The Leadership Team

In the town I grew up in there were three Little League baseball teams. Three local business sponsors made it possible that the teams had uniforms but the teams were best known not by the names of the businesses, but by their colors. I was on the Red team. There was a Blue team. And then there was the Green team. When this little town organized this activity, only two teams were planned. The Red team and the Blue team were selected and the players were pretty evenly distributed as to their ability. The Green team was like an afterthought. It was made up of players who weren’t chosen to play on the other two because of their inability. So instead of redistributing the players to make up a third team that was relatively equal in potential, the games began with two-and-a-half teams, as some would say. On any given game day, it was anyone’s guess as to who would win in a Red-versus-Blue game. But it was never any doubt as to who would win anytime the Green team took the field. The other team was always the favorite. The Green team never won that whole first season. Most of their players had never played the game. After my team had thoroughly trounced the Green team one day and I was doing my share of boasting, I remember thinking that my daddy didn’t know very much about baseball because of something he said. On the way home he said the Green team would become the best ball team one day. He predicted that those boys would learn to play the game the best, not because they were the best players, but because they were the best learners. They depended more on their coach than the other teams did. And they knew they were helpless without him. I laughed out loud. And the next year the Green Team won it all.

Often in church life, leaders have been chosen from among those who have shown their ability to excel in life and are often innovators and initiators, independent thinkers and self-starters, movers and shakers, leaders and not followers. As we are confronted with massive change occurring in our culture, we lament the state of the church today as being seen as irrelevant to shape the culture. In fact, some of us can be pretty critical that the church is not much different than many secular organizations in structure and function. Sometimes the core values that guide our decision making in the church are not grounded in biblical truths but in cultural norms. Could it be that what we are lacking is a more biblical model in our church constitutions for choosing our spiritual leaders? Could it be that we need to see ourselves like the Green team and acknowledge our inability, always knowing that we are first followers who are becoming leaders, constantly aware of our utter dependence upon Christ?

Our instruction today is relevant and timely to us as a church. We can learn some lessons from how Jesus chose spiritual leaders. Let’s read the passage before us.

And He went up on the mountain and summoned those whom He Himself wanted, and they came to Him. And He appointed twelve, so that they would be with Him and that He could send them out to preach, and to have authority to cast out the demons. And He appointed the twelve: Simon (to whom He gave the name Peter), and James, the son of Zebedee, and John the brother of James (to them He gave the name Boanerges, which means, "Sons of Thunder"); and Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Zealot; and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Him. (Mark 3:13-19)

Jesus rejects worldly methods to choose spiritual leaders.

WHEN JESUS CHOOSES FOLLOWERS WHO WILL BE LEADERS, HE REJECTS THE WORLD’S METHODS OF SELECTION.

I. THE LORD CALLS DISCIPLES OUT OF A PERSONAL DESIRE. (13)

...He ...summoned those He Himself wanted...

He knows us when He calls us. The relationship has already begun. Those He calls, like sheep with a Shepherd, know His voice. Adam heard the sound of the Lord God in the garden. It was something God had initiated. Here Jesus restores the personal call from God to man. God calls because He acts out of His personal desire.
A person cannot come to God until Christ calls. Maybe you have heard the old joke, “What do you call a dog with no legs? It doesn’t matter. They can’t come anyway.” I always thought that was funny. But here is a similar thought that is not very funny at all. A person cannot come to God until Christ calls because they do not have ears that can hear. They are dead. Dead men have to be made alive to hear Christ. This is the summons. Consider a summons to appear in court. The summons must be answered in person or the person can be found to be in contempt. Here is the position of the unbeliever, the non-Christian. They are in contempt of the call of Christ. So they do not respond. Their non-response is a response. It is contempt for the authority of God.
Christ desires to seek and save that which was lost. We have already read that Christ had called some men to follow Him. Here He summons them. It is for the transference of the authority of God. And Christ has a desire to place that authority upon His disciples. He came to seek men who will wear that authority and exercise it. His kingdom has come.
Disciples fulfill the desires of Christ. This thought is almost too heavy for light thinking within human minds. Do not hear me say that God saved us because we were deserving of His love and mercy. God saves us because of who He is. He saves us despite what we deserve. We are saved because God desires to show mercy through Christ. When someone says to God, Lord I believe You and trust You with my life. I want to follow You and serve You, and I need your forgiveness and grace every day. I want to be with You. I believe Christ delights in that. A follower of Christ who is a learner of His ways is a disciple. Disciples are desired by Christ.
The church is to call its leaders following the example of Christ. Worldly systems often appoint those with the most seniority, or the best qualifications, or the greatest experience to be trained as leaders. Often it is about who you know rather than what you know and sometimes the experience is not as deep or the knowledge as great that has been represented. We may have seen the negative outcome of someone padding a resume. The Christian Church is to be led by the Spirit of Christ in choosing leaders. And in this regard it is all about Who you know…and what He knows. We must be known by Christ to be appointed by God and know Christ to appoint leaders.

II. THE LORD’S CALL GIVES US OUR PURPOSE AND QUALIFIES THE CALLED. (13-14)

...they came to Him...that they would be with Him...He appointed...

We were designed to be God’s companion. Here is the beauty of the call of God. Not only is Jesus the fulfillment of the Immanuel prophecy in Isaiah, God with us, He wants us to be with Him. Have you ever wanted to be with someone who does not want to be with you? When I was sixteen years old, I was infatuated with a girl who was a cheerleader. Each day after school, I went home, put down my books and grabbed my helmet. I rolled my motorcycle out of the garage and roared out of the driveway, on the way to my part time job. I took a detour by the ballfield where the cheerleaders practiced.
One day as I rode by, she waved. The next day she waved and I stopped. She came up to me on the motorcycle, (be still my heart) and put her hand on the face shield of the helmet. It left a print on the shield. For a week, I would ride that motorcycle, looking through the handprint, and think about that cheerleader. I had big plans for our companionship as I stopped every day that week and talked to her. I was trying to work up my courage to ask her to go with me to the county fair. On the final day of that week, I turned up the street and saw her walking with one of the football players going to practice, arm and arm. She didn’t even look my way as I shifted gears on my motorcycle. I didn’t even blow the horn. When I got to my place of employment, I got some Windex and paper towels and squirted and wiped her handprint off my faceshield and her heartbreak right out of my life! Aren’t we glad God does not treat people like people treat people? God designed us for holy communion and companionship. With Him and with one another.
It is not our idea to be called…it is for His purpose. The non-Christian does not get up one morning and decides to seek God. The Bible says there are none who seeks after God on their own initiative. So if you have a desire to come closer to God today, know that this is evidence of God working within you that gives birth to that desire. It is God’s idea for us to be called by Him. Today is your day. Answer the call.
Christ calls us to come to Him despite life’s challenging circumstances. Here we see Jesus climbing a mountain and calling disciples to Him. He doesn’t call them to come to a place He hasn’t already been. Have you noticed that we often have ears to hear when life is most challenging? He tells people to “rise and walk, stretch out your hand, remove the stone, come to Me, all who are weary and heavy laden”. These all seem to be overwhelming challenges to people of His day and to people in our day.
He calls us come into His presence wherever He is. Have you responded to Him by coming to Him? Have you climbed the mountain to get to Him or are you waiting for Him to come down? How much further does He have to come but the way He came and the way He left?
He looks for disciples who have no ability other than availability. The Lord does not seek to call the most qualified. He will qualify those He calls. He looks for disciples who have no experience as the world seeks after. The Lord seeks after those who have surrendered their lives to Him, willing to abandon it all to follow Him. Here is the message to our church. Are we willing to follow Christ, wherever that might lead us? Are we available to come or are we too consumed and attached to what we think we might lose to see what we can gain? Are we available to climb to our mountaintop mission?

III. THE LORD’S CALL IS TO PREACH AND HAVE SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY. (14-15)

...that He might send them out to preach... they might have authority to cast out demons...

The Ruler of the Universe once again gave ultimate authority for men to rule. The Genesis account where the man is created in the image of God and in His likeness was given the opportunity to rule over the creation. They were to rule as creation managers on behalf of the Creator. To be God’s stewards. All through the history of man, Satan, the enemy of our souls, has tried to damage this image beyond repair. Consider Job, the servant of God. In the beginning of the story, Satan pledged that if God would remove His protection, then he would make it so that Job would curse God. Jesus warned Peter that Satan demanded permission to sift him like wheat. Here is a reinstatement of spiritual authority by the Second Adam who had endured this enemy’s temptation in the desert. Disciples are granted authority to preach and cast out demons. This is but another chapter of the fulfillment of the prophecy in Genesis 3 where the seed of the woman crushes the head of the serpent. Humans are given authority over the demonic realm to which they have been enslaved. Christ, The Absolute Ruler of the Universe, invaded our planet to crush Satan’s rebellion and reestablish the order of God and bring all things under His authority. We are only granted this authority if we operate under the authority of the One who is sending us.
Man must be granted authority to operate on this planet because we do not have any on our own. There are only two sources of authority. One is legitimate and ultimate. That belongs to God. The other source is illegitimate and inferior. And it belongs to Satan, whose purpose is to grab the authority of God for himself and deceived mankind into serving him and rebelling against God. So who are you serving? There are only two masters. And man is not one of them. We are either slaves to God and His holiness or slaves to Satan and sin’s wickedness. To the one who may be saying today, I have no control of my life and I am helpless to bring order to the chaos, I say this. There is good news for you. If you can hear the summons of Christ to come and be with him today, then come. Why would you continue to resist Him? Who wants more chaos?
Christ calls us to send us. A preacher is not exclusive to the one who stands before you on Sunday mornings. The text says He called the disciples to preach. In that day, these people were called apostles, or the ones who were sent. To preach means simply to proclaim the truth. Now many people never proclaim the truth of God to others. There can be several reasons for that. One reason is that some don’t know what to say. They don’t know what to say because they don’t know what Christ has said. They are content to let the preacher who is paid to preach do the preaching. That is not the biblical mandate. We are called to speak the truth of God wherever we are. It will have an impact. Preaching at home, at work, or at school is our calling. But we have to answer the call of Christ to come to Him to understand what He wants us to say. We come to go. He calls us to send us.
We are to go where God sends us, not where we want to go. The key is to be sent. God determines our mission field. We hear the word of God revealed and trust that He knows what He is doing. Often you see people wanting to go on mission to places and to people that are comfortable. Our lives as missionary disciples, and I believe this is what we are in our culture today, are to be spent in hearing God’s heart as to where we are sent. When I was in the military I was given a choice of duty assignments and asked to list a first, second, and third priority. Most of the time, I got what I asked for. But this was during peacetime military operations. In times of war, the priority is determined by the commanding authority. So is the mission. God is always at war in the spirit realm. He assigns the mission. He is the commanding authority.
We are to carry authority that does not belong to us. We are granted authority to use as God would use...for the advancement of His kingdom. The church is to be like the embassy of a foreign kingdom. Every disciple is an ambassador. Ambassadors are not diplomats. Diplomats try not to offend and will compromise on many levels. But the ambassador speaks on behalf of another’s authority. We must consult the King.

IV. THE LORD’S CALL IS A MOUNTAINTOP EXPERIENCE. (13)

...He went up... and summoned...and they came...

The call of God once again comes from a high and holy place. Consider and compare the God of Sinai and Jesus on this mountain. At Sinai the people of God could not come close or touch it lest they die! They asked Moses to go up on the mountain and see what this great and awesome God wanted. Come back and give a report, they said. Here in our text, God in Christ is coming close to His people. He calls to give life, not death. He summoned those He wanted. The Most High God calls. He is high and holy and lifted up and yet He calls from that high place to us in our low places.
Strangers to Christ have spent too much of their lives in the valleys to know much about the mountains. The mountains in the lives of those who live apart from Christ represent the challenges they try to overcome without the wisdom or the power of God. Some of these challenges are so daunting that they remain in the valleys because they have failed in their attempts to climb the mountains so many times. Their strength is sapped because overcoming an overwhelming mountain is only accomplished through spiritual authority. And ultimate spiritual authority is only granted by Christ.
Christ calls from the mountaintop so that He may be clearly heard. Our world today does its best to shout down the witness of Christ. Throughout history, man wants to be the occupant of the mountaintop high place. We see this in our Old Testament accounts of worship on the “high places”. I do not think it an accident that Christ is communicating His message from the mountaintop. He is taking the high ground back. He speaks from this high ground so His message must be clearly heard. With any military conflict, whoever holds the high ground has the advantage. Christ is our mountaintop commander. His voice is clear today. Christ bids us to join Him on the high moral ground. When we live our lives making godly moral choices, we can hear His voice clearly.
The servants in God’s Kingdom are appointed by the King. Is the Lord’s call still the greatest experience in your life? Do you marvel at the fact that God has called you just as surely as He called these twelve men? Look at them. Fishermen, tax collectors, zealots, and even a traitor. He called common men to an uncommon destiny. The highest calling of the most High God is to be His servant. Of all the humans who have ever lived, there have only been a few. Do you strive to live as one of them?
Do we as a church really understand the call’s implications, applications, and expectations? We are to share its benefits and advantages and assume its responsibilities to live out this private call publicly. It is a privilege to be a part of this congregation. Christ is calling you to it today. The church at Mount Olivet has a high calling before it in an immediate and future context. We have the privilege to be a part of what Christ is doing in the building up of His body in the selection elders in His church. The leaders who are appointed will shape the future direction for our church. It needs to be taken seriously and soberly. We, as a church, are called to choose from among us those who will lead. We are not selecting apostles as Jesus did on the mountain. But we are to choose those who are willing to pursue the high calling of Christ to follow Him and challenge our church to follow Him and grow in Christlikeness. This is the calling before us today as the church.
Our so-what today is more like a so-how. So how do we as a church do the spiritual work that Christ requires us to do in the immediate application of selecting elders? The first thing is to rely on spiritual principles rather than personal preferences.
What are some foundational principles of godly leadership? According to our passage today, here are some observations. Understanding that these men Jesus called were not elders in a New Testament church, there are guiding principles here about leadership that form the foundation of the call of a spiritual leader. These apostles that were called by Jesus that day formed the basis of the New Testament church leader of the first century. He called them to follow Him. A good leader will first be a good follower.

1. An elder should demonstrate that he has heard and answered the call to Christ. Their lives must show evidence that they are becoming Christ-followers. These are men who are well aware that they are not perfect and are in need of the gospel everyday. They follow Christ out of their desire to be more like Him.
2. An elder should be a man that has been with Christ. It should be apparent that he is not a stranger to His Lord and because he has been with Christ, his life resembles the One who calls him to be with Him.
3. An elder will go where God sends him, not where he wants to go. He is willing to lay aside his preferences for kingdom principles. Knowing that it is easy to do the popular thing or go the way of the crowd, he will be willing to stand with God, even if he stands alone.
4. An elder should be a man who is authorized to preach and able to teach. The message of the gospel will have so impacted this man’s life that he speaks much of Christ and His grace, to those inside and outside the church family and inside and outside the church culture.
5. An elder should wear spiritual authority well. Spiritual authority is granted to him with an understanding that he is under authority. He will give an account of how he engaged the enemy and how he reacted in the battle. He is one who does not fear the demons of hell, because he knows that he has One greater that lives within him. He is also a man who is well aware of his human limitation and his fallen nature in the realm of spiritual authority and is utterly dependent on the power of God. He will be eager to guard against the temptation to abuse the power that can come with being entrusted with authority.

Jesus rejects how worldly authority chooses to do spiritual things.