Spiritual Life of the Leader - Lesson 5

Dr. Stephen Martyn
Spiritual Life of a Leader
sf502-05
Questions About Evaluating Your Motives
Lesson Transcript

I. Questions About Evaluating Your Motives

A. How Do You Monitor Your Motives?

We really need time to integrate what we have heard; sometimes it is good to question what we have heard. We need to ask whether or not it is really the Gospel or not. Anything a prophet says is subject to who or what of the other prophets. Does anyone have the whole truth of God in their life? Well, God gives us Jesus and his truth. Anyway, questions help us integrate the information that we have.

How can we distinguish between building a kingdom for the Lord and building a kingdom for ourselves? I think that as an individual, I am not fully capable of seeing it. I think the more gifts and grace that God has given me the more capable I am of self-deception. I am speaking out of my own personal life here; none of this is theoretical. I think the only way we can avoid self-deception is through the community that we live in and are a part of. If I am married I would also refer to my wife or spouse to know what they think. Moreover, Christianity is not me but instead it is we; Christianity is in the plural, not in the singular. There are some things that can be accomplished being a single person. No one can accept the goodness of God’s kingdom for me; I have to accept that myself. When you look at Jean-Paul Sartre, this leads to individualism and egoism; it is whatever feels right and whatever feels good for you. The early church talked about the eight deadly sins and the beginning of holiness is the realization of all the eight deadly sins reside in my life. The worst of the worst are vain glory followed by pride. Vain glory is thinking in terms of how good you are, taking the credit instead of giving it to God. The only way I know to do that is to submit myself to a small group of people who I allow to speak into my life. In some circles, it is called a 360 review which is really difficult. You allow those over you and those under you and beside you to speak truth into your lives. What we know from the early churches, the deeper you get into Christ, the more subtle deceptions you have. I have to have the body of Christ in my life.

B. What do You Mean by, ‘The Merits of Christ?’

You are using the phrase, ‘the merits of Christ.’ I know you don’t mean it in the Roman Catholic sense and so how do you mean it? When I talk about the merits of Christ in a classical understanding, it is what was accomplished for humanity on the Cross. We are talking about the atonement, the fact that Jesus died in my place. He defeated evil and took the punishment. Was God joking when he said that if you should not eat of the fruit, you will die? It is what Jesus did for me, a onetime historic act and we need to avoid thinking that this was some kind of a heroic martyr’s debt, something that inspired us, which is not a Christian view. We are not talking about a heroic martyr, but instead the God of the universe dying on the cross, a onetime historic event that covered the sin of the world. Does that mean that every person personally receives that? No, it doesn’t, but every person who responds, bending the knee and following Christ.

C. How do You Respond When you see Red Flags?

If we see any of the red flags in ourselves, the course will help us to know how to deal some of those. But just briefly, it is easy to identify those red flags in other people and especially in leaders. I don’t know if it is true but it seems like the more fame they get, it seems like it is even easier to see it. Do you have any thoughts on how to react to people who are in our leadership circles that I personally have to talk to or answer to?

This is a two point question and I need to know whether I understand it or not. Basically, what I do when I identify those in my own life and what I do when I identify those in other’s lives. For the second question, in 1st John 5:14, this is the boldness we have in him that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us and if we know that he hears us and in whatever we ask, we know that we have obtained the request made of him. In verse 16, if you see your brother committed what is not a mortal sin, you will ask and God will give life to such a one. This is where I have such an issue at times; the Lord created us to have sense of right and wrong. That is part of the work he has done for all humanity. So, when we see a wrong or injustice, we are naturally indigent. Sometimes we are called to stand against that which is wrong and it is right and good to stand against that which is wrong. I think the greater issue is who do I have a right to get mad at? If you take the wisdom of the early church for they say that there is only one person in the world you have a right to be angry with and that is yourself. Oswald Chambers says that you want the mind of Christ and he is trying to put life into that person. So the call for me is to ask what I see in the life of others. Do I just see what is wrong or am I trying to have the mind of Christ? You want the mind of Christ to pray life into your spouse and goodness into your children and to pray for your pastor. I’m checking those red flags because I don’t want to be known as a person who is always against, always irritated and angry with somebody else. This is making life miserable for yourself and everybody around you. The Holy Spirit brings these things up and you can deny them and thus you give Satan a foothold in your life.

D. Wanting Affirmation in Ministry

Just this last week, I met with a group of pastors and what you are talking about came up. This touched my heart then and also now. When we go up to preach and prepare, at one level, you don’t want to look like an idiot and at another level, you want people to like you; you did a great job. At one level, you want God to legitimately be glorified in the process. I’m assuming that tension because I don’t know which is taking over sometimes. I don’t have the ability to do so. I am assuming that tension is something we can live with and that God is in the sanctification process and can reveal what he wants. Is that accurate thinking, otherwise I don’t even know how we function.

I like your language of tension because you are admitting that there could be some impure stuff. All of us have to come to admit: am I going to collapse in being an anxious people pleaser? That term comes from the famous Neil Freudian psychotherapist by the name of Horney, a German psychotherapist. It is called the neurosis of our time. Am I going to be an anxious people pleaser? This is how it would work for me; I could literally have a hundred people walk out on Sunday morning and say, ‘good sermon preacher’ and a hundred people would tell me how something specifically spoke to them or how there was a transformational moment. And then one old blessed soul would come out and tell you how bad it was. It happens with anybody in an upfront ministry. It is even worse if you are a music person. I would find myself focusing the whole week on that one person and then I would go through all the red flags. I am called to present the Word as faithfully as I can and he knows that I am a cracked pot. The vessel is cracked. Being a potter, I love to do pottery. So, my vessel is cracked, it leaks and I have to have continual accountability. It is his word and I trust the power of that; I just pray for freedom for those I am training that you will not be lead down the path of being a people pleaser. I am not here to please anyone; I am here to please God. Does God love us enough to have people oppose us? It is just part of ministry today. You are not going to go anywhere without having opposition.

You are doing your best to check whether you are doing any kind of people pleasing. You are not there to build your own kingdom; you are being faithful and in that I will say to rest in the Lord. He is going to work it out.

E. What do You do When People’s Expectations don’t Match what God is Calling you to do?

I know that we are called to serve people and to serve the Lord with ministry being the idea of serving people in the process of it. People see us as serving them and there is a tension between serving the Lord and serving people between being a people pleaser and just trying to do your job. People have a lot of expectations on what that job is. I am wondering about the consumer culture that we live in. I know what some of the answers are but how do we resist this, that constant pressure to do your job.

You have to let Lazarus die. Once again, Mary and Martha, what? You stayed three days longer! He is dead! We are going to do a whole thing on expectation and anticipation. Expectations kill us. So the expectation is that I have hired you, I am paying you to do a job and basically it works itself out to saying, you are okay if you are there when I need you and how I need you on my own terms. In other words, omni-available, and my word is that you have to let Lazarus die. This has been a wonderful session and I pray that the Lord will guard his Word even through my very fallible ways.