Dare Great Things

Christians are called to live the life of Christ on Earth and to continue his saving mission in their businesses, in their families, and in their communities.  Christ’s mission as he puts it in John 10 is to come to bring us life and in fact and abundant life.  How do we implement that in our families, in our businesses, and in our world?

Christianity means that we belong to Christ as members of His body and that means that we extend his mission through our own body, our own space, and time.  What is the mission of Christ.  One of the reasons He says He came to this world was to seek and to save what is lost.  If we are to be faithful to our mission we need to do the same.

Serving others is a bit of a paradox.  To some it is an exaggerated title of glory, to others it is the worst of things – being demoted in the eyes of others.  What does it mean to serve as a Christian?  How did our Lord serve us?  If we understand how Christ served us we can find the dignity in serving others.

We all know that Christianity is a religion of peace.  We long for that peace and we long to bring that peace to the world.  What then could Our Lords have meant when he spoke in Matthew 10:25 of His mission to bring a sword?  What does that mean for you and I in our own Christian lives?  How is it that our leadership brings both peace and a sword?

We’re looking at the moments when our Lord reveals what His mission is.  By seeing His mission we better understand our own.  In John 18:33-38, our Lord speaks with Pontius Pilate about His mission.

Everybody wants to be authentic, but are we willing to pay the price?  What does authenticity really look like from leadership today?  Will people even respect it?  In the fourth of our series on the speeches of St. Paul in the Acts of The Apostles, we look at St. Paul’s speech in Jerusalem before the crowd that will eventually imprison him.  It is a speech in which he bears witness to the truth of his faith.

To know our mission as leaders we need to understand the mission of Christ.  To know Christ’s mission we have no better place to look that sacred scripture where He tells us why He came to this Earth.  In this first of our series I look at His proclamation that He came to cast a fire on this Earth.

The secret of every great leader lies in their heart.  St. Paul shows us what is in his heart during four great speeches that he gives throughout the Acts of The Apostles.  Let’s listen to the speech he gives in front of the Areopagus in Athens and hear more of the heart of this great leader.

There’s no better way to know about a leader than to listen them give their witness.  In Acts 26, St. Paul gives the witness of why he does what he does and why he does it the way he does.  Let’s listen in and hear the lessons that St. Paul can teach us about our own leadership.

When it comes to leadership, few Apostles could match the leadership of St. Paul.  Where do we see that leadership?  In his actions, obviously, in his choices, but nowhere more clearly than when he shows his heart in his speeches.  I’d like to begin this first of four treatments of the speeches of Paul in Acts of The Apostles – speeches that gives us a window into the heart of his leadership.

If I were to take a poll, most of my listeners would say they want inner peace.  Being aligned from the inside to the outside - from your motivations to your actions – it’s truly one of the great keys to success.  St. Paul shows us a very special way to find the inner peace and I would like to share that with you today.

Many books have been written about leadership, looking to know what it is.  The Bible has its own opinion.  For St. Paul, leadership comes from the inside and is destined to changing the inside of those who listen.  This idea of leadership is revolutionary for how we conduct ourselves in our own world and sphere of influence.

For many Christians business is a challenge.  After all it is about making a profit.  It’s driven by coefficients of productivity and therefore moves much more according to justice than to mercy.  And yet at the same time business is an essential part of life as is the world of work.  How did St. Paul interrelate with the world of business and what does that teach us about our own way of looking at it?

We’ve been looking at St. Paul‘s life and the lessons his life gives us about leadership for some time.  But now we need to speak about what’s at the heart of his leadership.  The heart of his leadership is Jesus and his relationship with Him.

None of us like conflict.  And to be honest a lot of see conflict as a sign of failure.  When we read the life of St. Paul, however, we see him constantly in conflict and sometimes in very violent situations.  How did he handle it?  What is God asking of us?

Anyone involved in sales knows that the customer is always right.  If this is the case then why did St. Paul seem to bother his customers so profoundly and irk them so regularly?   What was it that St. Paul was proposing that was so earth shattering to his customers?

Leading our families and leading our businesses entails taking our people to places that are new.  When we do that conflict almost always ensues.  New ideas, new relationships force us to confront old ways of thinking and bring about change.  A lot of people don’t like that.  St. Paul the apostle also dealt with conflict – and here is how he overcame it.

I don’t think any of us have any doubt that leadership can be lonely.  It’s like they say, “It’s lonely at the top.”  St. Paul knew this from the inside and at times in his writings even mentions how hard it was for him to be alone.  And at the same time St. Paul cultivated friendships and had deep and profound relationships.   This becomes a model for us – the lonely, befriended leader.

Nobody doubts that leadership can be lonely at times.  And yet even the greatest of leaders had friends.  In the story of St. Paul and his leadership in Acts, St. Barnabas plays an essential role.  Why would God have wanted St. Paul to have a friend like St. Barnabas?  What role does God want our friendships to play in our lives as leaders?

All of us like to lead when we know what we are doing.  But when foundations are shaken or assumptions that we hold are questioned, it can be difficult and challenging to persevere in leadership.  St. Paul had the same challenge.  In today’s talk I would like to examine with you how we can persevere in leadership even in uncertain times.