The Priorities of Church Leaders Part 1

Pastor Mike will be speaking on The Priorities of Church Leaders Part 1. He will be reading out of Acts 20:25-30.

That’s the way the devil works. He begins to work pride into our hearts. We think we’re better. We think we’re above. We think there’s something special about us.

Anything good and effective and glorifying that comes out of your life is the direct result of God’s good work in you. Hello. This is pastor Mike Sanders, and welcome to Hopeworth Having radio program. We thank you for taking the time to be a part of this program. We are broadcasting from Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.

Today, we’re going to be in Acts chapter 20, and we’re continuing going through this chapter. We’ll be studying verses 25 through 30, talking about the priorities of church leaders. Sometimes it’s easy to get off mission. So we’re gonna look into the scriptures and see what the priorities of the church leaders are. And if you have your bible this morning, I want you to join me in Acts chapter 20 Acts chapter 20.

Our church family has been studying the book of Acts for quite some time now, and we’ve been going through the verses together, and we are in chapter 20 today, and we have already made it down to verse 25. We’re gonna try to finish out the chapter today, verse 25 through 38. But this morning, I wanna talk to you about the priorities of church leaders. God’s people need leadership because God works through leaders. The bible says in Judges 21 verse 25, in those days there was no king in Israel.

Every man did that which was right in his own eyes. That’s what happens when you don’t have leadership. People just do whatever they want. There’s no guidance, there’s no direction in their life, they just do whatever’s right in their own eyes. There’s a great need for leadership.

The book of Proverbs says, when a land transgresses, it has many rulers. But with a man of understanding and knowledge, its stability will long continue. The point simply is this, with honest sensible leadership, there’s always going to be stability. When you have constant turnover in leadership or a lack of leadership, there will be confusion, there’ll be chaos, there’ll be misunderstandings. There’s a great need for leadership in our country.

Amen? There’s a great need for leadership in our churches, our homes, and our schools. Someone once said that everything rises or falls on leadership, and I was taught that as a young pastor, and I really believe that. The strength, the health, the productivity, the fruitfulness of any church is directly reflected by the quality of the leadership. Good leaders can lift an organization to the height of success.

Whereas poor leadership can plunge a ministry or an organization into the depths of ruin. It is only when the leadership is right within the church that a church can be right. That’s why the apostle takes this moment in time as he is speaking to the leadership at the church at Ephesus, to give them some guiding principles to help them to keep their priorities right. You’ll note in verse 28 of chapter 20 that he says, therefore, take heed to yourselves and to all the flock among which the holy spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God, which he purchased with his own blood. In verse 28, he refers to the leaders of the church as overseers.

We jump back to verse 17. We see the scripture says, from Miletus, he sent to Ephesus and called for the elders of the church. Same people, same leaders, just different titles that refer to different responsibilities. Elders are the spiritually mature leaders in the church who have oversight. Overseers obviously are responsible for not only overseeing the ministry, organizing it, mobilizing God’s people, and keeping them energized and motivated for the cause that Christ has given us.

Elders, pastors, these are simultaneously same people, same responsibilities. Sometimes churches may divide them up and that’s fine. Whatever the point being is, they are the church leaders. Paul wants them to know what their priorities are. He wants us to know as God’s people.

It’s important for you to understand the template of the priorities of God’s leaders. So that you as God’s people will continue to not only pray for the leaders, but also encourage the leaders, but also to help them to be accountable to what the word of God says. So what are these things? We wanna point out three things. They certainly don’t encompass everything.

We’d have to be here all afternoon. I don’t know if there’s any takers. But we got one here. Thank you, brother. Appreciate them.

But anyways, these are some things that will help us as we are praying for our pastors, elders, deacons in the church, those who serve as teachers, bible study leaders, Sunday school teachers, all these leaders that have these responsibilities. The first thing he teaches us as a priority is that we’re to watch out for our own spiritual welfare. Look at verse 25 of chapter 20. He says, and indeed now I know that you all, among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of God, will see my face no more. So Paul is under the anticipation that he’s not returning.

Perhaps he knows that his martyrdom is soon. Perhaps he is already under the impression that his work and responsibility will not require him to pass back through in this area where he would see the leaders at Ephesus. He says in verse 26, therefore, I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all men, for I have not shunned to declare to you the whole counsel of god. Therefore, take heed to yourselves. Some translations say, guard yourselves.

Followers cannot rise above the standards of the leaders. If there’s anything that I believe is the epitome of leadership, it is be an example. Whatever you want out of the people or whatever group you’re leading, you set the standard. You be that example. And you can’t say that you expect something out of a group of people and then you yourselves won’t even live up to it.

Jesus condemned that among the Pharisees. They had a set of rules for the people and a different set of rules for themselves. We already saw that in the last three or four years of our government that frustrates us. That we see one set of rules for the people and another set of rules for the government leaders. It never works.

And so it is among God’s people that we have this responsibility to be that example. And part of being that example is watch out for your own spiritual welfare. If leaders don’t take care of themselves, they will not be able to take care of God’s people. That’s so important. The apostle says, I’m innocent of all the blood.

Meaning, it’s just a idiom kind of a phrase that he’s using. And he’s simply saying to them, I’m not responsible because I’ve done everything that I can to make sure that everybody knows the whole council of God. Look at verse 27, for I have not shunned to declare to you the whole counsel of God. This is an interesting word in the Greek because it’s the idea of not just counsel, but the whole plan, the whole purpose of God. All that god is doing, what Paul wanted them to see as the entire redemptive plan of god in god’s word.

And he said, I didn’t shrink back from that. I I didn’t hold back from that. I shared every bit of God’s plan, God’s purpose, God’s will, God’s counsel to you. He didn’t just say, well, I just wanna share the good stuff and leave out the bad stuff. Well, if we leave out the bad stuff, then the good stuff’s not as good.

Right? The reason the good stuff, the good news is so good is because the bad news is so bad. And the bad news is that we’re sinners in need of a savior. The apostle did not step back from that responsibility to teach the people that we’re all born sinners into this world, and we’re all in need of salvation through Jesus Christ. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting, what, church, life.

Life. The whole counsel of God, all of God’s truth, Paul was a man who lived with a clear conscience. Now he’s telling the leaders at the church of Ephesus, you need to watch out for your own spiritual life. Paul set that example. He was a man who lived in clear conscience, faithful to the task.

The responsibilities that he had, he did not shrink back. What are some things that we need to remember to be on guard about? Some things that are not only true for leaders, but ourselves, that we must watch out for our own spiritual welfare, and that is first that we must guard against false teaching. We’ll talk more about that in just a second, but it’s easy to get sucked up into false teaching. It’s easy to follow the crowd.

It’s easy to buy in to things that make us feel good. But see, my friends, truth is not determined by feelings. Truth is determined by the word of God. And so that’s our measuring stick. And that’s why we have to be careful that we don’t let our emotions carry us away, that we don’t get sucked into false narratives that lead us astray from the faith.

So many believers have been vulnerable to false teaching because they are not rooted in the faith, and they’re like as Paul said to the church at Ephesus in Ephesians chapter four, that they are blown away by every wind of doctrine. We must also guard against an unforgiving spirit. When you serve God, when you are engaged on the front lines, let me tell you something. There’s gonna be many obstacles, many challenges. The apostle understood what it was to be betrayed.

He understood what it was to be lied about. He But But yet Jesus, our savior, he understood and he dealt with difficult people, but yet he always had a great spirit about him. And pastors, elders, deacons, bible study leaders, teachers have to always be on guard that we don’t let bitterness take root in the heart. It’s easy to be upset. I remember a family I’ve helped out many, many years ago here at the Open Door Church.

Don’t worry. They’re not here. But, anyways, we did so much. The elders did so much. The deacons did so much.

It wasn’t just me, anyway. But, man, it didn’t take much. One decision made by the leadership team and, bam, they’re out, and they’re calling us the devil and the demon. And, you know, it’s easy to get angry. It’s easy to get upset about this.

You do so much. But you have to forgive. You have to move forward. You have to just let go and let God deal with that situation and keep on moving forward for Christ, knowing that the Lord will work out those details. Amen?

He’ll figure it out and let him deal with that. You don’t wanna be a bitter person because as you get bitter, then what will take root in your heart is that you’ll begin to develop anger and hate towards others. You can’t be effective for God if you have anger and hate in your heart. You have to bring that to the Lord. Another thing I think we have to be on guard about is self indulgence.

It’s easy to become selfish. It’s easy to become selfish in serving god and wanting it your way right away. You’ve been lied to by so many restaurants and so many organizations that have marketed to you. You thought it was all about you. Now before COVID, they I think they took the sign down, thank God.

But I used to go into the surgery waiting room to pray with people and it said, it’s all about you. You know, and I’d tell them, I’d say, you know, you see that sign up there? That ain’t the truth. And they’d be startled, horrified that the pastor would bring this up before their surgery. Anyways, it’s not about you.

It’s about Jesus. Amen? It’s about glorifying God, and our life is to be a sacrifice. Those who serve the Lord must understand that we are a living sacrifice for Christ, and we are called to give up so the people can go up. We are called to be people of sacrifice, and we have to be careful that we don’t become self indulgent in what privileges and expectations and want to be pampered.

And all of a sudden, we forget what it’s really like. Be faithful for Christ. We have to guard against pride. That’s the way the devil works, isn’t it? Is that he begins just little by little, gets a foothold in our life, and he begins to work pride into our hearts.

We think we’re better. We think we’re above. We think there’s something special about us when there’s really nothing special about you. Anything good and effective and glorifying that comes out of your life is the direct result of god’s good work in you and through you. Yeah.

We have to watch out. What are ways that will help us to watch out for our own spiritual welfare? Now you’re probably not gonna agree with this first one. It’s not very spiritual. It is in the bible.

That is rest. Sometimes you just need to rest. Sometimes you could be burned out, you could be stressed out and it’d be just good for you to rest. Remember Elijah, he was under the juniper tree and he felt like he’s the only one living for God. He’s the only one out there fighting the good fight.

And God said, just take a rest, Elijah. Just rest. Fed him some good food. I don’t think it’s in the Bible, but I thought maybe it was fried chicken or something. I don’t know.

But sometimes that’s what we need. We need to just take care of our health. Right? Rest up, take care of ourselves, and that makes us more effective for the Lord. But keep that in mind as you’re trying to watch out for your own welfare.

But also, I think reading. Reading is good for you. Now I know we have these fancy devices and all that stuff. I was gonna buy my mother a book the other day and I said, how about I just send it to you digitally? She said, I don’t read digitally, I read with a real book, Mike.

She said, I wanna touch the pages. I said, well, that means I gotta take more time, more effort to get it and ship it to you. I just wanted to hit a couple clicks and send it to her. Right? Be done.

You know what I’m saying? I know that’s lazy, isn’t it? That’s lazy. But you know, we need to read first of all, we need to read the bible. The apostle told Timothy to give attention to reading.

Certainly the scriptures need to be a part of our life every day. We need to read the bible And we need to make that important. You know, how many of you would like a blessing? Anybody here would like a blessing? Few of you left.

Well, here’s what the bible says, that every time you read his word, you’ll be blessed. You’re lacking a blessing, read the bible. Read the Bible. You’ll be blessed. But, also, I would say just read good Christian books.

Let me give a recommendation. I would encourage you, as well as you parents and grandparents, to have your children read good biographies on great Christian leaders, men and women who have served and sacrificed for the Lord Jesus Christ. I love to read I love to read about people who gave so much. I recently read a biography on John Wycliffe, who played such a valuable role getting the bible translated from the Latin to the English language of that day. And just all that he had to deal with, all that he endured, and he had most of the translation done in the New Testament, and then his house caught on fire and ruined all the translation, had to start all over.

Most of us, we’d quit, give up, throw in the towel. Right? These great men of God, great women of God who’ve sacrificed for the Lord, and we read about them. And they’re such an inspiration to us. So get your children reading about them.

Get your grandchildren reading about them. Another way for me to stay healthy in my spiritual life is to get me some mentors. Get me some spiritual mentors. Our brother, Dennis, he was talking about iron sharpening iron. That’s exactly what we need, brothers and sisters in Christ, is we need each other.

I know you feel like you don’t need each other. Some of you, you thought COVID was made just for you. You loved it. You loved being out of isolation. You didn’t wanna talk to anybody anyways.

But the lord wants you to stay connected. You were created to be connected. You were created to have people in your life that will encourage you and strengthen you and even sometimes bring to attention the things in your life that need to be corrected. Somebody corrects you out of love and grace, commitment to your betterment, we should receive it in a positive way and be thankful. The bible tells us that we’re to warn one another, we’re to admonish one another.

Sometimes we’re bringing things to attention of people. That’s what it means to admonish, to bring to the mind. And so I wanna encourage you to surround yourself with good people, godly people. Every one of us needs to find a good godly person in our life, and we need to attach ourselves to them, and we need to let them have a great positive influence in our life. A survey was taken several years ago about the influence of a mentor in the life of a young person.

This was in the context of the church. And so 80% of the young people that were following Christ, living for Christ, and dedicated to the cause of Christ had a godly mentor in their youth group. They had a godly mentor in their family. They had a godly mentor in their life. And that’s what I’m trying to say to you, is that that’s what we need.

Because you see, for us as people, human, we need something tangible. We need something visible. And sometimes more is caught than taught. You see, I think about my own life as coming to Christ as a young boy, and I remember my Sunday school teacher. I remember my bus captain.

I remember the different deacons and people in my life that were great influences upon my life. It’s not that they ever had a class with me. We didn’t go through the 12 steps of some particular book, and I’m not saying any of that’s bad. I think it’s all wonderful, but I just watched their life. I was just always a part of their life, and they were influencing me.

So I wanna encourage you to do that. Also, I wanna encourage you in trying to watch out for your spiritual life and being healthy is make sure you establish good boundaries in your life. Boundaries. Now sometimes we don’t like to make boundaries because we don’t wanna be legalistic, but just make sure that your boundaries are for you, not for everybody. But we all have things in our life that we might be more susceptible to than others.

We may have weaknesses in our life. There may be temptations in our life that draw us away from Christ and to participate in things that are ungodly. There may be websites that you go to that you shouldn’t be going to. There may be things that you’re reading that you shouldn’t be reading. There may be people that you’re hanging around with that lead you down a path of ungodliness.

You gotta have the courage to say, I’m gonna make some boundaries in my life, and I’m going to make sure that I protect myself from going down that road. Somebody say, well, they’re just being legalistic. No. That may be something in their life that is a boundary that they want to be careful of. There’s nothing wrong with that, brothers and sisters.

There’s nothing wrong with that as a church family to say, we wanna protect ourselves. Terry and I have put boundaries in our life, and they’re not your boundaries. They’re not something we’re asking you to do. They’re just our boundaries. Because we wanna be an example to all the children up at the school.

We wanna be an example to all the staff. We wanna be an example to every person that’s a part of our ministry. Many of you know that I umpire. God help those teams. We had a game yesterday and it rained on us.

And I asked the girls it’s softball. I asked the girls, do you wanna keep playing? They said, yes. I said, let’s keep playing. We kept playing, it was pouring down rain.

And they said, we played better in the rain. I finally did have to call. I had to step in, step up. Sometimes you gotta do that. And I said, let’s go home.

It’s, getting bad out here. But anyways, before the game and the preparation, I was talking to the coaches and this lady was coaching the team and she said, you’re pastor Mike. Like, man, I can’t go anywhere. I can’t go anywhere. You gotta be example everywhere you go and so you might have boundaries in your life because you wanna be an example.

And you don’t know who’s watching your life, and you don’t wanna send the appearance of evil to anybody. You don’t want to go down the wrong direction. It’s not about your freedom in Christ. It’s about you not being a stumbling block. That’s why the apostle said, he said, my conscience is clear.

I am innocent of all the blood of all people because I have not withheld God’s counsel. I have not refused to be that good example. That’s what the apostle was. We encourage you to consider those things to help you to be healthy. The second priority of church leaders is not only to watch out for your own spiritual welfare, but to guard the flock.

We come to verse 28 of chapter 20, and we note what it says. Therefore, take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to shepherd the church of god, which he purchased with his own blood. For I know this, that after my departure, savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock also from among yourselves. Men will rise up speaking perverse things to draw away the disciples after themselves. Look at verse 31.

Therefore, watch. Remember that for three years, I did not cease to warn everyone night and day with tears. We talked last week about the apostle’s compassion and that he was a man who was emotionally moved and cared for the spiritual well-being of every person he ministered to. But what I want you to note is our responsibility as church leaders to guard the flock. All elders, all deacons, all pastors, all teachers are to guard the flock from savage wolves.

This is just a picture of false teachers. When Jesus was asked the question, what are the signs of your coming? He said, before I come, this is what it’ll be like. Matthew 24 verse 11. Many false prophets shall rise and shall deceive many.

One of the signs of the times of the coming of Christ is that there will be false teaching that will infiltrate the church and it’ll infiltrate the world and it’ll draw away many people from loving Jesus, living for Christ, and being that vessel in which God can use. All teachers, all pastors, all leaders, all elders, deacons, etcetera, are to be on the lookout for false teaching and false teachers. Again, Jesus taught in Matthew seven verse 15, beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly, they are ravenous wolves. We are called to watch out for the sheep. Keep watch over them.

The holy spirit has made us leaders and overseers. We have the responsibility to protect those, to protect their spiritual welfare, to make sure that they are headed in the right direction. Now sometimes people feel like maybe the pastor, the elders are getting a little negative. Maybe they’re just being very legalistic or maybe they’re being difficult. That’s not the goal.

That’s not why. Sometimes we do point out false teachers to you. We do name names just because they’re public figures. We do point out false teaching because we don’t want you to be led astray. Now it’s unfortunate, church, but these things happen, and I want you to note in verse 30 of chapter 20, sometimes false teachers may rise up right within the church.

Also, from among yourselves, men will rise up speaking perverse things to draw away the disciples after themselves. If I’ve seen this once, I’ve seen it a thousand times as a pastor. People rise up, you know, their knowledge of the bible gets to their head. Then they start making up things of what they believe. And then they start creating confrontation and they start challenging, and then when they don’t get their way, they’ll pull people out of the church.

They’ll go out there and say, I’m gonna do my own thing so I don’t have to be accountable to anybody. And then they don’t wanna be under elders. They don’t wanna be under pastors. They don’t wanna be under people who will hold them accountable, and they go out and do their own thing so they can not only live as they want, but they can teach false doctrine that draws God’s people away from the truth. It’s easy to get off mission.

It’s easy to forget what’s most important. And even as leaders in the church, we forget our calling. I’m reminded of a time I was driving down the road, and there was this big burger place that sold hamburgers. And what did they have on their marquee? That they were selling tacos.

Here they are, the place where they sell burgers, and now they’re selling tacos. And you know that can be true in the Christian or the church is that we forget what we’re all about, and we get off mission. But God is calling us to be on mission, to stay on track. And that’s what the apostle Paul does for us in acts 20 is he’s showing us the priorities of church leaders. What should they be doing?

And so I hope that this has been an encouragement and a blessing to your life. We also want to remind you about our website, hopeworthhaving.com. And if you have any prayer requests, you can go to that website, hit the contact button, and you can give us your prayer request. We’ll pray for you. We care about what’s going on in your life.

God works through the prayers of his people. So let’s rally the troops and let us be a part of those troops that are praying for you. And if you’ll just reach out to us through hopeworthaving.com, we’ll be glad to take time to pray for you this week. This is pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ, there is hope worth having.