Every Christian is called to excel unto excellence in the things of God. God desires that every believer be fruitful in his Christian walk. The apostle Paul said every Christian needs to seek to excel for the edification of the Church:
“Even so you, since you are zealous for spiritual gifts, let it be for the edification of the church that you seek to excel” (1 Cor.13:12, NKJV, emphasis added).
The Parable of the Sower (Matthew 13:3 – 9)
The Parable of the Sower was the first of many parables of Jesus. It was one of the two parables that Jesus explained to His disciples. It is beyond the scope of this message to expound the parable of the sower. But, we can establish an important spiritual principle from it.
The Sower was God and the seed was the Word of God. All genuine Christians are good ground for the Sower to sow His seed.
Jesus said, “But others (seed) fell on good ground and yielded a crop: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty” (Matt. 13:8, NKJV).
The seed was the same, the ground was the same and the Sower was the some. Why then some ground yielded a hundredfold, some sixty and some thirty?
Jesus’ explanation is in Verse 23:
“But he who received seed on the good ground is he who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and produces: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty” (Emphasis added).
Notice that fruitfulness or productiveness of a believer is directly proportional to his degree of hearing and understanding of the Word of God. Jesus also brought out two aspects of hearing the Word of God.
1. What you hear
“For assuredly, I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it” (Matt. 13:17, emphasis added).
2. How you hear
“Therefore take heed how you hear. For whoever has, to him more will be given; and whoever does not have, even what he seems to have will be taken from him” (Luke 8:18, emphasis added).
So we see it is entirely up to us, and not up to God, to determine whether we want to be 30, 60 or 100-fold Christians. The responsibility falls on our own shoulders. He who gives diligence 30% of what he hears will bring forth 30% fruit.
The spiritual principle is the percentage yield is directly proportional to what you take heed or to the degree of diligence that you give to the Word of God. Jesus had established this principle elsewhere:
“For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you” (Luke 6:38).
Church Leadership Management
Simply put it, management means getting things done. Expand this a little bit, management means getting things done through people. Leadership means the management of people. Church leadership means the management of Church members.
The Autonomy of the Local Church and believers
Both the Local Church and the individual believer are autonomous. This means the Local Church is self governed and self-led (hopefully by the Holy Spirit) and responsible for itself. It means a Local Church cannot tell another Local Church what to do! We can apply this principle on the same basis to the individual believer – the autonomy of the local believers. This means every individual Christian is responsible for his own life.
A day will come when all of us will stand before the judgment seat of Christ and we will have to give an account of our lives before God (2 Cor. 5:10). It is no good to say before God on judgment day with excuses saying: “Well, I did this because my Pastor told me to”! A Pastor or leader should not make any decision for those he leads. If he makes decisions for them then he is responsible for them if things go wrong. A Shepherd will lead, will feed, will counsel, will guide, will direct, will encourage and will exhort. But he must not override the autonomy of the local men and women of God. They are responsible for their own lives and decisions.
Nehemiah as an example of excellent spiritual leader
Nehemiah was a cupbearer of the king during the Babylonian captivity. He was a Jew. He heard news regarding the state of the city of Jerusalem – the city of his forefathers. The city was broken down, the wall was crumpled down and the gates were burned and in desperate need of repair. Nehemiah had a God given burden and vision to go back to the city of Jerusalem to rebuild the wall and to repair the gates. He got permission from the king to be released for an appointed time.
The importance of time
We cannot talk about efficiency, leadership and management unless we address the subject of time. In the business world time is the money, a very expansive commodity. We cannot apply this principle to the Church, but nevertheless, time is valuable. Every one of us has an appointed time. Jesus made reference of time over and over again.
He said to his brothers, “My time has not yet come, but your time is always ready” (John 7:6).
He knew when it was time for Him to go to the cross. He knew that he had a specific period of time in which to accomplish a job – to train 12 men, to carry on from where He would leave off.
Paul said we need to walk in wisdom redeeming the time (Eph 5:16; Col. 4:5).
Facing opposition
Nehemiah had an adversary by the name of Sanballat. But, Nehemiah overcame his adversary and completed his job with determination (More on this later).
Paul said, “Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution” (2 Tim. 3:12).
In other words, all true Christians will face opposition. There will be difficulty time, and problems. There will be many circumstances we will have to overcome.
Important Leadership Principles
Nehemiah had an adversary named Sanballat. He posted five mocking questions to Nehemiah and the Jews:
“But it so happened, when Sanballat heard that we were rebuilding the wall, that he was furious and very indignant, and mocked the Jews. And he spoke before his brethren and the army of Samaria, and said, ‘What are these feeble Jews doing? Will they fortify themselves? Will they offer sacrifices? Will they complete it in a day? Will they revive the stones from the heaps of rubbish – stones that are burned?’” (Nehemiah 4:1, 2, NKJV, emphasis added)
I attempt to build 5 leadership principles from these 5 mocking questions to enable us to be more efficient and effective in the economy of God.
1. What are these feeble Jews doing?
In other words, did Nehemiah and the Jews know what they were doing? Nehemiah had a job to do. He had an objective, a goal to accomplish – to rebuild the walls and gates of Jerusalem and to complete it at an appointed period of time.
A leader must also ask himself, “What I am doing and why I am doing it; where am I going and why I am going there?” If a leader does not know how is he going to lead others?
In the business world there is an expression that is often used – plan your work and work your plan. In other words, set your goals and work your plan toward the goals.
A Biblical principle is that we need to be men and women of vision. Vision is revealed by God through the Holy Spirit. We must know what God has called us to do in a specific time and purpose. Then we set a goal toward reaching the vision.
Nehemiah was a man of vision and he set about a strategy in which to accomplish his objective and vision. Similarly, in leadership we need to understand that the Christian life is one of strategy. Unfortunately, many Christian leaders instead of seeking strategy they seek after “success” methods of others. Many methods fail because what are successful to some might not be successful to others. In other words you cannot copy someone else’s method. Method is not strategy. Our God is a God of strategy and He reveals His strategy to us by the Holy Spirit. Therefore, vision is simply God’s revealed strategy. It is unique for a particular purpose and time.
2. Will they fortify themselves?
We are talking about facing oppositions and obstacles here. We must anticipate obstacles and problems that we are going to face in achieving the goal of our vision. We do not wait for them to arrive and then look around for a solution. In fact we must welcome oppositions knowing that oppositions, difficulties and problems are our stepping stones for success!
Paul said, “I am exceedingly joyful in all our tribulation” (2 Cor. 7:4).
He further said, “Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in need, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor. 12:10).
He also said, “.... but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope” (Romans 5:3, 4)
Paul knew that without all these problems he would not develop Godly character.
As I shared with my readers last week, it is God’s will that all believers be overcomers. You must overcome or you will be overcome! But, you cannot be an overcomer unless you have got obstacles to overcome.
Read Nehemiah 5:1 – 13 you will notice that Nehemiah overcame all obstacles and oppositions.
3. Will they offer sacrifices?
Nothing is achieved without cost. Excellent personal leadership, excellent personal achievement and excellent personal management are accomplished at cost.
We are called to deny self in order to follow Jesus:
Jesus said, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me” (Matt. 16:24).
John said, “By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for our brethren” (1 John 3:16).
This does not mean we ought to die for our brothers, but we at least make ourselves available for our brothers.
Nehemiah laid down his life for God and his fellow Jews when he rebuilt the broken down walls and gates of Jerusalem.
4. Will they complete it in a day?
In other words, will they finish what they had begun? We are talking total commitment here. Our commitment to the Lord’s work must not be motivated by fear, or reward, but by love alone.
Jesus said, “If you love Me, keep My commandments” (John 14:15).
The right attitude is – We do the Lord’s work because we want to and not because we have to.
Nehemiah rebuilt the broken down walls and gates of Jerusalem because he wanted to and not because he had to!
5. Will they revive the stones from the heaps of rubbish – stones that are burned?
Our work is going to the fire of testing! We have to let every area of our personal lives be tested to see whether or not we have the overcoming quality.
The areas that people will want in us as spiritual leaders are dependability, commitment, faithfulness, loyalty, reliability and trustworthiness. These qualities are developed in us through the trials and testings that God will lead us through. Like gold tried in the fire we will come out as lively stones, resurrected from the broken down rubbles that God can use – excelling unto excellence that we might be excellent in the Kingdom of God. God wants us to be fruitful – not 30% or 60% but 100%!
“And it happened, when all our enemies heard of it, and all the nations around us saw these things, that they were very disheartened in their own eyes; for they perceived that this was done by our God” (Nehemiah 6:16, NKJV, emphasis added).
God gets the Glory in every excellent thing that we do!
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