A leader can only take people in a direction that he or she is already traveling. You cannot take other people to a place that you have not gone or to which you are not going yourself. That is why godly leadership begins not with gifts, but with direction. Welcome to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith. I’m David Pick, and Colin, already we’ve heard the words leader, leadership a number of times. What would you say to someone listening who says, you know what, I’m not sure this is for me. I’m not really a leader. Yeah, well, that’s probably what a number of folks are saying right now. And if you are thinking that, I want to encourage you today, you know, God has put you in a position where you have influence in the lives of other people, and your influence is going to be greater than you may think. Well Colin, let’s go back to what we just heard. You said godly leadership doesn’t begin with gifts, but with direction. What do you mean by that? But gifts are not enough, because here’s this guy, he’s in a storm, there are people around him, they’re looking for help, and he’s not able to minister to them, he’s useless. And why is that? Because he’s not walking with the Lord. So I have to be walking with Christ for many, many reasons. One is that there are going to be people who come across my path, there are going to be people come across your path today, and you want to be in a position to be able to minister to them effectively. One of the things you point out in this message is just that, but you also talk about what happens when a leader fails. Yeah, we’re going to look at Psalm 23, where our eyes get on to the one leader we want to model ourselves on, and that is the Lord himself, the Lord is my shepherd. What a beautiful picture that is. The shepherd that draws the sheep after him. And there are people in your life who will be looking at you, perhaps you’re going through a really difficult circumstance, and the way that you handle it, the way that you exercise faith is going to be the thing that is an example to them, that gives credibility to Christ who’s your saviour in their eyes. So the expanding influence of every Christian is absolutely huge, and I want to bring a message of encouragement in that regard today. So it’s Psalm 23, so if you can, why don’t you grab your Bible and join us in this message, Your Influence is Greater Than You Think. Here’s Colin. Now the focus of our series is going to be on the life of Elijah, but today is an introduction, we’ll get to Elijah next week. Today I want us to grasp what leadership is, and how you can go about exercising godly leadership. So today we have two things. One is a definition that I want to draw directly out of Psalm 23, and then I want to lead you in a self-assessment of where you are in relation to your influence on the lives of other people. It’s something that I’ve been doing in my own life, and want to bring that to you as we launch into this series today. So let’s turn to Psalm 23, where David affirms what is true for every believer, the Lord is my shepherd. And I cannot hear these words as a Christian living this side of the cross, without of course hearing the words of Jesus say, I am the good shepherd, I give my life from the sheep, I know my sheep by name, I call them, and they are mine. I want to draw your attention today to just three words about this shepherd who is the Lord, and his relationship to the Christian. And they’re in verse 3, these three words, he leads me. Just these three words today. He leads me. You will find them of course also in verse 2, the same words. He leads me. And you will find the same image, though not the same words, in verse 4, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. The image here is the same, you’re leading me even when I go through the valley of the shadow of death, and your rod and your staff, they comfort me. And I’ve been reflecting just on these words, and on this marvelous reality, as a Christian believer, he leads me. Now, where does he lead me? And the answer to that is very clear in this psalm, that he leads me where he has already gone. So verse 3, it says he leads me in paths of righteousness. Why? Because the paths of righteousness are the paths on which he has walked and walks. He fulfills all righteousness. Verse 2, he leads me beside the still waters. Why? Because the place of refreshment and the place of joy is where he already is. That’s why he’s able to lead me there. Even when I go through the valley of the shadow of death, I’m safe, because he leads me there. And death is a place where he has already been. And because he has passed through that in triumph, that is how he is able to take me through that, and that is my comfort when I go through it. And beyond that, what’s he going to do? He’s going to lead me into glory, where he already is, seated at the right hand of the Father. That’s why he says, I’m going to prepare a place for you. That’s leadership. You see, I’m going ahead of you. I’m going to prepare a place for you, so that where I am, you may be also. And so I try just to soak my mind in what it means for Jesus Christ to lead me, which is his great promise as the shepherd of the sheep. And out of that, I offer to you this definition of leadership. That leaders then are people who set out on a journey and take others with them. Supremely, that is what Jesus Christ has done for us through his incarnation, through his life, his death, and his resurrection, and his ascension. And he calls us to this. Leaders are people who set out on a journey and take others with them. Now notice there are two parts to this definition. Leaders are people who set out on a journey. In other words, a leader can only take people in a direction that he or she is already traveling. You cannot take other people to a place that you have not gone, or to which you are not going yourself. That is why godly leadership begins not with gifts, but with direction. The key question is not, oh, what are this man’s gifts, what are this woman’s gifts, what’s their personality, how magnetic is their attraction to other people? That’s not the key question when it comes to spiritual leadership. The first question is not gifts. It is the question of direction. Where are you going? Where are you in your journey? And that’s why we’re beginning with a self-assessment today. What progress are you making? What progress? Where are you? Secondly, in this definition, you’ll notice that leaders are people who take others with them. Oswald Saunders recalls an occasion when a large group of key missionary leaders were gathering together in China. And they were talking, representatives of different societies, about what qualifies a person for leadership, and of course there was plenty of vigorous debate. And Saunders says, at one point, the leader of the China Inland Mission, as it was then called, a man by the name of D.E. Host said this, he said, it occurs to me that perhaps the best test of leadership, and whether a man is qualified to be a leader, is to ask the question, is anybody following him? Very perceptive. Is anyone following? So leaders are people who set out on a journey. There’s movement in the leader’s life. He’s going someplace, she’s going someplace. And there are others who are following. They’re drawn, they’re attracted, and they’re influenced. So just letting that definition that I’ve drawn from Psalm 23 sink into our minds, it follows that there are three ways in which leaders most commonly fail. If you think about leadership failures that you have seen or that you have been close to, you’ve been able to observe, it may very well be that what you have seen falls into one of these three categories. Leadership fails, one, when leaders themselves are not on the move. A man or a woman who is not going anyplace is a custodian, not a leader. This can be true in the home. Here’s a father or a mother who’s part of the church and you believe certain things, but it’s static. In your life, there is no evidence of growth. There isn’t life in your faith. It’s simply, I believe these things. And your children see this. And they are not inspired to follow a custodian, because a custodian’s not going anywhere. It’s just kind of holding on to something. And of course, it’s the same in business. And it’s the same in the church. People will not follow those who are not going someplace, whom there is not movement in their lives. So leadership fails when a leader is not on the move. There’s not progress that’s observable in that person’s life. That’s not someone you will ever want to follow, because they’re not going anyplace. Second, leadership fails when a leader is heading in the wrong direction. If you think about this definition, leadership is a person who’s set out on a journey and is taking people with him or her. Adolf Hitler was an outstanding leader. Many people followed him, but he chose completely and utterly the wrong direction. Think of this. Satan himself has remarkable leadership gifts. One third of the angels of heaven followed him in his rebellion against Almighty God. One third. Satan is always leading people into sin, and he’s very effective at doing it. He has a big following. He’s an outstanding leader, but he is always leading in the wrong direction. So the size of influence is not the thing to look at. The style in which a person walks is not what you should set your attention on. It’s the direction. And friends, it is easy to be impressed with, as it were, the style of a person’s walk, and to focus attention on that rather than on the direction of their journey. So just to be very practical, behind your obedience to Christ, the biggest decision you will ever make in your life, if you come to be married, will be your decision as to who to marry. And here’s what happens. You meet some guy. You meet some girl. And they draw you, and you’re taken by the way they look, and you’re taken by the way they talk, and you’re flattered by the interest that they are taking in you. You like their style, and you like their company. But what do you know about the direction of their life? That’s the question. Not the style with which they are walking, really cool, but the direction in which they are going. What is motivating the heart? That’s the question you’ve got to understand. How can two walk together unless they be agreed? The same principle applies in choosing the closest friends who will have the greatest influence on your life. Where are they headed? Because it will have influence on you. It applies to the spheres in which we choose leaders in business, in school, in church. What should we be looking for in those who are appointed to leadership? I ask that question in relation to choosing interns. What should we be looking for in the younger people who aspire to leadership in whom we will choose to invest our time and our energies in the life of the church? What should we be looking for? Think about this in relation to the responsibilities of the nominating committee, choosing lay leaders of the church. What should we be looking for? That’s the question. I think this, in terms of the responsibility given to pastors in choosing leaders for life groups and for other ministries, I’ll tell you, over the years I’ve had the great, great privilege of serving on many, many search teams and sifting through many, many applications of folks who want to be in ministry. I was asked to give a reference for someone from another church phoned up in another city, and they were interviewing someone who was known to me, and they wanted a reference and conversation over the phone, the usual kind of thing. And so I said to this person who was on that church’s committee, I said, well, now what are you looking for in a youth pastor? He said, well, we’re just looking for someone who really connects. And then he said, we’re really looking for a kind of Pied Piper of kids. And I thought, well, that is fascinating. I mean, the Pied Piper had immense pool. All kinds of kids followed him, but you remember what happened at the end of the story? He took them right over the edge of the cliff. You don’t want to trust your kids to the Pied Piper, right? But he’s compellingly powerful in the magnetism of his personality, but he’s chosen the wrong direction. Don’t want to trust your kids to that guy, do you? So sure, we need to think about gifts of leadership, but what I’m urging you to do here is to think more deeply than just the first things that come to our minds. Gifts of leadership matter. Sure, connection matters big time. Personality matters, yes. But the first question is not the style of a person’s walk, but the direction of that person’s journey. And where will they take those who are entrusted to their care? That’s what matters if we’re thinking spiritually about all these things. You’re listening to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith and the message, your influence is greater than you think. Today is the last day of the month, so it’s also the last day that we can offer you a CD set of the listener favorites 2023 if you’re able to set up a new donation to the work of Open the Bible in the amount of £5 or more each month. You can find details of that offer on our website, openthebible.org.uk. Now here’s Colin. So leadership fails, you see, when a leader is not on the move, he’s going no place, he’s going no place. Become a custodian, not a leader. Leadership fails when a leader is heading in the wrong direction, and leadership fails thirdly when a leader becomes isolated. Why? Because leadership involves taking people with you. And what was the goal of Jesus’ life? To enter heaven? No, he came from heaven, his goal was much bigger than to enter heaven. His goal was to have a great company of people from every nation, tribe, and language in heaven with him. It was about who he was going to bring. That’s the key issue. And the good shepherd is all about leading the sheep so that on the last day the Lord Jesus Christ will stand in the presence of the Father, the book of Hebrews tells us, and he will say, here I am and the children that God has given me. What a marvelous moment that is going to be in the entire assembled company of the redeemed and he never loses one of his sheep, never out of touch. And so good leaders give their lives to people, they resist the temptation to become self-absorbed, they resist the constant temptation that is on every leader’s shoulders to sort of withdraw. And so here we have a definition of leadership taken from Christ the great shepherd. Leaders are people who set out on a journey and take others with them. Now having established what leadership is and given a framework for us to think about that together, I want to give to you three invitations today and here’s the first. I invite you today first to consider your sphere of influence. To ask the question, who can you take with you? Who can you take with you? Now this is important because I know that some of us may be thinking already, hey a series on leadership won’t have anything for me. And you may be thinking, well I’m not a leader, I don’t do stuff up front, I don’t lead anything, I don’t have leadership gifts, I’m the kind of person who wants to stay more quietly in the background and so these next weeks I’ll need to take a pass, I hope it’s good for others but there won’t be anything for me. Now I know that some of us will be thinking that and so my first challenge here is to get all of us on board because the word of God here is for everyone and I want you to see how it relates to you. Very simply, God has placed you, whoever you are, at the center of a circle of influence. And I want you to do something with me right now if you would. Grab a pencil or a pen, grab the piece of paper that is in the worship folder and draw a box on that piece of paper and divide the box into four sections, into four boxes within the box. And in the first box I want you to write the word friends, the word friends. I want you to think about your friends. God has placed them next to you. God has given you influence in the lives of your friends. The only question is going to be what kind of influence that will be. So I want you to use that box beginning now and then over this coming week I want you to fill that box out. You will very quickly find that the box needs to become a sheet of paper in and of itself because God has given to you a circle of influence among your friends and your influence on these people will depend on where you are headed and the pace at which you are moving. Then in the second box I want you to write the simple word family and you can start filling this box out as well and you may find not everyone is going to fill out a whole lot of stuff in every box but you will find at least one box in which you are filling out a lot of stuff and for many of us by the time you have written in children and grandchildren and brothers and sisters and uncles and cousins and second cousins and all the rest of it you will find that there is a very substantial sphere of influence in which God has placed you at the centre. And you can’t write down the names here but remember to include the children not yet born. The children who may be born of your line in fifty years or a hundred years if Jesus Christ has not returned. Third box, think about your work. God has placed you at the centre of another sphere of influence there. Some of you are in sales. You have an order book, think about your order book. Think of whose names are there, there are folks there for whom Christ has died. Some of you are in business. Think about the people that you are privileged to employ and God has placed them in your direct sphere of influence. Some of you teach, think about the classroom, think about your colleagues on the staff. Some of these folks are not Christians, perhaps many, and for many of them you, you may be the nearest that they ever get to the light of Jesus Christ. God has placed you at the centre of a sphere of influence. Fourth, think about your church. God has joined us together as the body of Christ. Some of us are full of joy, some of us are quite hard to please. What will your influence be? What will be the effect of your trajectory, your thoughts, your conversation on people who are around you? What will they become like? They’ll become like you. Some are full of faith, some are full of fear. What will your influence be? Your influence matters to the whole trajectory of the body of Christ. God has placed you at the centre of multiple spheres of influence. So please promise me this, let it be settled now, never say during the series there’s nothing here for me, because you’re at the centre of all these spheres and your influence matters. The only question is what that influence will be. So consider your sphere of influence, friends, family, work, church. You’ve been listening to Pastor Colin Smith on Open the Bible and the first part of our new series, The Surprising Influence of a Godly Life. And if you ever miss one of our messages, you can always catch up or go back and listen again by going to our website, that’s openthebible.org.uk. Also on the Open the Bible website, you’ll find Open the Bible Daily. These are a series of short two to three minute reflections written by Pastor Colin and read by Sue MacLeish. There’s a new one on the website every day. 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That means that we’re only able to stay on this station and on the internet because of the generosity of our listeners and we want to thank you for that. This month, if you’re able to set up a new donation in support of Open the Bible of £5 a month or more, we’d love to send you a free gift. This month the free gift is a CD set of Listener Favourites 2023. These are the messages we’ve been featuring every day this month. You can find details of this offer and how to give online at openthebible.org.uk. For Open the Bible and for Pastor Colin Smith, I’m David Pick and I hope you’ll be able to join us again soon. Consider your sphere of influence, where you are in your spiritual journey and who you’re following. Next time on Open the Bible.