For Leaders: ”Leadership Lessons from the Book of James” by Kirk Brothers

April 22, 2023 - Equipped Workshop Day 3

10:00AM Upstairs Speaker 

 

Kirk Brothers opens the leadership lessons for day 3 off the Equipped Workshop. 

 

Slides:

• Picture of a man standing on top of a mountain looking at a landscape of more mountains
• Fox News: Examining the Changing presence of U.S. Religion
• The Great Decline: Average of Five Gallup Measures
• Fewer than half of U.S. adults pray daily
• Four in ten U.S. adults consider religion 'very important' in their lives
• % of Americans with no religious affiliation
• WSJ Poll: 39% say religion is "Very Important"
• Leadership Lessons in James
• Normal Leadership Lessons from the Bible
  • Moses (Exodus)
  • Joshua (Joshua)
  • David (1-2 Samuel)
  • Nehemiah (Nehemiah)
  • Barnabas (Acts)
  • Paul (Acts, Romans-Philemon)
  • Jesus (Matthew-John)
• The Maxwell Leadership Bible
• Leaders in James
  • James, Job, Abraham, Prophets
  • Teachers, Elders, Wealthy Landowners
• Features
  • It is called the Christian book of Proverbs. It has a number of short pithy sayings on various topics like the book of Proverbs.
  • It has a Jewish flavor: “12 tribes” (1.1), “the synagogue” (2.2) and “the law” (2.11), “Lord of Sabboath” - Hebrew title for God (5.4).
  • It emphasizes an active faith shown by works (1.22-26). There is an emphasis on prayer and proper use of the tongue. Faith is especially shown in one’s treatment of others.
• Purpose
  • 1. To comfort and encourage them in trials and temptations (1.2ff).
  • 2. To correct disorders in early Jewish Christian assemblies (2.1ff, favoritism)
  • 3. To deal with the tendency to divorce “faith and   works” (2.14ff).
  • Key verse: James 2:26 For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead. NAS
• Outline
  • The Testing of Faith (1:1-18).
  • The Traits of Faith (1:19-5.6).
  • The Triumph of Faith (5:7-20).
  • (adapted from Nelson’s Bible Dict.)

• “James is the kind of book you ought to read standing up. It contains a ringing call for action, a plea for vital Christianity and a faith that demonstrates itself not in mere words, but in lifestyle” (Maxwell, 1541).

• “James models a leadership weary of sterile mission statements framed on a wall. He cares nothing for the set of core values the subcommittee wrote down last year if they were only words on paper that got filed away” (Maxwell, 1541).

• “He is an activist who labels as ‘self-deceived’ those who say they are committed to do something, but never do” (Maxwell, 1541).

• For James, Christianity and Leadership are
  Action Words
• Leadership Lessons in James -

  What does godly leadership in action look like?

• James 2:1 My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism. 2 For if a man comes into your assembly with a gold ring and dressed in fine clothes, and there also comes in a poor man in dirty clothes, 3 and you pay special attention to the one who is wearing the fine clothes, and say, “You sit here in a good place,” and you say to the poor man, “You stand over there, or sit down by my footstool,”

• James 2:4 have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil motives?       5 Listen, my beloved brethren: did not God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him?    6 But you have dishonored the poor man. Is it not the rich who oppress you and personally drag you into court? 7 Do they not blaspheme the fair name by which you have been called?

• James 5:1 Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries which are coming upon you. 2 Your riches have rotted and your garments have become moth-eaten. 3 Your gold and your silver have rusted; and their rust will be a witness against you and will consume your flesh like fire. It is in the last days that you have stored up your treasure! 4 Behold, the pay of the laborers who mowed your fields, and which has been withheld by you, cries out against you; and the outcry of those who did the harvesting has reached the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. 5 You have lived luxuriously on the earth and led a life of wanton pleasure; you have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. 6 You have condemned and put to death the righteous man; he does not resist you.

• Picture of poor child and some coins.
• The Problems of Power – James 2, 5
  • Playing Favorites – James 2:1-13
  • Playing with People – James 5:1-11
• Picture of a man floating above a beach
• Picture of a four women holding their hands in the shape of hearts
• Picture of a chess board
• Godly Leadership in action.... Lowers the leader & lifts the follower
• Illustration of the donkey dressed in the lion skin

• James 3:13 Who among you is wise and understanding? Let him show by his good behavior his deeds in the gentleness of wisdom.

• Why?
• James 3:1 Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such we will incur a stricter judgment.
• James 3:6 And the tongue is a fire, the very world of iniquity; the tongue is set among our members as that which defiles the entire body, and sets on fire the course of our life, and is set on fire by hell.

• James 3:8 But no one can tame the tongue; it is a restless evil and full of deadly poison.

  9 With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the likeness of God; NAS

• James 3:10 from the same mouth come both blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be this way. 11 Does a fountain send out from the same opening both fresh and bitter water?  12 Can a fig tree, my brethren, produce olives, or a vine produce figs? Nor can salt water produce fresh.

• James 4:1 What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members? 2 You lust and do not have; so you commit murder. You are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask.

• James 4:11 Do not speak against one another, brethren. He who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks against the law and judges the law; but if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge of it. 12 There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the One who is able to save and to destroy; but who are you who judge your neighbor?

• Picture feathers floating in the wind

 

Duration 42:39