Leadership in the Church: Not Capability, but Character

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0:00Happy Father's Day from one flawed dad to another, to many other flawed dads here. You know, I feel a little conflicted about Father's Day. Let me tell you why. I'm a little resentful when I see depictions of like idiot dads on TVs and movies that are like, they don't know anything and they're constantly screwing everything up and they're have bad character and just like they're terrible, right? Any other dads feel that way? A little irritated, that's kind of a trope.

0:45At the same time, being a father is an eye-opening experience, amen? You might feel like a completely competent guy in a lot of places in your life, at work, developing a hobby, building something, and then you have kids and the facade just comes crashing down.

1:15Here's the good news. First of all, we have a perfect Father in heaven, amen? And though we've sinned and we've turned our backs on Him, we can be reconciled and we are reconciled to Him through repentance and faith. We are in a loving, consistently wonderful and nurturing relationship with the perfect Father. So that's an important piece of good news. And second of all, God can and does work through flawed fathers, like the flawed fathers here and me.

1:53He does and He can. What matters far more than capability is character. And when I say character, now and throughout this sermon, I'm talking about a person who is formed and shaped by God, who is under the influence of the Holy Spirit. That's what I mean by character. There's all kinds of great character descriptions that people in the world might use. I'm talking about those that come out of someone who is under God's control, a soft piece of clay on the potter's wheel, God putting His fingerprints on us.

2:32That's what I mean by character. God does some of His best work through common people who have come under His influence. So that's encouraging to me as a flawed father. And this brings us to the subject for today, and that's leadership in the church. We're finishing our little three-week mini-series today on leadership in the church. And today the emphasis is on qualifications for leadership. If we think of a job description for a leader in the church, or a leader anywhere, what would be the first requirement if that job description popped up in your head?

3:11A leader must have, and if we answer based on what the world sees and values, we're going to answer the first thing as talent. That's the top thing that a leader has to have. A leader has to have vision, or charisma, or intelligence. In other words, capability. But how has that turned out for us in the world when we put at the very top of the job description, must have talent, capability, vision, charisma? When that becomes the number one thing, how has that worked out for us?

3:49Not great with leaders all over the place. God has a different standard for us, for what it takes for leadership, for who should take it on. It's not that capability is irrelevant. I don't want to say that. It's just not the top of the list. So today we're going to unlearn something else about leaders. Let's look at this slide. I want to kind of sum up the sermon series for us. Could you go back one? There we go. So leadership in the church, the position of leadership is not one of rank, but role.

4:31Authority is for not taking, but tending. And today the qualifications are not, the first qualification, the main qualification is not capability, but it's character. So this is what we are unlearning and relearning about leadership from the word of God. So let's turn to Acts 6 and see how this plays out.

4:53A really interesting passage, very relevant passage, lots of things to grab hold of here and apply to us, to this church and to our lives. So let's come to the word of God and let's see what he has for us today. This is the word of God coming to us. He speaks to us inerrantly. These are God's very words to us. They're always true. And we should listen and listen well. Now in these days, when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution.

5:32And the twelve summoned the full number of the disciples and said, it is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven good men, seven men of good repute, full of the spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word. And what they said pleased the whole gathering, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicholas, a proselyte of Antioch.

6:12These they set before the apostles, and they prayed and laid their hands on them. And the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith. Pray with me.

6:31Lord, we thank you for your word. We know that it does go forth with power because you've promised it to, Lord. And we pray that it would be power that changes us, that we would be not just hearers of the word, but doers. You would see how we can apply this to our lives individually, but also corporately as the church, that you would form and shape how we understand leadership, how we should lead, whatever level of leadership you've given us, whatever place, whatever sphere, Lord.

7:01And we, Jesus, we ask you to please esteem yourself highly in our eyes so that we treasure you more and more and see you as the one who serves us. In your name we pray.

7:17So leadership in the church, not capability, but character. Many times people think of the early church in the book of Acts, and they think of this like ideal community. Everything was going right. Nothing was going wrong. People, it was just hand-holding and kumbaya the whole time. This passage shows us that it isn't true, right? If you ever hear someone like, oh, I just wish I could be a part of the church in Acts, you'd be like, you mean the church where there was conflict, like widows got neglected?

7:54Because I know some churches like that where things go wrong. People are people, even back then. They make mistakes and they hurt people. And the church, even back then, had dysfunction, had conflict, had disunity. Don't be, don't idealize or look with rose-colored glasses back on the church in Acts. It had its problems too. So this, last week was a call to humility, and this week is an actual practice of humility. Church leaders, church members, everyone needs to practice humility, and we see it, put that to the test here.

8:28So let's look at the character of the present leaders of the church. Verse 1 gives us a lay of the land. What's happening in the early church, it starts with good news. And these days, when the disciples were increasing in number, more and more people in Jerusalem have put their faith in Jesus, have been coming to the church, been integrated into the church. It's exciting. People are coming in. People are getting involved. People are changing their lives at the church.

8:57But so often, when a community grows, there are growing pains. I used to work, before I became a pastor, I used to work at a site that was in the process of growing from about 150 employees to over 400. And that was a difficult process for that place to grow from one size to another. It changes. It's hard for systems and for ministries and processes to grow along with a church.

9:32It's hard for them to grow in proportion with the need. It's like when I was growing up, and I would put on a shirt that I had been wearing, and I thought it was a great shirt, and it wasn't worn out. But I put my arm out, and suddenly the sleeve was like up to here. Or I put on my pants, and you could see all of my socks. Like, there were gaps in my clothes, because I had grown, but my clothes hadn't. There were gaps in the church, and the gap gets exposed here in Acts 6.

10:02It's a big one. Widows were being neglected in the daily distribution. So let's pause, and let's take note here. The church is young at this point. Just a year or two from the pouring out of the Spirit at Pentecost. Just a year or two old. And it already has a regular ministry of mercy to people in need, to widows in the congregation at least, probably more than that. They had a daily distribution to people in the church that were in need. It was systematic enough.

10:40Food and essential items to widows who had no means and no family. I hear stories all the time of people serving one another in this church. With reaching out, with prayer, with meals, with all kinds of things. And let me just remind you and encourage you, when we do that, we're doing what the church ought to do. The church saw a need and moved in to fill it. And we don't even know when it started, but it was already strong by the time the church was a couple years old.

11:19So let's keep it up, people of God. Let's minister to each other. Let's have mutual care and encouragement and practical service towards each other. This is what the church is meant to be. Now, raise your hand if you've ever heard someone say that, you know, I love Jesus, but I've got a problem with the institutional church. A lot of hands, right? Often those are some of the same people that speak longingly about the church and acts. But the church and acts sounds pretty institutional to me.

11:55Now stop and think about it. What does it take for a church of thousands to do a daily distribution to widows? Right? There's got to be people and systems and processes. There's got to be organization. Right? For it to happen and happen every day, it's pretty institutional. So when people say, I don't like the institutional church, you're like, so you don't really like the church and acts, do you? Because they had a daily distribution for thousands of people who were in need.

12:27And also, this institutional church and acts is helping a lot of needy people, right? So maybe, just maybe, and this is just a wild guess. Maybe the problem is not institutional church, but bad leaders in the institutional church. Maybe when people are complaining about institutional church, they're really talking about bad leadership and failures that have happened. Maybe the problem is not a mere institution, but it's the way that institution is run.

12:58Just a hunch. File that away. So the church had a daily distribution, right? But now a complaint by the Hellenists arose towards the Hebrews. It's the Hellenist widows that have been neglected. The Hellenists are, these are Greek-speaking Jewish believers, okay? They're Greek-speaking, Greek culture Jewish believers. The church had virtually no Gentiles in it yet. It was, these are Jews who lived in the diaspora, the diaspora, however you say that word.

13:31The scattered people of God, the Jews all around the Roman Empire, who had come into Jerusalem, heard the testimony, the news about Jesus dying and being resurrected, and put their faith in him, and stuck around to be a part of the church. So they're from a majority Greek culture, right? They're far away from these Jewish centers like Jerusalem and Judea. And for some reason, these Greek-speaking Jewish widows were being neglected in the daily distribution.

14:04It might have been prejudice, Jewish background, Hebrew background people not really liking or getting along with these Greek-speaking believers, Greek background believers. It might have been something like that. It could have been a language issue. Maybe they didn't, maybe they no longer spoke Hebrew all that well. And they were coming in and there was a language gap about when the food was getting distributed and where, how much you could get, and so forth.

14:36We don't really know why this happened. But the problem is plain, the widows are going hungry, right? This is their social security. This is their social security. They needed it. So word of this gets to the apostles, and they call a congregational meeting. Again, sounds pretty institutional to me. A congregational meeting. The twelve summoned the full number of disciples, but not to review the church budget. They want to talk about the complaint of the widows.

15:09And here's what they say. It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. Now, if you read that sentence and you get confused or a little miffed, that's understandable. We live in a soundbite culture. And this sounds like a hot mic moment. Right? Something that shouldn't have been said, but was, and somebody heard it. If a reporter today was in the room back then when this was said, this quote would be right on the front page of the website.

15:44Right under a headline, apostles tell widows, leave us alone. It would immediately be grabbed, right? And what? Taken out of context. People of God, we have to not do that with scripture. Don't read scripture for soundbites. Don't take it out of context. Pay attention to the full account. And when we do, we can come to no other conclusion that this is not a dismissal of their complaint. It is just a statement of calling. Okay? Remember, Jesus sent these apostles to do what?

16:22They sent them into all nations to make disciples, to baptize those disciples. The floor is still wet up here from the baptism. Baptism means incorporating them into the church. Jesus also said, teaching them all that I commanded you to do. Right? This was accomplished through the preaching ministry that they had, through prayer. There were hundreds, thousands of new believers in Jesus pouring into the church. The needs for preaching and training and shepherding and discipling were so great.

17:02Huge. They felt a burden from the Lord. The Lord Jesus' words were ringing in their ears of what they were supposed to do. And focusing on this new problem would pull them away from that. But they didn't call the meeting to say, leave us alone. That's not our job. They are taking responsibility. They're practicing humility. Good leaders acknowledge when there is a problem in the organization. Even if it's a problem that they are not ultimately the ones to solve.

17:37Good leaders feel a sense of accountability for addressing it. They know that their job is not just to proclaim the word, but to see that the word is practiced. Right? And here's a gap where it's not being practiced. They recognize this is an issue that needs to be resolved, even though it's outside their scope. Good leaders don't say, that's not my job. They engage with the problem and find a solution. And that's what they're doing here. That's why they say, therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men whom we will appoint to this duty.

18:13These are new leaders that are going to be responsible for overseeing a fair distribution to every widow in the church, regardless of what background they come from. Last week, I pointed out from Scripture how the apostles did not invent the role of elder. It goes all the way back to the time of Moses. Well, in this case, I'm telling you something totally different. The apostles are creating a new leader here. They're inventing a new leader because of the needs of the church.

18:44And they can do that because they're apostles. In verse two, the verb translated serve is diakoneo. Based on what we read in other New Testament passages, this role that they create is an early form of what was later called deacons that we can read about in the rest of the New Testament. It's the same word that gets translated from this word serve. In Presbyterian churches, deacons are responsible for leading effective mercy ministry to those who are in need in the congregation and in the surrounding community, as well as stewarding and overseeing church property.

19:26Like I did last week with the office of elder, I printed a few copies of the BCO chapter, the book of church order chapter on deacons, take them back there. I noticed a few of the ones I put back there for elder have been taken, but there's still some back there. So take one of each. Read about these two offices that our church government has, that we hope to have here at this church. Deacons and elders, right? They're not long chapters. They're not long.

19:56Take them and read them. Educate yourself about these things. The reason why we have this important role is that these leaders, way back when, the apostles were humble. They were humble to acknowledge that this problem needed their engagement, and they were humble to admit that they couldn't do it.

20:20They needed new leaders to help. This is character. This is character in leadership, taking responsibility and sharing responsibility. Both of those things. Taking responsibility and sharing responsibility. Leaders don't have to personally solve every problem. In fact, they shouldn't. If the church is like a physical body with different parts, we should expect specialists among us, right? It's not the job of a kidney to take in sounds and change them to electrical signals that go to the brain so that we can hear, right?

20:58If the kidney were asked to do that, the kidney would be like, I'm sorry. It's not what I'm called to do. That's not what I'm made to do. Talk to the ears. They're perfectly fit for that.

21:14So this is a new leadership position created because the present leaders had the character to listen, to see the church in need, to admit when there was a problem, to stay true to their calling, but to not shirk the responsibility to see that it was addressed. Character and action from the present leaders. Now let's talk about the character of the new leaders. The apostles believed that these new leaders, they're somewhere among us. They're among this congregation here.

21:46They say, pick out from among you. They knew there was no need to look elsewhere. They didn't have to go far and wide to find these leaders. They're confident that there were qualified candidates among them. The apostles also wanted the congregation to play a role in finding those leaders and selecting those leaders. Our process for leadership development in the PCA, in the Presbyterian Church of America, it reflects this. The congregation plays a significant role in nominating elders and deacons, in electing elders and deacons, and just like the apostles, there is a process of them being examined, them being tested, and them being appointed and laid hands on.

22:36But listen, in our polity, we don't phone up some head office and say, hello, we'd like three elders and five deacons, please. Guys, they are raised up here.

22:51That's one of the things we have been doing. One of the things I've been praying about. And again, like I said last week, elders and deacons are not replacing existing lay leaders that we have. They're augmenting the lay leaders that we have. Anyway, interesting here is who they chose for this role. Remember, the issue with neglect towards who? The Hellenists. Hellenist widows. Greek-speaking widows. Greek background widows. And all of the men that they choose have Greek names.

23:29Their background was relevant to the context that the point of need was in this church. It was relevant. But all of the men met the criteria that the apostles gave. First, they had to be men of good repute. Think for a second about how many interactions these men were going to have with people in the church. People in need. People in crisis. People who can give to support the need. Older people. Younger people. People from various backgrounds. They're going to hear personal stories, private information.

24:08They cannot do this role or even begin this role without a lot of trust that already exists between them and the people in the church. They already have to have a good reputation. It's not the right person to be chosen. Let me start building up a good reputation. No, no. You need to have it first in order to do this role.

24:33People, men who have lived with godliness and treated others with godliness. That's what the apostles said is needed. Second, they must be full of the Spirit. Everyone who's born again is full of the Spirit. That's good news, right? That we don't have to wait for some pouring out of the Spirit. That we have it. But what the apostles mean is that the lives of the men that you choose, they have to be evidently transformed by the power of God. They're exhibiting the work of the Spirit in their character and how they live.

25:12These must be men who are devoted to the Lord. Who are free from the prisons of the old self who are seeking the kingdom of God. Full of the Spirit does not mean fully sanctified. Otherwise, there would be no one selected. Full of the Spirit is not fully sanctified. It means walking in newness of life. And one of the ways you walk in newness of life is repentance when you sin. Okay? It's not perfection. It's pursuit of the Lord. And finally, they must be full of wisdom.

25:51Again, think of how complex this need would have been, right? The planning that would have been involved. The logistics. The organization. It required a lot of decision making and planning. Beyond the widows, there were probably hundreds of people with different sorts of needs in the church. These men must be ready to practice sound judgment, to plan the work, and to work the plan.

26:16Now, in that list of three things, good repute, full of the Spirit, full of wisdom, only the last is what we would call capability, right? The first two are about character. And that emphasis is reflected in the other places in the New Testament that give qualifications for elders and for deacons. In 1 Timothy 3, you can read about qualifications for elders and deacons, and nearly all of them are about character.

26:49Church leadership cannot be entrusted to mere human competence. It simply isn't enough for the job. It's kind of like parenting. Cannot be entrusted to just competence. It's too big for that. Without character, every asset or gift or ability is just useless. What value is talent when it comes from someone with a terrible reputation? What value comes from a visionary who isn't full of the Spirit but is full of themselves?

27:26What church leaders are called to do takes way more than capability. Only someone whose character has been shaped by God can meet that challenge because that is the person who has learned to submit and depend on God. First and foremost, with me. Every leader says, Lord, start with me.

27:50And the good news is that people like that, under the influence of the Spirit of God, they can learn a lot. Capability can be increased. Competence can be increased when it's led by character development under the Spirit of God.

28:11These new leaders, in Acts 6, they bless the church. That's why I wanted to include verse 7 in here. Nothing else is mentioned about the widow's complaint and we read instead the Word of God continued to increase. The proclamation of the Word and the practice of the Word. Because the apostles were able to continue to focus on this ministry and new leaders stepped into place. It bore fruit. The number of disciples increased greatly, including a great many of the priests.

28:44So let's talk about applications for our church. I want to give you, give us all three practical principles that this passage teaches us. First, practicing mercy reflects God's character. The salvation we have in Christ comes to us because God is merciful.

29:06Peter says this, once you were not a people, but now you are God's people. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. It's easy to forget this, that we are vessels of mercy. We're vessels of mercy, not merit. God gave the church responsibility for mercy ministry and the role of deacon to keep us all grounded in who we are. We are people of mercy under a God of mercy. And as we practice mercy, we remind ourselves of that. And it gives us a way to act like Him, to be like Him.

29:49The second is this, word ministry and mercy ministry are distinct. The church needs to esteem them both and not confuse them. Okay? There's a saying that is around that's falsely attributed to St. Francis. There's no historical record that St. Francis ever said this. Here's the quote. Preach the gospel at all times. Use words when necessary. I wish I had made a slide of this so you could see it and let it sink in. But not too deep because it's no good.

30:27Preach the gospel at all times. Use words when necessary. That's the saying. In other words, only sometimes are words needed for preaching. Serving people's material needs is the same thing as telling them what the gospel is. And only sometimes do you need to use words. But listen, if that were true, the apostles would have had no hesitation about stepping into this need, right? They would have said, okay, thanks for the news. We're going to do this now.

31:00But they didn't. They didn't do that. They said, we've got to continue doing this and this needs to be addressed. Right? They saw the daily distribution as a distinct and valuable ministry that could not take away from their word ministry, their proclamation ministry, their preaching and teaching and shepherding ministry. That is really important. We cannot confuse them. Preach the word of God. Preach the gospel. Use words when necessary. No. Preaching the gospel requires you to use words.

31:34It's a different ministry than what is implied there. When you serve people, there is a, there is a, what's the word? There is a, there is a manifestation of the gospel in principle when someone serves somebody else, right? But you have to proclaim to someone the word of God and the truth of God and say, this is what the gospel is. Believe in it. Rest in it. Be transformed in it. I haven't met anyone who came to faith simply by watching someone serve soup in a soup kitchen.

32:07No other information. Oh, thank you. That's all the information I need to put my faith in Christ and be transformed, right? It's not the same as preaching, but it is valuable and it's necessary. Okay. Material needs are going to press in on the church, but gospel proclamation, shepherding, and the ministry of prayer must not be sidelined. Spiritual health is paramount, is paramount. But, we are whole people with a soul and a body given by God and we need to be cared for as such.

32:43The priority of spiritual care must not lead us to dismiss the need for physical care. Word ministry, mercy ministry are distinct. Let's keep them separate and let's continue to put a value on both of them. That's the model we see in Acts. Here's the last one. I'm going to close with this. Developing godly leaders is worth the effort.

33:13This passage shows us that the whole church is blessed by leaders who listen and care, who take responsibility and share responsibility, leaders who know their lane and yet who work and act as a team. Leaders who are accountable to the people who address a failure, whether it's personal or institutional.

33:39So church members, discern and call your leaders carefully. Pray about it. Think about it. Reflect on it. It won't be perfect. The leaders you choose won't be perfect. But remember, in this passage, before there was a solution, there was a problem, right? So the apostles weren't perfect either. That's why character is the priority over capability. Even for the apostles. In Acts 4, two of these men were brought before the Jewish authorities. This is just a little bit before this passage that we read.

34:21Peter and John were brought before Jewish authorities and it says this, when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus.

34:41That's a description that we should all strive for. No matter how much leadership you have or don't have. No matter how much following you do or don't do. Let's all be people who have been with Jesus. Let's embrace the truth that we are common. We don't have all the wisdom. We don't have all the answers. We don't have all the abilities. But if we have been with Jesus, if we have been formed by His character, if we have a character that's been imprinted with His likeness, the likeness of Christ, then this church will be blessed.

35:26You and I will be blessed. Chester will be blessed through the proclamation of the gospel and through the ministry of mercy. All the parts of the church are to be filled with common people who are shaped and formed by Jesus.