Today, we’re talking about Looking for Leaders. - From 2 different angles: One is what Nehemiah was looking for, the angle is a bit more personal - it's what God is loooking for in us as we Lead in Life.
When we left Nehemiah, he had just finished building the wall. He accomplished in 52 days what other people could not accomplish in 80 years.
In Nehemiah 6:15 it says "So the wall was completed on the 25th of Elul." When I read that I have two emotions: one that I want to breathe a sigh of relief for the guy and say, "Congratulations Nehemiah, you made it! You finished! You did what you came to do! Relax! Take it easy now!" Another emotion causes the question, "Now what are you going to do? You did the project of a lifetime in only 52 days and your book is only half over. You've accomplished it by chapter 6 -- now what are you going to do?" The task is not finished.
What would you do? Sit back, relax, enjoy your victory, coast along?
How we handle achievement tells us a lot about ourselves, our character, our value system.
When we finish a project, when we've reached our goal, when we've accomplished the task you set out to do, one of the most dangerous times in life is when you've completed a goal, when you've accomplished what you've set out to do and you don't have another goal to follow it. Then you're in real trouble. Success tends to ruin a lot of people. We become unsatisfied, complacent, let down our guard, get comfortable. As a result we loose all the momentum we had built up for this big, big project. I've seen this happen in many different forms. - Alvin Church (Living Stones)- The moment the building is erected, the people breathe a sigh of relief "We've arrived! We're in the promised land!" Pastor went into a deep depression
“Now what?”
We loose our progress. You can loose what you've gained if you don't watch out! We could all probably name somebody who achieved some tremendous success early in life. You'd think they would for the rest of their life, have one achievement after another. Many people sit back, become complacent, settle down, and never go any further. Sometimes, if you don't watch out, you could loose what you've already gained.
We're going to look at a very important lesson in Nehemiah on How he Maintained Success. Nehemiah is a very wise person. We're going to see how he ensured what he accomplished would last.
Chapter 7 is the dividing line in this book. There are two phases in Nehemiah's life. Number one the construction phase. Number two is the consolidation phase. Chapter 1-6 is the construction of the wall. Chapters 7-13 is the consolidation of the city. These are two very distinct phases. Nehemiah has to shift hats, shift his focus, change his roll. What you do in construction is different that what you do in consolidation. He has to use a different set of leadership skills.
Unless a leader develops these skills the organization is never going to grow beyond a one man or woman.
HOW DID NEH MAINTAIN WHAT HE ALREADY GAINED?
*Recruit and Raise
1. You recruit leadership. You enlist, train, delegate, get other people involved.
2. You raise them up. lead by example. create opp. empower.
The Bible says that all scripture is profitable. What does this chapter want to teach us?
1. RECRUIT OTHERS - get others involved
v. 1 "After the wall had been rebuilt and I had set the doors
in place, the gatekeepers and singers and Levites were appointed."
The first thing Nehemiah does after they finish the wall and put up the gates, is he appoints leaders. There are three different kinds of leaders he appoints here.
Gatekeepers -- these were guards, watchmen, the police of the city. Later on in the chapter it tell us that there were 138
appointed. They were to protect and keep the peace.
Singers -- these were worship leaders. Worship was important to Israel.
Levites -- these were assistants to the priests. (help teach the Word)
v. 2 "I put in charge of Jerusalem my brother Hanani, along with Hananiah, the commander of the citadel, because he was a man of integrity and feared God more than most men do."
Nehemiah makes his brother, Hanani, a civil leader, in charge of Jerusalem. Today, we'd call this guy the mayor. Then he makes Hananiah, the commander of the citadel, which is a military leader. This guy is like the chief of police. So he's appointed gatekeepers, singers, Levites, a mayor and a chief of police and Nehemiah himself was the governor of the province. Nehemiah is demonstrating one of the important tasks of leadership as any organization grows and that is the task of delegation. He's getting other people involved. This is getting beyond his control so he's giving up responsibility, spreading it around. Nehemiah had never read a management book, never been to a seminar with Peter Drucker or John Maxwell, he'd never read ‘In Search of Excellence’ but he knew these management principles. You need to spread the leadership around.
The point here is that he knew no organization can ever
stabilize if it's built on one person. A church, business, family
cannot stabilize if it's going to be built on one person. It takes a team - Teamwork makes the Dreamwork
At the very beginning Nehemiah did it all. He didn't have a committee, he didn't ask any opinions, he didn't have any other leadership. He did the whole thing. He had his hands on everything.
At the beginning of any project an entrepreneur must be involved in everything. You do what is natural and necessary.
Nat - b/c it’s your goal, dream, cause - Nec. b/c not many others
But as it grows he has to release more and more to staff people, lay leadership, etc. It's good to start with but it's not good long term management.
Ever start a project and you did everything?
Our 1st venture in ministry together Cathleen and I did was in Cali. - a family min. was in it’s infant stages, we noticed a need, young couples w/ no children didn’t really fit in anywhere
(tell story)
There is a limit to one person's ability, time, effort, energy, talent, knowledge. You give the ministry away. This is the principle of delegation. It's in everything we do - releasing to others is necessary for the growth of others.
Even with our children: when they're young it's natural and necessary for us to be involved in everything,
but as they get older we must release more and more responsibility to them for THEIR growth.
Nehemiah says, We've built the wall. Now it's time to make sure we don't loose what we've got. Let's spread the leadership around. And he starts spreading out and delegating responsibility.
At FOCUS*, anybody can start a ministry here. If you want to start a ministry, Great!
You're it! You're responsible to get it going.
Everything rises or falls on leadership. So it's very important the type of leaders you choose. The seeds of destruction in any ministry, program, business are always laid when you choose the wrong people for leaders.
What kind of leaders did Nehemiah look for? What do you look for when you look for people to help you out?
Better yet what kind of person are we? Are we the same kind of person that Nehemiah looked for.
What does that look like?
1. Integrity.
That's the first thing we need to lead in life. Notice he says,
"I put in charge of Jerusalem my brother Hanani, along with Hananiah, the commander of the citadel, because he was a man of integrity."
The bottom line in leadership is integrity. If you can't be trusted who's going to follow you? If no body is following you, you ain't the leader. "He who thinketh he is the leader and hath no one following him, is only taking a walk." You've got to have integrity. Leadership is built on trust. If they trust you, you're the leader. If they don't trust you, you're not the leader whether you call yourself one or not. The moment you have to say to people at work, "I am the leader!" Guess what? You're not. It's built on trust. Do people trust you?
2. Godliness
Nehemiah looked for people who take the relationship with God seriously. "... he was a man of integrity and he feared God more than most men do." What does fear mean? To have reverence for God. This guy had a walk with the Lord. When God looks for leaders he looks at their personal life to see what kind of people they are, what their relationship is. (mirror)
3. Faithfulness
Both of these guys, Hanani and Hananiah, had a track record. He knew them both. Hanani was the guy who came all the way back to Persia to tell Nehemiah in the first place that the wall was down. He said, "Please come back and help us." Nehemiah prayed about it and said, "I'm going." Here is a man who had gone on this long journey just to get the whole process going. If he hadn't taken that initial step Nehemiah would never have gone to rebuild the wall. But they were faithful. They had been proven reliable.
1 Timothy 3:10 gives the qualifications of deacons. It says, a leader, a servant, in the church must first be tested in their faithfulness. When you choose somebody and put them in a place of leadership that hasn't been tested, nine times out of ten they're going to bomb out on you. Count on it. Look for people who have a track record and have been proven reliable.
Are you reliable?
Matthew 25:23 says promotion is based on faithfulness. If we're faithful in little things, God gives us bigger things. "Well done, thou good and faithful servant, you were faithful in little things you will be given much more responsibility. Enter into my joy." 2 Timothy 2:2, "And the things you have heard me say entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others." This is Paul talking to Timothy. What you've seen and heard in me, I'm giving it to you. You are to give it to reliable men, faithful men, who will also be qualified to teach others. Pass it on because of their faithfulness. Invest in faithful people.
The point of this is if you want to be a leader, that God chooses people -- leaders -- on the basis of two things: their personal life and their past performance. This is what God and others are looking for in us.
In verse 3 of chapter 7, Nehemiah, after he's selected the leaders, now gives them a clear job description. "I said to them the gates of Jerusalem are not to be opened till the sun is hot [until it's real bright. If you open the gates before daylight some enemy might sneak in.] "While the gatekeepers are still on duty, shut the doors and bar them [before you close down at night] also appoint residents of Jerusalem as guards some at their post and some near their own house."
He's giving very specific instructions. Watch out, guard, be alert, be aware. We've got the wall built, we've got the gates up, but still we have to be on our guard.
The gates to a city were the key to its security. Can you imagine this tragedy: They've worked 52 days around the clock to build this beautiful wall, they've put up giant gates, and then they forget to have somebody watch by them and some enemy sneaks in and captures the town again in spite of all the work they've done. Wouldn't that be sad?
Why is this in the Bible? There's a spiritual principle here. It is a law of leadership: You must guard what you have gained. That's what this is teaching us. You must guard whatever you have gained so you don't lose it. Don't ever assume that because you've made a certain level of achievement in life it's going to be that way forever. You must guard what you have gained. Have you ever worked real hard to loose weight? Only to not guard and watch continually after that and gain back all that which you have lost and maybe at a faster rate and you've wasted all that effort. You've got to guard what you've gained (or lost!). How about in marriage? “We’re married now! I don’t need to date my wife any longer - it’s a done deal” All the subtle little hints given while courting somehow just fly right out the window after “I do”. (story of wife asking husband why don’t you say you love me?)
Just because you've achieved a certain goal is no guarantee you're going to have that same level of achievement next week. You spend years learning a foreign language and because you don't guard what you've gained, you lose it. If you don't use it, you lose it.
Spiritual application: We often make spiritual gains in our life in different areas only to loose those gains in a relatively short period of time because we were neglectful or forgetful. when people find themselves drifting away from God spiritually - it's not a matter of suddenly going from loving the Lord, to hating the Lord. They've went from loving the Lord to just forgetting the Lord, neglecting the Lord -- the Bible and church. It's not a matter of love turning to hate, it's a matter of love turning to neglect. That's why the Bible says in the sower of the seeds that you have to prune and garden and weed.
What does it take to grow weeds? Nothing! They grow automatically. Weeds are a sign of neglect. Spiritual weeds will grow up and chock out your life if you neglect the basics of the Christian life. Guard spiritual gains, guard physical gains, guard relational gains -- all those kinds of things. How many people have made a lot of money and then lost it in a short period of time? They didn't guard what they had gained.
I Peter 1:13 says we are to guard our minds, gird them up, cinch them up, get ready for battle. Many times in scripture, Jesus said, "Watch and pray." We need to watch our personal lives so we don't loose ground to the devil.
God chooses people -- leaders -- on the basis of two things: their personal life and their past performance.
2. RAISE THEM UP - investing in others
v. 4 & 5 "Now the city was large and spacious, but there were few people in it, and the houses had not yet been rebuilt. So my God put it into my heart to assemble the nobles, the officials and the common people for registration by families. This is the information that I found." Then he goes on and lists all the different people there. Nehemiah is starting a repopulation program. He's built the walls around the city. He's put up the gates and then realizes: nobody is living in the city. While the walls were down it was a very unsafe place to live. You could get attacked there very easily. The people are out in the countryside. Now we need to get some people in the city so it is fortified internally and so that God's town will be protected. He says, I'm going to take a census to find out how many there are of us and who we are and then he says we'll take a certain percentage (like 10%) and they'll move back into the city. He's saying we need to reinforce the internal structures. That's the second thing you need to do in consolidation. He's saying, for this city to succeed we've got to have enough people in the right places to be strong. It's kind of an urban renewal program.
Who's idea was this? v. 4&5. God's. He said, God inspired me to count all those people. The New International Version says, "God put it in my heart." A real leader stays in tune with God. It was God who told him to do that. What if he hadn't been in tune with God? He wouldn't have known what to do. But evidently, Nehemiah had a walk close enough with the Lord that he said, "God inspired me to gather the people." He was investing in the lives of others
Nehemiah had the responsibility for a city of about 50,000 people. Why would God put these names in the Bible?
Especially when you consider the fact that this list is listed exactly the same way in Ezra 2.
Ezra gives this list and then Nehemiah gives the list. Why would God list all of these names two times in the Bible? It seems like a waste of space. Why? I think God is driving home the fact that
HE remembers and recognizes every step of faith you take.
I think God wanted to have a little Hall of Fame here.
Thousands of years later we know the names of the people
who rebuilt the wall, who had enough faith to leave Persia and come back to their homeland to try to rebuild the temple. God
remembers and recognizes every step of faith we take. God considered these people important enough to put them in the Bible.
I wonder if my name is going to be on God's honor work role? That's a good question to ask yourself. If God made a list of people who are doing His will, would I make the list? Is there anything in my life that shows that's I've done something on faith? that I'm trying to live for the Lord and do what He wants me to do?
Am I living a life that is affecting and impacting the lives of
others?
When we Lead in Life others see that!
They want it - wouldn’t it be cool if your family members or friends or co-workers, school-mates could say, “you know I’m not real sure about this whole God thing, but I can’t explain you”
We are mirrors, reflecting God’s glory back to Him and His love out to others.
I’m reminded that in life, God is always more generous than me - So I don’t want to under-estimate what God is going to do, I just can’t allow myself do that.
So I’m going to love and care for as many people He leads my way - We are just to Love them til they say WHY?
then we tell them it’s Jesus.
Success is not in results, it’s in obedience.
We lead in life by example and others are impacted!
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