that I don't like.
Hopefully you'll get the message here in a minute.
Go to Hebrews chapter 13.
Here's another concept that this article brings up.
Practice stewardship.
Stewardship refers to accountability.
Okay, I don't see why either approach means
you can't be accountable.
Hey, you should be accountable in both ways.
We should always be accountable for what's going on.
Now, the Bible brings this up.
Even as pastors, as leaders,
you are gonna be held accountable.
Look at Hebrews chapter 13 verse 17.
Obey them that have the rule over you
and submit yourselves, for they watch for your souls
as they that must give account,
that they may do it with joy and not with grief,
for that is unprofitable for you.
You have to realize something.
I have to stand before Jesus
and I have to explain to him
the decisions that I made for y'all's benefit.
I have to explain y'all's behavior in a sense.
And I'm hoping to do it with joy, not with grief.
So, you know, some people get mad at me,
like how dare you handle these things?
But think, I have to stand before Jesus
and give it account.
And you know what I don't wanna say,
is I don't want them to say like,
hey, did you think of this verse in this situation?
Why didn't you do this verse?
Why did you do what people wanted
or how people felt or how the US government thinks,
why didn't you do what I said?
And you know what, I wanna say, hey, I did what you said.
And maybe I'm not perfect, maybe I misunderstood it,
but I at least wanna say like,
I was trying to do this verse, right?
I'd rather say I was trying to do this verse
than just like, I was trying to do what you felt like
or what you thought or what was popular
or what the world's doing or what other people thought.
No, I wanna do what he said.
But did you notice at the beginning of this says,
obey them now, the rule over you?
How in the world is that certain leadership?
Sounds like traditional leadership
where you're obeying people that have rule,
how could you obey people if they don't have rules?
If they're never trying to actually be forceful in any way
or providing any kind of rules,
this is really kind of just nonsensical.
Go to Acts chapter six, go to Acts chapter number six.
Here's the ninth point they bring up.
Now again, this is an article that's popular.
It's written about the pros of servant leadership
versus traditional leadership, okay?
I didn't make this up.
I just read it and thought,
well, if this is servant leadership, I don't want it.
I don't like it.
I don't think it's biblical.
I was ready to read this and see,
wow, that's Bible, that's Bible, that's Bible,
and say, I like servant leadership.
But I was just reading it and saying,
bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, dumb.
That's what I've been reading, okay?
Now, this is what some people would say.
Well, that's not how I define servant leadership.
Now, this is what false teachers love to do,
is they love to redefine words
so that no one can hold them accountable
for anything that they say.
You know, if words don't have meaning,
then we don't have a language.
If servant leadership doesn't mean servant leadership,
and it doesn't mean what everybody agrees
servant leadership means,
then it's really meaningless for you to use it as a phrase.
Just think about this, what if I said,
"Oh, well, I believe in oneness."
And you're like, "Oneness, that's false doctrine."
No, no, no, I define oneness as that there's one God.
Well, that's kind of misleading.
Wouldn't that be a little bit awkward?
What does that, I believe in Satanism.
You're like, "Satanism?"
Yeah, I define Satanism as believing that the devil exists.
Don't you believe in Satanism?
We all believe in Satanism.
Let's get shirts to say we believe in Satanism now,
'cause we can just redefine words to be whatever we want
and then just use them.
No, I think we should be careful
to not just make up definitions for words
so as to confuse people.
Now again, am I gonna allow the world
to reinterpret words in the Bible that are clearly defined?
No, but if it's not a word in the Bible,
I think we should just always accept
the world's definition for that word
or combination of words or explanation.
Otherwise, it's extremely confusing
and we should use the words which the Holy Ghost teacheth.
I'm not gonna dedicate myself to any phrase
or any idea that's not found in the Bible
when it's not biblical.
I have no need to redefine it.
Many people redefine Calvinism to something that's true
so that they can keep the label of Calvinism.
Look, just throw out the label of Calvinism
and just realize it's wrong.
I've heard people redefine their little tulip
into definitions that we would all agree with
and I'm saying, I'm not gonna stick with tulip.
I'm not sticking with Calvinism.
I'm not gonna stick with labels that are wrong
and improperly understood, okay?
And again, if servant leadership is understood
by the world to mean something that's unbiblical,
you should just reject the terminology.
Now, I'm not saying that we can't have terminology.
How would you describe Matthew chapter 20 pastigeli?
Ministry, Christianity is ministry.
It's not selfish ambition.
It's not selfish authority.
It's servant authority.
You know, I don't believe in a servant leadership
because that terminology based on the world
is not lining up with the Bible whatsoever.
And I think we shouldn't use terminology
that's confusing like that.
I don't think we should use terminology
that is gonna be misleading.
Frankly speaking, you know,
I'm not mad at people that have used this terminology.
I'm not trying to throw shade on someone
that used this terminology
'cause they may have said things that are right.
But I think we should avoid this type of terminology.
I think we should clean up our terminology
and we should get rid of bad ideas.
Here's something that people don't realize.
Good people can have bad ideas.
And we all need to be very careful
about where we're getting our ideas from.
And we should always make sure
that our ideas are coming from the Bible,
not from some other source.
Because when you get them from other sources,
it ends up being really scary where you actually got that.
And I'm gonna get to this in a minute,
but here's the ninth point they bring up
in the servant leadership.
It's about commitment.
Says, "Good servant leaders are those
whose main focus is the people.
And this makes the leader fully committed
to their growth and development.
To develop people, it is important to analyze their needs
and then cater to them accordingly."
Well, here's the thing, you can't just focus in on the people.
You can't commit yourself into people
because you know what, people suck.
You know, Jesus even said he didn't commit himself
unto all men because he knew what was in man.
And you can't just dedicate yourself to just certain people
because sometimes people fail, they're bad, they give up,
they're lazy, they need to be replaced.
There's just a need to constantly replace people.
You know what's a better thing?
Is committing yourself to something
that's not gonna change, it's not gonna fill you.
It's the word of God saying this is my loyalty, not people.
And again, any concept, whether this is a mission statement
of a company or a church or whatever,
it's better to get a good ideal, a goal,
and commit yourself to that
rather than just a particular person.
Sometimes people in church need to come and go.
Sometimes they need to get recycled.
I'm not just gonna dedicate myself
to a specific group of people.
I'm dedicating myself to the work of God
and the work of the ministry,
not to some just specific group of people.
Look at Judas.
He was picked and he was a failure.
He was wicked.
He was evil.
I'm gonna show you in the Bible.
The Bible does not say that as a pastor,
my main goal is to make sure
that every individual is taken care of, okay?
That is not the main goal.
That is a goal.
It's a goal and I constantly say this.
I think being a pastor
is to help others serve Christ better.
But you know what?
Sometimes you have to focus on the big picture.
You can't always focus on the individual
and the individual doesn't always get preeminence
above the goal.
Let me show you this clearly in the Bible.
Acts chapter six verse one,
"In those days when the number of the disciples
"was multiplied, there arose a murmuring
"of the Grecians against the Hebrews."
You know, I've noticed a lot of people
that believe in the servant leadership stuff
have a small number of people that they're managing.
Because when you start getting a big group of people,
you start realizing how bad this idea really is.
Numbers and scale really show you
how this doesn't make sense.
You can't know everybody, you can't be everybody's buddy,
and you see there's a lot of bad people out there, okay?
But hey, they're growing, there's tons of people,
there's problems.
Because their widows were neglected
in the daily ministration.
Meaning they're not getting served
the way that they should be served.
But there's just so many resources to go around.
Verse two, "Then the twelve called the multitude
of disciples unto them and said,
'It is not reason that we should leave the word of God
and serve tables.'"
So if we have to contrast a particular individual,
we'll take a widow, this is a widow that has needs.
And then we have the work of the ministry,
the preaching of the word of God,
which one actually gets the preeminence?
The word of God.
He says, "It's not reason that I should leave
the word of God and serve tables."
But you know what?
They have something, they have authority.
And with their authority, you know what they do?
They ordain men that can come in and do that work.
And they put them in these positions
to serve those widows.
So they're using their authority
as a servant authority to then serve other people.
But you know what?
They're not gonna put the needs
of a particular individual above their goal.
Their goal is the word of God,
is the ministry, is serving Lord Jesus Christ.
And so they're gonna use that authority to what?
Not be selfish.
They're not using their authority for people to serve them.
They're not hiring people to serve them.
They're not doing things for their own selfish ambition.
They're doing things to get the work done better,
to get the work done more efficiently
so that the daily widow's ministration
will be accomplished, okay?
And in the same way, if you contrast this,
there's nothing wrong technically though
with what Jesus was even bringing up.
It's just not Christianity.
If you own a business, if you own a company,
let me explain something to you.
You don't have to do what the Bible is saying here.
You can do something different.
You hire an employee to serve you, literally.
There's nothing wrong with that.
In fact, I would hope that if you're smart,
you would hire employees to serve you,
not for you to serve them.
If you have a business that's not like,
hey, I'm just trying to see if there's anybody out there
I can help.
It's like, no, no, I have a goal to provide this product
or this service, and I can't get it all done,
so I need to hire someone to help me get this thing done.
You know, Potiphar, you know why he had Joseph?
Not to serve Joseph, so that Joseph could serve Potiphar.
Okay, and in fact, he was so good at it,
Joseph was so good at it that Potiphar had to do nothing.
Now think about that, is that Christianity?
Is a pastor's role to just get people in here
to do everything so they can do nothing?
No, but if you're a business owner, there's nothing wrong with that.
And again, I'm not saying that, you know, as a business owner,
you can't still then consider your employees, take care of them,
pay them wages, whatever, but at the end of the day,
you hire people to do your job is different than Christianity.
Christianity, the higher you get up in the rank, the more work you have.
In a business, the higher you get up in the rank, the less you have to do,
the more you hire people to do the stuff for you, okay?
These are the different models that are being contrasted in the Bible.
The world is contrasting this idea of someone telling you what to do
versus just being everybody's buddy, okay?
Bad, bad comparison.
We don't want to just be this like weird servant leadership idea.
Then we don't really accomplish the goal.
Okay, then let's go make sure to talk to all the widows and get all their stuff.
Then the word of God gets left, then the ministry gets left, and
then we ruin Christianity, okay?
So we have to make sure that we're understanding this concept.
Now this is the last one that I want to bring up, go to Romans chapter 12.
That was, this one's really minor, but it just says you need to build a community.
Says the leader should be able to walk with and among the people so
that the leader can help them by serving and building a community.
Now, again, it's kind of a meaningless platitude.
I don't think that as a servant leader you're so
much more available than the traditional leader.
Obviously, anytime someone describes servant leadership,
they'll usually just bring up a lot of concepts that are just good concepts that
have nothing to do with servant leadership.
Like, hey, as a manager, you should show your employees how to do the job.
Okay.
As a manager, you should get in there and do the dirty work yourself sometimes.
Okay.
Obviously, there's going to be just general truths.
But let me just read for you again the traditional leadership approach.
Leader encourages people to do their jobs by providing them with guidance,
direction, and motivation.
That sounds great.
There's nothing wrong with that.
What would be wrong is to get your eyes off of the goal and
put your eyes only on the individuals, which is what it's actually contrasting.
I don't agree with.
Romans 12 says in verse 16, be of the same mind one toward another.
Mind not hide things, but condescend the men of those states.
So sometimes we do need to walk in other people's shoes and be with them.
Now, I wanna cover something else is, where is this idea coming from?
Give me a few minutes on this.
But go if you would to 1 Timothy chapter number four, if you would.
Go to 1 Timothy chapter four.
Now Robert Greenleaf wrote this book in 1970.
He was born in 1904, died in 1990.
There's very limited information about his biography, but there is one thing that I thought
was really interesting.
It says in the middle of his life, he joined a church, Quaker church.
He became a Quaker.
Now, it doesn't give him the exact year, but mid of his life would be 1947.
So I think it's pretty safe to assume he became a Quaker way before he wrote this paper in
1970.
If it was his mid-life, I mean we're talking about 20 something years.
If you understand his paper and you understand his philosophies and you understand Quakerism,
boy you'll really see the overlap really quick.
Now Quakers are known for pacifism and the rejection of formal clergy.
So Quakers don't believe in pastors, Quakers don't believe in evangelists, Quakers don't
believe in deacons, they don't believe in anybody being in positions of authority.
That sounds familiar doesn't it?
Pacifism is basically you just never fight, no confrontation, nothing, all war, even defending
yourself is like bad.
You can't even defend yourself in war.
So think about it, King Saul is told hey we're going to rip all these right guys, their
right eyes out.
King Saul is like well I wouldn't get in a fight, I don't want to hurt anybody.
No, no, what does Saul do?
He cuts Oxen in half and he's like hey come with me, this is going to happen to you.
And then he goes and he rescues those people.
I like Saul's approach, you know, I believe in pacifism in a sense like I don't think
we should be aggressive, I don't think we should enter into wars that we don't need
to be in, but you know what, I believe in self defense.
I believe in self defense a hundred percent.
Here's another thing Quakers are known for, is a strong commitment to social justice
and equality, advocating for rights of marginalized groups.
Now Robert Greenleaf worked for AT&T, he is well known for getting women and minorities
into high ranking positions of employment there, that's what he's known for.
Now another thing about Quakers is they have this thing called unprogrammed worship, who's
ever heard of this? Unprogrammed worship, the weirdest thing I've ever heard of, okay?
Unprogrammed worship, it's where we all show up and it's silent, no talking, we all just
sit and we just worship in silence. And then whenever someone just feels the spirit leading,
they just stand up and then they just either speak or sing something. And then another
person just stands up and just speaks or sings something. This is unprogrammed services.
No leader, no pastor. I listened to several of these people explain this. I listened to
several Quakers explaining it was mostly women and fags. I'll just be honest with you. And
the women were just talking about, this is their view of Quakerism that everybody has
the light of God in them because they misunderstand John chapter 1. And they say, since we all
have God in us, we just have to sit and wait for God to come out. Now she says this, this
is why I really like Quakerism, because there's no pastor. She says this, there's no creed.
You know what that means? They have no belief system. They have no doctrinal statement.
They have no agreement on anything regarding Christianity. And they just have to quiet
themselves so that the spirit can come out. That's a familiar spirit. That's another spirit.
They don't believe in baptism. They reject baptism. They believe baptism is a spiritual
baptism. And they say, we don't try to define God. We don't want to tell you what God is
or God isn't. Now, what came out of Quakers is another group called Shakers. It's kind
of interesting. All right. There was Quakers and then they became Shakers. All right. Now
the Shakers are kind of, they're a group of Quakers from the 1600s. They were led out
by Mother Anne Lee. Mother Anne Lee is an illiterate woman who then claimed that she
was Jesus. And she said she didn't trust in the written word of God. Maybe it's because
she couldn't read. Now, Mother Anne Lee also said, oh, well, God's not really male. He's
male and female. And they practice extreme celibacy. No one was allowed to marry anyone.
And they said relations between men and women was was wrong. Okay, let's read first to me
the chapter four verse, verse one. Now the spirit speaketh expressly. Then a latter time
some stood apart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils,
speaking lies and hypocrisy, having their conscience seared with a hot iron, forbidding
to marry. Hey, telling people not to get married is a demonic doctrine. She said, you can't
marry the lamb if you get married here. This mother, Anne Lee, you know, taught them all
kinds of things. They would do all these dances and convulsing. And then there's all these
quotes of people saying they were demonically possessed. And they say, well, they were against
them. Yeah, I would be against them too. They even wrote their own hymn for mother Anne
Lee. Here's the, here's the, here's the hymn. The blessed son and daughter completely joined
in one. I think they teach that God manifests himself in Jesus as the son and manifested
in her as the daughter and that they're both God and that they're combined in one. So says
the blessed son and daughter completely joined in one. The father and the spirit have sent
the blessed to to visit the creation and teach us what to do. This is an extreme cult. Okay.
Now in order to join, you basically have to just become completely celibate. So then how
do you grow? How does this even grow? I'm not even joking. Historically, what people
do that didn't want their kids, they would just give their kids to these people to raise
them. So they had tons of kids just being given to the shaker groups and then they would
just raise children in this cult, this weird satanic cult. By now, the shakers are pretty
much just completely gone. The only thing that remains is the shaker chair, all right?
But it's like, okay, well, why? Because this is obviously a satanic cult and everything
else. But I'm just saying, what is the fruit of this? This is like extreme feminism, women
leaders, women teachers, this "servant leadership" so they can get up all and teach and whatever.
There's no roles. There's no hierarchy. There's no male authority because there's no marriage.
There's no anything. It's a complete failure. This taken to extreme destroys itself, okay?
And of course, that's a shoot off of Quakerism. But if we think about this Robert Greenleaf
with his little Quakerism, yeah, I can see how he brings in this servant leadership.
Because what are the parallels? Well, no pastors, no leaders, no authority. Oh, okay. Let's
bring that into the workplace and say, hey, there's no authority. Let's just care about
the, everybody, everybody's special and everybody's important and everybody gets a trophy and
there's no distinction between male and female. And everybody's just, you know, on the same
team and everybody's got God in them and everybody's got the light in them. And it's like, this
is not what the Bible teaches. But how many people have allowed this concept, "servant
leadership," coming from this Quaker, Robert Greenleaf, to just be brought wholesale into
their company, into their business, into their marriage, into their church, into their teaching?
You know, we should be careful when we're using unbiblical concepts. Ask this question,
where did it come from? Ideas do not come from a vacuum. They do not come from nowhere.
They come from somewhere and you have to ask yourself this question, is it right? Is it
biblical? Is this what we should believe? Now again, any idea that sticks is probably gonna
have some verses that are being twisted to support this idea. But let me tell you something,
I don't believe in this "servant leadership." I think it's a satanic origin. I think it's
misguided, it's heresy that's coming in. And you know what? The more I listen to Quaker
speak, the more I believe this book in my hand. Now this book in my hand is the Laws
of Connecticut of 1673. All right? Now, in the Laws of Connecticut of 1673, they have
a section in page 28 called Heretics. Let me read you a little bit of this, all right?
"The court being sensible of the dangerous persons and are being poisoned in their judgments
and principles by heretics, whether Quakers, ranters, or atomites, or such like." So they
said, "Hey, there's a lot of dangerous people that are poisoning everyone, poisoning their
judgments, they're Quakers." It says, "Do see cause to order, that no persons in this
colony shall give any unnecessary entertainment unto any Quaker, ranter, atomite, or other
notorious heretic, upon penalty of five pounds for every such person's entertainment to be
paid to him that shall so entertain them.
And five pounds per week shall be paid to each town that shall suffer their entertainment,
as aforesaid."
So you're going to pay, you have to pay all these fines just for entertaining them.
Entertaining means you allow them to come to your house.
You give them food.
You're nice to them.
Anything.
Hey, you're nice to these people.
You allow them to stay with you.
You allow them to be around you.
You're being fined.
It says this, "It is also ordered by the authority of this court that it shall be in the power
of the governor, deputy governor, or assistance to order that all such heretics, as aforesaid,
be committed to prison or sent out of this colony.
And no person shall unnecessarily fall into discord with any such heretic under the penalty
of 20 shillings."
Now again, I'm not necessarily all for jailing heretics, but I'm just saying when I listen
to them speak, I'm really empathetic, okay?
They are freaks.
It says, "It is also ordered that all such books, when or where soever they are found
except before accepted, shall by the constable be seized and delivered to the assistants
or commissioners, to be kept by them until the next county court in that county.
And then the said county clerk shall take care in full order that all such books are
for said be utterly suppressed."
It says, "It also ordered that no master of any vessel shall land such heretics in
this colony.
If they do, they shall be compelled to transport them again out of this colony by any one assistant
or commissioner at their first setting sail from the port where they landed them, upon
penalty of 20 pounds to be paid by the said master and shall be not transported as for
said."
So here's the thing.
They said, "Hey, you bring somebody in, you're fined.
You bring them on a vessel, you got to take them out and you're fined.
If we catch them, we're putting them in prison, we're sending them out, they're not welcome.
All of their books are to be kept under lock and key of the government and no one's allowed
to read them or hear what they have to say."
That's how they felt about the Quakers.
And then now, 1970, they write stupid books about servant leadership and then the whole
world just like, "Oh, let's incorporate this idea."
No, we should get rid of that book.
No, that's a garbage book.
Now again, I'm not all for just burning every book.
Let's archive it on the internet and you can only find it if you want to, you know, do
it for research.
But boy, these are just bad ideas.
Bad people.
They knew it.
You know what built America?
Not listening to Quakers.
You know, does this sound like servant leadership or does it sound pretty authoritarian?
I mean, what do you think built America?
Do you think what built America is having no laws or having great laws?
Hey, we could read this, the capital punishments of the laws of Connecticut 1673.
You know what it is?
It's just every law in the Bible.
It's people that were here to work, but you know what?
They were working with rules, and they were working with authority, and they were working
with people that actually were bosses and telling them what to do.
And let me tell you something, things get done because of bosses bossing people around.
You know, I've never been in a workplace where the boss just says, "You know what?
From now on, no clocking in, no rules, no anything, I'm just going to lead by example.
Who's with me?"
And it worked out.
It doesn't work out.
And you know what, I've never seen a church where the pastor doesn't exercise authority
and thought, "Wow, this is a great church."
You know what?
Great churches have pastors that rule and they make rules and they enforce rules.
And look, even in our movement, there are great pastors that I greatly love that are
really authoritarian.
And I'm not sitting here thinking like, "Man, that's bad."
I'm thinking like, "That's great.
I like this church.
I like this church that they have rules and I like that they enforce the rules.
I like that they throw out heretics.
I like that they don't allow people to gossip and to rail and to slander and do all this
stuff.
I like that they actually do something about that kind of stuff."
The Bible is not saying, "Let's not just take Matthew 20 and then throw all the rest of
the Bible in the trash and just say like, "No, pastors shouldn't rule with authority.
Pastors shouldn't tell people what to do."
No, no.
"Rebuke with all authority.
Obey them.
They have the rule over you."
Now again, pastors should not want to get the job just so they can boss people around.
They should want to work and to serve and to preach the Bible, and you know what?
As a husband, as a boss, as a pastor, whoever you are, you know what?
You should consider, you know, other people and their feelings and try to be benevolent.
But at the end of the day, I'm not for the servant leadership trash.
And here's one thing I didn't bring up, but it needs to be said.
Don't apply this to your marriage at all.
Servant leadership is not marriage at all.
I did not marry my wife so I can spend the rest of my life serving her.
My wife is my help meat.
That's what the Bible says.
And you know what?
I set a vision and a goal for a family, and she's there to come alongside me to help me
accomplish that goal.
It's not just my life's mission to just serve my wife for the rest of my life.
Now here's the thing.
Do I serve my wife?
Yes.
Do I make decisions to be good to my wife?
Yes.
But you know what else to do?
Tell my wife what to do.
And I boss her around, and she's my wife.
And there's things that she wants to do that I told her no and she doesn't do them.
You're like, "Oh, you'd force that?"
Yes.
How?
However I see fit.
You know what?
I'm not going to get in this boat of just saying, "You know what?
I'm just going to serve Jesus and hope that my wife serves with me.
As for me, my house, we will serve the Lord," is what the Bible says.
Now again, obviously people can literally do whatever they want, but if you don't give
people a choice, often they just do what's right anyways.
I'm not sitting here asking my wife, "Do you want to go to church with me tonight?"
She's getting in the car.
In fact, I help pick her up and put her in the car sometimes, okay?
Not because she's unwilling, it's a tall car, okay?
But hey, if I need to, right?
Hey, if I have to, hey, my kids don't always want to do everything.
You just pick them up, put them in the car, strap them in, let's go!
Hey, as a husband, as a father, we just do what's right.
For the family, I'm not into this "servant leadership" stuff.
I'm into traditional leadership.
I like tradition.
The man's in charge.
Who's in charge?
Who's the boss?
Who's wearing the pants?
Me.
And you know what?
We need to get the right mentality.
If you use this terminology before or past, I think you should change it.
And when we talk about Christianity, we should call it the ministry.
I'm not going to call it servant leadership, it's the ministry.
Christian ministry, I don't believe in selfish authority, but I believe in, you know, servant
authority.
But you know what?
I also believe in authority.
And let's not undermine the authorities that exist.
Things are accomplished because of authority, because of rules, because of bosses, because
of people accomplishing things.
And let us get our vision towards the goal of Christianity.
I am more concerned with us getting people saved and accomplishing the work of the ministry
than just any particular individual here.
You need to have that mindset.
Because when you get on that mindset, you know, and your best friend's a heretic, bye.
Bye Felicia.
When your mindset is like, no, we have to care about every single individual, then you
allow people to drag you out of church and drag you out of reading the Bible and stop
serving Christ.
When you get focused on a particular person, you know what, it's not necessarily about
the person.
It's about the person of Christ.
And that's who we serve and that's our mission and that's our goal and that's our marching
orders and we obey Him.
Let's close in prayer.
Thank you, Heavenly Father, for giving us so many different verses to consider here.
Thank you for modeling for us how to be a servant, but also understanding that there
is authority that exists.
I pray that we would respect the authorities that exist, that we would be subject under
the higher powers.
I pray that we would obey them that have the rule over us, whether that be in church or
at our jobs or in our homes.
I pray that we wouldn't despise authority.
I pray that those that have authority would not be afraid to use it.
But I pray that you would also give us all a heart to want to serve and to accomplish
the right kind of goals, to consider other people, that we wouldn't be selfish with the
authority or the responsibilities that we've been given.
I pray that you would just help bless our church to make sure that we're accomplishing
the goals that you have for us.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
In closing, let's go to song number 182.
Song number 182, "Wonderful Story of Love."
Sister Lydia coming for baptism.
Have you trusted Christ as your Savior?
Then I baptize you in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
Buried in the light of the Son of Death, raised to walk in newness of life.
We also have Elias coming.
Brother Elias, have you trusted Christ as your Savior?
And I baptize you in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
Buried in the light of the Son of Death, raised to walk in newness of life.
Make sure to congratulate our baptisms.
God bless you're dismissed.