We are continuing to explore how Christ lived and served the Father. “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).

Four weeks ago, we considered the idea of leadership from the viewpoint of the Jews and how foreign the concept in Mark 10:45 was to them. Then in week two, we looked at how Jesus came to serve, even though He is a King. In week three, we put the two concepts together to start understanding the misconceptions that plague God’s people about leadership. Last week, we pressed forward with this endeavor and today, we progress further.

The biblical notion of leadership is something that the world does not understand. In our society, the idea of a role model is someone completely self-sufficient, and the concept of a role model being a servant seems ridiculous. There are sayings such as: “I love me,” “do what is right for you,” and “be your own person” which denote the lie that a strong individual is one who relies solely on himself and needs no one and nothing, because being reliant upon someone or something is seen as weakness by the world.

When looking for a role model, we tend to look for someone who possesses the characteristics produced by holding to the above sayings, and when we find these role models, they become our leaders, because that’s what we’re looking for. We mistakenly believe that this process produces strong leaders. The type of leader produced by this process is one who will not be taken advantage of, and this is what we desire, because when someone wrongs us, we want to turn to these leaders for justice.

The idea of being submissive to one another (1 Peter 5:5-6) and accepting a wrong for the benefi t of others has been lost (Matt. 5:38-42), even though this is the very concept which took Jesus to the cross. “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8).

If Jesus would have demonstrated the type leadership that the world desires today, He would have already destroyed us, because we have wronged Him many times (Matt. 18:21-35). “Or do you think that I cannot now pray to My Father, and He will provide Me with more than twelve legions of angels?” (Matt. 26:53). Jesus could have asked the Father to send angels, and He would have been well within His rights. This is the reason His people rejected Him, because He was not the type of leader who would call for these angels but chose to be merciful instead; thus, He had to suffer for our good.

The type of role model we need to look up to is not the one who is selfsuffi cient/needing nothing but the one who realizes he is nothing without Christ (John 15:5). This is the type of leader we need to be seeking and replace our mistaken concept of role models/leaders with ones who possess the characteristics gained from “I love you and desire your good” (Mark 12:30-31), “I will do unto others as I want them to do unto me” (Luke 6:31), and “I want to be like Christ, because I was bought with His blood” (Phil. 2:5; Gal. 2:20; Rom. 12:1; Acts 20:28).

We need to replace our role models with the humble and meek (Matt. 5:5). When we change our role models then naturally, our leaders will change (1 Cor. 11:1) because our priorities have changed. Our leaders need to be like Moses, who was not perfect but was a humble servant of God (Numbers 12:3). We should accept nothing less than leaders who follow Jesus and annihilate all our misconception about leaders.

Why do we seem to think that the leaders in our government have to be so different from our church leaders? Sadly, however, the actions of many of our church leaders show them to be more similar than different. Jesus was a servant, and we should be looking for leaders who demonstrate the same characteristics He did. Just something to consider.