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Lead like Christ: The Foundation
In no way is biblical ministry associated with business. Business techniques of the world cannot accomplish the goals of spiritual leadership. When we use the world’s methods, we push aside the work of the Holy Spirit.
Have you noticed that the bigger the church, the more it relies on worldly and business methods?
To lead like Christ, the first thing we need to do is to know Christ. This is a crucial element of spiritual leadership. Knowing about Christ is one thing, but knowing Him personally is quite a different thing. That was certainly Paul’s experience before he became a Christ follower.
Tozer wants to inspire us to discover our calling in Christ that will enable us to receive the power and the anointing of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
Lead like Christ: The Model
To Titus, a true son in our common faith: Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior. Titus 1:4
There was Titus the optimist. Tozer explains, “In general, I do not like the word optimism. Crackpot poets have used the word in the wrong way. However, Titus was a cheerful brother, valued by Paul. In fact, Paul would say in 2 Corinthians 2:13, “I had no rest in my spirit, because I did not find Titus my brother.”
Paul trusted Titus because he had discretion and integrity linked with enthusiasm. Titus, who, according to the apostle Paul, was a beautiful reflection of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Lead like Christ: A Demonstration
Paul, a bondservant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God’s elect and the acknowledgment of the truth which accords with godliness. Titus 1:1
The gospel of Jesus Christ works not only to rescue us. It purifies and transforms.
Our greatest challenge is to discover God’s purpose for our lives. To find out why He is leading one way and not the other. If we do not understand the purpose of serving God, we are going to be very confused concerning what God is doing in our lives.
Tozer notes, “I have discovered in my ministry that when I lose focus on my purpose, I am vulnerable to discouragement and even depression.”
Lead like Christ: Motivated by the Complete Truth
Paul, a bondservant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God’s elect and the acknowledgment of the truth which accords with godliness, in hope of eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began. Titus 1:1–2
One man says, “I believe in God’s sovereignty,” so he closes his mind and welds it shut and believes in God’s sovereignty. Another man stands up boldly and says, “I believe in man’s free will,” and closes the circle and welds it shut. The two men turn their backs on each other, walk away, and build two churches dedicated to their little circles. But the wise Christian takes thesis, antithesis, and synthesis, and says, “Now, just a minute. Is it possible that we can take both of these truths and see that they’re both right and get to the third truth that’s bigger than both of them?” It is difficult to get people to do that. We would rather divide ourselves and build churches and be known as founders of something.
Lead like Christ: The Framework of God’s Promises
In hope of eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began. Titus 1:2
It is interesting that Paul, here in Titus 1:2, speaks about God in the negative—that He cannot lie. Thomas Aquinas, in his book Of God and His Creatures, expressed that we can know God more perfectly from negative statements about His character than from affirmative ones.
Paul used a negative statement when he said, “God, who cannot lie.” If he had simply said “the true God” or “the God of truth,” we could have figured it out all right. But it is more powerful when presented negatively.
Lead like Christ: Manifested Through Preaching
[God] has in due time manifested His word through preaching, which was committed to me according to the commandment of God our Savior. Titus 1:3
The question for preachers is “Am I preaching to impress, or am I preaching in such a way that Christ is flowing through me to the people I’m ministering to?”
As we study Titus, observe that Paul could have put a period after “has in due time manifested His word.” But he did not. He added a little prepositional phrase, “through preaching,” demonstrating that Paul’s preaching was committed to Paul according to the command of God our Savior.
Ministry can be a very good place for a lazy man to indulge his talents, for nobody will check on him. But how can a man upon whose head God has laid His hands ever be lazy when you consider the condescension of God that He made His perfect plan through the imperfect medium of preaching? With the mighty obligation that lies in Christian leaders, how can they be lazy? How can they be careless? And yet, some are.
Lead like Christ: Understanding Biblical Order
To Titus, a true son in our common faith: Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior. For this reason I [Paul] left you in Crete, that you should set in order the things that are lacking, and appoint elders in every city as I commanded you. Titus 1:4–5
During Christ’s ministry, He never violated biblical order. Indeed, He laid the foundation for such order.
Any group of Christians that meets together has to have some organization to function. Otherwise, there will be no order, only chaos and wasted motion.
Scripture is clear about biblical order. Look at Acts 6: The “seven men of good reputation” did not begin their work until the apostles had prayed, laid their hands on them, and ordained them to the ministry (vv. 3–6). God gives no man dictatorial authority over the church. He gives him a position and certain spiritual authority there, which, if the church is a church of God, they will recognize. But he has no right to call all the shots, rule everybody’s life, and dictate. Absolutely not.
Lead like Christ: The Obvious Fruit
For a bishop must be blameless, as a steward of God. Titus 1:7
To lead like Christ, we must discipline believers to showcase God’s amazing grace in their lives. The Christ-led church will never mirror the culture, but will always reflect the Lord Jesus Christ in all of His glory. Our success comes not by imitating the world, but rather by imitating Christ.
Spiritual leaders should not be self-willed. That is, a leader is not a headstrong fellow who will have his way even if it busts up the whole church. There was a word on the farm for such a man: bullheaded. A bullheaded man has no place in the pulpit.
Verse 7 also says elders should not be given to wine. Tozer explains, “I don’t think I need to press this point. This cannot be part of spiritual leadership. If drinking wine causes a brother to stumble, I need to drink no wine.”
In our Scripture passage, Paul also says elders should not be greedy for money. (“Not given to filthy lucre,” in the King James.)
We ought to live such perfectly clean, open lives everywhere we go—on buses and trains, at work, everywhere—so that when we get into a religious conversation, we won’t be afraid to share our testimony by the way we live. Our leadership should always reflect the values of Christ in all we do, and we should disciple believers under our ministry to do likewise. To lead like Christ always focuses on Christ and ends in Christ.
Lead like Christ: Attributes of a Spiritual Leader
For a bishop must be blameless, as a steward of God, not self-willed, not quick-tempered, not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for money, but hospitable, a lover of what is good, sober-minded, just, holy, self-controlled. Titus 1:7–8
We do not need business credentials, but rather an overwhelming call of God upon our life that does not permit us to do anything else.
Going on, Paul says a leader should be sober minded, not flighty. Here, sober-minded means “not reckless, not irresponsible, and not excitable.”
Then Paul says Christ-led leaders must be holy. That is their relation to God and temperament. This is your relationship with yourself. There we have again that famous triangle: our relationship with God, with our fellow men, and with ourselves. Paul calls it sober, righteous, and godly further on in his epistle.
And we need to “hold fast to sound doctrine.” According to Paul, qualified leaders must hold “fast the faithful word” (1:9).
Lead like Christ: Understanding the Threefold Qualification
Holding fast the faithful word as he has been taught, that he may be able, by sound doctrine, both to exhort and convict those who contradict. Titus 1:9
In Titus 1:9, Paul introduces a threefold qualification of Christian leaders: to hold “fast the faithful word” in order to teach the teachable and correct the mistaken.
Leaders who think they know everything cannot lead like Christ.
Lead like Christ: Maintaining a Tight Grip on the Word
Holding fast the faithful word as he has been taught, that he may be able, by sound doctrine, both to exhort and convict those who contradict. For there are many insubordinate, both idle talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision. Titus 1:9–10
It is essential to deal with issues that compromise biblical leadership. Too many people are willing to compromise to get along. This is not something Jesus did, and it certainly is not something the apostle Paul did. We need sound doctrine and a tight grip on the Word of God.
According to Donald Spence, the famous Bible expositor and dean of Gloucester in the late nineteenth century, pointed out how the unruly person has four counts against him: He refuses all obedience, acts for himself, is fatuous (silly and pointless), and is insubordinate.
Scripture says that even Michael the archangel, when disputing with the devil about Moses’s body, didn’t dare say, “I defy you.” Instead, he said, “The Lord rebuke you!” (Jude 1:9).
The insubordinate are restless and uneasy spirits who quote Scripture for their purpose. They’re empty talkers “whose mouths must be stopped,” Paul wrote (Titus 1:11).
The only perfect defense against error is truth, and the only defense against a big lie is a big truth. In Titus 1:12, Paul essentially said, “You Christians there in Crete, look out, and you teachers, be sound in the faith and careful. Hold the faithful word, because, remember, Cretans are always liars.”
Paul taught that Christianity comes with two things: sound doctrine and sound morals. You are not sound until you have both; therefore, sharply rebuke those who are unsound in either area. For there is only one standard for Christianity—the standard of Christ.
Lead like Christ: A Commitment to Sound Doctrine
But as for you, speak the things which are proper for sound doctrine. Titus 2:1
To be faithful to our calling, we do not have the option to waver in our doctrine. The culture may not like the doctrine, and it may not fit into their lifestyle, but the culture is not our Bible.
Another way to think about it is that a tree’s root is our theology—what we believe about God in Christ—and the tree and its fruit is our morality and right living.
When moral wisdom builds a house, it digs down to the rock and lays a heavy, good foundation. Moral foolishness builds on sand, and when rain and floods and wind come, which is to be expected, the house falls.
If we are going to lead like Christ, we need to collect all doctrine together in simple harmony and then live out that doctrine in front of the people we are ministering to. That kind of life creates a hunger and thirst for sound doctrine.
Lead like Christ: Teaching the Attributes of God’s Grace
For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. Titus 2:11
Keep in mind that spiritual leadership is more than just having expertise in theology. Christlike leadership rises above human knowledge and depends on the work of the Holy Spirit.
St. Anselm of Canterbury famously said, “I do not seek to understand in order that I may believe, but rather, I believe so that I may understand.” This well-known line was based on what St. Augustine said: “Believe so that you may understand.” In the believer, faith always comes first. Then he can think as deeply, intensely, widely, and imaginatively as he wants because his thinking is built on the foundation of faith. He rises above reason but never above faith.
Someone once asked Gypsy Smith, the British evangelist, what he did with Bible verses he could not understand. “The same as when I’m eating fish and come across a bone,” he replied. “I just lay it on the side of the plate.”
Early in Titus, Paul gives us reason: “For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men” (2:11). Titus 2:11 does not mean that everyone is to be saved. I know better than that, for the man who wrote Titus said, “Not all have faith” (2 Thessalonians 3:2).
Lead like Christ: Our True Value to Christ
Looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works. Titus 2:13–14
You can tell how precious something is to a man or woman by how much they are willing to pay for it. When Paul says Christ gave himself for us, we learn how dear we are—and were—to Christ.
The Bible teaches, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). However, it is not talking about His yesterday, today, and forever. It is talking about ours.
Our Christ Jesus paid a deep price that we might be redeemed. “Being in the form of God, [He] did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men” (Philippians 2:6–7). For a time, Christ made himself less than God.
Christians are not to be strange, not in any sense of that word. But we are called to be peculiar –
To be a peculiar treasure unto God makes you different. You have a higher loyalty, and you recognize God’s right to tell you how to live.
Lead like Christ: The Fullness of Christian Leadership
Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age. Titus 2:12
Too many people think that all it takes to be a spiritual leader is to study hard, pass a test, get credentials, and be on their way. That may be the American idea of ministry, but it is not the biblical one. The Christian is taught by the Spirit in his heart and in the pages of the Bible to renounce worldly lusts.
Sobriety, which means “temperance and self-control,” has to do with our relationship to ourselves. A person who cannot control himself is not going to make much of a Christian. Sobriety, self-control, temperance, and self-mastery are all related to this Christian dimension of living.
Our church fathers and others had extreme and radical beliefs. Lot was a radical in Sodom; Noah was a radical before the flood; Daniel was a radical in Babylon; Martin Luther was a radical in Germany; John Wesley was a radical in England’s rotten society. They were seen as radical, but they were sober, were full of the Spirit, and controlled themselves.
Consider what the great reformer William Cowper wrote in his poem “Song of Mercy and Judgment”: “Sweet the sound of grace divine; sweet, the grace which makes me Thine.” The grace of God teaches us to be good people, loving people, generous and kindly people, God-fearing people, and people with temperance, self-control, and sobriety.
Lead like Christ: How God Sees Us
For we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared . . . Titus 3:3–4
We are made in His image. Tozer explains, “But I do not make this as a statement but more as a question. Could it be that the great God who sinlessly and perfectly loves himself sees the tattered fragments of His own image in the fallen man, loves himself in the man, and seeks to redeem the man because that man has a family resemblance?”
Lead like Christ: The Christ-Centered Servant
This is a faithful saying, and these things I want you to affirm constantly, that those who have believed in God should be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable to men. Titus 3:8
We are to be Christ-centered servants, which means everything we do should flow out of that center. Anything in our lives that compromises that center needs to be dealt with and removed immediately.
The modern notion that Christianity is one massive Sunday school picnic with a swim thrown in is all wrong. The Christian life is reasonably happy. And if you live close to God, it is a very happy life. But it is still a life shot through and through with sorrows and hardships and pains and tribulation. Know that sorrows and tribulation are not God’s highest will, for there will not be any of them in heaven. In this mixed-up world, though, we are in a state where they are necessary.
People today are suffering tragically and will not get one bit of blessing out of it. To encourage himself and others, the great South African pastor Andrew Murray, while suffering from back pain, once wrote, “In time of trouble say . . . He will make the trial a blessing, teaching me the lessons He intends me to learn, and working in me the grace He means to bestow.”
Lead like Christ: Our Motives Reveal Christ’s Character
Avoid foolish disputes, genealogies, contentions, and strivings about the law; for they are unprofitable and useless. Reject a divisive man after the first and second admonition, knowing that such a person is warped and sinning, being self-condemned. Titus 3:9–11
Paul wrote his letter to Titus approximately 1,900 years ago, and we are still having foolish disputes about spiritual matters. Human nature has not changed.
Even the most sinful and corrupt person, if he chooses to be sincere for five minutes in God’s presence, can be delivered. There is nothing the blood of Jesus Christ cannot cleanse, nothing God will not forgive.
Paul says in Titus 3:10, “Reject a divisive man after the first and second admonition.” In the King James Bible, the man is described as a heretic. As understood in our day, a heretic is a false teacher.
But that is not what heretic meant when Paul used it. In Greek, the word heretic means somebody who, for any reason, is resentful and offended, who has hurt feelings, who sometimes gathers a few malcontents around him and makes a little group of quiet rebels who don’t go along with the crowd, or with other Christians. People like this are not false teachers. They are dividers, troublemakers, injurious critics.
From the words of Jesus in Matthew 18:15–17, He says that if someone sins against you but won’t listen to your admonition, you should go to the person again with some others, then take it to the church if necessary, and if the person still refuses to listen, “Let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector.”
Do not take your witness for granted. If within your heart there is sincerity, humility, and faith, God will build a wall around you and send His angels to guard you.
Lead like Christ: Facing Spiritual Warfare
Spiritual warfare is a significant part of leadership today. Too often, though, it is either ignored or overly emphasized.
Later in Christ’s ministry, His disciples were asked by a man to heal his son from seizures brought on by a demon. It was the first time they had faced spiritual warfare, and they failed. After Jesus cured the child, the disciples asked, “Why could we not cast it out?” Jesus explained, “This kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting” (see Matthew 17:14–21).
As spiritual leaders, we need to prepare ourselves and our people for spiritual warfare. The key is what Jesus said to the disciples: “This kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.” We must be committed to prayer and fasting now. The significance here is that we are to be warfare ready—praying to prepare ourselves before the enemy attacks.
When he prepared for his encounter with the giant, Goliath, David took off the armor and helmet and instead took five stones and a sling. It certainly looked like an unequal face-off. As Scripture says, “Then David said to the Philistine, ‘You come to me with a sword, with a spear, and with a javelin. But I come to you in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied’” (1 Samuel 17:45). It is tempting to try to equip ourselves to match the enemy, but that does not lead to victory. In our spiritual warfare, we need to come at the enemy “in the name of the LORD of hosts.”
This is to be a daily exercise for every believer. This is why we believers need to assemble, because we are in spiritual warfare and need each other. For one thing, most Christians work in places where there are few Christians.
If the enemy can keep us from gathering, he has a platform to plant seeds of despair in the believer’s life. And this is the enemy’s agenda.
God has a record of not calling the equipped, but rather equipping the called. An Old Testament story that exemplifies this is the one about Gideon. God called Gideon to deliver Israel from the Midianites. God did not call Gideon because he had what it took to do the job. No, there was something in Gideon that God could work upon, and He could equip him to do it.
As spiritual leaders, we often take on battles that God is not calling us to. We take on cultural battles and political battles and financial battles, all to show people around us what mighty men and women of God we are.
We need more spiritual leaders with Gideon’s confidence, not in themselves, but rather in the God who is calling them. To understand God’s call has nothing to do with our abilities. It has everything to do with God’s will, and He is selecting us to complete that will in His strength.
In the great spiritual battle set before us, God is not looking for men and women who qualify according to religious opinions. He is looking for people who are willing to surrender themselves entirely to God and allow God to direct them in the direction He wants them to go. This is God’s battle, not ours.
Conclusion
Leading like Christ is not an easy thing. To truly lead like Christ, we need to understand who Christ is and His aspirations concerning the church.
To lead like Christ will cost us everything. The apostle Paul made this clear when he said, “From now on let no one trouble me, for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus” (Galatians 6:17). How dare we expect the world to treat us any differently than it treated the apostle Paul.