Good afternoon everybody, and welcome to Steadfast Baptist Church.
If we can go and find our seats, we will get started.
And once we've all found a seat, let's grab a hymnal and go to song number 207.
Great crowd for a Wednesday night.
Once we've found a seat, let's grab a hymnal and go to song number 207.
have I gotten but what I received I'm only a sinner saved by grace song number
207 it's all singing out together on that first verse
we love you and we just thank you once again for not only 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 and it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Alright for our next song let's go to song number 81.
Song number 81. Something we can all look forward to when we see Christ. Song number
When we see Christ so I'll give it our best singing out together
Thank you so much for coming to Steadfast Baptist Church.
If you didn't already grab a bulletin, if you need one,
just let it be a 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.
The verse of the week is Jude 3...
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 going to be a Durant, Oklahoma, soul-winning marathon if you'd like to participate.
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 going to be in Vancouver, Washington at Sherford Foundation Baptist Church.
I was invited to go up there and preach, and I'm going to 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 will continue to pray.
I guess we have a praise report about the naeems.
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 Ms. Miller's friend's mom who has cancer treatments.
We continue to pray for the Scots,
for both their parents,
for Brother Horace and Miss Grace,
and then also if you could 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 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'd pray for her health.
We've been praying for Brother Stuart's mother,
who had been recently diagnosed with Alzheimer's,
if you'd pray for her.
Continue to pray for Brother Goodwin and for his work.
Also for Brother Alberto and his work,
if you'd pray for Brother Jared,
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 would 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 that you'd also bless our 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 and there's Psalm binders
All right, that was Psalm 146
Psalm 146 and your binders
That's all singing out together loudly on that first
Praisey the Lord praise the Lord
바이 쏘
The Lord is God.
Thank you very much.
Go ahead and turn in your Bibles to Matthew chapter 20. That's 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 labors into his vineyard and when he had
agreed with the labors 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
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 ye 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 into 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,
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 him.
This lasts even as unto thee.
It is 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
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, worshipping 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 to 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
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 thou
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 church. Thank you for set fast back to church. Thank you for past Shelley
I just pray that you would bless pastor filming 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 praise 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 and preach about that
Now, I want to actually start out an 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.
And Jesus stood still and called them and said,
what will ye that I should do unto you?
They say in them, 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.
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.
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 that 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 high way 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 call the blind man, saying unto him,
be of good comfort, rise, he calls 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.
And 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?
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
on the Lord Jesus Christ and they receive that, 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 quote following Jesus that are not saved
They're not actually following Jesus. They don't know what they're following. They're spiritually blinded go 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
and nine of them don't even come back to say thank you.
Can you imagine being, 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 90-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 what I'm getting me 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 gonna dig in a lot. It says in verse number 24
And when the 10 heard it, what was the 10 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 10 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 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."
So here in this passage, the Bible is bringing up Jesus Christ answering kind of the thoughts
or the situation of wanting to be 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 this terminology used a lot called quote servant leadership
Who's ever heard this time 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 quote a 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, you know, 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,
incentivize them either through reward or through punishment to cause them to do
anything differently. All I can do is just do my job but 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,
you know, unity on a project.
It's just that a lot of people are lazy,
and a lot of people don't wanna work hard,
and a lot of people won't contribute.
And a lot of times when you have these quote 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 10 people on the team,
and a lot of times I had to do the work of all 10.
And it's not because I wanted to,
it's not because I'm special,
it's just because, hey, the thing has gotta get done,
someone's gotta do it, and boy,
I'm not gonna 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 if 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 their 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 doesn't work for them. Okay, let's talk about King Herod. What do they do? Herodius daughter comes to Herod
What does she do? She dances for him. She performs for him. King Herod is not doing anything for Herod is his 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 up devils.
It was just genuinely help people.
It was to do good under 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
They're not a put in a position to be served, they're put in a position to serve the general public and the general populace.
In 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 unsaid by preaching the gospel under 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 served like serving just serving service
That's good. Okay, but I don't believe in this quote servant leadership idea
Now, when we 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 of me to chapter number three,
if a man desired the office of bishop,
he desired 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 gonna 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. Okay, and so
He's trying to get them in the right mindset. Hey, you want to be great good. We'll get ready to do some work
Because if 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?
Okay, 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 some 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 going to 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 want to work, you know, Christianity doesn't work.
Christianity only works with people that want to work.
Now, Titus chapter number two, I want to show you this verse because it's important. Look at verse number 15.
This is 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 is 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 is saying rebuke with all authority, okay?
But here's the thing, why would I exercise authority as a pastor?
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 in the plate
or something like that.
Yeah, 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 the Pope's is 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 let me 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 my pockets. How is that really serving the people?
Okay, how how is that? Oh, I 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 build let's just bomb the 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
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.
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 going to say, what is it?
So you just look it up, you can look 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?
it was all about servant leadership. Now Robert Greenleaf, I'm gonna, I'm gonna,
before I get, I'm gonna talk about him for a minute, but I'm putting it on pause.
I want to stick with me coming up with a servant leadership idea 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
versus servant leadership.
So, and really this is where I see the Rubbermeat
that wrote 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 who 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 going to read a little bit.
He says, where do 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 kind of having this one philosophy for leadership,
for running companies, for running businesses, and he's coming up with a 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.
Just 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.
I was 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, because 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.
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 has 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 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 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.
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 go get some positive verses about this.
Proverbs 18, look at verse 13.
The Bible says,
He that answered the matter before He heareth it, it is falling 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,
and 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 want to 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.
It's just thinking like no, please no, please not them, you know, it's like not this person, I don't want to hear what they have to say.
Look at Proverbs chapter 10 verse number 19.
Hey, and sometimes as a boss, you know you want to give your employees an opportunity to hear what you have to say
But you know what? We don't we don't have time to just sit here and talk about all your feelings
Now you think and all your ideas like we're just gonna get some stuff done. Okay?
Proverbs chapter 10 verse 19 that says in the multitude of words they're wanted not sin
But he that refrained his lips as 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?
Keep your finger in progress.
We're coming back.
Go to Romans chapter 12 for a minute.
Go to Romans chapter 12.
Here's the second point they said is that servant leaders feel for their people.
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 look at 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 and you don't get seats.
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 5. Go to James chapter 5.
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, or the 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 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 one to another and pray for one another.
That you may be healed.
The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man available as 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, you know, 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 with 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.
tell people they need to forgive or whatever.
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 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 want to 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
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 it's not weird sometimes people just like it
Just 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 gonna, like, ugh.
But if you say, I love you, man, love you, bro,
like, it's way cooler, OK?
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 point for both sides. We're finally to a point though where there's some contrast
And I want you to go to first Samuel chapter 11 go to first 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 undershepherds 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, as 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 pastors 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 in 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 that he took a yoke of oxen, hewed them in pieces,
and sent them throughout all the coasts of Israel
by the hands of messengers, saying,
whosoever comes 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 gonna go out and just see who comes with me
No, he chops up a bunch animals sends it to everybody and says this is gonna 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 just got authority
Here's another thing about King Saul he exercises authority immediately
You know King Saul didn't quote 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 Fanon.
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 patch 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, 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 grants done to you. Why would they give you authority if they didn't want you to use it?
If you have 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 a 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, you know, King Saul is pretty forceful.
I'll just be honest with you.
You have to go to Proverbs, chapter 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, 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 going to 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, okay?
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 traditional I would technically argue the traditional is probably better
Because if you're anticipating market conditions and you're considering the well-being of your company
You're probably gonna be better off at anticipating the well-being of your company
Then 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 want
to do?
You want to make sure that your company is 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?
Hopefully you'll get the message here in a minute.
Go over 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
any 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 going to 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 a count.
And you know what I don't want to say
is I don't want him 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 want to say, hey, I did what you said.
And maybe I'm not perfect, maybe I misunderstood it,
but I at least want to 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 want to do what he said.
But did you notice at the beginning of this,
says obey them and have the rule over you?
How in the world is that servant leadership?
Sounds like traditional leadership where you're obeying people that have rules.
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.
Govita Acts chapter 6, go to Acts chapter number 6.
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, 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.
But, 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 is 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.
Because we can just redefine words to be whatever we want
and then just use them.
to not just make up definitions for words so as to confuse people.
Now again, am I going to 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 teaches.
I'm not going to 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 going to stick with tulip, I'm not sticking with Calvinism,
I'm not going to 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, Pastor Shelley?
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 going to be misleading.
And 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
because they may have said things that are right.
But I think we should avoid this type of terminology.
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.
Here's the ninth point they bring up in this 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, it'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 church or whatever,
you know, 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 going to 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 going to 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 6 verse 1, 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.
But hey, they're growing, there's tons of people, there's problems,
because their widows were neglected in the Daily Administration,
meaning they're not getting served the way that they should be served.
But there's just so many resources go around.
Verse two.
Then the twelve called to multitude of disciples under 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 going to 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 going to 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 widows' ministration will be accomplished.
Okay? And then the same way, if you contrast this, you know, 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 the service and I can't get it all done
So I need to hire someone to help me get this thing done
You know pot of fur, you know, I had Joseph not to serve Joseph
So that your Joseph could serve pot of fur. Okay, and in fact, he was so good at it
Joseph was so good at it that pot of her 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 a rank, the less you have to do, the more you hire
people to do the stuff for you.
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.
Bad, bad comparison.
We don't want to just be this weird servant leadership idea, then we don't really accomplish
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
Now 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 a 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.
I mean, 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,
and I don't agree with.
Romans 12 says in verse 16,
be of the same mind one toward another,
mind not hiding things,
but condescend to men of low 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 give me a few minutes on this but go if you would to first Timothy chapter number four if you would go to first
To me 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's one thing that I thought was really interesting
Says in the middle of his life. He joined a church a
Quaker church
He became a Quaker. Now, it doesn't give him the exact year, but
mid, 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 midlife, I mean we're talking about 20-something years.
If you understand his paper and you understand his philosophy 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 gonna rip all these right guys
They're right-eyed out, and King Saul's like,
well, I wouldn't get in a fight.
I don't want to hurt anybody.
No, no, what's 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.
It's the weirdest thing I've ever heard of, okay?
Unprogrammed worship.
It's where you all just, it's where we all show up and it's silent.
No talking.
We just, we just all just sit and we just worship in silence.
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, we're just talking about, this is their view of Quakerism that everybody has the light of God in them because they misunderstand John chapter one.
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 I mean? 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. All right, that's kind of interesting. All right
There was Quakers and then they became shakers. All right
Now the shakers are kind of there. They're a group of Quakers from the 1600s
They were led out by mother and Lee
Mother and 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 wrong.
Okay, let's read 1st to be the chapter 4 verse 1.
Now, the Spirit speaketh expressly,
then a latter time, some sit apart from the faith,
giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils.
Speaking lies and hypocrisy,
having their conscience seared with 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 and 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 and Lee.
Here's the hymn.
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 joining 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 cold
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 remains of the shaker chair. All right
But it's like okay. Well
Why because this this is obviously a satanic cult and everything else, but I'm just saying what is the fruit of this?
Like extreme feminism
Women leaders, women teachers, this quote, 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, now 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 a 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 quote 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 going to have some verses that are being twisted to support this idea.
But let me tell you something, I don't believe in this quote 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 and the Laws of Connecticut of 1673, they have a section in page 28 called Heretics.
The court being sensible of the dangerous persons and are being poisoned in their judgments and principles by heretics
Whether Quakers, Ranters or Atomites are such like so said hey
There's a lot of dangerous people that are poisoning everyone poisoning their judgments. They're Quakers
says
Do see cause to order, that no persons in this colony shall give any unnecessary entertainment
unto any Quaker, Rantor, Atomite, or other notorious heretic, upon penalty of five pounds
for every such persons entertainment to be paid to him, that shall also entertain them.
And five pounds per week shall be paid to each town that shall suffer their entertainment,
as aforesaid.
So you're gonna 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
Says this it is also ordered by the authority of this court that it shall be in the power of the governor
Deputy governor 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 two,
or sorry, 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.
Says it is also ordered that all such books
When or wheresoever they are found, except before accepted, shall by the constable be
seized and delivered to the assistants or commissioners, to be kept by them till the next county court
in that county.
And then the said county clerk shall take care in full order that all such books are
foresaid be utterly suppressed.
shall land such heretics in this colony.
If they do, they shall be compelable
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 pound
to be paid by the said master
and shall be not transported as foresaid.
So here's the game.
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 at a workplace where the the boss just says you know what from now on no clocking in no rules
No anything I'm just gonna lead by example. Let's who's 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.
You know, 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 authority.
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.
You know what?
As a husband, as a boss, as a pastor, whoever you are, you know what?
You should consider other people and their feelings and try to be benevolent.
But at the end of the day, I'm not for this servant leadership trash.
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 meet.
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 on my wife? Yes, but you know what I also do?
I tell my wife what to do and I boss her around and she's she's my wife and
There's things that she wants to do that. I told her no and she doesn't do them
Like oh you'd forced that yes
How however, I see fit
You know what I'm not I'm not gonna get in this this this boat of just saying you know what?
I'm just gonna serve Jesus and hope that my wife serves it serves with me
As for me in my house we will serve the Lord is what the Bible says
Now again, obviously people can literally do whatever they want, but you know if you don't get 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, quote, servant leadership stuff.
I meant to 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.
Hey, 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 as 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 to 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'd 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.
Alright, in closing, let's go to song number 182.
Song number 182, wonderful story of love.
Song 182, let's all sing it out together on that first.
Wonderful story of love, tell it to me.
We have Sister Lydia coming for baptism.
Have you trusted Christ as your Savior?
Then I baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
Buried in the likeness of his death,
raised to walk in newness of life.
Brother Elias, have you trusted Christ your Savior?
And I baptize you in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
Who knows?
Very likely to his death.
Praise to the walk and newness of life.
Make sure to congratulate our baptisms.
God bless you, you're dismissed.