SPEAKER_01: Hello everyone, I'm Dr.
SPEAKER_01: Steve Bolt.
SPEAKER_01: I want to welcome you to the Road Church Podcast.
SPEAKER_01: Each week we go into God's Word.
SPEAKER_01: We teach chapter by chapter, verse by verse.
SPEAKER_01: We are here to build the Kingdom of God revolution through empowering people to change the world.
SPEAKER_01: So we pray this will minister to you at your heart level and change your life.
SPEAKER_01: I want to talk about today in the rubric of the power and gifts of the Holy Spirit, which is a series we've been on.
SPEAKER_01: You that are guests with us today, maybe walking in and didn't hear any of the other messages, you can go online, you can go to our website and you can see the sermon there.
SPEAKER_01: But we've talked about revelational gifts, which were words of wisdom, word of knowledge, and discerning of spirits.
SPEAKER_01: We've talked about the inspirational gifts, which is prophecy tongues and the interpretation of tongues.
SPEAKER_01: Last week, the power gifts, gift of faith, healing, and miracles.
SPEAKER_01: And today I want to talk about the five leadership gifts that are found in Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: I want to talk about leadership.
SPEAKER_01: So here's what I'm going to do, and we'll see if I have time to do it.
SPEAKER_01: I spoke at Karis Bible College on the kingdom of God to all the first and second year students at their chapels on Thursday.
SPEAKER_01: It was really fun, but I told the students, we may not get through this stuff because that's a big ask to talk about the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_01: I was on their TV program about three months ago with Andrew Walmack and his team, the pickets and everybody, and it was a really great time.
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, in the green room, we were talking about stuff, and they said, You keep talking about the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_01: You're always talking about the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_01: And he said, We don't have any classes at our Bible college, literally just focused on the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_01: Would you come and speak to our students?
SPEAKER_01: And I said, Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01: So same thing today.
SPEAKER_01: You get me on leadership or kingdom of God stuff, and I just want to talk for hours and hours and hours.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm just gonna, here's what I do.
SPEAKER_01: I'm always looking at the clock, and then when I run out of time, I figure out a really cool ending, and then that's all you get.
SPEAKER_01: So that's the way it's gonna be.
SPEAKER_01: So let me just start with this.
SPEAKER_01: Um, when we talk about gifts of the Holy Spirit, I've mentioned this before, but I want to be redundant.
SPEAKER_01: That is, we're talking about clusters of gifts, shading of gifts.
SPEAKER_01: So if you can imagine it this way, if you're out east in Colorado and you see a ravine, I guarantee you, somewhere along that ravine is a big oak tree.
SPEAKER_01: So you'll see a big oak tree.
SPEAKER_01: If you're in the mountains, you're gonna see a cluster of aspen.
SPEAKER_01: Because aspen tend to grow in clusters.
SPEAKER_01: So that one root system of an aspen spreads out, and you have hundreds of aspen coming off one root.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, not so with oak trees, it's different.
SPEAKER_01: So sometimes the typical view of spiritual gifts is thinking, what's my gift?
SPEAKER_01: What's my kind of like an oak tree mentality?
SPEAKER_01: Like, what's my gift?
SPEAKER_01: Um, and that's not my perspective.
SPEAKER_01: My perspective is more aspen.
SPEAKER_01: And that is that you're there's clusters of gifts.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm gonna talk about activating your spiritual gift next week, okay?
SPEAKER_01: But you'll notice it'll be activating your spiritual gifts.
SPEAKER_01: It'll be plural.
SPEAKER_01: Because I believe there can be a primary, but then underneath that are tertiary.
SPEAKER_01: So most of us think that if we take a test or something, like a spiritual gifts test, which I'll give you a website you can go to next week.
SPEAKER_01: You can write it down if you want to.
SPEAKER_01: It's kind of fun to take a test.
SPEAKER_01: But on the spiritual gifts test, it's gonna be like 10 questions, and it's gonna be, well, it'll be like 50 questions, but they'll have 10 that are related to that particular gift or gift.
SPEAKER_01: And it'll be something like, you are five out of ten in this, you are seven out of ten in that, right?
SPEAKER_01: So that's kind of how it works.
SPEAKER_01: And it's not you pursuing spiritual gifts, spiritual gifts pursue you.
SPEAKER_01: So if you just serve and love and minister, seeking the kingdom first in your life, spiritual gifts just follow you because it's the way God wired you, it's the way he made you.
SPEAKER_01: You don't discover your spiritual gifts, they discover you as you serve and love others.
SPEAKER_01: So, same with leadership gifts.
SPEAKER_01: So I want to, I'm gonna look at a couple passages that give us leadership gifts.
SPEAKER_01: So if you would turn to Ephesians 4, and in Ephesians 4, as you're as you're turning there, I wanna just reemphasize it's the same thing with leadership that there's shadowing, there's clusters of leadership gifts.
SPEAKER_01: It's not gonna just be these five that are mentioned.
SPEAKER_01: It there's more to it.
SPEAKER_01: Actually, the the gift of leadership is mentioned in one of the gift passages in Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: So we have a lot of gift passages in Scripture, it's like six or seven different places.
SPEAKER_01: Um I count 22 spiritual gifts that are mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12.
SPEAKER_01: Some people say there's eight, some people say there's nine, um, and but they're looking at the very beginning of 1 Corinthians 12, which we've covered somewhat here.
SPEAKER_01: But I want to open with this, and that is the challenging context of church leadership.
SPEAKER_01: The challenging context of church leadership.
SPEAKER_01: If you're taking notes, write this down.
SPEAKER_01: This is really important, and it'll give you a lot of grace for pastors.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so if I was speaking to an auditorium full of pastors, I would start with this.
SPEAKER_01: And that is the context, or maybe another way to say it, is the environment of church leadership.
SPEAKER_01: I would say this that church leadership is the hardest form of leadership on the planet.
SPEAKER_01: It's way harder than business, it's way harder than anything else you do, and I'm gonna give you three reasons why.
SPEAKER_01: And I've been doing this for 30 years.
SPEAKER_01: I'm an expert.
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: Number one is what I will call the aquarium context.
SPEAKER_01: The aquarium, some some might say the fishbowl context.
SPEAKER_01: The aquarium context.
SPEAKER_01: How many of you had an aquarium or have one now?
SPEAKER_01: Maybe when you're growing up, did anybody have that?
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so we had a big aquarium, and actually one time, kind of a funny story, we were having, remember beanbags?
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if beanbags are still around, but beanbags were really big in the 70s, and and my brother and I were throwing the beanbag and he hit me in the head because I was looking the other way when he threw it.
SPEAKER_01: He didn't mean to, but he hit me in the head.
SPEAKER_01: Made me mad.
SPEAKER_01: And I took that beanbag and I slung it back at him.
SPEAKER_01: He ducked and went right into the aquarium.
SPEAKER_01: And so we had we had um angel fish flopping all over our shag carpeting.
SPEAKER_01: Orange shag carpeting.
SPEAKER_01: Does it bring any memories to anyone here dating myself?
SPEAKER_01: But why do you have an aquarium?
SPEAKER_01: You have an aquarium so you see the fish.
SPEAKER_01: Exotic fish, cool fish.
SPEAKER_01: You can't see it anywhere else, you know, except in a big aquarium.
SPEAKER_01: And ours is pretty big.
SPEAKER_01: Now, you might have a fish bowl, or you maybe you had a little one like this.
SPEAKER_01: But the point is you're always viewing it, right?
SPEAKER_01: Well, that's church leadership.
SPEAKER_01: Church leadership, everybody's watching you.
SPEAKER_01: You are in, I mean, if you are a UPS guy and you put letters in the mailbox, and I can't tell you how many times in the last 10 months I wished I was a UPS guy.
SPEAKER_01: That I could just go out and just get my bag and put letters in the I know it's more complicated.
SPEAKER_01: If you have any UPS guys, this is not a downgrade of you.
SPEAKER_01: It's just a comparison to what you do to what I do.
SPEAKER_01: And so it's a fishball.
SPEAKER_01: You're everybody's watching you.
SPEAKER_01: So it's really tough because you make one slight mistake and ten people leave the church, right?
SPEAKER_01: Because they're watching you.
SPEAKER_01: Number two is the armchair quarterback context.
SPEAKER_01: The armchair quarterback context, and that's that's what you know.
SPEAKER_01: If you got a husband or a boyfriend or a brother when they're watching the football game, they could do it better.
SPEAKER_01: And if the coach had put them in when they were a junior in high school, they would have won state.
SPEAKER_01: Um, armchair quarterback, and so there's armchair senior pastors that know how to do it better than me.
SPEAKER_01: And that's great, you probably do, but you just have never been one, so that's a little bit of a problem, right?
SPEAKER_01: So armchair quarterback context.
SPEAKER_01: And then thirdly, the perfect church context.
SPEAKER_01: You're looking for the perfect church, right?
SPEAKER_01: And by the way, if you're looking for the perfect church, don't join it because you'll ruin it.
SPEAKER_01: Um but the perfect church context, you know, and and those are the those are the church hoppers.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you are church hoppers.
SPEAKER_01: About every two or three years, you find out, and this be true.
SPEAKER_01: Let me just tell you.
SPEAKER_01: Let me just tell you, and let me just put everybody's fears at ease.
SPEAKER_01: This is not a perfect church.
SPEAKER_01: Because I'm not a perfect pastor, none of my staff are perfect.
SPEAKER_01: We get sideways sometimes, we make mistakes, we do stupid things.
SPEAKER_01: So people sometimes ask, are you a spirit-filled church?
SPEAKER_01: And what they mean is it's a title.
SPEAKER_01: That means, do you raise your hands during worship?
SPEAKER_01: Do you speak in tongues?
SPEAKER_01: Do you believe in the gifts of healing and deliverance and all that?
SPEAKER_01: That's a spirit-filled church.
SPEAKER_01: That's a title.
SPEAKER_01: But actually in Scripture, Ephesians 5.18, which says, Do not get drunk with wine, but be filled with the Holy Spirit, is about a pretext, as it were, of how you live.
SPEAKER_01: And so it's daily.
SPEAKER_01: Who's on the throne of your life is the spirit-filled life.
SPEAKER_01: So guess what?
SPEAKER_01: There are days I've come here to preach and it's I'm not spirit-filled.
SPEAKER_01: How could he say that?
SPEAKER_01: Because it's true.
SPEAKER_01: Because sometimes I'm on the throne of my life and God's not.
SPEAKER_01: And I have to confess that I have to repent, right?
SPEAKER_01: So when people have asked me, they say, well, on Monday we were, but on Tuesday we weren't.
SPEAKER_01: And they don't understand what I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_01: Because the spirit-filled life is a verb, it's not a noun.
SPEAKER_01: It's about, it's about your choice every day.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, how many spirit-filled pastors do we know that have had eight and ten-year affairs with their secretary or with some woman?
SPEAKER_01: It's like, but they're spirit-filled.
SPEAKER_01: No, they're not.
SPEAKER_01: They've got the title of being spirit-filled, but in function, they're not.
SPEAKER_01: So do you hear what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_01: So, same thing with any kind of leadership.
SPEAKER_01: It's a function that you put on every day.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm going to tell you, everybody, in a sense, is a leader.
SPEAKER_01: And I think you'll understand it when I'm done.
SPEAKER_01: So I want to talk about that.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to look at these five areas that are talked about in Ephesians and in 1 Corinthians 12.
SPEAKER_01: But then I want to talk about why we have leadership in the local church.
SPEAKER_01: And then lastly, I want to talk about Christian leadership in general.
SPEAKER_01: I want to just make a few points, six points that I have at the end, if we get to it.
SPEAKER_01: So the kingdom opportunity of church leadership.
SPEAKER_01: So Ephesians, you guys, did y'all already turn to Ephesians 4?
SPEAKER_01: Look at chapter 4, look at verse 11.
SPEAKER_01: So Ephesians 4, 11, Paul says, and he himself, meaning Christ, and he's talking about a church context in Ephesus, gave some, not all, but some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers.
SPEAKER_01: So some people have called this the five-fold leadership gifting of the church.
SPEAKER_01: And that's fine.
SPEAKER_01: Five distinct spiritual gifts of leadership are mentioned here for sure.
SPEAKER_01: But it's interesting because if you compare it to 1 Corinthians 12, so keep your finger in Ephesians 4, because we're going to come back to that.
SPEAKER_01: Turn, that means turn left in your Bible to 1 Corinthians 12.
SPEAKER_01: Look at 1 Corinthians 12, 28.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm going to make, I'm going to make a point here.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, 1 Corinthians 12, 28.
SPEAKER_01: And if you recall, that's 1 Corinthians 12 is where we've been camping all of these other um previous messages on spiritual guests, but I want to go back to that.
SPEAKER_01: So this is 1 Corinthians 12, 28.
SPEAKER_01: This one's pretty explicit.
SPEAKER_01: It says, and God has appointed these in the church.
SPEAKER_01: So in other words, God has an appointment for this kind of leadership in the local church.
SPEAKER_01: He says, first, apostles, second, prophets, third, teachers.
SPEAKER_01: So he actually puts them in some kind of a maybe order of value.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not sure, but it does appear that since apostles occurs in Ephesians 4 as first, prophets is second, and then in actually 1 Corinthians 12, it actually says first, second, and third.
SPEAKER_01: There's a value system here of an accurate perspective, at least in the New Testament, of the kind of church leadership there was.
SPEAKER_01: But here's what's interesting about 1 Corinthians 12, 28.
SPEAKER_01: It says after that.
SPEAKER_01: Look at that.
SPEAKER_01: In New King James Version, it says, after that, miracles, gifts of healings, helps, administrations, and varieties of tongues.
SPEAKER_01: Now, why do I bring that up?
SPEAKER_01: Because it's not really related to leadership.
SPEAKER_01: Because I don't believe that in any list of the gifts in the New Testament that they are prescriptive.
SPEAKER_01: Write that down.
SPEAKER_01: It's not prescriptive, it's examples.
SPEAKER_01: Say it's not prescriptive, it's examples.
SPEAKER_01: So the prescription for spiritual gifts of leadership or inspiration or power has a few examples.
SPEAKER_01: I see them as examples in the New Testament.
SPEAKER_01: The reason I say that is because there were no worship teams.
SPEAKER_01: There weren't worship teams in the New Testament.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, did they sing?
SPEAKER_01: Yes, they sang.
SPEAKER_01: And it was very similar to a Jewish synagogue, because that's all they knew, right?
SPEAKER_01: But now we have worship teams.
SPEAKER_01: You didn't have administrators because everything was a house church.
SPEAKER_01: You didn't have CPAs because they gave everything away, you know, until they realized they didn't need to do that or shouldn't do that because they ran out of money.
SPEAKER_01: And that's bound chapter four or five, when actually the Jerusalem church has no money, and so they have to take a collection.
SPEAKER_01: So the church is growing in this in its embryonic stages.
SPEAKER_01: So as we grow in any church, there's a variety of gifts.
SPEAKER_01: There's gifts of administrations, there's gift of being a worship leader.
SPEAKER_01: There's a children's, there was no children's ministry back in the day because whole families came together.
SPEAKER_01: And I've said this many times that there was probably nursing babies, little kids crawling over the floor, and other kids getting into all kinds of trouble when Pentecost came.
SPEAKER_01: So when the Holy Spirit fell, there were probably crying babies over here.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it was a mess.
SPEAKER_01: The chaos that people saw wasn't just speaking in tongues, it was all the babies that were in the room.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: So the point is, is these are examples to us, they're not necessarily prescriptive.
SPEAKER_01: So let's talk about these five, though.
SPEAKER_01: Go back to Ephesians 4 with me, and I'm gonna entitle it Spiritual Gifts of Leadership in the Local Church.
SPEAKER_01: Spiritual gifts of leadership in the Local Church.
SPEAKER_01: And let's kind of let's kind of break it down.
SPEAKER_01: First of all, what is a Christian leader?
SPEAKER_01: Okay, and I'm gonna cover that at the end.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna give six qualities of a Christian leader.
SPEAKER_01: But what is a spiritual leader or Christian leader as far as a definition?
SPEAKER_01: So let me give you my definition, and this is the key to every definition.
SPEAKER_01: As a teacher, professor, all the crazy stuff that I've done in my career, what you find on definitions is simpler, the more simple, the better.
SPEAKER_01: So this is a very simple definition.
SPEAKER_01: You could take it apart in so many different ways, but here's what I think a spiritual leader or Christian leader is someone who influences people toward God's kingdom purposes.
SPEAKER_01: That's pretty simple.
SPEAKER_01: That's the irreducible minimum of what I think a spiritual leader is.
SPEAKER_01: A spiritual leader is someone who influences people toward God's kingdom purposes.
SPEAKER_01: And I want you to note it.
SPEAKER_01: Has nothing to do with position.
SPEAKER_01: Leadership, the lowest level, everybody listen to me.
SPEAKER_01: The lowest level of leadership is positional leadership.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm the senior pastor, but if I'm not influencing the church and the body of Christ to our kingdom purposes, I'm not really a spiritual leader.
SPEAKER_01: I have a position, I have a title, but leadership at the essence is influence.
SPEAKER_01: Now, why is that important?
SPEAKER_01: Because that means that a mom who's pouring her life into her husband and into her kids is a spiritual leader.
SPEAKER_01: And a husband that maybe has no position in his job whatsoever, that's leadership.
SPEAKER_01: When he comes home, he reads the Bible to his kids, he's talking to his kids about the Lord, he's loving his wife, is a leader.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: So what we tend to do, especially in the political realm, is, and by the way, most politicians, I'd say 90% of politicians are not leaders.
SPEAKER_01: They're not leaders.
SPEAKER_01: All they are are people who want power.
SPEAKER_01: Now, I mean, they may have a vision and that's great, but most of them don't have a clue about how to lead.
SPEAKER_01: Because if you look at their background, most of them do not come out of an industry where they created anything.
SPEAKER_01: They they're a one-man show.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, a leader is more about the next generation, and a politician is more about the next election.
SPEAKER_01: So what happens is these are con men, most of them, okay?
SPEAKER_01: That's what they do is they they're really good at manipulating systems, or they're really good with social media or whatever.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm always looking, who's a leader?
SPEAKER_01: Leaders get into situations where they push the ball forward even against the status quo.
SPEAKER_01: You hear what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_01: Okay, whereas most political leaders got their finger in the air.
SPEAKER_01: That's what they do.
SPEAKER_01: Republican or Democrat, that's what they do.
SPEAKER_01: And so they attract that kind of people.
SPEAKER_01: That's the kind of people they attract.
SPEAKER_01: Leaders are people who break the status quo a lot of times, and they've got a vision and they're steadfast.
SPEAKER_01: Ronald Reagan was a leader.
SPEAKER_01: Ronald Reagan, whatever you think about Ronald Reagan as you look back in the past, the dude was a leader.
SPEAKER_01: And he had about three priorities and he stuck to them and he drove that car forward and it changed our country.
SPEAKER_01: It's called the Reagan Revolution because of what he did.
SPEAKER_01: Anyone heard of the Noiser Podcast?
SPEAKER_01: Noiser Podcast.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so the Noiser Podcast is this podcast of all these historical things.
SPEAKER_01: So I got kind of hooked on Noiser with their series on Titanic.
SPEAKER_01: It's like 12 uh episodes on Titanic.
SPEAKER_01: But right now, it's I mean, you may say, Steve, you're just so weird.
SPEAKER_01: You know, by the way, I don't pray all the time, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Um, Noah, it's called Narcos, and it's about how the narcotics trade, you know, began to take over America starting back in the 70s, starting around 79 to 83.
SPEAKER_01: And so you see, you see the drivenness of what happened as far as all that.
SPEAKER_01: But anyway, here's my point.
SPEAKER_01: What Reagan did from 81 to 84 was huge as it related to the drug trade that was taking over our country, the Iran-Contra stuff, that fiasco.
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, that's what leaders do.
SPEAKER_01: So leaders go against things sometimes.
SPEAKER_01: And by the way, they're not popular with everybody.
SPEAKER_01: So let's start with the first one, and it's apostolic.
SPEAKER_01: Apostolic gifting.
SPEAKER_01: Now, the question people ask is, do you believe there's apostles today?
SPEAKER_01: And what they mean is, do you believe that we have apostles on the level of the Lamb's 12?
SPEAKER_01: Like the the original disciples?
SPEAKER_01: No, I do not believe that.
SPEAKER_01: I even have some people in the church who disagree with me on that, but that's my perspective, is that the Lamb's 12 actually turned out to be 11 because of Judas, uh, are a unique group that did signs and wonders at a high level, having been with Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm not saying a repeat of that.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm not talking about capital A apostle.
SPEAKER_01: I'm talking about apostolically gifted leader.
SPEAKER_01: An apostolically gifted leader.
SPEAKER_01: And that's really, really important.
SPEAKER_01: Now, here's what's interesting.
SPEAKER_01: Jot this down, it's really important.
SPEAKER_01: There are 24 apostles called apostles in the New Testament outside of the 12.
SPEAKER_01: So there's 25 men and women, by the way, that are called apostles in the New Testament that were not part of the original 12 disciples.
SPEAKER_01: So that means that even then, even in the first century, apostle or apostolic gifting was wider and broader than just the original 12 disciples.
SPEAKER_01: So here's the here's the meaning of the word apostle.
SPEAKER_01: Apostolos in Greek means a delegate, one sent with full power of attorney to act for another.
SPEAKER_01: So I would say it's an appointed and anointed by God person to go on a mission by God.
SPEAKER_01: That's what an apostle is, the gift of apostle.
SPEAKER_01: So in today's parlance, a Apostolos would be a missionary.
SPEAKER_01: It would be someone who's called on a mission.
SPEAKER_01: They leave home to carry out a mission.
SPEAKER_01: They're appointed by God to do that.
SPEAKER_01: It's a church planter.
SPEAKER_01: I would say, you know, in my consulting with church planters over the years, I've met hundreds of apostolically gifted men and women who can see and have a vision for planting a church and they don't need any outside help.
SPEAKER_01: They don't even want any outside help.
SPEAKER_01: You know, and so that today it's very common in the American church planting movement to raise$150,000 or$200,000, have a big marketing campaign.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not against that.
SPEAKER_01: That's fine if they want to do that.
SPEAKER_01: But the way I've always done it, and the way I've always advised people, is just start a Bible study.
SPEAKER_01: Just start a Bible study in your home and then do what you say your vision is.
SPEAKER_01: Just build a culture of the vision.
SPEAKER_01: So if you're gonna love people, you believe in healing, you believe in people getting saved, you feel in discipline, just do it.
SPEAKER_01: Start with five people, then ten people, then fifteen people.
SPEAKER_01: That's the way I did Mountain Springs out of my home.
SPEAKER_01: That's the way I did the road.
SPEAKER_01: You know, you just build, build.
SPEAKER_01: I said, Oh, that's that'll take forever.
SPEAKER_01: Not if God's on it.
SPEAKER_01: If God's on it, it won't take forever.
SPEAKER_01: And I've seen so many church plants, and there's four or five that have happened in this city, where they asked me about guiding them, and I said, What are you gonna do?
SPEAKER_01: And they said, Well, I'm gonna do this big marketing campaign, and I've got$150,000 that I've raised, and we're gonna hit it hard, and we're gonna, our goal is 400 people on opening day.
SPEAKER_01: And I said, Great, go consult with somebody else.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know anything about that, because here's what's gonna happen.
SPEAKER_01: That's what I've told them.
SPEAKER_01: You'll have 400 on opening day, you'll have 300 on the next Sunday, you'll have 200 on the next Sunday, and you'll end up with about 75 people.
SPEAKER_01: Why don't you just start a Bible study?
SPEAKER_01: Just start a Bible study and just do it, right?
SPEAKER_01: And if you can't do it with 10, you're not gonna do it with 100.
SPEAKER_01: If you can't do it with 100, you're not gonna be able to do it with a thousand.
SPEAKER_01: So that's the apostolic gifting.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it gets you pumped.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I loved every phase of doing Mountain Springs Church.
SPEAKER_01: From when it was my family only, where the dining room table was where we should meet because the living room was too big.
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's just that little group, a bunch of kids, right?
SPEAKER_01: They have to be nice and and act like they're listening because I feed them.
SPEAKER_01: That was my crowd, right?
SPEAKER_01: Until it was like 3,000, you know?
SPEAKER_01: And then here, same thing, we gradually grow it.
SPEAKER_01: You gradually grow.
SPEAKER_01: So that apostolic gifting does not need outside help.
SPEAKER_01: And let me give you the characteristic of an apostolic gifted leader.
SPEAKER_01: They're fiercely independent, driven, and love building a church from the ground up.
SPEAKER_01: They love leading and organizing people around a shared vision.
SPEAKER_01: That's an apostolically gifted person.
SPEAKER_01: Secondly, prophet.
SPEAKER_01: So um I did prophet a lot two weeks ago, but here's a definition.
SPEAKER_01: Prophetic.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I forgot to give you the apostolic gifting definition.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, apostolic gifting is one anointed by the Holy Spirit to plant and raise up church or churches and or ministries.
SPEAKER_01: And I would say parenthetically, without outside help.
SPEAKER_01: They don't need any help.
SPEAKER_01: They're like, matter of fact, I remember my mom calling me and saying, why don't you, because I come back from the mission field and she knew that I wanted to church plant and start a church.
SPEAKER_01: She said, Why don't you do it in the Lutheran church?
SPEAKER_01: And I said, Because the Lutheran church doesn't want me.
SPEAKER_01: She says, No, we know everybody in the Southeastern Synod.
SPEAKER_01: Your dad is the most connected guy in the country, you know?
SPEAKER_01: And I went, great, but the way I, I mean, the bells, the smells, the candles, the the claim, that clerical collar alone would choke me to death on the first day.
SPEAKER_01: I can't do that.
SPEAKER_01: So, anyway, apostolically gifted is one appointed by the Holy Spirit to plant and raise up churches and or ministries.
SPEAKER_01: Prophetic gifting is one anointed by the Holy Spirit to forthell and foretell truth to a congregation.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm doing it in a church context, okay?
SPEAKER_01: So there, by the way, this completely blends in also to business in different areas, but I'm just talking about the local church right now, not like a business and stuff.
SPEAKER_01: But anyway, this is one who forthells and foretells truth to the congregation, and I'm gonna move past that real quick because we covered it in a way two weeks ago.
SPEAKER_01: But the characteristics of a prophetically gifted person, they're visionary, they're black and white in their evaluation.
SPEAKER_01: That's why prophetically gifted people jump from church to church because they make everybody mad.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: So a prophetically gifted person who also has a heart of love does great.
SPEAKER_01: But a lot of times they let their prophetic gifting get ahead of their character, and so it becomes a problem.
SPEAKER_01: Um, they're black and white, they're not afraid to speak out truth.
SPEAKER_01: And then we need that for sure.
SPEAKER_01: Thirdly is the evangelist.
SPEAKER_01: Thirdly is the evangelist, evangelistic gifting, one anointed by the Holy Spirit to effectively preach the gospel with successful results.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so in a small e-evangelistic way, we're all called to do the work of an evangelist.
SPEAKER_01: Everybody should be sharing their faith, but an evangelistically anointed person with a real gifting often has amazing results.
SPEAKER_01: They see people get saved on a pretty regular basis.
SPEAKER_01: They have a way, this has been my experience, they have a way of knowing what that person needs.
SPEAKER_01: It's kind of a discerning, remember I talked about shading?
SPEAKER_01: So it's almost like they have a discerning of spirits, too, with non-Christians.
SPEAKER_01: They love being with unbelievers, they love being with people who have a lot of problems and who are not, you know, churched or they're not Christian, and they have a way of knowing what that person needs in a really uncanny, supernatural way.
SPEAKER_01: So characteristics of an evangelistic gifting would be they love to share their faith with unbelievers, they're very comfortable around people with little or no faith, and they see results from their witness.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, they're effective.
SPEAKER_01: They do lead people to Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Fourthly, is the pastor.
SPEAKER_01: And we tend to think of pastor like a noun.
SPEAKER_01: You guys call me Pastor Steve, you you call Marcus, you know, Pastor Marcus, um, like it's a title, and that's fine.
SPEAKER_01: And that's that's that's honorific, and we appreciate that.
SPEAKER_01: But it's really, it is, it actually is a gifting.
SPEAKER_01: It actually has it is a verb.
SPEAKER_01: So pastoral gifting is one anointed by the Holy Spirit to love and pastor people, especially in their time of need.
SPEAKER_01: That's they've got a big heart.
SPEAKER_01: They're a big hearted person.
SPEAKER_01: I've often called the pastor gift the counseling gift.
SPEAKER_01: That a lot of times people with a pastoral heart become counselors, right?
SPEAKER_01: And so, even right now we have J.R.
SPEAKER_01: Palemus, who was the founding, well, not really the founding, but almost like he had 25 people when he started it.
SPEAKER_01: But the the Rock Church in Castle Rock, he retired 10 years ago to go into counseling.
SPEAKER_01: He's got a pastor's heart.
SPEAKER_01: So it was an easy segue for him because he just loves people.
SPEAKER_01: He just cares about people.
SPEAKER_01: And and and his heart is burdened for people.
SPEAKER_01: And even for me, that that's a part of my cluster as I love people.
SPEAKER_01: I love asking questions, I love listening.
SPEAKER_01: Um, and I'm gonna be making a little bit of a shift in how I do Sunday mornings.
SPEAKER_01: I wanted to let you guys know that.
SPEAKER_01: That I'm gonna try to be available before and after every service in the lobby.
SPEAKER_01: And um I just I just realized that sometimes I get so into the prayer times with people or the prayer times before we start service that I miss hanging with you guys.
SPEAKER_01: So you're gonna see me more in the lobby as you're coming in and as you're leaving than we have in the past.
SPEAKER_01: And uh isn't that fun?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: And here's the deal.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, there's a catch to it.
SPEAKER_01: The catch is there's a lot of people here, and uh, so Pastor Al's gonna be with me, and some of the other pastors have invited, but they have responsibilities sometimes during Sunday morning.
SPEAKER_01: But who would want to join me?
SPEAKER_01: Like where you would go and you'd say, I want to be a part of greeting at the road.
SPEAKER_01: Raise your hand.
SPEAKER_01: Anybody want to join me?
SPEAKER_01: All right, raise your hand.
SPEAKER_01: Anyone?
SPEAKER_01: Got a heart for people?
SPEAKER_01: Got a pastor's heart?
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: So here's what I'm gonna ask you to do.
SPEAKER_01: If you raise your hand, is go to the welcome center and say, sign me up.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna hang with Steve.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm you're not gonna hang with me, but we'll be in the same room together.
SPEAKER_01: We'll be in the same lobby together.
SPEAKER_01: But I wanna I I want the road to have a love culture.
SPEAKER_01: And sometimes when you get big, and we had it in the beginning, and we have it now, but it can it can be so much deeper.
SPEAKER_01: It can be so much better than what current is.
SPEAKER_01: And if you have a heart for that, even if you didn't raise your hand, go out there and I'd love to do it with you, and we'll just have a lot of fun loving on people and and being there for them.
SPEAKER_01: So, characteristics of a pastoral gifting.
SPEAKER_01: This is someone who enjoys listening to people, loves asking good questions, loves asking good questions, possesses a natural curiosity and desire to understand and help people in need.
SPEAKER_01: That's a pastoral gifting.
SPEAKER_01: So it's it's just a love for people and a desire to help them, help them grow in their life.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, fifthly is a teacher, the teacher gift.
SPEAKER_01: Kind of goes without saying, it's kind of obvious, but the teacher gifting is one anointed by the Holy Spirit to teach God's word with effectiveness and impact.
SPEAKER_01: Teach God's word with effectiveness and impact.
SPEAKER_01: This person loves teaching God's word, not for knowledge's sake, but to impact the people that they are teaching.
SPEAKER_01: Characteristics of the teaching gift, they love to research, read, study, and pull out insights from the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: They love to communicate their insights through teaching the Bible to others.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm I'm focusing on Bible teaching.
SPEAKER_01: Now, I know in a lot of seeker churches and other kinds of churches, you're coming in, and that person could have a teaching gift, but they're more of a motivational speaker than anything else, and that's fine.
SPEAKER_01: They'll have one verse up and then they'll talk about, you know, ten ways to love your wife better and have great sex.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I don't know.
SPEAKER_01: There's all kinds of different topics out there.
SPEAKER_01: But I'm talking about specifically the teacher who opens a word and exegetes God's word, that teaching gift.
SPEAKER_01: Now, I'm gonna shift gears.
SPEAKER_01: I've got three minutes.
SPEAKER_01: Oh my goodness, I knew this was gonna happen.
SPEAKER_01: Um what's the purpose of the leadership gifts in the local church?
SPEAKER_01: So go, you're Ephesians 4, right?
SPEAKER_01: Look at 12.
SPEAKER_01: Look at the next verse.
SPEAKER_01: This is really, really, really important.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 12.
SPEAKER_01: For the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry.
SPEAKER_01: So, number one, the purpose of leadership in the local church is equipping people.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, it's equipping people.
SPEAKER_01: We have as our mission statement at the road, empowering people to change the world.
SPEAKER_01: That means that if you have an evangelistic gift, you should be raising up evangelists.
SPEAKER_01: If you have a teaching gift, you should be raising up teachers.
SPEAKER_01: If you have an apostolic gift, you should be raising up apostles.
SPEAKER_01: It's not about you.
SPEAKER_01: It's about you equipping the saints so that we have an equipped church.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, that's the purpose of the church is equipping saints.
SPEAKER_01: Number two, look at verse 12 again.
SPEAKER_01: For the edifying of the body of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: So, secondly, it's edifying, it's encouraging the whole body.
SPEAKER_01: It's not just mobilizing a few, it's mobilizing the whole church to make an impact in the city.
SPEAKER_01: So, so that's what I see as the primary purpose of this pulpit is to equip the saints, edify the whole body, and then thirdly, look at verse 13, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to a perfect person, a perfect man to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: So, number three is fullness of Christ and love.
SPEAKER_01: Fullness of Christ and love.
SPEAKER_01: That you're getting equipped with leadership gifts that you look more and more like Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: So we don't need more Christian politicians.
SPEAKER_01: We need more Christian politicians that act and look like Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Say amen to that if anybody agrees with me.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: We need businessmen, not just businessmen who are Christians, but businessmen who look a lot like Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And so I make a distinction between looking like Christ and being a Christian because Christian's just such a generic term.
SPEAKER_01: Whereas when we look like Christ, that's what changes the world, you guys.
SPEAKER_01: That's what a kingdom of God revolution is.
SPEAKER_01: A kingdom of God revolution isn't where you go to church or how often you go to church, is do you, in your practice or whatever it is God's called you to do with your job, that's your mission field, do you make decisions that are Christ-like?
SPEAKER_01: Because if we had, let's just say at this church, if we had 1,200 to 1,500 people that acted like Christ in his love every week, that alone would revolutionize our city.
SPEAKER_01: That alone would revolutionize our city.
SPEAKER_01: All right, I've got 40 seconds.
SPEAKER_01: All right, what is true Christian leadership?
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna just cover this real quick.
SPEAKER_01: Probably I need to cover it next week or something, but what is true Christian leadership?
SPEAKER_01: Let me give you six little axioms.
SPEAKER_01: Six little axioms.
SPEAKER_01: Number one, it's not about control, it's about service.
SPEAKER_01: It's not about control, it's about service.
SPEAKER_01: You're serving people, not demanding people to serve you.
SPEAKER_01: That's Christian leadership.
SPEAKER_01: Number two, it's not about power, but empowerment.
SPEAKER_01: It's not about you being a powerful person, it's about you empowering others to be powerful in the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: It's giving it away to them.
SPEAKER_01: Number three, it's not about manipulation but inspiration.
SPEAKER_01: It's not about manipulation, but inspiration.
SPEAKER_01: So we're here to inspire people to do the right thing, not manipulate them to do the right thing.
SPEAKER_01: Number four, Christian leadership is about purpose and vision.
SPEAKER_01: It's about having a purpose and a vision.
SPEAKER_01: Number five, it's about becoming more than doing.
SPEAKER_01: It's about becoming more than doing.
SPEAKER_01: Who are you becoming as a leader?
SPEAKER_01: Are you starting to look more like Christ?
SPEAKER_01: Or are you just getting the job done?
SPEAKER_01: And this is a real big struggle for apostolic leaders because we have a job to do, right?
SPEAKER_01: But yet it's about becoming in the midst of your doing.
SPEAKER_01: And then lastly, a true Christian leader looks a lot like Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: So we're looking more and more like Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to the Road Church Podcast.
SPEAKER_00: We pray today's message has empowered you to make a difference in your world.
SPEAKER_00: For more information about the Road Church and to find more content like this, go to theroad.org.
SPEAKER_00: That's theroad.org.