Well, it's always a little awkward to transition out of a video of yourself. Okay. So, uh, but I just did. So now we're here.
All right. Hey, we're going to be in Proverbs chapter 29 today. You have a copy of scripture. Turn with me to Proverbs chapter 29. Man, if you are new with us, this is a very important time for you to be jumping in.
I know you're thinking, man, you're talking about a two year deal deeper. There's all this language, deeper ministry buckets. And you're like, I don't really know. I understand there's a lot of new people at Mercy Hill. You know how I know that?
Because in the month of September, there were 541 first time guests just in the month of September. All right. Um, over the last couple of months, I meant to mention this a couple of weeks ago. Um, guys now for the fifth or sixth time in our history, uh, we were named over the last month, uh, by outreach magazine, one of the fastest growing, one of the top hundred fastest growing churches in the whole country. Um, well, we're excited for that.
Yeah. Praise God for that. Um, I know some of you guys are like, Ooh, we're talking about church growth. We have the exact opposite attitude about it than the feeling that you have.
Okay. Because it's all about new people coming in and, uh, and that's sort of what the mission is. So we're excited for that. We love new people coming in.
Um, but here's the deal. If you are one of those new people, you're like, man, I have no idea what all this is deeper and all that kind of stuff. We're going to give you the chance over the next few weeks to really dive in to what we're doing.
And, uh, and, and, and I know it's on the back end here, guys. We're not even, we're not in the fourth quarter. We're in like the two minute warning of the fourth quarter, which is when you can win or lose the game. Just like my Gators lost the game last night. And the two minute warning.
Um, but you can win or lose that. I mean, we're not even at the, this is not like the, uh, you know, we're not final lap here. This is like, you're on the final stretch of the final lap of deeper.
It was a 25 month deal, uh, starting at the end of 2022. If you're new, this is the time to jump in. Okay.
We have this thing at Mercy Hill. Have you been coming around? You're hanging around. Um, you're trying to figure out if this is the church for you. I hope that during this next series, I'm gonna start next week. It will push you over the line of jumping all the way in. One of the things that we say at Mercy Hill, we have no problem saying this. Don't jump on the merry-go-round if you already know you're not going to push. All right. If you're going to jump in with us, with the team here, then man, jump in. We want you.
Okay. We want you to be on the team, push, excited, serve, give all that kind of stuff. But listen, if, if you're just like, man, I'm forever going to be a periphery kind of on the sideline person, I promise you, you're going to get frustrated here because we're going to be pushing you all the time. And you're gonna be like, man, I don't like being pushed like this. And so, um, man, let's just, let's just use this as a moment to allow the Lord to push us into what he wants from us, uh, which is to be fully in. Hey, and if you've been around guys, we, this is two minute warning time. This is final lap.
This is man. We got to run hard here. Okay. We made a commitment. We said, look, we feel like if we asked that question, God, you, the deepest desire of our heart, the overflow of that ministry coming out of that $30 million was the goal that we had to say, this is what it's going to take to do with all the things we feel like God's putting in our heart to do as I stand here right now. I just want to tell you for us to hit that goal.
It feels like a bit of a stretch right now. All right. And so this is very important for us. Like all of us leaning in, finish is strong, new people jumping in. This is not a victory lap yet.
Okay. Uh, we're, we're not all the way there. And it feels like a bit of a stretch if we're going to get there. So I'm praying we will.
And I've seen God do crazier things. I promise you. Um, but I hope that you guys will all jump in and come ready for next week.
All right. Proverbs chapter 29 is where we're going to be today. I'm very excited about this text today because it's very important that we understand the simple point that the Bible is going to make. Remember proverbs are all about how we flourish in life. Uh, they're all about how God has given us things that we can, uh, you know, we can sort of see his design, his blueprint. Okay.
Here's the big idea this weekend. Godly leaders cause rejoicing in their followers. Godly leadership causes rejoicing and those that are following.
Okay. Uh, this is a very important concept that we understand that just as the Bible is giving us a playbook so that a person can flourish when that person is flourishing at the top of whatever organization leadership. Look, I'm talking about in the home with kids. I'm talking about coaching a ball team. I'm talking about being the CEO of a company. I'm talking about being a politician, whatever it is that God has given you to lead flourishing at the top creates a cascading effect where people lean in and they rejoice in that leadership. Now is this universal actually true all the time? It's not a promise. It's a proverb. Certainly there have been Godly leaders who had cantankerous cry babies following them at different times in their life. I know that has happened.
It's probably happened to some of you at different times. Okay. But generally speaking, if, if we are that, that flourishing at the top, that godliness, I'm leaning into God's wisdom, it will cascade and it will create flourishing.
And that flourishing is, is something that people rejoice in. Okay. I'm talking about today. Godly leadership. I want to hit this right before we even get into it though, because I know somebody here today or one of our campuses today, here's what you're thinking. You're like, well, this ain't for me. Cause I'm not a leader. Listen, everybody influences and leads somebody. Everybody does. That you may be the CEO of a major company, or you may just have a couple of people that work on your team at work, or you may be a parent in the home with some little kids, or you may coach a ball team.
Okay. Everybody influences somebody, right? It might be at the fire station. It might be on your team at work.
I don't know, but every, it might be on your dorm, college students, Clifton road, high point campus. Maybe you guys are in a leadership role in the dorm that you serve or something in a, in one of the schools on the college campus. We all have leadership in us and God gives us his influence. If you have social media, you have followers.
Okay. And I mean, I mean, we all have different areas that we, that we lead and influence. Some of you guys might be on a PTA at school. You don't think I don't have anywhere to lead, but then you're like, wait a minute. I'm on this board at my kid's school.
You can create flourishing and rejoicing and godly leadership in an environment like this. Some of you guys live in a place where they have a thing called an H O A. Do you guys know what I'm talking about? Okay.
A homeowner's association. This may come as a shock to you. I have never lived in a place where they had one of those. Okay. Never in my whole life, 41 years old, I've never lived there. And the reason is because they would kick me out in two seconds.
They would kick me out on the porch and then you got a deer hanging up in the front yard and they would just kick me out. Okay. Um, but some of you guys live in a, in a homeowner's association.
I'm being kind of funny, but the point is that's the team. You can bring leadership into that environment. My point is every one of us have an influence over different people in our life. Is it godly or is it not? And is it cascading into flourishing and rejoicing among those who are around you? And can't you understand believer? Our whole life is wrapped up in glorifying God. When we lead in a godly way and people want to lean in, ultimately they end up seeing things about him, not us.
They ultimately start seeing things. Oh, these are his principles. It's not my principles.
It's his principles. And they're being fleshed out in us. Alright, so let's dive in. One verse of scripture today. Now I'm going to hit a bunch of verses around it, but one verse we're going to go really deep.
Alright, here we go. Pro verse 29 to when the righteous increase, the people rejoice. But when the wicked rule, the people groan. When the righteous increase or abound or flourish or they get promoted, okay, they're increasing.
They're moving up. When the righteous increase, the people rejoice. When the wicked rule, the people groan. This is not the only verse in the book of Proverbs that makes this point. There are four verses in chapter 28 and 29 that essentially say the exact same thing.
I'm not going to read all four, but I will read another one here. Proverbs 28, 12 says this. When the righteous triumph, there is great glory. When the righteous win and they get to set the terms, think about a battle or something like that.
Like now they're the ones that are at the top. There is great glory. But what happens about the wicked?
When the wicked rise, men hide themselves. As the righteous increase, there is flourishing and there is rejoicing that happens in those increasing people, the things that they are set over to manage and rule and have authority in. Now this idea of increasing, you think, what does that mean, increasing? It means when they abound. It means when they thrive. It means when they are the ones that are rising in an organization. They are being promoted.
They end up in an authoritative position. When the righteous increase, you know another way to translate that? Actually the RSV version says it like this. Our version said when the righteous increase, the RSV says when the righteous, very plainly, are in authority. When they're the ones. When the guy who just got hired to run the school is a believer who has godly principles that he will enact in the school, the school is going to thrive, generally speaking.
That's what it's getting at. When the righteous increase, when there is promotion. Now here's the thing you have to understand about Mercy Hill. Man, we want to go after the biggest life with the biggest impact that God has out there for us. If your view of Christianity is very small and simple and don't go after things in your life, that's not what we see in scripture.
What we see is things like this. That it's good when the righteous increase. Man, go after the promotion. Try to make as much money as you can. Try to end up in the highest positions of authority that you can so that you can steward those things for God's glory so that you can use them well in the world for his kingdom and his purposes.
When we're all about that, get after it. That's what it's saying here. When the righteous increase and they get after it and they rise up and their businesses thrive and they make money and they take the next promotion or whatever it is, they create a capacity for leadership that cascades down. Those people end up experiencing the thriving and the fullness as well. They get a chance to rejoice in that godly leadership that's from the top.
You could say it like this. Godly leadership is good leadership. Godly leadership is good leadership. This is why he contrasts the righteous and the wicked.
Think about this. Righteousness and wickedness. Those are two different things than wisdom and foolishness. Proverbs, we've been talking a lot about wise, fool, and he's talking about righteous and wicked.
Now what does this mean? Think about it like this. Righteousness is the way that wisdom walks around in the world. Righteousness is how wisdom acts. Righteousness is the actions that come out of wisdom. Wickedness is the actions that come out of foolishness. If we have a heart posture towards God that is rebellious, I don't want to know. I don't want to do with godly things what you want me to do with them.
Man, I'm in the rebellion. It's going to flesh out in wickedness. Well, wisdom fleshes out in righteousness. Now I know some of you guys have been around church for a long time. One of our campuses might be your very first time. We have people in this church. This is what the cool thing about Mercy Hill is.
There are people right now across all of our campuses. I'm talking about this might be your first time in a church. This is your first church.
This is your first rodeo. There's others in here that have been worshipping the Lord and reading their Bible for decades and decades. It's kind of a cool, beautiful mess. But here's the deal. Some of you that have been reading the Word for a long time, you might say, what does this mean, righteousness? Because I thought righteous was like a gospel thing. We're all sinners.
None of us are righteous. Righteous means sinlessness. And you have to get righteousness from Christ. It's got to be given to you. You can't just like go out and try to do it on your own because you're a sinner, right?
That is right. But there's another way the Bible talks about righteousness that is more about just generally trying to do the right things because you have the right heart towards the Lord. It's not sinlessness, but a general uprightness, a blamelessness. Man, I want to do the right thing.
I want to live in wisdom. At Mercy Hill, I'll sometimes refer to like, it's like a capital R and a lowercase r. Capital R is righteous like, man, sinless. Lowercase r is I'm trying to do the right thing by what I see in the scripture.
Let me give you an example of this, all right? How can one Bible say both of these things? Romans 3 10 says there are none righteous. Then Genesis 6 9 says Noah was righteous and blameless. Well, what does it mean?
You got to hold it. There's a deep thing here. Righteousness of sinlessness can only be given to us by Christ, but there is a way in which we can try to live an upright life. We can try to look at his word and do it. That's what he's talking about here. The people that live that upright blameless life, their life flows into other people.
Guys, you know this. Man, Western North Carolina absolutely devastated, and I praise God for the response that our church and 1,000 churches, or more than that, have had in North Carolina. I was on the phone with the director of our network of churches that are all through the state. Over 2,000 volunteers have already been on the ground in Western North Carolina, just from our partnership of churches.
10,000 have signed up to be there over the next month to two months. There's two things going on. Christians got to be able to do this. We're deep people. Remember, there is a deep ache and a heartbreak for the loss of life and the devastation. There is a great joy in seeing the church be the church and jump in.
I praise God for what he is doing through us out there, although a heartbreak for people that are experiencing such loss. Anyway, Western North Carolina. What's the big thing in Western North Carolina? We just got to cast a vision and hope.
It's going to come back, and it's going to be there again. I love going out there. I love hiking. I love the waterfalls, the beauty of that.
I don't know if you guys ever hiked way up where it's kind of a remote deal. You ever hiked way up, and you stand underneath that waterfall. What's up there at the top just sort of cascades and gets down on everything. That's the way that I think this is talking about. The righteous increase, they're at the top of the waterfall, and now that godliness and that flourishing is just getting everybody wet. It's getting everything wet all around it.
And that's the idea. If we have a righteous person, then that rejoicing is getting all over everybody. And if you have a wicked person, then it's groaning.
It's getting all over everybody. When the righteous increase, the people rejoice, but when the wicked rule, the people groan. Let me try to say this as absolutely plainly as I can.
If you're taking notes, it's going to happen fast here, but you can write this down. Rejoicing is the result of godly leadership. Groaning is the result of wicked leadership.
Now, you say groaning. Why? Well, because we know this. When someone is manifesting foolishness by their wickedness, everything about their leadership is all about them. They don't care about who they trample on. Man, it's selfish. It's very near-sighted.
Man, it's blown by the wind. It's double-minded. They won't tell you what they actually think. There's no truth in it.
They're out for themselves. I'm going to tell you, and you know this already, when you're under that kind of leadership, whether it be in a classroom, in a home, on a ball team, in a job, I mean, isn't this true? Whoever is the leader, it makes all the difference in the world. You remember classes that you had that were terrible, and then classes that you had that you loved. What was the difference? The teacher.
Jobs that you had that you loved, jobs that you had that you hated, generally speaking, what was the difference? Whoever was in charge. The temperature of the home. Whoever's dad.
What kind of temperature are you? It's the leader. What it's saying is very simple.
Rejoicing happens when godliness is at the top, getting all over everybody like the waterfall, or groaning happens when there's wickedness at the top. I think about this from sports angle, right? I played a lot of sports growing up, played football, all the way through high school and college, and this is what I know. I've had some coaches in my life that I absolutely would have run through that wall right there for. Some of you guys have had coaches like that. I've had other coaches that I would have run through that wall to get away from. They were that bad, man.
That bad. The difference when I look back at them, honestly, this is what's crazy, and if you're not a believer here, this is a good admission for you. This is a good faith thing.
I try to be as honest as I can. When I look back, the difference wasn't even whether they were a Christian or not. The difference was whether even they weren't a believer or not. I don't know how they found it. I don't know how they got these principles, but some kind of way they had gotten these principles that are from godly leadership into them.
So what? They cared more about the player than the win. They could listen. They didn't take themselves too seriously. They could laugh. They knew how to put in the work and be an expert in their craft. They cared about the way they said something, not just what they said.
You realize those are all biblical principles from the book of Proverbs. So whether they were a believer or not, whenever they sort of had that uprightness, and that was what was increased, guess what? It got all over everybody.
And it was a good thing. When other people were at the top, that wickedness, now the groaning gets all over everybody. Because you know, listen, that ungodly person that's at the top, whether they claim to be a Christian or not, they don't want to live by these principles. They want to walk all over everybody. That's what you know. If they're out for themselves, at best, they will neglect you. And at worst, they will abuse you.
And when you know that, what does it create? A groan. I don't want to be under that kind of leadership.
And I don't want to be that kind of leader. It creates a groaning in the followers. Now, let me say this, okay? This is important, right? This is the part of the sermon where I have to take an interpretive stance, okay? And I know you're not a Bible teacher, maybe, and you're like, okay, what's going on with this? All right, listen. There's a way to teach this, and our sermon planning team was split exactly pretty much even on which way we should go here.
So I'm the tiebreaker, okay? So here's how we're going to go. I want you to just kind of listen to how this works, and you'll understand, and I'm going to tell you which way we're going to do, okay? A lot of people view Proverbs 29, 2, as I've been reading it, as what they call a framing verse. It frames up the next section, all right? It kind of provides the principle, and then the next section are examples of that principle. I would say the next 13 verses, maybe, are examples of that, okay? And so what is it saying? Well, if you've got godliness at the top rejoicing, if you've got wickedness at the top groaning, here's a bunch of examples of the way that works out. And generally speaking, over those 13 verses, there are some of those things.
A good king builds the land, a king that wants bribes tears it down. You see, rejoicing, and then you see groaning, right? You know, scoffers set a city aflame. They just want to burn stuff up, man. And yet the wise turn away wrath.
They're trying to turn the temperature down. We get that. That would be a good, you know, rejoicing on one side and groaning on the other side. Okay, but here's the problem. Man, the next 13 verses here, they say frame this up, and some commentators say that.
They don't all fit perfectly here. And I just kept having this thought of kind of forcing us to kind of walk through these 13 verses with this lens on, and I wasn't totally sure if that's what the lens is supposed to be, right? So I kept having this thought of, man, if I get to heaven and I go up to Saul and I'm like, hey, man, I got to know, okay?
I got to know. Proverbs 29, 2, did you set that to frame the next 13 verses? And I just could not get out of my head that he might look back at me and be like, nah, bro, I was just flowing, man. The Holy Spirit was just flowing. I was just writing. You guys that are interpreting this stuff, y'all can read into anything, you know?
And I just kept having that thought. Okay, so here's what I decided to do today, all right? I'm going to spend the rest of my time, and I'm going to give you four principles from the book of Proverbs that I think demonstrate so clearly that when righteous people are in authority, they create rejoicing in the followers. And if I get to heaven and Solomon says the next 13 verses were supposed to be connected to 29, 2, I'll say I'm sorry, okay?
Let me give you guys and go read them if you want to read them. Let me give you four principles that I think are so key for us in this moment, in this cultural moment, okay? So key for us right now for us to get in our mind, all right? This is why rejoicing follows godly leadership.
Now, listen, it's not an ironclad promise. There are people in this room, there are people in our campuses, there have certainly been examples of godly leaders, and there were still crybaby, cantankerous people that followed them. That is going to happen in life.
But generally speaking, right? I think these are reasons why there's such a godliness and a rejoicing. Okay, four, number one, godly leaders don't do fear. They don't do fear. Now that is different, listen, that is different than never feeling afraid.
Those are two different things, okay? You know, feeling afraid is different than what I'm saying is doing fear. Doing fear is deciding I'm going to lay down in front of this. Doing fear is deciding to wave the white flag.
Doing fear is deciding that I'm going to ruminate on what could be in a way that creates fear in me. And I'm just going to think about it and think about it and think about it. I'm going to say words out loud that may or may not be true.
I'm waving the white flag, I'm doing fear. I'm going to keep it internal. I'm not going to confess it to anybody. I'm going to live in it. I'm going to sit down in it. I'm going to do it.
I'm going to do fear. Leaders don't do that. Good godly leaders don't do that. They fight fear. They try to fight for the presence of God.
You know why? Because the presence of God is a fear crusher. The presence of God will instill a backbone in your life that is steel. And so even if we feel afraid, man, the godly leader is going to fight to get away from that fear and take God out of his word from Joshua 1. It says do not be afraid.
Man, have courage. That's what they're going to do. And they read verses like this. When the whirlwind passes, the wicked are no more, but the righteous are secure forever.
You know what that means? I think in one sense it means that when things get choppy, the godly leader doesn't abandon ship. When things are hard, the godly leader doesn't run and hide. Proverbs 28, 1. The wicked flee when no one pursues, but the righteous are as bold as a lion. They fight for that boldness.
They want to see the presence of God in their life. I'm going to tell you right now, and you already know this, but maybe you never thought about it this way. There is nothing harder than following a scared to death leader.
I mean, there ain't, man. When somebody is scared to death, you know what they do? They cannot make a decision. They are constantly going back on themselves. They're changing this way. They're going that way. Maybe this could be in a business situation where it's like, man, we're going this way. And then all of a sudden you come in one day and it's like, nope, we're going all the way this way. No, we're going all the way that way. It's really no different than a coach who is so scared to death to lose that they throw the game plan out the first time they ever get down in a ball game.
It's the same exact thing. It's like, man, I'm so afraid. I can't just trust the process of what we've done and let this play out. I can't just say, God, you're in control of all of this. We're doing the best we can.
We're not going to do fear. Instead, we've got to keep jerking the wheel back, forth, back, forth, could be in a home. Then we've always got a different decision about what job or what kids, where we're going to live.
And it's, I mean, it's for the children. It's very disorienting to know is there a vision? Is there a direction? Does anybody have their feet planted firmly on a rock or are we just moving?
Is it happy feet all the time? You know? And I think that's, it really comes down to fear. And here, here's, here's the thing that I know. These four things I'm giving you guys, I mean, they're out of the book of Proverbs. They're out of my own life as well.
You know how I know these things are so true because I have failed in them so many times in my life and felt the pain of that. You know, I mean, I will never forget this during, during the COVID kind of era, it was COVID crazy. You guys remember this? And I was, I didn't realize it at the time, but it was fear that I was dealing with. It was not fear of COVID.
I was never afraid of like COVID. I was afraid of making bad decisions that were going to end up affecting our church in a negative way. I couldn't see the future.
I couldn't read the tea leaves. I didn't know what was coming and I started realizing this big weight that was on me. It was fear. And I had a pastor tell me, he said, Hey man, don't do fear. We don't do fear.
He said, never forget this. Paul told Timothy, fear is a spirit and it's not given by God. You don't sit down in fear. You don't make the truce with fear. You don't make friends with fear. You crush fear with the presence of God in your life. And godly leaders fight for that. Therefore, they're not making decisions based off of being afraid. And it makes all the difference in the world. Number two, godly leaders listen to people, okay? They can hear.
This is so important. Y'all, it amazes me. It amazes me how many times I have seen this in my life where there is somebody that, hey, four or five or six different people come to you and they say basically the same thing to you out of love. They're trying to show you a blind spot in your life. And what happens sometimes in our life? We don't say, Oh, you know what? I've never seen that before because it's a blind spot.
I need to think about that. Instead, many times we'll say, no, no, no. You four, five, six people are all having this wrong. You have all seen this the wrong way.
I alone am right and you are all wrong. And it's amazing when people do that. And then it's amazing to think that I bet you, I know for me, I've been that person in my life. And you've probably been there where people are trying to tell you something and you just will not hear them. That's a manifestation of wickedness from a heart of foolishness. It's not wisdom. Y'all wisdom is finding safety and understanding that people are bringing you things that are helping you see blind spots. Proverbs 27, six says, faithful are the wounds of a friend. I don't want to be wounded.
You don't want to be wounded, but faithful are the wounds of a friend who will tell you the truth in a situation that you need to see because you're blind to it and you need to see it. You know what Proverbs 11 14 says, in abundance of counselors, there is safety. Knowing that people can kind of see me in a 360 degree way. They're looking around me. There is safety in that.
This is so important. The wise person sees a group of people that they love that want to talk to them and they see that as safety. A fool sees it as conspiracy. A fool looks in and says, the three, four, five of you guys coming to me, y'all must have gotten together.
This must be something you're trying to pull over on me. The wise person in humility says, man, you're saying something to me that I don't agree with. Yeah, that's why they call it a blind spot. It's amazing. People be like, I don't have any blind spots.
I don't see them. Well, yeah, I mean, yeah, you know, that's why they call it that, right? So I got a confession to make. Okay, this is important. I've been needing to do this for a few weeks. Okay.
My daily driver now, the car I drive every day is a minivan. Okay. And I got to confess that to you guys. All right. It's a confession.
All right. It was time. Anna, Anna got a different car because it was time, 10 years. And finally, the last straw was when the car broke down in the kit, in the student pickup line for our student ministry.
And Anna's like, this is it. Okay. I'm not doing this. So now I have the van. Okay.
I don't know why, but I need you to hear this. It is very important for me that you know that I still have my truck. Okay. I don't I don't know why that's so important to me, but I'm just afraid some of you guys are going to see me driving the van and think that I don't have my truck.
And I do. But I am driving a van every day. Okay. And I keep telling Benaiah it takes a man to drive a van and he don't believe it any more than I do. All right. So I keep trying to tell him. But here's why I bring that up.
I bring it up because it's so interesting to me. My truck's an older truck. Okay. And I like I like that. I'm a context guy.
I like the older stuff. It don't have nothing. It doesn't have a screen of any kind or I mean, it doesn't have any that kind of stuff. Right. And I like that. Well, the van, Anna's van was I mean, it's it's got like a screen and backup camera and all these bells and whistles.
Okay. And so it's got this this thing. If you if you click like you're going to like you're going to turn turn right or click the signal. Right in the back of the back right tire somewhere back there, there's a camera and it shoots that camera out. And on the screen, on the van, only if you're turning that way, if you're turning, if you're changing lanes to the right, all of a sudden what's right there by that tire, a screen will come up and it'll show you. And what's it trying to do? It's trying to show you the blind spot, right? It's saying, hey, man, this is a danger spot.
You can't see this. You know what the friends in your life are doing? You know, they're trying to show they're trying to show you, hey, you don't see this, but we see it. We want your goodness and your flourishing. And God has put us together in community and iron sharpens iron and a three cord strand is not easily broken. And I'm trying to tell you something. And wise people are able to hear it when their friends come to them.
Third thing of four, and I got to move here. Okay. Godly leaders understand the power of their words. We live in this weird culture that thinks that the more leadership you have, the less you need to be concerned with how you speak to people.
And it's the exact opposite. People think, well, I'm the boss now. I can just say whatever I want. Not before God, you can't. You might be able to do that in your company or you may have a toxic culture on the team that you're in or whatever that is.
I don't know about any of that. What I know is in the scripture, what we see is the more leadership we take on, the more weight our words carry. You see, the Bible tells us very plainly, Proverbs 18, 21, death and life are in the power of the tongue.
Someone who is spewing words, trying to hurt people with them. It's like what Proverbs 12, 18 says, the words of the reckless pierce like swords. Man, we're just spewing swords out of our mouth and we just think, well, this is just the culture of the company. Well, you're a Christian.
This is what's crazy to me. People could go, you might go to work, slap, cuss people out, yell, scream, stamp your feet, tell people off, critique them, crush them, all that kind of stuff. And then just come home and go to small group that night like nothing happened because that's just the way it works at your company. Would we feel that way if we had looked at pornography all afternoon and gotten drunk at the office before we got home?
Would we see those as two different things? We have to wake up to the fact that our words carry so much weight. I had an older pastor tell me something one time. He said, hey, man, you're not going to realize this, but every time your church breaks a growth barrier of some capacity, the relationships around you are changing and you're the last one to know because you're in it.
And I think about that for you guys. Man, when you go from teacher to maybe something administration, when you go from being at the station to being over the station, you don't realize this. The relationships around you are changing.
You're the last one to know. You think, man, we're still just like boys or whatever. It's like, no, no, no. You just took a step up and now what happened is you think you're whispering. They hear it as a shout. So what happens when you're actually shouting?
You could crush people. Godly leaders understand how much weight their words carry in the home. Fathers, mothers in the classroom, teachers.
This is OK. Fourth and finally, just because we got to move. Godly leaders tell the truth. OK, they tell the truth, man. They here's what they do. They don't get so afraid of what people's reactions are going to be that they don't say what is true. They don't want to try to get so in line with mainstream thought on different issues. They don't want to they don't want to say, you know, someone comes into a meeting. They really want to know where they stand with the company. And a godly leader says, hey, I don't know if this is good, bad, whatever, but I'm going to try to shoot you as straight as I can because I love you and I want you to thrive.
I don't want to set you up. The wicked leader tells people whatever they want to hear. It's gossip.
It's it's, you know, it's something that kind of goes down pretty smooth. But in the end, it's not truth. And they don't have the courage to say what is true. Proverbs twelve twenty two says lying lips are an abomination to the Lord and those who act faithfully are his delight. Saying whatever you need to say to get by is wicked.
Godly leaders tell the truth. Married couples, is there a conversation that needs to be had? Somebody that runs a team or owns a business, is there something that needs to be said to one of the employees? Maybe somebody needs to understand this is just not a fit and we're not going to go around a million different ways. And we're not going to go around and try to make it something other than what it is. Like, let's be honest with people. Let's be honest.
Godly leaders do that. All right. So those are four things. Now, here's what we're going to do to close. OK, as we close, I've got good news and bad news.
The good news is God has told us very clearly. Hey, man, godly leadership rejoicing follows. And here's a bunch of ways. I could have done 40 ways to talk about leadership.
We did four. OK, good news is God gives us these things. We can all grow in them. Bad news is if you're anything like me, when I just look at those four, I'm like, man, I have failed. I have failed so many times in these different areas of my life. There's been times I've been afraid. There's been times I didn't want to say what was true. And there's been times I failed in courage. I mean, there's been times I've succeeded in these things, too, as we all have.
But but I'm thinking about the failures that I've had and I'm like, wait a minute. You know, these failures many times equal sin. And and that sin puts us out of a relationship with God. This is the bad news.
The bad news is that none of us are the leader that we need to be. And because of that, man, that's sin in our life. We actually get moved out of the family of God. We get destined for a place called hell for all eternity.
But praise God, there is a leader who came to rescue us. This is how I want to close. I want you to write this down. I want you to write down Psalm 72. OK, guys, read this before you go to bed tonight.
Read it sometime today. Hey, families, you do a little family devotion in the morning. All right. Our family does a little family devotion in the morning before they go to school. People think that sounds so pious.
Y'all, it takes eight minutes. We're going to read one chapter of the Bible. We're going to pray about a few things and then we're going to get on our way.
And it centers us. Read Psalm 72 with your family in the morning before school. OK, here's what you're going to find. Psalm 72 talks about the actual righteous one who increased. Man, we're talking all about these principles and all that, but don't you understand? There was a capital R righteous one, righteous king, righteous leader.
There was only one. Remember this king, Psalm 72 tells us this king has come and Psalm 72 outlines his eternal reign and rulership that will come one day in its fullness. He defends the poor. He brings a blessing on the land. He brings an everlasting peace. There is no boundary upon his kingdom. And he gathers a people from every tribe, tongue and nation.
And you and I, because of his leadership, we have a chance to be all wrapped up in that. We get a chance to come into that not because of what we've done, but because of what he, a perfect, righteous leader, was willing to do for us. And Jesus Christ came and he gave his life for us. He went to the cross so he could wipe away all that debt, all of that sin that's in our life, and bring us back in.
You want to talk about rejoicing as the righteous increase? You and I are going to rejoice for all eternity over the leadership of Jesus. And because of what he's done on the cross, we get to be brought into that. Jesus went to the cross so that we could benefit from his leadership forever. And I want you to just think about what it's going to be like to live for all eternity in a place where there is no sorrow, there are no tears.
And a lot of that has to do with the king who has healing in his hands perpetually for all time. And you and I will live and breathe and flourish under his reign and rule for all eternity. Y'all, Psalm 98 tells us that in that kingdom, the rivers are going to clap and the mountains are going to sing. What do you think we're going to do? What do you think we're going to do under the reign of Jesus Christ?
Now here's the deal. Listen, that's good news for us. It wasn't because of us, but he has done that for us. What kind of leader does that make you want to be? I mean, what we say in our gospel prayer is, God, as you have been to me, let me be to others. He has been that type of leader to me. He's been the type of leader that, I don't know, wasn't afraid of my sin, could hear my prayers, speaks a word of encouragement and truth over me. He's one who understands the power of his words. When Jesus says to us, yeah, you're more sinful than you could have ever imagined, but you're also more loved than you ever dared hope. He is the one who's not afraid to say what the truth is. The truth is we don't deserve to be in his family. He has brought us in and will have us there for all eternity. That's the kind of leader he's been to us.
Now, what kind of leader are we going to go be to others? Maybe you're on a business, maybe you're like, hey, maybe some of you guys are stay-at-home moms. You've got three or four kids in the house.
Every day your husband leaves and it's like, man, it's leadership all day long in that house. Some of you guys, it's a team. Some of you guys, it's a sports team.
Some of you are coaches. Whatever it is, how can we be to others as God has been to us? Let's pray. Father, I come before you. Lord, I just pray that you will spend massive leadership capacity out of this church. God, I pray that we will be the type of church that is trying to seek to increase promotion. God, have more to steward for your kingdom. And as we do, I pray that we will create rejoicing and followers that are around us in Christ. Right. Amen.
