People cannot live without hope. Throughout history, human beings have endured the loss of many things. People have lost their health, their finances, their reputations, their careers, even their loved ones, and yet have endured. The pages of history books are filled with those who suffered pain, rejection, isolation, persecution and abuse; there have been people who faced concentration camps with unbroken spirits and unbowed heads, people who have been devastated by Job-like trials and yet found the strength to go on without cursing God and dying. Humans can survive the loss of almost anything – but not without hope.

Hope is how we live. Hope is what gets us from one day to the next. A person goes to school and hopes that one day he will graduate. That person graduates and hopes that one day he will enter into a great career. If he is single, he hopes that perhaps one day he will meet the right person and get married. He gets married and hopes that one day he and his wife will have children. When they have children, they hope that they will live long enough to get the kids out of the house.

We live by hope, and when hope is gone, endurance and joy and energy and courage just evaporate. Life itself begins to fade. When hope goes, we start to die. One of the most profound proverbs of the Bible says, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life” (Proverbs 13:12).

It could be argued that everyone has hope and that the problem with most people is simply that their hopes have been misplaced. Many people begin looking around from the time they are young and wondering what is going to pay off. Perhaps they will invest in athletics or academics. Perhaps they will invest all their hope in beauty and fashion. As we get a little older (but not always wiser) we put our hopes in wealth and status, achievement and prestige.

When we place our hope in the wrong things, one of two things is likely to happen. Either we will never make it to the level we had hoped for, in which case we end up envious or bitter. Or we make it to that level only to discover that it doesn’t fill our heart. In that case, we end up unfulfilled and disappointed.

With all this is mind, it is easy to see that few functions a leader is called upon to perform are more important than that of keeping hope alive. When others are lost in the dark, and seemingly endless, maze of despair, effective leaders drive away the darkness with positive projections for the future of their organization. They know when to come alongside of someone. They sense when a team member needs a quick admonition or a shoulder on which to cry.

Barnabas – No Regular Joe

No other New Testament character illustrates the ability to encourage more strongly than Barnabas, whose name means “Son of Encouragement.” Think of that alone: here was a man named Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus (Acts 4:36). He was a wealthy and generous man who somehow earned a wonderful nickname. What must he have done to impress the apostles to such an extent that they said, “Joseph isn’t an accurate name for you; your name should be Barnabas because you are such a son of encouragement”?

Luke tells us,

When [Saul] came to Jerusalem, he tried to join the disciples, but they were all afraid of him, not believing that he really was a disciple. But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles. He told them how Saul on his journey had seen the Lord and that the Lord had spoken to him and how in Damascus he had preached fearlessly in the name of Jesus.

Acts 9:26-27

The disciples in Jerusalem were understandably afraid of Saul of Tarsus. Before his conversion, Saul had done everything in his power to destroy the church (9:1-2). It’s no wonder they questioned the validity of his profession of faith in Christ. As a devout Pharisee, Saul had doggedly hunted down and persecuted followers of Jesus; this could have been just another one of his tricks.

Due to their suspicion, it seemed as if Saul’s ministry would flounder before it ever got started. And that might have happened had not Barnabas stood in the gap beside Saul, leading him to the apostles and testifying concerning his conversion and subsequent ministry. Barnabas encouraged the apostles to bless Saul’s ministry, and they responded favorably. Barnabas provided the timely support that Saul needed to launch his ministry.

Perhaps this is one reason why Saul (who was later known as Paul) spoke so often of total forgiveness and the encouraging hope it provides. He had experienced it in such a tangible way through the ministry of the “Son of Encouragement.” Had Barnabas not offered his hand in fellowship to this penitent man whose life had been turned absolutely upside down, Saul may never have been able to fully experience the freedom he so loudly proclaimed to others. As Jim McGuiggan writes,

The trouble is, you see, they [the remorseful and penitent] can’t enjoy the forgiveness God has freely given them, because you, we, make them doubt it. They haven’t the strength or assurance to live in the joy and freedom of a gracious God’s free-flowing grace.¹

Effective leaders, like Barnabas, sustain hope by offering words of support. Suppose for a moment that Barnabas had said nothing on Saul’s behalf. What might have happened? In what ways did his actions demonstrate both love and courage? Think for a moment about how you can follow his example, whether with a family member, a co-worker or a peer. A little bit of encouragement can go a long way toward motivating those around you.

The God of Encouragement

There are so many attributes of God, that it seems mind-boggling to try to contemplate them all. But a major theme throughout the Old Testament prophets is God as an encourager. He lovingly sought to inspire his people to put their confidence and hope in him. In other words, God encourages his people because he loves his people. Thus, even when God warns his people of impending judgment, there is always a note of consolation quick at hand. In speaking of coming judgment, they always looked beyond the time of travail to a time of unprecedented blessing. This consolation is a kind of encouragement for his people to endure discipline and trust that God will be merciful in his justice. Isaiah, for example, begins his consolation section with these words: “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God” (Isaiah 40:1). After the people’s captivity in Babylon, God’s plan was still to prosper them and not to harm them, to give them hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11).

The post-exilic prophet Zechariah is a classic example of a prophet through whom God spoke a tremendous word of encouragement:

“Come! Come! Flee from the land of the north,” declares the Lord, “for I have scattered you to the four winds of heaven,” declares the Lord.

“Come, O Zion! Escape, you who live in the Daughter of Babylon!” For this is what the Lord Almighty says: “After he has honored me and has sent me against the nations that have plundered you – for whoever touches you touches the apple of his eye – I will surely raise my hand against them so that their slaves will plunder them. Then you will know that the Lord Almighty has sent me.

“Shout and be glad, O Daughter of Zion. For I am coming, and I will live among you,” declares the Lord. “Many nations will be joined with the Lord in that day and will become my people. I will live among you and you will know that the Lord Almighty has sent me to you. The Lord will inherit Judah as his portion in the holy land and will again choose Jerusalem. Be still before the Lord, all mankind, because he has roused himself from his holy dwelling.”

Zechariah 2:6-13

The people of Israel had recently experienced the trauma of the 70-year Babylonian captivity. Now that a remnant had returned to Jerusalem to re-settle the land and rebuild their temple, many of them may have wondered if God still had a purpose for them. They were a small remnant and the land to which they returned was desolate. Jerusalem was a shambles, the temple had been destroyed, the palaces, the walls – everything was gone. It may have seemed to them as if God had abandoned his people in favor of some other plan.

It is into this context that the Lord sent his servant Zechariah with a message of comfort and hope. Zechariah encouraged the people to complete the rebuilding project by giving them a vision of the Messiah who would one day come to this temple and bring salvation to his people. Through his prophet Zechariah, God reassured the remnant that he had brought them back to the land for a purpose and that his covenant promises to them would be fulfilled in the Messiah’s glorious reign over the nations of the earth (vv. 11-12). God had not abandoned his people or his promise! In spite of their history of unfaithfulness, the Lord says he will remain faithful to the promises he has made.

Like the children of Israel, the early disciples must have wondered if God was going to abandon them as Christ told of his death and eventual return to his Father. After all, they had invested years of their lives, left behind careers and families in order to follow this miracle-working rabbi, and now he was telling them about his impending departure. Jesus comforted his friends on the night he was betrayed with these words: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me” (John 14:1). Later that same night, he said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid” (14:27).

God is trustworthy. When our hope is found in him, we need never lose courage. Regardless of what happens in our world, his promises are sure. There is nothing that can keep his Word from coming to pass – no adversity, no pain, no sorrow, no setback. Nothing can keep his promise from being fulfilled. Ultimately, we will be with him in the Father’s dwelling place. This simple truth gives us comfort and hope in the midst of tough times.

Andy Cook tells us how we may walk through times of trouble without losing our confidence:

How will you walk in confidence toward your future? Focus on the blessings, the peace, and the joy that Christ offers. Focus on the fact that Jesus has walked first, inviting us to come with him. We don’t have to travel alone. It might be dark, descending into the valley of hell, but at least we’re not alone. Jesus promised that he would never, ever leave us. As Paul said in that tiny verse of Philippians, let your countenance be known to all men, a countenance of confidence that knows, in faith, that “the Lord is near.”

Let his attitude be your cloak. Let his sandals guide your footsteps. And as you go, remember that the laughter is just beyond the pain. Just beyond the cross is resurrection. Just beyond the grief is wild celebration. Focus on the laughter that is to come.²

God, the Ruler of the Universe, cares about encouraging you. He makes it his business to provide his people a sense of comfort and peace – even in the midst of fear and uncertainty. But the way he normally provides his encouragement for his people is through his people. It is no wonder, then, that our enemy so often uses other people to sabotage and undermine God’s purposes for our lives. Joyce Heatherley has written a marvelous little book called Balcony People, in which she discusses the pain caused by people who feel the need to constantly evaluate our shortcomings and the joy brought by people who affirm our potential. She writes:

I am more convinced than ever that if our inner brokenness is ever to be made whole, and if we are to ever sing again, we will need to deal with the issues of evaluators and affirmers in our lives. I also firmly believe that the need for affirming one another is crucial to our process of becoming real, not phony or hypocritical, people of God. Affirming brings authenticity and credibility to our faith as it is lived day by day.³

As you become more like Jesus, you must make it your business to provide encouragement to the people around you. In this way, you will find his promise of comfort and peace becoming a greater reality in your life.

The Encouragement of a Friend

In the rough-and-tumble circumstances of life, we sometimes receive blows that leave us bleeding and gasping for breath. During such times, we need reassurance from God and others so that we may remain faithful in “the good fight” of faith, fix our eyes on Jesus and finish the race.

Jonathan and David entered into a deep and profound, covenantal relationship of mutual support that served both men well and gave them steadiness and comfort in unstable times.

After David had finished talking with Saul, Jonathan became one in spirit with David, and he loved him as himself. From that day Saul kept David with him and did not let him return to his father’s house. And Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as himself. Jonathan took off the robe he was wearing and gave it to David, along with his tunic, and even his sword, his bow and his belt.

1 Samuel 18:1-4

These men walked together, prayed for one another and encouraged one another until Jonathan’s death. David would eventually say of his friend, “Jonathan, my brother; you were very dear to me. Your love for me was wonderful, more wonderful than that of women” (2 Samuel 1:26).

Jonathan encouraged David by demonstrating his loyalty to him in the good times, when David was the favorite member of Saul’s court. But later, when his father Saul wanted to kill David, Jonathan’s encouragement was far more important to his friend. Many people who encouraged David in the good times abandoned him when he most needed support.

In this trying situation, Jonathan modeled the character of the encourager. When David could give nothing in return, Jonathan upheld him by offering his total support:

Then David fled from Naioth at Ramah and went to Jonathan and asked, “What have I done? What is my crime? How have I wronged your father, that he is trying to take my life?”

“Never!” Jonathan replied. “You are not going to die! Look, my father doesn’t do anything, great or small, without confiding in me. Why would he hide this from me? It’s not so!”

But David took an oath and said, “Your father knows very well that I have found favor in your eyes, and he has said to himself, ‘Jonathan must not know this or he will be grieved.’ Yet as surely as the Lord lives and as you live, there is only a step between me and death.”

Jonathan said to David, “Whatever you want me to do, I’ll do for you.”

1 Samuel 20:1-4

Imagine how David must have felt knowing that, despite great personal risk, his dear friend Jonathan was still standing by him and doing his best to protect him from harm. Jonathan made a promise to his friend with no strings attached and proved his willingness to put himself in harm’s way to protect David:

“Why should [David] be put to death? What has he done?” Jonathan asked his father. But Saul hurled his spear at him to kill him. Then Jonathan knew that his father intended to kill David.

Jonathan got up from the table in fierce anger; on that second day of the month he did not eat, because he was grieved at his father’s shameful treatment of David.

1 Samuel 20:32-34

Because of Saul’s violent temper, Jonathan and David were forced to part. The intense drama of their final separation was played out in an open field. David bowed three times before Jonathan, face down in the dirt. They kissed each other, each weeping on the other’s shoulder.

Jonathan verbally encouraged David in their frequent meetings, and that was important to David. But no words in the world can match the reassurance of knowing that someone believes in you and cares enough to stand with you no matter how tough things get or what it costs. Encouragement in the good times shows care and thoughtfulness. Encouragement in the tough times reflects character. Often, those who encourage during good times abandon us when we need them the most. Jonathan, however, demonstrated godly character by remaining steadfast in the times of hardship.

Men, especially, need other men to walk with through the peaks and valleys of life. The power of men walking together in peace and in truth is incredible and necessary for us to be the leaders God has called us to be. We all need to know that there are people who are committed to looking out for our best interests, people who think of ways to stimulate and encourage us toward love and good deeds.

Consider ways in which you can be an encourager to others. A phone call, a brief note or a personal word of thanks for what another person has meant to you requires little time but yields positively disproportionate benefits. Take the time to thank each person who has made an investment in your life. When the Lord accomplishes something good through you, let the person know that another dividend has just been paid on his or her investment.

Encouragement in Times of Trouble

Paul’s life in general, and his farewell address to the Ephesian elders in particular, give us some good insight into the mechanics of encouragement. Paul was a great encourager, not simply because he received such expert encouragement himself from Barnabas, but because he diligently worked at it. After he planted a church, he was conscientious about visiting whenever possible, writing letters and sending others to minister in his absence. He always assured people of his accessibility, even though he may physically have been many miles away or even locked up in a prison cell. Paul’s meeting with the Ephesian elders in Acts 20 includes some guidance for the godly leader who wants to uplift others.

First, Paul was able to lend support because his listeners respected his example.

From Miletus, Paul sent to Ephesus for the elders of the church. When they arrived, he said to them: “You know how I lived the whole time I was with you, from the first day I came into the province of Asia. I served the Lord with great humility and with tears, although I was severely tested by the plots of the Jews. You know that I have not hesitated to preach anything that would be helpful to you but have taught you publicly from house to house. I have declared to both Jews and Greeks that they must turn to God in repentance and have faith in our Lord Jesus.”

Acts 20:17-21

If he had been unable to speak these words with a clear conscience, the meeting would have been over. He had made an investment of time and had demonstrated by his example that he was a man of integrity. His example was a source of encouragement for these men of God.

Second, Paul didn’t gloss over or distort reality (vv. 22-31).

“And now, compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there. I only know that in every city the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are facing me…. Now I know that none of you among whom I have gone about preaching the kingdom will ever see me again…. I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. So be on your guard!

Acts 20:22-23, 25, 29-31a

Supporting people when all the news is good does not set one apart as a gifted encourager. Neither does soft-pedaling bad news. Psychologists Stephen Arterburn and Jack Felton say that one of the signs of a healthy faith is that it is based in reality:

Growing Christians strive to see the world and their lives as they really are, not through some stained-glass filter, not through the grid of some externally imposed myth or make-believe worldview. They do not feel compelled to “explain away” hardships or events that mystify them, but are willing to live with some ambiguity, trust God to rule the world in righteousness – even if that means difficulty for them.⁴

No matter how grim reality may look, the leader who trusts God must blend God’s sovereign presence with motivation to faithful effort (vv. 32-35). Paul’s willingness to face reality was a source of encouragement for these elders.

Third, Paul prayed with the elders before his departure and demonstrated genuine love and care for them:

When he had said this, he knelt down with all of them and prayed. They all wept as they embraced and kissed him. What grieved them most was his statement that they would never see his face again. Then they accompanied him to the ship.

Acts 20:36-38

Paul’s story in this passage demonstrates that encouragement doesn’t always accompany auspicious circumstances. Paul was facing hardship and separation from his friends, and their parting was difficult. But his uplifting words despite the coming trials show us that the gift of encouragement must always be related both to God’s sovereign power and to the leader’s genuine concern. Paul’s reliance on the goodness of God was a source of encouragement to them, as it is to us.

Encouragement and Human Worth

Encouragement is to a team what wind is to a sail – it moves people forward. Like the ancient Hebrew Christians, we all need words of support. The recipients of the letter to the Hebrews needed encouragement. The fires of persecution were burning so intensely that the believers were tempted to forsake the living God. Because the author knew this, he urged them to offer daily reassurance to one another: “But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness” (Hebrews 3:13).

Of course, encouragement is something every leader needs to offer to his or her team members. In his capacity as the leader of Outreach of Hope, a ministry geared to instill hope in cancer patients, amputees and their families, former major-league baseball great Dave Dravecky urges his readers to offer encouragement that validates a person’s worth before God.

Dravecky notes that “It’s easy for us to confuse our true worth with our sense of worth. While the Bible teaches that our true worth never varies, since it’s based on God and not on us, our sense or feeling of worth can vary tremendously.”⁵ The problem is that our feelings don’t always align with truth. So what should a leader do to encourage a person in an adverse situation? First, the leader needs to help that person to acknowledge his or her feelings and to align them with the truth. As people who are made in the image of God, our worth isn’t tied into material things that can be bought at a shopping mall, nor is it rooted in a position of power.

Next, Dravecky urges his readers to help a person who is struggling with self-worth to find work that is productive and strengthens his or her relationship with God and other people. Finding productive work is an important, God-given means to help men and women to sense their intrinsic worth as sons and daughters of God. When we figure out why we’re here and what we’re supposed to be doing with our lives, God infuses us with a sense of hope and encouragement.

In the latter years of his life, C.S. Lewis had a remarkable correspondence with an anonymous woman from America.⁶ In his letters, Lewis urged the woman to deal with life in an emotionally honest way, acknowledging grief, fear and anger openly. He also warns her about the danger of allowing anger and fear to drive her away from God. His letters refer often to suffering and the difficulty of dealing with abrasive people. He also writes regularly about prayer and its place in the spiritual life. In all the letters, there are three themes that continually surface: honestly dealing with our emotional state, responding graciously to trials and trying people and being diligent in our prayer life.

The letters are fascinating to read, but what is most striking is that Lewis bothered to write them at all. He confessed to being often overwhelmed by his workload, and by this time in his life he could hardly write because of rheumatic pain in his arm. Yet, as Clyde S. Kilby notes, the reason Lewis continued the correspondence was because “Lewis believed that taking time out to advise or encourage another Christian was both a humbling of one’s talents before the Lord and also as much the work of the Holy Spirit as producing a book.”⁷ Being a source of encouragement to a fellow Christian was as meaningful to him as anything else he did. His is an example to all of us about the enormous value of spiritual encouragement, of being present with each other, of giving generously to those who may have little or nothing to give in return.

All of this reminds us that we are not called to walk the road of life alone. God kindly gives us the grace of knowing his encouragement and acceptance. He then provides us with the encouragement and acceptance of others. Finally, he invites us to participate with him in the giving of these same gifts to those who follow our lead.

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¹ Jim McGuiggan, The God of the Towel (West Monroe, LA: Howard Publishing, 1997), p. 100.

² Andy Cook, A Different Kind of Laughter: Finding Joy and Peace in the Deep End of Life (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 2002), p. 77.

³ Joyce Landorf Heatherley, Balcony People (Austin, TX: Balcony Publishing, 1984), p. 25.

⁴ Stephen Arterburn and Jack Felton, More Jesus, Less Religion: Moving from Rules to Relationships (Colorado Springs, CO: Water Brook Press, 2000), p. 4.

⁵ Dave Dravecky with Connie Neal, Worth of a Man (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1996).

⁶ C.S. Lewis, Letters to an American Lady, ed. Clyde S. Kilby (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1967).

⁷ Ibid., p. 7.

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Woody Allen is credited with saying, “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.” We could add to it, “If you want to hear him laugh even louder, tell him how much you know.” Just because it’s true, however, doesn’t make it easy to accept. It’s hard to admit that we do not know as much as we think we know. And we certainly aren’t in control of as much as we’d like to think. We make our plans, but it is God who controls the outcome. We make our plans, but we understand that, if the Lord wills, we shall live let alone do this or that (James 4:13-15).

John Ruskin said, “I believe that the first test of a truly great man is his humility. I don't mean by humility, doubt of his power. But really great men have a curious feeling that the greatness is not of them, but through them. And they see something divine in every other man and are endlessly, foolishly, incredibly merciful.”

The modern notion of the “self-made” man, pulling himself up by his own bootstraps and, by the sweat of his own brow, climbing to the pinnacle of success is so deeply imbedded in our consciousness that any other possibility seems foreign. It’s humbling to recognize that God is more responsible for the achievements of our lives than we are, that we are people who have been given our abilities, time and opportunities. These things are not our possession; they are gifts from God and we will ultimately give an account for what we do with what we have been given.

Everything in us strains against this notion, for to accept this as fact is to be humbled. And humility naturally leads to submission. That’s really the issue, isn’t it? We don’t want to admit that God is the giver of every good gift, because that would mean that we have to yield to his agenda. Humility, submission and obedience go together.

This doesn’t come easily, and it is certainly not natural; we need help to learn how to live this way. This is one reason why we have the Bible. In the pages of Scripture we find many examples of humility. From them we can gain insight and assistance as we endeavor to be the kind of leaders God desires and our world so desperately needs.

The Humility of God

Let us first examine the supreme biblical example of humility: the incarnate God who made himself known in our world. In Philippians 2, we learn about Christ’s self-emptying servant nature. Here we find an important principle in Scripture: before honor comes humility. The cross comes before the crown; the person who seeks honor will ultimately be humiliated, but the person who humbles himself will later be honored (Matt. 23:12).

Humility is such an illusive virtue, isn’t it? As soon as you think you’ve got it, you don’t. That’s part of the problem: When I finally achieve humility, I get proud of myself. My humility cries out for recognition. Humility is terribly fragile.

Part of the reason for this elusiveness is that humility has a difficult time co-existing with self-awareness. True humility comes when we are consumed with awareness of Another. According to Thomas Alexander Fyfe’s book Who’s Who in Dickens, Uriah Heep, one of Dickens’ characters in David Copperfield, is “a hypocritical plotter who feigned humility; a swindler and forger who was ultimately exposed.” He is fond of quoting his father, “Be umble, Uriah, says father to me, and you’ll get on.” Yet, at one point in the book he says to Master Copperfield, “Ah! But you know we’re so very umble…. And having such a knowledge of our own umbleness, we must really take care that we’re not pushed to the wall by them as isn’t umble.”

Saying you’re humble or thinking of yourself as a modest man is actually a perverted form of pride. The key to humility is to get your eyes off yourself and onto the one from whom and for whom and through whom all things are (cf. 1 Cor. 8:6; Col. 1:16-20).

The church in Philippi was experiencing some tension, and in Philippians 2, Paul tells us that one of the keys to unity in the church is being focused on the same thing.

If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others as better than yourselves. Each of you should not look only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.

Philippians 2:1-4

To avoid disharmony in the body of Christ, we must all have “the same love” – Jesus Christ. The more we love Jesus, the more we have a capacity to love one another. Then, and only then, can there exist a united sense of purpose. Then we can refrain from manipulation or self-serving actions. Then we can serve others selflessly.

These are not easy things to do. It isn’t natural for us to consider the needs of others before our own. The only way you’ll be able to do that is if you follow the model of Christ. Jesus was able to serve others without regard for receiving service in return because he was so completely secure in his identity. We see this clearly in John 13 where Jesus performs the visual parable of washing the feet of the disciples.

The Scriptures tell us that he understood three things before he assumed the role of a lowly servant and began to wash the feet of the disciples: Jesus understood where he had come from, that all things had been given to him and where his final destiny would lead Him (John 13:3). In other words, he understood his true identity, true dignity and true significance. He knew who he was, why he had come and where he was going.

Likewise, you and I, as new creations in Christ, can have the same security. We have transferred our trust from ourselves to him, and in so doing we receive the abundant life he promised us (John 10:10). We are no longer in the line of Adam; we are in the line of Christ (Rom. 5:12-21). The significance of this may escape us, but this means nothing less than that we have come forth from God (John 1:12-13; 3:6). It means that every spiritual blessing has been given to us (Eph. 1:3). It means that our eternal destiny is at home in heaven (Phil. 3:20-21).

One of the motifs of C.S. Lewis’ life was Sehnsücht, which means longing, this sense of desire that he had. I recently read a book called The Question of God by Dr. Armand Nicholi, who teaches both at the Harvard Medical School and Harvard University. He’s been teaching a course for the last 25 or 30 years on Sigmund Freud, comparing Him with C.S. Lewis in terms of God and religion. Both of the men talk about this issue of Sehnsücht, of yearning for something that we cannot seem to attain in this life.

From a biblical and theistic perspective, we understand that this longing is really something that is God-given (Eccl. 3:11). “When God wants to carry a point with his children,” Emerson said, “He plants his arguments into the instincts.” We each carry this desire, this nostalgia for heaven. It’s an instinct for a place we have not yet seen. We don’t have any memories of heaven, yet we long for it. And we realize that the great joys and pleasures of this life are only hints of home, “‘patches of godlight’ in the woods of our experience” as Lewis called them. There are little patches here and there, but they’re not meant to be confused for home. They are not the thing itself; they point beyond themselves, like signs, to the thing we long for.

As pilgrims, aliens and strangers in this world, we must realize that we long for something this world cannot provide or sustain. Once you admit that, then you will understand that the most foolish thing we can do is put all the freight of our desires upon a world that was not designed to sustain them. If you look to the world for fulfillment, it will let you down every time. There is always something that is not quite enough, and we long for more. We long for a security, a significance, a satisfaction that this world simply cannot provide.

Jesus knew this. That’s why Paul writes,

Your attitude should be the same as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death – even death on a cross!

Philippians 2:5-8

So far, it’s not a very inspirational text. But that’s just the first part. Exaltation follows the humility:

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Philippians 2:9-11

From this beautiful passage we learn three things about our Lord that model for us the essence of true humility. First, Jesus didn’t selfishly cling to the outer expression of his divinity. Instead, he took the form of a servant. Richard Foster, in his book Celebration of Discipline, writes: “More than any other single way, the grace of humility is worked in our lives through the discipline of serving.” One of Foster’s friends, the late Jamie Buckingham, took this sentiment a bit further saying, “You really know you are a true servant when you have a positive reaction toward people when they treat you like one.”

In other words, the true test of humility comes when you are treated like a servant. It is one thing to choose to serve others, but it’s another thing entirely to choose to be a servant. A servant is often to be taken for granted, overlooked, unnoticed. A servant gives up the right to be in charge of whom they serve, when they serve and how long they serve. Everything in us screams out against service like this, especially if this service is rendered in secret. Our society has trained us well in the art of assertiveness, and we fear anything that even remotely resembles passivity. The notion of being taken advantage of is abhorrent to us, and we most fear becoming like the old comic strip character, Casper Milquetoast, a walking doormat with no assurance or strength.

On the contrary, humility, biblically speaking, actually comes from disciplined strength and others-centered power. It is, in fact, the strength and understanding of one’s great dignity and identity in Christ. It is only through our willingness to serve that we may avoid manipulating people to get our needs met. Because of our new identity in Christ, we can serve and we don’t need to be noticed or rewarded here on earth. We understand that we serve one who always sees and who has promised to reward us in eternity (Eph. 6:8).

The second thing we see in this passage is that Jesus demonstrated his humility through obedience to the Father. Instead of trying to impose our will on God, we submit to God’s will for us, knowing that his agenda is better than what we would have chosen. When you trust God enough to take him at his word, you know that God’s plans for you are “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future” (Jer. 29:11).

God longs to bless and reward his people, but it is essential that we be willing to turn to him and repent of our unfaithfulness and disobedience. “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart” (Jer. 29:13, emphasis added). We serve a God who “rewards those who earnestly seek him” (Heb. 11:6). God actually enjoys bestowing benefits on those who turn to him in dependence and trust.

Third, we learn the necessity of patiently waiting for God’s timing. Jesus waited for his Father to lift him up. We don’t grab for power; we patiently wait for God to provide the increase in his time. Jesus didn’t come as a king, but as a helpless infant (Luke 2). Although he was perfectly God and perfectly human at the same time (John 1:14), he lived his life as a humble laborer. After he began his ministry, he demonstrated humble service to others in the miracles he performed, as well as in his instructions to his disciples. When the time came for him to die, he submitted to his Father’s divine will (Mark 14:36). And now, seated in power at the right hand of God, he intercedes on our behalf (Acts 5:29-32). As the perfect model for godly leadership, Jesus set the perfect example of humility.

Jesus’ Surprising Self-description

The Bible does not contain any physical descriptions of Jesus. However, there is an interesting passage where Jesus tells us what his character was like. In Matthew 11:28 Jesus says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Most people are, to some extent, weary and burdened; they carry a lot of unnecessary weight on their shoulders. This is nothing new. People have been hurried and harried since the Fall, no doubt, and far too often, religious leaders hinder, rather then help, people in their search for peace and rest.

Unlike the Pharisees and other religious teachers of his day who added so many rules to God’s Law that it had become a terrible burden (Luke 11:46), Jesus invites us to walk in peace and in rest, even in the context of turmoil and adversity, even in uncertainty. In fact, since we are completely helpless in our pursuit, Jesus offers to give his followers rest and peace (John 14:27). In placing our trust in him, we trade our incompetence for Christ’s overwhelming competence. And if he is as competent as the Bible paints him to be, then the universe is, in Dallas Willard’s words, a perfectly safe place for us to be.

Of course, this is only a comfort once we realize how little control we have. There is tremendous instability and uncertainty in this world. Most of the stress we endure comes because we don’t know the outcome of things. There are any number of things that could happen in the course of the day – most of them are completely out of our control. If we buy into only that which we see and hear, we will become weary and burdened, because the anxieties, the uncertainties, the tensions of life can impose themselves upon us and make us anxious and fretful. But Jesus invites us, instead, to take all our anxieties to him, and he says, “In exchange for your worries and troubles I will give you rest.”

But the offer of rest for our weary souls is open only to those who will come to him and learn from him: “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me” (v. 29a). In the ancient Middle-east they would train an animal by yoking it with a stronger animal. They’d yoke the two animals together, but it would be the larger of the two animals that would really carry the burden of the plowing. The other would be built up and trained so, eventually, it could take its full load. The imagery of this light yoke is that Jesus says, “Unlike the yoke of the Pharisees who want to burden you down with all sorts of excesses and dos and don’ts and regulations, I’m offering you something different. This is not loyalty to some code; this is dedication to a Person.”

He says, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart.” There aren’t many people who can say, “I am gentle and humble in heart” and get away with it! If I were to say such a thing, you’d wonder, “Who does this guy think he is?” Yet when Jesus makes this audacious claim, it has the ring of authority. “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

In Hebrews 5:8 we read that Jesus “learned obedience from what he suffered.” Christ’s humility was evident in his perfect obedience to the authority and will of his Father. His mission statements from Luke 19:10 and Mark 10:45 portray the servant nature he so clearly modeled, “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost;” and, “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Anyone can claim to be a servant, but Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, was treated as one and never complained about it. Jesus Christ, the most powerful man ever to walk on the face of the earth, was also the most humble man who ever lived. His agenda was never to promote himself, but to please his Father by loving and serving others. We are called to emulate that humility.

The Humility of Moses

If Jesus was the perfect example of humility in the New Testament, Moses personified humility in the Old Testament. In Numbers 12:3 there is a parenthetical statement that was inserted into the text, “(Now, Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth.)” Moses was a man of authority and power and charisma, but he manifested this disciplined strength through his utter willingness to be pleasing to the Father.

In Isaiah 57:15 God says, “I live in a high and holy place, but also with Him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.” Later in Isaiah 66:2, we read, “This is the one I esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at my word.” The Bible repeatedly emphasizes that God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble (Ps. 138:6; Prov. 3:34; Matt. 23:12; James 4:6; 1 Pet. 5:5). Those who are proud have an inappropriate and inflated view of themselves. They attribute their accomplishments to their own efforts and fail to acknowledge that everything they are and have comes directly from God’s hand.

One way to summarize the Bible’s message is that it is God telling us, “I am God, and you are not.” The quality of humility flows out of a proper assessment of ourselves before God. Moses was a powerful man, but he was also a humble man because he saw himself in the light of God and sought God’s honor and reputation, not his own.

When people come to grips with their desperate need for the grace and mercy of God, there are three characteristics that become evident. First, they have a teachable spirit. They understand that they are constantly under construction. When we’re young, we struggle with focus and direction and foolishness. In our middle years, we struggle with double-mindedness and entanglement. But the struggle of our older years is that we have a tendency to become unteachable. We suppose we know it all. People like that are very difficult to be around.

If anything, as the years go by, we should begin to realize how little we know and be astounded at our ignorance. It takes a certain measure of knowledge to know how little we know. That’s ironic, isn’t it? But the best authorities in any given field are the ones who know enough to know how little they know. When it suddenly becomes clear that you don’t have it all down, it can be a difficult adjustment, especially for people who have enjoyed a modicum of success as the world defines it. Still, the first quality of true humility is a teachable spirit.

The second quality we see in a humble person is a willingness to seek wise counsel. Humble people are never too proud to seek out the wisdom of others before making important decisions. The Bible advises, “Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed” (Prov. 15:22).

The third quality of humble people is that they are willing to be under authority. This is a difficult concept, especially if you’re an entrepreneur, a leader, a “self-made” man. Ultimately, we all must submit to the authority of God, but we must also yield to the authority of those he has placed us under – pastors, elders, governmental leaders. In some mysterious way, to rebel against them is to rebel against God.

Peter, as an older, wiser leader in the church writes, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety upon him because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:6-7). Anxiety builds up in all of us from time to time. When it does, we’ve taken a burden back on ourselves that we were never meant to carry. We can give it back to God and put ourselves under his mighty hand, knowing that he cares for us and will take care of recognition at the proper time. Nothing that we do for his pleasure will go unrecognized.

Solomon’s Homily on Humility

Perks and privileges usually accompany successful leadership. Many leaders enjoy being in charge, making decisions that affect the organization, delegating implementation of those decisions to others, “running the show,” having others defer to them in meetings and the like. As one gets ahead, it’s hard not to get a big head!

As a leader, King Solomon enjoyed all these perks and much more. Like few leaders before or since, he had wealth, power, wisdom and plenty of servants. Other rulers traveled long distances to listen to his wisdom, and other entrepreneurs came to marvel at his wealth. Yet from this lofty position Solomon cautioned, “It is not good…to seek one’s own honor” (Prov. 25:27). Doing so, he says, is like eating too much honey. Sweet as it is, and healthy as it is in proper amounts, too much of this good thing will make you sick – and sick of it.

Honor accompanies a job well done. If a leader is effective, he or she will get all the honor he or she can stand. But a person who has to go looking for honor has his or her hand in the wrong hive. Solomon learned that focusing on a job well done is the way to earn honor. Focusing on honor cuts into the time and energy needed to do the job well.

Most of our lives we have a hidden impact. Most of our lives, we don’t know our impact. Every so often, God will give show you your impact – through a word of encouragement, maybe a note, maybe somebody will tell you something when you’re down. Every so often, you may get a little feedback just to let you know you’re on the right course. But if he gives you too much of that, you’ll start to live for it. That’s a dangerous path to walk. Jesus asks a pointed question in John 5:44 that we would do well to wrestle with, “How can you believe if you accept praise from one another, yet make no effort to obtain the praise that comes from the only God?”

Honor comes from God, and it comes – as counter-intuitive as this seems – as the result of downward mobility. Jesus chose downward mobility, a descent from the heights of heaven to a teenager’s womb to a cattle trough to a peasant home to a dusty road to a cross to a tomb. Jesus didn’t surrender a little; he surrendered everything completely, confident that his Father would take care of the outcome. The most powerful person who ever walked on the planet calls us and says, “I served you, and now I’m asking you to serve others. A servant is not greater than his master. If I did this for you, you must do this for one another. I’ll take care of your dignity. You don’t have to take yourself so seriously, because I take you seriously.”

If a man does not understand that, he will live in constant insecurity. We all know what insecure people look like. Always searching for approval, they cannot relax. They’re driven. They never reach the mark, so there’s a perfectionism that torments them and everyone around them. Often, their self-esteem is tied to their material possessions, and it’s so important to always have something a little bit newer, a little bit better than the other guy. Because insecurity and envy often go together, they relentlessly find faults with others. Pride seeks the higher place; envy has to do with resenting others’ good fortune. An insecure person is so focused on image rather than substance that they have a persona. They have an image that they have to sustain, and our culture supports that. Proud people are defensive. They cannot handle criticism or rebuke. They cannot receive it, and, therefore, it’s hard for them to be teachable, because they always have to defend that image, that position.

Humility in the Face of Prosperity

Israel’s pride led them to disobey God’s commands, so God invested 40 years in developing their humility and obedience. God took them into the desert to show them how vulnerable they were (and how vulnerable we are). In Deuteronomy 8, we see the relationship between prosperity and humility and between difficulty and pride:

When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the Lord your God for the good land he has given you. Be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day. Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build find houses and settle down, and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery…. You may say to yourself, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me,” But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your forefathers, as it is today.

Deuteronomy 8:10-14, 17-18

Moses exhorts the people to remember, after they take the land and flourish, that everything they have has come to them as a gift from the Lord. They are to walk in humility before their God and not think they have achieved these things themselves. One of the great dangers of success is that we deceive ourselves into the arrogant belief that we ourselves have brought it about. We are like Bart Simpson who prays at the dinner table, “Dear God, we paid for all this stuff ourselves, so thanks for nothing.”

God can give wealth, and he can give poverty. He can raise you up; he can take you down. Sometimes it is the severe mercy of God to impoverish you because you were getting too cocky. He may need to take away some of your toys until you get the message.

We are all born with closed hands. Babies come into the world with their hands balled up into tiny, little fists. As we get older, we learn to hold tightly to things – handlebars and lunchboxes, bats and balls, other people’s hands. When we start out in the business world, we grab the lowest rung on the corporate ladder, and we hold on for dear life until we can clutch the next one. We clutch and scrape for whatever position or prestige we can garner. Perhaps one day we’ll find ourselves hanging on to canes and walkers or even the edge of a hospital bed. We cling tightly to life itself until we die. Then, perhaps because our focus will no longer be on ourselves and this earthly realm, we can finally relax our grip.

What a contrast between our hands and the hands of God. Throughout the Bible story God opens his hands to provide food, protection, blessing, love and support. The Psalmist writes, “You open your hand and satisfy the desires of every living thing” (Ps. 145:16). When God came to this earth in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, he taught, loved and blessed. But mostly he opened his hands and touched. He refused to clutch or cling tightly to his rights and privileges. Instead, he opened his hands and, in the most startling example of humility the world has ever known, stretched out his arms to pay for our failures.

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Our mission as God’s redeemed community is to engage the world with both evangelistic and social action. These two streams must never be separated. Unfortunately, however, much of the Christian world can be neatly divided into two separate categories: those who stress our vertical responsibility to God as individuals and those who stress our horizontal responsibilities to God’s people as a community of believers.

This has been stated in different terms: The salvation of the soul and the improvement of society; God seeking the justification of sinners and God seeking justice in and among the nations. Yet the tension remains between those who focus more on evangelism (often to the neglect of social need, including food for the hungry or freedom and justice for the oppressed) and those who focus on the opposite extreme, neglecting evangelism or seeking to reinterpret it in terms of socio-political actions. John Stott observes, “Thus, the evangelical stereotype has been to spiritualize the gospel, and deny its social implications; while the ecumenical stereotype has been to politicize it, and deny its offer of salvation to sinners. This polarization has been a disaster.”¹

Most responsible followers of Christ would agree that this cannot be an either/or proposition. Our obligations are to both pursue evangelism and work for societal change. For example, Carl F.H. Henry, in an address to the World Congress on Evangelism in 1966 stated:

Evangelical Christians have a message doubly relevant to the present social crisis…. For they know the God of justice and of justification…. Whenever Christianity has been strong in the life of a nation, it has had an interest in both law and gospel, in the state as well as the church, in jurisprudence and in evangelism.²

Socially Active Saints

Many of the great heroes of the Christian faith down through the centuries have given themselves to the care of poor, needy and helpless, particularly widows, children and orphans. Going back to the fifth and sixth centuries, it was Christians who brought legal protection to the children of the Roman Empire. Ulrich Zwingli (1484-1531) – a contemporary of Luther and Calvin – broke with the Roman Catholic church and persuaded the council of Zurich to turn several local monasteries into orphanages. George Whitefield (1714-1770) – the great evangelist of the 18^th century – devoted much of his income to the development of orphanages in colonial Georgia. William Wilberforce (1759-1833) toiled for years in the British Parliament to begin the modern movement to abolish slavery. English Missionary William Carey (1761-1834) was responsible for outlawing the centuries-old practice of burning widows in India. Later in the 1800s, Lord Shaftesbury (1801-1883), a Christian statesman, led the fight against child labor practices and fought to improve treatment of the mentally ill in Great Britain.

It is often forgotten that Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892) built at least 17 homes for elderly widows and an orphanage for hundreds of children of all races and backgrounds. Eventually, Spurgeon started and/or presided (and occasionally single-handedly funded) at least 66 ministry organizations, most of which served in the poorer parts of London. We hardly need to mention organizations like the Salvation Army, YMCA and the Red Cross. Donald Whitney rightly states,

Wherever a beachhead for the gospel of Jesus Christ has been established, medicine, education and relief for the poor have followed. Whether the need is hunger, lack of drinking water, illiteracy, sickness, homelessness or anything else that causes misery, Christians have been at the forefront of caring for the needs of the world. Christianity is a religion of concern for others.³

This is not merely a component of New Testament Christianity; it has been a part of God’s plan for his people since Old Testament times. We only have to turn to Amos 5 to hear God tell how much more important social justice is than our meticulous observance of religious ritual,

“I hate, I despise your religious feasts; I cannot stand your assemblies. Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!”

Amos 5:21-24

Judson Polling and Bill Perkins help us understand something of the context into which this was spoken:

In Amos’ time, the people of Israel were prosperous. But with that prosperity they lost their spiritual edge. God was furious with them for compromising his principles in order to make a buck. In this passage Amos tells the people to “straighten out their act” and seek good, not evil [vv. 14-15]. Being familiar with Biblical truths and failing to live by them is extremely dangerous. That’s the line Amos’s contemporaries had crossed.⁴

The leaders of ancient Israel who should have administered justice didn’t. Instead they “cast righteousness to the ground” (v. 7). The God who sees all knows what they’ve been up to. He indicts them by saying, “You oppress the righteous and take bribes and you deprive the poor of justice in the courts” (v. 12b). No wonder God says, “I despise your religious feasts.” They brought fellowship offerings, but God can have no fellowship with those who refuse to assist their fellows who are in need. God makes it very clear that if we are to love him, we must love those around us who bear his image.

The leaders of Israel failed to do this, and the glory of the Lord departed from them. They maintained their highly organized religious structure and practices, but there was no power in them for the glory had left. Because of their unrighteousness and injustice, they had the form of worship without the weight of worship.

But before judgment fell on them, God offered an opportunity for repentance and restoration. He called them to turn back to him (vv. 1-15). In order to please God, the leaders needed to exercise justice and righteousness (v. 24). The imagery in this passage is profound. In contrast to streambeds that are dry much of the year, justice should flow from the nation like a river. Just as plant and animal life flourish where there is water, so human life flourishes where there is justice and righteousness.

What was true of ancient Israel is still true today. People thrive in a setting in which fairness and justice are practiced. People need to hear the good news of God’s salvation; they also need conscientious followers of Christ who will come alongside them and help them in times of great need. These are the two activities you have the opportunity to engage in here that you will not have in heaven: sharing the gospel and serving people in need.

The God of Justice

In all times, places and cultures, humans have universally recognized the virtue of justice and the treacherous nature of injustice. From a biblical standpoint, the character of God is the absolute standard for justice, and our awareness of this moral standard is part of our having been created in the image of God. According to the prophet Isaiah, when God shows compassion and justice, he is simply being himself: “Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him!” (Isaiah 30:18).

God’s fervor for justice is a component of his moral perfection, which longs for what is best for his creatures. Similarly, God’s loathing for injustice is a component of his opposition to the destructive effects of unrighteousness. Sin, which can be defined as anything contrary to the character of God, always leads to the pain and degradation of injustice toward others. This is why God hates sin so much. God is not a cosmic killjoy; he merely hates that which causes pain, ruin and discrimination among his children. Stott suggests that, at its core, “sin is a form of selfish revolt against God’s authority [and] our neighbour’s welfare.”⁵ God loathes sin because it estranges us from him and leads us to the abuse of power and desire to control others.

In contrast, righteousness, which may be identified as conformity to God’s character, is exhibited in attitudes and actions of fairness, integrity, truthfulness and honesty toward others. Scripture consistently associates sin with self-centeredness, while justice and righteousness are expressions of other-centeredness. People who are overly preoccupied with themselves are injurious to their world and infect the planet with damage and hurt. But those who choose to concern themselves with the needs of others bring the fragrant aroma of Christ to a smelly world in desperate need of some serious aromatherapy.

God’s passion for justice is evident from Genesis through Revelation. The poets and prophets in particular extolled this divine attribute:

The Lord loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of his unfailing love.

Psalm 33:5

Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne; love and faithfulness go before you.

Psalm 89:14

The works of his hands are faithful and just; all his precepts are trustworthy.

Psalm 111:7

Many seek an audience with a ruler, but it is from the Lord that man gets justice.

Proverbs 29:26

“For I, the Lord, love justice; I hate robbery and iniquity.”

Isaiah 61:8

Justice was also a prominent concern of Jesus, conspicuous in the manner in which he transcended social, racial and economic barriers in his ministry.

Take, for example, his parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-27). Jewish people in Jesus’ day hated Samaritans and justified their prejudice with religious arguments. Those who told ethnic jokes about their despised “neighbors” must have been horrified to hear Jesus making a Samaritan the hero of this story. This was roughly the equivalent of one of us telling a story about a Good Lesbian or a Good Iraqi. Blinded by our own agendas, we fail to see that God’s justice is not just for his chosen people; God wants justice and righteousness for all.

In Jesus’ story of the Good Samaritan, we encounter three distinct philosophies of life. The thieves selfishly say, “What’s yours is mine.” The clergymen, with dreadful justification, say, “What’s mine is mine.” The despised Samaritan surprisingly says, “What’s mine is yours.” He alone is worthy of being called “good,” because he alone models the character and nature of God. It’s not just a matter of what he does, but what he is.

And before we move on from this story, we may be somewhat surprised that Jesus would portray “men of the cloth” in such a heartless way. Sadly, it is often the case that those who claim to be men and women of God are the worst offenders of justice and righteousness.

Two men decided to try an experiment by recreating this parable on a seminary campus. In their study, 40 seminary students were asked to give a talk on the topic of vocational careers of seminarians. They were sent to a nearby building to record their talks. On the way a “victim” was planted to see how these students would react: 24 of the students (60%) walked past the victim, some of them even stepped right over him to get to the recording studio.⁶

Caring for God by Caring for Others

What do you want more than anything else? If your honest answer relates to the area of self (e.g., power, wealth, fame), it will be impossible for you to be a person who strives for justice. In its fullest sense, the quest for true justice is a by-product of the pursuit of God over all other things. The oft-neglected Old Testament prophet Zechariah gives us a portrait of how true justice is expressed. The Jews who had returned to Israel after their exile in Babylon for 70 years wanted to know whether they should continue their practice of fasting and mourning during the fifth and seventh months.

The answer God sent through Zechariah was not at all what they might have expected. Their fasting (or feasting), he said, was not really for the Lord but for themselves, and their religious activity had no spiritual value because they were not accompanied by a concern for the needs of others. The prophetic oracle went on to say that it was for this very reason that their fathers had been carried into captivity:

And the word of the Lord came again to Zechariah: “This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor. In your hearts do not think evil of each other.’

“But they stubbornly refused to pay attention; stubbornly they turned their backs and stopped up their ears. They made their hearts as hard as flint and would not listen to the law or to the words that the Lord Almighty had sent by his Spirit through the earlier prophets. So the Lord Almighty was very angry.

“‘When I called, they did not listen; so when they called, I would not listen,’ says the Lord Almighty. ‘I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations, where they were strangers. The land was left so desolate behind them that no one could come or go. This is how they made the pleasant land desolate.’”

Zechariah 7:8-14

In other words, God was saying that religious observances are of little value if the community has no concern for social justice. Before the exile the prophet Isaiah had dealt with the same issue of fasting and justice. Speaking to the covenant community of Judah, Isaiah had argued that true fasting should not merely be a matter of personal denial but also of social concern: “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?” (Isaiah 58:6).

When true justice is administered, it is expressed in acts of mercy and compassion, particularly for those who are destitute (widows, orphans, aliens and the poor). Real justice, then, involves the application of power and influence to other-centered concerns. Such genuine justice flows out of a Christlike attitude of serving others: “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others” (Philippians 2:3-4).

What is Good?

Leadership is a complex issue. Add the commitment to do it well, to lead in a way that is pleasing to God, and complications increase. Even a brief look at one or two books on the subject of ethics raises the levels of guilt and confusion. Oddly enough, most seminars or books on the subject of ethics and morality refuse to acknowledge that the God of the Bible is the only basis for such behavior. When asked what is the foundation for determining what’s right and true and good, most “authorities” can only reply with some variation of the old saw, “Just look within.” That can’t be right, because any biblically informed person can easily tell you what Jesus taught in Mark 7,

“For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man ‘unclean.’”

Mark 7:21-23

There must be some external point of reference, and this external point of reference had better be absolute. Otherwise, we are adrift in a sea of subjectivity. Frankly, a world with no absolutes would be a scary place. Thankfully, the Bible tells us that there is such an absolute standard; it’s found in the unchanging character of the living God. He alone is the foundation of true justice and beauty and goodness.

Micah 6:8 cuts to the heart of the issue, offering us a simple key to leading justly. Micah asked, “What is good? What does the Lord require?” His next admonition sounds remarkably like Jesus as he expounded the Golden Rule: Behave justly and mercifully toward other people, and walk humbly before God. It sounds like a very simple thing to do, but often the most profound things are easy to understand and extremely difficult to apply.

Everyone should act with justice and mercy, but the stakes go up when leaders are involved. Leaders decide whether customers will receive what they pay for, whether stockholders will realize a fair return on investment. Leaders decide on promotions, transfers, hirings and firings. Leaders determine the direction their followers must go. It would be dangerous and unfair to oversimplify the morass of ethical confusion surrounding these (and other) issues, but God enjoins us to think about what’s fair, just, right. Think about what will involve the least amount of pain for people over whose lives you hold power.

The only way to accomplish this monumental task is to maintain an attitude of humility. Leaders who know how to “walk humbly with [their] God,” acknowledge their own human foibles and are apt to lead humanely. Humility is merely an understanding of our profound need and desperate condition. Humility recognizes that, apart from the grace of God, we would be ruined. Those who cry out for God to be fair, just and merciful to them are more apt to grant to others what they know they themselves need from God.

Stewardship and Justice

Justice isn’t carried out only in a court of law. Leaders need to use their resources in an equitable way. How is that accomplished? In Nehemiah 5:1-19, Nehemiah, a man whose name is practically synonymous with godly leadership principles, advised the ancient Israelites how they could go about practicing justice.

The Jewish exiles, as they were returning, were actually selling their sons and daughters into slavery (v. 5). They were violating basic human decency, exacting usury on their own countrymen (v. 7). Nehemiah was outraged at their behavior – and justifiably so. His response was to call together a large meeting and deal with the problem, saying, “What you are doing is not right. Shouldn’t you walk in the fear of our God to avoid the reproach of our Gentile enemies?” (Nehemiah 5:9). God had built into Israel’s laws a means for equitable distribution of resources (Leviticus 25). He had stipulated that the land should be evenly distributed among the people, “because the land is mine and you are but aliens and my tenants” (Leviticus 25:23). Israel’s prophets reminded the people that hoarding resources while others suffer is a sin against God.

Like the many ancient civilizations, the Hebrews of the Old Testament attached huge significance to their land. However, unlike most pagan nations, this attachment wasn’t based on the fact that their ancestors were buried there. Nor did they view themselves as landowners with absolute property rights. The land was sacred because it was God’s land. Their possession of the land was in a qualified sense – really it was owned by God and they were merely stewards.

Pieces of land may be sold and redistributed as need arose, but God wisely established a year of Jubilee. Every 50^th year, the pieces of property would revert back to the family who originally owned them. The year of Jubilee was a restart – a do-over. It was like an ancient version of the board game Monopoly. When we play the game, the object is to take the same amount of money everyone else has ($1,700) and use it to accumulate more money, property and wealth. But at the end of the game, no matter who wins, everything goes back in the box. It would be supremely foolish to get too attached to Boardwalk or Park Place, since the next time the game is played, they will probably belong to someone else. Play the game, have fun, but hold on loosely to those game pieces. When we begin again, we’ll all be back to our base of $1,700.

This is what happens in the year of Jubilee – everyone goes back to square one. This was built into the calendar of Israel. God even placed reminders throughout their daily routines. Every seven days, call a timeout. Every seven years, let the fields rest. Stop doing so much and trust God. But they couldn’t even muster enough trust to obey this sabbatical year. Interestingly enough, they refused to honor this sabbatical year for five centuries – that’s 70 sabbatical years they skipped. And how long did they spend in Babylonian exile? You guessed it: 70 years! God saw to it that the land enjoyed its 70 years of rest after all. The land wasn’t theirs to do with as they saw fit; the land belonged to God.

John Perkins, in his book With Justice for All, writes: “That truth – that we are not owners, but stewards – demands today, as then, an equitable distribution of the world’s resources…. The earth and its resources do not belong to us at all, but to God.” Perkins assures the reader that he is not “talking about taking all the money from the rich and giving it to the poor. That wouldn’t help a bit!” Instead, Perkins asserts, “The poor need something more than handouts. They need the means to build a better life for themselves. We must bring into the poor community the basic education the people need…. We must teach them the vocational and management skills required to start community-based economic enterprises.”⁷

Both Nehemiah and Moses required the people to redistribute resources. Neither advocated charity or handouts. Both urged those who controlled the resources to release them to those who had no means to take care of themselves. Justice is not served by perpetuating dependency but by equipping the dependent to, under God’s good hand, take care of their own needs.

Demonstrating Justice as God’s People

Abraham Herschel wrote, “Justice is scarce, injustice exceedingly common.”⁸ There are more people who ignore the poor and oppress the weak than who show concern for them. While we seek to do the right thing, it is much easier to do the wrong thing. Justice is uncommon and uncommonly hard.

Herschel goes on to remind us that most Americans associate justice with the blindfolded woman holding a scale. She often has a sword in hand. The image suggests that each person should get their fair share, that the scales should be balanced. The sword represents the power of the state to enforce such equality.

Such an image never appears in Scripture. As Christian leaders we are not guided by this sword-wielding, scale-holding woman. Rather the picture in Scripture is that of an ever-flowing river. To return to Amos, the God-approved image is a river, a never-failing stream. In God’s dream for the world, his concern is that the poor not just have enough, but that the rivers of justice flow down continually, that his people make righteousness toward rich and poor as endless as a mighty stream.

Our duty is to call the world to holiness and justice under the reign of God. Certainly, evangelism is a crucial part of this task. However, in addition to this, God calls us to participate in creating a better world, a world more congenial to all of his creatures. To serve people genuinely, we not only engage in selfless care for them but must also call them – along with all of their institutions – to holiness as a way of life. Such holiness, according to Leviticus 19, involves care for the poor and strangers, honesty, consideration of the handicapped and justice in all of the institutions of society. Injustice, unfairness, greed, selfishness, abuse of power and dehumanizing activities are all enemies of God and thus enemies of God’s people. We must not abandon the world to live in our sheltered little forts, but we must take the battle for righteousness to a morally and spiritually impoverished world.

Without question, this is a difficult and complex issue. What tactics should we use to bring about a world that more closely reflects God’s desires? Persuasion? Politics? Civil disobedience? Revolution? Although almost everyone would agree that persuasion is appropriate, there is wide divergence on whether or not political involvement and civil disobedience are appropriate in a Christian’s life. These will ultimately have to be left up to the consciences of individuals. But our proclamation of justice and righteousness and holiness only has credibility when it is demonstrated in our lives.

Our mission is to model transcendent living to the world. We do this not by escaping from the world but by living in it, by demonstrating a love beyond the human, by calling for holiness anchored in the very nature of God, by proclaiming the need for divine grace without which every cultural and religious achievement comes to naught. When we faithfully execute this mission, we display the transcendent realities of the Spirit. We do not denigrate the world and culture because they are passing away, for this world is the arena of God’s glory. Rather, we elevate every task in the world as an offering to the One who is All in All.

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¹ John R.W. Stott, The Contemporary Christian (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1992), p. 338.

² Carl F.H. Henry, Evangelicals at the Brink of Crisis (Dallas: Word Books, 1967), pp. 71-72.

³ Donald S. Whitney, Ten Questions to Diagnose Your Spiritual Health (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2001), pp. 75-76.

⁴ Judson Polling and Bill Perkins, The Journey (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), p. 1195.

⁵ Stott, Contemporary Christian, p. 41.

⁶ Darley, J.M., & Bateson, C.D. “‘From Jerusalem to Jericho’: A Study of Situational Variables in Helping Behaviour,” Journal of Psychology and Theology 27 (1973): 100-108.

⁷ John Perkins, With Justice for All (Ventura, CA: Regal Books, 1982), pp. 153-156.

⁸ Abraham J. Herschel, The Prophets, Vol. 1 (New York: Harper & Row, 1962), p. 204.

Timothy stands out in Scripture as a stereotypical misfit for a leadership position. From what we know about him, he was timid, a bit sickly and perhaps reticent to do the work he’d been called to do. But when Paul wrote to this young man, his letters reflected the heart of a mentor who perceived his protégé’s leadership potential despite the younger man’s naturally timid disposition (2 Timothy 1:7).

Throughout his ministry with Paul, Timothy proved his mettle. Paul regarded him as “my true son in the faith” (1 Timothy 1:2) and “my son whom I love, who is faithful in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 4:17). This young man overcame his natural limitations to become one of the early church’s most significant leaders. His leadership character (Philippians 2:19-22) far outweighed the limitations of his physical presence.

Titus, like Timothy, was an associate of the apostle Paul’s. Titus, like Timothy, was identified by Paul as “my true son” in the faith (Titus 1:4). Titus, unlike Timothy, was a go-getter, a passionate leader, one who was eager to take on a tough assignment.

What was true for Timothy and Titus is still true today. Character and hard work are essential for anyone who wants to lead. When God looks for leaders, he doesn’t necessarily look for the tallest, best looking, most articulate or most charismatic among us. Paul told his two young associates to closely examine those who aspired to leadership. He required that such candidates pass the test of character.

Now the overseer must be above reproach, the husband of but one wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him with proper respect. (If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God’s church?) He must not be a recent convert, or he may become conceited and fall under the same judgment as the devil. He must also have a good reputation with outsiders, so that he will not fall into disgrace and into the devil’s trap.

Deacons, likewise, are to be men worthy of respect, sincere, not indulging in much wine, and not pursuing dishonest gain. They must keep hold of the deep truths of the faith with a clear conscience. They must first be tested; and then if there is nothing against them, let them serve as deacons.

In the same way, their wives are to be women worthy of respect, not malicious talkers but temperate and trustworthy in everything.

A deacon must be the husband of but one wife and must manage his children and his household well.

1 Timothy 3:2-12

Before stepping into a leadership role ourselves, or elevating others to leadership positions, we need to do some testing to see how well we or they measure up to the qualifications God has for leaders. While the traits identified by Paul refer specifically to leaders in the church, any leader who possesses them would have the kind of leadership character of which God approves.

The list of qualifications Paul sends to Titus is similar:

An elder must be blameless, the husband of but one wife, a man whose children believe and are not open to the charge of being wild and disobedient. Since an overseer is entrusted with God’s work, he must be blameless – not overbearing, not quick-tempered, not given to drunkenness, not violent, not pursuing dishonest gain. Rather, he must be hospitable, one who loves what is good, who is self-controlled, upright, holy and disciplined. He must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it.

Titus 1:6-9

Notice that Paul is focused more on qualities of the heart than abilities. Skill-sets are important, but, ultimately, who you are is more fundamentally important than what you do. Of course, what we do is important, but our behavior ought to flow out of who we are. Rather than being a reservoir, we ought to be a river. We draw our life from Christ and allow his life to flow through us on an ongoing basis.

The summary statements for each of the lists above say, “the overseer must be above reproach” (1 Timothy 3:2) or the “elder must be blameless” (Titus 1:6). Leaders in the church are to have no moral or behavioral handles that others can grab onto and say, “This disqualifies this person from leadership.” A careful examination of the leader’s qualifications reveals someone who has his or her private (family) and public life in balance. This person exercises moderation and humility while maintaining a good reputation with those outside the church.

One more thing. Paul believed those who enter into the initial leadership role (deacon) should “first be tested.” (1 Timothy 3:10). The time to discover if someone can lead isn’t after they’ve assumed the role, but before. That’s still the best policy today. This level of character takes time to develop. It takes years to develop a good reputation. While nobody perfectly measures up to the leadership qualifications in these passages, we should all strive to achieve them.

Take Me to Your Leader

Who in Scripture best displays the qualities of true leadership? We might look to people such as Moses, David, Nehemiah or Paul and overlook the greatest Leader of all – God himself. From a biblical point of view, true leadership and authority are derived from the hand of God. Let’s turn to Isaiah 40 to look at God as the Sovereign Leader of all creation. As the unchanging absolute standard for truth, beauty and goodness, we understand that the immutability of God, that unchanging nature of God is such that there are no perfections that he lacks. “God is light; in him there is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5). There is nothing that is ugly or impure or dishonorable in him.

So, when we look at Isaiah 40, we find a text that provides comfort for the people of God. After we read about the judgment and condemnation that will come as a result of Israel’s sin, as a result of Judah’s rebellion, we find a word of consolation, that God himself will provide a hope and a future for them.

See, the Sovereign Lord comes with power, and his arm rules for him. See, his reward is with him, and his recompense accompanies him. He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.

Isaiah 40:10-11

The passage begins with a picture of one side of God’s character, his authority and his sovereign power. But the next verse shifts to a different aspect, a view of his care and tenderness. God is both supremely powerful and supremely compassionate. He has tremendous authority and command on one hand, but he has incredible tenderness and affection on the other hand. These are marks of divine authority and leadership.

God is not a divine despot but a gracious and merciful Father who nurtures, guides and protects his people as a good shepherd cares for his flock. Because of his greatness and goodness, we do well to trust him and willingly surrender the control of our lives to him.

In comparing himself to a shepherd in John 10:11-18, Jesus evoked an image that was familiar to his audience and reminiscent of Isaiah’s description of the Sovereign Lord. Jesus is the ultimate example of servant leadership. He led his followers by serving them.

Isaiah continues and asks a series of questions to illustrate God’s tremendous power:

Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, or with the breadth of his hand marked off the heaven? Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket, or weighed the mountains on the scales and the hills in a balance? Who has understood the mind of the Lord, or instructed him as his counselor? Whom did the Lord consult to enlighten him, and who taught him the right way? Who was it that taught him knowledge or showed him the path of understanding?

Surely the nations are like a drop in a bucket; they are regarded as dust on the scales; he weighs the islands as though they were fine dust.

Isaiah 40:12-15

Isaiah goes on to talk about how God orders the cosmos, the sun, the moon and the stars, the constellations. He calls all the stars by name, which is impressive, since there are approximately 200 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy alone. Yet God knows them all by name and holds them in their courses. He rules all things with authority.

The question we must ask ourselves is this: “If he can do that, can he also be trusted to take care of your life as well?” The answer is, “Of course!” God is incomparable; he has no needs. He is intimately acquainted with his created order and sustains it in ways we cannot imagine. God requires no counselor, and he is in complete control. “He brings princes to naught and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing” (v. 23).

As Daniel observed, “[W]isdom and power are his. He changes times and seasons; he sets up kings and deposes them” (Daniel 2:20-21). After a lengthy lesson, the Babylonian ruler, Nebuchadnezzar, discovered the same thing:

His dominion is an eternal dominion; his kingdom endures from generation to generation. All the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing. He does as he pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back his hand or say to him: “What have you done?”

Daniel 4:34-35

There is no authority to which God is accountable, nothing other than his own word to which he must be judged or held responsible. He himself is the unchanging authority for all things. He rules history. He rules nations. He does things for his own purposes and pleasure.

Frankly, we can’t understand many of the things he does. How is it, for example, he allowed Hitler to continue as long as he did? We know of tyranny and horrors and brutality in the last century that seem to be unparalleled in terms of cruelty and the numbers of people who have been assassinated, murdered, persecuted. One wonders how God can allow this to happen. And yet the Scriptures assure us that when we see him we will know fully as we are fully known (1 Corinthians 13:12). This is not to say that we will become omniscient like God is, but we will see that he has done all things well, and he has created and crafted a world where this amazing combination of human responsibility and freedom can somehow co-exist with his divine sovereignty.

God rules over all, and there is a deep and profound mystery that we have to hold in tension, because we simply cannot sort it all out. But, should I expect to understand the mind of God? Can I really plumb the mysteries of the trinity or of the dual nature of the God-man? Can I understand these mysteries? God transcends us all, but the startling thing is that he calls us all to become like him.

This is an intriguing issue of leadership. The qualifications of leaders, as they are laid out in the Bible, are nothing more than what God expects out of everyone who claims to be a follower of Christ. Biblical leadership is built on the foundation of being the person God expects every one of his children to be. Leaders are simply those men and women who are a little further along in the process of spiritual living than the rest of us. Their character, reputation and life skills are seen as exemplary. They live out what the rest of us are aiming for.

That’s the Next King?!

Often this is evident to all. Sometimes, however, the leaders God raises up are not the same people that our world system would elevate to positions of leadership. A classic case in point is found in 1 Samuel 16. At this point in the Bible story, Israel has a king, but Saul has become a great disappointment. He started well enough but succumbed to folly and arrogance. He is no longer God’s man because he chooses to walk in disobedience and rebellion. So Samuel is sent to anoint a new king:

The Lord said to Samuel, “How long will you mourn for Saul, since I have rejected him as king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil and be on your way; I am sending you to Jesse of Bethlehem. I have chosen one of his sons to be king.”

But Samuel said, “How can I go? Saul will hear about it and kill me.”

The Lord said, “Take a heifer with you and say, ‘I have come to sacrifice to the Lord.’ Invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show you what to do. You are to anoint for me the one I indicate.”

Samuel did what the Lord said. When he arrived at Bethlehem, the elders of the town trembled when they met him. They asked, “Do you come in peace?”

Samuel replied, “Yes, in peace; I have come to sacrifice to the Lord. Consecrate yourselves and come to the sacrifice with me.” Then he consecrated Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice.

When they arrived, Samuel saw Eliab and thought, “Surely the Lord’s anointed stands here before the Lord.”

But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

1 Samuel 16:1-7

Even the prophet Samuel was fooled. When he looked at Jesse’s oldest son Eliab, he naturally assumed that God must have chosen this noble and sturdy young man to be the Lord’s anointed leader. But the Lord makes it clear in this passage that the people he chooses to do great things for him are called on the basis of inward character, not on the basis of outward impressiveness. In fact, the things that impress us aren’t impressive to God. The thing that God looks for is the quality of the heart.

We find later in the same story that Jesse, David’s father, didn’t even include David in the line-up of his sons (vv. 8-11). He was an afterthought to Jesse. But qualification for leadership is not measured by inches or pounds or degrees or background. What does God look for? Why is it that when Jesse and Samuel were looking at Eliab, God was looking at David? God’s qualifications for leadership are evident in verse 7: “Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

Why is the condition of a person’s heart such a big deal? Don’t we often hear about the difference between a leader’s private life and their ability to perform well on the job? All we have to do is look one generation removed from David to see the tragedy that awaits a leader whose heart is not right before God. In 1 Kings 3:6, Solomon is engaged in a conversation with the Lord. Solomon says, “You have shown great kindness to your servant, my father David, because he was faithful to you and righteous and upright in heart. You have continued this great kindness to him and have given him a son to sit on his throne this very day.” Clearly Solomon began his reign well, but he was half-hearted. Just a few chapters later we read:

As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father had been…. So Solomon did evil in the eyes of the Lord; he did not follow the Lord completely, as David his father had done…. So the Lord said to Solomon, “Since this is your attitude and you have not kept my covenant and my decrees, which I commanded you, I will most certainly tear the kingdom away from you and give it to one of your subordinates.

1 Kings 11:4, 6

Whatever else qualifies people for leadership, no one is qualified for greatness – by God’s standard – until his or her heart is ready. The leader’s prayer and focus of effort must center here. Skills, intelligence and hard work are all a part of the package, but God reminds us that, in the final analysis, one thing makes the difference. God looks at the leader’s heart.

David had a whole heart for God. In spite of the fact that he often succumbed to infidelity and foolishness, he always returned to God. He continually pursued God. Being described as a man after God’s own heart does not have to mean that David pursued God’s heart (though, in fact, he did). Perhaps it means that David’s heart was like God’s. That was the best part of David’s heart, its unwillingness to give up on God. Lynn Anderson, in his book The Shepherd’s Song, writes:

Because he was a man after God’s own heart, David never gave up on his relationship with God. This is precisely what is godlike about David’s heart. God did not give up on His relationship with David, either. Nor does He give up on us. No matter where we are, or what we have done, or where things appear to be headed at this point in life, He is calling us on. All we have to do is follow.¹

We have said before that in the end, you become what your desires make you. This is why Jesus stresses the importance of the pure heart and the clear eye (Matthew 5:8; 7:5). Kierkegaard saw double-mindedness as the essential disease of the human heart. His book Purity of Heart Is to Will One Thing is a meditation on the statement from James: “Purify your hearts, you double-minded” (James 4:8). The disease diagnosed by Kierkegaard is the failure to have a life that is focused on one thing. It is the failure to make an ultimate commitment to what Kierkegaard calls “the Good” – what Jesus spoke of as “seeking first the kingdom of God” (Matthew 6:33).

When you have a divided heart, you have divided loyalties. You become like the man James describes: “like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind” (James 1:6). Jesus tells a story about a man who went out to sow seeds. Some of the seeds, you’ll remember, fell among the thorns and were choked out by “the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things” (Mark 4:19).

A life characterized by ambivalence is painful. We are pushed and pulled in many directions, longing for intimacy with God and running from it at the same time. We want to be generous but find ourselves hoarding and covetous. We try to be servants, but our service is often driven by arrogance and a desire to be recognized. It is a life expressed in Augustine’s famous request, when he both longed for purity and innocence and yet was unready to change his lifestyle and feared losing pleasure: “Lord, give me chastity, but not yet.” Even the apostle Paul faced this dilemma: “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do” (Romans 7:15). The capacity of the human heart for duplicity is staggering.

And yet it is possible, with the help of the Holy Spirit, to achieve a heart united in its passion for God. Clifford Williams writes:

We possess singleness when we are not pulled in opposite directions and when we act without wanting something further for ourselves. Our inner drives do not conflict; they are aimed in one direction. The motives we appear to have are the ones we really have. Our inner focus is unified and our public posture corresponds with it. We are not, in short, divided.²

We can hear the echo of this sentiment in a piece of advice Jesus gave to a friend named Martha. She was “distracted by all the preparations that had to be made” and resented her sister, Mary, who had chosen to just sit in the presence of Jesus. “Martha, Martha…you are worried about many things, but only one thing is needed” (cf. Luke 10:38-42). If we get caught up in seeking the finite rather than seeking the one for whom we were made and meant to pursue, the result will always be misery. “You have made us for yourself,” Augustine said, “and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you.”

The Positive and Negative Aspects of Leadership

In a utilitarian society such as ours, people frequently want to quantify things. How many good deeds does it take to convince us that we (or others) are qualified for leadership? The apostle Peter would say, “That’s the wrong question to ask.” So what’s the right question? Peter tells us in 1 Peter 2:1-3, “Rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.”

Here Peter provides a standard for leadership qualifications. In verse 1, he lists things to weed out of our lives. That’s an essential list. When evaluating a leader, we need to be aware of what things should scare us – what we don’t want. But we also need to identify what we do want. What are the qualifications we examine when we hire or educate or evaluate leaders?

Peter didn’t give us that list. Instead, he provided a standard and a process. Peter said, “get rid of the negative” (v. 1). Stop practicing malice, deceit and the like. Your heart must be emptied of these things so it can, in turn, be filled with the things of God. In other words, if the vessel is full, God cannot fill it with himself. He must determine the content of my life, which is a dangerous and frightening concept. It requires true repentance, not just a turning away from my own direction but also a release of that to which I cling so tightly. I must let go of my own agenda in order for God to fill me with what he desires for me. Inviting him to do this is a wrenching process, and it’s not a one-time event. It has to happen regularly, because the truth is, I let go of things only to pick them back up again. There is a consistent pattern called the law of undulation. We go through peaks and valleys; we take two steps forward and one step back.

So, there is a negative aspect to this: I must rid myself of certain things. On the other hand, there is a positive aspect. Like a baby craves his or her mother’s milk, so I must crave pure spiritual milk. More than following a laundry list of good deeds or qualities, the leader must be passionate about his or her spiritual health.

The leader qualifies on the positive side of the equation by showing a passion for spiritual goodness. He or she isn’t identified so much by a checklist of good deeds as by a quality of goodness. Peter also emphasizes the need for growth (v. 2).

Leaders aren’t qualified merely because they practice good deeds (although they must do that). They’re qualified by possessing a passion and a craving for high spiritual qualities and exhibiting a consistent pattern of growth in those qualities. Often, this growth will occur in spurts followed by long plateaus. Frequently, we will find ourselves struggling with weights we thought we had laid aside long ago. But if the focus of our hearts is to return to God, we can say honestly that we are growing in the things of God.

To Do or To Be? That is the Real Question

Leaders do need to cultivate both skills and qualities. Sid Buzzell helps us understand the difference between the two and why we should never neglect the development of personal character. He suggests that as we read the list of nine “fruits” God’s Spirit produces in a life (Galatians 5:22-23), we can draw a line down the center of a page and list skills on one side and qualities on the other: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such there is no law.” If we were to do the same experiment with 1 Timothy 3:1-12 or Titus 1:6-9, we would find similar results. The “do” list is very short and the “be” list is very long in comparison.

Leaders, under God’s good hand, must never stop cultivating leadership qualities. In fact, regardless of how well a person masters any skill, the choice of whether to use that skill appropriately is a character issue more than a skill issue. I may, for instance, develop great listening skills because I know listening is important to effective leadership. But unless I address my impatience and arrogance, I won’t listen. In this case I have the qualifying skill, but I don’t use it because I don’t have the more important character qualification. I haven’t become others-centered.

Paul, when listing what Timothy and Titus should look for in leaders, said a leader is qualified by character more than by skill. Leaders, in their personal development and in leadership education, need to develop skills. But they cannot, under any circumstances, neglect the more important focus on life qualities (1 Timothy 3; Titus 1) or the essential relationship with God’s Spirit that is the wellspring of those qualities (Galatians 5).³

All leadership relates to ministry. There is a false dichotomy that causes people to believe that business leaders should be different from ministry leaders. But from a biblical perspective, there is no distinction between the sacred and the secular. Rather, we are to view life holistically. This is the only way we can live an integrated life, where our beliefs and our behaviors align and every area of life is brought under the lordship of Christ.

So, the mindset that says, “I’m not a minister; I’m a business leader” is opposed to Scripture. Ministry is not something that is reserved for professional clergy, nor is it something that only happens on certain days of the week. All those who are called to follow Jesus Christ are called to minister to others. These ministry opportunities usually come in unexpected ways at unexpected times, but they are always around us – even in the business arena. If the Spirit of God is living in you, then you are enough to minister to others. If your heart is open and receptive to the Spirit’s leading, then you will find yourself being used to further God’s kingdom purposes.

Your ministry may seem small and insignificant at first, but this is often how God begins. Through the prophet Zechariah, he tells us not to “despise the day of small things” (Zechariah 4:10). He tells us in the same chapter that things that really matter get accomplished “not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit” (v. 6). Bethlehem was a small little backwater town, and yet it became the birthplace of the Savior. David was the youngest son of a poor family, yet he became the greatest king in the history of Israel. Moses had a speech impediment. Paul wasn’t very impressive as a public speaker. But God has a way of taking small things, seemingly insignificant people and turning them into leaders who forcefully advance his kingdom.

It’s not a question of size or skills; it’s a question of fidelity. And the level of our fidelity is largely determined by the degree of our trust. Do we really believe that God can take something small and insignificant and turn it into something of great value and beauty? If we believe that little is much when it’s placed in the hands of Jesus, then we will freely offer him our meager gifts, expecting him to expand them and empower them. We will no longer be satisfied to be spectators; we will become participants in this grand adventure that is life between the advents. We will look for ministry opportunities on this day and each day and welcome our God-given significance. We will seek ways to sharpen and hone our God-given gifts.

God’s work will be done regardless, but if we don’t get involved, we will miss out. God’s work will be done without us. He has invited us to participate with him in his work; that is completely amazing. Mother Teresa was frequently asked, “How can you possibly feel that you are successful? Look at the number of people that you cannot minister to in the streets of Calcutta.” She would reply, “God doesn’t require us to succeed; he only requires that you try.” Other times she would say, “I do not pray for success; I ask for faithfulness.”

Mother Teresa knew that to measure her success in numbers was folly. Success has more to do with being faithful with the things God has placed before you than it has to do with converting the great masses. Most effective ministry is done one person at a time. There’s nothing wrong with being a little idealistic and wanting to change the world, but the world is changed slowly, gradually, one person at a time.

The Messiness of Ministry

Ministry is messy. Mess is an integral part of ministry, because ministry has to do with people and people are messed up. Our perfect model of ministry is none other than Jesus himself, and his ministry was messy. He touched lepers. He wept with grieving families. He hung out with the lowly: children, gentiles, tax collectors, hookers, even gentiles. Ministry is, ultimately, about Jesus living in you and through you. Ministry is being his hands and feet, sacrificially serving others today as he did 2,000 years ago.

Nothing we will be called to do in service to others will be as messy as what Christ did on our behalf. He will never call us do to something for others that he hasn’t done, to a far greater extent, for us. Recognizing this changes our perspective.

When a person decides to take seriously the challenge to be an ambassador for Christ, to develop a mindset of ministry, he takes one of two approaches. Either he tries to learn and impart skills, or he focuses on allowing the Spirit of Christ to change his thinking and character. Only the latter approach will allow him to serve from a Christlike spirit of humility and selflessness. Yet how few seminaries concentrate on development of character even half as much as they concentrate on development of skills or knowledge? Ministry should flow out of who we are. Ministry must come out of our relationship with Christ as we respond to God’s invitation to join him in what he is doing.

A true ministry mindset understands how dispensable we are, and that it’s only because of God’s grace that we are invited to join him in his work. Realizing that the work is his allows us to take great risks. As he calls us to step out in faith, esteeming his agenda above our own, we can respond like children jumping into the arms of a Father who has promised not to drop us, will not drop us, cannot, in fact, drop us.

This kind of adventure is truly rewarding. It’s not always fun. It’s certainly not convenient. But it is the only sure path to contentment and joy. To play a part in altering another person’s eternal destiny…can anything compare to that kind of fulfillment? It causes a sense of enormous gratitude to well up inside our otherwise miserly hearts.

I often ask myself the question, “What would I like to say to God the night before I die?” Think about that for a moment. If you knew you were going to die tomorrow morning, what would you like to say to God tonight? We have a record of such an event in the Gospel of John. The night before he would hang on a cross to pay for the sins of the world, Jesus says to his Father, “I have finished the work that you gave me to do” (John 17:4). I pray that I have the fidelity to finish the work God has given me to do, that my investments don’t die with me, that the things I devoted myself to live on after I’m gone.

Ministry requires discipline. But we must be careful about the motivation behind practicing the disciplines. Doing the disciplines as ends in themselves results in death in the long-run. Dallas Willard wrote, “Spirituality wrongly understood or pursued is a major source of human misery and rebellion against God.”⁴ Reading the Bible and praying and going to church won’t help you much if you’re just doing them to do them. But if you’re showing up to meet with God, that’s another matter. Disciplines may be more a matter of choice than feeling. So part of discipline is to show up when you don’t feel like it. However, spiritual disciplines are not necessarily unpleasant. After all, if a disciplined life is a life characterized by love, joy and peace, we may assume that some of the disciplines might actually be pleasant.

What we do today has eternal consequences. Our actions ripple forever. Because our value system is so vastly different from heaven’s value system, it could be that what turns out to be our most significant day of ministry will seem to us to have been a day wasted. Odds are, your most effective time of ministry will not appear on your daily calendar. It won’t be in your appointment book. You might think that it was an inconvenience. But from God’s perspective, that’s the moment you’ll be remembered for. Unless you live with margin, being attentive to the prompting of the Holy Spirit, you might just miss your moment of greatest impact.

Let’s close these reflections on leader qualifications with a prayer by Mother Theresa.

Dear Jesus, help us to spread your fragrance everywhere we go. Flood our souls with your Spirit and life. Penetrate and possess our whole being so utterly that our lives may only be a radiance of yours. Shine through us and be so in us that every soul we come in contact with may feel your presence in our soul. Let them look up and see no longer us but only Jesus. Stay with us, and then we will begin to shine as you shine, to so shine as to be light to others. The light will be all from you. It will be you shining on others through us. Let us, thus, praise you in the way you love best, by shining around us. Let us preach you without preaching, not by words but by our example, by the catching force, the sympathetic influence of what we do, the evident fullness of the love of our hearts bare to you. Amen.

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¹ Lynn Anderson, The Shepherd’s Song. West Monroe, LA: Howard, 1996, 191.

² Clifford Williams, Singleness of Heart. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1994, 10.

³ Adapted from Sid Buzzell, Leadership and Management Course Syllabus, Denver Seminary, 1996.

⁴ Dallas Willard, The Spirit of the Disciplines. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988, 91.

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