Sage advice for a young leader – Part 2

I was in eighth grade, spending a year living on my aunt and uncle’s hog farm in Arkansas (talk about culture shock coming from Arizona at that time!), and attending a robust church just down the road and around the corner.

My mother had recently died, suddenly and unexpectedly, and God drew closer to me in my time of deep grief. I responded by drawing closer to Him, and became very active in the church, especially for someone my age. The minister of the church made time to speak into my life, and I’ll never forget him telling me that as Christians we can count on this:

There’s always someone watching your life.

It wasn’t that those words were profound to me just at the moment, they stayed with me through the decades to come as I became a leader in the church as an ordained minister. I discovered what that pastor had told me was true, there always seemed to be someone watching my life as a church leader. Over the past few decades, there have been many occasions when someone has pointed to something they observed about how I live or what I taught as impacting them in some positive way.

That Arkansas preacher wasn’t the first to note that for us Christians, there’s always someone watching our lives, and if we’re faithfully and obediently walking with Christ, what people observe of our lives could impact theirs in a powerful and positive way. It’s no wonder, then, that when the Apostle Paul wanted to impart some sage advice to a young church leader — Timothy, his “son in the faith” — that Paul would stress the following to him …

“Keep a close watch on how you live and on your teaching. Stay true to what is right for the sake of your own salvation and the salvation of those who hear you,” 1 Timothy 4:16.

In Part 1 of this topic posted yesterday, I emphasized that effective spiritual leadership demands we “lead with our lives,” something that Paul stressed to Timothy when he told him to “… be an example to all believers in what you say, in the way you live, in your love, your faith, and your purity” (1 Tim. 4:12b). Now Paul doubles down on his stressing to Timothy to lead with his life when he writes “Keep a close watch on how you live …”

The example of our lives can be subtle and simple, or it may be bold and powerful like this example captured in a short story printed in Moody Bible Institute’s Today in the Word:

One Sunday morning in 1865, a black man entered a fashionable church in Richmond, Virginia. When Communion was served, he walked down the aisle and knelt at the altar. A rustle of resentment swept the congregation. How dare he! After all, believers in that church used the common cup.

Suddenly a distinguished layman stood up, stepped forward to the altar, and knelt beside the black man. With Robert E. Lee setting the example, the rest of the congregation soon followed his lead.

How we live affects people who observe our lives. We may not see them, we may not know who they are, but you can likely count on there being someone watching your life.

In that case, “Keep a close watch on how you live”!

Note Paul writes we should not only keep a close watch on how we live, about also “… on your teaching …”

How we live teaches, but certainly what we actually teach is intended for direct impact on the lives of those we teach. Because of such influence, as leaders we are to keep a close watch on what we teach. Paul didn’t emphasize this need for Timothy to watch what he taught because he was concerned about Timothy purposely misleading anyone. Many church leaders care very deeply about the content of what they teach and would never purposely set out to mislead the people they serve unlike the fellow in this story told by Fred Gates …

Does the lure of a low fat/low calorie doughnut sound too good (and too tempting!) to be true? “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is,” said Jim Dahl, assistant director of the Office of Criminal Investigation for the FDA.

In 1997, the FDA launched an investigation into the business practices of then health food executive Robert Ligon after complaints from customers who said they had gained weight from his so-called “weight loss doughnuts.” After much research, reported the Wall Street Journal, charges ensued, and Ligon began serving a 15-month sentence for fraud in January of 2004.

His scheme was ingenious: Purchase full calorie/full fat doughnuts from Chicago’s Cloverhill Bakery, repackage them as low calorie/low fat carob-coated confections, label them as having only three grams of fat and 135 calories, then sell them across the nation to weight loss clinics and diet centers for an exorbitant amount of money.

The problem is, Ligon’s doughnuts actually contained 530 calories and 18 grams of fat, making them not just fattening, but a potentially lethal cocktail of carbs, sugar and fat for those whose health depended on more healthful choices. “Mr. Ligon abused the trust people put on these labels,” says Stuart Fullerton, the assistant US attorney who prosecuted the case. “It’s kind of cruel on his part to do this.”

Many church leaders never attempt to abuse the trust people put in their teaching through scandalous behavior. But when we don’t keep a close watch on what we teach, a simple mistake, the smallest error, a little oversight could result in many people being misled. That’s why Paul instructs Timothy to ” … Stay true to what is right for the sake of your own salvation and the salvation of those who hear you.”

Just by being in contact with one another, we have an affect on each other. How much greater that is as leaders in the household of God as people purposely look to us to teach them how to follow Christ, love God, and love others. Given such a great responsibility, may the words of Paul’s sage advice to Timothy ring loudly in our minds and hearts so that we are encouraged and challenged to keep a close watch on how we live and what we teach.

Because someone is watching your life.

Scotty