Topic: TAKE YOUR LEADERS SERIOUSLY

I want to admonish you to take the leaders God has appointed for you in His church very seriously. And that is because they are gifts given by God to you for your growth and edification in all good and righteous things. (Cf. Eph 4:11-13) Yes, I know that salvation is a very personal thing. But we were not saved by God to live isolated or self-governed lives; we were saved to be a part of His great family. And like every new born babe that is added to our natural families, we need people to nurture and care for us until we grow up to become responsible adults in the things of God. It follows, then, that we must take such people that God has prepared take care of these needs very seriously.

And how do we do that? First, it is by relating to them in the highest regard. For instance, Paul says to the Thessalonian brethren, “Dear brothers and sisters, honor those who are your leaders in the Lord’s work. They work hard among you and give you spiritual guidance. Show them great respect and wholehearted love because of their work. And live peacefully with each other.” (1Thess 5:12-13NLT) Can you see that? Our church leaders must be highly honoured and treated with great respect by all of us. And that is not because they are better than us; rather, it is because they are doing the Lord’s work among us.

So, the idea is not for us to treat them like little lords among us or to worship them, as many are now doing. On the contrary, the idea is to lovingly let them know that we appreciate what they are doing among us. And if that is the way we think, we will not make their work difficult for them by being unruly or divisive or judgemental or slanderous or abusive, as we relate to them. By the way, Scripture already makes it clear that it will never be to our benefit, if we choose to be a thorn in the flesh of God’s leaders that He has placed among us (Heb 13:17). So, if you can no longer respect or submit to God’s leaders in your assembly, you will be doing yourself a lot of good by leaving that assembly altogether.

Another way to take our leaders seriously is to follow them, that is, their example of faith, patience, love, purpose and devotion (2Tim 3:10-11; Heb 13:7). So, I do not by this mean that we should follow people foolishly or rigidly or cunningly, with the aim of using them for our own selfish reasons. Rather, I mean that we should sincerely follow people because they are following Jesus Christ and because we can see that our lives will be tremendously blessed by doing so.

See, the truth is that is not everybody who poses himself as a leader of God’s people that you can or must follow. Fine, it is not unusual to find people in assemblies of God that will want others to follow them because they are outspoken and bold or because they are doctrinally sound or because they are critical and can’t stand any appearance of sin or because they are generally nice and know how pamper people, even in their errors, or because they have been around in the church for a very long time.

But you must not follow anybody because he is any of the things I just mentioned; rather, follow people because they are following Jesus Christ and only to the degree that they follow Him. That is what Paul says to the Corinthian-brethren. He says, “Follow me, as I follow Christ.” (Cf. 1Cor 11:1) So, if it is evident that a so-called leader is not following Christ, something that will show in his character, you have no business following him. But, then, you must understand that if you don’t know Christ personally, it will be pretty difficult for you to know when those whom you are following have stopped following Him.

Finally, we take our leaders seriously by supporting them in whatever way we can. This is why Scripture instructs us to pray for our leaders and to share all the good things we have (not just our problems) with them. (Cf. Rom 15:30-32; 1Cor 9:14; Gal 6:6; Heb 18:13; 3John 3-8). This, of course, does not mean you are to impoverish yourself in order to enrich some so-called preacher; rather, it means for you to learn to identify and take advantage of the various ways God is able to use you to support the leaders He has appointed for you. And to say the fact, our failure in this area, which, by the way, is not an excuse, is one of the reasons many of our preachers today have become thieves, manipulators, liars, swindlers and sorcerers.

All of this is why I am beseeching you to let us start doing what is right from now on, as we relate to our leaders. Then, we can prevent a multiplication of errors among us. And may the Spirit of God strengthen us accordingly. Amen.

Life Application: Which of these three ways of taking your leaders seriously (honouring, following or supporting them) do you most need to improve on, and what will you do about it this week?