Friday, 26 June 2009

  • LEADERSHIP, HEADSHIP, REIGNING, AND RULING - SERMON PREVIEW 0620809

    There are entire sections of your local bookstore full of books on leadership, and they are specific to every occupation and every field.  Guys like John Maxwell and Seth Godin make a pretty good living putting out book after book as it seems that no one grows tired of reading about leadership.  If you are a manager, there are books for managing.  If you are an entrepreneur, there are books for starting a business.  If you are a CEO, there are books for running your company.

     

    I’ve seen leadership books about the styles of everyone from Jesus to Buddha to Donald Trump.  I’ve even seen one about the leadership style of Attila the Hun.  Either way, if folks have an effective model for communicating the habits and patterns of a good leader, people are going to buy that book.

     

    I guess the reason these books are so popular is because great leadership truly is a rare commodity.  It is possible for a church, a business, or a family to succeed without a great leader at the helm, but the odds are stacked against it happening.  Proverbs 11:4 makes that clear:  Where there is no guidance, a people falls,

     

    Now, I’m not sure what everyone’s experiences have been like.  Maybe as a child, your parents led your family in a Godly manner.  Maybe you had a teacher or a coach somewhere along the way that inspired you do more and try more.  I have heard from several of you about mentors in the workplace that have walked you along the way helping you excel at your job.

     

    Unfortunately, though, I imagine the exact opposite is true as well.  Poor parenting leadership places every obstacle possible in the way of a child succeeding, and some of you have dealt with that.  A company can have the greatest product possible, but with poor leadership, no on may know about it.  Some of you have lost jobs for that very reason.

     

    I think in my years, I’ve experienced examples of both the bad and the good as I’m sure many of you have.  During my brief two year stint in sells, I worked for a company that had an incredible product.  They made a nice niche for themselves and built a loyal customer.  But they also couldn’t manage their money, expanded too soon and went out of business a few years later.  Leadership or the lack thereof, killed them.

     

    But I have also seen incredible leadership.  My mentor, Terry Traylor took me from a church visitor eating Mexican food with him at a restaurant to a seminary grad and equipped church planter in a little less than 6 years.  He did it by casting vision, being open and broken, exposing me to great people, and giving me fantastic leadership opportunities.  Getting to this point was as much due to him and his investment in me as it was anything that I ever did.

     

    Well, the scriptures definitively speak to leadership.  Husbands are told to lead their wives in understanding (I Peter 3:7).  Older women are told to lead the younger women in loving their husbands and their children (Titus 2:4).  Leaders in the church are told to watch over the soul over the flock (Heb 13).

     

    But the Bible speaks to more than just leadership.  It sees leading as a larger issue than that.  The scriptures speak about headship which is a term that describes how within a covenant, people rise and fall depending up on who their covenant head is and what kind of life they live.  For example:

     

    ·        Romans 5 says that Adam is the head of the human race.  How did that work out?

    ·        I Corinthians 11:3 says, “But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.”

    ·        Ephesians 5:23 says that the Jesus is the head of the church.

     

    You see, headship does encompass leadership, but it is much more deep than mere leadership.  Well this week, in Romans, Paul is going to discuss the Godly legacies and heads of three of the covenants that we fall under.  Paul is going to discuss what the implications are for their obedience and their disobedience.  Understanding this is incredibly important for the living of the Christian life, the proclamation of the Gospel, the raising of children, and basically every other aspect of your life. 

     

    Because of these covenants, some choices in life are not entirely yours.  Some have been made for you, and some you will make yourself.  Some choices you have to make in light of choices that happened many long years ago, and if you don’t know that, it leaves you blind to what is truly needed and what is truly important.  Despite how crucial the understanding of headship is, it is a topic rarely discussed in Christianity, so in light of that fact, here is our Big Picture Question for the week:

     

    Big Picture Question:  In light of the legacies of the Godly and not so Godly people that have gone before you, what choices are really yours before God and how will understanding these things change the way you live in each moment of each day?

     

    If you would like to worship with us at Sovereign King, we gather for worship at 10:30am, and you can find directions to our space at http://www.sovereignkingpca.net/1.2.html.

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