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Thessalonians, the second chapter. There are many concepts into the world as to what a

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leader is. If you read General Douglas MacArthur or Lee Iacocca or Peter Drucker or Fred Smith

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or any of the other people who write about leadership, you find different ideas and theories

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regarding what leadership is and how it should function in a given group. The idea of leadership,

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however, which Jesus taught, was truly revolutionary. Jesus taught that to be a leader in God's

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kingdom means serving others. God's idea of a leader is not a cattle driver, but a shepherd

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of sheep. We see that clearly expressed in one text in the Old Testament that talks about

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God's key leader in Israel, that being David. It says regarding him, he chose David his

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servant and took him from the sheepfolds, from the care of the ewes with suckling lambs

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he brought him, to shepherd Jacob his people and Israel his inheritance. So David shepherded

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them according to the integrity of his heart and guided them with his skillful hands. You'll

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notice that leadership from God's perspective involves the heart as well as the hands. Leadership

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involves not only skills which can be learned, but attitudes which need to be developed.

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The Lord Jesus Christ talked about this with his disciples on numerous occasions. On one

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particular one, not long after the transfiguration, the disciples were whispering heatedly behind

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Jesus' back. The Scriptures tell us that when they arrived at the house in Capernaum

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where they were staying, he asked them, what were you discussing on the way? There was

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an awkward silence from the disciples because the topic which they had been discussing along

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the way so heatedly was which of them was the greatest. So Jesus called the twelve to

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him and said, if anyone wants to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all.

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A dramatic explanation as to what Jesus expects of servants in his kingdom. We might think

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the disciples had learned their lesson well over the two and a half or three years that

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they walked with Jesus, but sadly at the Last Supper another dispute arose over which among

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them was to be regarded as the greatest. And on that occasion Jesus repeated what he had

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said many times before. The kings of the Gentiles, he said, lord it over them. And those who

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have authority over them are called benefactors. But not so with you, but let him who is the

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greatest among you become as the youngest and the leader as the servant. We can only

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wonder if Jesus was performing that servant's role of washing their feet as he gave them

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once more what leadership is all about in his kingdom. You boys and girls who are here

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have probably heard of Charity Church Mouse from the Salty Kids Praise album number four.

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On that particular album Christy wants to be a famous gospel singer. And the kids tell

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Charity Church Mouse, if you want to be great in God's kingdom, what, you boys and girls

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remember? I heard somebody say it I think. Learn to be the servant of all. If you want

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to be great in God's kingdom, learn to be the servant of all. Leadership is servan-ship.

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And every one of us is called to exhibit that kind of leadership wherever God places us

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in charge of or responsible for others. Whether that be in the context of a local church ministry

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where we may be on the board of the church or the leader of a small church, a teacher

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or worker with children in Sunday school, or as an usher. Wherever we are serving in

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some way as being responsible for others, God wants us to exert servant leadership.

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Only in the workplace, in the world, that kind of leadership is rare and stands out.

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Within the family, in the roles of leadership that we have as husbands, as moms and dads,

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God wants us to exert servant leadership. It may be on the campus where you attend or

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in the factory where you work or the office where you're employed. Maybe it's a civic

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organization where you are involved and have a role of leadership. Leadership, according

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to Jesus, is servan-ship. What is it that makes leadership Christian? That is my theme

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this morning on being a Christian leader. What makes leadership Christian? Well, I believe

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that we learned the answer to that question as we read our text this morning. We begin

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with verse 1 of 1 Thessalonians 2. For you yourselves know, brethren, that our coming

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to you was not in vain. But after we had already suffered and had been mistreated in Philippi,

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as you know, we had the boldness in our God to speak to you, the gospel of God, amid much

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opposition. For our exhortation does not come from error or impurity or by way of deceit.

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But just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak,

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not as pleasing men but God who examines our hearts. For we never came with flattering

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speech, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed, God is witness. Nor did we seek glory

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from men, either from you or from others, even though as apostles of Christ we might

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have asserted our authority. Our text today arises out of a defense which Paul felt necessary

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to make. For although he had only been gone for a few months from Thessalonica, there

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were already some who were raising accusations and subtle insinuations against Paul and his

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missionary team. These were undermining their credibility as leaders, thus endangering the

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church's spiritual welfare. And so the apostle writes out of a note of self-defense, but

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as he does so, he explains to us what Christian leadership is all about. If there is leadership,

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that is going to be effective, it must have credibility and trust. And so we notice several

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characteristics of a Christian leader. In verses 1 and 2 we see one who is a Christian

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leader is one who has determined courage. We need to put into context, historically,

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the ministry that Paul had in the church in Thessalonica. The best way to see that is

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to remember that Paul had already ministered shortly before being in Thessalonica in a

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city called Philippi. It was really there that the European ministry began. And as the

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apostle Paul looks back upon that experience, he summarizes it this way in verse 2. He said,

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we had already suffered and been mistreated in Philippi. The way that Paul expresses this,

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he is talking about both physical suffering and mental, emotional suffering, two different

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kinds of suffering involved in his experience at Philippi. Now they had been beaten and

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flogged, they had been put into a jail, their feet being placed into stocks. They had been

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publicly abused by a crowd in riot for freeing a slave girl from demon possession. They had

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been insulted. Paul's rights as a Roman citizen had been violated, for which you may recall

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he demanded restitution in that case. And after all of that pressure and experience,

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the suffering that they endured at Philippi, they arrived in Thessalonica. Their backs were still sore

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with the stripes that had been laid upon them. The emotional trauma was still very real to

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this missionary team after what they had experienced in Philippi. The natural response as they

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arrived in Thessalonica would have been caution, it would have been reticence, it would have

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been apprehension, and all of that born out of fear because of what they had just experienced.

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But I want you to notice that despite all of those pressures, the Apostle Paul was determined

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in his courage. He came to preach Jesus Christ and was not about to be silent. He preached

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Christ in Thessalonica despite fierce hostility that even erupted there. He mentions in verse

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2, the much opposition that came to him in Thessalonica. The word there gives us our

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English word agony, opposition, agony. It refers to a struggle that an athlete endures in a

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contest. It points toward the intensity of the output of energy and the exhaustion that

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comes as a result of that. So the Apostle says not only did we suffer in Philippi physically

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and emotionally, when we got to Thessalonica we preached the Gospel and even there we had

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agony. We really put out the spiritual energy because of the opposition that arose against

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us. We need to be clear about something and that is that courage is not the absence of

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fear. But courage is doing what is required despite the presence of fear. When you encounter

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opposition in your Christian life or you encounter opposition in your leadership in whatever

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realm that may be, what does opposition do to you? For all of us it creates a certain

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amount of fear. We wonder if we're going to keep the loyalty of those working under us,

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if we're going to keep our job, what's going to happen to our family. Opposition creates

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fear. For one to be a Christian leader there must however be a determined courage in the

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face of fear. Whatever the source of the opposition may be we need to remember that the resource

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that we have in Jesus Christ is greater than the opposition. Opposition can create fear

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that may cause us to be silent or not to do what we know we ought to do as Christian men

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and women. And if we allow it to, it will absolutely stop us in our Christian leadership.

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But we must press ahead in the face of opposition. For God is the superintendent of our circumstances.

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God superintended the circumstances in Philippi and then again in Thessalonica. It was not

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out of his control. We need to believe that God is superintending that opposition that

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we face in whatever realm of leadership that we may be in. And God is bigger than that.

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And we can ask him for renewed courage. If you are a Christian leader who is running

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today, or if you are one who has as a Christian been silenced in your leadership in a certain

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realm, let me exhort you today to get on your knees before God and say, Lord, give me courage.

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Courage and determination to do what is right even in the face of fear. If we want to be

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Christian leaders as men and women, it begins with a determined courage. But it continues

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in verse 3. He gives us a second characteristic of a Christian leader. It is a transparent

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integrity. A transparent integrity. There is an integrity crisis that exists as we enter

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the 1990s in the church that claims the name of Jesus Christ. In his book called The Integrity

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Crisis, Warren Wiersbe writes, integrity is to the personal or corporate character what

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health is to the body, or 2020 vision is to the eyes. A person with integrity is not divided.

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That's duplicity. Or merely pretending. That's hypocrisy. He or she is whole. Life is put

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together and things are working harmoniously. People with integrity have nothing to hide

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and nothing to fear. We are facing a crisis of integrity in the church of Jesus Christ.

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It is easy to point to television evangelists and other noted leaders who have for one reason

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or another fallen because of a lack of wholeness, of consistency and integrity in their lives.

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But I want to submit to you this morning that the crisis of integrity goes all the way to

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the back pew of the church. We are facing today, I was talking with a pastor friend

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of mine out of state this week. He had been speaking with a man who is president of an

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international ministry down in the Chicago area. And this man was relating to my pastor

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friend who related to me that he sees the integrity crisis particularly in this generation.

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That we are a generation of takers of ministry and we are not givers of ministry. That is

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a lack of integrity. We want to trade with God. We will give to God if we get something

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back from God that is worth it. That is a lack of integrity. It is a misunderstanding

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of what ministry is all about. This Christian leader in Chicago was saying that a survey

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recently disclosed that the average age of contributors to evangelical organizations

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of ministry is now 57. That is the average age and it is going up every year. We have

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to ask ourselves the question what is going to happen to the work of Jesus Christ in 20

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years. What is going to happen to missions? What is going to happen to organizations that

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now are effective on campuses? What is going to happen to local churches? As that age continues

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to creep up and finally that generation that has learned stewardship dies. The future is

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rather bleak unless we come to a new understanding of what integrity means. Integrity is wholeness.

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It means that we have put it together in our lives. Paul was a servant leader who was whole.

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There was not duplicity nor was there hypocrisy in his life. Duplicity may be defined as lying

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to ourselves. Hypocrisy is lying to others. Neither was present in Paul. We dare not have

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that in ourselves if we expect to be Christian leaders. We cannot lie to ourselves or lie

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to others. Paul specifically points out three areas of his work that were transparent to

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the Thessalonians. He calls upon them to bear witness to the fact that in the first place

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his message was one of integrity. It did not originate in error. Rather it sprang from

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divine truth. The Apostle Paul had an unshakable conviction that the Gospel he had preached

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to the Thessalonians was the truth of God and it did not come out of some false system

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of religion. But it came from the true and living God himself. His message was one of

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integrity. Then he points to his own motives. He says,

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our exhortation does not come from impurity. The Apostle Paul was not doing what he was

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for the sake of less than pure motives. The word here literally means not sexually immoral.

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It may be that there were some who were in fact accusing Paul of that sort of thing because

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the pagan religions were so filled with it. And their traveling teachers who went from

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place to place were deeply involved in the immorality of all of their religion. And there

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may be some who were accusing Paul of a similar kind of lifestyle. The Apostle says, our lives

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were pure. Our exhortation did not come out of impurity. We had no motives that were hidden

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under the table. You know our hearts, he said. And then he points to his methods. He says,

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our exhortation was not by way of deceit. The Apostle Paul did not use tricks to deceive

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his audience in order to capture them. The picture he is using here is one of a fisherman

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who puts bait on a hook and throws it out there for the fish to try to get that fish

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to bite that hook. Ah, some of us can identify with that. But Paul says, we were not crafty

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fisher persons. We were not manipulating methods in order to gain converts. You know our transparent

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integrity. Living a lie robs of joy. It drains of energy from one's life. Therefore we need

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to determine before God to be whole in every part of our lives. There is nothing that gives

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greater credibility to a parent, a leader, than consistency between the public profession

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and the private behavior. There is nothing that causes a child to respect mom or dad

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more than seeing a certain consistency there. And while none of us are perfectly consistent,

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when there is an obvious inconsistency, we need to note that and acknowledge it with

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our children so that they understand we're not consciously trying to deceive. We're

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not consciously living a lie. Whether you talk about an employer's honesty or a manager's

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impurity, integrity is critical to leadership. We were all shocked and saddened to read about

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the head of one of our state agencies recently in the newspaper who had a whole stream of

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accusations against him of sexual harassment. What does that do to him as a leader? It thoroughly

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shoots down any concept that he was a leader in any Christian context. Because a Christian

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leader is one who has a transparent integrity. Shall we talk about a husband's truthfulness

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to his wife? Whatever the leadership role we may illustrate, integrity is critical.

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What are the characteristics of a Christian leader? It begins with a determined courage,

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but it continues with transparent integrity. If you really stop to think about it, the

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lack of integrity is one definition of sin. For sin is a lack of wholeness. And to some

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degree, all of us are guilty of that, aren't we? There is not one of us who has it all

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put together. And the wonderful thing about our God is that he specializes in making people

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whole. It begins at the cross where the Lord Jesus died. For his saving work on the cross

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makes the provision whereby God can intervene on a sinner's behalf and begin to make him

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whole. And when a man or a woman or a boy or a girl bows the knee and submits to Jesus

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Christ and receives him as Lord and Savior, it allows God at that moment to begin a work

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of wholeness, putting that life together. But God doesn't stop there. That's the crisis

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point. And God works to bring us to that crisis point. And there may be someone here this

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morning who is at that crisis point. You feel a lack of integrity deep within you. And God

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has brought that out perhaps in some way. And you've been exposed. And there's conviction.

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And you feel deeply about what's happened. You can begin being put together today by

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trusting Jesus Christ to have died for your sins and by receiving him into your life to

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take control. But God doesn't stop there. That's the crisis. Following the crisis, there

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is a process by which God works in our lives. God is continually working in the lives of

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those of us who are his children to bring about a greater wholeness for us. What does

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God do? Well, first of all, he uncovers the need. Oh, it would be wonderful if God didn't

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have to do that. But he does. I went to the dentist this week. On my list of unfavorite

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things to do, that ranks number one. It's not that dentists are bad people. They're

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very wonderful people, many of them. But I do not like what they do to me. Several years

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ago I had a crown put on a tooth. And my dentist uncovered a problem. There was some decay

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because the last crown was not put on very well. In order to care for that decay, he

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had to take the old crown off. And he didn't even give me any laughing gas to do it. No

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novocaine. I'm making it sound pretty bad. I've had a root canal so it didn't hurt.

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But I didn't like the sound of the instruments. You know that sounds like 500 mosquitoes flying

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around your head. The drill and the sense of that pressure in your mouth and then that

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sharp ice pick he uses to pry in there. And then those pliers he reaches in and pulls that

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thing off your, you just feel like you're going to come out of the chair. It doesn't

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really hurt. It's just that your nerves are all right there. All of them. Right there.

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We don't like to have those kinds of things uncovered and dealt with. But God does the

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same thing with us, doesn't he? He takes us through experiences that uncover our lack

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of integrity. Now the reason he does that is because he wants to make us whole. His

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end goal is not to embarrass us, it's not to make us feel guilty, but his end goal is

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that he might heal us and put us together. And so he exposes the decay that's taken

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place so that we can then repent of what he exposes. And then once we repent of it, God

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is able to begin a correcting work in our lives, putting us together. In a couple of

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weeks I'm going to get a brand new crown. I hope the price of gold stays down a little

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lower for a while. And the decay is gone and I'll have a new crown on there and that tooth

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is going to be whole once more. That's what God wants to do. He puts us through the trial,

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the fire, that he might see the pure gold in our lives and all the impurities might

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be drained off of them. Transparent integrity. I think this is a major theme of the apostle

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in the book. In fact he closes the book in chapter 5 verses 23 and 24. You may want to

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look at this because this is exactly what he prays at the end. He says, and may the

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God of peace himself sanctify you entirely, make you whole. May God put you together,

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he says, to make you a person of integrity. And may your spirit and soul and body be preserved

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complete without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. And then he says, faithful

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is he who calls you and he also will bring it to pass. Despite the flinches on my face

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the other day, my dentist kept at work in my mouth until he finished the job. Because

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he is a faithful dentist and he was determined to see all of the decay removed. Likewise,

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though God may see flinches from us now and then, he will persist until he has exposed

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that lack of integrity and that decay and has dealt with it. And at the end of our lives

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when we are caught up to be with Jesus Christ one day, we will be without any decay and

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God will bring it to pass. We will continue next week what it means to be a Christian

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leader but I think this is an appropriate point for us to bow in prayer and ask the

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Spirit of God to search our hearts. Lord do that right now even as you have been for these

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last minutes. We acknowledge to you that there are times when we are silent and we do not

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press issues out of fear of opposition to our Christian conduct. Because they are antagonists

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to our principles as Christians, we keep them hidden and we fail to be Christian leaders.

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We acknowledge to you that there is decay present in the hearts of all of us. Our great

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need is to be able to see it and to deal with it by repentance. Lord Jesus, right now put

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your finger upon our lives and show us where we need to repent and give us the grace to

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do that. With our heads bowed and our eyes closed, will you talk to the Lord about that

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area where he has just put his finger? Jesus, be the Lord of all the kingdoms of our hearts.

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We, today, would renew the priority of your Lordship in our lives and we repent where

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that has not been true. Do something fresh and anew in us today and this week and use

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us as Christian leaders, as men and women, as servant leaders in those places where you

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have given us the privilege to be responsible for others. In Jesus' name I pray, amen.

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Let's stand together please. Being a Christian leader is a great privilege. It may be that

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we don't have a position that somebody has voted on and therefore we serve in that office,

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but all of us are leaders in some realm. May God help us to be men and women that are filled

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with determined courage and transparent integrity, which God then can bless as he works through

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us to touch the lives of other people. Bill, do you have a hymn for us? 451. Oh, that's

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a good one. All to Jesus I surrender. Let's sing just a verse and a chorus of 451.