One of the most important things that we do as spiritual fathers and spiritual  mothers is we're called to teach and train our spiritual sons and daughters how  to make godly decisions, whether it's in the local church with us, in our families,  whether it's in business, how do we make decisions that honor God. First of all,  that honor the vision God's placed in our hearts. Secondly and thirdly, how do  we make decisions that will honor those who we serve? And so I want to share  with you from scripture in Acts 15, how the New Testament church made  decisions. And then we can learn how we can apply this to our lives and how we can train others to make decisions according to the Scriptures in a godly way.  And here's what I've learned is I want you to look at this as a read the Scripture.  I found that God speaks we when you're let's, let's use, for example, a house  church. How do you make decisions in a house church, or in a ministry, or in a  business or in a, you know, at whatever kind of church? How they do that? Well,  God speaks through ways, three ways, I find God speaks to a leader. God  speaks to his team or her team, and God speaks to the people. Whole  denominations have been built on one of those three principles. God speaking  to a leader is called Episcopal leadership. God speaks to the Pope, whatever he says, we do, that's the Episcopal leadership. God Speaking to a leader, God  speaking to a team, the Presbyterian form of government, where he speaks to  the presbytery and the presbytery the team. Know that God has spoken to them  together, or democratic government, or congregational government, speaks to  the people. They vote about everything. So how do you really make decisions?  We have come to the conclusion, and studying the scripture for many years and  being involved in many nations and planting churches there. And again, these  principles apply to a house, church, community, church, mega church,  ministries, business, family, whatever. We have come to the conclusion that God does speak to a leader, to a leader speaks to a team. He speaks to His people.  And when we honor God speaking through all three, and we take the strengths  of those and we minimize the weaknesses of those, we can make godly Christ  like decisions. And we see this happening in the book of Acts in chapter 15. Now in Acts 15, it says some men verse 1 came down from Judea, from Antioch, and  they were teaching the brothers, unless you are circumcised, according to the  custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved. So the problem was the Jewish  those who came from Jewish background, said that the Gentile believers must  be circumcised. Well, this brought Paul and Barnabas into sharp dispute and  debate with them. They they were having a huge argument about this. They  said, This can't be this is its faith in Jesus Christ, not faith plus not faith plus  circumcision. So Paul and Barnabas were appointed, along with some other  believers, to go up to Jerusalem and see the apostles and the elders about this  question. So what happened? They had to make a decision in the early church.  You know, must people be that? Must people who are not Jews, didn't come  from that background. Must they be circumcised? Must they not be 

circumcised? They had to make a decision. So they went to Jerusalem. We  often call this the Jewish Jerusalem Council. They were the apostles and the  elders, all the apostolic leaders and the elders came together to discern this. But the first thing they did the Bible says, it says in verse 4, when they came to  Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostle and elders whom they reported everything God had done through them. First thing they did is they communicated with the church. When you're making a decision in house church  or wherever, major decisions. Make sure you give ownership to the people it's  going to affect. Make sure you somehow give them enough communication. I  didn't say take a vote as they give them enough communication to know what's  going on, so they can be praying properly, and they can be involved in the  decision that's being made, even even by their prayers, and because they have  the knowledge of what's going on. Then it says, in verse 6, then the apostle and  elders, then they met to consider this question, because in verse 5, the pharisee some of the Pharisees, a party Pharisees stood up and said, the Gentiles must  be circumcised and required to obey the law of Moses. So what do you have?  First of all, you have congregational leadership. They share everything so  people knew what's going on. Secondly, in Acts, just for the apostles and elders. That's the presbytery. They got together, and Peter was sharing what he saw,  and Paul was sharing, and Barnabas on and on, and they were sharing  scripture, all these things that they felt like God was saying about the situation.  But then in verse 13, and that, by the way, is Presbyterian leadership. But then  in verse 13, what do we have? It says here says it says, as they were all, listen  to Paul Barnabas, verse 12-13, when they finished, James spoke up. Who is  James? James was the key apostolic leader in Jerusalem. He's the one who  see was responsible. Whenever anyone came to Jerusalem, they met with  James and the brothers, James and the elder. It was always James. He was like the senior leaders, the senior pastor, the president of the organization. Call what you want. But he was the primary leader, because God speaks to a leader. God  speaks to His people. God speaks to Presbytery speaks through, you know, the  those involved in leadership within the team, but they God also speaks to a  leader. And he said he did. Brothers, listen to me. Verse 14, Simon has  described to us how God first showed his concern by taking from the Gentiles  the people for himself. The words of the prophets are in agreement with this.  This is written, after this, I'll return and rebuild David's fallen. 10. He goes on on,  read Scripture. Then he said, verse 19, it's my judgment, therefore that we  should not make it difficult for the Gentiles returning to God. Instead, we should  write to them, telling them abstain from food polluted by idols, sexual immorality  from the meat of strangled animals from blood. And then he goes on and on,  and he gave the verdict. He said, This is what I think we should do. But it wasn't  his idea. It was what he was hearing the Father say through this whole team as  they shared together. So they went to the people, congregation, congregational 

government. He went to the leaders, the leadership team, Presbyterian  government. And then went to then it was James himself. Said, This is what we  hear the Father say. They get so excited. They said, this is the answer. And for  that season and time it was the answer. They sent prophets and teachers all  over the known world, and they gave the verdict. And what do we see here? We  see an example of how God uses we call it, I call it Head, shoulders and Body  Government. I'll explain that just, just a moment. Now, why is important? The  first understand is because we need to learn to make decisions in house,  churches and ministries in a way that honors the Lord, in a way honors his  people, and we the honors the leadership team in a way that honors the primary leader, because God speaks in all these ways. Now, let me give you very quickly again, there's much more in your in the text, in the craft of spiritual fathers,  mothers, book. But let me, let me give you quickly a few scriptures that bear this out, a father who leads the way. So we're talking about, how do we, you know?  How do we know God speaks to a leader? Well, Numbers 27:16 is one of many  scriptures. It says, May the Lord appoint a man over this community want to  lead them out, bring them in. So the Lord's people would not be like sheep  without a shepherd. So their Moses speaking about Joshua, the future, either  we need someone to lead the way. Of course, Acts 15 was James. The Bible's  filled with examples of leaders who led the way, Adam and Noah and Abraham  and Deborah and Gideon and David and Jesus and Peter and Paul and we can  go on and on now, primary church fathers are not misguided CEOs. They are  spiritual fathers. They are servant leaders, because misguided CEOs will use  people, but spiritual fathers and mothers serve people. We don't use people. We serve people. Applies to every level of spiritual fathering. So when someone  leads solely, just by this leadership style, in other words, autocrat, it becomes  autocratic leadership. And you see that in the body of Christ, people say, you  sound a senior pastor. And he said, Well, God speaks to me. I got a revelation,  and it becomes very autocratic, but that's the one type of leadership. You know.  Lauren Cunningham is the founder of youth of a mission. He said this. He said,  When you're an airplane, when airplanes in the sky, everyone's working  together, copilot and pilots and, you know, the flight crew, all working together.  But during takeoff, landing in crisis, the pilot is in charge, and that's really the  way it is. We should work together as a team, but there are times when the pilot  needs to be in charge. Now, secondly, and God calls a team to work together.  We often call that Presbyterian government, you know, a first, obviously, we're  talking about Episcopal government. This Presbyterian government, you know,  that's why they enjoyed. Ordained elders, plural in every church, Titus 1:5,  elders, and it's not just one elder, Moses, Aaron and Miriam were elders in the  Old Testament. And yet we know what happened when Miriam and Aaron began to speak against the primary leader. Leprosy happened. And of course, Moses  had to go back and and you see Miriam set free. So why is it important? 

Because God creates teams, but you need teams with a leader. And again, if  you only have Presbyterian government, you say, we're just gonna work  together to get total consensus. It can take years to make a decision, and that's  why I think it's important to get the strengths of these three, Episcopal  government, Presbyterian government, and then congregational government, or  democratic government, however you call that. Teamwork is very important, but  we need leadership among the team. In the third God speaks to His people,  Acts 6, we believe they were deacons. He said, choose from among you men of  good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit, full of faith, and who should take care of  the distribution of food for the widows well. And they said, they said, choose  from among you. They got the people involved in that process. Now I don't  encourage, I don't encourage you to vote, because when you vote, it becomes  political. Some people win, some people lose. I believe we honor the people we  serve. If you're a house Churchill. Leader. Then you are the James and the  assistant leaders are those who work with you, the elders, or those who work  with you. They are, they are what I would call the shoulders. They are the they  are those who work together in the presbytery, so to speak, the elders. And then  the people in the house church would be, I would call that them the body. And  they want, we want to make sure they're important decisions, that we also are  getting them involved in the process. So if I had a whiteboard here, I would  really explain this more clearly, but let me just use what we have here in the  wall. I think that would help us. We combine the strengths of God using a leader, God using a team, and honoring God's people, and we can make decisions. And when our kids were growing up, we didn't vote on where we go on vacation. We  went anywhere. We hear from them. My wife Laverne and I would just discern  together. And most of the time we know together, if we weren't quite sure, she  said, Look, you're the head of this home. You make a politician. I'm with you.  And it worked proper again and again and again. I love Psalm 133 Psalms 133  you said, how good and pleasant is when brothers dwell in Unity. Like the  oppressive oil coming down the head rain down Aaron's beard, there's collar for  he says, there the Lord commands a blessing. Life forevermore, when there's  unity, God commands a blessing. Let's imagine this is Aaron here, Aaron's head, Aaron's shoulder, and Aaron's body. Let's imagine this is your house church.  You're the house church leader. You have three elders, and of course, there's  many more down here, but we only have two for the purpose. The purpose of  this illustration. Now what happens is this, you need to know the person leading  is the one God's called. These persons need to know that these persons who  are in eldership know that God's called, and then, of course, they're serving  God's people. So when you're making a major decision, you get prayer, you  share with the people here, and then this group gets together. You fast and pray. And they discern these four together. And then finally, it's important that this  person is making the final decision with these people here, and and they make 

wise decisions. I've seen this work for 25 years. It really, really does work. Now  we need fathers. So what if you get in trouble? What if two people say no and  two say yes? Well, that's what you need fathers, outside of yourself to help you  making decisions. So that's why encourage you again and again throughout this  course. If you're planting a house church, make sure you have accountability.  Have people can help you go, follow the same trap that I fell into for 10 years,  not having spiritual fathers, have spiritual fathers outside yourself, or mothers  who can help you now, in some cases, some churches, I find this person lifts  himself way up off the head, and he says, say, ET or something. And he says,  I'm making decisions. God's spoken to me. I got a dream from God. We'll do  what I say. It's called autocratic, dictatorial government. It's not Kingdom  government at all. But then you have sometimes where they take this person  pulling way down. There's almost no leadership that's also, that's also unhealthy, dysfunctional leadership. But when you're making a decision about something  really important in the church, you're sharing with the people, and they're  praying, and you're you're discerning What's God saying? If it's yes, yes, yes,  yes, of course, you make the decision. If it's yes, yes, no, and yes, I pray some  more. However, if you go with this person rather than this person, this person's  leading the church, rather than this person leading the church. That's a  dangerous thing. Now, why do I share with you? We call this head, shoulders  and body government, all based on Acts 15, spiritual fathers and spiritual  mothers will train their spiritual children how to make decisions in a way that  honors Jesus, in a way that honors the people you're serving, honors the  leadership team, and also the way it honors the primary leader. But remember,  we do need a quarter of a few. I was in Albanian. I was teaching this. There's a  elderly Baptist pastor came up to me. He said, I wish it would have known this  25 years ago. He said it would save me so much grief, I simply didn't know. I  remember, I've often said that when somebody, when the leader, pulls himself  up and says, I'm gonna make the decisions without you, I call that a pain in the  neck. That's a pain in the neck. Okay? I was explaining that in England one  time, and a lady who's an eldership came to me at the door on the way out and  said, I've learned something today. I never knew. I said, what was that? She  said, I have been a pain in the neck. So I thought that was interesting. So why is this important? Because spiritual fathers and mothers train their spiritual children how to make decisions in a way that honors the Lord, and let's make sure that  as we're as we're continuing to move ahead in God, whether it's a house church  or another kind of church, we want to make sure that we are leading in a way  that's bringing blessing and grace and making decisions that honors Jesus,  honors the leadership of the church, the primary leader or the ministry or the  business, honors the team, and also honors the people whom we serve. 



Last modified: Monday, October 7, 2024, 10:11 AM