Follow the Leader

Follow the Leader
Follow the leader can be a pretty fun game, as we saw with the kids this morning…There are many different ways to play the game just as there are many different ways to be a leader…In our passage for this morning from the Gospel of John, we have two different leaders…
The first leader that we encounter is John the Baptist…John had quite a following…There were people who came from all around to listen to him preach, to be baptized by him, and to be his disciples…John was very charismatic and had a very powerful message to share with the people of conversion and of faith…But throughout his ministry, John made it very clear that he was not the one that they were expecting…He was very honest that he knew that he was not the Messiah, but that he knew who was…
In order for John to understand that, he had a strong connection to his faith…He knew who he was as a child of God and who he was as a servant of God…John didn’t preach in a vacuum, he spent time with God to understand his relationship with God and to know what it was that he was there to preach about…Ultimately, it was not about John…It was about God…John made it clear to his disciples that he was not the Messiah…That it was not about him…The leadership that John showed was of one who was connected to God, connected to his faith, that he knew who he was as God’s servant and was able to share that with everyone…
That’s a kind of leadership that we can model…To know that it’s not about us at all…When we share our faith or tell others about Jesus, it’s not about us…it’s about God…It’s about what God has done for us, not what we have done for God…That whatever we do, it goes back to God…
Can you imagine if instead of focusing on God, John had focused on himself…Things would have been surely different…I would guess that had John not preached on God and the Messiah and instead preached on himself, we wouldn’t be reading or hearing about him…
It’s so counter-cultural to think that or to practice that…Our culture tells us that it’s all about us, that it’s about what we want, that’s about all the glory that we can get for ourselves…But that’s not what we are supposed to practice as Christians…We’re supposed to focus on God, not on ourselves…It’s not about the glory that we can amass for ourselves, it’s about what we can do for God…
Recently, I had the opportunity to visit the Holocaust Museum…The information that’s shared through pictures and words is heartbreaking and emotional…And there will be time to share more of that story sometime, but towards the end of the museum there were pictures and stories of those who had helped the victims of the Nazi regime…In one case there was a village who had hid and helped save many hundreds or thousands of people and got them to safety…When one villager was given praise and congratulated for all the work that they had done, the villager responded that they didn’t deserve any credit, they just did what was right…
It’s not about us…It’s about God…It’s not about what we want…It’s about what God wants…It’s not about the glory that we can get for ourselves, but it’s about what we do to build up the kingdom of God…
Paul Russebagina is an African man from Rwanda…Some may have heard his story through the movie Hotel Rwanda…In Rwanda, as the genocide was taking place, Paul held thousands of people in the hotel and kept them safe through bribery, words, gifts, and courage…I had the privilege to hear Paul speak a couple of years ago and during the question and answer period, someone said to Paul, “How can you celebrate what you did? You didn’t do much; millions of people were still murdered…” Paul was silent for a few seconds and then he said, “You’re right…I didn’t do much…I wish that I could have done more.” Paul was not out sharing his story for glory and riches; he was sharing his story so that people would know about what had happened…It wasn’t about him…
As John is talking with his disciples, he sees Jesus walk by and proclaims Jesus as the Lamb of God…In doing that, several of John’s followers left to follow Jesus…John didn’t stop them, but knew that it was about Jesus…It was about what Jesus had to do…
Jesus’ leadership is certainly one to model as well…There are countless stories of Jesus fighting for justice, sharing Truth, and honoring God…
Had Jesus been like the leader I tried to be in the game with the kids, where would we be? If Jesus had been negative about God… “Yeah, this God thing…It’s dumb…Nobody’s going to listen…It’s ridiculous…This faith thing is just not working for what I want and I certainly don’t want people to listen and follow…Let alone build churches…” What if Jesus had shared the message of God that way? Would we be sharing Jesus’ story? Jesus didn’t share his message that way…He was tough at times and spoke harshly at times…There are times when his words sting not only those Jesus was speaking to at the time, but sting to us here and now…Jesus’ message is not one about easy roads or easy answers, but about difficult questions and what it truly means to follow God…
While there are other images of leadership throughout the Bible, we have these two images of leadership this morning…And they speak strongly to who we are…How many times in our own lives have we not followed the leadership examples…Have we preached ourselves rather than preached about God? Have we shared about how awful worshipping God is or how terrible it is follow Jesus…Maybe not in so many words, but in our actions? It’s not about us, it’s about God…
What can we do to join with God and work with God? God is calling us to join in the work with God…God is calling us to reach out to all people…God is calling us to embrace children…God is calling us to share the good news of Jesus Christ with the community, with the world at large…God is calling us to worship…God is calling us to be children of God…God is calling us to be servants of God…God is calling us…How are we going to respond to the call? There have been ways that we have already responded to the call both as individuals, and also as a church and there are ways that we are still responding to the call…There are ways that the call will evolve and change as we follow…God will be with us as we go forward…Let’s follow that leader…The leadership of God…