It's good to be here with all of you this morning, we appreciate
your presence. So very much.
It is a privilege to worship God together and I am honored as
always, to be your speaker. I'd ask you to bear with my
voice. I don't know why I woke up so
hoarse today, but I hope I don't lose my voice during the course
of his lesson. I'll do my very best, please
bear with me as an introductory text.
I've chosen the book of Acts the 27th chapter and beginning there
in verse 1. And when it was decided that
they should sail to Italy, they delivered Paul and some other
prisoners to one named Julius a centurion of the Augustine
regimen, so entering a ship of a dream idiom.
We put to see meaning to sail along the coast of Asia
aristarchus a Macedonian of thessalonica was with us.
This morning, I want to talk on a very important subject.
I want to talk on kle leadership and the characteristics of a
true leader. And you might think that it's a
strange place. The book of Acts chapter 27, to
discuss a subject like leadership.
But in this narrative, there are great things that we can learn
from the great Apostle, Paul a prisoner the Bible says, and on
his journey to Rome becomes a tremendous and terrific leader.
Now, one of the most critical challenges, I think that face
the church today is the lack of strong effective leadership.
In fact, leadership remains, one of the glaring needs.
I think in the church people are often willing to follow God's
Vision but too frequently. They have no exposure to either
Vision or true leadership. And you know this is not just in
the Lord's church. This is also in the world of
Christian professing religions in fact statistician George
George Barna, panting some sobering conclusions based on
his research of Christian professing religions and he
wrote The Following after 15 years of digging into the world
around me. I have reached several
conclusions regarding the future of the Christian church in
America. The central conclusion is that
the American church is dying due to the lack of strong leadership
in this time of unprecedented opportunity and plentiful
resources. The church is actually losing
influence. The primary reason is the lack
of leadership. Nothing is more important than
leadership. Now, my goal today, my goal is
to discuss some things that would encourage us to practice
transformational leadership. In other words leadership that
makes a difference in the life of other people.
I'm going to tell you, you may think of this and say you know
what, this sermon is for the men that lead, so I'll just kind of
check out this would be good for them.
But I'm going to tell you this applies to every single one of
us. You might think I'm not a
leader. Surely, I'm not.
I'm a follower. I've actually heard from people
that have said, you know, I don't really have a role.
I just kind of sit. I occupy my seat and I'm not a
leader to anyone, but that's not true.
In fact, you have an influence over somebody in your life that
nobody else does and if that's the case, it's very sobering.
If somebody is watching me in my life.
And I am a leader in their eyes. It is tremendous that I
understand what it means to be a strong effective leader.
Well, I want to talk on the subject that Corporate America
brings up and it's called the SNL or the strong natural
leader. This is actually things that
they look at in the corporate world.
A strong natural leader is characterized by the following
ways. Number one, a strong natural
leader, is a visionary. That's somebody that.
Looks to the Future and plans, for the future.
A strong natural leader is one who is action oriented, somebody
that gets things done. Number three, a strong natural
leader, is somebody that's courageous.
He's a risk taker. Number four, he is energetic.
In other words, he's a type A personality.
He's the guy that is extremely driven.
Also objective oriented and not people-oriented.
I'm going to get back. To this in just a minute because
while this sounds like a really good idea, there are faulty
aspects of the strong natural leader theory in the corporate
world. Here's another one
paternalistic. In other words he's the father
in charge. Have you ever known the guy that
was large and in charge as to paternalistic guy also
egocentric. He is someone that is
self-absorbed. What else?
Intolerant of incompetence. I mean actually Absolutely, we
got to keep the level of Excellence going on, right?
And view self as indispensable lives with the illusion that the
whole system that they are part of will come crashing down,
without them. Now, here's some problems with
the theory. It denies the primary requisite
of biblical leadership and that it is that you can only
accomplish God's goal through God's people and not by doing it
yourself. What else?
The difficulty comes because I like one man said you have to
organize and lead a whole bunch of people who are all
volunteers, none of whom you can command, all of whom, you have
to say, oh, please and none of whom you can fire and many of
whom when you make a mistake, are eager.
Sure to let you know about it. I think all of us can relate to
that. Now I'm going to tell you
something, there's something about being a leader and I might
go back to these this chart here.
It's true that we need to be Visionaries.
Absolutely. We have to have a vision or you
can't move forward. We need to be action-oriented.
That's true too. And courageous and energetic and
all of those things but understand that we have to be
people oriented over objective oriented And I think great
leaders somebody they can get every aspect of all people,
doing their very best. I remember all the years that I
coached football and coach football for 12 years and one
thing that I learned when it was all said and done that, if an
effective coach is not someone that can get the most out of the
star athlete, you know, it's easy to get the most out of a
star athlete. In fact, if you're a coach and
you got to start, he makes you look good.
And sometimes in spite of you a star athlete or Star team of
athletes can make a coach look better than he really is.
But if you want to be really effective, get the most out of
that little guy over there, the third-string guy, it doesn't
play much, but he does have a role and effective coach gets
the most out of every single person.
And so does an effective leader objective oriented know.
We want to be people oriented, all right, problems with Theory.
And when move forward, acts 27 verse 1, as we begin, we're
talking about something that happened when Paul.
Who had been a prisoner in caesarea for two years?
He was taken prisoner during his third missionary journey and
Paul had enjoyed great success. Among the Gentiles preaching,
the gospel and because of that, the Jewish opposition was great
against him. He was guilty of absolutely
nothing. He was arrested by authorities
and for two years he was in prison.
Now please make this. If you taking notes, write it
down. But don't forget this.
Have you ever noticed that Paul never said, I Paul a prisoner in
Rome, never He never said that. You know why?
Because there were no sustainable charges against him.
He was guilty of nothing. You know what Paul said, when he
wrote to Philemon he said I Paul the prisoner of Jesus Christ.
In other words, he was a prisoner because of what he
preached and when he took the gospel to the Gentiles and the
Jews that rejected Jesus, they absolutely hated him for it so
what they do they drummed up ridiculous charges.
So he's imprisoned where Ever, you want to call it jail or
prison, but he is imprisoned in caesarea for about 2 years.
Now, as a Roman citizen, he could exercise his, right?
And that was to go to Caesar and make his appeal.
And that's where this entire narrative begins and ends on the
journey to make that appeal, appealing to Caesar.
Now, I got to tell you when you think about all the people there
on the ship. Okay, there's 276 men.
And when Paul got on that ship, he's the lowest of the low
everybody that was on the ship ranked higher than Paul.
Let's talk about some of those that would have been their
number one. There would have been a man that
was a centurion. You know who sent turians were?
They were a man that was in command.
Over 100 soldiers, there would have also been ranking officers.
There would have been soldiers there.
There would have been a First mate.
If there's a captain there's always a first mate and there
would have been Sailors there too and Paul is at the very
bottom of all of that. But you know what happens is we
find that he emerges and he rises to the top, he comes from
a position of weakness, he rises to the top because he emerges as
a leader and people follow Don't ever think that there's anything
in the world. That resembles a born leader.
Have you ever heard people say he's a natural-born leader?
No, he's not. Let's talk about how you are
when you're naturally born, you're an ultimate follower,
you're in need, you're a taker little children and it should be
that way they need, they take their, the ultimate follower,
they're not a leader, so you are not born into this world, a born
leader, what you are, you come into the world as a follower and
in need and self-centered and all of that.
And what happens is in life things change.
And sometimes out of the ashes, Rises a man, or a woman in a
position of leadership in life, that you least expect, you know,
why? Because leaders emerge, they are
developed and they emerge, and that's exactly what happens to
be. A great Apostle Paul.
Let's go to verse 1 of Acts chapter 27, and when it was
decided that we should sail to Italy, they delivered Paul and
some other prisoners to one named Julius, a centurion of the
Augustine regimen. Now we there, I think is
referring to Paul obviously, but the other we has to do, with
Luke wrote the gut wrote, the book of Acts.
And so in this narrative and when it was decided that we and
Luke is referring to himself and Paul, we should sail the Italy.
They A delivered Paul. And some of the other prisoners
to one named Julius, a centurion of the Augustine regimen.
Also in verse 2, so entering a ship of a dream idiom.
We put to Sea, meaning to sail along the coast of Asia
aristarchus. Macedonian of thessalonica was
with us. All right, Adrian medium was a
city of Asia Minor on the coast of miss.
You look at verse 3 and I must sum up some things and just a
Let's go to verse 3 and the next day we landed in sidon.
Now this is very significant, siding was 70 miles off the
coast of Israel not very far at all so they hadn't gone very
far. Now watch this in verse 3.
Also, it says and Julius treated Paul kindly and gave him Liberty
to go to his friends and receive care.
Have you ever stopped to consider why it was that Julius
when Paul had not been On the ship very long.
All of a sudden he says something like this as I might
paraphrase. You know what, Paul you've been
on the ship all day. You had kind of a long day so
you can just leave, you can get off the ship.
You can go to your friends and gave him Liberty to do that to
receive care in other words to refresh yourself.
Think of it this way. Paul was one of the most highly
resented men in Jewish population in Jerusalem.
Can you imagine what it would've?
What could have happened? If Paul is released to leave the
ship, if he's running loose and really as they came to side and
Julius. Let's Paul do that.
In other words, Paul you've been on the ship, you can go refresh
yourself. I think what this shows is Paul
was extremely trustworthy or worthy of trust.
What an example, he's a prisoner, he is worthy of trust
and that really brings up principle number one of
principles of leadership and that is to be trustworthy.
I'm going to get to these two things in just a minute, but
let's talk about being trustworthy in this particular
narrative, all right? Why is it such that all of a
sudden Paul being trustworthy is allowed to do it.
I don't know what all that he did or said, we know in the
narrative later, a lot of things he said, But all I know is this
when Julius looks to Paul, he recognizes him as somebody I
can, trust him, I guess in prison, they call it trustees.
And the people that are allowed to have Liberties because they
trust that they won't get in trouble, they won't do anything
wrong. And they'll come on back.
If you trust him to go out, I remember Lizzie live in Ojai to,
but there was an honor Farm in Ojai and I remember that, that
was a place that people that you trusted.
It and it was very minimum, minimum security.
There was no fence or anything, no big, barbed wire.
These were people that could serve their time at the honor
Farm. They were trustworthy or worthy
of trust. I think there's something
similar to the mindset of Julia's that written realizes
and recognizes that Paul was worthy of trust, but there's
something else too. He was in prison for two years.
He's allowed to go to his friends, okay?
So his Julius trusted him but have you ever considered so did
his friends? early this morning, I was
sitting in my office looking over this very early this
morning, And I thought of something.
How many times? Do people that are accused of
something. Whether they're found guilty or
not but just when they're accused of something really -
their friends jump ship. I know of a man I know exactly
of a specific instance of that. He's a friend of mine and within
the last two years he was accused of doing something that
he vehemently denies. And I'm going to tell you,
there's a difference, some of his friends and myself.
Included are still his friends. Let it play out.
Not just all of a sudden have no more trust in the man even
though he's been your friend for a lot of years and bail on him
because he's accused of something, that's very serious.
How many times do people do that?
These friends of Paul could have done that very thing, a wait a
minute what Paul do now. He's been in prison for two
years after all. He must be guilty of something.
They didn't do that. He was trustworthy to Julia's.
He was also trustworthy to his friends and he was able to go
and be refreshed by them sometimes people doubt, because
and lose confidence because of circumstances.
And, you know, I think about this idea to I think about All
the people in my life perhaps that may be better if I'm if I
have any kind of influence over them.
How many people could be better or worse based upon my
confidence in them? And my trust in them.
Now listen trust is earned we get that, right?
But having confidence in, someone will spur people on to
be better than they've ever been before.
When you constantly doubt people, it causes people not to
try. If you want to get people to go
and strive for greatness, you have to have confidence in them.
You have to demonstrate that confidence in them.
Now, respect is earned absolutely but when they have
earned it you give it and just maybe it raises the bar in their
mind of the status that they want to shoot for to be better
in the future than they've even been in days gone by I'm going
to tell you something, when it comes to being a good leader,
leaders are servants. And one man said this leaders
who fail to practice, servant leadership become self-serving.
And by the way, nobody likes the guy that just bosses everybody
around. Nobody likes that guy.
And I'll just tell you if you are a boss and you are boss over
anyone, I will tell you this, you can be a boss, you can be a
coach, you can be a leader of all manner of things, okay.
If you're in a position of authority over anyone, I will
guarantee you this, you will get more out of that person if they
love appreciate and respect you than if they're afraid of you.
You get a whole lot more out of that person.
Out of respect. I'm going to talk about being a
servant here. You don't Paul said Paul
referring to the apostles. Now, the apostles were the
greatest leaders ever. They were the ones that Jesus
left on the earth and the early church.
When the church was established, they had to be walking Bibles
and preach the gospel. We have Apostles doctrine.
That was preached because the word of God did not exist.
The New Testament didn't exist. So those things had to happen.
They were the great leaders in the Lord's Church.
You know what Paul said in first Corinthians chapter 4.
He said we are under rowers. You know what that is?
That's the third-level galley slaves.
As the guys all the way down in the bottom, by the way, that's
where the raps lived. And these guys were under,
rowers, servant leadership. This is the picture that Paul is
saying, we are under rowers. We are down there in the third
deck, we are rolling all the way down the bottom.
We are rolling rowing, so the ship can move under Rose.
This is one of my favorite stories in the Old Testament.
One of the greatest greatest examples of servant leadership,
and it was Nehemiah And historically speaking.
In about 400 44, BC the situation in Israel and
Jerusalem was terrible. The city was in destruction, and
laying in that condition. For over 150 years, the Jewish
people have been outside of their captivity now for 80
years, but they still couldn't build or hadn't built the wall.
A man had to come to the rescue and take initiative.
He just happened to be over there in Babylon and his name
was Nehemiah and Nehemiah said I got to do something and then
there's five principles for taking initiative and weíll get
to the sixth thing in just a moment.
Five principles notice what he does, number one, he identifies
with the need. I think that's has to happen
regardless of who we are and what we're trying to accomplish.
If there's a need, we got to identify with the need.
In other words, I see the need a lot of people saw the need they
couldn't do anything, but I can identify with the need.
I can do something about it. You know, what he does, he came
up with a solution now, sometimes we just sit back and
think of the problem, but we don't come up with a solution.
Okay, and I got to tell you I'm going to step on my toes a
little bit here too. Okay.
Sometimes as we flow through this now, identifying with the
Nate, I can do something about it coming up with a solution.
That's all great. He decided, you know, my do, I'm
going to go to The King and I got a plan.
So what does he do? He takes action, and he doesn't.
Okay, I'm going to tell you something times, this gets all
of us. We may identify with the need.
We may even have a solution but we never take Action.
It's kind of like the guy that always has a whole list of
things we should do. But does nothing.
We should do this. We should do that.
Or what are you going to do? Oh, nothing.
It kind of gets all of us sometimes come up with a
solution and he took action. And then this is the one right
here that I've had to work on and I'm still working on.
I think it's a weakness of mine and that is he delegated
responsibility? You know, sometimes we look to
someone doing something and maybe they're green at it, maybe
they're new at it and we think we can do a little bit better.
So we want to take the task away from them.
It's kind of like you remember when your kids were little and
where they're sweeping something up in the backyard, you know,
you can grab that broom and do better than they can.
Absolutely. But they need to learn, they
need to know. So in time, they'll be as good
as you are at it. That's a hard concept.
Well, let me tell you about my shortcoming.
What I've always done is I've neglected Delegate
responsibility. That is not a good quality in a
leader. We have to delegate
responsibilities, so everybody else is involved.
Everybody else is getting better, too.
But I love this when he put together the entire thing, he
came up with this plan and he worked alongside the people in
this plan though, when he delegated the responsibility, he
said to this family, you just build this section right here
and this family over here, you just build what this section
right here and this family over here, this section right here.
But it wasn't the boss. No, he got down there with them
and he worked alongside the people.
Oh, that's a great leader. Somebody that will do just that,
a good leader folks is not someone that just bosses
everybody and lines them all out.
And then notice don't you think that people would have saw
Nehemiah? And said, man I want to great
job Nehemiah know. He was resented.
He was hated and there was tremendous opposition.
But do you know what happened? This is amazing to me. 80 years.
They couldn't build the wall. Couldn't do it Nehemiah with
proper leadership. Identify with Annie come in a
solution, taking action delegate responsibilities work alongside
the people, you know what happened?
They built the wall in record time in 52 days.
They could they did what they couldn't have done without him
for 80 years and they did it in 52 days.
So yeah we have to have leaders like that there are trustworthy.
But number two, We need leaders that have good judgment.
I'm talking about being cautious and careful and those that seek
wise counsel, you know, there's a lot of things that we all have
as shortcomings, perhaps one of which is not mine, this is not
my shortcoming, but I have a lot of shortcomings, but I was
always raised to go and respect those that are older than we are
and be able to accept their wisdom, and their knowledge, and
their guidance. And I try as I go through The
out and preached all over the country.
I try to encourage young people to look to these precious older
folks that have silver hair and wrinkles on their face as life
swarm apps and go to them and listen to their wise counsel,
like Proverbs talks about Hardy Council.
It's wonderful, a good leader. Could be a young person, but a
young person that uses good judgment.
Being cautious, careful, and seeking wise counsel, asking,
for advice, you've heard me say this before so it's not new.
But I will tell you this every bad decision I ever made in my
life. Usually every one of them there
was always somebody there dumber than I was telling me.
I got a great idea. It's great idea.
That's not your friend. One that is wise will seek wise
counsel and we'll use good judgment in verse 11 listen to
this. Nevertheless in Acts 27, the
center Ian was more persuaded by the Helmsman and the owner of
the ship then then the things which Paul spoke you know, why?
Paul was just a prisoner. He was just a prisoner.
He was of the lowest. 276, man, and he was at the very bottom,
but leaders emerge. Number one, number one, be
trustworthy number to be of good judgment.
And number three, a good leader, strengthens others.
A good leader makes everyone around him.
Better makes everyone around him stronger and more effective and
so by speaking with confidence and Authority, a leader can
strengthen others. I want to note something here,
too in a negative way, you know, Hitler was a man that spoke of
authority but it was a it was a tyrant.
Just because you speak of authority.
Doesn't mean a tyrant. Okay.
It's not what that's not what I'm talking about.
But when you speak the truth and love you speak at bowling, you
speak the word of God boldly and a good leader is somebody
strengthening others speaking boldly, the truth of the word of
God, a good leader will strengthen others.
Now there's three kind of people that leaders in the church have
to work with. I don't like the term deal with.
I like to term work with first Thessalonians.
Chapter 5. And first Thessalonians, chapter
5 verse 14. What Paul said, now we exhort
you Brethren, warn those that are unruly Comfort the
faint-hearted, uphold the weak and be patient with all unworthy
or unruly, by the way, unruly means to walk disorderly so that
they need some fences, built some parameters.
Now, sometimes we have to do that from a negative standpoint,
we have to warn people. Okay.
That are Unruly. But I want to talk about the
second one and that is Comfort or encourage the faint-hearted.
You know, some translations say feeble-minded and that's doesn't
mean mentally. Irresponsible Thayer says, these
are those who are inclined to be easily discouraged in the
presence of Trials. And they need to be pushed
along. You know, the third one is, the
third one, is those who need some special attention,
upholding the week, some have less ability than others.
And Paul said in Romans 15 and 1 we would have the stronger ones
to support and encourage them. In verse 1 of Romans chapter 15,
we then who are strong ought to bear with the Scruples of the
weak and not to, please our self.
What else? What else?
We have to be optimistic. now, you know that I believe in this,
you know, I've said this many times but I'm going to give you
a quote here Optimism within the bounds of Reason creates energy
excitement and Hope. Now, I clarify that.
Do you see that optimism within the bounds of Reason creates
energy excitement and hope I'm not saying optimism regardless
of the circumstances. In other words, the guy that's
rose-colored glasses and is naive.
I'm talking about within reason based on fact, it's about
perception. On the other hand being
pessimistic. We don't want that guy.
Pessimism literally debilitates everyone.
It Literally sucks the life out of others.
Paul said to them, be of good cheer.
Let's get excited about this. Paul would say And I have lost
some slides. So that brings us to our Final
point. and that is, Paul said, in Paul's case, he's an example
of someone who never compromises obsoletes things that are
absolute in Acts chapter 27, beginning in verse 22.
Now, I urge you to take heart for there will be no loss of
life. This is the encouragement here,
but you only of the ship for there, stood, by me, this night,
an angel of God, to whom I belong.
And to whom I serve saying do not be afraid.
Paul. You must It brought be brought
before Caesar and indeed God has granted you all those who sail
with him the next verse therefore take heart men for I
believe that God I believe God that it will be just as it was
told to me verse 26. However we must run aground on a
certain Island. We must run aground on a certain
Island in other words, these are absolutes.
In verse 27, and verse 27. It says, now when the 14th night
had come as we were driven up and down the Adriatic Sea about
midnight, the sailors sensed that they were Drawing Near some
land and they took soundings and found it to be 20 fathoms.
And when they had gone a little further, they took soundings
again and found it to be 15 fathoms.
Then fearing, lest we should run aground on the Rocks.
They dropped four anchors from the stern and prayed for the day
to come. And as the say, Sailors were
seeking to escape from the ship when they had let down the skiff
into the Sea Under pretense of putting out anchors from the
prow. In other words, Paul gave me
absolutes, got to stay in the ship, right?
Got to stay in the ship. You know what they did?
They pretended, as if they were going to do just that and cast
The Anchor off the prowl, or off the front, But they were trying
to get the dinghy, the skiff and get it out of there because they
were bailing out. And Paul knew it.
Now Paul said it's going to be okay, it's going to be fine.
The only damage in the only danger is the lost to the ship.
Your life is going to be fine. It is, as God has told me great
encouragement, but it took faith on their part to didn't it.
So what they said is no we're going to bail out.
We're going to act like we're throwing the anchor out the
front, but we're getting in the dinghy and we're taking off.
You know what Paul said? In verse 31?
Paul said to the Centurion and the soldiers, unless these men
stay in the ship, you cannot be saved.
Now, I'm going to tell you something.
It's really bad when the crew jumped ship.
It's really bad when the crew leaves you know how many times
you've heard. They're saying that when a ship
is sinking, it's the wraps that jump first and all that let me
tell you it's really bad when the crew bails out.
I thought about this this morning, I remember a coach one
time and it was in Bakersfield and we were on the sidelines and
man it was hot and Lompoc High School came to Bakersfield to
play us that night and it was very, very, very hot and we were
used to the Heat In Bakersfield, we were okay, we were properly
hydrated. But all these people that came
from Lompoc where it's beautiful all year long weren't really
ready for that. Okay, one by one.
They're dropping. And then the medic that they
brought he went down to and I'll never forget a coast and they
speak with man it's bad when the Met it goes down you know it's
really bad when the medic goes down.
It's really bad. When the crew jumped ship.
Paul knew that Paul says, no, you got to stay, you got to stay
in the ship. Here's the rule, here's the
condition he says. Leadership never compromises
absolutes. Never compromises absolutes.
When we have the truth of the word of God, we have to stand on
the truth of the word of God and not compromise its absolutes.
Sometimes people do and that's how digression starts and that's
how things progress. And when I think about how all
of us have a job to do, remember this, okay, remember the
conditions, remember the absolutes?
The absolutes for them was if you don't stay on the ship you
cannot be saved. Isn't there a picture there of
something else? Can't you see the picture before
I even say it? Paul said you got to stay on the
ship to be saved and the word of God is telling us.
You got to stay in the church to be saved.
You got to stay in the Ark of Safety.
You got to stay there. You got to be grounded there.
You can't quit, you can't bail out.
You can't get the dinghy and Chuck out the back door.
You can't do it. Now, what about some absolutes
for us? That's not the topic for
concern. I'ma say this in closing, just
some absolutes. I'm going to be 3.
These are things that we cannot compromise, okay?
And there's a difference to, by the way, about Traditions that
we do in our life. And sometimes people look at
traditions and they think what we do in the church, it's just
tradition as traditional know what we follow is and there's a
difference, we follow. A Apostolic tradition.
In other words that which is given by the apostles.
That's from the word of God, can't change any of that.
Gotta stick to that. Those things are absolute.
Like what worship? Can't change that.
We have to do the absolute the items of worship that we
participate in can't be changed. Those are absolutes one loaf and
one cup in the Lord's table, they are absolutes.
We cannot change that. Can't do that.
We can't bring instrumental music into the Lord's house and
have that in our worship service.
That's an absolute. We sing with the melody in our
hearts to the Lord, all of those aspects of worship.
Can't change it. Can't change the things that are
given to us in the word of God. Also, something else to We Can't
Change. How we spend the Lord's money?
Can't change that. The treasury is for God's
people. It's for widows orphans.
And needy Saints is for the preaching of the Gospel.
It's not to set up orphanages, all of those wonderful things
that people do. Please get me here, all of the
wonderful things that people may do to people or four people in
the world. That's a wonderful thing.
It's just not a work of the church.
It's the work of Chris Osborn. Terry Osburn Wade, Branch Frank
brancato. It's the work of us personally
to take care of all those other things.
But absolutes, we can't change that absolutes.
The word. Teacher specific things that we
must do with our funds. So these are things that we
can't change folks. And may I say this to a good
leader on effective leader, is somebody that understands that
there's a need is positive about the need gets the most out of
everybody and is trustworthy and those are the kind of people
that we want to follow. I think sadly today.
So many times people progress and drift in areas because they
don't know any better because they didn't have effective
leadership. Now I'm going to say in closing
this final thing. And I'm going to praise the
congregation here. I've been around here for well.
I've been married for 30 years plans, Road has been my
Congress. My home congregation for, I
don't know. 20, maybe perhaps and one thing that is always
constant over the years about this congregation was this
congregation was always always represented with good strong
leaders. Now folks, we don't have Elders
here because we don't have a plurality of men that are
qualified yet. But in the absence of Elders,
we've had to have leaders rise up, men.
Rise up, be leaders. Be the kind of leaders that they
need to be. And the congregation has
benefited greatly over the years because of that.
Let's keep that going. Let's be strong, effective
leaders. We thank you for listening to
our podcast, put on by the Church of Christ at 22:15 plans.
Road in Bakersfield, if you would like any additional
information, or you would like to receive a free Bible
correspondence, course by mail. Please email us at info at her
Church of Christ Bakersfield.com.
Our service times are on Sundays at 10:30 a.m. and 5 p.m. and
Wednesdays at 7:30 p.m. Please make plans to join us.
We would love for you to be our honored guest.