Church Leadership | Downtown | June 21, 2026

Spring Lake Church – Downtown

Sermon: Church Leadership

Teacher: Jack Guerra

Passages: 1 Timothy 3, Titus 1, 1 Peter 5, Acts 20, Hebrews 13, and Ephesians 4 

In “Church Leadership,” we explore what Scripture teaches about the calling, character, and responsibility of church leaders through passages including 1 Timothy 3, Titus 1, 1 Peter 5, Acts 20, Hebrews 13, and Ephesians 4. God calls leaders to shepherd His people with humility, integrity, sound doctrine, and servant-hearted care. This message reminds us that healthy leadership equips the church to grow in unity, maturity, and Christlikeness. Join us as we discover God’s design for leadership in His church. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

It's good to see everyone today. As you can see, we're in this new series entitled Uncomfortable. Now, before we even got to this place, before we even had a title for this message, we sent out just through social media, like, hey, what should the church be talking about that we're not? And out of that one request came enough topics that we could have done a year-long series, literally, a year-long series on what the church needs to be talking about. We narrowed it down to 12. And that is going to be this summer series. So last week, Arlen got you started by talking about politics, everyone's favorite. Next week, Adam's going to get you all fired up because he's going to tell you that every one of you is going to die. Happy Father's Day. And it's the fact that it's the reality of these are the things that the church sometimes glosses over and tries to make just feel good. What I want to talk about today is church leadership. And honestly, we can boil it down to church hurt. That topic goes all the way back to the Bible itself when you read in the book of Acts how things went on in the church. And it takes the same shape and form, maybe in just different eras. Who got favored, who got talked to harshly, who got manipulated. And it happens from the pulpit to the pews to the seats. And it also happens from the seats to the pulpit. I can tell you, my fourth year here, there was a group of people who wanted me out. I know. And there was a call, actually, this group of people asked to meet with the elders, and the elders said to me, they were like, hey, we would like you in the room for this discussion, but you have to sit there quietly. I'm so good at that. And of everything that came up, not one topic was doctrine and nature. It was stuff like song selection, service lengths, favorite ministry not being announced, other ministry being announced two months. The one that was even close where the Bible, the word Bible was even mentioned, was I waited too long in my opening to get into the Bible for the teaching. That was the only thing where something came up where the word Bible was even used. And it got to the point where one of the people who had even called for the meeting looked at the rest of their group and says, Is this all we've got? Now, none of them are here anymore. Um, but it it happens. I I know of a certain situation, I know others where this has happened, where someone walked up to their pastor and said, Listen, you're my shepherd, which means you're on call for me 24-7. And I know some pastors who try and live that way. I've I've been accused of manipulating different things or skewing votes or setting my own salary. I don't touch my own salary. We have an elder board, we have a finance team, we have other people who set my salary. I don't. We have a group in our church, elders. We're gonna talk about that in a little bit, but we have an elder board who really is the oversight of this church. This place is not my whim. I've been charged with that before, and it goes with the territory. I understand this. If I start twitching, it's okay. You know, I'm working through it. But I want to take a moment before I go any farther, and I want to recognize past or present elders and elder nominating committee people, because you have to understand this church has moved forward because of these people, not because of any one person who gets a pastor title. But this is the group who really moves our church forward. If you're an elder or elder nominating committee, either now or previous, would you just raise your hand? I just want to see. Okay, look around the room. You see the hands. Yeah, give them a hand. Thank you for what they do and for doing it well. Now, let me flip the script because I know it happens this way too. I know, unfortunately, of too many pastors who have used the pulpit for manipulative purposes or putting best friends in leadership seats. I know too many pastors who had an axe to grind with someone, and instead of biblically going to the person and having the conversation, they throw shade from the pulpit at the person that they're trying to make a point to. That is an absolute abuse of what this is supposed to be. We've seen where it's been abused for either political purposes or financial purposes toward the person who was speaking. We've seen in everything from Sunday school classes to elder boards to uh to counseling, where if we don't follow biblical principles, which is what we're going to talk about today, it can become manipulative and hurtful. So, what is it supposed to look like if we back out and look at the national picture? We've seen a lot of pastors who were given a lot of authority and even respect, who once the light was shined brightly on what they were doing, there was a lot of immoral, unintegrital, and lack of character things that were going on behind the scenes. Now, I cover more of this in a class we have at Spring Lake, probably one of my favorite things we do called LEED. If you haven't gone through LEED yet, I would encourage you to consider it. We actually just started one last week. You can jump in this week. It's on Tuesday night. Come find me in the lobby and I'll give you more information. We do it every quarter, so it's available. What I want to do though, to really hit on this subject, I'm gonna walk us through seven different passages about church leadership. They're on the app. And as a matter of fact, on the app are some passages that I had to cut back because I just don't have time to cover all of it, but you can look through more passages and you'll also see them on the screen. What is leadership within the church supposed to look like? We're gonna cover these seven passages. And by the way, that's all that's gonna be on the screen. Someone asked me last week, does your sermon have any point? And I'm like, yes, it has a point, but they won't be on the screen. I'm gonna talk us through kind of a synopsis and then give a few of my thoughts toward the end. Let's start with 1 Timothy chapter 3, verses 1 through 7. And there's a parallel, very similar verse in Titus 1, 5 through 9. We're not gonna cover that one. That one's in your app in the app, but today we're gonna focus on to start with 1 Timothy 3, 1 through 7. It says, here is a no a trustworthy saying: Whoever aspires to be an overseer desires a noble task. Now, the overseer is to be the uh above approach, faithful to his wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not given to drunkenness, not violent, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him, and he must do so in a manner worthy of full respect. If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God's church? He must not be a recent convert or he may become conceited and fall under the same judgment as the devil. He must also have a good reputation with outsiders so that he will not fall into disgrace and into the devil's trap. Now you'll notice in this passage and in the ones to come, it's gonna use different terms for leadership. My goal is not to break down every leadership term in the New Testament. And honestly, if you read the book of Acts, I think there's four different leadership shifts in how the church is structured. We're not gonna cover all of those, but you're gonna see terms like shepherd, elder, teacher, overseer, leader. All of these uh men and women are applied in many of these terms. My goal isn't once again to give a background, but to give a big picture. And Timothy starts by saying, Here's what you should look like on the inside. First Peter takes that inside character and says, Here's what it should look like within the church. It's gonna be 1 Peter chapter 5, beginning at verse 1. It says, To the elders among you, I appeal as a fellow elder and a witness of Christ's sufferings, who also will share in the glory to be revealed. Be shepherds of God's flock that is under your care, watching over them, not because you must, but because you are willing as God wants you to be, not pursuing dishonest gain, but eager to serve, not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock. And when the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that will never fade away. So in this passage, there's three exhortations from Peter to those in leadership. He says, first of all, as you shepherd, as you care for and lead God's people, you may be, and in this case, he's talking to elders, but you may be a Sunday school leader, you may be a biblical counselor, you may be a life group leader, whatever the case may be. He says, as you shepherd, do it gladly and do it willingly. Gladly and willingly. This is in accordance with God's will. It's not out of a sense of compulsion or a bad attitude. Here's what I'll tell you: what you see in the pulpit, you'll see in the pew. You get a grumpy person here, guess what's gonna show up out there? Bless his heart. I had a pastor I worked for, and it was in a snowbelt region, and every time it would snow and attendance would be down, he would blast the people who showed up at church. Like y'all don't love Jesus when you don't show up in the snow. And I'm thinking to myself, these are the people who showed up. You're talking to the wrong crowd. But then what happened is it became kind of the heart of what the church was. Paul Peter starts by saying, Listen, first of all, have a joyful, glad heart to be able to do what you do in blessing the body of Christ. He says, secondly, do it eagerly, do it for the right reasons, not for personal greed or gain. The motive is the work and not the income. The motive is the difference you can make in someone's life, in the kingdom of God, within our city and our region and our world as we step out, and not just what I get out of it. The blessing is in the work. And he says, as you do this, he says, you're serving as an example. Do it joyfully, do it for the right reasons, and do it to be an example to the congregation and not use the place of leadership as a way to domineer. It should never be do as I say, not as I do. If leadership is not leading by example, they're not leading. And then why does he say to do this? He says, because the chief shepherd, the one who set the ultimate example, is gonna come back and judge us who are in positions of leadership. We'll see more of that in a minute. The third passage, we're gonna go back to Timothy, 1 Timothy chapter 5, beginning at verse 17. It says, the elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honor, especially those who work in preaching and teaching. For scripture says, Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain, and the worker deserves his wages. Do not entertain an accusation against an elder unless it is brought by two or three witnesses. Now, this is a fun one because double honor, it can be both provision as well as proper respect. What Paul is not saying here is they should make double what everyone else in the room makes. Paul is writing this from prison. What he's saying, though, is take care of those who are in leadership. When I was uh looking at seminaries, so this goes back a little ways. There was one seminary in particular who went and visited. And when I got there, they said, now we have churches that will hire you while you're in seminary to be their pastor. And I'm thinking, great, good opportunity to learn and grow. And they went on to tell me, no, they don't want to see a resume, they don't want to hear you preach, they want to know the bottom line number you'll take to be their pastor. I'm not kidding, I had a friend named Scott. He went there, he filled in at this church. The church actually responded really well to Scott. It was a great connection. And Scott said, Listen, I would be honored if I could stay on and be your pastor when I graduate. I kid you not. Their response was, no, we found someone we can get cheaper. That's how you find a man and a woman of God. Paul, what is being said here is, listen, just don't be cheap. And let's play the other side of that. We've seen way too many people show up on national television or in churches and lock the doors until we get this much money. That is not biblical. We'll pray for people once we get the offering. That is not biblical. He's saying here, listen, take care of those in leadership. And when you see it done with the right heart. I want to double down again that uh our the staff, our salaries are set. We have an elder board and we have a finance team who takes care of that. I appreciate that they take good care of us. James chapter three, next verse, verse four. James chapter three, beginning at verse one. It says, Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that those that we who teach will be judged more strictly. If someone stands up to speak, they bring literally a judgment. Are they watching their words? Because we're gonna be judged doubly hard. Why? Because doctrine is set and life comes from doctrine. It's set by what is taught. There are things that are caught, and there are things that are taught, and there are the places where those overlap. That is why whoever stands up here and speaks. I didn't take a poll, but I'll tell you right now, our teaching team takes this role very seriously. We vet anyone who stands on this platform, whether it's the worship team or the people who do announcements, because we understand this sets a tone and an example. And the teaching and the doctrine should be lived out, and you should see it in the person's life before they ever open their mouth. Number five, passage five, Acts chapter 20, verse 28. It says, Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood. There's a great statement being right made right here. Being shepherds of the church of who? Of God who bought it with his own blood, who came and was crucified for us? Jesus. Which means he's saying very clearly here, Jesus is God. This is God's church because he bought it with his blood. Jesus is God. It is nobody else's name on the door. It is nobody else who gets honor and who the spotlight should be on, other than Jesus. Not Jack, not Troy, not Dallas, not Dan, not Mark, or any other pastor. And I use these guys' names because I know them. They're pastors in this area, and I know they would stand behind that statement as well. Always it should be Jesus who's in the spotlight. Jesus who is the focus. Hebrews chapter 13, verse 7, and then we're going to jump to verse 17. It says, Remember your leaders who spoke the word of God to you, consider the outcome of their way, of life, and imitate their faith. Remember your leaders. This is a call to remember not just what's taught, it's not just about having a talking gift. But what does he say? He says, look at their way of life and imitate them. Look at their way of life. If their life cancels their words, once again, they're not leading. The author of Hebrews is telling us, consider the outcome of their way of life. The outcome. What are you seeing as a result of their lives? Not just their teaching. And then what happens when we do that? Look at verse 17. It says, Have confidence in your leaders. What did he already say? Have confidence. Why? Not blindly, but because what you've seen in their lives. Have confidence in your leaders and submit to their authority because they keep watch over you as those who must give an account. Number one, you should see it from anyone in leadership. Your life group leader, your biblical counseling team, your worship team, your teaching pastors, whoever is wearing a leadership title, you should see something out of them. And then when that happens, there should be a trust there to be able to follow their example, submit to the leadership and authority. It's done out of earned trust. It's been proven and it's not blind. Listen, I understand my life. I live in a glasshouse. I understand that when I go out, there are people I know and people I don't know by sight who watch what's going on. And I don't go out like sneaking around. What if someone's looking? I hope you see Jesus when I'm out. I hope you see Jesus and how I treat my wife. I hope you see Jesus and how I treat my kids. I hope you see Jesus in the way I treat the person at the checkout line at the grocery store. I hope you see Jesus when there's a traffic jam and I'm sitting still. Pray for me. That's the goal. And that's what the author of Hebrews and all of this says is what's showing up on Monday through Saturday night before it ever shows up in a pulpit on Sunday. It should be the example. What you see, you'll hear this if you go through membership class. What you see is what you get. And that's not just me, that's our team, our staff, and anywhere, any church you go to, hopefully that's the trait of leadership. Hebrews says that obedience will benefit those who submit, since their souls will be cared for, and there will be harmony and joy in their mutual responsibilities. The submission is shown in an imitation of what is seen in the leader. What you allow in your leadership, you'll have in your seats. The leaders are also remindered that they, once again, they'll give an account. Ephesians chapter 4, last verse, uh, last passage, Ephesians 4, 11 through 16. It says, So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors, and the teachers. Why to equip his people for works of service so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith? I think the church has work to do on this one, and in the knowledge of the Son of God, and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Why does he want this for the church? Verse 14, it says, Then we'll no longer be infants tossed back and forth by the waves and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people and their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head that is Christ. That's who this is about. From him, the whole body joined and held together by every supporting ligament grows and builds itself up in love as each part does its work, as every joint supplies, as every ligament connects, each of us does our work. This is the goal. The goal is not leadership as an end to itself, the goal is to be more like Jesus. The goal is as we stand before him to hear, well done, good and faithful servant. Not perfect servant. Well done, good and faithful servant. So to summarize these passages, first of all, we see the heart of a shepherd. It's a sacrificial love and a willingness to serve like Jesus had. Secondly, it's the responsibility and the care of others, not of ourselves. It's feeding, teaching, and protecting like Jesus did. And then thirdly, we see a level and a place that where character should be what comes out of our lives. Now, before I give a few insights, I want to uh about this biblical leadership. I want to give you a statement I heard a few weeks ago that I think applies very clearly to the church. And it's simply this safe landings, when it comes to airplanes, safe landings don't make the news. Plane crashes do. There are lots of great pastors out there who are not train wrecking, not plane crashing. Statistically, the US aviation system handles, I didn't know this, over forty five thousand flights with 2.9 million airline passengers in the United States every day. That means every two days, the entire state of Wisconsin gets on an airplane and flies somewhere. When practicing in private aviation, along with that, it exceeds 87,000 flights a day. And yet, how many people are afraid to get on an airplane because of a crash they saw in the news in 2017? There are a lot of safe flights, and I would say there are a lot of people who say, I'm not touching church. I know too many stories about that. There's a lot of good flights out there. And there are a lot of planes that land safely every week. Churches, pastors, elders, teachers, counselors. There's a lot of good that God is doing through his church still. Not liking a kid's ministry or a certain elder or a preaching style or a music style, that's not a plane crash. That's a personal choice. So let's make sure we have that clear. So what do I need to look for? What should I be aware of for when there are plane crashes? First of all, a lack of accountability. If there's a lack of accountability, you have a problem. When it becomes all about the person on the platform or the person in leadership, we have a problem. I heard this statement. I'm going to give you some thoughts that are mine, some from others. I'll give you the resources if you want afterwards. If the stage lights on you are brighter than the light that's shining in you, you're cooked. God should be doing a work in you before he ever does a work through you. I'll tell you right now, in pure in an honest statement, if God would have blessed us, blessed me with a type of what we people would say a success in ministry that Spring Lake is having now, if I would have had this in my 20s or 30s, I don't know that I could have handled it. I don't know that it would have been a pretty landing. God had to do the work in me before he could ever do a work through me. And that is a painful process and a sermon for another day. I find myself asking, are people free to obey God or terrified to disappoint a person? There should be accountability in this. When the brand is holier than the truth, we're in trouble. Is our focus on Jesus? This is kept in check at the leadership level. Clothes and shoes should not be highlighted more than the work of Christ. It's about what he is doing and what he has done. If a pastor or anyone cares more about how many likes we get than we do about how many people are becoming more like Jesus, we've got it misaligned. I had a professor in college, he was a pastor for 50 years. And he used to say, be careful of anyone who battles pride and insecurity. Pride says, I've got to be the center of attention. I need to be the focus. Insecurity says, if someone else is in my place, I got to take them down. If they're disagreeing with me, then they must be wrong. We need to be cautious of both. Do we care more about what people think about us or what God knows about us? It's about keeping a right heart. And this comes with accountability, relational accountability, because there is no allowance for arrogance before a holy God. And believe me, the Lord is not insecure. He doesn't need us to like his posts. Whatever you won't deal with, we'll deal with you. Leaders, I would encourage you, don't tolerate Jezebel and don't be bought by them. Money shouldn't be the deciding factor. One last note on this is be careful of YouTubers who have lots of followers and zero accountability. I know some pastors in churches that are not the biggest church, and in their church, maybe someone who gets a hundred thousand views on their videos and they are no longer touchable because I can go to my viewership and tell them what you're doing, and they'll agree with me. That is dangerous. Everybody should have accountability in their lives. Now, when this happens, how should we respond when we see this type of abuse or lack of accountability taking place? First of all, I want to challenge you. Make sure you're being discipled by shepherds and not celebrities or AI. There is no accountability on following someone on YouTube or getting an AI answer. Accountability comes out of relationship. It should still shock and grieve us when this stuff happens, but instead of driving it us to cynicism, I would encourage you to let it drive you to Jesus. Why? Because he's the one who's described as the author and finisher of our faith. He's the bedrock of our faith. Not anybody with a spotlight on them. Not anyone with 10,000 views. Don't live in fear of the church or any church leader or any pastor, our fears of the Lord. As we respond, don't respond to Jezebel like Jezebel. Stay clean and pure in your heart. Jezebel went after leaders. She went to tear people down. And when you see that going on, the easy thing to do is want to fight fire with fire. Keep your heart and your motive pure. Respond in wisdom and not wound. If you haven't read it before, I'd encourage you go read Matthew 18 because it talks about how do I confront or deal with someone where I see big issues. If it's time to leave, leave in peace. Leave in peace. And there are seasons where that may need to happen. Sometimes it's just a different season of life. Sometimes it's where you cannot align with what you see going on. And here's the final ask that I would have of you. Pray for the leadership of the church. Pray for the leadership of the church. The maximum amount of people you can reach and help is also the maximum amount of people you can hurt. And that's hard. Once again, I understand. I myself, our teaching team, even our worship teams, we carry a heavy responsibility. The maximum amount of people we can help is the maximum amount of people we can hurt. And our enemy, the devil, is nothing if he's not patient. He is patient. The Bible says, Jesus, mount temptation. The devil comes at him, temptation, temptation, temptation. Jesus passes with flying colors, of course. And then what does it say? It says the devil goes away for an opportune time. Now, if the devil would do that to Jesus, why wouldn't he do that to us? Please pray for your church leaders. Those of you in a life group, pray for your life group leaders. Those of you in a ministry here at the church, a G4 group, pray for your leadership. Those of you in biblical counseling or being counseled, pray for that person. Pray for our worship teams. Please be praying for your pastors. And remember this: I would ask this if you have a question, if there is a concern, you can reach out to us, as is said biblically. If there's an issue, we can bring the elders in on it as well. But remember this safe planes, safe land planes, sorry, safe landings aren't the ones that make the news. There are still lots of great pastors out there. Pray for those in our city. In closing this morning, I want to take a moment and we're going to recognize the ultimate and spiritual authority and leadership. Would you get out your commune cups, please? Because everything we talked about, from the heart of the shepherd, from the protection and the care, for living a life of high integrity and character, is played out in what's represented in these cups that we have. In this, we see someone who came obviously perfect in doctrine and relationship with the Lord, willing to give his life up for those who he came to serve instead of being a leader expecting all service to come to him. And then the Bible tells us he's the Lamb who came without spot or blemish, perfect in character. This morning, as we take communion, what I'd like us to do is remember the example Jesus set. Because it's the example every leader should set. Some of you are like, glad I'm not a leader. Do you have kids? You're a leader. Do you have coworkers? You're an example. Do you have neighbors? They're watching. Can we pray that our heart, our character, the wisdom we live in reflects this? Take a moment, check your own heart, make sure it's right with God and with others. And Lord, we're we look at scripture and we see where your heart broke, where you saw people that you called sheep without a shepherd. God, we thank you, number one, that you are our ultimate shepherd. But we also thank you, God, for the church. And we pray for the pastors in our city and in our region. God, we ask, I ask that as I pray for these men, some as friends, some as acquaintances, Lord, that we stay in a place of humility, glorifying and honoring you. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Christ, on the night that he was betrayed at dinner with his disciples, he took a loaf of bread and he broke it. He said, This is my body which has been broken for you. You may take and eat the bread. And he took the wine. Once again, setting the example of sacrifice, he says, This is my blood, which has been shed for you. It's his blood which washes us clean. Thank you, Jesus, for the blood. You may take and drink. Father, may we remember you. May the spotlight always be on you. May our lives reflect you. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.