Australia’s Largest Christian News Site

As Francis Schaeffer taught, Christian leadership requires humility, accepting the weaknesses of leaders while maintaining a servant-hearted commitment to God’s work.

Some people seek leadership. Some have it thrust upon them. For the Christian we are all called to be servants, but some folks will be raised up by God to lead his people. And that will always involve servant leadership. I make no claim to being a leader, nor am I an expert on the subject.

But I was just chatting with a great Christian leader here in Australia. He has been involved in so many important Christian ministries, many of which he started up or had a leading role in. He is now 80, but he is still plugging away. He mentioned something in passing that is the catalyst for this piece. So thanks Graham!

We were discussing various ministries and individuals, and he said he recalled a talk given by Francis Schaeffer on the weakness of God’s leaders. That sparked my attention, so after we ended our phone chat, I went to look it up. Given that I have a copy of everything that Schaeffer wrote, I quickly found it in a collection of his sermons.

The book contains 16 of these sermons. It first appeared in the US in 1974 with the title, No Little People, while it was released in the UK in 1975 with this as its title: Ash Heap Lives. Chapter Three has the piece that I was after: “The Weakness of God’s Servants”.

Francis Schaeffer on Being Realistic

Let me present some quotes from this short but brief message. He begins by saying that the Bible is quite realistic throughout:

Many feel that the Bible should portray a romantic view of life, but the Bible is actually the most realistic book in the world. It does not glibly say, “God’s in His heaven — all’s right with the world!” It faces the world’s dilemmas squarely. Yet, unlike modern realism, which ends in despair, it has answers for the dilemmas. And unlike modern romanticism, its answers are not optimism without a sufficient base, not hope hung in a vacuum. So we would say at once, to twentieth-century people: the Bible is a tough-fibered book.

He looks at various aspects of this, and says:

The Christian’s task is to show forth, and act upon, the character of God. The Christian should not be romantic toward sin and the lostness of the world; in his home, society, church, organisations and relationships, he should implement judgment when necessary — but with the simultaneous motives of righteousness and love.

Once we see the Bible’s realism, we can understand why the Reformation produced a democracy of checks and balances. A Christian does not trust even himself with unlimited power. Calvin pointed out that because men are sinners, it is better to be governed by the many rather than the few or a single man. Every Christian organisation and every state built on the Reformation mentality is built to allow men freedom under God, but not unlimited freedom. Unlimited freedom will not work in a lost world; some structure and form are necessary.

Francis Schaeffer on the Danger of Utopianism

Schaeffer then speaks about “sin and the cruelty of utopianism.” He says we must take sin seriously, but we also must be realistic about who we are as fallen but redeemed creatures:

Bible-believing Christians should never have the reaction designated by the term shocked. There is a type of Christian who constantly draws himself or herself up and declares, “I am shocked.” If he is, he is not reacting to reality as he should, for it is as much against the teaching of Scripture to romanticise men, himself or others as to explain away sin. On the one hand, we should not view men with a cynical eye, seeing them only as meaningless products of chance; but on the other hand, we should not go to the opposite extreme of seeing them romantically. To do either is to fail to understand who men really are — creatures made in the image of God, but fallen.

He looks at how such utopianism can be so harmful in the home, and in parent-child relationships. So too the church:

Utopianism is also destructive with a pastor and people. How many pastors have been smashed because their people have expected them to live up to an impossible ideal? And how many congregations have been injured by pastors who forgot that the people in their churches could not be expected to be perfect?

Individual believers also need to understand this:

I am not negating or minimising sin. But we must understand that the expectation of personal perfection is a romanticism not rooted in Scripture. If I demand perfection from myself, then I will destroy myself. Many Christians vacillate between being permissive in regard to sin toward themselves on the one hand, and demanding perfection from themselves on the other. They end up battered and crushed because they do not live up to their own image of perfection…

In other words, a Christian can defeat himself in two ways: one is to forget the holiness of God and the fact that sin is sin. The Bible calls us to an ever deeper commitment in giving ourselves to Christ for Him to produce His fruit through us. The other is to allow himself to be worn out by Christians who turn Christianity into a romanticism. The realism of the Bible is that God does not excuse sin, but neither is He finished with us when He finds sin in us. And for this we should be thankful.

Francis Schaeffer on Weakness in Christian Leaders

He then goes on to discuss the weakness of God’s leaders:

Among religious writings, the Bible is unique in its attitude to its great men. Even many Christian biographies puff up the men they describe. But the Bible exhibits the whole man, so much so that it is almost embarrassing at times. If we would teach our children to read the Bible truly, it would be a good vaccination against cynical realism from the non-Christian side, because the Bible portrays its characters as honestly as any debunker or modern cynic ever could.

Of course, usually we think about the strong points of the biblical men. And that is all right. Normally, we should look at the victory of biblical characters, the wonder of their closeness to God, and the exciting ways God used them according to the faith and faithfulness they displayed. But let us not be embarrassed by the other side—the Bible’s candour (even about its greatest leaders), its portrayal of their weaknesses quite without embarrassment and without false show.

The many failings of various biblical characters are briefly noted, including those of Noah, Sarah, Isaac, Moses, Aaron, Miriam, Gideon, Samson and Peter. He discusses three biblical principles:

• Men, even the best of men, need to be saved.
• God reproves sin in all men, even the leaders he appoints.
• The leadership of biblical men was not in every case ended because they sinned.

Francis Schaeffer on Realistic Christian Leadership

He finishes by looking at “attitudes for leaders” and “attitudes for those who are led.” As to the former he says this:

No matter what kind of leadership a Christian is called to — whether a leadership which makes his name great in the Christian world, or the leadership of his own wife and children, or the leadership of a Sunday school class — his attitude toward that leadership is the most important thing, not the size of his calling.

Some Christians hesitate to take any leadership (whether in affairs large or small) because they are afraid that in the future they will sin. Now if a man intends to sin, that is different. But if he only harbours a fear that someday he will sin, he should remember that God never has a romantic view of anyone He calls to leadership. God knows all men well. And while not minimising sin or its results, especially when it is committed by a leader of God’s church, we must stress this great comfort: God never looks at any Christian through rose-colored glasses. God calls a person as he is and on the basis of what he can be as he lets Christ produce fruit through him.

And concerning the latter, Francis Schaeffer has this to say:

The Bible’s realism has implications for followers as well as leaders, and these implications hold true whether we are following men now dead but survived by their books or men now alive. The first rule, which brings us back to where we started, is this: do not be romantic about your Christian leaders. Do not idolise them. If you do, you will eventually find weaknesses in them, and you will turn on them when you find less than perfection.

And prayer is crucial:

Finally, we must pray for our leaders. In our romanticism, we tend to elevate leaders so high that they might as well be pieces of wood. They are no longer people, but symbols. We cannot stand to think of them as sinners. And this is unfair.

Being a leader does not change a man’s nature. We must understand our leaders to be men and pray for them as Paul asked the Thessalonians to pray for him: “Finally, brethren, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may have free course, and be glorified” (2 Thessalonians 3:1). We have an obligation to pray for those who have helped us.

Wise words from a great Christian leader of last century.

___

Republished with thanks to CultureWatch. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.