Servant Leadership
Type: Sunday Morning Service
Sermon: Servant Leadership
🗣️ Speaker: Pastor Tom Van Kempen
True leadership in God's kingdom looks nothing like leadership in the world — instead of climbing to the top, it means stooping to serve, picking up a towel rather than a title. The early church in Acts 6 faced its first internal crisis when rapid growth exposed gaps in care for widows, and the apostles responded by raising up seven servant-leaders of proven character, wisdom, and Spirit-filled lives to share the load. Competence can build something quickly, but character — humble, selfless, and rooted in love — is what sustains it for the long term. every need. When God’s kingdom comes first, peace replaces anxiety and daily life is lived one day at a time.
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Additional Info
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What Does Real Leadership Actually Look Like?
Most of us have been taught that leadership means rising to the top — accumulating power, influence, and a seat at the head of the table. But there is a radically different model of leadership, one that has been quietly transforming communities for thousands of years. It starts not with a title, but with a towel.
Growth Always Reveals Gaps
In Acts 6, the early church was experiencing explosive, Spirit-fueled growth. The number of believers had swelled to somewhere around 20,000 people — a staggering leap from the original 120. And with that growth came an unexpected crisis: the widows in the Hellenist community were being overlooked in the daily food distribution.
This is one of the first great lessons of leadership. Growth brings both opportunity and responsibility. When things are going well and momentum is building, it is easy to celebrate the wins. But growth will always expose the cracks in any structure that has not been built to scale. The wise leader does not ignore those cracks or run from them. They call a meeting, assess the situation honestly, and find a solution together.
Focused Leadership Protects the Mission
The apostles' response to this crisis was not to micromanage every detail themselves. They recognized that trying to do everything would mean doing nothing well. Their role — prayer and the ministry of the Word — would suffer if they spread themselves too thin. So they made a courageous decision: they shared the load.
This is the principle of focused leadership. When leaders are honest about their calling and their limits, they create space for others to step into their own. The goal was never for a few people to run everything. The goal was to build a community where everyone had a role, and everyone's contribution mattered.
Leadership in the Kingdom Means Descending, Not Ascending
In almost every arena of public life, leadership is about climbing — climbing the ladder, climbing the org chart, climbing the opinion polls. In the kingdom of God, the direction is reversed. The greatest leaders are the ones willing to climb down.
Jesus himself modeled this perfectly. Philippians tells us he did not consider equality with God something to hold onto. He descended — from heaven to earth, from glory to a borrowed manger, from a throne to a cross — not because he had to, but because we needed him to. That descent was the greatest act of leadership in human history.
This is what the word deacon actually means at its root. It described a servant moving quickly through the dust, carrying food from the kitchen to the table. Before it was ever a church title or an office, it was an action — the act of bringing God's provision to people who needed it, urgently and joyfully.
Character Is the Only Qualification That Lasts
When the apostles outlined what they were looking for in these seven servant-leaders, they did not ask for resumes. They did not look for the wealthiest, the most educated, or the most charismatic. They looked for three things: a good reputation, fullness of the Holy Spirit, and wisdom.
This aligns perfectly with what the apostle Paul would later write in his letters to Timothy and Titus. In every list of qualifications for church leadership, Paul keeps coming back not to talent or accomplishment, but to character. Words like blameless, not greedy for gain, not double-tongued, full of love, and self-controlled paint a picture not of a polished professional, but of a person who has been slowly, quietly shaped by God over time.
The word blameless does not mean perfect. It means a heart posture — a person who, when they stumble, gets back up and turns toward God. It means someone who is not chasing money or power or recognition, but who is genuinely moving in the direction of Jesus every single day.
Wisdom Knows When to Speak and When to Stay Silent
One of the most undervalued qualities in any leader is wisdom. Wisdom is not the same as intelligence or education. Wisdom knows when to speak and when to stay silent, when to act and when to wait, when to confront a problem and when to quietly cover someone in grace.
The two greatest sources of wisdom available to anyone are the Holy Spirit and the Word of God. Together, they can shape even the most unlikely person into someone whose judgment can be trusted in the most difficult moments.
Servant Leadership Flows from Genuine Love
There is a version of service that is really just performance — showing up to get the t-shirt, to be seen, to earn the recognition. That is not servant leadership. Real servant leadership flows from a genuine affection for people. It shows up in the parking lot to pick up trash. It is the last one to leave because it is still turning off the lights. It does not need applause. It just needs to know that the people it serves are taken care of.
This kind of leader — humble, consistent, character-driven, and Spirit-filled — is not just what the church needs. It is what families need. It is what workplaces need. It is what communities desperately need. And if history is any guide, it is exactly the kind of leadership that lasts.
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Use the questions listed below as a launching point to discuss the sermon points together as a family. These are great for dinner table discussions and small groups.
Leadership with a Towel Based on Acts 6:1–7
WELCOME (5 minutes)
Open with a quick icebreaker: Think of the best leader you have ever known personally. What made them stand out?
SCRIPTURE READING (5 minutes)
Read aloud together: Acts 6:1–7
"Now in those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplying, there arose a complaint against the Hebrews by the Hellenists, because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution. Then the twelve summoned the multitude of the disciples and said, 'It is not desirable that we should leave the word of God and serve tables. Therefore, brethren, seek out from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business; but we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word.' And the saying pleased the whole multitude. And they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit, and Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas, a proselyte from Antioch, whom they set before the apostles; and when they had prayed, they laid hands on them. Then the word of God spread, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith."
Additional scriptures referenced: Luke 22:24–27 — The disciples argue about greatness; Jesus redefines leadership as service. Mark 10:45 — "For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many." Philippians 2:5–8 — Jesus humbled himself, becoming obedient even to death on a cross. Proverbs 20:28 — "Love and truth form a good leader."
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS (30 minutes)
The word "deacon" started as an action, not a title — it described someone moving quickly through the dust to bring food to people who needed it. How does that image change the way you think about what it means to serve in the church?
The apostles said they needed to stay focused on prayer and the ministry of the Word, not because serving tables was beneath them, but because focused leadership protects the mission. Are there areas in your own life — work, family, church — where you are spread so thin that nothing is being done well? What would it look like to be more focused?
When the early church needed leaders, they did not look for the wealthiest, the most talented, or the most educated. They looked for good reputation, wisdom, and fullness of the Holy Spirit. Which of those three is hardest for you to develop, and why?
Jesus descended from heaven to earth, from glory to a manger, from a throne to a cross. He called that the model for leadership. In your own life or relationships, what does it look like practically to "climb down" rather than "climb up"?
It was said that you cannot effectively lead people if you secretly despise them — that genuine servant leadership flows from a true affection for people. Is there a person or group of people in your life that is hard for you to serve with a genuine smile? What would it take for that to change?
ACTION STEP (5 minutes)
This week, identify one specific act of service you can do for someone — at home, at work, at church, or in your neighborhood — that no one will see or applaud you for. Do it anyway. Come back next week ready to share how it went.
CLOSING PRAYER
Close by praying for the leaders in your church, your family, and your community — that God would raise up people of character, wisdom, and genuine love for others.
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Acts 6:1–7
To understand what is happening in Acts 6, you need to picture Jerusalem in roughly 30–35 AD — a city teeming with Jewish pilgrims, converts, and a brand-new and rapidly growing movement of Jesus followers that had no precedent in human history.
The tension in this passage is cultural as much as it is logistical. The "Hebrews" were Jewish believers who had grown up in the land of Israel and spoke Aramaic as their primary language. The "Hellenists" were also Jewish believers, but they had grown up scattered throughout the Greek-speaking Roman world — places like Egypt, Asia Minor, and Greece itself — and Greek was the language of their daily life. While both groups shared faith in Jesus, they came from different cultural worlds, and those differences created friction.
In the ancient Jewish world, caring for widows was a deeply serious moral and religious obligation. A widow had almost no legal standing or economic means of survival on her own. There were no pensions, no government assistance, and no social safety net. The community — and specifically the synagogue — was her lifeline. The early church had inherited this practice and developed a daily distribution system to make sure widows were fed. When the Hellenist widows began to feel overlooked, it was not a minor complaint. It was a genuine crisis of justice and community trust.
The apostles' response was remarkably wise for its time. Rather than dismissing the grievance or trying to manage it themselves, they called the whole community together — what we might recognize as the first recorded church business meeting — and empowered the congregation to choose seven trusted individuals to oversee the distribution. The number seven held deep significance in Jewish culture as a number of completeness and covenant responsibility. The names of the seven chosen are largely Greek, suggesting the church intentionally appointed leaders from within the very community that had raised the concern — a remarkable act of cross-cultural sensitivity and trust.
This moment in Acts 6 is widely regarded as the origin point of what would later be formalized as the office of deacon in the early church, though at this stage it was simply a practical, Spirit-led response to a real human need.
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KIDS LESSON: Leaders Wear Towels Based on Acts 6:1–7 and Mark 10:45 Ages: 6–12 | Time: 45 Minutes (Above their clothing please)
INTRODUCTION (5 minutes)
Gather kids together and ask: "What do you think a leader looks like? What do they do?" Let a few kids answer. Then hold up a towel dramatically and say: "Today we are going to find out that the most important leaders in God's kingdom carry one of these — a towel! Not a crown, not a trophy — a towel. Let's find out why."
SCRIPTURE (5 minutes)
Read aloud in a kid-friendly version: Mark 10:45 — "Even Jesus did not come so that others would serve him. He came to serve others and to give his life for many people." Acts 6:1–4 — Tell the story in your own words: "The church was growing super fast — thousands of people were coming to Jesus! But with so many people, some of the grandmas and widows in the church were not getting enough food. So the leaders got together and said, 'We need some helpers — people who are kind, wise, and full of God's Spirit — to make sure everyone is taken care of.' And the people chose seven helpers to do just that."
Main Point to Repeat: Leaders in God's family serve others first.
CRAFT: My Servant Leader Towel (10 minutes)
Supplies: Paper towel sheets or small cloth towels, fabric markers or regular markers, stickers.
Instructions: Give each child a paper towel or small cloth. Have them write their name on it and draw or write one way they can serve someone this week — at home, at school, or at church. They can decorate it with stickers or drawings. Encourage them to take it home as a reminder. Say: "Every time you see your towel this week, remember — real leaders serve!"
GAME: Towel Relay Race (10 minutes)
Supplies: One towel per team, small bean bags or rolled-up socks.
How to play: Divide into two teams. Each team must carry a bean bag from one end of the room to the other using only a towel held between two players — no hands on the bean bag! If they drop it, they go back and start again. First team to get all their players across wins.
Debrief: "That was hard, right? Serving takes teamwork. When we work together, we can take care of more people!"
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS (5 minutes) Ask the kids:
Can you think of someone at home or school who serves others without being asked? What do they do?
Jesus could have had everyone serving him — he's God! But what did he choose to do instead? Why do you think he did that?
What is one thing you can do this week to be a servant leader?
WRAP-UP PRAYER (5 minutes)
Have kids hold their towels while you pray together. Invite any child who wants to pray out loud to do so. Close with:
"God, thank you for Jesus, who showed us that the greatest leaders are the ones who serve. Help us this week to be helpers at home, at school, and here at church. Help us to love people the way you love us. Amen!"
LEADER NOTE: Remind kids to take their towels home and show their family what they learned today!
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Good morning.
There are a couple things that made me want to shout this morning.
Those water baptisms.
Let's give it up for those guys, alright Man.
It's really uh what our work is all about here is getting as many people into the kingdom as possible, and when you water baptize six in one day That's a good day.
That's a good day.
And then uh just uh uh some old school songs that uh took me back.
I I mean I sang those songs back in the early 70s And uh uh Andre Crouch, I think, wrote most of those.
Do you guys remember Andre Crouch?
Man, that was a long, long time ago.
Uh I uh Heard about a man, he uh owned his own business, and he uh had about a hundred and twenty-five, hundred and fifty employees, something like that.
And he was a good natured fellow and and you know, he would play jokes on his staff sometimes, and they would play jokes back on him and had a great relationship.
And so uh one day he walks on in to the office and and his his office was Noticable and and and he just placed a sign on the front that said, I'm the boss.
And so everyone's kind of looking at that throughout the morning and Uh boss takes off and goes to lunch.
He had a lunch appointment and when the boss came back there was a little yellow post-it note on the sign that said your wife called and she wants her sign back.
And I don't think anyone got fired over that, so good natured guy.
The reason I tell the joke is uh really twofold.
Number one, leadership matters.
Leadership matters.
And today we are going to have a changing of the guard in our own church.
Three People who have served for a cumulative of almost 100 years are going off the board.
And uh of the six candidates that we have, only one has ever served on our board before.
And so it's going to be uh uh a significant change, uh hopefully one that you've been praying about over the the last couple of weeks in preparation for this meeting.
But I I want to reiterate that leadership matters.
Now, I also want you to understand that today's message is for everybody.
It's not just for those who who are candidating or a possible future board member.
Leadership shapes families.
It changes businesses.
It dictates the direction of a church.
It changes people's lives.
And so leadership is really, really important.
And you don't even have to have a title.
To be a leader.
If you're a teacher or have ever been a teacher, you're a leader.
If you're a mom or a dad, you're a leader.
If you're a brother Or a sister, you're a leader If you have mentored anybody throughout your life, if you're a coach of any kind, that makes you a leader.
Everybody has the potential to lead at least one other person.
But here's the tension.
Leadership in the kingdom of God and leadership out there somewhere oftentimes looks significantly different.
In the kingdom of God, we uh we we take our cues from Jesus Christ, who can say amen?
In the business world, leaders rise to the top.
In the kingdom of God, leaders actually stoop to serve.
In politics, leaders accumulate as much power as possible.
In the kingdom of God, we're constantly giving away our power.
In the boardroom, oftentimes, leaders sit at the head of the table, but in the kingdom, leaders pick up a towel.
Would you say towel, please?
Towel!
This is the symbol of a leader in the body of Christ.
It's someone who's willing to get their hands dirty and wash someone else's feet who can say amen.
We're gonna look at uh Acts chapter 6 today.
Uh there is a word Uh actually it is uh Dioconus, something like that.
I'm not a Greek uh expert.
Uh but it's the word where we get the word deacon from or deacons that are mentioned in uh the Pauline uh epistle letters.
And uh this is typically uh thought of as the origination of this office.
But I need you to understand that in the Bible it doesn't begin as an office, it begins as an action.
If you're going to be a deacon, if you're going to be a minister in the body of Christ in any way, shape, or form, you have to know how to serve your fellow man.
You have to know how to how to make a difference in people's lives.
So in Acts chapter 6, verse 1, it says this: now in those days when the number of the disciples was multiplying There arose a complaint against the Hebrews by the Hellenists.
This is just the Jews and the Greek. uh converts right here, okay, or the Greek Jews here.
Because their widows, the Hellenist widows, were being neglected in the daily distribution.
So this is a moment in history, but it also is a a lesson on leadership And how the apostles, how the leaders of the church at that time handled a very difficult and complex situation.
And it's going to teach us a number of leadership lessons that I think is important for us as we're beginning to vote on our Board members, and if you're confused between the term and board member and deacon, don't be confused.
In our Constitution and bylaws, it means the same thing.
Board member, deacon, the same thing in our Constitution.
Point number one is this.
Growth brings opportunity and responsibility.
Most people love the opportunity part of that.
They're not so keen on the responsibility part Verse 1 here tells us that the number of disciples was was multiplying.
In other words, when when God and His Spirit were actively engaged with the church in those early years, it wasn't one plus one equals two.
It was five times five and ten times ten and fifty times fifty.
God was multiplying disciples.
Who can say amen?
So this is what it tells us in Acts chapter 4.
It says that the number of men in the church had grown to 5,000.
5,000?
Just in that first year or so.
That's a lot, 120 to 5,000 men.
You you you can probably assume there was probably 5,000 women also And at least twice that many children.
The church is now sitting at 20,000 people.
How many are ready for 20,000 next week?
We're gonna need a bigger building.
We're gonna need a bigger building.
And now we can have ten services.
We can have ten services I'm just saying when God gets involved, crazy things start happening.
But a lot of people get scared when a pastor starts talking about phenomenal growth because growth will expose our gaps.
The same way it did here at the early church.
The beautiful unity of the early church was threatened.
This is the third time.
The first time external persecution tried to threaten the unity of the church, it didn't work.
Then it was internal hypocrisy.
A couple of of people were were giving money to the church and and Peter goes, Is that everything?
And they go, Yeah, that's everything.
And they were lying to the Holy Spirit and they lost their lives in that moment.
But even hypocrisy could not stop the church.
Who can say amen?
But now we've got a new problem that doesn't even seem like a problem.
It's growth.
Things are happening.
People are getting saved.
And it's exposing a gap.
The the structure is not sustaining what is happening.
If you look at verse one again what you notice is that they had a feeding program going on and it was developed to take care of the needs of the widows However, in this verse you see that some widows were getting their needs met, and some seemed to be neglected, at least that's what people thought.
Now, the apostles didn't run and hide.
They confronted the problem head on by calling the very first recorded business meeting.
So I need you to understand that business meetings are not a negative thing.
Business meetings are not something to run away from and hide from.
Business meetings are a part of even the book of Acts.
That's how they they wanted to handle this situation, and they wanted to handle it with wisdom.
So the apostles realized that growth requires a focused leadership.
They had to really know what it is that God God wanted them to do.
So look at verse 2 here.
Okay?
Then the twelve summoned the multitude, this is the business meeting going on, of the disciples, and said, It is not desirable.
It's not a good thing that we should leave the Word of God and serve tables.
Now that almost sounds negative to a certain degree.
It almost sounds like the disciples are saying, you know what, we're too good to wait on tables.
But listen, that is not what they are saying.
Good leaders are willing to pick up trash in the parking lot.
Who can say amen?
Good leaders aren't afraid of hard work.
They just want the church to be organized as as Best as possible, as carefully as possible.
They're not saying that serving tables is beneath them.
The same Greek root is used for serving tables.
Diaconia, and for preaching the word diaconia once again.
They weren't elevating preaching over practical helps, they were just clarifying what they specifically were supposed to be doing so that other people could get involved in ministry.
Can I hear an amen, please?
Everyone should be involved in ministry.
The apostles were saying, hey, we're doing everything by ourselves right now.
We're just being spread way too thin.
There's there's 20,000 people.
We need to start structuring this church thing a little differently, or we're gonna wear ourselves out And our priority based upon verse 4 is simply we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word.
This is the pastor's responsibility.
This is the pastor's priority.
Pastors should be Praying for their flock on a regular basis.
Pastors should be praying for a strategy to evangelize the community.
Pastors need to be praying for things to be smooth and uniform In the name of Jesus Christ.
Pastors need to be praying about what the next sermon is going to be and what the next series is going to be and the direction of the church.
And together with other leaders, they can help make proper decisions if they're spending time in prayer who can say amen and then they need to study study study study study They need to be studying the word, finding out what the Holy Spirit's saying, preaching sermons, teaching different classes, various things like that.
Many people in the church are under the wrong impression that the pastors are paid to do the ministry.
That's not what the Bible says.
Our job, besides these two things, is to train you for the ministry.
You are the pastors, the ministers, the servants, and the deacons of this church.
And as the apostles did here, pastors today need to make ways for other people in the church to get involved in ministry on a regular basis.
And that's why growth demands shared leadership.
It's not one guy does it all.
It's not Two or three guys.
The solution to expansion is not control.
It is sharing the burden.
It's sharing the responsibility.
God never intended for there to be superstars in the body of Christ.
We are a team.
Who can say amen?
We work together.
Verse 3 goes on.
Keep going.
Yep.
Therefore, brethren, seek out from among you seven Dudes here, alright?
Seven guys.
Not not two or three, seven.
I started thinking about that.
Choose a team.
Not a hero, not a superstar, not a personality, a team.
Delegate to them real authority.
Give them real responsibility.
Now, what is it they could be doing?
I mean, so a couple of elderly ladies in the church needed some food.
That doesn't take that much, does it?
Think. 20,000 in the church.
I went online and I typed in the question, if a town has 20,000 people in it, how many widows will be in that town?
And the answer was 12 to 1500.
Six to eight percent of your population is typically widows.
Back then, widows had no means of supporting themselves.
They had little hope whatsoever.
So there are over a thousand women that are needing to be served on a regular basis, and it was not taking place.
So these seven were going to be instrumental in coordinating care, managing resources, overseeing the logistics of getting the food, purchasing the food, and getting it to the right people.
But in the kingdom of God, administration is ministry.
Who can say amen?
How many of you are really good at administration?
Details.
Bookkeeping, paperwork.
Did you know your church needs you?
Your business needs you.
Your family needs you.
Somebody needs to pay the bills in the house, right?
And hopefully between the husband and the wife, there's somebody who can add.
There's someone who can subtract.
That's probably more important because there's more subtracting going on a lot of times.
And I'm just saying when the right person is in charge in the right area, things go smoothly, things go beautifully, if you want to know the truth.
So they didn't ask, you know, uh find find the wealthiest people, that's who we want in charge.
Find find the find a priest, that's who we want in charge.
We want the most educated.
No They said, we want a deacon, which meant servant, a minister, someone who's willing to do just about anything for the body of Christ.
Point number two is this leadership in the kingdom starts with a a towel, not a title.
The word deacon was was an action verb long before it was a position in a church.
See when you look at Luke chapter 22, the disciples were fighting for position.
On a regular basis behind Jesus' back they'd say, uh I'm gonna be on his right hand, and the other one would say, No, no, I'm gonna be on his right hand And here again we find the disciples arguing over who is the greatest.
Imagine this: Jesus is going to the cross.
He's getting ready to die.
And they're debating who's going to be on his right hand and who's going to be on his left hand.
Knee they don't want to be on either of those places They did up too.
Exactly.
Jesus is preparing for something very, very difficult and they're debating status.
And in the midst of all this, Jesus says this: the most important one of you should be like the least important, and your leader should be like a servant.
Radical leadership teaching, completely different from what the world was teaching.
In every other kingdom, leaders climbed up a ladder in the kingdom of God leaders climb down the ladder they descend into greatness who can say amen Jesus set the example for us by descending from heaven and coming to this planet.
In other words, deacons must be servants first.
The word deacon didn't start out as a title or a badge of honor.
It started, as I said, as an action word. chapter 6 we see three different words from the same Greek root diakonus can you get to that Robin So in verse 1 we have distribution.
In verse 2, we have serve.
And in verse 4, we have the word ministry.
And two of the words are exactly the same, and one is the same root word, okay?
It's basically saying the same thing.
When you're feeding someone who's hungry, it's ministry.
When you're waiting on a table, it's ministry.
When you're preaching the word, it's ministry.
It's this idea that there's not an important ministry and a less important ministry, that they're all equal.
Are you getting this?
That they're all valid, they're they're all important.
So so technically at a church, the the board is the weight staff of God Their job is to not sit at the head of the table.
It's to make sure everyone else at the table gets fed.
That everyone else gets taken care of.
They need to do this on a regular and consistent basis.
And they need you to pray for them.
Because deacons must be stewards of God's resources.
Every dollar that's given to this church is given to God.
He is the one who should be deciding where every dollar is spent, how it's spent.
And the root of Dioconos suggests someone moving quickly through the dust.
Because remember, they didn't have sidewalks, they didn't have paved roads back then.
They would they would go to the to the kitchen and they would bring the bring the food out to the table and it was usually one of those um Roman tricliniums, kind of a a U-shaped table, and and they were moving at breakneck speeds.
They were they were kicking up dust.
That's the idea behind this word.
The kitchen is God's presence where you find grace and provision.
A deacon, a minister of the gospel should be getting God's provision and taking it to the people.
And moving in such a way that they're kicking up a little bit of dust wherever they go.
Ministering, transforming, helping.
Building people up, encouraging.
Why?
Because we need encouragement.
We're hungry.
We need the blessing of God in our lives.
And a leader's job is to bring it.
Who can say amen?
A deacon is basically God's Uber driver.
They aren't the ones who cook the meals.
They don't even pay for the meal.
They're just the ones making sure the delivery gets to the right house on time with a smile.
That's leadership.
And Jesus modeled it perfectly.
Deacons must follow Jesus' example.
Philippians tells us that Jesus humbled himself, becoming obedient to the cross, even death on a cross.
Now, sometimes we just take that for granted because we forget the fact that Jesus and God are co-equal They are the same.
God the Father and God the Son are one in the same.
But Philippians tells us that Jesus did not consider equality with God something to be grasped.
He didn't have to hold on to it.
He was willing to obey the Father and do what needed to be done for you and for me.
For our benefit, he humbled himself.
He didn't see the job of of coming to the earth as as too small Deacons walk through a parking lot picking up trash.
They are the last to leave because they're turning out the lights and locking the doors.
They don't need recognition or awards or applause because all they care about is the kingdom of God.
Who can say amen?
So for my master's degree, I had to read a book called Good to Great.
And it was uh written by a man by the name of Jim Collins.
And he studied all of these really good companies from the 1960s that 40 years later had become great companies.
And they only identified to like 10 or 11 companies in the entire Fortune 500.
So out of all of these gr really good companies in the 60s, hardly any of them were still productive and profitable uh 40 or 50 years later.
And he was trying to figure out why this is the case And one of the reasons he discovered was that even in the business world, the very best of the best for an extended period of time has servant leaders.
Leaders who are humble.
He describes them as level five leaders who are fiercely determined about the mission of what is going on, but deeply humble.
At the exact same time.
They're actually willing to sacrifice some of the bells and whistles, some of the uh benefits that go along with modern day membership for the betterment of the company.
And of course, Jesus in Mark chapter 10, verse 45, it says this: 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.
If there's one person who deserved service, it was Jesus.
If there's one person that all of us should have been bowing down to and still should be bowing down to, it's Jesus.
But he came and washed feet.
He came and carried a cross.
He came and gave his entire life.
Leadership in the kingdom is all about things like sacrifice.
Leaders sacrifice their time, their preferences, their money.
They're not driven by a personal agenda.
They're driven by God's agenda.
But this is where the message gets really, really serious in just for a few minutes.
It's easy to say we're a servant.
It's hard to live it out on a daily basis.
Because in order to live the life of service, you have to be a man or a woman of character.
So when we're going to be voting in an hour or so from now, we're not looking for resumes.
We're looking for character.
Something deeply rooted inside of the six different candidates that we have.
Verse 3 again says this: seek out from among you seven men.
And here's the requirements Good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit, and full of wisdom.
Good reputation, a reputation that literally preceded them.
This is one of the challenges in what we do here today.
Because we don't know all the candidates.
Sometimes as the church gets bigger and bigger and bigger, it's harder to intimately or even casually know everybody And so we're going to have to rely on prayer.
Who can say amen?
We're going to have to rely on the fact that the Holy Spirit of God can nudge our hearts and say that's the candidate.
Vote for him, vote for her, whatever the Spirit's speaking into your heart.
Be willing and open to listen to what the Spirit says.
But leadership is not proven on a on a little bio form that we're going to hand you before the business meeting.
I mean it doesn't matter what their job was, it doesn't matter if they've served on the board before.
All that matters is what's God's plan.
That's what matters.
No, that doesn't mean something in the Bible won't connect with your heart.
It doesn't mean that the Holy Spirit won't use that to impress a Upon you that this is the one or these are the three candidates that he wants you to vote for.
But what's important is that we understand that the qualifications for leadership in the church are spelt out Three different times in the New Testament, all by Paul.
And there are all these lists.
And in these lists, very seldom does Paul talk about talent.
He talks about character, character, and character.
He never talks about accomplishments.
It's character and character and character.
He doesn't talk about if they were presidents of industry.
He talks about character and character, not charisma, not talent, not education, character Probably the the word that jumps out at me the most is the word blameless.
Because it's found in all three lists the list of the bishop, the deacon, and the elder.
It's it's this word blameless.
And when I was younger, I thought, well, I will never be blameless.
There's too much sin in my life.
God will never be able to, you know, deal with that.
I'll never be a leader.
I'll never be a pastor or whatever And then the more I started studying and reading and spending time with God, I learned that it's not a perfection that God's after.
It's a heart posture that God is after.
He's wanting us to have a heart like David, a heart after God's heart.
It's not that we're perfect and we make the right decision every time.
It's it's As we get older and as we start maturing in the Lord, we become more and more like Jesus every single day.
We still slip once in a while.
We still get angry.
We still make mistakes.
But our heart is is towards God.
We want to make him proud.
We want to live a whole life, a balanced life, balanced with scripture.
We don't get caught up with money any longer.
That's why it says not greedy for gain.
It's not about power.
It's about controlling our behaviors.
And specifically our tongues.
It says that we can't be double-tongued in one of those lists.
In other words, we don't go out of a meeting and just share everything with everybody.
And when the pressure comes, we don't run to the vices of the world.
We don't run to alcohol or drugs.
We get on our knees even quicker and pray even louder and more often.
Who can say amen?
That's the mark of a leader.
They're also spirit-filled.
What does it mean to be a spirit-filled Christian?
Well As a Pentecostal church, it means that they're filled with the fruit of the Spirit, and they're filled with the gifts of the Spirit, at least one gift of the Spirit, and they're filled with the The fruit of the Spirit, and they're filled with the Holy Spirit in abundance.
They should be overflowing with the with the Holy Spirit in their lives.
But again, from a character standpoint, it's about love It's about joy and peace and self-control.
These are characteristics that should at least be evident to some degree in their lives.
Proverbs chapter 20, verse 28 says, Love and truth form a good leader.
Love and truth, yes.
Now can you fake love?
Eh for a short period of time I mean I I have told you about my convoy of hope events out in Las Vegas.
We did them numbers of years.
We had crowds of over 10,000 people.
We would serve them Thanksgiving Dinner, we would serve them uh uh bags of groceries, we'd give them all a free turkey during the Thanksgiving holidays.
We'd have thousands of pairs of shoes.
We'd have doctors and and nurses and and beauticians and and nail people and and I mean uh it just went on and on and on And we gave away usually over one million dollars in goods and services in one single day.
So yeah, it's It was a cool thing, there's no doubt about it.
And so what we did to identify those who were ministering and serving is we would give them a t-shirt and then we would ask them to give pretty much their entire Saturday to ministering to the needy.
Well, what shocked me is we had people who showed up at 6 a. m. to get the t-shirt and they would leave and wouldn't serve.
Just so they could tell somebody in their family or on their block, look, I got a t-shirt from Convoy of Hope.
I I I served.
They wanted the recognition of serving without the work of serving.
That's not What we're talking about.
Servant leadership flows from a true affection for people.
You cannot effectively lead people if you secretly despise them.
And true servants have a smile on their face.
It's not grin and bear it.
It's I get to serve my Lord by serving his people.
I get to serve this Sunday because his church needs service today.
I get Get to serve at walk starting next month because those kids need me desperately in Jesus' name.
I get to serve by going to Africa or Cuba this summer because those people need me and I am the hands and the feet of Jesus Christ who can say amen.
That's what we're talking about when we talk about service.
And finally they need to be filled with a wisdom that guides them Wisdom is uh is a hard quantity to come by nowadays.
We're more opinionated than we are wisdom-inated.
I just made that word up, by the way.
It's a good one, thank you.
We need to be wisdomated.
We need to be filled with the the wisdom of the Holy Spirit.
Wisdom knows when to speak and when to stay silent, when to confront and when to cover, when to act and when to wait.
And the resources for wisdom are simply the Holy Spirit and the Holy Word of God.
Those two things in conduct junction can make you one of the smartest, most wise people in the entire world.
You don't even have to have graduated from high school.
You don't have to graduate from a university to be wise.
You just have to graduate from the school of God's Holy Spirit who can say amen.
Would you stand with me, please?
So the good news in the Acts chapter six, church, is that uh the church kept growing. uh after they made the structural rearrangements.
Uh one of the deacons actually started doing signs and wonders and ended up giving his life For the gospel.
Philip became an evangelist, and all of his children became prophetesses So there's a lot of fantastic things that happened after those seven people were voted into this particular ministry office.
So this is what I've learned.
Competence can build something quickly, but character sustains it long term.
We're looking for People of character.
And although we're gonna dismiss you in just a couple of minutes and ask you to go out and come back in and register if you're gonna vote with us, I I need you to understand that this message went way deeper.
Than those board candidates for today.
It's about every single one of you in the body of Christ here.
Every one of you is a leader Every one of you has potential to make a difference in at least one person's life.
So that means every single one of you is called to be a minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Whether that's through preaching or through preaching. practical acts of service you have been called by God's Spirit today to actively engage in ministry.
We typically have a an altar call of some kind of response to the message.
And and uh so if there are some prayer partners here I'd like to ask you to come forward and and we want to make sure and pray with anyone who needs prayer today, okay?
But let me make it very clear, the response to today's message is to be praying about who these new three leaders are going to be.
So I need you, if you leave, to at least whisper a prayer on behalf of Oxford Assembly of God Church that through this process we would be guided in who to vote for.
If you're going to be a you're a member here And you're returning for the business meeting.
I need you to vacate as soon as possible and go out into the foyer.
And then we're gonna have Laura and some helpers with her are going to set up a registration table where you're Going to be able to register to vote.
I think it's A to M will be at one table and N to Z will be at the other table.
And you can register at those tables.
You'll be getting some ballots to vote.
You'll be getting some uh information on the campus. candidates and different things like that.
And uh then the members as they come back in will sit in these two sections.
If you're a visitor, feel free to To watch what happens and see what takes place.
The only difference is you are not allowed to sit in these two middle sections.
The visitors need to go to the outside to the right or to the outside of the left just so that we can keep things uh proper and in order.
And we will hope to start the business meeting just a few minutes after After we're finished with prayer at the end of this service.
And so let me pray for you and for our church as we dismiss and again.
If you need prayer, please we will make time for you to have your needs ministered to in Jesus' name.
Heavenly Father, we come to you in the precious name of Jesus Christ.
You're so great.
It boggles my mind sometimes as I go through the scriptures that you have a relevant word for every situation we face in life.
Whether it's a a business meeting Whether it's a family tragedy, whether it's the birth of a child, you always have words that are found in your scriptures that can encourage, that can correct, that can instruct Father God.
So I pray, Father God, that you would just help us as a church as we approach this meeting that's coming up in just a few moments.
I pray that you'd give us all wisdom.
I pray that you would use the process of voting to uh choose the the people that you desire and that father god out of those six candidates i just thank you for each and every one of them I thank you for all the nominees.
I thank you, Father God, for all the nominations that came in.
I thank you that people have been acting in this process and that through this process you are making the determination in the decision.
So Father God just watch out for you for us uh show us lead us and guide us we pray in jesus holy and precious name and together everybody says amen again if you need prayer please come forward if not i would love to instruct you to please exit as quickly as possible so that we can get people back in in their earliest convenience.
