Episode 3 - A Humble Leader
In this episode, we begin to unpack the theme for our first season, character. Beginning with character probably isn’t exciting nor does it feel immediately practical, but character is where the Bible begins as it defines leadership. And so we will look at seven characteristics that mark a gospel centered leader, that is, the gospel culture or D.N.A that we have experienced at Sovereign Grace, beginning with humility.
To listen to the podcast on your favourite player, click here
See below for the transcript:
Riley: Hello and welcome back to the Grace and the Adventure of Leadership podcast. My name's Riley Spring, and we're here with Dave Taylor. Now, this podcast's designed to help cultivate leaders who are fueled and formed by the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ.
Riley: Now, the hope is that we can just pass on what we've learned from far smarter, godlier, awesome leaders and help... Just discuss it. Different topics and different…
Dave: We are better looking.
Riley: We are. Although your wife did say we have good heads for a podcast.
Dave: Yeah. She did say... My wife specializes in cultivating in humility in my heart. And she informed me on understanding that we were doing a podcast this very day that Riley and I do have indeed have faces for podcasts.
Riley: I've always been told-
Dave: Thank you.
Riley: I've got a radio head.
Dave: Oh, thank you.
Riley: Thanks.
Dave: Thank you.
Riley: And what we said in the last episode as we were introducing the podcast, is that where we were going to begin... Our first number of episodes... Was looking at characteristics of a gospel centered leader. And the reason why we want to look at that is and call it characteristics is because the first and primary thing about gospel centered leadership, other than the message of the gospel is the character of the leader. It can be tempting in the leadership world to run to characteristics and make these ones primary, like visionary, public speaking, strategic planning, delegation, all those things, which are really, really important.
Riley: But first and foremost, if you study the scriptures and you look at what the apostle Paul has to say, you look at what Peter has to say about church leadership, primarily they look towards character, who the leader is before what they can do, and what they can do is really important. But we're going to focus first on who we are as leaders and see how the gospel actually impacts all of that. And the apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians and reminded them of what was of first importance that Christ died for our sins. It's so true for all of us, whether we're pastors or ministry leaders in any other context, the most important thing, and the foundational thing is that Christ died for our sins and that he saved us and we don't ever move on from that message.
Riley: So the first characteristic of a gospel centered leader that we wanted to look at today is that of humility. So Dave, why don't you tell us, why humility? Why we start here? What's so important about that? What's been your experience of humility and the adventure of leadership?
Dave: Well, humility, again, as you were saying in the last podcast is certainly not anything original with me. Nor is it original with anyone in Sovereign Grace, it's obviously in the Bible, it's originally from the Lord. And yet I saw it firsthand. I became a part of a Sovereign Grace Church when I was about 19 years-old and CJ Mahaney came to visit our church. It was a church that was assumed being adopted by Sovereign Grace at the time. Now I had grown up in an environment where leaders particularly key leaders would be in a suit and they would be reasonably big wigs-
Riley: I need to get a suit.
Dave: You know just power up. It was power and they were nice people, but they certainly wouldn't have been hanging around with me. I'm just a kid, I'm a peasant from a small town. You just wouldn't be hanging around with me. These were just people on pedestals, and on the whole people put them on pedestals and they certainly didn't try and get off the pedestal. And I thought that was what you aspired to, this position of authority and great leadership. And yet I remember CJ Mahaney coming to visit our church when I lived in Wales and he preached a wonderful message. But what spoke to me most as this 19 year-old kid is at the end of the survey, he went out the back and got a group of small kids together and started playing soccer with them. And it really affected me.
Dave: It was a small, stupid thing, but I couldn't believe that this guy who's the founder and leader of this family of churches would not just be taken all the accolades at the end, or just rushing off in a car to go out for lunch with key leaders. But he's just hanging around to play soccer with kids, and it really spoke to me. And it was probably... I wouldn't say the first time I've seen humility. I have very humble parents that I got to see growing up, which I really appreciated, but this is the first time I'd seen a key leader who I had assumptions over was just arriving to serve people. And it was very attractive. It made instantaneously for this 19 year-old kid. It made the gospel and the glories of Jesus Christ very attractive all of a sudden. It had an effect on my heart.
Riley: It's very Jesus-like, that scene. Let the little children come to me, which follows around that time when the disciples are asking, "Who's the greatest, oh Lord", like, "Who's going to sit at your right hand?" He's like, "Unless you become like a child and unless you receive children, you don't really understand the dynamics of the gospel and the kingdom." And I've experienced that with CJ as well. The fact that he would hang out with me while I was over there, I was, "Okay, I'll take it, but I don't know why you're here."
Dave: That's very endearing.
Riley: It's very cool. So what's the problem with not being humble as a leader, or not actually even valuing it?
Dave: Well the challenge is, I think when you study pride and biblically, you realize that pride does indeed have quite the history. It proceeds Adam and Eve. It was the very first sin displayed in our universe. And ultimately it was the display of Satan himself taking God on. Satan was by very nature, contending for supremacy with God. And Charles Bridges explains in headline that is what pride is. Pride is contending with God for supremacy.
Dave: Now I think that's something as a younger man in particular that I didn't even see. I didn't even see that as a thing that it's contending with God for supremacy. I just thought I wanted people to like me. I wanted people to be impressed with me. I wanted people to think I'm super funny and whatever it be. But actually you're contending with God for supremacy because rather than being like John the Baptist, who gave his life and ministry to pointing to Jesus and the whole premise being, "He must increase, and I must decrease." Pride actually says, "Well look, I want him to be big in your life, but I want to be big in your life as well." You're actually contending with God. You are robbing glory from the Lord.
Riley: I've often thought of it like I want God to be glorified in my ministry. I just want to be tagged in the picture.
Dave: Exactly.
Riley: I want Him to be front and center, but I want them to know Riley was there too. He helped it happen. And it's just my pride, my desire for preeminence and position over the Lord, just dominating the entire canvas.
Dave: It's so true, isn't it? I think in our context and in our Christianity, particularly if we've been a Christian some time, we learn how to make things not as obvious. And so we learn that it is pretty weird to just have people looking at me, "Look at me, aren't I amazing?" We don't do that-
Riley: Especially in Australia.
Dave: Definitely not in Australia. Australia is quite different to the United States or the UK, both of which I've lived in. But even in Australia, we then learn how to maybe be domesticated in this sin. And I think the way it tends to work and the way we notice it in our hearts, is more when we're left out of something. So somebody is picked in the church for a position and it's not us, and we're bothered. A party's going on and we're not invited and we're bothered. Everybody else is thanked for something, but we don't seem to be thanked, and we're really bothered.
Dave: What is that? If we realize that I'm just a servant of the King so you can treat me like a slave, it's not a problem. But actually we do want the glory, we want attention, we want people to notice us. And it's a big deal, Riley, I mean 1 Peter 5:5 for God, opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. It's massive. Proverbs 16:18, "Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall." The fruit of pride is that God will opposes. It could not be more serious when you realize what it is. God is not willing to share his glory with another and He should not share his glory-
Riley: They're scary verses aren't they? It reminds me of a quote from John Stott that I've read in CJ Mahaney's book on humility and which he makes much use of, which says, "Your pride is more than just the first of the seven deadly sins. It is in itself, the essence of all sin." And then he goes on to say that pride... What does it say?... "That pride is our greatest enemy and humility is our greatest friend."
Dave: It's excellent.
Riley: And I've just gone on to see how pride's at the heart of it. It's actually such an enemy because if I'm proud, God is opposing me. I may be successful with all the world liking me, but God is against me, and that's a terrifying thought.
Dave: Yes it is.
Riley: But like Mr. Stott said, "Humility is our greatest friend." So why is humility so great? In the adventure of leadership, why should we pursue humility?
Dave: Look, I think Isaiah 66 is, is a really key passage in this question. So Isaiah 66:1-2, we read that says, "The Lord: heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool. What is the house that you will build for me? And what is the place of my rest? All these things my hand has made, and so all these things came to be, declares the Lord, but this is the one to whom I will look, he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word." I think that is one of the most amazing scriptures in all the Bible. As the Lord's eyes look to and fro around this world, they're particularly magnetically focused and drawn on some things specifically. It is to those who are humble and contrite in spirit and tremble at my word. That's why John Stott there says pride is our greatest enemy and humility, our greatest friend.
Dave: Who does not want the special assistance and favor and grace of God? Who does not want that? And as a leader, we need that. We desperately need the help and favor and divine assistance from the Lord. So on the premise that he opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble, the prize is that as his eyes go to and fro across the earth, He's going to be gazing at those who are humble. And so I think from a divine perspective, we would be nothing short of stupid, not to be pursuing humility in our lives. Knowing the Lord, I desperately need you, I need your help, and to lead.
Dave: From a church perspective, I think on the premise that the church will become like its leaders. We want to ensure that we're positioning the church as well to gain this prize of the Lord's special favor and assistance as he looks to and fro from the earth. So humility, I think, could not be more important. I think it is the effect that CJ had on me those years ago. It was attractive. There was something of Jesus in it that attracted me. And I think as leaders, we have the opportunity to maybe do the same for others. They see something and they go, "What is that?" And what they're actually seeing, I trust by the grace of God, is Jesus. Jesus is the most humble person who ever lived.
Riley: He had no cause to be humble.
Dave: Exactly. No cause to actually not count equality with God, something to be grasped in that sense, because he is God, but He came as a servant. He came to serve and give his life away as a ransom for many. It is astounding. How can we not follow his example?
Riley: And we so want him and others to serve us and them to be humble. We love humble people because they're beautiful. They're great to be around. They're very easy to be around. We just don't often want to be that humble person.
Dave: And definitely for me personally, it is something I've struggled with in my life. I certainly wouldn't want anybody listening to this podcast to just think, "My, those must be two incredibly humble men." No, they are proud men seeking to cultivate humility with all their might aware of how much they need it. And I think we do. We need humility. We need it in our lives. We need all we can to cultivate it, understanding its prize that is so needed.
Riley: And sometimes it can be helpful to get a bit of a definition of humility because... In my growing up in Australia, I think we thought we were humble because we talked ourselves down a lot. But sometimes it's just a mask for your pride, "Oh, I didn't do it that great, I'm not very gifted at this", even though you actually think you are and you actually are good at it and you go, "Oh, I'm not very good", "You wouldn't want me", that type of stuff. That's not real humility. I like how CJ defines it in his book on humility. "Humility is honestly assessing ourselves in light of God's holiness and our sinfulness and then living in light of what we see." I'll say that again, "Humility is honestly assessing ourselves in light of God's holiness and our sinfulness and then living in light of what we see."
Riley: So if the Lord is looking to the humble, he's looking to the type of person that knows who they are before God, that they are a rebel bathed in sin, that from head to toe every thought word indeed is in some way affected by and influenced by their sinful nature. That if it wasn't for God rescuing us, we were running headlong into eternal destruction. That's who we have to see ourselves as. We see ourselves in light of our sin in light of his holiness, that God is without any imperfection. That his standard is not just pretty good, it's complete and utter perfection in all faculty of mind and soul and body and spirit.
Riley: And so the only actual real response to that is to go, "I'm not worthy to be in your presence", but then he tells us that we can come in because of what Christ has done because of who he is. So then we enter the kingdom as just these grateful, humble servants who go, "I can't believe I'm here. I can't believe I get to serve the church. I can't believe I get to have position. I can't believe I get to preach this week. I can't believe anyone came back." They heard me last week and now they're here again-
Dave: Again. It's amazing. That's just starting with my wife and kids, let alone-
Riley: But then it's also actually going, "Yeah, God has given me this gift. I am able to do these things. But it's not me, it's not like I'm this great person. It's only His grace."
Dave: Absolutely.
Riley: So, the danger... We've looked at what's wrong with not pursuing humility, God's opposed to us. We've looked at why we should pursue it, God is looking to those who are humble. We've looked at what humility is. How do we go about cultivating humility as a leader? So as we seek to lead in the church or the home or whatever context we're in really in Australia, what does it look like to pursue humility?
Dave: Look, I think again, everything I've learned, I've learned off other people. So particularly CJ's book, Humility, that I'd recommend to all our listeners. CJ Mahaney's book on that is really wonderful. I think I've read that and re-read that, and re-read that many, many times. And I think part of understanding cultivating humility is we're actually cultivating in our minds a reality of who we are. We're not trying to become something we're not, we're actually... We don't have that much to boast about, so that's the crazy thing.
Riley: We're taking the makeup off and going, "Oh, that's who I really am."
Dave: We're actually letting people in, and looking in the mirror and looking in and going, "Actually you are at best average." It's comforting, it is releasing rather than consistently trying to pretend to be something we're not. I'm consistently impressed with the apostle Paul on this, who boasts in his weakness. How many leaders do you find that are moving up what they perceive to be the ladder on the premise that, "Let me tell you what I'm not very good at and what I boasted because it makes Christ..." It's upside down. In some ways Paul is encouraging us to pursue and enjoy weakness. Whereas our culture says, "No, pursue greatness. Great is what you're good at. Tell everybody what you're good at." We don't have to PR ourselves.
Riley: For Paul, the great thing about him was he knew the gospel, and that he had the message of salvation, he had the life transforming message of Jesus Christ. He was aware he wasn't that great a vessel, but he had an incredible treasure that he was carrying around, and so he was bold, he was authoritative, he was courageous, but he was humble because he saw he was just a clay pot. But within him was the diamond. And so seeing ourselves in light of, "The best thing about us is not us, it's who we know, which is Jesus Christ and him crucified."
Riley: So that's one way of cultivating humility. How else can we cultivate it to actually be humble people? To be the type of person that when you think Dave Taylor or Riley spring, you think, "They are humble." Probably don't think about that.
Dave: I don't think about it.
Riley: Let's think about someone else. How would you know that they're humble? How would someone grow in it if this is new?
Dave: I think where I've seen humility many times in my life. When people are grateful they're usually humble. Because instead of living lives of entitlement, they're amazed that they get to be a Christian at all. They're amazed that they have a family at all. They're amazed that they have friends at all. I think humble people come to church on a Sunday, shaking their head, amazed they get to do it at all.
Riley: Grace is amazing to them.
Dave: It is amazing because they're aware of who they really are outside of Grace and it changes their life. I think humble people tend to ask way more questions than making statements. In the United Kingdom, there's more of a phrase that there's nothing more arrogant than an unsolicited opinion. But a lot of people, they just have opinions. They want to tell you their opinions. There's no questions. On when it's an opinion rather than a question, the assumption is, "I see this with 2020 vision", rather than, "Hey, I might not see it." So, "When you said that, what did you mean?"
Riley: That's been my story with you guys. I've come in thinking I know what is good, here's a great idea, let me tell you about it. And then I noticed that you guys in all these meetings would be asking, "What do you guys think?", or, "I just want to get some perspective on this idea or this strategy." Whereas I was coming in, "This is a strategy. Why haven't we done it 10 years ago? We ought to be doing it right now with this-
Dave: What's wrong with you guys?
Riley: And I've learned that actually-
Dave: I've done that too.
Riley: Let's be humble and ask because I don't see things as clear as I thought.
Dave: I think it's a big cultural marker, Riley. I think there's not many leaders who work hard and passionately to pull others into their lives.
Riley: It looks like weakness.
Dave: It does look like weakness, and I would go as far to say in Australia, there is not a culture of that amongst leaders kind of period. It does not seem to be there. It seems to be a little more professional. We keep our best friends outside of the church, and you certainly wouldn't think of your team as the place where I need to humbly bring people into my life, both for ministry and for marriage and for family, there would not be that sense because there's more of a sense of that I hire and fire people. Rather than for us in Sovereign Grace it's while the leadership team, we're a family, we're a band of brothers. And so this isn't about hiring and firing, this is about doing life together.
Dave: And I think that takes humility from the lead pastor, but I think it takes humility from everybody. But counsel is such an important thing. Without counsel, what we're saying is, "I see my life and I see my ministry with 2020 vision. I'm fine, thanks very much", which is so not biblical. Even a cursory view of Proverbs. Proverbs 12:15, "The way of the fools seem right to him. But a wise man listens to advice." Proverbs 1:5,"Let the wise listen and add to their learning and let the discerning get guidance." Proverbs 11:14, "For lack of guidance, a nation falls, but many advisers make victory sure." Proverbs 13:10, "Wisdom is found in those who take advice." Proverbs 15:22, "Plans fail for lack of counsel. But with many advisors, they succeed."
Dave: There is just proverb after proverb, after proverb, that helps us see that true maturity is not independence, even though our culture screams that... You just want to grow up to be whatever you want to be. Be your own man, do your thing. Whatever. If you feel it in your heart, it's got to be true. Go ahead. The Bible turns that on its head and says, true immaturity is interdependence. It's growing up. Understanding you can have a relationship with the Lord and you want to found everything on his word and in prayer. Absolutely. But also aware that our heart can be deceitful above all things. And so, "I want to gain other people in my life. There's going to be people that have more gifting than me. More insight than me. Hey, what do you think? I can't see everything in my life."
Dave: If we know... Even the parable or the premise being of, "The log in my own eye to get the speck out of somebody else's"... if we really believe that, then we need to cultivate a lifestyle that pulls others into our life. I think it's a really important way of pursuing humility.
Riley: That's great. Well, I experienced it... And we'll wrap the podcast up here... But I experienced it even today is we've got a coffee before we were recording this show. I don't know, my instinct is to not ask for advice. And we were chatting about an issue in my marriage and I was just sharing what was going on. And then there was that thought in my head is like, "You should ask for his counsel." And then the other thought was like, "No, you'll be fine. You don't need it."
Riley: And then I asked, by God's grace, I asked. And then you gave me really great counsel that I hadn't seen before. I just hadn't thought of how to view the issue in that way. And I think that will bear fruit. By God's grace, by asking the question, I was actually able to get something that I couldn't have got. Even if you had of left me for an hour alone with the Lord, I probably wouldn't have got there. And so the humble person... Not saying I am humble... But I've experienced the power of asking that question-
Dave: The fruit of humanity.
Riley: The fruit of it. Well, thanks for joining us. We're out of time for today. But we hope that this little episode has helped you in your leadership to be fueled and formed by the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ. See you next time.
Dave: Are we going to be on iTunes?
Riley: Yes. Spotify. Oh, we should tell people how to find the podcast.
Dave: Yeah.
Riley: Well, we've got to figure out how to find it first.
Dave: I have no idea. Do you know?
Riley: It goes out there.
Dave: Just out in the cloud?
Riley: They have things that find them.
Dave: Oh, that's awesome.
Riley: Sometimes. Anyway.
Dave: So beautiful.