Hope, Healing & Freedom Podcast: Episode 169
TRANSCRIPT
Have you seen those leadership pyramids where the leader is at the top and all of the followers or employees are beneath the leader? That is the way much, if not all of corporate America is designed. It is also the way much of the Church is operated. It is also the way many marriages are run. What if that pyramid is not the way Jesus would run things? What if Jesus would turn that pyramid totally upside down? In this podcast I want to look at Jesus Style of leadership and the impact it can have on our lives.
I’m Lee Whitman with Restoring the Foundations and I welcome you into this Hope Healing and Freedom Podcast. I think we all know that the way Jesus would do things is much different than the way the world does things. But what if we have been so conditioned by the way things are that we simply accept that the way we are doing things as the right way? In other words, what if our ideas about leadership are being shaped by the world and not by the bible. I have had this assertion for a while that I believe that we are living more of a cultural Christianity than a biblical Christianity. Let me give you a simple example of what I am talking about. How many of us in the Christian church celebrate the Jewish feasts and festivals? Yes Paul says that the feasts and festivals were a shadow of things to come, which was Jesus. But the bible also says that we are grafted into the original olive tree, referring to Israel. In Romans 11 Paul talks about the unbelieving Jews being cut off from the olive tree, representing God’s Jewish family who don’t believe in Jesus being cut off, but the believing Gentiles being grafted into the olive tree. We, the gentile believers who call ourselves Christians, are grafted into God’s people the Jews. We have taken the understanding that since the Jewish feasts were just a shadow of things to come, then the Jewish feasts and festivals are no longer necessary, and in fact would be pulling those under grace back into the Law. I personally don’t see these two things as being mutually exclusive. We can be believers in Jesus, partakers of the grace of God, and still recognize the value of our Jewish roots. I would encourage you to read Romans 11 and ask God for His interpretation of that Chapter and not what your church or culture has taught you. Much of the church has mixed our culture into that chapter and have come up with a cultural understanding instead of a biblical understanding.
Jesus defines His style of leadership in Mark 10:42-45. Let me quote this passage: “Calling them to Himself, Jesus said to them, “You know that those who are recognized as rulers of the Gentiles domineer over them; and their people in high position exercise authority over them. But it is not this way among you; rather, whoever wants to become prominent among you shall be your servant;and whoever wants to be first among you shall be slave of all. 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.” This passage almost needs no explanation, but since this is my podcast, I will talk about it just a bit. Notice how Jesus points out the leadership pyramid that the leaders of that day were exercising. He says that the leaders exercise their authority over the people. In other words, they lead from the top down and rule over their people. A perfect example of this in most of our cultures is the government. Here in the US, the President is the leader of the government. He has people under him who carry out his wishes. Most churches are run in much the same way. The pastor is the head of the church, and the board of elders or whoever is under him, carries out his wishes. There are some churches who are run by a board of elders, but the system is much the same. The people who work for the church carry out the wishes of the board of elders from the top down.
This pyramid is even found in much teaching about the home. It is a common teaching that since the bible says that the man is the head of the home, then he is to rule over the home like the leaders rule over the people in the government or the corporate office. In most churches this means that what the husband says goes. And since he is in control, he controls how the family money is spent. Let’s look at this a little closer because I believe this teaching that the man is to rule his household is a misunderstanding of the Jesus style of leadership.
Let’s begin with what the bible says about Jesus leadership in the church. Ephesians 1:22-23 says, “And He (Father God) put all things in subjection under His feet and made Him head over all things to the church, 23 which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.” And it also says in Colossians 1:18 “He is also the head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything.” So, we see clearly that Jesus is the head of the church.
Then in Ephesians 5:23 it says, “For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body.” And then in 1 Corinthians 11:3 it says again “But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and [a]the man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ.” Unfortunately, these verses have been taught according to this top-down pyramid that the husband, as the head of the home, must rule over his wife. That as the head of the home he tells everyone in the home what to do and they must obey him. But that is not Jesus’ style of leadership. If we return to what the verse in Ephesians 5 says, it says that the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the of the church. And how does Jesus lead? He said in Mark 10, “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.” Jesus led by dying for those he came to serve.
In Matthew 25 Jesus gives one of His amazing teachings on the Kingdom of Heaven. In verse 40 He says, “Truely I say to you, to the extent that you did it for one of the least of these brothers or sisters of Mine, you did it for Me.” Once again you can see Jesus’ style of leadership. He doesn’t lead from the top down, but He leads from the bottom up. When we serve even the least amongst us, we are serving as Jesus would serve. This concept inverts the world’s value system of elevating the rich and powerful, and diminishing the poor. Throughout Jesus ministry He elevated the poor. He spent His time to go to the sick. He ministered to the outcast. In fact, the only ones that Jesus criticized were the religious leaders of the day who held their position above the people. Jesus exhibited a humility unmatched by the religious leaders of the day.
Jesus demonstrated this humility in many different encounters in the Bible. In Mark 1:40-42 Jesus heals a man of leprosy. “And a man with leprosy came to Jesus, imploring Him and kneeling down, and saying to Him, “If You are willing, You can make me clean.”Moved with compassion, Jesus reached out with His hand and touched him, and *said to him, “I am willing; be cleansed.”And immediately the leprosy left him, and he was cleansed.” As we know, leprosy was a disease that the religious would never touch. Yet Jesus was so humble that He reached out and touched this sick and outcast man and made Him well.
Another time that we see Jesus’ style of leadership was when he washed the disciples’ feet. The story is found in John 13. In this story Jesus takes off His robe and begins washing the disciples’ feet. Peter, who often speaks before thinking, says that Jesus is never going to wash his feet. Jesus then rebukes Peter by saying that if He is not able to wash Peters feet, then Peter has no place with Jesus. To which Peter responds, “Well then, don’t just wash my feet, but wash my whole body.” That is my translation by the way. According to the tradition of the day, when you entered a house, you were given water to wash the dust and dirt off your feet. In fact, a servant would usually wash the guest’s feet for them. So, for Jesus to wash the disciples’ feet was Him putting Himself in the position of a servant. All of the disciples would have understood the significance of this act.
How does this relate to the husband being the head of the home? First the Jesus style of leadership indicates that the husband is to be a servant first. He is to humble himself and serve his wife and children rather than demand their obedience. Serving his wife and children can look many different ways, but one of the most important ways to serve is to listen to them instead of talking at them. If a man thinks he is the head of the house and everyone is to honor him as the head, then he is more likely to tell them what he wants them to know instead of listening to their hearts.
Secondly Jesus was willing to reach out with compassion and touch those who were the outcasts. I interpret this to mean that the husband, as the head of the home, must reach out and touch his family with compassion. It is all too common for men to react in anger to their families. I ministered to a guy who would react to his wife and kids with anger and then go back to them and ask them for forgiveness. Asking for forgiveness is wonderful, but it would have been much better to never have reacted in anger in the first place. People are going to make mistakes. A husband and father can react to those mistakes and make it worse or make it better. When I was a youth pastor, I received a call that one of my youths was in a serious car accident. The first question the father asked his son was how badly his expensive car was damaged. This was not the heart of Jesus for that boy. The boy made a bad mistake, and the father made it worse by not showing compassion for his son.
I heard someone on TV talking about a famous person who would ask his wife on a regular basis, “How can I be a better husband to you?” That is the heart of Jesus.