When Leaders Fall

Summary

In this episode, Kevin discusses how to handle leaders who have fallen from grace. He emphasizes the need to temper our expectations of leaders and extend grace to them when they make mistakes. He also reminds listeners that leaders are human and prone to the same temptations as everyone else. Kevin encourages Christians to approach fallen leaders with mercy and prayer for restoration. Ultimately, he reminds us that God is the true leader and our faith should be in Him, not in human leaders.

Transcript

Kevin (00:00.664)
Lately in the news, you have probably heard and seen if you have not been under a rock for an extended amount of time, a recent slew of Christian and church leaders falling from grace or maybe stepping down from their leadership position because they've admitted to creating or being embroidered in some kind of sin, went in discretion. Now the easy thing to do in the low hanging fruit would mean to have an episode to go in and talk specifically about.

You know the names by now. I could talk about Tony Evans. I could talk about Robert Morris and all these other pastors and preachers who were held in high esteem and we regarded highly as leaders, but because of some moral failing or something on their part, they have now fallen from grace. And when there's one particular person, the males of you may have heard of Robbie Zacharias. Now his fall came after he died.

After he died, the scandal was released and he had all of these indiscretions. And the easy thing to do for me would be to go in and talk about these specific individuals. But I don't do that on Beyond Abilitation. I don't believe in pointing people out specifically. I don't think that's the way to go. I am going to discuss, however, what do we do when you have a leader, someone in the faith, someone that you believe in. It may not be someone as big as the Tony Evans's of the world.

But it may be somebody that's the pastor or the deacon or the minister at your church. And you find out that Dave misstepped in some manner. It may not be something criminal. It may not be something so heinous to deal with something to deal with children or something that egregious. But it may be something to where now you look at them funny. You look at them and you shake your head. And you say, I never thought that he or she

would do that. I never thought they would be capable of doing something like that. Well, first of all, we have to understand that even though someone's in leadership, they're still a person. They're still very much a human being. And just because someone's propped in leadership, that doesn't mean that they're immune to the things of the enemy. You can even make the case that someone who's in leadership is actually in the front line. They're more prone to attacks from the enemy.

Kevin (02:25.048)
So what do we do as Christians? How do we handle it? Because we know in the world they have a different perspective. So many leadership is in the world and they fall, cancel culture. Automatically that person's canceled, that person's kicked out in disgrace and now they become going from famous to infamous. And you can probably think of a slew of people who were famous in leadership, in matters of whether it's an entertainment or sports, someone who we regarded highly and they fell short.

But the first thing is, like I just said, we all fall short of the glory of God. The scripture makes that clear. So what do we do as Christians? Because we're not supposed to be like the world, so we don't do things how the word does. And the Bible does say to be a little bit more careful with people who are of the faith. So those who are in Christ with us should be allowed at a certain level of grace, whether they're in leadership or not, of course, but because they're Christians.

they should be given a little bit more leeway. We're going to talk about that obviously in this week's episode. So I got three things I think we need to consider. What we should do, how we should approach the idea or the scenario when someone that we've placed in leadership has fallen. So the first thing we need to do when we see that a leader has fallen, the first thing we need to do is maybe we should go back and we should temper.

our expectations. As I just said, we tend to sometimes put people who are in leadership in positions and places that they don't deserve. Not saying they don't believe, don't should be in membership, but they shouldn't be as high up as they are. A perfect example of this is go there is in the church. Most churches, the pastor is basically second in command of Jesus. The pastor is

right under Jesus and sometimes we put this person in such a high esteem, in such a high regard and there is something to be said about putting people in the proper respect for their respective position. A person who is in leadership, there's a certain cache, there's a certain level of respect that should come with the position. But we need to temper the expectations. For example, when someone, Gertie Gray is a member, you know I love sports.

Kevin (04:48.792)
Perfect example, when someone gets drafted, and this is really big in the major sports, baseball, basketball, or football, someone who's the number one pick, the expectations are through the roof. Now keep in mind, if you're the number one pick on any sport, the reason why you're the number one pick is because the team that you got drafted to is horrible. The pieces they have in place, the players they have aren't good.

The way the team is set up isn't good. So you're not coming in to a place that's already tailor -made for you to succeed as a player. But guess what? Even though the setting and the surroundings are not ideal, they're expecting that person to come in and change everything. because we drafted Joe number one, he's going to come in and change everything. Same thing. What happens in politics with politics?

politicians, they run giving you a nine promises. If you vote for me, if I go into office, then things are going to be different. I'm going to make great changes. Then that's what happens. We vote people in and guess what happens more times than not things stay the same or they get worse. Just like that player that was drafted number one to that team. But what I'm saying is we need to temper our expectations because one person,

can't work a miracle if they're not Jesus, of course. But we expect sometime these leadership, these leadership people to basically be like Jesus, to walk on water and to do great things. And because the expectations are so high, the amount of leeway is very small. Think about it. If you don't expect much from someone when they do fall,

You're really not surprised. Well, you know, I knew it was going to make it. I knew he was too big, too small, too young, too old, whatever it is. I knew they were going to make it because they just, we went in with no expectations. But when you go in and the expectations, while they can be high if the person is obviously qualified and you feel like they can do the job, but sometimes in leadership, we place unrealistic expectations.

Kevin (07:08.6)
on leaders. So when they do fall, when they prove to be just as human as you and I, because those expectations are so high, it seems like that fall is so big. Now, could it be that these people that we put in place now, we can talk about this a little bit later in the episode as well. Maybe when do I do diligence in making sure they were the right person to be in leadership? That's a different thing we're going to discuss a little bit later, but.

Sometimes we do have these unrealistic expectations on what we expect people to do. We expect one person to come in and just change everything. And because of that, when it doesn't happen the way we anticipate, because we put these expectations on these people, now we're more disappointed than we would be otherwise. And to bring it on to the church context, if someone is in leadership, a pastor, deacon, whatever the case is,

Take it from someone who's been a leadership in churches for many years. Leading people in the church is really not much different than leading people in the world. Now why is that? Because the people that are in the world are also like the same people that are in the church. When you go in the corporate setting, you have people that are trying to clamor to get the number one position, trying to clamor to get favor with the boss, trying to backbite so they can get the promotion. Guess what?

All that goes on in the church. You have the same people trying to get next to the pastor or talking bad about Sister Jones or Brother Mike or whoever it is. All those scandals you see in the business world, they happen also in church leadership. And what happens is this, now all these expectations. So now we put people in place and we expect you to fix it all. I've talked about this one of the episodes.

as someone who has taught youth for many years. The expectation for me as someone who has been a youth pastor is your job is to teach my kids about Jesus. But guess what? It's really not my job to teach your kids about Jesus. It's my job to reinforce what you should have been teaching them, parent, about Jesus. But what happens is these unrealistic expectations, not only unrealistic expectations in terms of

Kevin (09:33.528)
what we expect from them, but unrealistic expectations, let me just go there now, about what these people will bring to the table. Sometimes we attach a level of celebrity and a level of stats to people, and we're doing so misguidedly that we don't realize when this person gets in position of leadership, it's not gonna be as glamorous as you think it is. They have really been selling you a bill of goods that...

When the day comes for them to be in leadership, now you want to realize, you know what? We really didn't pick the right person. And sometimes, again, that's where those unrealistic expectations can also come in. Not just the expectations we put on them, but the expectations that they have to do the job and they may not have even been qualified to do it. So let me give you scripture, perfect scripture to bring this part in. First Samuel chapter eight.

starting at verse 18. And it says, when that day comes, you will beg for relief from this king you are demanding, but then the Lord will not help you. But the people refused to listen to Samuel's warning. Even so, we still want a king, they said. We want to be like the nations around us. Our king will judge us and lead us into battle. So Samuel repeated to the Lord what the people had said. And the Lord said, do as they say.

and give them a king. Then Samuel agreed and sent the people home. So we're seeing here, this is obviously the story, if you don't know, a story when Saul was made king of Israel. Now up until this point, God was their king. They were a literal theocracy. God had made the rules and he was leading them himself. But because they saw what the other nations were doing and they had these kings, which of course, there was never God's plan,

But they said, we want to be like them. And Samuel said, look, if you put this person in place, this is what's going to happen. It's not going to bode well for you. You are better off staying with the Lord. But of course, they pushed and looked at what the scripture says. God says, like he does with all of us, if that's what you want, you are refusing my will. Have at it. And sometimes again, expectations. They were expecting Saul.

Kevin (11:54.808)
to do the thing for them. We're expecting Saul to lead us into battle and to be a king so we can tell these other nations, hey, look at our king. And the scripture says also that Saul was handsome and tall and stature, so he had all the physical characteristics of what they think a king should be. Now, that should sound familiar from this perspective, because Jesus was opposite. Here's Saul who fit the human profile of a king.

They wanted him even though God didn't say so. Here's Jesus, a lowly carpenter son who does not fit the bill of what we think a king should look like. And God says, here is your king. And people didn't want him then. And sadly, people don't want him now. So again, these expectations. So sometimes we put expectations for them to fix everything. And then sometimes our expectation is the wrong person.

who's going to make everything worse. So we need to be more discriminated when we see someone in a fall, when we see a leadership, a leader falling from grace, we need to temper our expectations. So that way, which is a perfect segue to my second point, because if we can temper our expectations, the second thing we can do when a leader falls is now we can pass on.

race. And as I just alluded to, as someone who's been in leadership in church for many years, we don't feel that leadership sometimes that we get to be for the doubt. Now that doesn't mean we can just do what we want and continue to mess up over and over and over again because we're in leadership. That's not what I'm saying. But what I'm saying is when you mess up,

as a person, as a parishioner, as a member. Let me say this from a ministerial perspective, because I've counseled people. When that person comes to the office and they want someone to counsel them, their perspective is that they're coming there and I've sat across from people who've done misdeeds in their marriage and done great things, and they're coming to the church because they want grace. They want mercy. They want God to use the minister or the leader to help.

Kevin (14:17.528)
rebuild them back to the place where they want, where they feel disgraced because they made a humongous error in judgment. And our job as Christians is to do just that, especially if they're of the household of faith. We are supposed to, as the scripture says, if one among you sins, those of you who are spiritual should restore them gently. So as a leader, that's what I've done in ministerial capacities. I've done that to help to bring people.

back to a gracious place in Christ. But the question is, do we have that same level of grace for someone who's the leader? When you're a minister, can you be ministered to? Who comes to minister Kevin when minister Kevin makes a mistake? Can you as a person who's been fed by the leader in turn show mercy and grace to the leader?

Because we live in a society that's clamoring and it's always about the scandal. It's always about what this person did, how they did it, and the first thing we want to do is tear someone down. I have a poem somewhere I wrote years ago, and there's a line in it that says, everyone roots for the underdog until they win. Once they win, no one groups for them anymore. That's the same thing that happens sometimes with leadership. Everyone wants grace until you have to give it to someone else.

Then when you have to give grace, then you're stingy. But when you wanted grace, you wanted all you can get. And just because someone's in leadership doesn't mean even if the standards are higher, which to some degree they should be, the scripture does bear that out. That doesn't mean because the standards are higher, they get less grace. They get less mercy. If anything is alluded to early in the episode, they're the ones on the front lines. If a person is taken on a lion's share of things,

Shouldn't they get more of a share of grace? Now again, let me reiterate this. That's not a get out of jail free card for a leader. It doesn't mean, okay, I'm a pastor, I'm a bishop, I'm whoever, so you must forgive me for everything I've done. No, sir. That's not what we're saying. But what happens is we don't give enough grace at times. Now, of course, there are some things that are really, really heinous and really, really evil.

Kevin (16:45.592)
that you know what you still show some grace, but at some point, you know, okay, this person is, this is pretty serious. Now at that point, you still should pray for that person. You still should show grace to some degree, but at the same time, we don't even offer that most of the time. If we're honest, when let's keep it real. When you heard about Tony Evans, I don't want to talk about these people. Let me just make it real quick for this example. When you heard about Tony Evans, the first thing you probably thought about was what did he do?

And how bad was it? The first thought in your mind was not, my goodness, for most of us, I want to say everyone, my goodness, he's been such a blessing, let me pray for him. Because think about it, it's one thing, right, to have a fall and to not acknowledge the fall and to act as if you haven't fallen or to try to sweep it under the rug. But if a person admits their fault,

If they own up to their shortcoming, if they confess their shortcoming, shouldn't that qualify them if nothing else for more grace? Because put yourself in their shoes. If you messed up and you owned up to it, wouldn't you want people to be gracious to you? But just because this person is in leadership, just because this person is a teacher, just because this person is a pastor, we have those, again, unrealistic expectations.

So now because the expectations are high, the grace is low. We don't offer grace to those who need it, especially when we consider how gracious God has been to you and I. Let me give you another scripture. This is 2 Samuel chapter 2, starting at verse 24. And it says, David built an altar there to the Lord and sacrificed burnt offerings and peace offerings. And the Lord answered his prayer for the land and the plague on Israel.

was stopped. Now, that scripture is when David had a mishap and he counted the senses even though God didn't want him to. So, God punished him because of what he did. But after the punishment, he stopped because you see in the scripture, that was a plague and at some point God says, okay, you suffered enough. I'm going to show grace.

Kevin (19:14.072)
So let's get this straight. So God punishing Israel and most simply David because of what Israel because of what David did, he showed David some grace. So God can show more grace than we can even though he should because he's God. But so we're saying God can give people grace, but we can't. God can give a personal leadership grace, but we won't. God can say, okay, you suffered enough.

But we can't. If a person in leadership with us, cancel them. Don't ever put them in leadership again. They need to go somewhere and be not even seen or heard forever. We want to make sure that person is never heard from again. Can you imagine if God was like that with you and I, with every single mistake you've ever made, if you fall in short one way, one time, and God says, okay, Kevin, that's it. you lied? you're done.

you was in fifth grade and you stole that candy from the teacher's desk. you gone. brother, sister, friend, you was lying and you was lusting after this thing. You was coveting this thing. You was trying to conspire. You were gossiping. You were doing all this stuff. Guess what? You're done. One time you messed up. That's it. What if God was that petty and lacked that kind of grace with us? But here it is when someone's in leadership.

and they have a fault. We don't extend the grace that God extends to us. Kind of messed up, isn't it? But I have another scripture. For this particular point, I wanted to, I couldn't choose between these two. So I actually have a bonus scripture for this one. This is James chapter three, verses one and two. Very famous scripture. It says, my friends, we should not all try to become teachers. In fact, teachers will be judged more strictly than others. So we hear that part, right? But this is the part we miss when we quote the scripture. Verse two.

All of us do many wrong things, right? But if you can control your tongue, you are mature and able to control your whole body. So then it goes into the part about your tongue and speaking things, right? But look at what it says. Scripture, we all know, if you're a teacher, you're held at high esteem and you have higher things. But it says afterwards, all of us have done many wrong things. See, that's the part we tend to forget.

Kevin (21:42.808)
We forget the fact that this person again is no different than you and I, especially if we go back to the first point, expectations. Some of these people should not have even been in leadership like us all. We decided I want to vote this person. We decided I want to draft this player. We decided we want this person to be the pastor or whatever of the church. And then when things don't go like they should,

We blame that person. Now there are cases where yes, that person should be to blame because they totally messed up and they fail as we're talking about. But have we considered that sometimes we have to have revisionist, we have revisionist history. We go back and we edit out the part where we put that person in. Where we decided this is who we want to follow. And just like Israel with Samuel, we didn't go to God first.

We didn't go to God and say, let me go there. I didn't go to God and ask God if this is the man that I should marry to lead my family. I didn't go to God and say, hey, this is the person I really think I want to be under their tool list that I want to study, that I want to emulate. We don't go to God when we're getting ready to vote and ask who we should place in an office. We don't go to God. We say we do.

But do we really go to God when it comes to pastors, ministers, even something as small, let me go there as well, as musicians? And it's really not that small. Because why? What do musicians do in church? Lead worship. Think about that. So do we have people who are leading worship, who should be leading worship?

Maybe they don't even believe in God, but guess what? They're coming because that church pays well. And the church will say, well, we need a good guitar player. We need a good piano player. They are. Well, they may not believe in God, but they sure can play. So guess what? Sign them up. So you see that sometimes we don't even think about going to God to find out if we've chosen the right person. So even with all of that, when it falls down,

Kevin (24:04.6)
Then it goes in our lap. Guess what happens? We want grace. my goodness, we messed up. Lord forgive me. Lord forgive me. And God bless with grace that He'll do it. But we don't give that same grace to that leader who's on the front line, who's taking the slings and arrows, who's interceding and praying for you, who you expect, expect, make pictures again, to be there at your beck and call whenever you want. I've been in church many years. I can tell you tons of stories.

when someone came to the church and needed something, but they only wanted to talk to the pastor. You know, we have ministers who can pray with you. No, no, no, no. I want the pastor. Well, you know, me and my fiancee, we're getting married. We want to come to church and get married. OK, well, I can marry. No, no, no. I want the pastor to marry me. I can tell you this from the church I used to go to years ago. People would go to the church, and if the pastor,

wasn't there that Sunday, they weren't going. They only wanted to hear the pastor.

So now expectations again, but then we don't extend grace because we hype them up so high. We give them so much responsibility. And then when they act human, when they get tired, when they get frustrated, we don't give them any grace. Give a quick story. This is not about leadership, but I think it's the fits. There's a celebrity. Again, I don't want to give too many names. Celebrity that has a reputation.

for not being the friendliest when people come up and ask for autographs. But then this person did an episode or a podcast and they explained why. And what happened was people had been coming to this person all, whenever they were out, it was just ridiculous. They could have been with their family, with their kids. And the moment you said, that person said, hey, you know what, right now, give me a minute, I'm with my kids.

Kevin (26:11.064)
They didn't go online. I went to Joe Smith for an autograph and he didn't give it to me. He's so mean. He's so mean. So now that goes around. No grace. You see what I'm saying? That's the same thing that happens with leaders. The moment that leader doesn't lead the way you want them to, you don't give them any grace. So keep that in mind.

It's bad enough if they don't lead like you want them to lead, you're not giving them grace. God forbid they fall from the expectations you have for them. Then we definitely don't want to give them grace. So that's something to consider when someone falls from grace. Are we extending the same grace that God extends to us? And the last one for this week of why, what we should do.

when leaders fall is that we have to ask ourselves the question. Ask yourself the question, when a leader falls, who's really in charge? Now, what do I mean by that? It goes in concert with everything we're discussing, right? We have these high faulty expectations. We don't give them grace. And because of that, we put so much stock in these people, we look to them more than we look to God.

because we put people in leadership almost as a surrogate God, as a substitute. We can't go to God for ourselves. I got to go through the pastor. I got to go through the bishop. I got to go through the deacon because I believe they got a hotline to God because if you're a pastor, you must know the Lord. So I'm going to you. You must know the Lord because I heard you pray. I've heard you preach. I've seen you on your podcast. So I know you must.

know the Lord so you the person, I'm no father, that's the guy I need. No person, regardless of where they are in leadership, takes the place, it's a plan, it's God, it's the real leader. He's the one in charge. And what happens when someone falls, part of the reason why it hurts so bad is because we're trusting them more than we're trusting God. Yes, it's bad that this particular pastor had a misstep.

Kevin (28:32.184)
Yes, it's bad that this leader had an issue. But if we're looking to the leader more than we're looking to the Lord, we're going to be disappointed all the time. The scripture says, God allows people to put in leadership, and he puts them there. So think about what that means. If we put so much stock in leadership, we're robbing God of his glory. Because God is the one above all leadership. In church, he's the ship.

He's the over shepherd. The pastor is the shepherd of the house. God is the shepherd of the planet. So you got to go higher than him. But what happens is Christians. And again, I mentioned it, the church example, people come to church just because they wanted a pastor. Is there anything wrong? I have a preference that's no. Is there anything wrong with liking certain preachers or certain speakers more than others? No. If you like preacher X versus minister Y,

cool beings, like who you like. The problem becomes all I want to hear is preacher X. And preacher X can do no wrong because preacher X is the God. Or preacher Y is that person. And all the while, we're putting God -like worship into a man. A man who is just as flawed and in some cases maybe more flawed than you and I.

So that's what happens when we fall, when leaders fall. Sometimes those falls are because we feel like they're Superman, they're the savior. I made it a little too early in episode by someone, an athlete. The draft in sports is such a crap shoot. Because you have guys who get drafted and the promise is there.

in college or wherever, man, they were it. They were the guy. They was him. And we play so much stock and when that person does not play well. my goodness. We're the team is the worst team ever. my God. I can't be. I'm a lifelong dolphin fan, so I know that personally.

Kevin (30:49.304)
But what happens is we just blame everybody. the coach needs to be fired. The GM needs to be fired. We need to get a whole new team. But it's like, okay, we're putting so much stock in one guy. But what about the guy who made the plays? What about the guy who decided to draft that guy? What about the guy who owned the team? Is he given enough resources for that player to grow? So I'm saying that to say, are we really blaming the right person?

When we talk about sports, right? Well, we blame the right person. But when it comes to leadership, leaders, when they fall, yes, we should blame them because they fail. But the reason why it hurts so bad is because we put so much stock in them. We put more faith that this person can lead us more than God can in has been. Same thing would happen with Israel in first. Let me give you another scripture for this. This is a very famous scripture for this one. First Corinthians chapter one, starting at verse 11.

And it says, for some people from Chloe's family have told me quite plainly, my friends, that there are quarrels among you. Let me put it this way. Each one of you says something different. One says, I follow Paul. Another, I follow Paul's. Another, I follow Peter. And another, I follow Christ. Christ has been divided into groups. Was it Paul who died on the cross for you? Were you baptized as Paul's disciples? Wow.

So Paul, making it clear, same thing we do in church. You ever talk to someone and you ask them what church they go to? I used to see this all the time, especially when I was doing evangelism on the street. You meet someone and say, hey, are you a Christian? Blah, blah, blah. And you say, what church you attend? I attend such and such church with pastors such and such and such. That's the first thing they say is who their pastor is.

It's almost as if they're claiming the pastor more than they're claiming God. Now, is it okay to have respect for your pastor? And of course, you should love your pastor because he is a good pastor. He labors and he works for you and God says you should honor him. But like the scripture saying, we put more stock in the people than we do in the person of Jesus Christ, who is the head of the church anyway. So could it be sometimes...

Kevin (33:16.12)
that when leaders fall, that the reason why that fall feels so hard is because we trusted them so much. That we made it seem as if these were the guys that I put my faith in. As the scripture just say here, I put my faith in Pastor Johnson. I put my faith in Reverend Smith. And when Pastor Johnson and Reverend Smith fall, my faith falls because my faith was in them, not in God who never falls and who never fails.

Now again, this episode is not to exonerate anyone in leadership who has fallen. The thing to do as Christians is to be merciful and be gracious and to pray for restoration for these leaders because leading Christians and leading in general, it's not an easy task. That's why everybody can't do it. That's why not everyone can be in charge.

That's why not everyone can lead because that leadership seat, you're sitting on a bullseye. There's a target, especially if you're a Christian leadership, there's a target from the enemy. Jesus himself said when he was getting ready to be crucified, he talked about when the disciples were going to flee from him when he gets arrested. He said that the enemy would strike the shepherd and the sheep will go astray. The same thing happens with leadership.

So instead of us celebrating when someone falls or speculating when someone falls, let's do what Christ tells us to do for anyone else who falls. Be their brother or sister in Christ. Pray for strength, pray for repentance, pray for restoration, pray that God can heal them because we've all fallen short of the glory of God. The only difference is,

That person is falling from a leadership seat. You're falling from a laity seat. But guess what? Both seats are same from this perspective. Both of those seats are occupied by a center. So we need to have that same kind of mindset when it comes to our leaders and when and if they fall. So as a point of reiteration, as we wrap up this week's episode, what should we do?

Kevin (35:44.248)
when a leader falls. We need to make sure that we temper our expectations. We need to extend grace and then we need to remember who's really in charge. So hopefully you can use this episode the next time you hear something about some leader, some preacher, some pastor, whoever it is.

that fall, whether it's on a national level or just a local level in your own church or wherever you worship. Have the mind of Christ. Peter, in the Bible, had a major fall, and a lot of people would consider him the leader of the disciples. But Jesus restored him, and he denied Jesus three times. So let us...

extend that same level of Christian love and restoration for anyone that we encountered that has fallen in this world. Thank you so much for watching and listening. Make sure you like, share, and subscribe to the YouTube page. And as always, make sure your light shines brightest for the Lord Jesus Christ beyond the benediction. Until next time, be blessed.